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As usually per every 2nd Saturday of the month, Toriel dropped Kris off at Berdly's house for the night so the two of them could have what the glasses wearing blue bird called an "epic gamer rendezvous." What that exactly entailed the goat mother wasn't quite sure, but it didn't seem like it was anything dangerous or bad though so she didn't ask any questions about it. She was just happy that Kris had a friend to spend time with.
"Now go have fun with your friend, I'll pick you up tomorrow morning okay? If you need anything or feel like you’re in trouble don't hesitate to call me, I'll come back as soon as I can if you want to leave early," Toriel explained.
Nodding their head to show they understood, Kris hopped out of the car, sliding their trusty cellphone in pocket in case they needed it later, and turned to wave goodbye to their mother as she drove away in her big red car.
Once their mother had finally left, Kris turned their attention to the door of Berdly's home, it was time for their epic gamer rendezvous to finally come to fruition.
After knocking on the door of their friend's place, it had only taken mere seconds before Kris heard the scurrying of bird feet hurriedly making their way to the front door. It had seemed like someone had been eagerly awaiting their arrival.
Pretending to act nonchalant so he could hide the fact that he had been excitedly anticipating the other person's arrival all day, Berdly opened the door and said "Ah Kris, it seems you've come once again for our annual midnight rendezvous. I know, I know, it's must have been killing you all this time to only be able gaze afar from your classroom desk at me and not be able to play against such a worthy opponent as myself. So please feel free to come in and put your skills to the ultimate test by challenging me yourself if you dare."
Stepping inside the house, Kris noticed that Berdly was as usual wearing one of his many infamous gamer graphic tee shirts to their monthly epic gamer rendezvous once again. The bird had cast aside his boring old white collar shirt he usually wore during the day and now was adorning a fancy graphic tee shirt that said "I am a gamer not because I don't have a life, but because I choose to have many," with various iconic game weapons surrounding it. It wasn't the first time Kris had seen him wear this shirt, he had worn this shirt and many other shirts like this to their epic gamer meetings before. But this time it was going to be different because this time Kris had prepared a counter attack of their own to Berdly's totally epic gamer shirts.
Before they continued to walk further into the house, Kris motioned for their bird friend to look at them for a moment.
"Hmm...? Did you want to show me something before we go onward?" The curious bird asked.
With no word or motion to indicate what they were about to do, Kris had suddenly started to pull off the green and yellow stripped sweater off their body.
Rightful panicking at the sight of their rival suddenly undressing right in front of them, Berdly squawked out, "Hold it Kris! Undressing like this in another person's home in front of them is highly inappropriate!"
"And besides if you do continue at this rate on taking off your sweater you'll be super cold because unlike monsters all you have is regular human flesh and no feathers or fur of your own to keep your body warm!"
Berdly had started to ramble a bit on that last part but it was true. If Kris wasn't careful about wearing the proper amount of clothing they could succumb to hypothermia and lose their final heart in this twisted game called life. And Berdly really couldn't afford to lose a single friend in his already limited friend pool, so it was his job to prevent that from ever happening.
Once they saw how frantic the bird had become Kris quickly explained to their friend that they were wearing a second shirt underneath their sweater they wanted to show him.
"Huh? That was it? You really should have explained that sooner, you had my poor heart pounding like we were neck in neck for the lead in the last lap of a race in Monster kart 8."
"But still since you're a good rival of mine I guess I'll let it pass for now and indulge you on showing me this shirt." The bird continued to say.
Now that Berdly was done freaking out, Kris could finally take off their sweater and show him their awesome shirt.
"Oh... Kris you truly are a person of culture aren't you?" Berdly said impressed when he had saw what Kris had hidden underneath their normal sweater.
The human was wearing a handmade shirt with the words "Player 2" written on it with a crudely drawn picture of a game controller beneath it.
Now while this shirt wasn't up to Berdly's usual high quality standards, and one could argue that Noelle probably also fell into his Player 2 category of important game rivals in his life, it was clear the human had put a lot of effort into doing this for him. And knowing that his dear human friend put so much effort like that into making a similar t-shirt like he wore, just to see his reaction well... it filled him with an indescribable amount of happiness. If this was a dating sim Berdly was sure Kris would've scored extra love points with the heroine as a protagonist if they had made a move like that.
Yes, now that he thought about it Kris had the cool calm demeanor of a classic visual novel protagonist. They also had pretty good grades in class probably the No.3 top student behind Noelle and himself obviously, so they clearly had great intellectual skill that could impress anyone. They even were a good listener as well, they were always ready to listen to whatever academic or game rambles he had to say even when most people told Berdly to and I quote "shut the fuck up you, birdbrain", and despite not physically talking that much they had mastered the art of body language like no one else could, which let them to be quite a charmer when they wanted to. With those traits it would be easy to see why they would have a harem of monsters fall in love with them in no time.
But wait... then doesn't that mean that if Kris was the protagonist then it would only be natural to assume them I'm the heroine? Berdly thought to himself.
The bird dramatically dropped onto his knees at this horrible realization. No! No! No! That just couldn't be true! He thought to himself. I mean he was after all an alpha gamer, so shouldn't it only natural for him to be the protagonist? Shouldn't he be the one seducing Kris with his smooth and cool moves? Shouldn't he be the one making the human fall to their knees saying "Oh Berdly you're so smart and handsome, you're the perfect bird for me! Please won't you marry me, so we can adopt ten kids together and raise our own miniature gamer army as we grow old together!"
He was supposed to the smarter, cooler, and more mature one out of the two of them, and yet it felt as if his heart had already foolishly fallen for the cheese the human had set out and they had caught him in the mousetrap known as love. Maybe, just maybe, Kris wasn't the only one that had been gazing afar at him, maybe he too had been gazing back at the human and had fallen for them along the way and he just hadn't realized it.
Whoa! Whoa! WHOA! What was he thinking?! Kris and him were just a couple of gamers, they were just a couple of monsters and humans that occasionally enjoyed playing video games together, just a bunch of gamer rivals doing what they did best, that's all there was to it to their relationship.
Sure, Berdly thought they were fairly smart, decently attractive, and most importantly a skilled gamer and rival, but that didn't mean he liked liked them you know? He just really really REALLY respected them as a person and thought they were cool, fun, and one of the most amazing people to hang out with in his life. That's all there was too it.
And besides even if he did completely hypothetically (of course) like his human friend as someone a bit more than just friends, he was intelligent enough to know that contemplating it right now while his parents were out of the house and it was just the two of them alone was a very bad, no good idea.
A sudden tug on Berdly's sleeve snapped him out of his current thoughts. It seemed like Kris had grown patient of waiting for Berdly to finish whatever internal battle the bird was facing within himself and wanted to get going already.
Familiar with the layout of the house from how many times they've been here before, Kris dragged the slightly taller bird behind them as they made their way to the place that Berdly and them were going to spend the rest of the evening together. The place where the two of them spent every 2nd Saturday of the month together. The place that they were going stay up all night together because of how fun it was going be.
That place was stocked with the best and latest video games, had all the latest gaming consoles released, the best surround sound you could dream of and it even had the comfiest seats you could ever imagine sitting in your entire life.
It was a place that only the elite of the elite could get into, only the most skilled of gamers could ever dream of setting foot in there, only Berdly's closest friends got access to that wonderful place. And that place was none other than Berdly's super-secret high tech gamer nest, aka his bedroom.
"Feel free to look around my room to see if there are games here that pique your curiosity and want to start off our ferocious battle of the night with," Berdly said as he stood behind Kris.
Kris looked around the room, now while they did want to play games there was a few things they wanted to explore in the room before they started.
Like what was up with this new statue and stuff doll Berdly had that sat upon his shelves? The human hadn't seen them here the last time they visited.
Out of the two new objects in Berdly's room, first the human turned their attention to the new golden painted statue, because how would you say it kindly? Umm well... there was just a lot to break down about it. To start off the statue was carved in the shape of Berdly with a few "creative liberties" taken here and there. The first major difference from the real Berdly to his statue's counterpart was that unlike the real Berdly the statue was extremely buff and absolutely ripped. It made Berdly looked exactly like a character that was ripped straight out of some old fighting game, except unlike most of the human fighters the statue still kept his bird head instead of replacing it to fit the rest of his highly unrealistic human proportions. Another thing to note about the statue is that it wore his trademark smug face as an older woman monster excitingly hung onto one of his flexing arms. From this observation, Kris concluded that Berdly had some weird power fantasies he was trying to vicariously live through this statue with. Also another thing to note was that the Berdly statue wore crocs on his feet which was weird to Kris since they had never seen Berdly wear shoes before let alone shoes as oddly specific as those. But the most important thing Kris noticed about Berdly (the statue) was wearing a speedo that just had the letters "IQ" written on it.
Was that where Berdly kept all his IQ? Kris genuinely wondered as they stared deep into the golden statue's speedo in search for answers to their questions. Maybe this was the ultimate key to being smart in life, maybe all you had to do was just stuff all your IQ points into your speedo and you'd be set for life.
Though now was not the time to deliberate over such things, now that they were done examining the statue it was time for them to turn their attention to the less disturbing but equally concerning Berdly doll. This doll was more straightforward than the statue it was simply just a plush of Berdly... that also happened to have nipples and was wearing just orange boxers.
For Berdly being a well... bird, Kris found Berdly's obsession with having human anatomy a little weird. Especially since they thought monsters were much cooler than humans, so they couldn't imagine why Berdly wanted to be part human when he was already a pretty rad looking monster.
Also another good question popped into Kris's head as they stared at the doll, why the hell was Berdly always wearing some sort of form of pants or underwear in both the statue and doll, but not a shirt?
Berdly only wore a shirt everywhere he went in public, and he was still only wearing a shirt now while the two of them were hanging out right now, so why was he so passionate about wearing pants and underwear? Did he have something to hide there that Kris didn't know about? What were those blue feathers hiding from them? What secrets did the bird have there that they didn't know about?
Kris began to intensely stare Berdly's body down (in a completely normal and totally couldn't be interpreted as weird at all kind of way), it was for research they told themselves, they couldn't satisfy their curiosity if they didn't do this.
"Enraptured by the real thing huh? I know no art medium can truly fully gasp a subject just as complex and smart as I am. Only seeing me yourself IRL is the true way to fully capture every detailed aspect of my exquisite existence," the bird explained.
"Still I see you seemed to have become deeply memorized by some of the new additions I've taken the liberty on adding to my room since the last the you've came over. You may be wondering how did such an already smart guy like me come up with such alluring designs as well? Well it's quite simple these designs came to me in a dream. Like when the hero receives a prophecy to go save the world, I received a prophecy from the dream gods to make this statue and doll a reality."
"Most normal people probably would have a typically hard time grasping such fine art as this, but with your intellect Kris you can definitely tell it's beautiful. Your speechlessness says it all, so no additional commentary is necessary." The bird added.
Yeah, that fine art had definitely left them speechless alright in more ways the one. Anyway, maybe it was time for them to actually stop messing around and finally look for an actual game to play. Now where did Berdly keep his games again?
Were there on his desk? No, that's where he kept all his school supplies and textbooks that would be a silly place to check.
Were they in his closet? No, that's where he kept 10 copies of the same white shirt he wore to school every day and where he kept his other random gamer themed graphic tees like "Do not disturb gaming mode activated", "This is my hardcore gamer shirt," and "Relationship Status: Single:[], Taken:[], Gamer:[x]."
Were they on his shelves? Ah ha! Yes, there they were! Berdly did always like to collect the physical copies of games whenever they came out and display them on his shelves like a prize collection. He even had a few of his academic awards gathered on the shelf next to them as well, these shelves truly were full of his most prize possessions.
Now let's see what kind of games did Berdly have in stock for them to play today, Kris thought as they browsed the shelf. He had Purrsona 4 Golden, Porcupine Wright Ace Attorney, and oh... there was a game hidden behind the rest that Kris had never seen before. The human pulled out the mysterious game from its hiding place, the cover art on the game's case was full of various monster girls drawn in cute school uniforms. If Kris had to guess it was probably some sort of Monster dating simulator by the looks of it, it seems like something their teacher Ms. Alphys would enjoy playing in her free time.
The blue bird momentarily turned into a red one the second they saw their friend pull out their hidden copy of a dating simulator. That game was supposed to be a secret that no one was supposed to find about it. No one besides him and his four bedroom walls was supposed to found out that he actually played a dating simulator in his free time. No one was supposed to find out about his secret waifus and husbandos.
"Listen Kris... There is no special meaning to me owning that game," the flustered bird spat out when he saw his friend find his hidden game, "I was just curious and wanted to broaden my horizons a bit... As a pro gamer it's important to master the many types of genres of games and dating sims are no exception, so I just wanted to-"
Without hesitation Kris plugged the game's CD in the system.
The bird's eyes nearly bulge so far out of his eyes that they almost shattered his glasses at this unexpected development, "You actually want to play that game?!"
The human silently nodded their head yes.
The bird looked off to the side as he crossed his wings and warned his friend, “Well don't be deceived this is actually a highly intellectual game that requires lots of skill and knowledge to complete, so don't think it's something you can just easily beat."
...
The two of them ended up sitting next to each other on the top of Berdly's bed as the title screen of the visual novel began to load up and it's opening started to play. The visual novel's opening compromised of a random Japanese song playing in the background while static images of the various love interests flash across the screen as it went on.
This was weird wasn't it? Berdly thought to himself, just earlier he had recognized how Kris would be an impeccable harem protagonist material and here there were in the same evening playing a visual novel just made for that. It's like fate had written in the stars for this to happen. The world had been waiting all this time for Kris's harem protagonist time to debut and here they were just about to do that.
But then what role was Berdly destined to play then in Kris's harem journey? If he wasn't the protagonist despite his superior gaming skills and intellect than what was his role in the game called life? What's role was he supposed to play in Kris's monster harem dating sim?
It couldn't be could it? If he wasn't destined to be the protagonist there was only one role left for the mighty blue bird to play. There was only other role that complemented a visual novel protagonist, and that was none other than...
As the protagonist's best friend that acted as wingman to helped them romance their various love interest.
Yes of course that was Berdly's role in this game, he was to use his many year of flirting experience (which he didn't have) and his wisdom (debatable if he had any of that which he could apply to this situation either) to take his dear friend under his wings and show them the ropes on how to "woo" some monsters. And despite not using walkthroughs himself (since he believed real gamers don't use walkthroughs) he had made it his internal mission to act as his dear friend Kris's walkthrough of love and guide them in their time of need so they could romance whoever they desired.
...
"So who do you think is the hottest Mc-kun?" Friend-Kun, one of the characters in the visual novel, asked from within the television screen.
"Ah your first real choice Kris, don't let yourself squander this opportunity. This will be the first choice of many to determine what fate you end up in the end, you better pick wisely or otherwise you may end up with the worst fate of all visual novel protagonists..."
Berdly shuddered "Getting stuck with Worst Girl."
Not worst girl! Kris internally thought to themselves to copy Berdly's enthusiasm. Things were really starting to get intense in this game.
Three choices appeared on the screen before Kris, what should they tell Friend-kun to progress the game forward to get a good end?
"Blaze is literally the HOTTEST girl I've ever had the fortune to lay my eyes on (no seriously she's a fire monster that's just literally a factually accurate statement)."
"I think Aqua is cute. I like all the accessories she has wrapped around her tentacles. I want her to wrap me up with her tentacles."
"I think you're finer than any of those girls, Friend-Kun ;)"
After careful deliberation on who Kris wanted to romance first, they moved the cursor down towards the third and final option.
A sudden pink blush appeared on Friend-kun's face after Kris chose that, "Mc-kun... I'm not really sure how you said ;) out loud, but I'm flattered anyway."
Impossible, was Kris going for the secret end with the protagonist's best friend right at the start?! That was the hardest ending to get, it took me weeks to get that ending! There was no way they would be able to managed to get that first try! This path was bound to lead them to their doom and into one of the many infamous visual novel bad ends! Berdly internally screamed to himself.
Actually wait... this could be a good thing Berdly suddenly realized. Because if Kris messed up midway through the route and failed they would be absolutely dying to see how it would end right? And if they were that desperate to see how the story between Mc-kun and Friend-kun ended then they would have no choice to beg him for help on how to pick the correct choices to continue the story.
Yeah Berdly could see it now, the human would be down on their luck gripping at his shirt saying, "Oh wise Berdly you're the only one that can help a poor little human like me in my time of need! I need the help of your gigantic muscles, humongous brain, and your clearly superior gamer instincts to proceed forward with this gripping story! Please help me see Mc-kun and Friend-kun get the happy ending they deserve!"
And of course to act cool and pretend like he hadn't rehearsed this entire scene in his head earlier, he would respond with something natural like “Well I guess since we invested so much time into it already, I'll be gracious enough to lend my skills for a bit. Now sit back and watch a master at work."
Yeah, yeah, yeah! That would definitely work, Berdly thought to himself with a smug look on his face. He really was a genius wasn't he? Even his own intelligence amazed him sometimes.
Now all he needed to do now was sit back and wait for Kris to eventually mess up one of the choices so he could swoop in like a white knight to help them in their time of need. And then when he did help then they would get all impressed on how cool and awesome he was and they might end up even saying stuff like "Wow you're so amazing Berdly you're the coolest monster around!" Or something like "You're smart, handsome, and are great at games, you truly are the ideal monster aren't you?" Or even something like "God, your gamer skills are so awesome Berdly that I could absolutely kiss you right now for how good they are!"
Whoa... some of those comments were low key kinda sus.... Good thing Berdly wasn't playing that hit game Among yourself right now or otherwise he would've be voted out for being too sus.
But anyway ignoring Berdly's delusional fantasies about Kris making sus comments towards him, it was true that Kris was going need his expertise in order to complete this game, all he needed to do now was wait and eventually Kris would be crawling to him and begging for help in no time.
....
And yet despite Berdly's confidence, Kris had smashed through ever major event flag that came their way and they ended up completing Friend-Kun's route with complete ease. His plan for waiting for the human to mess up so he could swoop in to show them how great he was had backfired immensely.
"That... that was just beginner's luck! You may have been able to easily charm someone in a dating sim, but in real life it wouldn't be that simple," Berdly shouted out salty that his plan couldn't come to fruition.
"If you were to try to use your same tactics on me there would be no way I would lose at an intellectual battle of the wits. I would surely be able to charm my way into your heart and make you swoon over me!"
Was that a challenge they heard? Kris thought as they turned to look at their friend. Did Berdly really think he would get away with questioning their flirting skills like that? Did he really think he was going be able to make a statement like that without backing it up?
"You want to reenact the visual novel scenario? And see who the superior flirter is? Well I guess I'll entertain your idea even though it's obvious who the winner would be," Berdly cockily said.
Taking their battle stances, Berdly and Kris stood on opposing sides of the room to ready their attacks. This would be a war for the ages, a war that would truly put their skills to the test. It was a battle that laid it all on the line, a battle that would truly measure their strengths as rivals to one another. This battle was the ultimate test of strength between a human and monster to determine who the better flirt was!
Berdly shot out the first attack "I need an extra heart. Can I have yours?"
That attack hit right in the heart and Kris took 50 damage! The human had been caught off guard, they didn't actually expect Berdly to know any decent pickup lines.
But now was not to be swept away by Berdly's one liners, it was time for Kris to strike back. It was their time to prove what Kris the supreme flirt master was made of.
The human smacked on the Flirt button in the [ACT] box and shot out a finger gun towards the bird, "Are you a turkey Berdly? Cause you are one hot bird that I'd love to devour whole."
A deep blush ran across the bird's face; Kris was playing dirty using a line like that.
He moved swiftly to attack back, now was not the time to falter, "In order to pick a weapon, all I need to do is press "X." Does this work for picking you up as well?"
Is he really just going to keep shooting out cheesy one liners hoping he'll win that way? This would be boring if the battle of flirt was restricted to them shooting silly pickup lines to one another. There had to be a way to make things more interesting, there had to be a way to up the stakes. Kris thought to themselves.
That's when a brilliant idea hit them, one that they certainly believed would be a major game changer.
Trying to heat things up Kris walked closer towards their rival and asked "Why don't we turn this gamer nest into a love nest?"
Huh?! What were they suggesting? And why were they getting really close now?! Berdly internally panicked at the sight of his enemy approaching.
Attempting to calm himself before he did anything too rash the bird took a deep breath, Kris was just doing this to antagonize him and throw him off his rhythm. They were just trying to fluster him so he would mess up and they could strike when he was most vulnerable. He just had to remain calm and composed to win this and to not fall prey to Kris's obvious trap.
Trying to not let the human's words get to him Berdly threw out another flirt "Have you been drinking stamina potions? Because you've been running through my mind all day long."
Kris had to admit Berdly wasn't half bad with flirty gamer pickup lines, but those lines only take him so far. After all Kris had been voted the best flirt master in town, the Bird wasn't going to stand a chance against their real attacks.
Going all out to ensure they would win this battle, Kris pinned Berdly to the wall while using their hand to tilt his head down towards themselves to make sure his focus was on only them and nothing else.
"Don't you understand it yet Berdly? Don't you understand why I wanted to engage in this battle of flirt with you?" Kris started to dramatically say, "It wasn't just to prove my flirting skills it was also because I wanted to win your heart as well."
"I did this all because you Berdly, have been my true epic gamer waifu all along."
I was Kris's true epic gamer waifu all this time!? The bird internally panicked at yet another unexpected development.
He tried to make sense of it all, there was just too much to unpack at once. Was there signs of Kris actually liking him or were they just doing this to win the battle of flirt going on? He tried to think back to the start of this all, and it began to click.
Everything Kris had done so far it had started to make sense, Kris preparing the "Player 2" shirt underneath their sweater just for him just to make him happy, them ogling at his handsome golden statue of himself and his dashing doll version of himself as well because they were swept away by his good looks. Them choosing the protagonist's best friend that acted as his wingman rather than any of the girls to romance because clearly Berdly fell into the wingman role of love in real life to Kris. And even Kris initiating this battle of love between them knowing it would lead to this, knowing that they would confess their love for him.
Kris had plan everything from the start, before they had even walked through the door.
Berdly hadn't given Kris enough credit, he would've never managed they had thought this far ahead. Never would've thought of how they could've strategized this far in this game known as love. He was both quite impressed and flustered the lengths Kris had taken to confess their feelings for him.
But despite the bird's flusteredness their duel of love wasn't over yet, no Kris still had one more trick up their sleeve. They were going to make one more final strike to end this battle for good. There was going to be one more attack that was going to prove that Kris was indeed the ultimate flirt master. There was going to be one more final attack that would ensure Kris had won the bird's heart.
With enough TP (romantic tension points) gathered it was time for Kris's final strike.
It was time for them to use their ultimate move... Time for them to deal the fatal blow that would end this war...
It was time to perform an ULTIMATE GAMER KISS STEAL!
The human titled down the bluebird's face so it was closer to their own and gave a final fatal blow to their foe through a kiss to his beak. By his flustered expression it was clear this was game over for Berdly, Kris had once again reigned supreme in the ultimate game known as love.
Pushing up his glasses to hide his embarrassed expression, Berdly said, "You may have beaten me this time Kris with your smooth talking and charms, but next time I will raise my stats and win this battle of love and you'll have a taste of your own medicine! So you better prepared to handle me the next time we fight because I don't intend on showing any mercy!"
Kris smiled at their friend's challenge, they were two fierce rivals that wouldn't go down without a fight, so they couldn't wait to see how their next battle of love would play out.