Talented Me! 40

Avina stared at the screen in front of her. Her character was lying lifelessly on the ground while a countdown continued. The moment it hit '0', she revived again at the base.

"Okay! Let's try this again," Daisy cheered Wilona on. She stood behind Wilona's chair pointing out on the screen and helping her.

"So walk over here. Yes, right there. And attack the jungle monster. Hit it until it's low on HP!!" Daisy yelled out instructions.

Avina followed her directions struggling against Daisy's fast pace. It was "Go this way!", "Go that way!", "Hit it with a stick!", "Run away!", and so many more. So all she did was constantly hit the keyboard and attack button hoping she was doing *something* right.

"You did it! Now let's help the others!" Daisy pointed to the mini-map. "Go to Gina's lane. Yep, the one at far right."

The whole evening was spent at the cafe teaching and reteaching the basics of MOBA gaming. From how to properly use your skills to proper positioning so you don't get one shot. Avina learned it all.

Avina was slowly getting better -just a tiny bit- and wasn't feeding as much as before. At least this time, she could properly run away.

The more she played, the more addicted she got. It was a fun and thrilling feeling that was invigorating!

"See? You don't need me to teach you anything," Eli peeked over at her screen and said. "You got good all by yourself."

"But you're still a master," Avina retorted. She may have gotten the basics down, but she was far away from decent. Even if she had 5025, she still needed to know how to play correctly.

"Tell you what," Eli suggested. "How about every day after school we play 1 game?"

"Perfect!"

So from then on, Avina and Eli played 1 game every day after school. The sounds of their friends' laughter accompanied the game sounds on their phones. If it wasn't just the two of them, it was all of them. It was fun and Avina enjoyed it.

'How is the hacking going?' Avina asked 5025. She had been waiting for a while but there was no news.

5025 checked the progress. It was stuck on the last few percent and wouldn't budge. 'I think she has a strong virus protection program installed.'

'More powerful than the most powerful system ever?' Avina questioned. If a system could allow her to go through different worlds, it would be more puzzling to know it can't hack into a simple phone.

'It's not like systems are all-powerful deities with unlimited power,' 5025 retorted. Everything starts and ends somehow, so even it has a limit. Hacking was a violation of privacy according to the manual and it had to especially consult its superiors for permission.

Avina agreed with 5025 after that comment. If 5025 was super powerful, there were many instances where its powers failed her. It wasn't the first time 5025 proved itself to be a little less than reliable.

'Let me know the moment that it's done.'

'Okay!'

Avina never found out in time who the person was. It was quickly the day of the shooting and it didn't matter anymore if she did know who it was. All she could do was go to the show, hope someone doesn't hurt her and win.

There were a few things that also worried her. One, she found out that Sandra also didn't play MOBA games. So at the last moment, she pulled Sandra into playing with her. Two, Graham said that they were catching onto his snooping and he had to stop. So that meant she had to start gathering her own evidence starting from Adi.

'Monitor Adi's monitor and feelings. Tell me if something looks suspicious,' Avina ordered 5025. 5025 went to set up the feels-o-meter to target Adi, and told her that it was ready.

____

"Welcome back to Who I Am! I'm your lovely host, and these are our equally lovely contestants!" the host introduced. "Today is a very special day. Can you guess why?"

He swung his microphone at us and Angel spoke. "Because it's our last day?"

"Ding! Ding! Ding! You got it right!" He pointed at Angel before looking back into the cameras.

"Today is the last show with our contestants. We have prepared a fun theme for them, "Games"."

The backdrop lifted revealing 3 rows of PCs. Each one had 2 PCs with matching colors. We all collectively gasped at the amazing display

"We will be playing a popular MOBA game. The team has specifically requested a game to be programmed to allow 3 teams of 2 to play. For 30 minutes, you may practice and then the competition will begin!"

The bell rang and everyone rushed to one of the islands. Avina and Sandra chose the one in the middle with the color red. Will and Angel chose the blue island and the civilians chose the orange one.

Turning on the computers, an interface appeared with a loading bar. Once it finished, the game appeared. It was exactly like the one she played!

The program specifically changed the game into fitting the show. There was no need to log in or way to play anything else but the game they designed. Avina and Sandra went into practice mode immediately.

"Wow! It's like the one we played," Sandra turned to Wilona and said. "Which character are you going to play? I want to be Yina."

Avina flipped through the characters. "Then I'll play Tetra."

Yina was a powerful mage character. She primarily focused on poking the enemy or dealing heavy damage. Tetra was mainly a support character with adequate damage. Both characters allowed good enough damage against the enemy while also allowing equal escape chances.

Their opponents were the generated AI. At first, it was bumpy gameplay with poor cooperation. But soon, during the mid-game, the two of them found their groove. There was perfect coordination as well as helpful assists.

"I think we got this," Sandra cheerfully said. It was their third win so far, and they were doing great.

Avina looked at her kill rate and the successful games before and felt good. They worked nicely together, she even tried it with 5025 on one game and it worked, and there seemed to be no issue.

5025 was both helping out on the game but also keeping watch of the situation around them. It individually scanned everyone on the feels-o-meter trying to find who had the most hostility or ill intent towards its host. From what it found, no one had any ill intent.

'No one here looks like the culprit,' 5025 told Avina. 'Maybe Adi didn't successfully get a reply?'

'No,' Avina denied. 'Adi is quick-witted. Even if she fails with one person, she will try again until someone does it. I'm sure someone here will sabotage something.'

"Time's up! You can all stay at your seats while the trailer plays."

On the big board, a video played out promoting the game. It showed newly added animations of all the characters as well as popular gameplays from professional gamers. Battle music played through the entire thing making their blood boil.

This was amazing! It was thrilling, fun, and exciting! The urgency of victory fueled their mind and everyone wanted to win! The victory was either theirs or no one!

The created game was different from what Avina thought it would be. According to the information, she thought was correct, it would be a bracket competition. But now, it was changed to a survival game.

All groups would be placed onto the field and battle against each other. There was no defending the base, but instead, defending each other from the enemies. Players, with their partners, would go around collecting a token and killing the enemies. You can revive if your partner was alive or using a token.

If both players from one team were eliminated with no tokens at their disposal, the team was eliminated. This continued until all the required tokens were collected or everyone was eliminated.

Each turn at a bush was anxiety and fear. Each collision was a battle cry of victory or vanquish. Your movements must be calculative and not predictable. Team coordination was much needed because your partner either needed to survive for you, or you had to safely revive for them.

At the 10th minute, the first team was eliminated. It was Will and Angel. They were eliminated by the skillful tactics of the civilian team. It was obvious that they were skilled in their gameplay and did not look like newbies.

'5025,' Avina talked to 5025 as she maneuvered her character carefully in a bush. 'How are we going to win this? They're too skilled!'

'Give me the control. Full control,' 5025 commanded.

Avina watched as her character moved out of the bush and collided straight into the enemy. Attacks rained down as her skills reset and cooled down over and over again.

Sandra stood at a safe distance launching her attacks assisting. 5025 was dodging the many assaults from the enemy while continuously increasing damage against their health. It was a battle of who would last the longest. The HP bar was slowly decreasing on both sides and no one knew who would go down first.

One last skillful attack and one of the enemies was down. 5025 chased after the escaping partner, but they quickly attacked 5025. 5025 did not have enough time to dodge, and died.

Sandra had given chase as well, but upon seeing Wilona's character down, she avoided chasing. She had to be alive for Wilona!

So she went back and collected tokens that fell along the way. Waiting in the bush quietly, she waited for Wilona to revive again before attacking them once more. The battle was fierce, and she knew they were in for the long one.