Author's Note
Before we begin this story, I want to make this perfectly clear. This is NOT an hate story on Overwatch or Paladins in any way, shape, or form. If you like Overwatch, then that's fine. More power to you for liking it. I'm not going to be the one that makes you change your mind. The same can be said if you're a Paladins fan.
I just wanted to make this story after reading Sunset Shimmer: Filthy Hanzo Main, which, by the way, if you haven't read that story, go and treat yourself. It is one funny little story in which Rainbow complains that Sunset is a Hanzo main and a pretty good one at that.
But regardless, I hope that you enjoy the story for what it is and I'll be seeing you all later!
But it isn't! Honest!
"So, Sunset? What game have you got for us tonight?" Rainbow Dash rubbed the palms of her hands together as she sat down with her legs crossed and picked up her custom PS4 controller with her own custom pain and decals. It was the last Friday of the month, and that meant that it was time for Rainbow Dash and Sunset to have their monthly Game Night. "You got the new update for Overwatch yet? We could do a bit of Uprising if you want."
"Thanks for the offer, Rainbow, but I've got a bit of a different game lined up for tonight." Sunset turned on her PS4 and activated her controller. "I recently downloaded this game from the Playstation Store when the beta opened up for everyone. When Pinkie Pie sent me a referral and said that we could both get rewarded for playing it, I decided to check it out for myself."
"Oh. It's a new game?" Rainbow watched as the health and safety notice for playing video games appeared on the television screen.
"Yeah. It's made by the people from Hi-Rez Studios." Sunset nodded and readied herself to navigate through the console's main menu. "I'm sure that you remember them, right?"
"Oh, yeah. They're the same guys who made Smite, right?" Rainbow cracked a small smile. "I can still remember the day that Button Mash came into the school and chopped his controller in half because he'd lost three ranked games in a row. He said something about five-banging and that he was done with the franchise before storming off to class."
"Oh yeah. I remember that." Sunset watched as the screen flared to life and showed off a number of different options. "But no. It's not Smite. I'm not gonna touch a game like that if it's gonna make people get angry. I don't want our friendship ruined because of some petty arguments about a video game."
"So, what game is it?" Rainbow Dash asked.
"It's a game called Paladins: Champions of the Realm." Sunset flipped towards the option and watched as the game began to load, showing off the different companies that lended their hands in creating the game. "You take control of handful of champions and fight it out in fantasy lands," as she began to describe it, the screen showed the notice that the game was in beta and that some functions wouldn't fully work or crash outright. "I played a few casual games, and I'm pretty good at it."
"So is it a MOBA?" Rainbow Dash watched as the game's main menu music began to play and the log-in prompt appeared on the screen, along with the game's logo and a backdrop of a forest with a waterfall in the background. "I'm game for a MOBA if it is."
"Kinda." Sunset logged in and tapped on the button to search for a casual game. "You'll get the general gist of it once we get into it."
After waiting for a game to be ready, a bar appeared on the screen with ten diamonds. When Sunset pushed the X button on her controller, she watched as one of the diamonds began to fill in. Others popped up almost instantly as the bar beneath it began to shrink towards the other side of the screen.
"Choose your champion." The game's announcer spoke calmly as a number of different portraits appeared around the screen.
"Whoa. They've got a dragon!" Rainbow Dash was quick to jab her finger towards the screen at one of the game's portraits. "You've gotta go with him. You'd look so awesome!"
"Oh, him? His name's Drogoz." Sunset tapped on the portrait and Drogoz said his name as he appeared on the screen. "He's a dragon with a jetpack and a rocket launcher. Kinda like Pharah from Overwatch in a way."
When Sunset locked Drogoz in, she saw a string of other squares appear at the bottom. She used them to customise Drogoz and change wht armour he wore, what sprays he would leave on the battlefield, and even what horse that he would be riding into battle. As soon as she did that, the other portraits began to fill in with other characters.
"So, what was the point of that whole customisation screen before the game?" Rainbow shrugged at Sunset. "It kinda seems weird as you're about to go straight into a battle."
"You never know, Rainbow Dash. Some people might want to swap out their skins at the last minute." Sunset just gave a normal smile as she watched the picture change to show the name of the map they would be battling on. It was titled Frozen Guard and show cased a massive snow structure with three visible points of entry—with many more waiting for the both of them.
"Alright. Before the game begins, let's see who we're dealing with here..." Sunset looked towards the left side of the screen, which showed her PSN profile; ShimmerSun98, along with Drogoz next to her. She saw four other usernames beneath them and their own different characters. "We've got a Viktor, Ruckus, Pip, and Maeve on our team. Decent enough, but let's see how they actually play."
"So, like, what are these characters?" Rainbow leaned in towards the TV and examined the portraits of a goblin and something that resembled Rocket from Guardians of the Galaxy if he had blonde fur. "Why do we have a squirrel and a goblin on our team?"
"The goblin's called Ruckus," Sunset began to explain. "He's a Front Line character, so his job is to soak up the most damage while the team takes care of the enemies." She tapped on Pip's icon. "And this little guy here is Pip. He's a Support, so he's good for healing allies and causing status effects on the enemy team."
Before Sunset could even point out the enemy portraits, the game started, with Drogoz and the rest of the champions in an icy bunker. Wooden walls stood behind them while the rest of the area was coated with ice and snow. The two ways out had two walls of light blocking the characters off from leaving.
"Alright. Now as the game begins, we've gotta get our cards ready." Sunset watched as the screen showed three large golden symbols with a description of what each one did beneath it.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa." Rainbow pushed her hands out in front of her. "Those aren't cards, Sunset. If anything, they look more like medals if you ask me."
"Well, these are my Legendary cards." Sunset flicked to the one that read W.Y.R.M. Jets and selected it. "You're only allowed to have one Legendary card in each game and it can't be swapped out once you choose it. I'm going with W.Y.R.M. Jets because I want Drogoz to gain a mobility advantage over the other characters."
"Sounds right." Rainbow Dash put her hands behind her head and watched as Sunset chose her hand of five regular cards. "Whenever I play Pharah in Overwatch, I'm always trying to find new ways for her to move faster than the others. Especially Roadhog. If I can outrun that fat asshole, then he's not a problem anymore."
"Speaking of more movement, I'm just gonna buy this real quick." Sunset pressed the circle button on her controller, which opened up a small shop with sixteen different pictures, four for each category. She chose the yellow picture which showed a sandal running forward. "I'm gonna buy the first tier of Nimble before the game starts. Don't want Drogoz to feel like he's vulnerable up in the air."
"Huh?" Rainbow tilted her head as she looked at the different pictures. "What're these, Sunset?"
"Oh, these are new for Paladins." Sunset pointed out the pictures. "As you play the game, you earn in-match credits that you can use to purchase and upgrade extra perks for your champion. Whether you want to be faster, have shorter cooldowns on your ability and Ult, or even move and reload faster as a whole, this shop has you covered."
"Kinda seems like Overwatch in a way." Rainbow kicked up her feet as Sunset came out of the shop. "Just saying."
"You'd think it's an Overwatch rip-off, but really, it's not." Sunset tightened her grip on the controller and watched as the countdown above her head made it down to the number ten.
"Well, already, you've got Pharah as a dragon, so it doesn't really seem like much of a change." Rainbow pointed out the rocket launcher on Sunset's champion's POV and the fuel counter that appeared as she tested out her jetpack thrusters.
"It's not a rip-off, Rainbow Dash." Sunset watched as the countdown went from five to one. As soon as the announcer hit two, all of the champions were riding on horses—even Ruckus, who was a tiny goblin in a mechsuit that must have weighed a few dozen tonnes to Rainbow and Sunset.
"Why does the mechsuit need a horse?" Rainbow cocked an eyebrow as the characters all charged out of the bunker and burst out onto the snowy terrain of the map. "Can't it fly like D'va's suit can?"
"It has a thrust jump, but Bolt can't actually fly." Sunset pushed her character towards the building shown off in the preview of the map, which showed the entire enemy team approach it from the other side.
"Bolt?" asked Rainbow.
"Bolt is the name Ruckus's mechsuit. Think Jarvis from Iron Man in a way but he and Ruckus never get along." Sunset tapped the R2 button, causing Drogoz to dismount from his horse. "Anyway, I think it's time to fly." She moved towards the capture point and tapped R1, causing Drogoz to shoot high into the air, straight through the open hole on the roof.
"Yeah, that's totally original." Rainbow crossed her arms as she watched Sunset hold her position in the air and pepper the other enemy players with her rockets.
"What do you mean, Rainbow Dash?" Sunset asked.
"I mean that this Drogoz guy's just a total rip-off of Pharah!" Rainbow opened the palm of her hand out towards the TV screen. "Already, we've seen him fly and use the rockets just like she does! What, is that L2 move going to knock everyone away like in Overwatch?"
"No!" Sunset swooped down and pushed the button to answer Rainbow Dash's question. A small orange bubble shot from the centre of the screen and collided with a knight in silver armour. "See? He's not a total knock-off."
"Oh, and lookie here!" Rainbow showed that very same knight bring up a massive blue shield and hold it out in front of him. "Reinhardt's in this game too! This game is an Overwatch rip-off!"
"No it's not!" Sunset begun to raise her voice. "In what world would you consider Paladins an Overwatch rip-off?!"
"Well, to start, we already have a Pharah and a Reinhardt clone." Rainbow watched as a giant turtle yanked Sunset's character out of the sky and fired a cannon ball at it that took her down to a quarter of her health, leaving her to get shot down by a girl with purple hair and long ears. "And if that's not enough, it looks like Roadhog and Sombra just double-teamed you!"
"They're not Roadhog and Sombra. Their names are Makoa and Skye." Sunset opened the death recap with a push of the up directional button on her d-pad, showing the champions who had just killed her. "Makoa's got an anchor and a giant blunderbuss, while Skye's got an infinite amount of smoke grenades and invisibility tricks."
"Yeah. Exactly. They're cheaper and less-loved versions of Roadhog and Sombra." Rainbow crossed her arms and rolled her eyes. "This is just a poor man's Overwatch."
"It's NOT OVERWATCH!" Sunset shook her head and respawned, riding her horse towards the objective once again.
"Says the girl who plays Pharah and got killed by Reinhardt and Sombra," Rainbow retorted.
"It's fine. We can still come back from this." Sunset wiped the sweat from her brow as she arrived and resumed her traditional volley of missile fire, building her Ult meter up with every hit.
"Let me guess, that russian man's Soldier 76 or some shit." Rainbow watched as Viktor fired a stream of bullets from his assault rifle towards the enemy team.
"Can Soldier 76 aim down the sights or throw grenades?" Sunset grumbled as she stuck to her own battle, activating her ability which allowed her to fire every rocket at once. She hit the knight's shield, causing it to break after all six shots landed. "Can Soldier 76 have perfect accuracy like those scrubs who play Call of Duty for a living?"
"Look, Sunset. The point is that this is an Overwatch clone, I'm right, and that you're in denial." Rainbow Dash watched Sunset as she began to sweat as she narrowly dodged a hail of weapon fire. "We could just hop on to Overwatch right now and never mention this again."
"Rainbow, I'm not playing a shitty game like Overwatch." Sunset killed a champion with a cloak, rock-coated arm, two horns poking out of his mask, and a revolver that had green energy glowing out of the sides. "We never even win in Overwatch anymore because of those disgusting team comps that people do in Quick Play."
"Shitty?" Rainbow Dash recoiled and opened her jaw wide. "In what world is a game like Overwatch shitty?"
"If you have Roadhog, Soldier 76, Mei, Reinhardt, Mercy, and Tracer, that's basically game over. Same can be said with the other different combinations of heroes." Sunset managed to take down Makoa after avoiding being hooked again. She then got shot by Skye and quickly retaliated with another orange bubble before the rest of her team finished her off. "With Overwatch, there's almost no skill involved. You get the strongest heroes, you win. There's just no stopping that."
"The heroes can be killed in Overwatch!" Rainbow chided and put her hands to her hips. "Just because Pinkie Pie loves playing as D'va, that doesn't mean that she's unstoppable!"
"D'va's just a Tracer with four times as much health and no abilities once she loses the suit." Sunset and her team managed to capture the point and cause a siege engine to appear on it. "Most of all, I mean Mei. Her and Bastion can go and die in a fire somewhere far away from me and the other Rainbooms."
"Alright, alright. I agree with you on that." Rainbow Dash raised her finger and watched Sunset and her team push the machine out of the building and towards the left as they began their warpath towards the enemy team's spawn. "But I still stand by the fact that this is just a cheaper and less enthralling version of Overwatch. Heck, the gameplay's identical! You're trying to push a payload and they're trying to stop you!"
"So? They could've captured the same point and spawned a payload to push to our spawn." At this point in the game, the Ults were beginning to come out. Sunset filled hers all the way up and flew ahead. "Actually, don't mind me. I'm just gonna take out their Fernando."
"Oh, I know where this is going..." Rainbow grumbled and watched as Sunset launched into the air. "Justice rains from above, blah di blah di blah. You know, if you're gonna have an Overwatch clone, at least make sure to give each clone the right Ults."
"Behold! THE DRAGON'S FURY!" Drogoz's voice echoed throughout the entire battlefield as he began to charge forward. Sunset moved him so that his trajectory took him directly towards the knight, who was now pushing his body against the payload. Once Drogoz collided with the knight, he immediately died and flung over the payload like a giant metal ragdoll, screaming as he met his untimely end.
"TIME'S TICKING!" Skye called out as she appeared on top of the payload with a small purple bomb ticking on top of it.
"Oh shit!" Sunset tried to fly up, but the payload continued to move towards her. She ended up having Drogoz get launched towards the side of the map, slamming face first into it as he died. "Dammit! I hate Skye's Time Bomb..."
"Sombra stole D'va's Ult?" Rainbow stared aghast at the death recap, which showed the player using Skye jump on top of the payload and drop the bomb as she turned the stealth off. "Not only is it an Overwatch rip-off, but they're getting the Ults completely wrong..."
"She's NOT. CALLED. SOMBRA." Sunset gnashed her teeth as she opened the shop menu and purchased a picture of a broken shield, along with another picture showing a woman shooting her handguns in different directions with little first-aid symbols around her. "Anyway... I'm gonna get Wrecker and Kill to Heal, because one, I'm not a fan of Fernando and Makoa's shields; and two, Kill to Heal will come in handy in the long run."
"BRINGING OUT THE BIG GUNS!" Ruckus called out as Sunset closed the menu and switched the camera to his perspective. Four more massive turrets burst out of the mechsuit which all fired towards the enemy team, making three easy kills.
"Oh, what is that?" Rainbow watched Ruckus demolish the enemy team. "Is that a cheaper and non-flying version of Pharah's Ult?"
"Rainbow Dash, if you don't like this game, you can either go downstairs to get some snacks or stay here and watch me play it." Sunset squared her shoulders. "I don't want the whole evening to boil down to you making complaints about this game and how you think it's a rip-off of a game that started off good, but then went downhill a few months after launch."
"Sunset, please just stop playing this game..." Rainbow Dash pulled out her copy of Overwatch from her backpack and set it down by the Playstation. "This is just a waste of time. I wanna play Overwatch!"
"Well, if you want to play it, then you can set it up downstairs in the living room." Sunset turned her head back towards Rainbow Dash, tightening the muscles in her forehead as she lowered her brows. "I personally like this game, and I don't want to hear you continue to bitch and whine on about it all night..."
"I'm not bitching. I'm just stating the facts." Rainbow Dash opened the box and slid the Overwatch disk into Sunset's PS4. "Overwatch is the superior product, and I wouldn't want to play this game even if I had to take it over going to Canterlot High naked!"
"Hey!" Sunset slapped Rainbow's hand away from the PS4 and took the disk out. "Don't do that, Rainbow Dash!"
"Sunset, this isn't up for some tedious debate." Rainbow put the disk back in. "We're not gonna play this crappy rip-off anymore!"
"Rainbow! I'm not gonna play some crappy game where you can't beat half of the roster!" Sunset killed Makoa once again and put the payload into the spot after her team mopped up the rest of the enemies. As the characters returned to the spawns, Sunset stood up and put the disk back into its' box and gave it back to Rainbow Dash. "Don't force me to play something that I don't want to play!"
"Sunset! You're being totally unreasonable right about now!" Rainbow roared.
"Unreasonable?! You're the one who won't get off of that shitty game and play Overwatch with me like a real gamer girl!" Rainbow threw her arms down in front of her and hunched her back.
"Rainbow! YOU are the one who's being unreasonable right about now." Sunset pushed her finger against Rainbow's body, mimicking the actions of stabbing her in the heart. "You're trying to make me stop playing a game that I really love just because you want to play Overwatch; a game that I don't like anymore because of the horrible fanbase, angry and try-hard children who won't accept losing for an answer, and for a game that just isn't fun anymore!"
"Oh yeah?! Well, I..." Rainbow Dash spluttered on her own words as she tried to find a response.
"Rainbow, just go home." Sunset took a deep breath and went back to her game, picking up her controller as she purchased her last trait and upgraded the ones she already had. "I don't want our friendship to end like this. Let's just try doing this again next month." She gathered her gear and darted out of the base towards the capture point once again. "Whether you like Overwatch more than this is your opinion, but please don't call it a rip-off when there are a lot of substantial differences made to it. You might hate this game or love it. I couldn't really care either way. But you should know that what you tried doing tonight was not on at all." She eliminated the masked man with the glowing revolver once again. "If you're going to be an Overwatch fangirl, you need to respect other people's decisions. Not everyone likes what you like. That's no reason to force others to play the games that you want—especially when those other people actually despise what you like. Now if you'll excuse me, there's a Bomb King starting to gain the advantage over my team." She turned her gaze back to the game.
Rainbow tried to think of something to say back to Sunset, but she knew that deep down in her heart, there was no response that was going to topple a speech like that. Defeated, she simply hung her head and threw herself onto the bed, lying down as she watched Sunset continue to massacre the enemy players.
Sunset Shimmer's anger quelled once she and her team reclaimed the siege engine and once again began to move it down to the payload. The score was now three to nothing, and if they were able to push it in, then they would win the game. As much as she was having fun in playing it and annihilating the other team, she couldn't help but think that she was playing on her own; as if Rainbow Dash hadn't even come over in the first place. In between deaths, she looked back at Rainbow, who just whipped out her phone and flicked through notifications from the other Rainbooms. Sunset respawned once again and outmanoeuvred the others, allowing her team to push the payload while the team focused their attention on her and her alone. Once the game came to an end and the top play video began to show, Sunset put her controller down and walked towards Rainbow.
"Hey. Rainbow?" Sunset reached out for her, but got her hand pushed away.
"I know, I know," Rainbow Dash's voice seemed irritated. "You think that I'm a bitch of a friend and one who shouldn't be allowed to play the fun games."
"Rainbow. You know that's not true in the slightest." Sunset sat down beside Rainbow Dash. "You're just a little bit upset because you didn't want to do the stuff that you like."
"That's the understatement of the millennium," she remarked.
"Look, Rainbow Dash. I want both of us to have fun tonight. But if you're just going to sulk like this for the entire evening, then it makes me look like a terrible friend just as much as you seem right now." She watched the MVPs appear on the screen as her EXP and character EXP was tallied up. "I'm not going to force you out, but at the same time, I don't want to be made to play your stuff either. We can find something else to play if you want, but I'm not gonna let our Game Night end like this."
Rainbow looked down at her controller for a while and felt a weird sensation in her chest. Slowly, she stood up and walked over towards the controller and picked it up. She used her other hand to take Sunset's PS4 controller and bring it back to her, giving her a small smile as she looked down at her.
"Rainbow?" Sunset looked up at her.
"Alright, alright. I totally admit that I was a dick tonight." Rainbow tossed the controller into Sunset's hands. "I'm one of the Rainbooms and here I am, fighting over a stupid video game. We've had much more heated arguments than this, and this one nearly tore the two of us apart!"
"What are you saying?" Sunset saw Rainbow sit down by the screen.
"I'm saying that I'm sorry, Sunset." She logged herself into her PSN account and activated the two-player functionality. " I've been playing Overwatch for such a long time now that I'm kinda stuck in it. If you wanna try something new out, then I shouldn't be too quick to criticise it. And, heck, if it's fun, then I'm all over it." She turned towards Sunset as she tried to set up another game. "So what do you say, Sunset? Can you forgive me and let me be your player two?"
"Only if you promise that you're not gonna moan about it anymore." Sunset walked back over to Rainbow Dash and sat down besides her.
"I promise." Rainbow smiled as the next game opened up. She put her hand on Sunset's shoulders. "Best Gamer Friends Forever?"
Sunset made a cheesy grin and copied Rainbow's actions. "Best Gamer Friends Forever..."
The two of them both hit their X buttons together to start the new game. But as the other diamond slots began to fill up, the last one didn't. No matter how long the two of them waited, the game didn't start. Once the bar got to the end of the screen, the last diamond went read, and the words "A player failed to join" appeared beneath the diamonds.
"Wait, what?" Rainbow watched the bar disappear as she and Sunset were put back into the waiting queue.
"Oh, that happens from time to time. Some people forget that they're waiting for a game." Sunset smiled as another set of ten empty diamond spaces appeared before her and Rainbow Dash. "You'll get used to it."
