Eniola’s wheels skidded to the side and halted as she approached the sleek black alleyway which harboured her passion. The SCOPE arenas weren’t illegal, but it was more exciting when you felt like you were wandering into some unknown secret. SCOPE was mainstream, globally drawing teens into the SCOPEverse. The game’s creator and the legend herself, Howie Huata, designed the arenas to be underground and accessible through alleyway points, for that adrenaline rush feeling. It was almost like she had designed them with teenagers who craved a secret adventure in mind.

Eniola pressed her hands onto the door, and it receded into nothing. Her wheels revved beneath her as she rode through the arena, and immediately the blast of a screaming crowd hit her. She gazed up at the levels of alcoves running to the top of the building. They built the whole place like a large chasm, and octagon-shaped VR sensors covered the playing pit walls that made the game real when you put on your SCOPElenses. The ceiling was a curved vortex that held a huge blue orb hanging from the ceiling. That’s where the commentators and mediators always sat.

Around the playing pit was the watching area that held back an anxious crowd with black metal bars. If you got here early enough, you could get a spot there. Down beside the pit was a spinning, glowing blue box. This was the SCOPE Market where people bought things for their avatars and their gameplay. It was already digitized without SCOPElenses. Glowing blue scoreboards hovered above the arena showed statistics, as well as players and audience reactions caught by drones that flew around the arena. Eniola rode around the edge of the arena, and finally down the smooth and metallic platform that spiralled down into the playing pit.

Here she was. Her second home. One of the places she truly belonged. The world of Simulated Cyberplay from Ontological Personified Experience.

“And now E.N.I finally makes her way down, to represent Team Rogue,” the head game mediator, Chase, announced in a surprised tone as she rolled down. She called her bike back in and stepped into the playing pit.

The gigantic scoreboard floating in midair showed “E.N.I vs Bloom: 1 one 1 qualifier”. Eniola refocused on Bloom. Her real name was Vanessa, and she was a tall, buff girl with tons of facial jewelry and long fluorescent green hair. Bloom was a member of Team Inferno, SCOPE legends and virtually unbeatable. With how hungry she looked, Eniola wouldn’t have been surprised if Bloom ate her for lunch.

Each team had their custom disk, and Rogue’s was five circles, representing five teammates, although they were at four. They rushed design through when they were still rookies and it was simple compared to what other teams had done. Inferno’s was a hieroglyphic fire burning that remained iconic.

“Everyone,” Chase announced, “Place your bets. Remember, for this special qualifier, you have the chance to earn double.”

Her SCOPE name, E.N.I, and Bloom show up on the screen side by side to one another with bars below them. The bars began filling white on Bloom’s side, while others stayed moderately empty except for the occasional bet of a few dollars. Probably Rogue trying to make her feel better. A large icon of a lock took up the screen, signalling that the betting had been closed. The board pixelated away into thin air. Everyone cheered for Bloom. And Eniola? Maybe.

“Betting has now been closed. Remember, whoever wins this will automatically go to the second round of the qualifiers for this year’s SCOPE Championships,” he announced. “However, teams can re-qualify and play again.” That alone set fear in Eniola. Her entire team’s future was riding on this. She could not afford to lose. Championships were days away.

Eniola faced forward regardless, trying to feel determined and keep the arena’s lack of faith in her from getting to her head.

The goal of the game was to steal the other team’s disk and bring it back to your side. There would be threats and obstacles you had to go through to win the round, and also puzzles you had to solve. There were multiple game worlds that everyone played in. You could also collect yeons, the game currency, and power-ups throughout the games too, and restock at the SCOPE market.

She dug into her pocket, took out the clear SCOPElenses, and placed them on her face. They were a small strip of fibreglass that fit over her eyes. She then took out her blue sensor gloves and pulled them onto her hands. The rest of her body would be captured with the electro-signals that were always cycling the air everywhere, giving power to every electronic device in the world. They worked especially in these arenas when playing SCOPE.

Suddenly the arena was no longer just an arena, but instead the city of Solai, a sunny ruin in ancient Greece. There was a mighty gold wall bordering the city, as well as crumbling structures of marble from ancient buildings and statues. When she stepped forward, even the grass moved under her feet and she felt a sweltering heat. When Howie had designed this, she had done a good job.

For a split second, her avatar appeared in front of her as part of the game setup. She didn’t make her avatar too different from her real self but made her skin look smoother and darker and less blemished. She made her eyes look beautifully bigger and they sparkled in their new amber colour and her dark coiled curls were longer and more voluminous. And the biggest modification of all, she made herself look taller. Here she was no longer Eniola, but E.N.I, a SCOPE player. A different form of herself.

Her avatar was wearing a slimming black outfit that made her look like she was part of some espionage. A golden hoplon disk she had previously chosen for her weapon was strapped to her back suddenly.

Somehow Bloom made herself look more intimidating than she already was, and that made Eniola’s heart hammer in her chest. It was an unwritten rule to have your avatar match what you look like. It was tacky and a rookie move to do extreme changes to your real self, and most successful teams’ avatars all looked like similar variations of them.

“On your marks,” Chase began. “Get set! Go!”

Eniola called up her bike again and jumped onto it. Her engine roared to life as she took off on the course. The crumbling stone ruin was in the centre of Solai, built inside the Golden Borders. Her base and Bloom’s base were the same: ruins of old stone and bones stacked into each other in a Corinthian style.

Eniola zipped around the back corner, but not before Bloom came colliding and knocked her off track.

ENERGY -10%

Eniola hit the ground and groaned at the notification in her vision. She pulled herself off the ground, she began running as fast as her feet could carry her, feeling adrenaline coursing through her veins. She saw power-up cubes hanging in the air. Blue, green, and red were basic skills like extra speed, a brief ability to fly, or a score multiplier. There were rarer colours that gave you extra powers. You could buy them in the SCOPE Market, or collect them and choose to use them or keep them for later.

Bloom had been running away, but Eniola took her hoplon and hurled it at her. It missed, but she kept going. Now Bloom came running towards her, with a slingshot of flames in her hand.

“Shield!” Eniola called out, and a purple barrier of protection materialized in front of her and blocked the flaming balls that headed her way. She was dangerously close to having to respawn.

And it was just the beginning. Shoot.

Quickly Eniola cut in front of her, as Bloom was ready to take her. But Eniola rolled under her legs faster and threw the hoplon at her. Bloom stumbled forward and came back with an angry growl.

“Gotta blast,” Eniola huffed and barely escaped behind a pile of ruins, holding up her shield for extra protection. She peered over the shield at the rest of the ruined city and devised a strategy.

“Initiate cloak!” she commanded, blending her body into the game. Her disk seemed like miles away. Eniola’s feet began picking up, and she was scurrying away from Bloom.

“Where did you go?” Bloom yelled into the air, prompting her to go faster on the rocky ground. Bloom’s disk hovered over the hill of statue ruins as it shone and flashed in the air.

From a distance, the overwhelming roar of a crowd blasted through the simulation. She hastily looked back to see an army of Spartans charging her way. Their clanking armour and red-plumed helmets were charging at her like she was their last great enemy. Then she started flashing back to visibility, open and vulnerable, scaling the pile of marble statues.

Quickly, Eniola swung herself around the shaking ruins of the ruined statues and landed with a thud, shooting a searing pain up her ankles. She looked up, but nothing had changed. She was still visible to the Spartans who were now coming after her. Bloom cleverly dodged them and came at her like a hungry snake at a mouse. Eniola gulped.

Eniola took off running in the other direction and leapt into the giant stone ruin in the centre of Solai, feet clapping against the yellow marble. Bloom came running toward her, and on a whim, Eniola jumped onto the thick stone pillars and clung to it like a koala. The searing heat of a flaming stone barely missed her head. Eniola felt light-headed, and she barely blinked when she saw her energy was dwindling. She needed the energy to restock stat.

She gazed around Solai for anything that could help sustain her. She huffed, suddenly feeling like time was running yet going so slow. This wasn’t the end, and she would make sure of it. Spotting something, Eniola recloaked and took off running down the big ruin to try to get away. She stopped for a second and then she spotted it.

A health power-up shaped like a black and white cube was all she needed to regain full energy, and it was practically calling her name. Her energy bar was now red. Eniola sighed in fleeting relief. She reached up to get it, but then it was like she just touched the water and her hand found nothing solid.

Then it hit her. You can’t use two power-ups at once.

She must’ve only had 10 more seconds, but it felt like an eternity with the way Bloom was looking for her and the Spartans were now approaching the ruin, waiting to engage in battle. Her heart pounded in her chest.

“Come on,” she muttered, prodding the bar anxiously as they approached. She started flashing back into sight. “Faster.” The Spartans had now filled the ruin. Eniola sure didn’t remember five seconds feeling this long.

She finally fused back to the vision and leapt up into the air to grab the cube, which skyrocketed her energy. She took off running and ran onto the sidewall and back down again in a circle, and flung her hoplon at the army, which turned them into yeons she so gladly collected.

The roar of the Spartans filled the arena, as Eniola removed herself from the ruin and ran down to find, surprise, surprise, she hadn’t killed every Spartan, meaning she was still in danger. At this rate, she didn’t know if she was going to make it to the other side. Eniola took the hoplon and threw it sheepishly at an angle. It spiralled towards Bloom, barely missing her.

“What’s that going to do?” Bloom mocks, still clinging onto the pillar. She huffs in frustration. When the hoplon is back in her hand again, she spirals it back again at Bloom and this time, the metal clinks against her avatar sending her toppling.

Eniola broke into a tired smile Eniola launches herself onto the ground and hurls her bike orb to the ground again falling onto the bike like a rag doll. She positioned herself up and sped away.

A couple of Spartans blocked her trail, weapons out and ready. She took out hoplon and threw it at the Spartans, vanishing the hit ones into clinking yeons she scooped up. The hoplon circles back before Eniola throws it again, taking out Spartans clamouring in front of her.

Path clear, she took off faster, wheels rushing beneath her with a fire of passion. Eniola pressed the side of her ear before focusing on the game. The game commentators were at the edge of their seats, voices running a mile a minute, trying to process everything at once.

“Feet!” she commanded, and her bike vanished beneath her, immediately dropping her on foot. She got to the pile of the damaged ruins, and once again charted a path up to the disk.

She latched her hands onto the highest ledge she could reach, which wasn’t very high, but Eniola leapt on top of it and started upwards rapidly. Soon, her feet and her arms move on their own, fueled by her passion to get to the top.

“But wait!” Chase’s voice blurred back into focus. “The girls are in a neck and neck race, climbing up the others’ ruins. This is simply a race to the top!”

Eniola rotated her head around and saw Bloom was already near to getting to her disk. She wiped her tongue against her lips as she strategized. Bloom was taller and had the advantage of being faster. Exhaling, she took the disk from her inventory, haphazardly balancing and wobbling on the ruins with the hoplon in her hand. Parts of the ruins began shaking as she wobbled, which put an idea in her head. Eniola watched Bloom where she was hurriedly climbing and knew from this angle, she couldn’t hit her properly. It would be a waste of time trying. Instead, with one powerful grunt, she threw the hoplon at the pile of statues.

It made an echoing impact, shaking the ruins stacked upon one another. And slowly, the pieces of ruins began shifting and destabilizing until one by one, they toppled, breaking their sturdy formation as they fell to the ground. Bloom was now struggling to balance as the pile came crumbling down beneath her. She tumbled to the ground as the rest of the stones fell. The disk remained levitating in place with no way to get to it. Eniola was safe.

And then that’s when Eniola realized. With Bloom on the ground, she had a huge advantage. She heaved herself on top of the pile of ruins and shakily stood up. The disk was there, yellow glow levitating the fire insignia, She pried it from its place and claimed it.

Eniola was the winner.

The simulation receded, revealing the familiar arena, and Eniola took off her SCOPElenses. Some people in the arena were cheering and screaming, but some looked confused, and even mad, probably wondering how she managed to beat Bloom.

But it didn’t matter how they felt. Eniola broke into a huge smile, that relieved sighs escaped through. She finally registered it. Eniola won. Rogue was going to the group qualifiers.

She looked back into the other side of the arena and Bloom rose, her head down and shoulders drooping.

Eniola went over to her. “No hard feelings?” Bloom shook her head and smiled at her.

“Not bad, kid,” she praised. “You’ve got a good head up there.” Bloom smiled and both of them climbed out of the arena, where Eniola was immediately attacked with suffocating hugs. It was the rest of Rogue.

“That was amazing!” Lucia shouted excitedly, smiling down at her with crinkles near her brown eyes. She was taller, and her crop of black, curly, hair bobbed with her excitement. Her skin was light-bronze, and she was tall and round and plump like a pear. She had freckles smattering her cheeks. “You were so good out there!”

Eniola playfully tucked a coiled strand of hair behind her ear. “It was nothing.”

Lucia jokingly hit her shoulder. “That was so amazing! Bloom is practically unbeatable.”

“You should’ve seen everyone’s faces,” Theo said, grinning. He was tall and on his way to being very stocky. His skin was an olive colour and his hair was curly and dark brown. “So many people lost money.”

“But we gained,” Iris exclaimed, icy blue eyes shining. Her skin was a light pale. She slapped a high five onto Eniola’s hand, the metal of her cybernetic limb seeping through Eniola’s gloves. “So we’re going to the qualifiers now.”

“Well, not exactly,” Theo said, scratching at his brown hair. “We still don’t have a fifth teammate.”

Eniola almost forgot through the adrenaline of the game. “Oh, yeah.”

“We can’t enter the second qualifier until we do, which leaves us,” he paused, doing a mental calculation. “Not long. We have two days.”

She sighed. “We couldn’t even get a draft because we’re not an ‘official team’,” Lucia said, air-quoting. Rogue was an independent team, which meant they weren’t one of the few teams that were officially recognized. To become one, you either had to win a regional championship or get personally chosen by whoever the top SCOPE mediator was for your region. Official teams could pick from drafts, could have more than 5 members, and had a better chance of getting to the championships, and independents were usually the underdogs of the competition.

“Who can we find?” Iris said. She paused, her cyborg’s eye glowed as her eyes moved from side to side. meaning she was probably doing research in her brain that was connected to the internet. “I’m looking through the unclaimed player rosters. None of these players are what we need.”

“If Keone didn’t leave last year, perhaps we would’ve made it to the top three,” Lucia told them bitterly, and at the sound of his name, memories flashed in Eniola’s head. She shook her head.

For a moment Eniola looked up again to clear her head and spotted the huge clumps of crowds. A figure in dark green swiftly walked past her. So fast she might’ve almost missed it. Eniola. She looked again before her SCOPElenses suddenly glitched. She reached for her face and felt her eyes. Right. She took her SCOPElenses off before. She blinked back into focus.

“He was so selfish,” Iris suddenly said, dragging out her words. “Leaving us at a crucial moment last year was a dangerous move.” They all nodded in agreement.

“Am I the only one who was kind of glad he left?” Eniola put forth. “I mean yeah, he was skilled and all, but with him, on the team, it was Keone and Rogue. He was the only reason we were popular. He got all the attention and overshadowed us.” And I’d rather not think of us together, Eniola said inside her head.

“I was glad too,” Theo said quieter, fingers ruffling Lucia’s hair, and toying with various jewelry on her ears. “Even though we had to be disqualified, I was relieved.” Lucia wrapped her arms around his arm, leaning on him. “Rogue is now racing has-beens and we need to reclaim our title and prove our skill without him,” he exclaimed in the cheery voice of a captain.

“But we still need a new teammate,” Iris added. “Someone who has the same skills as Keone, but less selfishness.” They all stopped to think.

“I know!” Theo suddenly chimed, prompting excitement in the rest of them. “Let’s talk about this at the Puzzle!” The mood had now become anticlimactic, but at least they had a place to talk. Another race had started, but Eniola had chosen not to bet.

In the alcoves, the arena hosted a couple of mini-restaurants and small cafes for players’ lounge time. They rushed up the stairs to level the Puzzle was on, and entered. The tables around were blue chromatic, and so was the counter. There were holo-screens at the top showing its eternally extensive menu. It wasn’t fancy, but it was their spot. Whenever they weren’t racing or watching races in the arena pit, they were here.

Theo went around the corner behind the table and began mixing different liquids and drinks. Iris draped her small body and her cybernetic limbs over the table.

“What do you want, Eni?” Theo called out to her.

“You already know,” she replied. “I like milk bubble teas.” Milk is good for those bones that help you grow. She still held onto a sliver of hope.

“And I already know what you want,” he said to Lucia, then winked.

“Oh my gosh,” Iris groaned. “Get a room! Who asked?” A laugh bubbling from her mouth. She looked over to Lucia and Theo as their eyes locked as tinges of red crept into their cheeks. Gosh, these two were too cute.

“What are we going to do then?” Lucia spoke up now that we were here. “Being at the Puzzle doesn’t change that we’re short a team member.”

Theo inhaled. “I want to compete this year. We were so close to winning last year. I miss that taste of victory.”

“So as our captain, what should we do?” Iris addressed Theo, twisting the ends of her bright blue hair.

“The only choice we have is to look,” Theo said. “We need a replacement. Someone as good, but less selfish as Keone.”

“I already said that,” Iris groaned. Eniola sighed. Finding a new teammate would take a long time.