The walk down to the stage took ninety seconds, and Karl felt all of it.
Noise came off the upper block in a solid sheet, and somewhere in the middle of it a kid screamed James’s name loud enough to crack.
Ten pods sat in two rows under the lights, lids open, padding still holding the shape of whoever had been in them last.
The announcer’s voice rolled out over the hall.
"On your left, in red, the Shark Riders. Roam, James Vellory, on Volk. Jungle, Kito Sarn, on Draeven. Mid, Yuna Reiss, on Ophelia. Gold lane, Otto Pran, on Sable. And in the EXP lane—"
The pause was deliberate and the hall knew it.
"—top three global for two straight seasons, playing his first event on this side of the country. Bastien Orlov, on Kharon."
The building came apart. Bastien didn’t wave. He walked to his pod, sat down, put his hands on his knees, and half the arena took a photo of him doing it.
"And on your right." The announcer let a beat go by. "TBD."
That got the laugh, and the skull went up on the big screen, and the laugh doubled.
"Roam, Dori Calestina, on Amara. EXP lane, Dane Ferrow, on Gorran. Gold lane, Sana Ibe, on Vesper. Mid, Elsa Marinet, on Trisla. And in the jungle." A shorter pause, less sure of itself. "Kazu. On Charlotte."
Nobody screamed. A few people clapped. Somebody in the front row shouted ask him his real name and got a laugh out of the row behind him.
"Perfect," Elsa said, dropping into her pod. "Nobody knows us. That’s free."
Dane sat down without a word and pulled his straps tight twice. Karl took the last pod, lifted the helmet in both hands, and felt the hum start against his palms.
’You’re sure about this.’
[This unit is never unsure. That is what makes this unit unpleasant.]
’Charlotte?’
[She says she has been ready since the day you picked her off the panel.]
He put the helmet on.
’Let’s go then.’
...
There was no falling this time. A page turned, and then there was stone under his hands.
The hall went up and away above him, black floor, no walls he could find, one throne with him in it.
Karl sat with his back straight and his hands flat on the cold arms, and he did not move, because he could not.
He could see, though.
The loading platform in the arena, blue light climbing up off the ground, four heroes forming beside him. Except he wasn’t beside them. Charlotte was.
He was looking out through her eyes from a chair somewhere inside his own head, and when she flexed her fingers around the grips of her blades he felt the leather move across his palm on the throne.
’That is deeply strange.’
"Master." Her voice came from beside him and inside him at once. "I will not embarrass you."
’I know.’
[Match conditions. Under Link, skill activation is limited. Clear Vision: one use. Steel Nerve: one use. This unit will not extend either.]
’I see. So just one shot at these skills. Fair enough. ’’
[Since the Administrator asked to be in two places at once. Everything is a trade.]
The countdown hit zero and the lanes opened.
...
The first six minutes were quiet, which was its own kind of information.
Both sides farmed. Bastien walked up to the EXP wave, hit it exactly to the point where Dane had to respect him, and did nothing else. Dane held two steps in front of his own tower and refused to be interesting.
Elsa cleared her wave in one rotation and swung down to gold lane, which was where the actual problem was.
"They’re on you," she said on comms.
"I noticed." Sana’s voice was flat. "The roam’s been in my grass since level one."
"That’s normal, that’s just James being—"
"The jungler’s here too."
Short silence on the team channel.
"It’s six minutes," Dane said. "He’s got a whole camp rotation to do."
"He gave it up," Karl said.
He watched it from the throne, through Charlotte’s eyes, from the top of the red side jungle where he was carving a camp down with three seconds of minimap and nothing else. Kito had abandoned his second rotation to sit in a bush next to a marksman who was four minutes into the game. \
It cost him thirty seconds of farm every time.
’They’re not trying to win the map. They’re trying to break one person.’
[Correct.]
Then the rattles started. Volk’s, twelve times in a row from the grass behind Sana’s tower. Then Draeven’s. Then all five at once from five different parts of the map, and the crowd noise outside changed pitch.
"They’re spamming," Dori said. First thing she’d said all game.
"Do we care?"
"No," Karl said. "James wins games in the first eight minutes or he doesn’t win them. He’s spending everything he has right now. Let him."
...
At the casters’ table, one of them leaned into his mic.
"For everyone at home, this is the Shark Riders doing what the Shark Riders do. Total early aggression, no farm discipline, and a whole lot of chat. And TBD, to their credit, have not taken the bait once."
"Not once. So the question is whether that jungler can actually—oh."
...
Karl’s first buff had gone clean.
The second one did not.
He took it at seven ten, deep on his own blue side, health three quarters full and the camp already melting under Charlotte’s blades.
The stun landed on the fourth hit.
He felt it in the throne.
It came down through his shoulders and pinned his arms to cold stone, and for one full second Karl could not have stood up if the hall had fallen on him.
Ophelia stepped out of the wall grass behind Charlotte with her hands already glowing and put everything she had into the back of a hero built out of paper.
Health went from three quarters to a strip.
"Master—"
Charlotte moved the instant the stun broke, and Karl moved with her, and neither of them decided it separately.
One dash through the wall, one more down the ramp, out into the river with a burn effect still eating what was left of her health and Yuna’s second stun clipping the space where she had been.
He got out with a sliver.
"Kazu’s low," Elsa said, sharp now. "Kazu, are you—"
"I’m fine."
He was not fine.
He was sitting on a throne in an empty hall with his hands shaking on the arms of it, his second camp still standing behind him uncleared, and the turtle timer in the corner of his vision reading forty-one seconds.
’She was waiting for me. Is this team just filled with campers? She’s been giving up mid-wave to sit in my jungle.’
"I let her get behind us," Charlotte said. "That was my fault."
’It was both of us. That’s how this works now.’
...
In her pod, Elsa looked at her own gold number and did the math she didn’t want to do.
Nine rotations to gold lane in seven minutes. All nine correct. All nine had cost her a wave, and if a fight broke out at the pit she was going to be a very confident person doing very little damage.
"Guys," she said. "I’m behind."
"How behind," Dane said.
"Behind enough that I’m telling you.
Karl backed off two camps, let the health regenerate, and made a decision he’d been trying not to make for four minutes.
’Steel Nerve.’
[Confirm. This is the only activation available for this match.]
’Confirm.’
It came down over him the way it had in the street outside the registration hall. Flat, cold, quiet, the panic still there and suddenly on the other side of glass. His hands went still on the stone. The turtle timer stopped feeling like a countdown and started feeling like a number.
He walked back into his own jungle.
Yuna came for him again at eight forty, because it had worked twice. The third time Charlotte was already turning before the grass finished moving.
The stun went past her ear. She was inside it, two strikes, one dash through the wall to cut the retreat, and Ophelia folded on the ramp with her second spell still charging.
{Kazu has slain Yuna Reiss.}
[Enemy eliminated. EXP acquired: 40.]
"THERE it is," the caster shouted. "The mage has been running that trap all game and she ran it one time too many—"
"Master." Charlotte’s voice was very close. "Say something to me."
’Focus!.’
It should have turned the game. It didn’t, because the turtle spawned eleven seconds later, and Karl came up over the pit wall and stopped.
Volk was standing in the pit mouth. Draeven was inside it, already hitting. Kharon was across the ramp, and Bastien had left his lane at exactly the right minute, which was the part that bothered him most.
Four of them. Only the marksman missing, still farming a side wave somewhere, because they didn’t think they needed him.
Dane was zoned off the ramp with a level four hero and no way through. Dori stood in the river with a healer’s kit and nothing else, not panicking, just waiting to be told. Elsa was four thousand gold behind.
Sana was coming up from gold lane and would arrive eight seconds late.
The turtle’s health bar was already at seventy percent.
"Kazu." Dane’s voice, tight. "Call it."
"Do we go?" Sana said.
"We can’t go," Elsa said. "We physically cannot go, I do nothing, I’m a woman with a staff—"
"Kazu, what do we do?"
Karl sat on the throne in the empty hall with four voices in his ears and one skill left in his hands, and he did not answer.