Page 80 of Don't Hate the Player
“If you win, I’ll release the picture,” he continues. From the corner of my eye, I see Jake turn white. “Everyone will know you’re a slut who stole my spot. Lose and it goes away forever.”
Shit. I try to pull my hand away from Muddy’s grip but can’t do it too violently without arousing suspicion. The audience is already quieting down, wondering why the DPS handshake is taking so long. I look down at his grip on me, hating the way his hand feels in mine, when I see Jake reach out and grab Muddy’s wrist.
“Can’t lose,” Jake says quietly. His fingers tighten over Muddy’s arm, squeezing it until he’s forced to let go of me. I pull my hand back too quickly; some people in the audience gasp.
Thank god the lights up here are too bright for me to peek down and see my friends in the front row. Matt had to stop Penny from trying to pack a Taser in her purse this morning.
The Unity table is close. I just have to take a few totally normal, nonchalant steps and take my seat. It feels impossible. Bad enough that just posting my name brought the incel hordes screaming into my real life, but Muddy’s photo shows Jake and me kissing in my original uniform. He’s right; no matter what I say after the fact, it will look like I slept my way onto Unity and sink my reputation before I can sign Wizzard’s contract.
Bob can see I’m trembling when I sit down and motions for me to put my headphones on. The tight, dim hum of noise cancellation feels suffocating in my ears. Jake rushes over to the table and takes his spot next to me, followed by Penelope.
“Jake,” I say, trying to keep my face neutral so it looks like we’re just checking our levels. “I—”
“Don’t listen to him,” Jake replies quickly. He’s still pale as a ghost when he reaches under the table to touch my leg for a too-short second. “Muddy isn’t getting what he wants today.”
“What happened?” Bob asks. I leave it to Jake to explain; I can’t find the words.
“Shit, okay.” I see Bob look over at Fury for a second. “Jake’s right, don’t listen. Fury doesn’t get a win today; Muddy doesn’t get a win later. We’ll figure something out. Ki, give me the swap spot.”
“What?” Ki sputters. This wasn’t the plan.
“I have a bad feeling Byunki wants to checkmate me instead of fighting for the payload. I want the swap in case I need to change my tank to ward him off,” Bob explains.
“Okay.” Ki nods. We all watch on our computer screens as Bob reassigns the swap totem to his character.
“I’m going Carrigan or Grendel.” A mech or a monster tank. Bob is betting that Byunki will either keep Klio, a fire tank that would be weak against Grendel the monster, or change his tank to Lucafont the ghost specifically to target Bob’s usual character, the magic type Fabella. If Bob swaps his tank to Carrigan, a mech, Byunki won’t have any advantage over him regardless of the character he chooses. Something about that seems familiar, but I’m too distracted by the start of the countdown to put my finger on it.
“Mics down; let’s go, Unity!” Bob yells. I can’t tell if the audience heard him, but the artificially blunted sound of cheers does seem to get a smidge more intense. I chance one more look at Jake, who nods at me (not even a smile? I could really use a smile), and get ready to tunnel my vison in 3 . . . ? 2 . . . 1.
The map is Euphrates Crater, an abandoned city of dusty brick towers built in the middle of a bowl-shaped depression on the surface of one of theGLOuniverse’s many ruined planets. There are very few high points, which is bad for Pharaoh, but the map also has none of the environmental hazards that could jack up a strategy based around certain characters—no water sources to debuff fire and mechs or dead zones where magic gets fritzy. Wizzard wants this championship to cleanly showcase us as players with no tricks or lucky breaks.
As we beam down onto the map, I hold Pharaoh’s crossbow up to take advantage of his aiming zoom and peek at Fury’s lineup across the map. The others are falling too fast for me to see, but I peep Byunki falling as Klio. I alert Bob, who has an extra ten seconds in his swap countdown to change his tank. He’s sticking with Carrigan. Smart choice.
Bob gives us the order to stay close and hunt the payload as a group. Getting our mark will stake our claim and put us in a good spot to defend it; our second priority is to get first blood on Fury to start our team Special Attack countdowns. Penelope sticks with me on Bob’s left flank—she’s playing Castor, a magic healer who gets a bonus when she heals other magic characters like Pharaoh. Jake has Pythia, of course, and is moving on Bob’s right with Ki as Doctor Jack, her usual ice healer. She’s better with Jack than she would have been with another DPS, so it shouldn’t be a huge deal that Bob stole her swap.
These first few seconds in a five-on-five match are crucial. They play more like a stealth game than a team-based shooter. It’s hunt and hide, stun and run, just to get enough info on the map and our opponents’ characters to kick the rest of our strategy into high gear. Bob’s long-legged mech jogs through the city’s streets and alleys with the rest of us in formation around him, eyes peeled for the first sign of Fury action or the payload’s treasure chest chime.
Ki spots the flash first, a high trail of sparks that indicates a Fury player up ahead. Bob calls Penelope and me up in front of him with Jake behind us to heal if Fury tries to get a shot in. We’re almost at the red brick plaza in the center of the map, and from the placement of those sparks, I’m guessing Fury is waiting for us.
“Prime a shot; they don’t know we’re coming from this angle,” Bob whispers, even though he doesn’t really have to. I get Pharaoh’s bow up with a normal bolt on load. I’ll need blood to charge up his better attacks, but a bolt will start our timer just the same.
P and I launch ourselves into the plaza, laying down fire to discourage Fury from ambushing us, and quickly realize we shouldn’t have bothered. Fury’s here all right, but they’re not coming toward us in a charge. They’re just standing there on the far end of the plaza, waiting as a gust of alien wind kicks up a swirl of brown dust between our teams. Ivan’s on Jubilee, no surprise there. He must have gotten comfortable being a monster. Han is Glace, his typical ice healer, and, wait, why didn’t they swap Erik’s Jenkins for a better character? As a mech, he won’t have any advantage against Bob, but mechanical characters have an advantage against magic. Does Byunki want to send a healer to do a DPS’s job and have him take me and Penelope out?
I only have a second to wrap my head around that choice when Muddy and Byunki step out from behind their front line. Muddy’s playing Nero, which I’ve never seen him do before. And Byunki—no, that’s impossible. I saw him beaming down as Klio. I told Bob to pick his characterbecausehe was sticking with Klio. He’s not Klio today, though; he’s Lucafont.
Jake puts it together before I do. In the moments we have before all hell breaks loose, he spits his realization into the mic.
“They didn’t base their comp around taking Bob out. They based it around drawing me and Em out.”
Lucafont the ghost is weak to Pharaoh. Nero the alien is weak to Pythia and strong against Carrigan. They’ve completely tailored their lineup to piss off me and Jake while giving Muddy the best shot at killing Bob.
“It’s bait,” Ki growls. She and Bob start speaking over each other but fall in unison to deliver the new imperative: “Don’t do anything stupid.”
Byunki must have given Team Fury his signal, because the plaza explodes in a flurry of first-move action. Erik levels his dual pistols at me and takes a shot, which Ki deflects with an ice shield. Muddy and Byunki zoom across the plaza to engage Bob and Jake in melee, and the match is officially on. Half a second later, Byunki lands a sword hit on Bob. Fury has first blood. There’s still time to make up for it.
“VANE’s running! KNOX, follow. Payload is priority,” Bob commands as he parries Byunki’s first attack. Ivan’s hunting the payload, and Bob wants me to sneak around him and get there first if I can. I drop a fog cloud to mask where I’m going and scurry after him with Penelope on my tail for heals.
“We need to drop that Jenkins,” Penelope says as we leap onto a rooftop to get a better idea of where Ivan’s headed. “He’ll take us both out.”
