“Team captains, come to the podium!” Howie called, and Theo arose from his seat and walked down into the hover, and ascended. This was a make-or-break for their team. It was time to find out if their time in the Land of Illusion was enough to get them into the third round.

“In first place last night,” Howie announced. “Rogue!”

Eniola didn’t register the arena screaming, or their name being called or their disk floating showing that they won until Lucia pulled her up and attacked her into a hug and a smile swept across her face. A wave of electricity jolted her. They won. Eniola couldn’t help but feel bittersweet, however. Eniola had the power-up on all the time. And it wasn’t a regular SCOPE one.

Her eyes darted across the room quickly, before setting back on Howie. She sighed in relief like she had several other times that day. No one was here to steal her memories.

“In second, Black Infinity!” The light flashed on a different girl, and a team closer to them jumped up and screamed. The arena cheered once again and became even louder when ULTRA came in third place. They didn’t celebrate like everyone else. They simply sat there like they were regular audience members.

“Now for elimination!” Howie said, as all the colours disappeared again and the mood went dark. “However, this round is different. We are doing a double elimination.” That got everyone to go silent as gasps filled the air.

“Instead of sending home fifteen participants, we will send twenty-five!” Howie explained, and there were more shocked gasps.

“Get ready for elimination!” Howie announced. Eniola couldn’t help but feel nervous even if they had come in the first place. Theo came back to sit with them.

Howie read out multiple team names again, and the eliminated teams all descended. Eniola could practically feel the broken dreams.

“Oh, my gosh!” Jay exclaimed, breaking their silence. The results were posted on the leaderboard, those marked in red were going home.

Rogue 10th place//130000 pts

“We did it! We actually did it!” Theo exclaimed. They all joined in a tight group hug once again.

“Which means we need to go crazy on the side of challenges!” Lucia added. They looked to the scoreboard, which had transitioned to today’s roster.

“We go in ten minutes,” Theo reminded, reading her eyes. “Iris and Jay are doing dual match first. But I am hungry.” They all began walking through the arena, before stumbling upon a pizza place that roped them in with its delicious scent. They ordered one big one for their team, and when it came Eniola already knew this was going to go back to the dorm as leftovers.

“Damn,” Eniola gushed, teeth sinking into the steaming pizza. This wasn’t pizza. This ascended past that. It was so good.

“Damn,” Lucia repeated, tearing off a bite. And the phrase ‘damn’ echoed around the table where Rogue was sitting. Eniola’s eyes flicked to the abandoned seat of Jay, who was nowhere to be found.

Her eyes found him walking back before the girl called at him. They now looked to be deep in conversation with one of the human servers. She was a tall, slim girl, with olive skin and bright green eyes, and was batting her long eyelashes at him repeatedly like there was something stuck in her eyes. Eniola rolled her own. The girl leaned forward as her hand slipped in the crook of his arm while Jay was staring at her seriously, but slowly leaned back.

Eniola tried to move in and listen closer from her faraway table, but the whole arena was practically pulsing through her ears. He cupped a hand behind the girl’s ear, and she put her hand over her mouth to stifle a laugh. Eniola furrowed her eyebrows as she snapped her gaze away.

She quickly looked back again, seeing that she was really close to him now. Quickly, Eniola got up and marched over like she was about to do something. Eniola paused mid-way. Was she going to confront them or something? It’s not like Jay’s dating her or even likes her. He got her one Orla statue and hugged her. Eniola couldn’t help but frown still.

The girl turned around and Eniola ran to one stool and took out her phone. She extended the screen in front of her face to hide, as she peered away from them.

“What are you doing?” Lucia mouthed to her, laughing. Eniola put her pointer finger to her lips and signalled the three confused teammates to be quiet.

“So you play for Rogue?” she asked flirtatiously, twisting a lock of brown hair around her finger and biting her lip.

“Yeah, I play for Rogue,” he responded. “We’re kind of like legends, to be honest.”

“Yeah, I saw them last year,” she admitted. “They were crazy good. No one had ever heard of them, and they could’ve won the whole thing if they wanted to, but they gave up.”

“Were disqualified,” Jay corrected. “Their teammate left.”

“Keone!” the girl exclaimed, making her frown. “He’s with ULTRA this year. I can’t believe he discovered Rogue.”

“It was really Theo who put the team together,” Jay corrected, frowning. “Keone was just the most popular.”

The girl squinted at Jay, and lowered her voice, “I don’t remember you being there.”

“I’m new,” Jay told her. “Keone’s better replacement.”

“And hotter,” she gushed, making Eniola frown. Jay flashed her his smirk, but it seemed forced because it didn’t reach his eyes. “You have a girlfriend?”

Eniola froze in her place. “No,” he said instantly, Eniola raised an eyebrow. Why was she even surprised? It’s not like he was going to say his girlfriend was Eniola. Right?

“So then you’re single?” the girl asked, lowering her eyes, and then slipping him her cellphone. They exchanged phones and then the girl smiled at him.

Eniola still didn’t realize she was literally on the edge of her seat, that when she tried to listen in closer, she slipped off the chair and fell onto the floor with a thud.

“Oh no!” Lucia yelled from the other side of the room. Eniola groaned, feeling her body sore before peeling herself up from the ground and seeing the last person she wanted to see right now.

“Are you okay?” Eniola peered up to see Jay stretching a hand to her. He looked concerned, but probably because she had just fallen. Eniola huffed, and took his hand and stood upright.

“Can’t have you falling for me again,” Jay joked and she had to physically restrain herself from rolling her eyes, only because he had helped her. Lucia quickly came to her side and helped Eniola up, sending a glare his way. He raised an eyebrow before his expression went blank.

“I’m fine,” Eniola told her. “I just slipped.” she brushed herself off, before spotting multiple stares all on her.

“I’m fine!” she announced again. She sat back down while eating her pizza in embarrassment.

🎮

“Team Rogue with Third Eye and KS!” The light flashed into the divided playing pit where Iris and Jay were standing. “Verses ULTRA with Shadow and Phantom! Let the dual match begin!”

They put on their SCOPElenses and Eniola looked overhead at the screens that showed the simulation. The alarm went off and Iris quickly jumped into a vanishing state, and Jay drew his battle axe.

The current simulation of the Land of Illusion was separated by a colour-changing lake that each team had both their disks on. However, a bunch of hydro goblins sprang up from the water and separated onto either side of the team. Jay swung his battleaxe and pivoted around on one foot, taking all the goblins out.

Jay did a backflip and dodged the goblins that came at him, and jumped in front of them, heading to the other team’s base.

“Come on, Jay!” Eniola yelled into the arena as Jay ran forward. Keone came running towards him, lept up into the air and kicked him down. Suddenly, Iris flashed into the air and toppled herself over Keone. She drew an arrow and shot it at Keone, which whizzed past his head. He got off of Jay and simply disappeared into the air.

Phantom came from the back and shot an arrow through Iris, crumpling her into the ground. He then dove into disappearance.

“Come on, Iris!” Lucia yelled. “Respawn!” A light jolted and flashed through her, and Iris stood back up. The arena cheered for her. Iris and Jay were now back to back, ready to attack anyone who came their way.

But nothing happened.

They slowly both walked away from one another, and the ULTRA disk was floating in the air. And they made a run for it, slaying goblins and orcs that came their way.

The disk was in their grasp until it wasn’t. They were both nailed to a tree with an arrow with both their hand. Theo, Lucia, and Eniola gasped. How did that happen?

ULTRA was now on Rogue’s territory and took their disk. The arena turned back to normal, and they declared ULTRA as the winner.

But something wasn’t right. How did they end up from one side to another like that? It seems like no one really paid attention to what just happened.

Iris and Jay both stepped up from the pit and went to Rogue. “This was just the first game,” Lucia reassured.

“Something happened,” Jay said. “It was like a glitch. I think someone did something. Do you think Paradox had something to do with it?”

“They might have,” Theo said as he pointed his chin up, “I think we should bring this issue to the game makers. Get them to shut down and investigate whatever the hell is going on.”

Suddenly the world started filling with cracks, like the one Eniola saw in the virtual parlour. It shattered with one tremendous sound before filling into a white landscape. They all screamed.

“Everyone okay—?”

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you. Tell someone,” a voice came at them, and Eniola looked up to see the masked figure walking their way from a sizable distance in the white landscape. It was the same green armour. Paradox. Her chest swelled in panic.

“You—” Jay didn’t finish his sentence because he ran up ready to attack them, however, Jay reverberated off some invisible surface and bounced off onto the floor. Eniola gasped out, as he laid there for a moment.

“Jay!” Iris yelled and was immediately at his side. She helped him get up and brought his fazed self back.

“What are you doing?” Theo yelled. “Who are you?”

They chuckled in their distorted voice. “I’m Paradox, and I’m warning you.”

“We will expose you guys,” Theo warned. “We know about ATLSCOPE.”

Paradox simply stood there. “Not sure that’s a good idea.”

“Why?” Lucia demanded in a shout. “Are you going to kill us using your fake synthetic atoms?”

“So you were there,” Paradox says. “You’re not more innocent than I am. And there’s more to it.” He moved his fingers and Eniola stood upright with a jolt, letting a surprised whimper come out.

“Let go of her!” Jay screamed. But Paradox ignored him and instead Eniola’s SCOPE inventory came into view. He then pushed his hand up and soon a blue and red cube came out with it.

It was the Anonymity power-up.

She instantly recoiled, trying to free herself, but she was frozen in the air.

“Rogue,” they announced “Here’s your teammate, caught with an illegal power-up in her inventory.”

“What power-up?” Iris now jumped in.

Eniola knew she was on the spot and lying would only make things worse. “I bought a power-up to shield us from what ATLSCOPE was doing to us. It was hidden—”

“Are you crazy?” Lucia yelled. “Eniola, if anyone found out we’d, we’d—”

“Be done for,” Paradox finished for them, laughing even louder. “Rogue would be over.”

A wave of betrayal flashed against the features of everyone in Rogue. From Lucia to Iris to Theo and Jay. Eniola recoiled.

“I’m sorry,” Eniola said. “It was the only way we’d win against them. They were hacking into the game.”

“You should’ve told us,” she turned around to see Jay looking at her disappointed. “This was a risky move.”

“But it was for a good cause—”

“If someone found that power-up, they blacklist you as an ALTSCOPE team and shut you down for cheating,” Paradox explained. “I’d hate for that to happen.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” Iris whispered. “I don’t know who you are, and we want to know you’re targeting us for whatever reason.”

“What do we do now?” Lucia fretted.

“Nothing,” they said, and in the snap of an eye, Rogue was back in the bustling arena.