Friday, April 3, 2002 — ZAGE Tower
It was already around 19:15 inside ZAGE Tower.
Friday evening.
The weekend was practically here, most development teams had already begun winding down for the day, and perhaps most importantly, everyone inside ZAGE knew one very useful piece of information.
Zaboru Renkonan was currently in the United States.
He had gone to ZAGE Campus in America for business, which meant there was almost no chance of him randomly appearing behind somebody while they were doing something they definitely weren't supposed to be doing.
For four particular employees, that could mean only one thing.
Gaming Night.
The legendary—or infamous, depending on which ZAGE employee was asked—Bakudan Boys had once again taken over one of the company's gaming rooms.
Every major floor inside ZAGE Tower had recreational spaces where developers could test games, relax during breaks, play multiplayer titles, or simply clear their heads after spending hours staring at code. Technically, employees were absolutely allowed to use them after work.
The Bakudan Boys simply had a tendency to treat one particular room as though their names were written on the deed.
Four large displays were currently active.
Four ZEPS 4 consoles were running.
And Sakaki, Sawada, Kumogi and Rikki had shamelessly logged into their personal ZAGE Network accounts instead of using internal testing profiles.
Sawada adjusted his glasses and stared at the game selection screen. "All right. Before you idiots start fighting, decide. Sengoku Basara or Gotcha Force?"
Sakaki immediately leaned back on the sofa. "That's literally what I was about to ask. Basara or Gotcha Force?"
"Gotcha Force," Kumogi answered without hesitation. The tall man grinned while stretching his shoulders. "I'll play Basara tomorrow. Hideyoshi still needs levels."
Rikki slowly turned toward him.
"Of course."
Kumogi frowned. "What?"
"Only a giant bastard like you would pick Toyotomi Hideyoshi as your main."
"What the hell is wrong with Hideyoshi?"
Rikki raised one hand dramatically. "Nothing. Nothing at all. You two simply understand each other. Large. Loud. Built like gorillas."
Kumogi's eyebrows twitched.
Sakaki immediately laughed.
Sawada sighed because the evening had been going for approximately three minutes and already looked doomed.
Rikki, meanwhile, nodded proudly toward his own screen. "Unlike you, I choose characters based on elegance and refined taste."
Sakaki squinted at him. "You?"
"Yes."
"You?"
"Yes, bastard."
Kumogi crossed his arms. "Who are your mains, then?"
Rikki cleared his throat.
"Oichi. Kasuga. Matsu. Nohime."
There was silence.
Rikki nodded sagely. "My four wives."
Kumogi stared at him.
Sawada stopped navigating the menu.
Sakaki slowly turned his head.
Then Kumogi pointed directly at Rikki. "You fucking idiot. Oichi is Nagamasa Azai's wife."
Rikki blinked.
"Matsu is Maeda Toshiie's wife."
Rikki's confidence weakened slightly.
"Nohime is Oda Nobunaga's wife."
Rikki said nothing.
"And Kasuga spends half her existence staring at Uesugi Kenshin like she's going to melt."
Sakaki immediately started laughing.
Kumogi leaned closer. "So let me understand this properly. You don't have four wives. You are just some perverted bastard collecting other people's women."
Rikki's forehead visibly bulged.
"TAKE THAT BACK, YOU TALL BASTARD!"
Sakaki nearly fell sideways laughing.
"I don't love people's wives!" Rikki protested. "I love beautiful women equally! Their marital status has nothing to do with my appreciation!"
Sawada slowly removed his glasses.
He cleaned them against his shirt.
Put them back on.
Then looked at Rikki.
"That explanation somehow made it worse."
"It was supposed to defend me!"
"It failed."
Sakaki pointed toward Rikki. "Imagine security walking past the door right now and only hearing, 'I love beautiful women equally regardless of marital status.'"
Rikki immediately looked toward the entrance.
"Wait. Is anyone there?"
Kumogi laughed. "Coward."
"I'm not a coward! I just don't want HR hearing selective parts of conversations!"
Sawada rubbed his temple. "Then maybe stop producing sentences HR can use against you."
Sakaki sighed dramatically. "Seriously, at least pretend to be decent. We've already been caught doing stupid shit by Boss multiple times."
The four men paused.
Then Sakaki looked around the room.
"But Boss is in America right now, isn't he?"
Sawada nodded slowly. "As far as I know."
Kumogi grinned.
Rikki relaxed immediately.
"Then we're safe."
Sawada stared at him. "That sentence alone makes me feel like something terrible is going to happen."
"Don't curse us."
Kumogi turned back toward the game. "Anyway, we're playing Gotcha Force. I want revenge after yesterday."
Rikki immediately groaned.
"Oh, come on. We're still talking about that?"
"Yes."
"It was one mistake!"
"One mistake that lost the entire match."
Rikki pointed at him. "Okay, okay! Yesterday was my fault. I got greedy."
Sakaki snorted. "Got greedy? You flew directly into three enemy Borgs."
"I thought I could kill their Sniper."
"You died in four seconds."
"Because Yellow Flash is fragile!"
Sawada calmly corrected him. "Because you ignored me when I said their Tank was protecting the Sniper."
Rikki pointed toward his screen defensively. "Listen. Yellow Flash Ninja Borg is one of the coolest Borgs in the game. She's fast, her movement effects look incredible, and when she starts chaining attacks she looks badass as hell. I saw an opportunity."
Kumogi folded his arms. "You saw shiny effects and your brain stopped functioning."
"Shut up."
"And then you died."
"I KNOW!"
Kumogi grinned.
Rikki immediately retaliated. "Like your Megatron gameplay was any better, tall bastard. Did your cannon hit anybody yesterday?"
Kumogi froze.
Sakaki covered his mouth.
Sawada looked away.
Rikki's grin became vicious.
"Yeah. That's what I thought."
"I hit people."
"Walls are not people."
"I HIT THE ENEMY!"
"Eventually."
Kumogi pointed toward him. "At least I didn't dive alone!"
"No, you just played a ranged Borg and somehow spent half the match trying to melee people!"
"Megatron can fight up close!"
"You can't!"
Sakaki finally slapped his knee. "Okay, that's actually true."
Kumogi turned toward him. "Why are you joining him!?"
"Because I watched you yesterday! Your aim was ass!"
Kumogi's expression darkened. "And your Toad Ninja was useful?"
Sakaki immediately sat straighter.
"What the hell did you just say?"
"Your Toad Ninja."
"What about him?"
"He sucks."
Sakaki looked personally wounded.
"You take that back."
"He summons frogs randomly."
"They're tactical frogs!"
Rikki immediately burst out laughing.
Kumogi stared. "Tactical frogs?"
"Yes!"
Sawada lowered his head.
Sakaki pointed aggressively toward the others. "Toad Ninja is good! He's fast, his projectiles are annoying, and the summoned frogs disrupt enemies."
Kumogi snorted. "You summoned one yesterday behind our own spawn."
"That was positioning."
"That was an accident."
"You don't understand advanced tactics."
Rikki leaned toward Sawada. "Sawada, please confirm whether summoning a frog where nobody is fighting counts as advanced tactics."
Sawada remained silent for several seconds.
"No."
"BETRAYAL!"
Despite all the arguing, none of them actually sounded angry.
This was simply how the Bakudan Boys communicated.
They had been insulting each other over videogames since long before any of them worked inside ZAGE Tower, and becoming professional developers had done absolutely nothing to make them more mature.
If anything, access to better games had simply given them more things to argue about.
And Gotcha Force was particularly dangerous for their friendship.
The single-player game itself already had plenty of depth. Players controlled their own Gotcha Force, constructing a squad from collected Gotcha Borgs while staying within the available GF Energy limit. Cheap Borgs allowed a player to field larger teams, while powerful Borgs consumed far more energy and forced the squad to rely on fewer units.
There was no universally correct composition.
A player could fill a force with numerous weaker Borgs and rely on numbers.
Or build around a handful of expensive monsters capable of dominating individual engagements.
Or create something balanced between the two.
The Borg roster itself was enormous.
Internally, ZAGE broadly organized combat roles into four easy categories: Melee Attackers, Ranged Attackers, Tanks, and Supports, but those labels barely explained the actual variety.
Some melee Borgs were slow monsters capable of smashing through opponents with only a few attacks.
Others were fragile speed specialists.
Some ranged units behaved like snipers.
Others fired missiles, beams, machine guns, bombs, or strange projectiles.
Tanks could mean literal armored vehicles, giant defensive robots, heavy shield units or crossover Borgs that happened to function well at absorbing punishment.
Support Borgs were even stranger.
Healing.
Shield generation.
Buffs.
Debuffs.
Recon.
Disruption.
Special summons.
ZAGE had also expanded the roster far beyond what Zaboru remembered from his previous life, especially after realizing how naturally the game could support crossover units from properties ZAGE already controlled or collaborated with.
Which was how Kumogi had somehow become obsessed with Megatron.
And why Sawada had spent most of the previous evening preventing the other three idiots from dying with White Doctor, a support Borg capable of healing allies, projecting temporary defensive shields and occasionally providing surprisingly effective ranged fire.
Sawada had discovered something important very quickly.
White Doctor was excellent.
His teammates were not.
The multiplayer modes made that problem even more obvious.
ZAGE hadn't simply added conventional versus battles. Gotcha Force offered one-versus-one fights, free-for-all modes, randomized Borg battles, cooperative objectives, unusual rule sets and several online formats built specifically around team composition.
The mode the Bakudan Boys had recently become addicted to was Captain Mode.
One player became the team's Captain.
The Captain didn't merely fight.
He also had final authority over the broader force composition, allowing the team to organize their Borg choices around an actual strategy instead of four people independently selecting whatever looked coolest.
At least, that was the theory.
In practice, Sawada had been elected Captain because he was the only person among them capable of thinking farther than thirty seconds ahead.
And even then nobody listened to him.
Online battles were fundamentally different from the single-player structure too. Instead of Borgs entering combat one by one while defeated units were replaced sequentially, multiplayer allowed all human-controlled Borgs to participate simultaneously across much larger stages.
The result felt almost like an early action-based MOBA-style team battle, although nobody inside ZAGE seriously called it that yet.
Players could split lanes through large environments.
Ambush enemies.
Protect ranged units.
Rotate between objectives.
Control important positions.
Coordinate special attacks.
Or, if they were the Bakudan Boys, ignore all of that and scream at each other.
Sawada finally opened the Captain interface.
"All right."
The other three slowly became quiet.
That alone was impressive.
Sawada studied the available composition slots. "This time, we're actually going to think about our team."
Rikki immediately groaned.
"No."
Sawada looked toward him.
"What do you mean, no?"
"I'm using Yellow Flash."
"I haven't even said anything yet."
"I'm preventing discrimination before it begins."
Sawada stared at him.
Kumogi grinned. "And I'm using Megatron."
Sawada closed his eyes.
Sakaki raised one hand. "Toad Ninja."
Sawada opened his eyes again.
He looked at all three.
"So nothing changed."
Sakaki shrugged. "Why change perfection?"
"You lost yesterday."
"Minor detail."
Sawada sighed. "Listen. We shouldn't spam fast units again. If the enemy has strong area control or a proper Tank, we're going to have exactly the same problem."
Rikki crossed his arms. "Yellow Flash can flank."
"Yes. If you actually flank. Yesterday you flew directly through the center of the map."
"I was creating pressure."
"You exploded."
"Pressure was created."
Kumogi laughed.
Sawada pointed toward Kumogi. "You don't laugh. Megatron works fine, but stay behind the frontline when you're using ranged attacks."
Kumogi frowned. "But his melee is cool."
"I know."
"He has that big swing—"
"I know."
"And if I transform—"
"Kumogi."
The tall man stopped.
Sawada adjusted his glasses.
"You can't aim."
Sakaki and Rikki instantly burst out laughing.
Kumogi's face went blank.
Then slowly offended.
"Damn, Sawada."
Sawada continued navigating the menu as though nothing had happened.
"I'm saying use the tools you're actually good with."
"That hurt more because you said it calmly."
"Good."
Sakaki pointed toward Sawada. "Holy shit. He finally attacked."
Rikki nodded solemnly. "Critical hit."
Kumogi muttered something under his breath.
Sawada ignored him.
"And Sakaki."
"What?"
"Stop summoning frogs without looking at where everyone is."
"They're tactical."
"They become tactical when they're near enemies."
Sakaki scratched his chin.
"…Reasonable."
Sawada finally looked at Rikki.
Rikki immediately raised both hands.
"What?"
"If I say retreat—"
"I retreat."
Sawada stared.
Rikki nodded.
"Immediately."
Sawada kept staring.
"…Eventually."
Sawada sighed.
"That's what I thought."
Sakaki leaned closer toward Sawada's display. "So you're using White Doctor again?"
"Yes."
Sakaki immediately nodded. "Good. White Doctor is actually damn useful. Keep that one."
Sawada turned toward him slowly.
"Thank you for approving my decision, Sakaki."
"You're welcome."
"I wasn't asking."
"Oh."
Rikki laughed.
Sawada selected White Doctor anyway. He genuinely enjoyed the Borg. It rewarded patience, positioning and awareness—three things the other Bakudan Boys apparently considered optional game mechanics. Its shields could save teammates from burst damage, its healing kept expensive Borgs alive longer, and its long-range weapon allowed Sawada to contribute without abandoning support positioning.
If the others listened to him, the team could actually be very strong.
That was a large if.
Sawada sent party invitations.
One after another, their names appeared.
Sawada stared at the four-player lobby.
"All right. Last request."
Nobody answered.
"Please look at the enemy composition before rushing into them."
Rikki selected Yellow Flash.
"No promises."
Sawada sighed.
Kumogi locked Megatron.
"Hehehe."
Sawada's eyebrow twitched.
Sakaki selected Toad Ninja.
"Don't worry, Sawada."
Sawada looked toward him hopefully.
Sakaki gave him a thumbs-up.
"My frogs will protect you."
Sawada's hope disappeared instantly.
Rikki laughed so hard he nearly dropped his controller.
Sawada finally leaned back and pressed QUEUE.
"At least we're having fun."
That was ultimately why he kept playing with them.
The matchmaking screen began searching.
SEARCHING FOR OPPONENTS...
Somewhere inside ZAGE's internal security system, another piece of Bakudan Boys history was being preserved without their knowledge.
For now, however, none of that mattered.
The matchmaking tone suddenly sounded.
MATCH FOUND.
All four immediately sat forward.
Sawada gripped his controller.
"Okay, idiots. Please listen to me this time."
Sakaki grinned.
"No."
Kumogi laughed.
Rikki cracked his fingers.
"Let's cook."
Sawada sighed one final time as the loading screen appeared.
The Bakudan Boys were going to war.
To be continued.
Please give me your power stone and if you want to support me and get minimum 50+ advance chapter and additional 1 chapter a week for 4$ considering subscribe to my patreon patreon.com/Zaborn_1997
Or buymecoffee https://buymeacoffee.com/Zaborn_1997 which same with patreon
current Patreon/buymecoffe chap 1482