A/N: This is a modern-AU born on Tumblr... what if AGSZC bonded over playing an MMO?

Gaiaforsaken had barely been out a month before one of the PR people contacted Genesis about giving a review. Given his brothers had been talking about nothing else for the past six months until they could finally play it themselves, and had been badgering him constantly to give it a try, he decided he'd make an exception to his usual genres and take a look.

That ended up requiring locking himself in his loft, however, because they were nosy little brats. "I'm biased enough, go away!"

"Just make sure you're on the Deepground server!" Weiss said, hopefully heading off to check his own toons.

At this point, Genesis really didn't care. He checked the charge on his phone, grabbed his headset, and settled in to check the game - looked like it was fully installed. Perfect.

The opening scenes were good, he thought they set the stage for the game well - or hoped they did, at least, or he would be terribly disappointed. For now, favorable note. Of course, then he got to create his character - a knight, why not? - and felt his eyes widen slightly at the customization screen. Because there were sliders, before ever getting to the body itself, including for color - and there were presets, yes, but who wanted presets with graphics like this? He wanted to be able to be picked out of a crowd without a glance at his name plate.

Two hours and some significant cackling later, he was quite pleased with the outcome.

Now for a name, and that was nearly as hard.

Crimson was taken - of course it was. And he couldn't very well go playing on anything with much literary merit as a knight, that just wouldn't do. Hm… what about…

Crimson-rapier.

The screen flashed, name accepted, and the next scene started, getting into class-specific storyline. Apocalyptic conditions, trying to maintain order amidst the chaos of the world governments collapsing and all sorts of scavengers and bandits taking advantage… influx of monsters requiring some sword-for-hire assistance… interesting, if a bit predictable. And barring something with actual factions, he supposed that the setup made sense, but it was a bit ironic given they were so quick to say they weren't really for roleplayers. It would be interesting to see if there was enough lore to make use of, or if they really had taken the rpg out of MMORPG.

The opening view was nice, sweeping in over lush hills and a little town, leading up to the castle, then on to the barracks - tutorial area, he'd almost bet on it. But not bad, not bad at all. The music was definitely a pleasure, that would get top marks if they maintained that. And ooh, now those were some nicely chosen voice actors… he quite liked that. Probably a lot of stock phrases, but that was standard.

He did decide, in fairly short order, that the apparent-ideal for the Paladin class was far, far too righteous. He could never play it seriously. But a straight knight, do some brawling… that had appeal. Of course, maybe he should have rolled a rogue instead. But there was time for that, plenty of character slots - and that got tremendous points. He hated being penned in. This was just the test run, after all, to review. If he liked it enough, maybe he'd get to doing the other classes.

Getting through all the cut scenes and initial nonsense was nice, though the early gear left much to be desired for aesthetics. Very bulky. He'd have to see about replacing that… it made quite the case for playing other classes, see if they were better off. And being a mage did offer the option to set things on fire. Who didn't want to set things, and some people, on fire?

"GENESIS!"

Speaking of… good god, how loud was he yelling to hear over his headset? "What?"

"What's your name? Are you through the tut yet? You can just press space and skip the monologues and stuff, there's a quest log that'll give you enough detail," Weiss said, still shouting.

"Excuse you, some of us like the ambiance of it. And I'm doing a professional review, damn it, I'm not going to skip things and lie." Genesis sniffed in disdain, rolling his eyes. "I'll be ready when I'm ready, you don't need to know who I am on there, damn it."

"It's an MMO, you play with people," Nero spoke up, though apparently he'd figured out Genesis could hear them fine from the lack of shouting. "Besides, we have experience and can show you around. You don't want to be a noob, do you?"

"As I understand it, 'noobs' are rude beginners, I think I'll be fine," Genesis drawled. "Get lost and let me play, for heaven's sake. I'll change servers if you two don't quit pushing, don't think I won't."

"You're our brother, you belong on Deepground - we have a whole guild," Weiss argued.

"You are getting on my nerves, Weiss, go away." He put a note of steel in his voice, warning him to back off. Pest that he was, he stomped away. Gods forbid Weiss didn't get his way, he'd have Nero pouting at him too for upsetting beloved big brother. Whatever, he was the oldest and he'd do whatever the hell he wanted.

Playing as a knight for another twenty minutes, Genesis decided what the hell he wanted was to roll something else. Maybe a mage, he liked the look of them. Even the relatively plain starting robes were nicer than the ragtag armor, and between setting fire to things and summoning beasts… oh yes. That would be much more fun….

And he'd talked some in Genchat - Deepground just wasn't very welcoming. It looked like all anyone cared about was levelling and beating the shit out of each other. Not his idea of a good time. He took a peek at the server lists, briefly tempted by Pen and Sword, but finally decided that he'd try out the ShinRa server next. As a mage.

'Firagan' had a nice ring to it.