Freeze Frame

Bonus!

This does NOT effect the story. soggy_pizza wanted me to do the One-Shot where Lillian is a PC gamer for her winning prize! She is the amazing creator of the current cover art. I love it so much; it's literally so cute.

This would really by better as like an entire book not gonna lie

Also uh,,, I kept writing "ShadowBat" instead of "SnakeBat" so if you see that, I'm sorry-

Third person pov

Books are an escape, but many people don't realize that video games are too.

Lillian has been an avid PC gamer for three years now. She's good at the games she frequents, most of which are first person shooters. She's not a violent person at heart, but dominating the competition online is something she's always been able to enjoy. Online, she's confident. She knows her skill-set, what she can and can't do, and she works with it. She's not the best gamer in the world, nor does she know every aching detail of the games she likes to play. She's decent and knowledgeable enough to be considered a "real gamer." 

It's not something she's embarrassed of, but she also doesn't typically tell people about it. Her virtual life and real life are two things that have always been separate. For as long as she's been playing games, she's kept it a relative secret. Her not-parents knew she played, but they didn't really know what. She had backpack charms from some of her favorite games, but nobody ever asked. It wasn't something she hid, but it wasn't something she shared either.

But now she was living with Hitoshi and Todoroki, and she didn't have the privacy of her own room anymore. That wasn't particularly an issue in her mind. She got her PC, and she set it up with ease. They didn't comment on it, and she didn't try to let them know. She simply plugged it all in and sat herself down.

Sometimes they'd peek at the game she was playing, only to wince when made a head shot. She had a headset that glowed blue, but they never asked who she was talking to. That was one thing she was a little hesitant to tell them about. She wasn't a social person to begin with, so hearing her shrieking demands at someone in a panic as she co-oped on PugG might have been a shock. Her groans as they braved Far Cry 4. Her cheers as they played through Portal together. It was honestly a little odd that they didn't ask questions.

Truth be told, she had an internet friend. She didn't really know his name, and he didn't really know hers. He called her by her username, "SnakeBat", and she called him by his, "DustBowl".  

She'd known him for about two and a half years. After getting randomly paired in the beta of a multiplayer game, they quickly realized that they made for a good team. So she'd sent him a friend request despite having no friends on Steam, and he'd accepted. And that was it. End of the story. Whenever she played a multiplayer game of any sort, it was always with him. Seldom was he never available. He was definitely older than her if his voice was anything to go off of, and was probably the type that lived online. She didn't mind.

They were good friends. Though they didn't know one another names, they still managed to learn a lot about each other. She knew DustBowl had a job. One he was constantly complaining about and questioning. He never said just what it was, but it sounded rather shady from what she could tell. He also seemed to hate heroes, but had openly admitted that Present Mic wasn't the worst when Lillian had almost started to cry at some point.

In contrast, Lillian told him about her anxiety and about the fact that she'd been kidnapped. He wasn't the best at consoling or understanding emotions, but he'd gotten mad on her behalf, and that was enough. Hearing him devolve into a pissed off rant told her he cared, and had turned her down mood into a brighter one. DustBowl was a good friend, whoever he was. She was glad to have someone online to talk to!