Her hips swaying side to side, The Sexy Fox saunters to him through the cloud of dust. Stripped of all her weapons, she has nothing left to fight with but her empty fists. She must be insane. Or desperate. More likely desperate. With less than 19 seconds before the end of the battle, what choices does she have?
“You want more scores?” The Brave Lion thinks. “No problem. Come and get it, loser. If you can.” He chuckles and checks the scores rendered on his glasses:
00:00:19
The Sexy Fox 8.72 vs. The Brave Lion 9.81.
The Brave Lion has won. Almost. All he needs to do is stall her for the next 19 seconds, and the championship will be his. All the years of playing video games day and night finally paid off. In 19 seconds, he will be called the winner, and he will be recognized as such by thousands of VR fanatics all over the world. The avatars of hundreds, who have paid for the first-class ticket, are gathered in Rome’s Colosseum—the virtual one—to watch the battle closely with their own eyes. Lynda could also be sitting among them, admiring his gaming skills and envying his victory. “Forget about her, Ryan,” The Brave Lion tells himself. “Just focus on the game.”
In 19 seconds, Ryan will be on the top, and he will get the respect that he deserves. Girls will die to take a photo with him…and will be honored to date him too. Lynda will probably try to get back in touch with him. He, however, will not return her calls. She missed her chance. That is her loss. “Forget about her. Concentrate, Ryan. Concentrate.”
Stepping his right foot forward, he stiffens his slightly bent knee. His left toes barely touching the ground, he slides the other foot back into Akimatto position. Like a veteran samurai, he holds up the lightsaber with both hands. “Come to Papa,” he mutters, clenching his teeth.
Her eyes glued to The Brave Lion, The Sexy Fox picks up speed, her saunter turning into a stride. What could she possibly do barehanded?! Her face twisting into a suicidal rage, she sprints towards The Brave Lion, screaming at the top of her voice.
Aiming for her neck, The Brave Lion raises his lightsaber. His eyes locked on her and her every micro-motion, he repositions his fingers on the grip to tighten his clutch.
Dashing the last step, she shields her face with her left hand, as if flesh and bone can ever stop a lightsaber.
Roaring his early victory, The Brave Lion strikes down the sword.
The burning light is a span away from her neck when she ducks by throwing herself at his feet.
That is a dumb move, The Brave Lion thinks. Now, she cannot even run away. Turning to the left, he follows her neck with his lightsaber.
Why is her right fist turning green? The Brave Lion wonders and worries. Is that a Hulk fist? How did she—
Before she falls on the ground, with her fist swollen to five times its size, she punches The Brave Lion in the crotch. Why in the balls? With the power of a thousand fists jammed into it, the Hulk Punch crushes everything that comes its way. For the love of God, why in the balls?
Damn this G38 VR gears! The designer must be a man-hating woman. Why else they built this I-can-feel-my-freaking-balls feature into it? There is a limit on how realistic a game has to be. And that limit is Ryan’s balls. What is it with these female fighters always aiming for them anyway? That is just plain mean. More than mean, actually. It is cruel. Borderline criminal even. There should be a rule or law or something against it somewhere. In the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, perhaps. Thou Shall Not Punch a Man in the Balls.
The Brave Lion is thrown in the air like a light, goose-down pillow. Ryan can hear every beat of his heart. Time slows down while the body of his avatar travels through the air. In a moment of weightlessness, his eyes survey the audience, searching for Lynda. Having their mouth half open and their eyes bugged out, none of the fans is chanting his name anymore. Disloyal scums! No, Lynda cannot be one of them. She has faith in Ryan. She knows well that a great player always has aces hidden up his sleeves. What makes a gamer powerful is not the size of his avatar nor his tools and weapons. It is rather the twist, the exit strategy that he keeps under wraps until the very end. And Ryan has got plenty of those.
The Brave Lion falls on his back, his lightsaber thrown away, far from his reach. Before he can draw his laser gun, The Sexy Fox jumps on him, pushes his hands back, above his head, pinning them to the ground. He checks the scores rendered on his glasses:
00:00:13
The Sexy Fox 8.73 vs. The Brave Lion 9.81.
Ryan has guessed right. The punch has earned her only 0.1 points. Not a big deal.
His hands pinned to the ground, The Sexy Fox is lying on top of him—and not in a good way. This position is called the crucified since the gamer underneath her cannot make any move as if his hands are nailed to a cross. She has got The Brave Lion at her mercy. That is what she thinks!
Now is the perfect time for The Brave Lion to reveal one of his twists. What she does not know is that he has used half his credit to augment his left hand to a robotic one. With a quick jerk, he frees his robotic hand. Ha. She did not see that coming. All he needs now is his lightsaber, and The Sexy Fox will wish she had never been born.
The Brave Lion looks left. Damn! It is out of reach, too far away.
An amateur gamer would struggle to reach the heaviest weapon. But the great gamer Ryan is, he can predict his opponent’s next moves. There is a 95% chance that she has a dagger or something under her shield. With her left hand that is free now, she would draw the dagger. With a probability of 80%, she would stab The Brave Lion 0.15 seconds before his right hand reaches the lightsaber. That brings the total odds of him successfully attacking her before she does down to only 76%. Ironically, Ryan got an F in math. That is too slim of a chance to take. Ryan cannot risk the championship on such low odds.
Instead, he decides to go for the oldest—as well as the simplest—trick in the book, sand in the eye. It’s a bit too dirty of a trick. One might even call it immoral. But when it comes to winning the championship, morality cannot get in the way. And Ryan is in here to win it.
His robotic hand is grabbing a fist of sand when The Sexy Fox presses her lips against his. What the hell is she doing?! Having the score disappeared from his glasses, he can see nothing but her hazel eyes. Her silky soft, blond hair surrounding their faces brings them privacy. Her irises change color, to green, the color of Lynda’s eyes. The Brave Lion can see his reflection in her pupils; it is the image of a lonely teenage boy longing for love.
No longer under the control of his brain, his lips reflexively decide to pucker. The burning sting that he feels on his rebellious lips dashes throughout his face’s skin and then his neck. In a fraction of a second, he loses control over his entire body, frozen like dead meat. What the hell is happening?!
With a triumphant smile on her face, The Sexy Fox separates herself from him, showing the bottle of poisonous Okra between her teeth. Less than 12 seconds before the end, Ryan finds himself fallen for the second oldest trick in the book. Shame on you, Ryan! Shame on you. Having his central nervous system depressed by the poison, his body will remain paralyzed for the next 10 seconds.
Ryan blames his momentary lapse on these modern G38 VR goggles. The rendered image is just too real. The first thing he will do with the prize money is buy himself one of these, the full set. While other gamers get to practice with their personal G38 gears, Ryan had nothing to train with but his dinosaur-age Oculus gear. The G3x series not only will improve the resolution by like a zillion times, but also, thanks to the advanced motion detectors, they will enable him to play anytime, anywhere, even at nights when he is lying on the threadbare couch of his Grandma. She is also fed up with him jumping all around, acting out the limited space in her small one-bedroom apartment. She almost kicked him out when Ryan broke her purple fern pot while playing with Oculus.
Sitting on his crotch, The Sexy Fox slowly draws a spear from under her arm shield.
His eyes dilate when the glare of the sharp blade falls on them. That is the Spear of Destiny! She must have stolen it from Solomon’s Temple. Overtaken by fear, Ryan gasps for air. A stab with the Spear of Destiny would earn The Sexy Fox one full point. With his heart pounding fast, he thinks and thinks.
Such a plight! There must be a way out. He just needs another twist. Perhaps the Hammer of Thor. Or an Iron Fist. Or a Venom Strike. It has to be fast. And it has to score him the most. He will have only one second to execute it. At the very end, when his body regains its muscle power. Just one second before the game ends. He has about 10 seconds to figure that out. That is plenty of time for a veteran gamer like Ryan. He just needs to concentrate.
With both hands, The Sexy Fox stabs the spear in his chest, screaming her desperate hunger for winning.
The score renders on his glasses again, indicating hers boosted from 8.73 to 9.73.
00:00:10
The Sexy Fox 9.73 vs. The Brave Lion 9.81.
Ten seconds are left until the end of the game and nine seconds before The Brave Lion regains his muscle power. Rising to her knees, she lays down her weight on the spear. The further the spear penetrates his heart, the higher her score goes.
It is indeed a brutal move, but GameCon is no place to exercise kindness. This is the battlefield for ones with a burning desire to win. And Ryan has got one of those too. He is willing to apply any trick, no matter how dirty it would be. He just needs to concentrate and figure out an optimal move. Ten seconds is plenty of time to maintain his victory, regain the respect of his faithless, brainless fans, and collect the prize money that is his. After paying for the four-month overdue rent, he will make amends with Grandma by a pair of rechargeable Bluetooth hearing aids, the ones that the Affordable Health Act cannot afford.
Her clenched teeth showing through the drunken smile, The Sexy Fox pushes the spear further into his heart.
00:00:09
The Sexy Fox 9.74 vs. The Brave Lion 9.81.
What is she smiling for? Does she not know that Ryan cannot lose? Does not she know that Grandma depend on him? Does she not understand that failure is simply not an option for Ryan?
Poor Sexy Fox! She has no idea what is coming to get her. She is going to be so stunned when Ryan will pull off his next twist. Ryan should not feel too sorry for her though. She comes from downtown, probably from a well-off family; definitely rich enough to have bought her a G38 VR gear. She does not know what it means to wear oversize, Goodwill shoes that always leak water when it rains. Her bones have never shivered with the touch of piercing winters that cut through Grandpa’s shabby pullovers—may he rest in peace.
00:00:08
The Sexy Fox 9.75 vs. The Brave Lion 9.81.
But Ryan is not of the type who would forget his humble beginnings when he reaches the top. Holding free gaming workshops, he will pass the gift to the next generation of young adults in Detruit, the district fallen to its knees. He will go from one elementary school to another to give motivational speeches to young kids. He will look into their malnourished faces and will tell them never mind their threadbare shirts that do not fit anymore. Tell them just to hang in there, follow their hearts, and pursue their dreams, because dreams do come true in life, even if you are born in Detruit. And Ryan is the undeniable, live evidence for it; the winner of GameCon, the ultimate tournament in virtual reality games.
00:00:07
The Sexy Fox 9.76 vs. The Brave Lion 9.81.
And he will donate tons of money to cure Ovarian cancer once forever; so that mothers do not die. Because when they are gone, these kids become so lonely. There will be no one left to play Nintendo Switch with, snuggling in her arms. No one left to show excitement with every little score you make; to make you feel like the champion of the universe. Grandmothers would say that she is on a long work trip and that she will come back soon. But it does not take long for the kids to realize that ‘soon’ will never come. And that they would have to spend the rest of their lives desperately looking for a special someone who gets what it means to be a true gamer.
00:00:06
The Sexy Fox 9.77 vs. The Brave Lion 9.81.
On second thought, Ryan will return Lynda’s calls. It was mean of him when he thought he would not. Ryan can be mean sometimes, especially when he is caught up in the middle of a competitive game. It is true she is the one who broke up with him. For no reason whatsoever. But, as Grandma puts it, the one with a bigger heart should be more forgiving too. As the champion of the GameCon tournament, he should play the bigger person and graciously accept her apology.
What if Lynda has forgotten Ryan’s number? Or maybe her phone got stolen during a bank robbery, and she has lost all her contacts. It is possible. Ryan thinks that he will probably try to initiate the phone call. Given that he is the champion of GameCon now, this time she must be willing to return his calls. To remind her of the good, old days, he will also send her some flowers. Her favorite, Alchemilla.
Ryan remembers the first Valentine’s gift he got for Lynda, the beaten-up Nintendo Switch. The same he used to play with by his mother. Ryan saw something in Lynda that makes him believe she is worthy of this priceless gift. And he was right. Lynda loved the gift—at first, at least. Even though she was obviously from downtown, it was the gesture in the gift that she valued, not the price tag. And Ryan loved that about her—among many other things.
Lynda used to carry the Nintendo Switch in her light gray backpack all the time. At first, Ryan thought it was because she wants to show how much she cares about him and his gift. But then, it occurred to him that perhaps she genuinely loves video games. Whichever. As long as she is happy.
She once even got caught playing with that during the Algebra class. Principal McManaman said that she should kiss the Nintendo Switch goodbye unless her mother comes over from downtown to have a serious chat.
Lynda, however, somehow managed to get the game console back without involving her mother. The rumor says that Principal MacManaman received a threatening phone call, perhaps from Lynda impersonating a hotshot, a mayor or something.
After that incident, Ryan did not see her with the handheld console anymore, and little by little he saw less of her too. Not long after, it was over between them, and she was gone. Ryan wonders where she is now and whether she still plays with the handheld console. If not, what kind of games is Lynda playing these days?
00:00:02
The Sexy Fox 9.81 vs. The Brave Lion 9.81.