Waking up without even realising how I fell asleep, I went to get breakfast as usual and found Mom cleaning some dishes and my brothers already having their breakfast in their mouths, finishing up their last bites.
Damn, I usually wake up at the same time. I must have slept like a log last night.
On the table for me was the usual: eggs, bacon and toast.
I'd honestly prefer some pasta and chicken or fish, but Mom refused with words along the lines of 'breakfast foods should be had at breakfast.'
Which I completely disagree with. Big Breakfast has brainwashed Mom, and everyone knows you can eat literally anything and it will still count as breakfast; after all, it just means breaking your fast.
My brothers opted for cereal from a 'health brand' which still contained more sugar than it did protein, which astounded me. Is it still legal to this day for it to be called healthy with that level of deception and on top of that marketing it to children?
After the usual morning routine, we headed out to the tournament venue and arrived right on time. I told mom last time that I didn't really like waiting too long and we decided that even if we arrived late by 10 minutes, it wouldn't really affect me, as losing 10 minutes of time wouldn't matter if I kept winning in 20 minutes, which is not even close to the 90 minutes given; that's not even including the incremental time I gain after every move.
Seeing my final matchup on the usual board SC-1, I walked up to it and had to consciously prevent myself from skipping there in excitement.
I can't help it; the joy of knowing you're about to win, but then there's the logical side of your brain that says don't celebrate too early. I've seen one too many of those cyclist videos where they have their arms up, basking in the crowd and the guy behind zooms past for a last-second overtake and wins the whole thing.
I will never let that happen to me. Never.
Walking up to the board, I see a younger kid than I was expecting; he looks to be around 13 years old and has what can only be described as a mop (comb over) for hair.
I didn't initiate conversation lest I start boasting and end up jinxing myself.
Because of me not talking, neither did my opponent, who just seemed to be chilling as if nothing mattered at all. Maybe he's one of those emo kids who thinks life is pain or whatever.
"You may shake hands and start your games." The arbiter announced and like that, we started our game.
"Huh?" I audibly exclaimed at my opponent's move.
It wasn't that it was an unusual opening line or weird trap variation.
It was just bad.
If I didn't know any better, I'd say this guy lucked his way this far and was just mucking about.
And only 5 moves later, the guy resigned, gave up and walked away without even shaking my hand.
I mean, the position isn't even that bad for him, maybe he'd be down a pawn or 2 in the endgame from here. Could he be trying to do something sneaky?
Well, my intuition hasn't gone off, but there's almost an intuition-like feeling that my intuition should've gone off. Like intuititionception almost.
Well, I'll just raise my hand and raise a stink about him not shaking my hand then to be safe.
"What's up?" The arbiter came around and asked.
"My opponent resigned and didn't even shake my hand; he was really rude too saying I'm ugly."
While this might seem like I'm lacking much important information, lucky for me, I know this is how kids actually talk: they air a grievance and expect an adult to understand what to do. Well, usually it happens when they hear another kid swear and feel like it's unfair that they themselves have followed the rules and some other kid didn't. Thus leading them to snitch and become the coolest kid in school.
After the arbiter looked around for the kid and found him a few minutes later coming out of the bathroom, he appeared to ask about what happened with them both coming back to the table.
"Girl, why'd you say I resigned? You said you were resigning, so I went to the toilet before I was going to report my win." The boy said calmly, as if I were talking crazy.
"Oh, so that's how you want to play it? Well, let's ignore the fact that you just outright lied and tried to get me to leave early to then claim a win by default. Why would I give up from this position? I'm clearly winning."
The boy seemed stunned, as if he were surprised I rebutted him so cleanly.
"N-no, you clearly changed the pieces around; I was up an entire rook when I left for the bathroom!" The boy clearly stammered and then yelled toward the end.
"Hey arbiter guy, check my sheet; perfectly clean, so you know I didn't rub anything out, so you know mine's correct." I handed my sheet to the arbiter.
After he had a quick look at it, he seemed to agree and then looked at the boy, "Fine, look at mine, you'll see mine's the one actually correct."
And like that, the arbiter compared both of our sheets and, after furrowing their brow for about 2 minutes spoke, "Both of your sheets have different moves; whoever's lying can fess up now or face penalties."
Naturally, neither of us backed down. "Arbiter sir, how about we just go from the start? I'm confident that even though this guy is trying to cheat, I can still completely crush him." I stated with confidence.
The boy opposite me seemed to quiver at my clear, immediate response.
"Yeah, that'll work."
"Arbiter can we make it so the loser faces the penalties? After all, based on our sheets, either one side is clearly better or they underplayed their skill because they knew they'd lose and tried to win with a cheap trick." I said, staring down my opponent's soul, voicing what I believe my opponent's plan was.
"I'll see what I can do with the head arbiter. Just reset your boards and play again for now. I'll watch the game to make sure nothing funny is going on."
While I'm pretty sure there's no real way for a penalty to be applied based on just winning or losing the game here due to the small element of uncertainty that exists with situations like this, it should be enough to rattle my opponent.
"Hey kid, if you resign now and actually do it properly, I'll drop all my charges against you and we can just say it was a prank." I told the boy.
"Huff... why'd you stay behind?" The boy tried to let out his grievances, fully stopping the emo act he had done earlier.
"Because you're very ugly and mommy always said ugly people have the ugliest hearts." Hehe, insulting and not really answering the question properly, my specialty.
"Well, if I'm gonna go down, I'm gonna do down swinging!" The boy yelled, clearly losing his mind at my epic diss and not at all worried about his future in chess after being outed as a cheater and trying to manipulate a 5-year-old girl.
Luckily for me, I didn't even have to do anything because the arbiter came back just as he was saying that and got caught right in the act. I signalled discreetly for him not to come any closer lest he be seen.
"What do you mean swinging? You only cheated and tried to disgrace a young girl like me? You're not going to punch my beautiful face, are you?" I said with mock hurt in my voice.
"After you beat Chantelle, I knew I had no chance. If I hurt you badly enough now, maybe I can scare you off chess forever, then I can win!" He seemed to mutter that middle part to himself, but it was clearly audible for the arbiter and me to see that this kid was likely to get violent.
Unfortunately for myself, the arbiter didn't seem to want to intervene physically, probably to avoid any lawsuits that could come from physically holding a child back, but c'mon, if it's to save a little girl against what is clearly a grown boy trying to assault them, it's ok to intervene!
As the boy was inching toward me, probably in an attempt to intimidate me, I could hear footsteps rushing over from the side.
Before I could turn my head to look, I saw the boy in front get more agitated and raise his hand, preparing a punch. The form itself looked terrible and he hadn't moved his hips or legs to add force, a clear amateur when it came to fighting.
Just as I was about to duck under the punch and punch him in the nuts, a hand came in front and blocked the punch, followed by the whoosh of long, silky blonde hair similar to my own flashing across my eyes.
"Kid, what do you think you're trying to do to my daughter!" My mom yelled for probably the first time ever in front of me and seemed badass while doing it.
"S-spider-Gwen! N-n-no I-i'm sorry, I d-didn't m-mean to!" The boy stammered in response.
Why's he calling Mom Spider-Gwen?