“Let me ask you this, EU ESPORTS, how can we possibly practice matches with 8 people when the official matches will be done with 6v6 teams”
Richie’s question went unanswered. All seven students stood around awkwardly under the assumption that his question was intended to be rhetorical. When the deafening silence stretched on for long enough, it became apparent that he was genuinely pausing to wait for an answer.
“EU esports makes us sound like we’re representing the European Union.” Sarah raised her voice from the back of the room. Sarah and Deacon had been positioned in the corner of the room when Owen, Castle, and Aoife had arrived. Owen nearly cracked a joke about how it felt like they were back in high school seeing couples awkwardly and shamelessly make out in hallways and corners. Luckily, Deacon and Sarah had stopped exchanging saliva with one another shortly after the trio arrived.
“No. No we’re not representing the European Union, Sarah. It’s not like I had a lot of wiggle room when making the name. We’re part of Everett University, so it’s just… y’know it's the EU.” Richie replied, doing his very best to defend the name of the team. His “very best” was not especially convincing.
“If we’re the EU, does that mean Castle has to leave us? Or has Brexit not reached our esports team yet.” Aoife seemed satisfied with the amount of laughter that washed through the small meeting room.
“No! We’re not the EU! We’re EU esports! There’s a difference!” You had to respect Richie’s commitment to defending the esports name. Owen was shocked that he picked such an odd hill to die on.
“If we vote on it, can we change the name of the team?” Owen raised her hand out of instinctive politeness. It wasn’t like she actually waited to be called on before she spoke.
“Ooo! I like that! We could come up with it as a group!” Sarah voiced her agreement with Owen’s idea. Her agreement was swiftly followed by a chorus of other acknowledgements. With enough choral repetition, Richie finally caved.
“Fine! Fine! But I’m gonna have to cancel the rest of the orders I had for merch and equipment. We were supposed to get decals in for the computers already but they sent me the wrong logos…” Richie gestured towards a small box in the corner of the room. It was a medium sized cardboard box, and although it was already opened, the flaps of the box blocked the view of the items inside.
“Wrong logos…? Mate, you didn’t buy a bunch of European Union merch did you?” Richie immediately stiffened at Castle’s words. Before anyone else could add on to the accusation, Richie brought the conversation firmly back to his previous question. “So about that question! Does anyone have any ideas about practices?”
“We’ve got eight players. We could practice with 4v4 matches, including both of the substitutes. The smaller size of the teams would also encourage each of the players to learn each other's playstyles in an environment where teamwork is more important. It would also spread the support players evenly between the teams and force players to study the opposing teams playstyles.” Malik’s plan was illustrated swiftly and concisely. It was so well thought out, that Owen immediately began wondering if Malik had this pre-planned and at the ready, or if he had really come up with it all in the short period of time where everyone was teasing Richie. Either way, it was apparent to everyone in the room that Malik had thought this practice through more than anyone else.
“Uh, yeah. Yeah that’s pretty close to what I was thinking. Let me just…” Richie paused to flip through the small stack of papers on his desk at the front of the room. It was hard to tell at this angle, but Owen was pretty sure it lacked enough text to surmise Malik’s plan. In fact, she was pretty sure the “notes” he was shuffling through were just a collection of doodles. “...yeah that’s pretty much what I have written down here. Good job, Malik! Correct! Uhh… gold star! I’m sure I have something around here with gold stars.” Richie’s eyes and hands scanned around his desk for a moment, landing on nothing in particular. He then leaned over to the side to reach down towards the delivery box from earlier. From inside, he pulled out a small circular sticker page. The background of the page was a deep blue, and placed evenly across the page in a perfect circle were twelve golden stars. It was a familiar looking design. Owen couldn’t help but recognize it immediately.
“Holy shit, mate. You actually did! I didn’t know they even sold European Union sticker book merchandise.” Castle let loose an almost breathless laugh into the room, utterly shocked that their joking assumption had been proven true.
“It’s not! I just wanted to buy some star stickers to reward good plays, and these happened to be the cheapest ones available! It was just a coincidence!”
“Oh fuck me. Go on, give Malik an EU star, let him join the mighty Union to fight for a better tomorrow.” Castle couldn’t help but poke fun where they could. It didn’t last especially long, however. With a sharp glare from Richie, Castle went silent and dipped out of the conversation. It reminded Owen of the first conversation she had with Castle, one where they explained a strained and aged friendship between Castle and Richie.
Richie, despite all of the mocking, peeled a sticker off of his EU sticker page and gave it to Malik. It was met with a pretty joyous reaction from Malik, a sweet gesture considering how stilted everything else before it had been.
“4v4s then. It won’t quite prepare us for the reality of the 6v6 matches we have ahead of us, but it’s something. Like Malik said, I think it would be a good start for our first practice to make sure that people get a chance to learn how everyone plays. We need some kind of cohesion if we want to win our pre-season games.” It was settled then, each member of the team would be assigned to a team, like Richie had said. Owen already had a team in mind, but the team composition didn’t seem to be anything that she would have control over. Not to mention that she was barely in the practice room mentally. Physically, she stood in between Aoife and Castle, with a damp face that had refused to dry fully on the walk to the student union. In fact, with the cold weather, it had nearly frozen the droplets that remained. But mentally, she was nowhere near the practice room. She was in the clouds above, dangling from the fluffy mounds whilst she replayed the memory of her reflection over and over.
It was everything that she wanted, and it had been swiped away from her face in just a few minutes. But if it could be removed so quickly… She could get away with wearing makeup more than she originally thought. Was this the start of a new phase? It certainly felt like it. How else could she go back to where she was before after seeing herself glamored up in such a way that the word pretty felt applicable. She hadn’t been entirely wrong, however. It certainly was a can of worms that she opened by letting them do her makeup. But maybe the can of worms wasn’t as bad as she had originally thought. Maybe the worms inside the can were adorable. Maybe the worms looked better with a deep rep lipstick on? Maybe her analogy had gotten a little far from the point…
“Teams! Let me get my randomizer out.” Richie pulled out his phone and began tapping away at the bright screen. It lit up his face so well, Owen was positive he had his brightness cranked all the way up to its maximum. Only psychopaths and rich people keep their phones at maximum brightness. So… only psychopaths. “Alright, team one. Looks like we’ve got Sarah!” After getting the result on his phone, he turned around and snatched up one of the dry erase markers by the board. Owen watched as Richie sloppily wrote “TEAM 1” and “TEAM 3” on the board.
“Team 3?” Aoife asked, just as confused as everyone else in the room.
“Yeah. I read a study that said if you make a team one and a team two the second team will naturally feel inferior because one usually feels like a better number. Like it’s superior. That’s why I’m skipping team two for now.” Richie flashed a confident smile. At least someone was happy that Richie read a couple of studies. Even if that someone was Richie himself. Read the latest chapters at g.com.
“But wouldn’t team 3 just feel even worse than team 2?” Owen asked.
“Yeah it kind of feels like we’re not even good enough for the number 2.” Aoife supported.
“Oh. Uh. Okay, well the study didn’t mention anything about that. We can a do team A?” The “TEAM 2” on the board was quickly replaced with “TEAM A”. Notably, Richie had decided to simply cross out the “2” rather than the much simpler solution of wiping away dry erase “2”. Richie turned back towards the seven other team members in the room. “Does that work?”
“Whatever boats your float I guess.” Owen shrugged. It was enough for Richie to continue with the team selection.
“Team A’s first member is… Castle!” Richie wrote their name up on the board. “Back to Team 1 now. The second member is… Aoife!” Owen’s shoulders immediately slumped. She wouldn’t be able to go on a team with Aoife and Castle anymore. At the very least it meant that she would be playing a match with one of them. Of course, she had a clear preference with months of duo queues with Aoife, but both could work just fine.
“Team A gets Steven. Team 1 gets Deacon.” Deacon immediately clapped his hands together in celebration. He had gotten paired up with his girlfriend once more, which likely meant that he was planning on enacting the same annoying playstyle as before where she pocket heals him for the whole match so that he can be the flashy star player. Not a team that Owen wanted to be a part of. “Team A gets… me! That means the final two players we’ve got are Owen and Malik. The final player for Team 1 is… Owen! Making Malik the final member on Team A!”
Owen was heavily conflicted with the results. The upside to being placed on Team 1 was of course getting to play with Aoife. They had endless strategies together than they could employ. The chemistry alone in their playstyles was off the charts. But they were also being matched with Sarah and Deacon. Wr4th’s playstyle was just about the most self-centered selfish playstyle that Owen had ever come across. Finding out how to team up with that would be a giant pain in the ass. But maybe it was better than having to face the annoying combo once more.
Richie had finally finished writing up the teams on the whiteboard.
TEAM 1:
SARAH WHITMAN
DEACON MOORE
AOIFE ALLANACH
OWEN FAIRMOORE
TEAM 2 A:
CASTLE
STEVEN STEGMAN
RICHIE STANSMERE
MALIK PETERSON
Owen took special note of Castle’s name on the board. It was the same as when the initial team list had been sent out. No last name. Something to ask about later, she supposed.
“If everyone can go ahead and split up onto your team’s side of the room, Team 1 will be over here, and Team 2-er- Team A will be over here.” Richie pointed towards the two rows of computers that lined the desks. “Go ahead and sign in to your profiles and I’ll invite you to my custom lobby.”
Owen quickly moved towards the Team 1 table to try to take a seat on the end of the table. The more distance between her and Deacon, the better. As Owen approached the table, Aoife had already reached for the seat at the end. A cough, and a subtle nod of the head from Owen told Aoife everything she needed to know. She moved over a seat, sitting towards the middle of the desk next to Deacon. A brief glance from Deacon caused Owen to immediately snap her head towards the monitor in front of her. Deacon had very quickly taken note of the distance that Owen had put between them.
“If you load in with that fucking troll account again I’m gonna kick your ass, Owen.” Deacon didn’t even bother to look over at Owen as he uttered the threat. Sometime between the last match and this practice match, Deacon had done his research and discovered who the “default” that shot him out of the sky was.
“You’re- huh? We’re just practicing dude, you don’t have to bodyguard your ego like that.” Owen spat back almost instinctively. She wasn’t a stranger to talking shit during a UMDK match. It was almost exclusively carried out through the game’s text chat however. Owen had never been one for VOIP communication unless it was with a friend. Visit NovelPing for the full chapter.
“I still want to win in practice, dipshit. You think any other pros get to the big leagues by throwing all of their practice games with noob accounts?” Deacon sounded just like your average UMDK gamer. The same kind that Owen and Aoife would trounce in matches all night long. The only difference in this case was the difference in skill. Deacon admittedly had a lot more going for him than your average rage baiting player.
“I already mentioned during tryouts that my main account was hacked so this is what I’m dealing with right now.” Owen’s words caused Aoife to flip her head to the side and narrow her eyes at Owen in confusion. Team 1 was sitting too close to one another to get away with any whispering, leaving Aoife with only facial expressions to get across her feelings.
Fortunately for Owen, the feelings were painfully obvious. She was confused that Owen wasn’t going ahead with using her main account on UMDK. Clearly a part of Aoife was hopeful that Owen would be brave enough to make that step today. A helpless shrug from Owen led Aoife to mouth the word ‘ok’ and turn back to face her monitor.
“I call bullshit. I think you’re just trying to show off again. I don’t want your ego to hold me back in this match.” It felt like Deacon’s word could win the national award of hypocrisy to Owen.
“Whatever…” Owen rolled her eyes and accepted the invite from Richie into the custom lobby that was being set up. PertinentHorse was Owen’s only safe choice. Especially if she was forced to team up with Deacon, there was no way they would get anything done during the match if she decided to log in with her spikey pink punk ball of chaos. PertinentHorse was a handicap, for sure, but it was one that saved Owen from the embarrassment she was sure to receive from Deacon’s mocking. One felt far more important in the moment.
“Okay, it looks like everyone is in the lobby, so we’re gonna go ahead and get started! Today we’ll be playing a payload match. Due to the incremental nature of the objective, I think it will make for a very good comparison between the two teams' ability to coordinate together. Team A will start on offensive, with Team 1 on defense. Then we’ll swap sides and see who comes out on top.” Richie had already pressed ‘Start’ on the lobby, causing everyone’s screens to flash to a loading screen simultaneously. One of the perks of a sponsored E-Sports team was having identical hardware, so no one would be waiting longer than the others to get through the loading screen.
[MATCH BEGINS IN 30 SECONDS]
Another perk of the sponsored equipment was the luxury headphones that Owen slapped over her ears as the message flashed on the screen. They were very noise cancelling, to such an extreme degree that it was almost disorienting at first. But their inclusion in the program made sense, if teams were going to be in the same room as each other, there would need to be some way to allow for each team to discuss strategy during the match.
This way, Owen and Aoife could talk to one another through the microphones without anyone else on the other team hearing them.
[Wr4th: Alright pussies, one of you needs to tank.]
Deacon’s voice echoed through the expensive headphones. Owen let out a sigh, hoping that the noise filtration on the headphone microphone wouldn’t transmit her frustration. The prospect of hearing Deacon’s whining throughout the match was making Owen dread the next few minutes.
[PertinentHorse: Aoife and I don’t really play tank. I hit and run, and she usually snipes.]
[Wr4th: Well that sucks, looks like you’re gonna have to try something new. Sarah and I have a strat that always works as long as we have someone soak up some damage first. One of you needs to play that role.]
[Nintendo Femicom: Fuck’s sake, I’ll change my build and-]
[PertinentHorse: Stick to sniping, Aoife. You can do a lot more with that. I’ll figure something out.]
[Wr4th: Good, let’s get set up near that first choke point. This map has a lot of strong chokes.]
Owen almost uttered a joke about choking to Aoife, but due to the public forum of a team chat, she felt it was best to save it for later. Deacon wasn’t entirely wrong though. The map they had been placed in was famous for its brutal chokepoints. [Terminal Velocity] took place between two skyscrapers, meaning one of the hardest choke points in the game was the final stretch of the skybridge between the two buildings. It was usually one of Owen’s favorite maps in casual matches, but only due to one of her favorite techs that very few people knew was in the game. Using a specific active augment that Owen always equipped on this map, you could purposefully jump out of the skybridge’s windows and then use the augment to launch yourself through a window behind the chokepoint. It was almost always an insane flank, since the defenders never expected someone to appear behind them. [Momentum Redirect] was the augment that Owen had practiced the tech with, but PertinentHorse didn’t have access to that skill. Without it, this map turned from a fun, movement heavy map, into one of the most grueling payload maps in the game.
Not that it would matter anyway. Deacon was very insistent on having a tank, and that role was falling to Owen.
[Sarah6258: Good luck everyone!]
That was the first time that she had spoken since sitting down at the desk. Owen had completely forgotten that Sarah was on the team until she spoke. She sounded optimistic, but Owen couldn’t help but feel like her words had a lilting sadness to them. Was there a reason she’d been quiet this whole time?