A Wild Challenger Appears

The room was in a bit of an uproar when Miranda walked in. She looked around in confusion and noticed that a game was being projected on the monitor.

"This will be his tenth win won't it?"

"Is he going to seriously stomp everyone in the class?"

"Can anybody here kill him?"

The last comment was slightly louder than the other commotion.

"What's going on?" Miranda asked no one in particular but Kelly seemed to magically teleport to her side immediately.

"That guy from the other just came in earlier and said he would stomp everyone. Mr. Benson offered him a ton of extra credit if he can actually do it. Supposedly he's plat. Almost everyone in the class just gave up without trying."

"What about you?"

Kelly scratched her jaw in embarrassment. "I know I don't have the mechanics yet to compete with him. I wouldn't stand a chance so I just surrendered."

"Come on, you should at least try. It's good practice."

"Not yet. Maybe once I have a few more of my mechanics down. Then I'd try."

"And… done." The match concluded without much fanfare. It was already a foregone conclusion.

"How many people do I have left to beat?"

"Just five."

"Oh, sweet. Who's next?"

"I am." Miranda called from the back of the room. She started setting up.

"Forget it girlie, you just arrived, right? You didn't see him stomp the first ten did you?"

"Nope. Hey, what rank are you?" Miranda called towards the front of the room.

"Plat." He shouted back. "You?"

"Unranked."

Everybody groaned. Most of them moved closer to the screen or crowded around his monitor. Only Kelly pulled up a seat beside Miranda. Mr. Benson looked around with interest before pulling up a seat on her other side.

"No pressure," he joked.

Miranda just giggled.

"Wait, why don't you have rank?" asked Kelly realizing something. "You've earned way more than enough credits to unlock enough classes."

"I spent it all."

"On what?!"

"Bonus trees and cosmetics." Kelly failed to stifle her laughter and guffawed in delight. Mr. Benson chuckled appreciatively.

"Hey, there's no harm in looking good, right?" asked Miranda defensively.

"I never thought I'd hear that from you," hiccoughed Kelly with tears pouring from her eyes. She wiped them away and gasped. "Wait, is that the legendary outfit?"

"Yup."

"Hey, what's the holdup?"

"You never told me the room."

"It's 'Extra Credit'. Password is 'x'."

"How imaginative," muttered Miranda before calling. "What class should I play?"

"Play whatever you want."

"Okay."

The lobby started with a ban phase, each player could ban three classes the other owned. So far Miranda had nine classes unlocked, he had over fifty. He must grinded constantly since the first day to have so many credits.

To everybody's surprise Miranda chose to ban no classes while he banned all her carry classes. No longer could she use Ninja, Sharpshooter, or Elementalist. Now she was only left with tanks, junglers, and supports.

"Wow what a douche," whispered Kelly.

"It's fine," shrugged Miranda before instalocking the support class Telekineticist.

The two classes appeared on the map's loading screen. It would be Miranda's Telekineticist versus the mystery boy's gunslinger. Whereas he was using the basic gunslinger outfit, Miranda's avatar was decked out in glittering ethereal flowing robes with sparkles dancing in the air around her.

"Did you waste all your credits on this skin?!" The half of the class that didn't shout this out or whisper it to their friends were silently thinking in their heads. The skin looked awesome but it was a complete waste of what could be more combat stats.

Miranda just giggled as the avatars loaded in. She appeared on the revival platform. Placed just behind the team's Core, the revival platform was where avatars would respawn if they died. Instead of buying anything from the shop there, Miranda directly walked into lane at level 1 with no items.

Mr. Benson raised an eyebrow before looking towards the front of the room wondering what Justin was thinking. Justin, the kid from the other class who so brazenly burst into the room and boasted that he could beat everyone. He agreed to the challenge and even offered extra credit thinking it would be a fun exercise. Instead it turned out to be a bloody massacre after Justin revealed that he was plat and crushed novice after novice until everyone was too scared to fight him.

In truth Mr. Benson agreed with the majority. This girl was just some novice who blew all her hard earned credits on a skin and still didn't know how to play the game. Or bought it. Probably bought it. He expected Kelly and Miranda just be sitting in the back giggling over the cool particle effects or something but they appeared to be taking it seriously. Watching Miranda's deliberate movements despite doing something downright stupid and suicidal piqued his interest.

Up at the front of the room. Justin lazily meandered into lane on time. He could already see victory. To win a 1 v 1 all one had to do was be the first to kill the enemy avatar, the enemy Pillar, or 99 enemy minions. He could farm up at his leisure hiding behind his minions to avoid the Telekineticist's Force of Will and harass at will. Then he would walk over her with his gold advantage.

It all went according to plan. The Telekineticist seemed to be a huge scaredy cat playing super far back close to their pillar and only last hitting minions with Force of Will or when a minion happened close to where she was already standing. True, he couldn't really harass her with damage, but she was missing out on a lot of gold by only selectively last hitting. He could beat her to 99 minions killed in his sleep.