Out in the cold night of 12th avenue in the streets of London, it was about 9pm and traffic seemed to have crawled down to a stop.
Underground, the transit station seemed to flow freely, though the amount of people in it seemed little.
Just then, a train flew by and stopped at the transit point.
Passengers walked out, one of them being Dylan.
Dylan looked at his phone, oblivious of his surroundings as he walked to the exit gateway that led to the staircase.
His phone buzzed, causing him to groan as he saw the name on it.
Mum!
"Hello... Yeah I'm at 12th avenue... I told you I'd be staying at Rex's place tonight... Muuuum, its work, I'm not going there to idle away... Yeah I've had dinner on the way... No I don't smoke mum... Fine... Love you"
And then the call was cut.
Dylan sighed as he walked out the tunnel to the main road. The reason he hadn't gone home directly was because of what happened at the café today.
Dylan was from a not well-to-do family, still living with his single mother and older brother. He didn't have the funds to buy a PC, so most of the time, he rent a PC from a cafe once a while. That was why he couldn't go home. He wanted to use his very close buddy's PC in order to login by 11pm
But after what happened, he was determined to beat that giantess in a 1v1 to recover his wounded ego.
"Who the heck she think she is? Some high ranked player or something... I didn't do all that bad. Hell I had a positive KDA with shutdown gold... If only my team ..." Just as he grumbled to himself, he noticed he had reached a block of flats, about 5 stories high. He pushed the door and went in, eager to prove a point...
But the cold air of night cooled him off, reminding him on why he should always carry a jacket during the winter period.
***
By 9:37pm, Crea opened the door to her apartment, tired and hungry... She noticed that the lights weren't on, a sign that her roommate wasn't home yet. She turned them on, kicked off her sneakers and took of her hoodie and T-shirt, leaving her with a sports bra underneath to cover her chest.
She walked to the kitchen and saw a plastic plate that was covered, with a letter on top.
Crea could deduce that it was from her roommate Tris.
'Out with her boyfriend huh?' Crea thought as she skimmed through the contents of the letter, before grabbing a spoon and sitting in a long stool next to the kitchen table.
It was squashed potato and beans, with some chili sauce on top.
Crea sighed as she looked at the cabinet and grabbed a bottle of pepper powder, pouring it on the mixture.
She down took a large spoonful into her mouth and moaned...
"Ah, hits the right spots"
She wolfed the food down as if nothing mattered and tossed the plate into the sink.
Just then, her phone buzzed in alarm.
It was 9:50pm
Her stream would usually start by 10pm, so she has less than 10 mins to get ready.
Crea didn't bother to take a shower, she could do that after the stream. Instead she booted up her computer and opened Arianis Legacy...
She suddenly thought on whether to use her main account or her Smurf. She decided on the latter.
Logging in her second account, she instantly went to the friend request bar and typed in 'DonkeyDylan'...
A row of names popped off, but she picked the one with the right write up she'd seen when he was playing.
He was online.
She looked into his match history and immortal mastery.
And what she saw confirmed her thoughts on him...
He wasn't that good...
In fact he seemed to be worse off than she thought.
He was currently Diamond rank with a win rate of 47% and his favourite role was Hyper Core.
His most played actually being Bageer and Mary Shiloh...
Crea scoffed as she compared his profile to hers...
ToWei: GrandMaster Rank: 110 Rank Points
88% Winrate Overall
Most Played Immortal: Sleepless
Matches 378w- 31L 92.42% Winrate.
Just then, a message popped on her screen, it was a reminder to start up her stream as the time was 10pm sharp.
Crea opened the streaming app and began to record her stream online.
Just as she went on, viewed trickled in slowly, about 30 to 40 of them.
Crea typed a sentence on her Text-to-speech voice over AI.
"Hi guys, today I finally touched grass"
The chat went ballistic, some sending their congrats, other showing shock. One even asked what color it was.
Crea chuckled as she grabbed an energy drink she pulled out from her fridge and popped the lid before gulping half the bottle down.
"Calm down, let me tell you. While I was doing that, I met this kid who I wanted to give solid advise on the game... Guess what he did?"
The chat began to make suggestions
-i don't know, some racist comment.
-maybe he called you fat
-kekw, fat
-lol
-said he'd beat you in a 1v1
Crea lifted her eye on the last comment, and tagged it.
-He said I played E-girl champs and can't carry...
The chat went on until a few seconds
The a row of laughing Pepé emotes filled her screen.
She then moved her cursor to the culprit and typed
"I'm not going to take that sitting, so I called him up for a 1v1 to prove him wrong. That and I also hate bad players who flame their team"
She then created a lobby and invited DonkyDylan for a custom 1v1...
Crea acted all righteous, but right now, she was being petty.
'E-girl champs. I'm going to show you E-girl' she grumbled as she messaged Dylan.
***
Earlier
Dylan had just logged in a few minutes ago when a thought came to him...
'What was that giantesses IGN (in game name) again?'
He began to look deep into his thoughts before he realized, he'd never actually asked her for it.
"I'm a dimwit!!!" He roared to himself, startling the figure laying on the bed.
"Bro chill, we know you're stupid" he jumped up as he tossed the book he was reading at him.
"You're not helping bro"
Rex, a dark skin young guy with a chubby build, wearing a pair of thin rim glasses fell back to the bed.
"Quiet down bro, you'll wake the neighbors" he groaned as he picks up his phone.
"Oh shit, Wu is streaming soon" Rex exclaimed, grabbing his phone in the corner.
"Ah! Another E-girl streamer with no skill, just my luck... Sure, what are friends for?"
"Heeey! You've got to stop being a hater bruv. Most of those E-girls are higher rank than you by the way"
Dylan winced. Currently he was diamond rank, just above bad and just below actually good. But in his head, he felt that he was been locked down by bad teammates.
Just then... A notification pop up came on his screen.
¹Friend Request
ToWei added you...
ToWei invited you to a Custom 1v1
Accept Y/N
Dylan lifted his brow and a thought hit him. He remembered that the receptionist had called his Ign without knowing him.
'Ah! She must have seen it when I was playing... Anyway, let's See's
He clicked yes and was taken into an interface with her ToWei, who then typed a message directly to him.
-You showed up... Pick who you want to, I'll play Bageer
Dylan scoffed and almost fumed. He then typed frantically in reply.
-You gonna regret it bi.....
He stopped at the swear word, before cleaning it up and rewriting...
-Bet, I'll take you on E-girl...
Then he sent the message. Just then, in beknownst to him, his friend who was sleeping on the bed chuckled, as if amused by something on his phone.
Soon, he pushed the ready button.
Game on.
***
In another place, a mansion just in the suburbs outside town.
The house was a small terrace with a garage downstairs.
Inside was a figure sitting before a PC, holding a whisky shot cup in his left hand and his mouse on the right.
On his large star of the art 40 inch monitor was a stream; CreatorWu's stream.
Soon the voice of a little girl came from outside the large bedroom.
"Daaaaad!!! I'm done with my homework, let me in"
The man chuckled as the door creaked open, a little girl with white hair tied into two ponytails peeked in, her wide grey eyes blinking as if pleading with her father.
"All right, turn on the big screen downstairs..."
"Yay!" She exclaimed as she slammed the door behind her and ran downstairs.
The man chuckled as he looked at the screen directly.
The 1v1 before him was about to start.
"Interesting"