[ti]quest[/ti][Q][C/Nero] Invasive Parade

It surprised Nero just how much he enjoyed wandering around the various areas of UNOVR. As a child, he'd always gotten far too frustrated in games when they didn't give him enough to do, and any game that wanted you to come up with your own story and purpose and goal had been thrown away in a huff almost immediately. He'd always needed one clear path to walk along, and yet here, he was constantly dodging quest notifications just for the sake of exploring further.

Perhaps it shouldn't surprise him though. After all, why was he actually here? This wasn't sitting down to play a video game after school to appease his restless mind. This was feeling trapped in too many ways to count and needing an escape from it all. Of course it made sense that with a different motivation, a different manner of gameplay would be more appealing. Perhaps he just didn't want to admit to himself exactly why he was pouring so many hours into this game...

His wandering had taken him further afield this time, Nero deciding to investigate Ostelia at last now that he felt he knew Asper well enough. These environments were less pleasant from the get go, hence why he hadn't sought them out so far, but curiosity and a growing boredom of the other locations was enough to turn him in its direction at last. With his status as a Kindler, it was the dunes that had drawn his attention the most, even though thanks to timezones he'd be exploring it at night rather than in the heat of the day. That was probably better anyway, though Nero had most of the realism settings turned down anyway, so he doubted the temperature would be too much of a bother. Whatever the case, he'd only explore until it got problematic anyway, and then he'd warp himself back to another zone somehow.

If Nero had once known about quest lobbies and messages, he'd already forgotten about that aspect of the game, and certainly hadn't ventured into it since his first day of exploring things. Josh's message was entirely missed by the other player then, who almost always focused purely on the map in front of him and not on the many side aspects of the game. He just so happened to appear in the dunes nearby, eyeing the sudden quest pop-up curiously and pausing to read what it said. He glanced briefly across at the other player in the vicinity, peering through the darkness and frowning slightly at the name tag above him. He recognised that name... but couldn't quite put his finger on why...

Josh Devlin <3

Given that he was logging on around seven hours out of sync with the server itself, Nero had gotten used to exploring UNOVR at night. He quite liked it actually - living the nocturnal life in the shadows helped build up the brand he wanted to show off of the mysterious loner, too cool and troubled and... cool for the day time. It meant he was used to the coolness of the evenings and had twitched his settings to accommodate for that too, but even he could feel the chill out here. The flames that whipped at his heels and fizzled away into the sand didn't do anything to affect the temperature, and the large black coat around his avatar was only there for aesthetics rather than practicality. It added a fun extra layer to the effect though, even if it was confusing his brain a little. He wasn't shivering, his hairs weren't standing on end, and yet his brain was being told he was cold anyway. Weird, huh?

The shifted clock did mean he was often oblivious to what time it was actually supposed to be in the game, though in this case, he hadn't heard anything about a mysterious happening at 3 am anyway. Instead, he could only assume this quest prompt was always here, and the timing was a pure coincidence. He had just been about to click 'accept' on the pop-up - this seemed like an exploration type quest after all, so might as well take it on in case it unlocked something happening - when the other player spoke up.

They knew him then. He turned to look them over more closely, listening to their voice in case that triggered any memory too, and eventually managed to place them as the arena opponent that they'd recently faced off against. This game was so big, Nero had just of assumed that he'd never see him again - but he'd won, so he could stand up tall her, and maybe tease the other player a bit too, which did make the encounter feel better. "Didn't get mauled by an Abra then?" he greeted as he turned back to the quest prompt in front of him and hit 'accept'. Presumably he had to seek out some sort of sundial somewhere in these dunes, but he had no idea how he was even supposed to start something like this. How big was the sundial? Did he just wander until he saw something, or was he going to have to dig it up, or what?

While he glanced around in the hopes of spotting some sort of arrow or sign, his gaze caught onto something moving at the far right edge of his vision. Turning towards it and peering closely, he was sure he could make out... a Pokemon? Maybe more than one? ... Maybe several actually, and though they didn't seem to be approaching the two players directly, they did seem to be coming this way.

Josh Devlin <3

A part of Nero hoped that the brief exchange about their last encounter would be the only interaction he'd have to have with this other player, but he was quickly learning that that was not how UNOVR functioned. This was his first MMORPG, his first real multiplayer experience beyond sitting on the couch beside a friend at a sleepover. He was used to solo playing, taking things at your own pace, only having to interact with NPCs who were always there with their pre-prepared lines for you. Adapting to having other people around was a surprisingly big ask for him, and one that he'd underestimated when he'd first picked up the game.

UNOVR itself seemed keen for him to learn though, and always seemed to be throwing other players at him whenever he found himself wandering around for too long. Josh was muttering to himself - or possibly trying to talk to Nero but he wasn't listening so there was no real difference - as Nero peered towards the distant movement on the horizon. They looked as though they were miles away, and Nero was already getting fed up of trudging through the sand. He had no Pokemon who could carry him though like Josh had, and its not like UNOVR provided portable helicopters you could just pull out of your bag and use to cover large distances quickly. It looked like the only way to investigate whatever this was would be on foot.

He glanced across at last when Josh said something about getting a closer look, scoffing and grumbling back, "Whatever dude." The least the other trainer could do would be to get off that horse Pokemon and walk with him if he was insistent on them doing this thing together. Nero felt himself slowing his pace out of spite to one far too slow for the horse to keep time with, sticking his hands in his pockets and turning his head down towards the sand in front of him to make it look as though he was simply focusing on where he was walking.

It would take them a while to get close enough to the strange line of distant creatures at this rate. Maybe Josh would get bored and leave him alone in that time...

Josh Devlin <3

"Of course not," he replied to Josh's question about having a Pokemon to ride, sneering at the suggestion as though it was almost an offensive one. None of his current lot were large enough to ride, and while he could technically evolve his Yanma if he was in desperate need of a mount, he was currently taking a stubborn stance against it. He had decided, through zero evidence and nothing more than his own opinion, that mounts were stupid and were playing the game wrong... And yes that was purely because he was jealous of Josh right now. Who needs logic when you can use snide comments and surly attitudes to make yourself seem like you're right and your perfectly rational opponent is actually wrong?

Spite won out again in the end though as Josh dismounted to walk beside Nero thanks to his painfully slow walking. See? If you're difficult, things go your way in the end. This only encouraged him to continue his unreasonable behaviour in the future, and the smirk that remained pointing down towards the ground was only further evidence of that.

And yet still Josh was trying to talk to him, trying to be friendly and polite to someone who gave him no reason to be. Nero looked up at him with a slightly bemused frown at first, almost wanting to ask him why he was bothering... but he veered off in the end. "Yeah, yeah, whatever," he replied at first, speeding up his pace to a more reasonable speed now that he didn't need to inconvenience a horse with it. "You know you don't have to talk, right? We don't have to be friends here." It wasn't an essential part of the quest, they could probably do it in silence and still pass... It would be really boring if they did, but technically...

Josh Devlin <3 | he's an ass but they're stuck together now xD

Nero's head finally lifted enough to look Josh over, making something close to eye contact briefly before he turned to look ahead again. "Time will pass just as fast either way, and I like silence," he replied, oblivious to how cliche such a preference sounded coming from a player who had dressed themselves up intentionally like an edgelord. "Most games are single player and involve a bit of waiting. What, do you just talk to yourself in those? Loser." The name-calling was both unnecessary and incredibly childish, giving Nero's age away more than any avatar choices could have done. Unfortunately, the internet was rife with people like Nero, and the black-haired boy's only other experience with multiplayer games had been those sorts of environments. The idea of making friendly chatter while working together on something was new to him in game at least. And outside the game... well, his social skills had deteriorated rapidly recently and he barely did more than snap at even his family. But who could really blame him for that?

Nero had opened his mouth to speak again, probably another unpleasant little comment that Josh would be happy to miss, when a shadow fell over him and he suddenly stopped short. The parade that they had been approaching had seemed distant for their whole little walk, but perhaps that had been a mirage of sorts because suddenly they were upon them, grand shapes of bizarre shapes that Nero didn't even recognise, walking and floating and drifting over the sand. He'd thought there was only one or two of them from a distance, but up close it was clear that they had only been seeing the very back of the line - ahead of these creatures they'd been aiming for were a seemingly endless amass of shapes that could only be more... Pokemon? Were they Pokemon? They must be in a game like this, right? Only, they looked almost ethereal in this light, in this strange setting, in this strange world...

As Nero stopped and stared though, the creatures they'd caught up to were beginning to get away again. Looking towards Josh again, he nodded towards them, voice dropped to a whisper now so as not to get the attention of these... things. "We gonna follow them then?" he asked, partly just to check what the quest had actually wanted them to do because Josh seemed like he'd been paying attention... and partly because Nero was much friendlier when he was distracted and not intentionally trying to be offputting.

Josh Devlin | Sorry for the wait, March is a crazy work month for me <3

"Oh my god, it wasn't a real question!" What was UP with these other UNOVR players? Was everyone in this game like some forty year old loser or something? Dear God, they all talked like teachers, but not even the cool ones. Like the really boring ones that confiscated your phone from you when you attempted not to die of boredom in their classroom. If he'd known this game had been infiltrated by boring adults with no age-appropriate hobbies of their own, he'd never have logged on in the first place!

And yes, maybe he was basing this 'observation' of his on the fact that he'd now met two players with that 'friendly youth pastor' vibe to them, and not on any actual substantial evidence, but when had that ever stopped him from jumping to conclusions before.

Perhaps luckily, the event that they were supposed to be here for had begun at last, though as Josh started talking again, Nero wasn't quite sure if this was actually any better. "Oh my god, you have got to stop," he groaned back at him, a hand reaching up to press a palm briefly against his face. This guy sounded like an NPC reciting practiced tutorial lines back at him, desperate to impart reminders and exposition like it was programmed into him. "If you try and tell me what to do one more time, I'm going to Flamethrower the whole procession and leave you to deal with the aftermath."

It was entirely unfair to be so harsh against a person who was only trying to help, especially when Nero really hadn't paid much attention to the original brief anyway, but Josh was unfortunately rubbing up against quite a volatile nerve of Nero's. For his whole life he'd had stuck up adults and even his own older brother trying to tell him what to do, trying to instruct him, shape him, force him to behaviour a certain way. He couldn't be trusted to work it out on his own after all, too stupid, too useless, too troublesome without guidance. This game was supposed to be an escape from all that, a space where he could do whatever he wanted whenever he wanted with no-one controlling his actions. With such a feather-light trigger then, even friendly prompts and reminders from Josh felt like barbs, dragging the problems from his real life into this escapism for him.

That, and Nero had always been fairly tempestuous anyway. Had Josh been saying the perfect possible words for this situation, Nero would still probably have been kicking off regardless. With one last glare at Josh then, Nero's hands went back into his pockets, his shoulders hunched once more, and he began to trudge quietly and cautiously after the last Pokemon in the extravagant late night parade.

Josh Devlin | Sorry Josh is stuck babysitting xD

Well, that just confirmed it. Josh was definitely some forty year old adult trying to reconnect with his youth. No-one said 'you've got no one to blame but yourself' except for teachers and parents and other boring authority figures, so Josh just had to be one of those. Nero grimaced at the realisation, glaring at Josh like it was somehow his fault that he was the wrong sort of player for Nero, even though arguably there was no 'correct' type for him either. Had Josh been a fellow surly teen, Nero would probably have been just as unpleasant around him, just... in a slightly different way.

He only rolled his eyes at the words then, muttering under his breath about Josh being a loser once again, because who needed variability when you had such a versatile insult as that? He tried to focus in on the task at hand instead, following the procession until they eventually came to a halt around... A big disk? A big, slightly broken disk. What was that supposed to be?

Keeping back far enough to not be spotted, Nero peered at the strange object in search of some sort of pop-up or prompt that might tell him what it was... but as he stared at it, the only thing that seemed to change was the sound the he could here.

For a moment, he thought that Josh had started humming, and he turned around to glare at the other player before realising that that wasn't where the sound was coming from. For a moment, he even removed the headset to confirm that it was indeed something in the game and not just his aunt playing music too loud from the kitchen again. But no, it was definitely game music that he was hearing, even if it wasn't a track that he'd heard anywhere before. "Do you hear that?" he murmured to Josh, his curiosity winning out over his request for silence, but then it would hardly be the first time that Nero's demands didn't seem to apply to himself.

As he looked back towards the big disk once more, it seemed to look... different. Bigger maybe? Brighter? Something was off that he couldn't quite place his finger on, and Nero instinctively found himself stepping backwards, away from it. The procession of strange creatures seemed to be moving now, but it was more like the air around them was wavering... Was his headset broken? Had he messed up some settings on it? He must have done, right? "Do you see that?" he asked, with a little more concern in his voice now. What the hell was going on with this game?

Josh Devlin