Gavin shakily turned around and saw the monster that made the horrifying roar.
It looked less scary than its roar gave the impression. It seems to walk on all fours, back legs hoofs, while the front were hand like with 3 fingers. It looked furry, its neck having the most. It's head was deer shaped, with two sets of horns, ones that curled next to the creatures head, overlapping the other set that were just pointed up. It's eyes were bright blue, without a pupil yet Gavin knew it was looking right at him and this little creature.
It gave a low growl before standing up on two legs and swinging its arm back, ready to whack the two that in it's large shadow. Gavin curled over the hurt creature as he wouldn't have the strength to pick it up, waiting for the pain to come, yet it never seemed to.
Instead, he heard a loud thump and looked to his left to see the creature's hand on the floor, pixelating and disappearing not seconds later. The creature let out a loud cry as it took a few steps back, putting its other hand on the floor to balance itself. Gavin looked behind him to see Michael in a battle stance, one of his two swords clutched tightly.
Michael looked back at Gavin with a scowl "you idiot! Why didn't you run!?"
"I- Michael!" Gavin yelled but Michael didn't react fast enough and the beast hit him, knocking him a few feet across the field. Gavin watched in horror as Michael's body seemed to bounce limply across the grass before coming to a stop, his body seemed to not be moving, though Michael was barely visible with the distance.
Gavin looked back up at the creature, getting a look at it's level, shocked to find it being almost level 50, while Gavin still sat at 10. What confused Gavin more was the fact that monsters at this level weren't supposed to spawn in this field, it was only field 2. However, thinking back, he did read something about really rare spawns of monsters twice the level of the regular spawns. He never understood why they even thought to put that mechanic into the game, but they said something about being more challenging, or good experience for impatient players.
The beast drew it's arm back, ready to hit Gavin again, while Gavin just stayed hovering over the little creature to protect it. With eyes shut tight he ducked down when it swung its arm at him, getting a good hit at Gavin's back, three gashes bleeding through Gavin's now ripped clothing. He bit back a scream from the pain, rather thankful the game has a pain dulling setting which Gavin of course set as low as possible, though it didn't seem to completely rid him of the burning sensation in his back.
Gavin heard the creature move, guessing it was getting ready to swipe again, but instead he heard gun shots, followed by a pain filled roar from the beast. Gav looked behind him to see Ryan standing in front of him, his hands glowing with blue mist as he readied an attack. Geoff standing behind the beast, gun pointing towards it while Ray ran over to check on Michael who hadn't dissipated into pixels, which in the game mean't you died and were forced back into the real world.
Gavin felt a hand on his shoulder as he looked to his left to see Jack with a health potion in hand, which Gavin took and drank half, restoring his health to full and healing the wounds and his shirt completely. He looked down, going to give the creature under him the rest, but was surprised to find that it shrunk to the size of a small cat.
Gavin's attention was drawn back to the creature as he heard it roar loudly, and fall to the ground with a loud thud before disappearing.
Once Gav sat up, he could finally take a look at the little creature properly. It was a light blue color, covered in fur. It did resemble a cat, with dark blue spots like a cheetah, a stripe of the same color down its back, leading to the middle of it's tail, stripes covering the rest. It's legs and neck were not covered in spots, but changed into stripes, like a tiger, with the tip of its paws, and belly being a lighter blue than the rest. It's face had the detail similar to a pharaoh with black lining around its eyes, going down to its nose, with dark and light blue curved stripes making a pretty pattern. Finally, it's ears were large, its left ear having a large golden ring piercing, and its eyes a shimmering sky blue color.
Gavin seemed to just fall in love with it, maybe because it was a cat, but it was really beautiful. Gavin snapped out of his trance state to give the rest of the health potion to the little cat like creature, watching as it sprung to life seconds after finishing the potion. He couldn't help but chuckle as the cat looked at him with a smile on its face, tail swishing back and forth like a dog.
"Thank you for saving me" it said, surprising Gavin with a high pitched, yet smooth girl voice. "As thanks, if you'll have me, I'd like to join you." A blue transparent screen popped up in Gavin's face, asking if he would take this unnamed companion, giving yes or no as the answers he could give. Gavin didn't see why not, in fact from all the researching, he never even heard of companions being added into the game, though it was a nice surprise. So Gavin hovered his finger over yes before pressing it lightly against the screen, the pop up going away and the little cat now having new features in Gavin's vision.
It had a normal green health bar, a blue experience bar, and a level, all this under Gavin's own information in the top left corner, however it said Unnamed. He opened up his menu, quickly finding the companion section and got to name it, so he named it Chip, happy to see the white words change from Unnamed to Chip.
Coughing behind him brought him back to the fact he had the rest of the guys waiting for him, when he looked behind him, they all stood in a line waiting for Gavin to finish, Michael seeming most impatient, and healed after the encounter. Gav gave a wide smile before standing, Chip jumping up and curling around his shoulders.
---
When they got to the next village, the group bought an inn room, annoyed to find there was only one room left, with just two beds. So once they piled into the thankfully decent sized room and sorted out who was sleeping where. The beds were big enough to fit at least two on each, but they could cram in three. So Michael, Ray and Gavin slept on the bed on the right side of the room, while Jack, Ryan and Geoff slept on the left bed. Chip found a cozy spot on the carpeted floor under the right bed, while the three oldest squished themselves into the bed, Michael and Ray getting in first while Gavin just waited.
As he looked over at the gents he noticed how close they seemed, and didn't look uncomfortable. Ryan had Geoff's back against his chest in a hug, while Jack was facing Geoff and seemed to cuddle into the mans chest. Gavin started to wonder if they knew each other outside of the game, and if so, was their relationship more than just friends? From the looks of it, Gavin might be right. He looked over at the two lads who were hugging and cuddled up close together, leaving enough room for Gavin to climb in, though he just continued to stand and stare.
Gay never bothered him, he has confused his sexuality so many times, and he still wasn't sure whether or not he was straight, gay or even bi. Seeing these random players cuddle up so closely though seemed to make Gavin's heart beat faster, his stomach tingling and his face even going red. He felt the urge to just crawl into the bed with Michael and Ray and just hug Michael as close as possible, though he dismissed that thought since he didn't even know the lad personally, it would just end up weird.
Instead, he calmed himself, and his thoughts and climbed into the bed, facing away from the hugging lads with his back barely touching Michael's as he lay as close to the edge of the best as possible.
As his eyes closed, small white text in the middle of his vision read 'game saved' before Gavin fell asleep and woke up in the real world again.
He took the helmet off and set it aside, sitting up with his legs thrown over the side of the bed. He just stared at the floor, thinking about what has just happened, what he was just thinking and feeling. He did admit to himself he never really found girls that attractive, he could admire their beauty, but never desired to get into a relationship, which was probably why he never had one. Though he never seemed to dwell on the thought, almost seemingly trying to force himself to believe he just hasn't 'found the right girl yet.' However, now he wasn't so sure about that, he was getting all flustered thinking about if he had cuddled up to the two before, his face getting red and rather hot at just the mere image in his head.
With a heavy sigh, he once again dismissed the thought, he wasn't sure why he didn't want to admit to himself he was gay, even though subconsciously he knew it. Though his parents were always rather religious, he had been taught that being gay was a sin, and that he can't be gay or he will go to hell. Though Gavin never believed in that sorta stuff, it seemed to have imprinted into his mind as he continued to tell himself he wasn't gay.
With a small shake of his head, Gavin slumped back down onto the bed. It was late, he thought just sleeping it off would work, so after putting the helmet back on his computer desk, he found comfort in his bed and slowly drifted into a deep sleep.
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Im bak and publishing here again :D
The full story is still published on my ArchiveOfOurOwn account if you do not want to wait for it here (link in my profile bio) but I will still finish this story here ^^