1 vs. 7

"Go and die, you damn cockroach!" Josh screamed.

"Keep dreaming!" Dave responded without batting an eye.

Right now, he was facing Josh and two of his teammates from Ocean Atlantic at the top of the volcano.

After some discussion of the referees, it was decided that if Dave wanted to compete, there was no rule stopping him from doing so.

Since this was the Worldchampionchip the referees had to make sure the rules were followed accurately.

Otherwise, Team Magma Asia would have later on every right to sue them. After all, this tournament had a first-place prize of 75 million dollars.

After it was decided that the tournament wasn't over yet, they proceeded with Dave picking his champion.

The past seven years he only ever played a single champ.

Its name was Bubble Master. It was one of the very first champs released back in the day when ALC was launched. Since ALC featured more than 4000 champions most people didn't even know about this old guy since most players liked the recently released ones with new graphics and mechanics more.

After that, the game started quite fast. Everyone just wanted this to end as fast as possible, everyone except for Dave. He firmed his resolve to fight as hard as possible.

In his opinion, there was nothing to lose since nobody in ALC's history could say that he ever won a 1 vs 7 fight.

So with that in mind, he wanted to try something spectacular.

Instead of moving around the volcano and destroying the enemy towers, he decided to charge headfirst up the volcano, because of two reasons.

First, everyone knew that Bubble Master was a water attribute champ, so it was likely the enemy would expect him near the shore where the water attribute was strengthened.

Second, the mid lane featured no towers that could cover him. The only towers here were in front of the nether. The nether was the final building every team had to destroy in their enemy base to win the game.

Without any towers there it was easy for his enemies to gank him and a single death would most likely mean that the game was over for him.

Nevertheless, he took the mid lane for a single reason. It was his only chance to win. Yeah, it wasn't just about surviving longer or anything, it was about winning. He knew this map and it had the hidden feature that after 5 champs fell into the volcano it would erupt.

He planned to use the crowd control abilities of Bubble Master to push as many champs of the enemy team into the lava as he could.

And now Dave was enacting this plan. He was on a narrow path, to his left the slope. If someone fell down there he would be dead as well!

To his right, 20 meters beneath himself, was the bubbling lava.

Right in front of him entering the narrow path were Josh and his teammates.

"Any last words?" Josh asked with a fiendish grin on his face.

"Yeah, how does it feel to lose the world championship 7 versus 1. Tell me later, okay?!?"

Josh and his teammates ran forward angered by Dave's comment.

"Fire Slash!"

"Fire Bolt!"

"Burning Arrow!"

Josh and his teammates came charging firing their long-range attacks at Dave.

They were still too far away for him to execute his plan so Dave fired his Bouncy Bubble to the left. This ability shot a bubble you could use as a trampoline for yourself. Bouncy Bubble had 3 charges, after that it went on cooldown for one minute.

He jumped on the bubble and was catapulted forward flying without any floor beneath him. This move brought him in the right position.

Now he, his enemies, and the lava pool were in one line.

He shot his second Bouncy Bubble. This one wasn't meant as a stepping stone for himself.

The bubble flew right for his enemies and hit all three of them, bouncing them off the narrow path and down into the lava. Before he could fall to death he used his last Bouncy Bubble to escape back on the path.

And just like that, he killed 3 of his enemies. And even better, these were his first 3 kills in an official game as a pro gamer.

Dave rose his hand in real life, celebrating his achievement.

Now finally the audience freaked out. Most of them didn't pay attention to the game anymore since the outcome was pretty much pre-determined but now this nobody managed to kill 3 of his enemies, including the team leader.

By now he had the hearth of the audience on his side.

"DAVE! DAVE! DAVE!" In a chorus, Dave's name echoed through the stadium.

'Only two people more and I might be able to win this', thought Dave.

Looking in direction of Team Ocean Atlantic, he couldn't stop giggling.

Over there Josh and his mates were in an argument still waiting to get resurrected.

"You two were in my way. How was I supposed to escape while you hindered my movement?" Josh was scolding them.

He didn't dare to take the blame for this on his shoulders. Just like every good leader, he shifted it to his subordinates.

Suddenly through his headphone, Josh could hear some soft noise.

He looked around, noticing that on the narrow path in front of him as well as behind him two enemy groups appeared. The first one consisting of a healer and a tank and the second of a healer and a damage dealer.

"We know what you are trying to do Dave." said the tanker. "But we won't allow you to trigger the volcano. That trick of yours might have worked once, but not a second time. As vice-captain of Ocean Atlantic, I am taking responsibility to obliterate you."

Dave knew that this was going to become difficult. In comparison to the leader this vice-captain was a much more serious person, who didn't take things lightly. Furthermore, things got much more complicated through two other aspects.

The first was the tanker. He had a whole bunch of mighty crowd control abilities and the second was the positioning.

With two enemies in front and behind him, things got a little troublesome.

"Holy Endeavor of the Firegod!" A healer activated his buff skill, boosting the attack stats of his teammates.

Suddenly behind him, the tanker hit with both hands on the ground, creating an earthquake that catapulted Dave for 1 second into the air, turning him immobile.

"Fire Lance!" "Heat Ray!" Finally, the other healer and damage dealer were taking action. Fire Lance was a spell with a 'slow' debuff and Heat Ray was the ultimate ability of the DD, featuring extremely high damage and the 'burning' debuff. (DD future placeholder for damage dealer)

Dave exhaled. 'Keep calm, you can do this. You are used to playing solo against teams.'

"Refraction Bubble!" Dave tried to keep a calm mind and just handle this situation the normal way. Refraction Bubble was a defensive type ability of Bubble Master. It allowed the user to change the direction of long-range attacks and increased their firepower. The prerequisite was that the attack entered the Bubble, furthermore, the bubble always had yourself as the epicenter.

"Take this Mr. Vice Captain!" Dave shouted, sending all the attacks in his direction.

"Arrrrgghh! Shit! Fast heal me you two!" Still clueless about Bubble Master's abilities, Dave managed to surprise them another time. This move led to the tanks heal point bar dropping below the 10% threshold.

While everyone was still confused, Dave grasped the moment and dashed for the DD. The two healers were after all still occupied with healing the tank and the tank itself tried to widen the distance between both of them.

"Bouncy Bubble!" Dave activated his movement type skill reaching the DD in only a millisecond.

"Bubble Cage!" Bubble Cage formed a translucent black Bubble around the Bubble Master trapping everyone in a certain perimeter inside the cage with him.

But that alone wouldn't make this a useful ability. The Bubble Cage functioned just like one of these giant plastic balls on water. People can go inside and walk on water. If two people entered and walked, the ball would roll in a mixed direction. The disadvantage of this ability was that both parties could influence the direction the ball moved through walking.

Dave's idea was to drag the DD alongside him into the lava.

The still shocked DD, who didn't know about the effects of this ability had no chance to escape. They dropped down for the lava. While they fell the Bubble Cage dissolved allowing both of them to move freely again.

The DD after all being a pro too used this time to activate his movement skill.

"Fire Burst!" Fire Burst shot flames out of his feet propelling him upwards again.

"Catch me Vice Leader!" Following the call, the tanker shot a fire rope at the DD.

"Shit! Bouncy Bubble!" Dave propelled himself upwards. He flew over the heads of the vice-captain and the DD.

"Bouncy Bubble!" Problematic was that he had only his ultimate and this use of Bouncy Bubble left. Every other skill was still on cooldown. Headfirst he rammed into the vice-captain throwing him into the lava. Without him pulling the rope the DD fell back inside too.

"Grrrrrrrrrmmmm!" The earth was vibrating indicating the upcoming eruption of the volcano.

The two healers stood still at both ends of the path not knowing what to do.

"You are insane dude. This will only lead to mutual destruction. If this game ends in a draw, then you will lose the next time.

Dave couldn't hold back a smirk.

"Yeah, that's true. Normally the volcano eruption will do both sides no good." The volcano damaged both sides the same way. So as long as both towers and nethers still had the same number of heal points the game would always end in a draw. But Dave still had an ace up his sleeve.

"Normally?!? Stop daydreaming dude." The healer both started laughing.

"Yeah normally! Good that you can still laugh even though you are losing! It's a good attitude to have for life." Dave jumped into the volcanic crater.

"Ultimate Refractor Bubble!" He barked loudly.

The Vulcano erupted at the very same moment. The lava hit Dave head-on but through his ability, he could ignore that and even more so he could direct the eruption. Instead of hitting both sides, Dave made it so that the eruption would head straight in the direction of his enemies nether.

The lava hit heavily against it and in less then five seconds the heal points hit zero.

"Tadadada."

'WIN' appeared in gold letters on Dave's screen.