The games the VSW club played that day, didn't go as well as planned. Novis was far too distracted trying to go into Berserker mode while the others were busy learning the game. It was hard to learn new tactics in a game when VSW gave no extra lives.

In other games, if you died once, you would respawn meaning you could try the tactic again and again, but in VSW you only got one life. If they practiced something new in the game, their opponents would take advantage of this and kill them. Then the whole team was a player down and would most likely result in a loss.

This was the exact thing that continued to happen to the Montem VSW club.

"Alright guys, I think its time we take a break," Frank said as he took off his VR headset.

He looked at the VSW clubroom's door once again and was saddened to see that Alex hadn't come in. It was clear to Frank that if the team was to Face Woo Woo in the next couple of days, they would lose.

That day, the rest of the VSW team headed home depressed. Not only did it feel like they were making no progress but they felt like something was missing from the team without Alex being there. Frank was good at taking charge and motivating the team but he used many terms that they just didn't understand.

Such as Missing, Gank ect.. These terms were just too much for the team to handle in such a short amount of time. The only person who seemed to be making any sought of progress was Scarlett, as she was doing her own research out of the game.

Alex had actually been there for most of the team's training sessions secretly in the back. He understood what Frank was trying to do and knew he needed to come up with a new plan. Alex took his notes with him and left just before the team finished their last game.

Now that Alex was at home and in his room, he took out the notes from the Woo Woo games he had watched. Alex looked over both of their notes and started to try to form the perfect strategy that would give them the best chance of winning.

Alex worked through the night as he could see the Team needed his help more than ever, eventually falling asleep at his desk.

His Mum had entered the room to make sure Alex had gone to sleep and she noticed Alex had fallen asleep with his head in a pile of books.

"look at him studying so hard." Alex's mum said as she walked over to Alex.

Alex's mum slowly lifted Alex from his chair and laid him on the bed before kissing him on the forehead goodnight. But just before she left the room, she had decided to head over to Alex's desk to put his books away.

That's when her eye caught something. She started to read through the notes and quickly realized that they weren't about studying but they were all about that VSW game.

Her hands couldn't stop shaking as she lifted the book into the air.

"When will he learn!" She said as she took all of Alex's books and ripped them up on the spot one by one before tossing them in the trash.

The sun had risen for the next day and the light shining through Alex's curtains was hitting him in the face. He woke up slowly as he realized that he had ended up in his own bed somehow.

Alex rubbed his eyes as he got out of bed and started to head to his desk.

"Finally, I can be of help to the others, there was just one more thing I needed to check before giving the notes to Frank." Alex thought.

Then when Alex had reached his desk, he noticed his notebooks and notes were missing.

"I'm sure I put them here yesterday!" Alex said.

Alex proceeded to search through all the draws in his desks, under his bed, anywhere in his room but nothing could be found.

Then a thought came to his head, his mother. If she had seen the notes, she defiantly wouldn't have let him keep them. Alex quickly went to check the trash can and as he thought, all of his notes had been ripped apart and thrown away.

Alex's heart sank as well with the hopes of the Montem team ever winning the quarter-finals.

Over the next few days, the Montem team continued to practice and with each day drawing closer, Frank's hopes of Alex coming back to the team were lost.

"I thought you were stronger than that Alex." Frank thought.

With no progress being made with the team, it was now the last day before the VSW match. The team practiced as they usually did and there was little success. They had finally won a few games but in the end, their target of hitting silver was never achieved.

This was something any team should have been able to achieve who had managed to get to the Quarterfinals. The teams they would now be going up against were at least gold level and above and they wouldn't make the same mistakes as bronze tier players.

All though it wasn't all bad news for the Montem team because for the first time ever. Novis was able to successfully activate his berserker mode in a game. When the team started their game, they had lost Scarlett and Ashley fast.

But Novis managed to reverse the situation in the latter part of the game, in the grouping stage. Novis had activated his berserker mode and took down three players all on his own. It was an amazing sight but the others could only think that it was a one time fluke.

Unknowing to them, that Novis had been trying to do this exact thing this whole time.

Novis was finally ready for his name to be known and shared with the whole world. He wouldn't be outshined in the next game.

****

Special thanks to Camden_Procter for the gifts. These really help me on my author Journey.