Info: The YGO cast gets involved in a really popular online game. The game is based on one that I myself used to play, called EverQuest.
Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh! belongs to Kazuki Takahashi, EverQuest belongs to Sony Online Entertainment, Radiant Eclipse belongs to me (It was the name of a guild I actually ran with a friend on EQ). The game is -based- off of EQ, but it is NOT EverQuest. Any similarity to GM staff names, zone names (Created since I've quit), etc, is purely coincidental. Same goes with any other ideas. No similarity intended..etc.
The names contained within, will most likely be taken from my story at fictionpress, so therefore, those belong to me as well (and there is a publish date to prove it).
:::WARNINGS:::
This story will contain shounen-ai, which is a romance between two males. There will also be vulgar language, violence (video game battles, real life fist fights), and possibly some random angst.
If these things bother you, please click the 'back' button on your browser immediately!
If you read, then review, to let me know what you think. Any flames that are a result of not reading the warning will be deleted or ignored.
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In an alternate universe, sometime after the Battle City tournament….
"Hey guys!" Yugi said to his friends as they crowded around his desk at school, "I just got this great new computer game!"
Jounouchi's brown eyes went wide. He slapped his hand down on Yugi's desk, excited, and exclaimed, "Awesome! Can we all play it?" To Jou, Duel Monsters was a lot of fun, but he was so tired of all the commotion that it caused. The school year was ending today, and everyone would need something new and exciting to do together.
"Yeah!" Yugi replied, "We started carrying a few video games at the store now, and Grandpa received a few extra in the shipment. You need a computer and the Internet to play it though…" His violet irises shifted back to his blonde friend, and he added, "But we have two computers at my house, so you can come over and play whenever you want to, Jounouchi!" Jou blushed a bit, even though his friends knew about his poor situation at home, it was still embarrassing whenever it came up in conversation.
"Sounds cool," Honda remarked, "What's it like?"
"Well, it's a part of a genre called 'M.M.O.R.P.G.'s, or Massive Multiplayer…Multiplayer Massive?" Yugi's eyes rolled up as if he was searching his brain. He gasped and blinked twice. With a grin, he exclaimed, "Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game!"
"You can customize your character to look however you want! You have to choose a race and a class, and depending on what you choose, you get different abilities. I made a character last night."
"How cool!" Anzu commented.
"Come over after school and I can give you the games. Then tonight we can play!" Yugi said.
Jounouchi was seated comfortably at a computer chair in Yugi's bedroom, gazing at the character creation screen of the game. Yugi was in the living room, on the other computer. The blonde read the monitor carefully:
Welcome to the world of Virei!
Please select a race!
"Hmm, a race?" Jou mumbled, scrolling through the choices, "Human is good."
Please choose a class!
Please select a gender!
Select a deity!
Fill out your personality!
Please choose a name!
Congratulations, jou-k01!
You've successfully created a character!
Yugi popped into his room to find his friend running his new character around in circles at the starting town of Laen. He placed a hand on his shoulder and said, "Okay Jou! Stop running around and stay there! I'll come find you with my character!"
Jounouchi was satisfied with his avatar. A fit human warrior with shaggy blonde hair and brown eyes, devoid of any facial hair whatsoever. He started off wearing a pair of brown cloth pants and a baggy sleeveless tunic.
"Hi, Jounouchi!" a voice came through the headphones. He didn't reply to the slender character, mostly because he didn't know how to. Yugi burst back into the room, and plugged in the microphone to the computer tower.
"You can just press this key and talk into here if you want, or you can type, but that means you need to open the chat window…hit enter after each sentence…" Jou wasn't listening to Yugi anymore. He just wanted to start killing monsters, and find his other friends.
"Got it Jounouchi?" Yugi asked, taking Jou out of his trance.
"Um..yeah, got it!" His spiky haired friend left the room again.
"Okay, join my group! Let's go find everyone else," the slim character said.
"Yugi, how do you know what everyone looks like?" Jou inquired. Yugi had a human character that was the same height as his, wearing a black robe, with purple eyes, and shoulder length maroon hair with yellow highlights. It wasn't quite Yugi, but if you knew him really well, you could tell.
"I told them my character name and they already sent me a few messages when I got online," Yugi explained, "Just follow me! They've all made characters that start off in this town too."
"Okay," Jounouchi followed. The town reminded him of pictures from his textbook on colonial America.
"And I'm not Yugi! My character's name is Zoerb!" Yugi corrected him, "I'm a level two wizard!" The mage placed a hand on his hip and pointed out, "Just look at your screen!"
"Oh," the warrior sighed, "I named myself Joukatsu…is it too obvious?" The wizard sighed.
"Everyone!" a girl's voice called out from behind them. She and two others walked out of the wooden door of a building, which had a star shaped sign hanging above it. It was the town magic shop. The three avatars ran over to Yugi and Jou.
"Teani! Renga!" Yugi waved to them, then bowed to the third character and said, "Nice to meet you, Duke!"
"It's me, Otogi!" the avatar winked.
Anzu, or Teani, had chosen to be an elf enchanter. Her character had a long green robe, a wooden crook, blue eyes, pale skin, and brown hair that passed her waist. Honda was also a human warrior, fully clad in leather armor that was adorned with gray fur, and carried a rusted broad sword. His hair was brown and mostly hidden by his leather helmet, and he had the deep chocolate eyes of his creator.
"I know what they are," Jou pointed to Anzu and Honda, "But what are you?"
"I'm a half-elven bard," he smiled. The character had waist length black hair, whose wavy locks rivaled that of Otogi himself. Messy bangs covered one of his green eyes, which were outlined in black, complimenting the deep chestnut tribal markings on his cheeks. His clothing however, was something else. Tight silver chain covered his entire body, except for somewhat of an open neckline that revealed most of his chest. Emeralds and rubies created sharp accents along the cuffs of his gauntlets, and a black suede belt barely hung onto his waist.
"They sure do make these characters…detailed," Jou commented, taking in the tight attire that showed every muscle in "Duke's" body, including the bulge. His face felt warm, so he averted his stare.
"Let's go hunting, I heard a few high level people talking about some good newbie monsters in the forest over there," Honda's warrior used his weapon to point toward the extremely dark and eerie forest, north of the town.
"A newbie monster? What does a newbie look like?" Jou asked his group. They burst out laughing at him, and Anzu even appeared to be rolling on the floor.
"A newbie is someone who just started playing and doesn't know a lot," Otogi explained through the laughter, "A newbie monster is a monster that newbies can easily kill to get experience, items, money, and levels."
"Oh…" the blonde touched his chin in embarrassment and then ran off to the forest with the others.
Please wait, Loading!
You have entered Laen Forest!
The group of five adventurers appeared at the zone line in the forest one by one. The sound ambience scared Jounouchi. He heard howling wolves, flapping wings, and random insects chirping. Everyone appeared to be turning their head around, studying the zone, except for Otogi. The bard pulled a small wooden lute out of an even smaller burlap sack which poofed out of nowhere, and began strumming the strings.
"What are you doing, Oto..Duke?" Jou asked, confused by the action. He checked down at his level and gasped; he was level ten!
"I've been playing this game for two weeks now, and I just learned this new technique that let's us run faster! So just set your characters to follow me and I will take us to a really good spot." The bard flipped his long hair as he strummed a melody on the lute. A white glow began to surround the group's feet, and suddenly they were flying at a phenomenal speed through the forest.
"Ahh!" Anzu screamed several moments later. Jou turned around, along with the rest of his friends, breaking auto-follow, and saw a giant black wolf nipping at the enchanter's heels.
"I'll save you!" Jou cried, swinging furiously at the monster, and missing every punch. It finally changed its target to him, and his health bar was decreasing rapidly.
"Let a pro handle this beast, m'lady," Otogi announced to Anzu. He swiftly uncovered a long dagger, and struck the wolf in the back. It fell to the ground with a horrible whimper of defeat. He spun around after the kill and gave a daring wink to his group.
"Thanks!" Anzu cried, dusting off her mud stained robe.
"Joukatsu! Don't you know that a level one doesn't have a chance of hitting a level five monster?" Yugi's wizard quirked an eyebrow accusingly. Jou hadn't read the manual or listened to him at all.
The blonde warrior blinked a few times, then stood up angrily and said, "Hey, what was with all that 'm'lady' crap anyway!" He waved his arms wildly at the bishounen bard.
"It's called role-playing. It is a role-playing game, after all." Otogi's avatar played with his black locks of hair, and pulled the lute back out.
"You don't even have your beginner sword equipped!" Honda told him. He had no idea that there was a beginner sword!
"Hang on, guys, I'll be right back!" the wizard announced. Two seconds later, Yugi came into his bedroom and pointed to a small icon on his friend's screen. He looked at his eyes, to make sure that he was listening, and said, "Click that, or hit this key, and you can see your inventory. Click this…" He pointed to an icon next the other one, "And you're character's equip screen comes up. Just drag equipment on there." Jou did as he was told, and soon his character had the same sword as Honda's.
"Thanks Yugi!" Jou cried. Yugi smiled at him, patting his shoulder, and then returned to his console.
Anxious to fight, Jou stared at his screen, then screamed. It was dark black with bold white lettering, which read:
You have been disconnected.
Please log in later!
"What is it?" Yugi stumbled into the room in a hurry. He glanced at the screen and said, "Oh, you must have been booted from the server. Hit this key and log in again." He walked away.
The look that Yugi gave Jounouchi was the same one that he got when he started playing Duel Monsters. That was the only time that he had truly seen such a cocky look on his friend's face, all the other times that he had seen it, it belonged to Yami. Sometimes he wondered how Yugi could stand sharing a body with that guy. Sure, Yami did seem to sort of shape shift the boyish body a bit, and his eyes were a hell of lot sexier to him, but his attitude rivaled that of Seto Kaiba's.
He entered in his login information, and kept receiving a connection error. He sighed and turned off the machine, and watched over Yugi's shoulder. He began learning a bit more about the game. Who needed a manual when Yugi is there to observe?
After giving up on playing the game earlier in the day, Jounouchi sat back down at the computer at midnight and logged in. He was given permission to spend the break at Yugi's place, so he and Yugi were sharing a bed. His sleeping friend seemed to be in a deep slumber, and didn't stir too much at the sound of the computer and the clicking keys of the keyboard.
It was time for him to find a group.
He explored the town for a bit, and stumbled upon the inn. Lots of adventurers of all different races and classes were littered about the lamp-lit establishment.
"That was one hell of a dragon!" a short and bearded blonde dwarf…woman announced to her group.
"Yeah! He dropped an awesome shield, too. Who won it?" a robed elf asked.
"Isidian did," a knight in (literally) shining armor answered. He studied the group's equipment in awe.
Not to mention, he studied the figures of the digital ladies that passed him. Especially the cute elf in the corner. She reminded him of the fusion monster "St. Joan" of Duel Monsters, mostly because of her look. He walked over to closely inspect her.
She had layered brown hair that fell neatly into place, hugging her head tightly, and barely touching her shoulders. Her blue eyes were a color that wasn't available to humans, and seemed to pierce him right through the monitor.
She was level five, yet looked about as high level as the dragon slayers he had just eavesdropped on. She had a breastplate and plate mail greaves, both the same light platinum color, white cloth boots, and a white hooded cloak that gracefully fell over her body.
Joukatsu was in love.
"Would you like to group?" she asked him, her gaze never changing. Her voice sounded like it belonged to an angel.
"Sure," he replied.
"Would you like to group?" he typed. Was he ever thankful for the built in voice simulator of the game. It would hide his true identity, and allow him to be able to play a game freely, without the stress of being the best. Plus, being a female character allowed him to leech free gifts off of all the male perverts out there. That was, after all, how he managed to get most of his armor and money.
"Sure," the blonde warrior replied. He seemed like he wanted to anyway, but didn't know how to ask.
Newbies were always so cute.
"Good," he typed, inviting him to form a group with his character, "I'm Nymphe."
"What does a Dragon Cleric do?" he asked.
"We worship the dragon deity, and use our blessed powers to heal the wounded." He enjoyed role-playing. It was such a change from real life. No school, no paperwork, and best of all, it made him forget his desire to show the world how great he was.
"Cool, goes good with me since I'm a warrior!" The human shot his gorgeous avatar a smile.
"Let's go to the Undead Caverns," the boy typed, "Dragon Clerics can also smite the undead, so my spells will be able to help us out there." He glanced over at his younger brother, who fell asleep on the sofa in his office. He added, "I was there last night. The skeletons have more money than the monsters in the woods, and not many low levels know about the place. We can have the whole zone to ourselves, most likely."
"Seems like fun, let's go!"
"Follow me, then," he said, moving the digital girl out of the inn. In no time, he was going to be level six, possibly even seven. He took a sip of his water, which was set neatly in the center of a coaster on his desk, and prepared for a very long night.