Zane stood up slowly, stretching. After every game, he had to wait a few minutes for the next one to begin. It was during this time that he got the only exercise that he ever would. Aside from walking to the store when it was his turn, that is.
He slowly lowered himself to his knees, then leaned forward, setting his hands against the floor.
Maybe he would be matched quickly and wouldn't have to do it.
He waited ten seconds, pretending to be mentally preparing himself, and then, with a dejected sigh, he kicked his legs out behind him and began to do an uncomfortable push-up.
His body had plenty of calories, but few of the expensive, manufactured sugars that would give him a burst of energy when he began to do actual physical work, so he had difficulty getting the energy to force himself through the exercise. But he always did it, because he knew what would happen if he didn't.
He generally got at least two or three reps in before his next game came up.
But this time, the sound came in the middle of his first.
That was quick.
Zane got his knees under him and stood up, stretching briefly before sitting back down. He wasn't anywhere near fat enough to justify him abhoring physical activity as much as he did, but he didn't care. He knew, logically, that sitting and staring at the screen wouldn't do him any good, and it wouldn't make the loading faster either. But it sure would be a lot nicer than doing push-ups.
Zane sighed as he leaned back in the chair, closing his eyes briefly. Then he opened them and looked at the screen.
Which one to pick?
One, two, three, four, five...
His favorite champions stood lined up on top of the screen, three of them smiling at him and the other two looking away.
He had coded that specific modification himself. He wasn't good at the code, necessarily, but this simple of a project wasn't actually that difficult. Each of his champions had actual displays that looked like their in-game models, just more detailed. Moving versions of their pictures, often, but some he had hand-edited after making the overall overlay.
Some meaning, of course, these five, along with a few of the other female champions. They all had unfortunately low-detail models, nowhere near the detail put into unique characters like Heimerdinger and Tahm Kench after the latest few updates.
Zane sighed, looking over them.
It wasn't because of the band they made, but because he appreciated their movesets.
Ahri, Akali, Evelynn, Kai'Sa, Seraphine. Right underneath them, barely visible by the tip of her massive gun that almost jutted up into Ahri's space, was Jinx. Every so often, it spewed up blue smoke into Ahri's face, and she coughed and waved her hand in front of her face, then scowled downwards. That was a specific interaction that he had put into the code. As far as he knew, it hadn't been discovered by any of the other people he had sold the mod to. They all assumed it was made for people who had... let's say, an acquired taste.
Seraphine was great for forcing movement and positioning, because of the threat she posed to groups, and for supporting allies, when he wasn't feeling quite so aggressive. Akali was good for skill-intensive maneuvering and... well, assassination in general. Getting in and out quickly and safely. Ahri was a bit of a mix of the two, able to charm, but also with a high mobility, so she could support other heavy fighters or battle on her own. Kai'Sa was also good at assassination, especially if there was only one target, such as if he was in a lane with only a single enemy champion maining it.
Zane liked the charm effect, and the only other champion who had it, Rakan, was a support type. Seraphine was acceptable because she had a few more damage-focused abilities, but Rakan, though he had tried to use him, had never really clicked for Zane as the others had. He hadn't found the appeal. Maybe it was the stupid smirk on the guy's face, or maybe Zane was more aligned with the aforementioned acquired taste than he would like to admit.
Jinx, his other favorite, was... more of a guilty pleasure than anything. He didn't use her in serious tournament games, of which he participated in few. Despite his Challenger ranking, he always ensured not to rise to the top, deliberately making faulty decisions if he got within easy range of the top five, which were quickly exploited by his high-level opponents.
After a while of doing this, rumors started to circulate on the forums. And then, after noticing them, Zane had begun to stream himself playing the game. That had eventually added the challenge of a few worthless scum who had somehow crept into the top of rankings being able to stream snipe[1] him, but generally it was fine, as he didn't really care about winning every game, and he was even able to win against some of them anyway.
That provided enough money for him to pay his portion of this place's rent. He shared it with two other guys, and three girls. Two of those girls and one of those guys, who just happened to be the biggest and strongest, Able, were siblings. Able had so far been able to keep his sisters secure on a basis of their respect for him as the older sibling and their unusually less active libidos. However, Zane had noticed one of them eyeing him recently.
Zane frowned slightly, but his thoughts were interrupted by the countdown timer at the top of the screen blinking.
Five seconds.
Zane impulsively selected Ahri. The model grinned at him coyly, then his screen was briefly covered by a blue fire as a short custom cutscene played while the game loaded.
Zane's mind snapped into attention once the familiar background of the Rift entered his vision.
[1] If you didn't know, that's when someone without any sort of morals or professional courtesy at all watches the stream of someone else in the game and uses it to determine their position or strategy, or something worse, like personal information, but that part of the definition doesn't matter currently. Back to the story!