Project Angel

Bloom

He pulled the trigger.

A wicked smile played at his lips as he watched the bullet fly perfectly.

He felt his chest explode, but not before her back erupted into a thousand shards.

He needed to see who died first.

Immediately his eyes went black and he woke up on the throne with his eyes wide and his hands shaking. He furiously brushed his dark hair out of his eyes and watched the screen within his visor intently; it'd been a while since his heart beat this hard.

Defeat flashed across his eyes.

He groaned, slumping deep into his Throne as a string of curses escaped his lips.

The holographic interface leapt before him. Omg, wtf, and noob flooded the spectator chat which he closed irritatingly with a swipe of his hand.

His pride was hurt.

To make matters worse, the Match Making Rank was only gold tier that match. On his very first account he'd made it to challenger tier, the pinnacle of the game, yet up there players were much more team-oriented, and they despised his "lone wolf" play tactics.

He'd made another account to escape the publicity, and only losing 2 games made him statistically the best ravager out there. Not to mention his friends, or more accurately, "friend", convinced him not to ascend to a higher tier. In the end he ended up garnering even more publicity than his previous account.

No doubt that arbiter-class-whatever player that shut him down would have his entire spectator club sending her friend requests.

Hell, maybe even he would, considering a so called "girl-gamer" had emasculated him. It'd been a while since someone made a duel so exciting, and however much he despised this new player, he couldn't shake the suspicion that they'd meet again.

A message notification popped up on his interface, and he was about to close it before he saw who it was from.

A flush rose to his cheeks.

Cherrypup [PM]: call me right now.

A buzzing phone hologram appeared on his interface. With a displeased sigh, he obliged and pressed "accept."

His visor was dominated by the picture of his waif-like friend. White hair fell gently around her shocked face as her voice boomed in his ears

"That was crazy! How did they hide their username?"

"No idea..." he sighed, "I've never seen that before."

"And you said you could boost my MMR," she said teasingly. "If we lose I can't jump tiers; I thought you said you could carry me to challenger."

"Sorry, you're pretty heavy."

The next few minutes he endured a very painful lecture about adolescent insecurity.

"After all," she pouted, and he could hear the displeasure in her voice, "That was my last promo to ascend tiers... and we lost."

"Jeez. I already said I'm sorry, Cherry."

"You can make it up to me..."