Callie and I sat together in complete silence. I felt like we had been moving in different directions for quite some time now, but I did not know how to tell her. She couldn’t stand to look at me; her eyes too glued to the screen. We sat two feet from each other and yet I felt miles apart. Why did she stop talking to me? Didn’t she know it was all falling apart?
I stared into the digital abyss in search of answers, finding none. Maybe this was the end. I should have known. Callie clearly had moved on, which was weird because I thought I was playing as Cho. Didn’t I have some say in where we were going? I winded up a punch and lunged, hitting nothing. I expected her to make some snide remark on how that was an allegory for this whole relationship. How I just charged ahead, over-extended and got us both killed. Callie was right; I was kind of a brute.
“Tell me when you send the Rune Bomb, I think I have to detonate it,” she said.
“Ok,” I replied. “Sending one now.”
The ball rolled toward an enemy Hero, and just as I thought it would miss, the detonation blasted the Hero away from the battle.
“Look,” said Callie. “I can nudge you.”
I looked at my screen and watched as the combined force that is Cho’Gall moved slightly to the right. “Useful for dodging,” I said. “In case I don’t see something coming.”
I then noticed that Gall, the magic-heavy Assassin half to my Warrior Cho, had been throwing Dread Orbs at the enemies. Callie was helping this whole time. Why had I been so blind to it?
Maybe I was the silent one. Maybe I was afraid of communication. I was afraid that even as I played as Cho, the legs of Heroes of The Storm’s newest addition, I would have no say in where we were headed.
We lost the match. Callie apologized, citing she had only the chance to play as Cho’Gall once before.
“That’s ok,” I said. “My first time too.”
Cho’Gall is a fascinating addition to the Nexus. Where so many matches can boil down to a blame game, Cho’Gall forces two players to accept responsibilities for each other’s actions. It opens a door for communication and cooperation, something that can be lacking in both the Nexus and the real world. Cho’Gall is a marriage that can end one of two ways: In happiness, till network errors do you part, or in a rage-quit so extreme you’ll end up having to share every other holiday per court order.
Log in to comment