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“Watch out for the cursed ones. They’ve got nothing left to lose.” Bucky told her, aiming at another zombie as it appeared on the screen.
“I know!” Darcy told him, her tone a little exasperated as she was backed into a virtual corner and had to fight her way out. Finally successful she pushed the thumbstick forward and watched her character run in the direction Bucky’s was already headed. She was startled when he suddenly stopped and turned to face her. “Are you freaking kidding me, right now? Will you stop shooting right at me?” Darcy was tempted to throw the controller down when she got winged by yet another ‘stray’ bullet from Bucky’s avatar’s gun, but she’d been the one to suggest they pass the time when Steve and the others were on a mission honing their gaming skills.
“There was a zombie right behind you. What did you want me to do? Let you get bit?” He grinned in a way that had Darcy wanting to both pinch his cheeks and punch him in the shoulder at the same time, but she ignored the urge.
“Yep, sure! I believe you.” She reloaded her gun and reluctantly directed her character right into the fray - not that she had any other choice when they were playing a two-person mission and Bucky had clearly decided to take the lead. “Why are you determined to get us both killed?” She asked, even as she aimed her rifle at another zombie’s bloody face and squeeze off a shot. She wished that she’d thought about introducing him to Mario Kart instead.
“Isn’t that the point of the game? To get into the thick of it and kill all the big bad zombies?” He almost too gleefully shot into a crowd of the bloodthirsty creatures and several of them fell to the ground. “Wouldn’t you rather we got rid of them all and scored loads of points?”
Yep, Mario Kart would have been a better option. Less of a chance to bring out the side of him that was far too happy about killing a load of monsters! “Turn down there…” she lifted her controller and tilted it slightly to the left, indicating a narrow alleyway she knew - from checking out the walkthrough on YouTube - led to another part of the tame that was less zombie more obstacle course (parkour was fun when you weren’t the one physically having to run).
“But I can see a load more zombies straight ahead,” Bucky protested, he was really, strangely, enjoying the challenge, the controller wasn’t as easy to use as a real gun. Not that he actually wanted to pull the trigger of a real gun at any time in the near future, but knowing he was still good was a big ego boost!
“Please? Just follow me, I promise it’ll be just as much fun.” Yep, and I’ll so beat you here! Once through the transitional alleyway, she was relieved to see that the area was completely free and clear of any and all zombies, monsters or other oddball, violent creatures. In front of them lay some pretty rough terrain, crumbled buildings, cracked roads, massive potholes (that looked as though they’d been drilled by a mole person or something - hopefully that was not something they would be encountering.
“What’s the point of this?” Bucky asked as he moved his character to stand beside Darcy’s, and they both studied the layout in front of them. “This doesn’t look like it’s going to be fun. We can just walk straight through this.” As if to prove a point, he pressed the thumbstick forward and watched as his character fell straight into a hole that suddenly appeared, his fingers grasping desperately at the lip of the hole to prevent him from dropping onto the bloody spikes that were at the bottom. “What the fuck?”
“Nothing’s ever as it seems, young Padawan,” Darcy crowed as she took a running jump and managed, barely, to get across without falling in.
“Hey, aren’t you going to help me?” He asked as he fiddled with his controller, trying to get out of the hole without making things worse.
“I’m not the one who said it was going to be easy,” she replied, even though she had been thinking it. “Hurry up, I can see the next level portal.”
“No need to be so smug,” he felt a little better when he finally figured that he needed to swing one leg out of the hole and then just roll. Sometimes real life was actually easier than a game after all!
For the next few minutes, Bucky actually concentrated, watching Darcy and following her lead, clearly, she’d either played this before, or she was seriously good at this kind of thing. He finally got suspicious when she ducked before a series of arrows were fired from nowhere and he was hit in the side by one. “How did you know that was going to happen?” He asked her while her character helped his to get rid of the arrow and he had to use one of his precious healer packs.
“Just did, there was a little flash or something in the corner of the screen.” She shrugged but the smile on her face told Bucky that she was definitely lying. Darcy was many things, but a great actress and a good liar were neither of those.
“So, where’s this portal then?” He was standing at the end of the obstacle course, or whatever it was, and couldn’t see anything to indicate that they were going to be moving onto anywhere else, all he could see was more of the topsy-turvy, roads and buildings and a tidal wave. “A tidal wave?”
“Brilliant. I didn’t think that we’d have to wait this long.” She turned her character in the direction of the wave and ran. “Come on, don’t you want to get to the next level?”
“This is ridiculous,” he grumbled, setting off in the direction of the wave, all the while wondering what insane mind had come up with such a stupid idea.
“It’s just a game,” Darcy told him, as they both jumped through the wave and found themselves floating in space, their characters wearing space suits and their spaceship some distance away being attacked by weird looking aliens.