The strategy room had finally quieted, the usual chatter and laughter replaced by the low hum of servers and the soft whir of hovering holo-screens. Everyone else had drifted off to their own corners—Migs at a console, swiping through map overlays with distracted fingers, Aria scrolling through stats on her tablet, muttering to herself—but I stayed. I couldn't tear my eyes away from the holo-feed.
Drumstickkk moved across the virtual battlefield with a precision that made my chest tighten. Every flick of his wrist, every slight shift in posture, every calculated reload—it all demanded attention. I leaned forward, elbows digging into the cold obsidian table, and clenched my jaw. My eyes darted back and forth between match footage, latency graphs, and weapon statistics. Each frame begged analysis; every muzzle flash, every angle, every movement pattern was a puzzle I had to solve.
The light from the holo-feed reflected in the glass panels lining the room, casting fragmented golden shards across my notebooks and empty energy drink bottles. The glow made the dust in the air look like faint sparks, like the battlefield itself was bleeding into the HQ.
I noticed things I hadn't before. Drumstickkk didn't rely on any neural overlay. He didn't cheat with auto-aim assists. His movements thrived even in simulated high-latency conditions, the kind that would normally punish the most skilled players. It was… unnatural, in a way that both terrified and fascinated me.
I leaned even closer, finger tracing the trajectory of his bullets on the replay, my pulse matching the rhythm of every shot. The rest of the room faded away—the faint scent of burnt coffee and recycled air, the hum of electronics, even the low murmurs from the team—none of it mattered. All that existed was him on that feed, and me, trying to dissect every fraction of a second he existed in.
And I knew, without a shred of doubt, that this was my turning point. If I wanted to ever step back onto the Crossfire streets and come out on top, I would have to understand him completely. Not just his stats, his patterns, or his guns—but the way he thought, the way he lived in the game.
Every detail I absorbed, every note I scribbled, every subtle movement I rewound—it was fuel. Obsession, yes, but a purposeful obsession. The quiet of the strategy room wasn't peaceful; it was a crucible. And I had no intention of leaving it unchanged.
Drumstickkk's style hit me like a punch I didn't see coming. Every movement was deliberate, every shot precise, every decision executed with a reckless fluidity that somehow worked. Manual aiming—he ignored auto-assist, disregarded neural overlays—and yet he thrived. Even in high-latency scenarios that would have crippled the best of us, he moved like water flowing over jagged rocks, chaotic but perfect.
I leaned closer to the holo-feed, my elbows pressing into the cold obsidian table, the surface vibrating faintly from the server hum. I pulled up archived footage, old tournaments, leaderboards, interviews—every scrap I could find. Drumstickkk had been a star of Gaia Esports, back when the team still carried that name. Now it was rebranded as Esports Academy, where new recruits—trainees like most of my team—started fresh.
I traced his movements again and again. The way he strafed through corridors, the timing of his reloads, the subtle feints before a kill—everything screamed mastery born of obsession. Every frame confirmed it: this guy had been a legend before he vanished.
"Lunatic," I muttered under my breath, the word tasting bitter on my tongue, a mix of disbelief, envy, and a flicker of fear.
Then I looked at myself.
My stats. My reliance on auto-assist. The ease with which I leaned on my team during duels. It hit me like a shockwave to the chest: I had been lazy, comfortable, dependent. I had thought I was climbing, improving—but compared to him, I was stagnant. Drumstickkk wasn't just a player—he was the mirror of everything I had avoided facing in myself.
A fire ignited deep in my chest, sharp and relentless. My pulse thrummed in my ears as I imagined drills, exercises, simulations. I shut off the floating ads and peripheral apps, letting the soft glow of the holo-feed dominate the room.
Every twitch of Drumstickkk's movement, every angle of approach, every tiny quirk in weapon handling became my lesson. I replayed sequences over and over, letting patterns embed themselves into muscle memory and thought. The faint scent of burnt coffee and recycled air from the HQ mixed with the hum of servers, grounding me as I dove deeper.
My fingers ached from swiping, my eyes burned from focus—but I couldn't stop. I had to understand him. I had to become better. He wasn't just a ghost from the past anymore; he was the standard, and I was determined to catch up—or die trying.
Hours slipped by without me noticing. The sun had drifted lazily across the sky, its afternoon light slicing through the glass towers of Makati, painting narrow, golden stripes across the strategy room. Dust motes floated lazily in the beams, catching the light like tiny sparks. My shoulders ached from leaning forward over the cold obsidian table, fingers stiff from endless swipes across holographic readouts. Yet I couldn't tear my eyes away.
I rewound clips, slowed footage, replayed sequences. Every twitch, every micro-adjustment, every subtle shift in Drumstickkk's stance—I traced them obsessively. I scribbled notes on reaction timing, aim mechanics, positioning, and decision-making. Every detail I captured felt like a key, unlocking pieces of a puzzle I had barely begun to comprehend.
Each discovery fueled me. Envy and admiration twisted together into something sharp, hot, driving me forward. I wasn't just preparing for a match anymore; I was rebuilding myself from the ground up. Reflexes, strategy, reliance on tech—everything about the way I approached this game had to change.
By the time the HQ lights dimmed and the servers' glow became the room's only illumination, I had begun a new regimen. Drills without neural assists. Manual aiming exercises. Rapid-fire decision simulations. My reflection in the visor lying on the table looked tired, sweat glistening along my temples, but focused—alert. The young ace who had lost once would not lose again.
The man I was chasing—Drumstickkk, the so-called "lunatic"—was no longer a ghost. He was the standard, the bar I needed to reach, and I had only one path forward.
I leaned back, cracked my neck, and muttered to myself, feeling the surge of determination. "Aight Jin, enough theories. Time for practical training."
I grabbed my VR visor and settled myself in my VR pod, the familiar weight grounding me, and slid it over my eyes. The hum of the servers faded behind the neural interface, the real world dissolving into the familiar, electrified air of Call of Duty: VR. This was where the work truly began.