Page 42 of Don't Hate the Player
“Reset the combo; we’re trying again. Ivan, take her health down.”
On a realGLOmap, players can’t hurt people from their own team. Friendly fire would makeGLOa total mess, considering all the elemental magic and circumstantial damage a team can deal in some relatively enclosed spaces. Team Fury is working on a freestyle map tonight, a closed clone of real maps that turn up in competition with different rules. On this map, Ivan can whack my Pharaoh around all he wants and I’ll actually take damage. It’s what I’ve been doing all night, basically: standing still and letting Team Fury beat the crap out of me to nail this combo. Every once in a while, I get to jump off a building.
I watch as Ivan’s character slashes at Pharaoh until my health is critical.
“Sorry, Knoxy,” he jokes. “I know I’m not supposed to hit a girl.”
How does he feel about getting slapped by one? Ugh, I need to calm down. None of this is personal. Still, I’m getting tired of watching my little necrobuddy take everyone’s shit tonight.
“That’s enough,” Byunki notes over voice chat. “KNOX, get back on the roof. Take your place, Erik.”
I mechanically tap the sequence of moves that brings Pharaoh up from the ground level of this map to the top of a ruined bell tower. We’ve run this so many times I could do it in my sleep. It’s late enough that I might actually have to if this practice goes on any longer. Byunki said he had to break early to do something else tonight, which was the first time I ever heard him indicate he might have a life outside ofGLO, but early for Byunki still won’t give me enough time to finish my calculus homework, refresh my bio reading, or proofread the sample position paper I need to submit ahead of Model UN tryouts.
“Everyone ready?” Byunki asks. The rest of Fury takes their places for the combo. “KNOX, jump.”
With Pharaoh’s health already down, I leap from the tower and aim for an area just behind Erik’s Jenkins character. Please get this right, I think as Pharaoh plummets.I’m tired, and my head hurts, and I’m having a bad week already. If Erik doesn’t get his heal/harm wall up in time, I’ll take enough fall damage to drop and we’ll have to load this map all over again.
Byunki clicks his tongue as a signal, and Erik slams a horizontal heal/harm right below where Pharaoh will land. I see it bloom underneath him, and—thank god—it’s fully operational when he hits the ground. Instead of taking fall damage, Pharaoh is powered all the way up. For my part of the combo, I use the surge to whip off three successive crossbow bolts that hit Byunki, Ivan, and Han-Jun square in the chest. Easy peasy, once Erik got his shit together.
“Gorgeous,” Ivan moans. “Seriously, can a combo be sexy? I’m feeling something over here. Something adult.”
“No one cares, Ivan,” Han-Jun comments. He and Erik are the quietest during these practices. I can never tell if they’re concentrating or if they have a separate healer chat where they talk about the rest of us.
“Good job,” Byunki says begrudgingly. “I’d tell you to run it again, but I have to go. Keep that in the bank for Round Two, Erik. It’s a good combo. Your strategy is getting better.”
“Oh, actually,” I chime in, “it was my idea. Remember?”Itold Byunki I thought we could do something cool with Jenkins’s horizontal heal just a few hours ago.Itold him Pharaoh’s near-death surge ability could piggyback on it with a triple bolt. We’ve spent half our time tonight practicing it; how could he forget that it was my combo in the first place?
Byunki’s tone shifts from impatience to annoyance. “Whatever, it’s not about credit, KNOX.”
I DM Ivan on the side:is he srsly doing this again
Ivan types back quickly:its not a big deal, let it go
Fine. Ivan’s right. Byunki’s been better with me in the first half of the week, and I don’t want to mess it up by throwing a tantrum three days before competition. Then again, asking to be credited for my strategy shouldn’t constitute a tantrum in anyone’s book.
“Tomorrow we’ll try it again and see how it works with the rest of our playbook. KNOX, since you’re on a strategy kick, I want you to analyze Chronic’s tank choices for Saturday. I really gotta go. Stay sharp. Same time tomorrow.”
Great, more homework. All I have to do now is watch all of Chronic’s matches, find out their elemental weaknesses, and do a statistical breakdown of who they’re likely to play in their swap spot within a margin of error Byunki feels is adequate. At least it’s more fun than bio.
Ivan DMs me a goodbye before signing off while Han-Jun and Erik drop offline. The freestyle map times out and kicks me back into theGLOmain screen.
“Emilia?” Mom taps at my closed bedroom door. “Can I come in?”
“Just a second!” I shout back and quickly switch my monitor cords from those that connect to Florence to those attached to the laptop I use for school. As far as my parents know, that’s the only computer I own. Sliding Florence’s cabinet closed takes a little longer.
“Is everything okay?” Mom asks.
In the last moments I have before she gets suspicious, I pull my arms into my pajama shirt and spin it around so I have it on backwards.
“All good, I was just changing! You can come in.”
Mom opens the door and finds me posed over my bed going through my homework papers.
“Were you just getting changed? Your shirt’s on backwards.”
I look down at my shirt and force a laugh. “I was, and yeah. Look at that. I’ve been so deep in”—I check the worksheet on my bed—“the Krebs system I didn’t even notice when I put it on wrong.”
“You’ve been busy lately,” she remarks. “I’m checking to make sure you’re staying on top of things.”
