Chapter Text
Ironically, Luz preferred the dark. It wasn't in any kind of edgy way, she wasn't covered up in a cloak and cowl fighting crime around town, or wrapped in night's embrace to keep the demons at bay. It was practical, since less lighting meant less glare on her monitors, then it was sentimental, since less lighting reminded her of the lack of glare on her monitors, and her monitors, and her computer.
In the light, she was a daughter and a student, and incredibly awkward, if she was being honest, and in the dark she was the same. It just didn't seem to matter as much.
"No. No facecam, there will never be a facecam. It is pitch black in here, you'd be facecamming directly into the void." Luz rolled her eyes at the chat messages slowly scrolling up the left side of her screen.
Beefy_Boi: How many resets today?
BatQueen: If you facecam into the void does the void facecam back at you
TheRealReviewnicorn: Is that time right?
PatMyShoulders: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa:
"Twelve resets today. Eight of them were to the second owl fight, and no I don't want to talk about it." She looked down at the chat again. "Was it RNG? Yeah, let's say it was. It definitely wasn't me beefing it because I'm garbage, stop being ridiculous."
Snaggleback: lmao rng
PatMyShoulders: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa:
Choosy-Hat: The clock in the top right correct?
ActualFunPolice: You can one-cycle Owl2 if you get ice early and charge attack her wings until you get a break. It'll down her long enough she won't be able to go second phase.
Luz quirked an eyebrow. "You can get ice early?"
TheRealReviewnicorn: Uuh yeah
Beefy_Boi: Haven't you seen Ota's run?
xXAdegastXx: Check out my channel! Only the best in hottub streams!
Snaggleback: im back what i miss?
"I haven't seen any of the official runs. This is just me messing around trying to see how many skips I can figure out on my own." So saying, Luz jumped, ice pillared to gain extra height, stalled in the air by using light four times, then ice pillared again once its cooldown was up, pushing her through the ceiling and out of bounds. "Ah, beautiful jank, how I've missed you."
Snaggleback: what kind of splits are those that time cant be right right?
PatMyShoulders: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa:
Choosy-Hat: Right? What is that?
ActualFunPolice: You can airstall with light?! WHAT?!!?
"Yeah, the time in the top right is accurate. Why does everyone keep asking that?" Luz angled her cursor over an odd looking mountain peak in the far distance before walking forward. "Oh, I hope you like airstalling with light because I'm gonna do it about two hundred more times in this run."
She slipped through the ceiling again, dropping onto the floor and immediately blasting a nearby guard with ice. "Say hi to being back inbounds, everyone." Icepillar, lightstall, icepillar. "Now say goodbye to being back inbounds, everyone."
ActualFunPolice: Is this vod gonna be archived?
Beefy_Boi: Why'd you have to get back inbounds?
Snaggleback: somebody get ota in here
TheRealReviewnicorn: Is this wr?
The next section required some focus, but eventually Luz turned back to the chat as she idly navigated through unskippable dialogue menus. "Yep, I leave my full streams here for as long as they let me, but I also keep all the backups on a separate platform, so link to that should be in my bio. Also, I had to get back inbounds for a second there to kill that guard, cause for some reason if you leave him alive, the cutscene trigger that gives you vines just doesn't work. Don't ask me why."
BatQueen: Random master of vines guard
PatMyShoulders: Rip vine
PatMyShoulders: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa: :kappa:
Choosy-Hat: Is Ota streaming rn?
Snaggleback: if she was do you think id be here?
"Okay, ouch," Luz laughed at the chat. "Who's Ota? I'm guessing that's another RR runner, right?"
Choosy-Hat: ???
Beefy-Boi: You don't know Ota?
Snaggleback: bruh
Similar messages shot past the screen as Luz's eyebrows lifted. "Seriously, guys. Who's Ota?"
<>*<>
If Amity Blight had been checking her private messages, she might have had a warning. While Luz's stream wasn't very popular, the attention her unorthodox run was receiving translated directly into people who thought she should know about it, and as a result, people who tried to tell her.
Ultimately unsuccessful people, but well-meaning people in any case.
Because Amity Blight had final projects to finish and hand in that night, and a plane to catch excruciatingly early the next morning, it wasn't until she was waiting to be called on for boarding she even considered checking into her account for anything interesting, and by then Boscha had already sat down next to her on the hard plastic airport bench and told her without preamble.
"You got bumped in any-percent." Boscha had her phone already on, scrolling through messages with only her right thumb. "In case you haven't heard."
Amity rolled her eyes. "It's Gold, isn't it? I know he's been grinding that out for months, but honestly I expected it to take him longer."
Boscha's eyes lit as she realized Amity hadn't heard what happened. After a moment, she set her phone to the side, focusing her full attention on her friend. "It wasn't Gold."
"Kiki?" Amity guessed.
Boscha smirked. "Nope."
"Tibbles?" At her friend's latest denial, Amity had to groan. "Please don't tell me OL workshopped something dumb to shave whatever seconds off she needed to tag me out."
"Seconds, oh, no, no, no." Boscha's smirk had developed into a full grown grin by that point. "You didn't get bumped by a couple seconds, Ames."
"Are you going to tell me, or do you find it too much fun to keep me in this ridiculous suspense?"
Boscha opened her mouth to retort, but finally they were called for boarding. As they gathered their possessions to depart, she wordlessly faced her phone towards Amity, the top of the speedrunning leaderboards already pulled up on the device.
In second place, Otabin, completing the entire game in a respectable time of two hours and nineteen minutes, thirty seconds. In first place was, "Gemini?" Amity said, skeptically. "Who on Earth is Gemi-" her eyes widened. "He beat my time by fifty-five minutes."
In first place, Gemini505. One hour, twenty-four minutes, right on the dot.
Boscha cackled, withdrawing her phone now that its task was completed. "Complete unknown small time streamer wanted to see how close she could get to world record with just skips she discovered herself. Guess she got her answer."
"That's... impossible. Millions of people play Ruler's Reach, there are skip bounties and bug hunters working pretty much around the clock to make discoveries. Anything found that could possibly be useful gets tested and workshopped and implemented into new runs all the time, and I'm supposed to believe some small timer magically found the answer to shave an hour off the world record and we're just finding out about it now?" Amity grimaced. "It's spliced, it's gotta be. Or just straight up modded."
Boscha was having far too much fun with the conversation. "Yeah, she must have streamed for hours and died eight times to Owl2 to throw off the scent of her cheating."
Amity huffed a laugh. "That just confirms it. Only two people cheat in speedrunning: old pros who've lost their touch, and people who have no idea what they're doing in the first place."
"The skips work."
Amity stopped in place. "What?"
"She explained what to do in stream. People tried it out, and they work. Some of them are insane, and people are accusing her of being on the QA team for finding them, but one way or another Gemini is legit." Boscha reached over and poked her. "And she crushed you."
"Well then I learn her skips and crush her back." Amity shrugged. "It's annoying cause I thought I was done with any-percent, but whatever. New route, new time."
"Oh sure, sure, sure, sure. It isn't a big deal." Boscha tucked her bag into the overhead compartment before sliding into the window seat. "Well, she did get invited to Reach War, but other than that..."
"The invites for that were finalized months ago. This is ridiculous." Amity slumped down into the aisle seat, feeling the cheap vinyl squeak behind her head. "How'd she get in?"
"You got bumped out of the top one spot, somebody else got bumped out of the top ten. The publishers probably think it'll build hype for the sequel." Boscha leaned back, hands behind her head and elbow in Amity's face. "They're probably right."
"Yes, because everyone in the marketing department cares about speedrunning. The only true selling point for games anymore is that they're nonfunctional enough to be beaten quickly," she riffed, sarcastically. "And the best way to build hype is by digging up streamer drama in a niche community."
"Everyone loves drama, first of all, and second of all, if you can land the speedrunning community just right, that's people continuing to buy your game for years to come. People will play a game twenty years out of date just cause they figure out they can pick up a rabbit weird and push them through a wall. Obviously DKG's aiming for that." Boscha looked around. "Wait, why are we in coach?"
Amity raised an eyebrow. "You only noticed that now?"
"I was busy tormenting you," she admitted, easily. "Oh, don't tell me your parents-"
"Their support for my 'little hobby' only extends as far as it being a way to destress and make more money. First class plane tickets aren't covered under that umbrella, so coach it is."
Boscha groaned, slumping as far into her seat as the ones in front of her would allow. "What a load of dreck. Don't they know how many subs you get?"
"They neither know, nor care." Amity took out her earbuds and plugged them into her phone. "And that's not going to change."
Boscha pursed her lips, struggling to think of what to say, before finally falling back to a more comfortable topic. "What are you going to do about Gemini?"
"I'm going to do what I always do." She put the earbuds in, finding the page where Gemini's full stream videos were stored. "I'm going to learn every trick she knows, then I'm going to take my spot back, and I'm never going to think about some nobody streamer ever again."
Boscha closed her eyes, ready to sleep through a good portion of the flight, while the smirk she wore slid up her face like oil. "That's my girl."
Amity clicked into the latest stream, Gemini's voice coming to her for the first time.
"Hey, everyone. Today I'm going to try a Ruler's Reach speedrun using just the tricks I've managed to find on my own. I haven't seen any official speedruns, and in general I have no clue what I'm doing, but as long as we're within, like, an hour of the world record by the end, I'll be happy."
The voice was young, younger than Amity expected at least, and much chirpier than anyone with an any% world record in a game that popular had any right to be.
"Some of you might be wondering why it's been awhile since I last streamed, and there's a lot of blargh family stuff, but long story short I should be back to a slightly more regular schedule now... maybe. I'm not making any promises, alright? Wha- I'm not flaky."
Amity rolled her eyes at the antics. She was one of those streamers that took forever to start the game everyone was there to see, then. Annoying.
"Okay, I'm gonna start up the game, but get ready because the first trick I found is right here. If you watched my first playthrough, then you already know about this one."
It took some finagling, dragging a chair from the first area all the way next to a doorway, but jumping on top of it, then over a bit of dodgy collision had her past the door in short order.
"So skipping that cutscene means the warden doesn't spawn. Ever. In any of his appearances, which saves us a bunch of time, makes the story completely incomprehensible and softlocks us once we hit the Conformatorium, which most of you already know. RIP to my first playthrough. I was very confused for most of the game."
Amity breathed a quiet, whistling, laugh through her nose at the thought.
"Luckily, we can escape that softlock by breaking the game even more, because fixing things is way harder than making them worse, and I wonder why I'm still single."
She was fast. Her movements were inexpert, Amity could see timesaves all over the place and while she'd obviously practiced her skips, they seemed to lack the kind of consistency that came from grinding them out, doing them over and over for hundreds of hours, but her pacing, her voice, was so rapid it felt like speed was ingrained into her person.
Amity was almost through the video by the time she realized she hadn't taken a single note.
"I did attack my school principal with snakes once, have I talked about that? Is that- I haven't? Why does everyone say I keep bringing it up and not elaborating. I don't- oh, so this next skip is pretty nuts. I found this one during my no magic run..."
"She's insane," Amity realized. "My record got beaten by a crazy person."
"Hope so," Boscha mumbled, still not ready to accept a fully waking reality. "I never would have heard the end of it if it was someone normal."
"The good news is, she isn't a speedrunner, so once I've got the top spot back, I doubt she'll try and take it from me." A timesaver to be sure, the last thing Amity wanted was another pointless rivalry.
Boscha shrugged. "So you'll just have to worry about her for Reach War."
"Oh please. She got invited at the last minute for an event in a community she isn't even a part of because of a run whose time she can't or won't replicate. I can admire what she's found and even the skill with which she routed the whole thing out, but she isn't a speedrunner." Amity rolled her eyes. "She has to have better things to do with her time."
<>*<>
Luz rapidly threw as much of the contents of her dresser as would fit into her suitcase, then she started picking up her desktop tower to move it into the suitcase and paused, noting the size inequality between the two objects.
Gently, she set the heavy piece of equipment down. "Okay, what's my plan here?"
"I've been wondering that for years," a new voice by the doorway answered.
"Vee," Luz screamed, jumping into a tackling hug. "How was camp? I thought we were picking you up at four."
"It's five-thirty, Luz," Vee deadpanned. "Mom says you were so excited packing for the trip, she didn't want to interrupt to wrangle you into the car."
"Aww, I wanted to see you when you got out," Luz pouted. "How did it go, are you... they didn't do anything to you, did they?"
Vee laughed, hugging Luz tighter for a moment before letting go. "I'm fine. Just a little tired." She gestured at the open suitcase. "You ready to go?"
"I need to take my computer." Luz clutched the piece of machinery possessively. "But I have come to realize it won't fit in my suitcase."
Vee raised an eyebrow. "We're going to a video game event filled with video game people, you don't think there's going to be enough computers there?"
Luz scoffed. "It won't be my computer," she said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
Vee stared at her for a minute, before finally giving a toneless, unconvinced, "of course," in response.
"Are you going to help me pack this or not?" Luz asked, point-blank.
"I'm pretty sure the box the shell came in is still in the attic, I'll grab it, you figure out what to do with all the plugs."
Vee disappeared from the room.
Luz looked from her completely full suitcase, to the variety of wires and accessories right next to her computer. Then she looked at her carryon bag, thoughtfully. It wasn't the prettiest solution; her keyboard stuck up out of the bag a good few inches, and the way the mouse and cabling sat inside made it a more awkward shape to carry, but it would do.
Vee found the box for the shell and after some effort they both managed to squeeze her computer tower into it. Shortly after, and not without a bit of supervision from their mom, everything got loaded into the car.
Luz pumped her fists into the air, shouting, "success," which Vee rolled her eyes at.
"Whackamole," she muttered, fondly, getting into the car.
Luz was about to do the same, when her mom suddenly wrapped her in another hug, past their goodbye ones. "Have fun on your trip, mija," she whispered. "Promise you'll look after your sister for me, alright?"
Luz hugged her back, giving a comforting squeeze for good measure. "I promise, mamá."
Her mom let go a few seconds after, wiping her eyes and backing up to wave goodbye.
Luz got in the car, window rolled all the way down so she could do the same as Vee drove carefully out.
"Mom ask you to make sure I don't spontaneously combust?" Vee wondered once they were on the road.
There was a temptation to lie, but Luz gave a halfhearted chuckle, instead. "Pretty much."
Her smile twitched downward. "Sorry about that."
She waved a hand. "It's just mom being mom, Vee, relax. Besides, we're going to a thing for a bunch of nerds like me who like to play games fast." She shrugged. "I can't imagine it's gonna be all that stressful."
<>*<>
Boscha had passed the point of assault by the time they got through the door.
"Back, back, you animals." Her laptop bag swung in front of her like a mace, warding off the crowd trying to get a word in edgewise with one or both of the streamers, though realistically Amity was the main target.
Amity made her way through the parting wave Boscha created with an even impression and half-lidded eyes locked forward, trusting her friend to carve enough of a path they could make it to a more restricted area and, hopefully, slightly more peace as a result.
"You want to talk to Otabin, her chat's up pretty much every time she streams. Use that." Boscha shoved another exuberant fan to the side as she forced her way past.
By the time they finally reached the check-in desk and had the crowd pushed back enough to breathe, Boscha's annoyance had graduated to a generalized hate, then a specifically directed hate.
Hunter Bellos arrived just in time for that specifically directed hate to become specifically directed at him, an event which might have been considered bad luck if it wasn't pretty much a given whenever the two were in the same room for any amount of time.
"Gold," Boscha sneered.
"Grudgy, Ota." He nodded to Boscha and Amity in turn.
"Grudgby," she corrected, icily.
He cracked a patronizing smile. "My mistake."
"You've already signed in." Amity lifted the clipboard where his name and account were already listed. "What do you want?"
"I'm just having fun saying hi to my noble peers." He bent down, bringing his face closer to Amity's, but hands staying firmly clasped behind his back. "How are you enjoying second place, O-ta-bin?"
"You should know," Boscha snapped. "You sure spend enough time there."
He spun on his heel to face Boscha. "And what are you nowadays? Fiftieth or around there?"
"Eighth," she ground out through clenched teeth.
He snorted. "Close enough."
"In 100% I-" he cut her off, sharply.
"Nobody asked or cares." He shrugged. "And with Gemini's time you're actually ninth, Grudgy. You should spend less time worrying about my place and more time worrying about yours. You almost weren't invited at all."
Boscha seethed, but he was already walking away. "Let me know when Gemini gets here. It'd be nice to talk to someone actually interesting at this thing."
Boscha took a step toward him, but Amity's hand on her shoulder stopped the movement. "Don't let him rattle you," she said, her voice even for the most part but with an annoyed undercurrent. "He's not worth it."
"It'd feel so nice to sink my fist into his face, Amity, you have no idea." She growled, but relented, finishing signing in and walking with Amity away from the crowds. "I can't believe that guy. He's such a dou-"
"Hey, where am I supposed to put my bags? It's kinda my first time going to one of these things and I'm a little lost."
Amity stopped walking.
"You alright?" Boscha asked, following her gaze as Amity slowly turned in the direction of the voice.
"Oh, thank you so much, I love your hair too."
There, standing at the sign-in desk was a figure Amity had never seen before in her life. Normally, this wouldn't have been an issue; she passed people she'd never met on the street every day, and lanky hispanics who tucked razor straight dark brown hair into beanies weren't odd enough to take any particular notice. Except Amity knew, immediately, who this person was as soon as she opened her mouth. Because even though she had never laid eyes on her, she had heard her.
She'd listened to that voice on the entire plane ride over.
Boscha squinted in her direction. "Is that...?"
"Yep," Amity confirmed.
"My name? Do you want my real, or...? Oh, well in that case:" The girl grinned, that same wide smile Amity had imagined so often through her voice. "I'm Gemini505."
Boscha whistled. "She's cute."
Amity gave her a sidelong glance. "She's insane."
"She's a streamer, Ames." Boscha gave her a nudge, turning around to continue their progress to the VIP section. "We're all insane."
Amity's gaze lingered on Gemini for just a moment longer. Then she turned to go.
Even if her parents didn't recognize it, Amity's streaming career was important to her, and an event like this was undeniably important to that career.
This wasn't the week to mess around.
A tentative finger tapped on her shoulder, and Amity already knew who it was before she turned around. "Hey, you're Otabin, right?"
Amity eyed her, warily. "Yes."
"I'm Luz." She held out her hand to shake. "It's nice to meet you."
No distractions.
This wasn't the week for distract-
"Amity." She took the hand.
Okay, one distraction.
There probably wasn’t any harm in one.