Page 8 of How We Play the Game
Not all of us did, though. At Wizzcon, Ivan said he didn’t play in any preliminaries and that Brian Juno himself had asked him to compete. Is that how Ivan got another chance? How did he do that? Can I do that too?
“Players like you are the future of Wizzard. You know our games inside and out, you know what it takes to win, and you know what you love aboutGuardians League Royale. I can’t think of a better focus group to help us makeGLR: 1v1the best game mode we’ve ever added, or a better pool of people in which to find the two players most worthy of revealing1v1to the masses in our first event ever streamed worldwide, live from the Wizzard Theater!”
Brian leans forward and grips the microphone like he’s about to burst into an Adele cover. He lowers his voice again, a repeat of the trick that forces us to lean forward in our seats and pay attention.
“But how will we find our final contenders? A true top two, but this time only one can win eternal glory.”
Cass leans over in his seat and suggestively bumps me with his shoulder.
“Piñata,” I whisper back at him, but turn my head so he can see I’m smiling.
“I will tell you,” Brian continues with a flourish. Flourishes are also one of Brian’sthings. Whenever he speaks, even if it’s just a video call interview, he moves like he’s conducting an invisible orchestra. He shrugs and nods and bops around like every moment in his world has a kick-ass backing track that only he can hear. One day I’ll hear the music too.
“But first, who better to herald the first steps of a new class of champions than Wizzard Games’ first-ever champions?”
First-ever champions? Wait. No way. There’s no waytheyare here today too. Brian’s white spotlight suddenly expands to cover all of downstage, making it bright enough for Cass and me to see each other’s faces, but our hype is beyond words or expressions. Instead, we smack each other on the knees a few times in the universal gesture forAre you hearing this shit?
“Please welcome Team Unity!”
Okay, okay, wow. So. Unity is aGuardians League Onlineteam composed entirely of GOATs. And not the peacock farm kind, the actual greatest players to ever play a Wizzard title.Guardians League Onlineis a team game, which means I’llnever play it on purpose if I can help it, but everyone who’s even remotely interested in Wizzard knows Team Unity.
It’s a huge deal when a game company decides to launch their own esports division. It’s a huger deal when they launch the league with a championship tournament that ends with an underdog win. The deal assumes another level of hugeness when that team has not one, not two, but three girls on their roster, which gives Wizzard an incentive to build a diverse (if moderately feral) fandom that has no time for gatekeepers in esports.
The Big Three members of Team Unity playfully jog onstage to join Brian at the center, looking clean-cut and dominant in brand-new blue jerseys emblazoned with the Guardians League crest.
“We have Bob Quince, team captain! Kiki Kim, damage-dealer extraordinaire. Penelope Howard on heals!”
Even the most sleep-deprived student in the theater is wide awake now. We know what comes after the Big Three.
“And of course, the ones you’ve been waiting for, the healer and the dealer, it’s Emilia. And. Jake!”
Team Unity’s deal goes beyond huge when you throw in the Emilia and Jake factor. It blows up; it cannot be contained. The deal has its own gravity and a moon and potable water in underground springs. They have something Wizzard couldn’t manufacture if they tried: crossover appeal.
Onstage, at just the right moment, Emilia and Jake emerge from the wings holding hands. Emilia’s big, Disney-princess eyes brighten her tan face and her long brown curls almost reach her waist, which is nuts because I don’t think she’s wearing extensions. Hot girl magic, I guess. Jake has thewisdom to look primarily at Emilia as they cross the stage with laser focus; his thick glasses and sweet face scream both “sex nerd” and “babygirl.”
They’re gorgeous, they’re dating, and their timing is unimpeachable. Emilia and Jake revealed their relationship live onstage right after Unity won the championship, and with one kiss they gave everyone something even more fun to root for than checkmates and team kills: true love. Now Brian has them at every single Wizzard event like photogenic human mascots, and they basically keep WiTch afloat with the popularity of their co-streams. You can’t even say one of their names without the other; it would be like saying Salt without Pepa or calling Chappell Roan “Kayleigh.” It’s Emilia and Jake, Jake and Emilia, and—oh. OH. There’s one more thing I forgot.
This is more delicious than I thought. It’s extraordinary. Better than I could have imagined to the point where I almost want to laugh out loud. Ask me why. Okay, fine, I’ll say it. Only because it’s funny.
Emilia is the girl Ivan’s team tried to bury.She was Ivan’s playing partner before his team, Team Fury, kicked her out! Emilia came back for the finale as a member of their rival Team Unity, and they beat every one of those boys, Ivan included, with the digital, barbed-wire baseball bat of karma. He must be miserable right now. Kind of hard to swing for a second chance when the reason you screwed up your first one is basically Queen Wizzard. Talk about rubbing his failure in his face.
I happened, very accidentally and not because I was looking, to see where Ivan sat down before the lights went out, soI glance down to see if he’s there. Nope, he’s gone from his seat.Great time for a bathroom break, I think.Coward.
“Hey, every—Hold on.” Emilia tries to speak through the same microphone Brian was using but isn’t anywhere near tall enough to use it. She looks over her shoulder and doesn’t have to say anything for her own personal Jake to step forward with a shy smile and start adjusting the height of the stand. Someone in the first few rows of the audience whistles at him. The blush crawling up his cheeks is so red I can spot it from all the way up here, and he promptly drops the microphone with an earsplitting squeal of feedback.
“Ouch!” I can’t help but scream when the speaker next to my seat starts to screech. Now I know what a million dollars feels like when it’s trying to drill a hole in my eardrum. Someone in the small crowd below has the audacity to laugh at my very real pain. Good, another jerk in the building. Ivan will have a friend.
“Sorry!” Jake yells from the stage. “Sorry about that, person in the back. Sorry.”
I am begging the gods of whichever crossover pantheon governs both video games and live theater to end this moment before people start looking at me again. Luckily, Emilia isn’t the type to miss a beat. She picks up the microphone and holds it like a normal person, without the mic stand getting in her way.
“Kiss!” someone shouts from the crowd. Emilia rolls her eyes and looks over at Jake, who allows the briefest flicker of annoyance to cross his face.
“Yeah, no, we’re not doing that,” she says dryly before readjusting her smile. “But we do want to tell you guys thatwe know how it feels to be where you are right now. It’s okay to be nervous. You’re gonna do fine. You are here because you’re amazing players, and all you have to do this summer is remember that and be yourselves. Except for you.” She points in the direction of the heckler. “You might want to consider being someone else if that’s how you beha—”
Jake coughs loudly behind her. Somewhere in the rough noise it almost sounds like he’s saying, “Em!” She hears him, glances very quickly at Brian, and skillfully backtracks to continue her spiel about how being ourselves is very important this summer.
Which is fine; I just can’t figure out why she’s telling us this. I don’t understand why a battle royale competition needs me to “be myself” to succeed.
