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The tutorial wasted no time. Two teams of five, deployed at opposite corners of a square map. Each side protected a Sacred Obelisk. The objective was simple — reach the enemy's Obelisk and destroy it before they destroyed yours.
Landen absorbed it quickly. So did the others — at least he assumed by the way nobody asked questions. The team stood in silence as the last panel faded and the tutorial ended, rebuilding itself in mere seconds. It was time to test their knowledge against computer-generated opponents.
They found themselves in the fountain of their base, still in their strange avatars as before. The town was the same as well — same layout, same proportions — but the open sky was gone. A canopy of trees closed overhead, and the blue sky was dark and clouded.
"Welcome to the Aegis Battle Arena."
"Prepare for engagement. The enemy arrives in five seconds."
"Five seconds?" Veya's voice cracked.
Ember was already scanning the tree line. The others pivoted in place, reading the space.
"Follow me!" Ember turned and broke into a run, carrying her large axe over her head.
They followed — all of them surging forward in a cluster.
All except Landen. "Wait." He didn't move. "What are you guys doing?"
— — —
From two buildings behind the high-ground base tower, a wave of minions spawned — a squad of blue-armored creatures barely clearing chest height. Each one was essentially a bush with ambitions: thick clusters of dark leaves, two sets of root-like legs, and a jagged mouth splitting open at the front like a wound in old wood. Their claws scraped the stone as they poured out.
At the back of the wave, a rock creature followed, its surface rough and uneven. It was a head taller than the bushes, and it made no sound except the low grind of its footfalls.
Ember, unsure what to do, fell behind the wave. "Stay with the minions," she said.
"They're alive?" Veya asked, watching one of them trip over its own root-leg.
Elle patted one on the head. "I wonder if they can carry me."
"Not with that enormous body of yours," Jareth said.
"Are you calling me fat?"
Jareth turned to look at her. "Yes — yes, I am."
Three towering sentinels stood along the lane's edge as the group advanced. Each one an ancient tree, branches spread wide, light pulsing low in the opening where eyes should have been.
Veya slightly slowed, approaching cautiously. "Are they friendly?"
"They're not attacking our minions," Ember said. "I think we're okay."
"They look exactly like the thing Vanderbilt summoned," Elle said.
"But smaller," Jareth said.
Elle stared at him. "You always have something to say."
Jareth stared back. "Vanderbilt's was bigger."
The river appeared before them — a dark band cutting across the lane, shallow and wide. And on the far bank was the opponent wave.
Red armor.
Otherwise identical. Same leaf-clusters, same root-legs, same cracked mouths hanging open. Even the rock creature at the back matched. They stood there in loose formation like a mirror image.
Veya stared. "They're just... us. But red."
"Attack the creatures wearing red!" Ember said.
She hit the water before she finished the sentence. The rest of them followed — crashing forward through the shallows, hitting the enemy minions all at once. The red minions crumpled fast under the combined pressure of the blue allies.
"Forward," Ember said, already moving. "Don't stall here."
The lane continued past the river, and the enemy tower came into view — same bark, same glowing eyes, same broad silhouette, just facing the wrong direction. Watching for them.
Jareth stepped forward.
The tower moved.
One arm swung down in a single arc and caught him across the chest with a sound like a tree splitting in a storm. He left the ground, skidded back across the lane stones, and came to a stop ten feet behind where he'd been standing.
"Jareth! Are you okay?" Elle asked.
Ember stood above him. "How much damage did you take?"
Jareth checked his display. "Roughly. Twenty-five percent of my total HP."
"From one hit?" Veya said, not as a question.
Ember crouched in front of him and met his eyes. "You walked into its range."
"I know."
"Well, at least now we know what the range looks like."
Their minions had continued forward — the blue-armored bushes had swarmed the base. The tower simply swatted at them in slow arcs, quickly taking them out in a few seconds.
The lane went quiet.
Veya looked at the other. "What now?"
Nobody had a good answer. They stood in a loose cluster at the edge of the tower's shadow.
Then all five of their wrists beeped.
The wristbands — standard issue, fitted during gear assignment, which Landen had explained were basically status monitors — lit up in unison. An automated voice came through, calm and unhurried.
"Warning. Ally towers are under attack."
Ember tapped her band. A map bloomed outward above her wrist — the full square of the arena rendered in thin light, dotted with blue, red, and white markers.
She studied it for a moment. "Blue is us, I think. Red is them. White must be the minions."
"So those white dots pushing up the middle lane are—" Elle started.
"Minions, yes. Which means we're getting hit somewhere while we're standing here." Ember's finger hovered over the map, tracing. She stopped.
Near the top of the map — above the center line, well away from where any of them were standing — a single blue dot moved. She looked up. Counted heads. Looked back at the dot.
"That's Landen."
Silence.
"What is he doing up there?" Elle said.
"By himself," Jareth added.
Ember stared at the dot for another second. Then she closed the map. "Whatever he wants, apparently. If he dies alone, that's his decision." She turned down the lane. "We're going to the bottom tower. Follow the river."
— — —
They found the bottom lane quickly, moving along the riverbank as the tree line thickened around them. Somewhere above, the canopy filtered everything to green shadow.
Then the arena spoke.
"First Blood."
The voice came from everywhere at once. The team stopped walking.
"What was that?" Veya looked around.
"The first kill of the game." Ember started walking again. "Somebody got killed. Probably Landen, doing whatever Landen is doing by himself."
They arrived at the bottom tower, but it had already dealt with the wave of minions. Then they fell into rhythm — riding in with the minion waves, picking off red minions before they could pile up, stepping back when the wave thinned. It was simple work, almost meditative.
Then three figures stepped out from the trees.
They wore red.
"Heroes," Ember said, voice dropping. "Enemy heroes. Get ready."
"Ready? — I don't know how to use my skills," Elle said.
"Me neither," Jareth said.
"Why couldn't they put us in our own bodies?" Veya complained.
"The simulators can't replicate us," Ember said. "Even if they could, our essence levels are too low. These preset avatars are powerful and ready to go."
The enemy heroes closed in. Despite being bots — AI-controlled, movement patterns too clean, reactions too precise — they coordinated with ruthless efficiency. Ember called a target. The team swung toward it. And then things quickly fell apart.
Veya triggered something she didn't mean to. Elle got caught out of position. Jareth ate an ability head-on rather than dodge it. Ember lasted longest, but it wasn't close.
One by one, then all at once. They died.
A few seconds later, they reappeared at the fountain plaza, where they started. Their bodies healed as water fell and a warm light cascaded over them. Respawn timers hung in the air above each of them like a sentence.
Nobody spoke for a moment.
Then: "How did we lose when we outnumbered them?" Ember said.
"We're under-leveled." Jareth pointed upward. "Look."
The scoreboard floated above. The enemy red team had five portraits, each with levels ranging from five to six. On their side, the blue team, they had four portraits all at level three.
And then there was one outlier.
Level eight.
"...That's Landen's portrait," Veya said.
Ember stared at it. "He's level eight."
"We're level three," Jareth said.
"I can see that."
"How is he level eight?"
Ember didn't answer because she didn't have one. She watched the number like it owed her an explanation.
Next to Landen's portrait were his life bar and stats.
She pulled up the map, and everyone gathered around. They watched as five red dots collapsed around a blue dot.
"Landen's health suddenly dropped," Elle said, staring at the stats board.
The blue dot stopped moving.
Ember smiled. "That's it for him—"
"SOLO KILL!"
One of the red dots disappeared from the map.
"Is that—" Elle started.
"DOUBLE KILL!"
Another red dot removed.
"That's—" Veya looked at the others.
"YOUR TEAM HAS DESTROYED AN ENEMY TOWER."
"He's still going," Jareth said quietly.
"TRIPLE KILL!"
Ember said nothing. She watched the respawn timer.
They were back in the game and ran toward the middle tower, moving together with more intention than before. The announcements continued as they traveled, each one landing in the group like a stone into still water.
"ULTRA KILL!"
"Four in a row," Elle said. She sounded impressed.
"YOUR TEAM HAS DESTROYED AN ENEMY BASE TOWER."
"He's in their base," Veya said.
"RAMPAGE!"
"What does Rampage mean?" Elle asked.
"Five back-to-back kills," Ember said flatly. She wasn't looking at anyone.
"YOUR TEAM HAS DESTROYED THE ENEMY'S REMAINING BASE TOWERS."
"We're winning," Veya said. She looked at Ember. "We're winning, and we haven't done anything."
Ember pulled up the minimap. That single blue dot — the one that had been sitting alone near the top of the map when they first looked — was deep in enemy territory now. Pushing inward. The red markers around it were thinning.
"Come on." She turned and broke into a run. "We're going to their base."
They ran. The forest was quiet. The lane ahead was clear in a way it hadn't been before — no minions, no resistance, just open ground and the wreckage of what had already been cleared.
They crossed into enemy territory together.
And then the world shook. A large explosion.
A sound like every bell that had ever existed struck simultaneously, and the announcement came down from above like a verdict:
"ENEMY OBELISK DESTROYED!"
The music hit first — layered and enormous, something triumphant that seemed to come from the trees themselves. Sound effects cascaded across the arena in waves, overlapping, building.
"VICTORY!"
The team stood in the middle of enemy territory and looked at each other.
"We won," Veya said.
"Landen won," Jareth said.
Ember said nothing. She looked at the minimap one more time. The blue dot was stationary, sitting right on top of where the enemy obelisk used to be.
— — —
When they woke inside the simulation room, Landen was already heading for the exit.
He didn't make it far.
Elle caught him by the arm and spun him around with more force than necessary. "You were amazing out there." She was grinning wide, the kind that took up her whole face. "Like — actually amazing. I didn't even know what was happening, and you were already three steps ahead of all of us."
"Four steps," Veya said, appearing at his other side — close, almost directly under his chin — staring up at him like he was a rockstar who just walked off a stage. "How did you do it? Walk me through it. From the beginning."
Jareth stood a few feet back with his arms crossed, but he was nodding slowly. "Well done."
Coming from Jareth, that was practically a speech.
Landen looked between them. The attention was a lot. He chuckled and rubbed the back of his head. "Let's just say this was a smurf account situation."
Blank stares. All four of them.
Nobody knew what that meant, but nobody admitted it either.
"You cheated." Ember's voice came from behind him.
He turned. She was already closing the distance, eyes fixed on him with focused displeasure.
"You found a glitch and exploited it." She stopped in front of him, close enough that he had to meet her eyes. "The levels, the kill streak, all of it — that doesn't happen. Not like that. Not in a first run." Her jaw tightened. "There's no way someone like you pulls that off clean. I don't know what you did, but I'm going to find out." She held his gaze for a moment, then turned and walked out.
The door clicked shut behind her. No one said anything. Landen looked at the empty doorway, then back at the others — Veya still close, Jareth still arms-crossed, Elle still holding onto his arm.
He smiled awkwardly. "So. Good game?"
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And search: MOBA System