Chapter 66: Forty-Five Seconds of Professional-Level Play
David's main Protoss forces were cutting across the map at high speed — not along the shortest route, but along a longer, winding path that neatly sidestepped every possible enemy scout position. Clean, invisible, exactly as intended.
Simultaneously, his hands were running a controlled juggling act across the keyboard: managing his home economy, queuing new unit production, pushing technology upgrades, and — most critically — keeping his force movements synchronized beat-for-beat with Sheldon's army on the opposite side of the map.
"Two minutes forty seconds," David said, eyes flicking to the timer without breaking rhythm. "Sheldon, rendezvous at coordinates G7. Sync error cannot exceed three seconds."
"Understood." Sheldon's forces dispatched the last two surviving enemy units with characteristic efficiency and immediately pivoted toward the designated coordinates, moving like a second hand snapping into place.
The two armies converged at the predetermined location with almost mechanical precision — same moment, same grid square, zero hesitation. Their combined strength instantly doubled.
"Raj, status report." David's voice was calm, almost conversational, like someone checking the weather.
"I can hold for maybe thirty more seconds!" Raj's voice had the slightly raw, hoarse quality of someone who had been running on pure adrenaline and willpower for three solid minutes. "They're about to punch through my last defensive line!"
"Thirty seconds is plenty." David's combined force began its final acceleration toward the battlefield. "Howard — confirm your position."
"Hitting the enemy's flank in ten seconds!"
"Good." David drew one quiet breath. "Everyone — on my countdown."
On screen, the moment arrived. Raj's outer defensive line buckled and gave way, and the Coastline Rangers' main force poured through the gap like a dam breaking — surging forward with the confidence of a force that had just cracked open a fortress.
"Three."
David and Sheldon's combined Protoss armies emerged from the map's blind spots, perfectly positioned on the enemy's exposed left flank.
"Two."
Howard's Zerg swarm materialized from the opposite side, cutting off the retreat route.
"One."
"Fire."
The next forty-five seconds were later described by the tournament commentators, in what became a widely quoted post-match observation, as "one of the most striking displays of coordinated team play this competition has ever seen from a non-professional roster."
David and Sheldon's Protoss forces served as the frontal hammer — deployed in a formation that looked almost choreographed. Immortals absorbed punishment at the front line while Stalkers applied pressure from the flanks. High Templars dropped Psionic Storms directly into the densest clusters of enemy units, each one landing with surgical accuracy.
Force Fields appeared at precisely the right moments, slicing the battlefield into isolated compartments that prevented the Rangers from consolidating or retreating as a cohesive force. Focused fire melted priority targets the moment they were separated from the pack.
Howard's Zerg swarm played the role of the flexible anvil — constantly hammering from the flanks and rear, cutting off escape routes and driving retreating units back into the kill zone. His Mutalisk flock worked the airspace like a tightly woven net, while his Corruptors locked down air superiority with zero tolerance for challenge.
And Raj — against all reasonable expectation — delivered the finishing touch.
The defensive towers that had appeared to be burned-out husks still carried one final charge of stored energy, which Raj unleashed in a single coordinated volley directly into the packed enemy formation. The minefield he'd "hastily" and "sloppily" laid during his earlier performance detonated in manually timed sequence, each explosion catching the maximum possible concentration of enemy units at their most vulnerable moment.
What emerged was a three-dimensional web of interlocking firepower — a seamless, overlapping encirclement that left no seam, no gap, no exit.
The Rangers' main army, which sixty seconds earlier had been surging forward with momentum and numerical superiority, was now trapped. Their movements grew smaller. Their formation collapsed inward. Their options evaporated one by one.
At the twenty-one minute mark, a notification appeared on every screen in the venue:
[Coastline Rangers] have surrendered.
VICTORY.
A sharp, genuine cheer erupted from the Justice League Squad's station — primarily from Howard and Raj, who both reacted like they'd just watched their team score in overtime of the Super Bowl.
David pulled off his headset and pressed two fingers against his temple, where a mild but persistent throb had taken up residence sometime around the three-minute crisis point. Sheldon, with characteristic economy of motion, immediately opened his match data panel and began logging statistics.
"We actually won!" Raj's face was lit up with the slightly disbelieving joy of someone who had just survived something they weren't certain they would. "I actually held them for three full minutes! Me!"
"Your defensive grid held up exactly as designed," David said, giving his shoulder a brief, genuine pat. "And that last mine detonation sequence — the timing on that was perfect."
Howard, riding the post-victory energy, swiveled in his chair and scanned the nearby audience with the practiced optimism of a man who firmly believed that clutch gaming performances attracted female attention. His survey returned only admiring glances from a cluster of college guys in gaming T-shirts.
He deflated slightly, then redirected his attention to David. "Hey, be honest with me — was our strategy too readable? They figured out the bait and sent that whole cloaked force to counter it. Does that mean we telegraphed ourselves?"
"It wasn't that they read us," Sheldon said, not looking up from his data panel, delivering the correction with the brisk efficiency of someone citing a textbook. "It's more accurate to say they anticipated a potential response to the bait. A split-force counter isn't an unreasonable adjustment. What I failed to model correctly was the proportion they committed to it — allocating 40% of their total military strength to a surprise strike is an extremely high-risk gamble. If we'd pivoted even slightly earlier from our original plan, their main force would've been bogged down against Raj, and that cloaked strike team would've been eliminated in isolation."
"But they made the call and ran with it," David added. "They gambled that we'd stick to the original plan. They gambled that Sheldon couldn't absorb the surprise attack. And they gambled that Raj would break before we arrived."
Howard grinned. "Sounds like somebody made a lot of bad bets today."
"It wasn't a clean win," David said quietly.
His gaze had drifted toward the main tournament display, where the last few Round One matches were still resolving. Almost on instinct, his eyes found the Stanford Quantum Ghosts' station across the venue. Their match result was already posted on the board.
Thirteen minutes and forty-seven seconds.
Seven minutes faster than the Justice League Squad's finish.
Alex Wang — the Quantum Ghosts' captain, a lean guy with rectangular glasses and the unhurried posture of someone who had never seriously doubted a match outcome — was leaning back in his chair, trading easy laughs with his teammates. Something must have registered in his peripheral vision, because he turned his head and his eyes found David's across the distance of the venue floor.
No hostility. No dismissiveness. Not even particular interest. The look of someone briefly clocking an irrelevant detail before returning to more important matters.
He turned back to his teammates without changing expression.
"David?" Raj had caught where his attention was. "Is that...?"
"They also won." David pulled his gaze back. "Thirteen minutes forty-seven seconds."
"An absolute stomp," Sheldon confirmed, pulling up the Quantum Ghosts' match summary with two keystrokes. "Their opponent was UC Merced — a below-average roster by tournament standards. Stanford used a standard rush build. No variations, no situational adjustments, no complex operations. Pure fundamentals and flawless execution."
"Sounds kind of boring actually," Howard said.
"No." David shook his head once, deliberately. "Being able to run a standard tactic with that level of execution efficiency is precisely what makes it terrifying. It means they made essentially zero errors. And it also means—" he paused just slightly, "—they probably haven't shown us anything close to their actual ceiling yet."
A brief silence settled over the station.
It was broken by a tournament staff member approaching with a clipboard. "Caltech Justice League Squad — congratulations on advancing. Round Two is scheduled for 2:30 PM. Captain, you're up for the bracket draw."
Sheldon rose without comment and followed the staff member toward the draw table with the bearing of a man attending a scheduled obligation.
He returned two minutes later, slip of paper in hand.
"Our Round Two opponents are the UC San Diego Triton Knights." He set the paper on the table like he was presenting a lab result. "Last year's top-eight finishers. Their documented tendencies include multi-pronged harassment patterns and late-game power spike compositions. We should use the available time to rest and review their match footage."
The four teammates exchanged glances.
The brief post-victory warmth from the Coastline Rangers match was already beginning to cool, replaced by something quieter and more focused.
The real tournament was just getting started.
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