“Oh did you see that? Did you see that Seunggwan?!”

The final killcam flashed across the screen showcasing the brutal multi-kill committed in the last few seconds of the second round. One by one, opposing team players would fall to the ground by player’s knife. He was racking up kills by the second as they respawned in front of him, putting down red tactical insertions. Finally, the screen out showing the lobby leaderboard. As expected, jetlee_chan was sitting proudly at the top of the board with a 150-7 kill/death ratio. Chan felt the need to rub his team's victory in his best friend's face. This was the 10th time he had beaten SEunggwan's team today when they were on opposing sides.

“C’mon Chan, you !” Seunggwan’s voice echoed through his Turtlebeach headset, “I had one of my strike packages ready!”

Chan adjusted his headset volume so that his ears wouldn’t burst at his best friend’s screaming. The load out screen faded on the screen as more than half of the lobby disappeared. They quit the lobby because Chan had made the game less fun by showing them up. A few cursed at him before they left. As he waited for more players to join for the AI to balance the teams, he looked over at his laptop. His school’s video game club kept track of the highest scoring gamers on their system. His username sat at the top with his gross yearbook picture next to it. Below him was a second year transfer student, Wen Junhui. Chan placed his controller on his lap, rubbing his strained eyes, “Sure, Seunggwan. What was it? An advanced UAV?”

“Alright fine, you win,” Seunggwan rolled his eyes on the other end. His advanced UAV really wouldn’t have done anything other than show which direction the enemy was facing and pretty much everyone on the map knew where Chan was. He had spawn trapped them anyway.

“Oh hyung, look at what we have here!” Chan exclaimed excitedly, navigating over to the last player to join the lobby. Whoever it was still a noob player or maybe those Christmas players because they were still at Private 1 ranking. The two snickered knowing that this inexperienced player was going to get the worst experience in his gaming career. Maybe scar him for life. The lobby split, showing that Seunggwan was now on Chan’s team while the noob player was on the other team. Chan read the name out loud, “Digidroid? What the hell is that?”

As they waited for the map to load, Seunggwan caught a notification pop up on his laptop. He had the player directory pulled up on the screen as the notification box flashed green and grey, “Whoa, Chan. A new player’s been added to the player list! You want me to read it out loud?”

“Yeah sure, and tell me who it is. I’m refreshing my page right now but my Internet connection is being annoying,”

“Dream Assassins, Robotoid has been added to the player list as Digidroid,” Seunggwan read aloud, taking his eyes off his laptop as the map faded onto his TV screen, “Hey bro, I think we’ve found him. But who is Robotoid? Don’t they usually put the student name or something like that?”

“That’s what they always did, yeah,” Chan selected his default assault rifle class and waited for the countdown to begin. He remembered just yesterday, he had convinced Hansol to register on to the system and when Hansol did, his name appeared on the notification box. Surely they couldn’t have updated the system in less than a few hours? He rubbed his nose, awaiting the start as the automated voice instructed them to capture the objective, “Is there a picture?”

“No,” Seunggwan selected his class just a second before the game started. He watched as Chan climbed on top of the train, crouched behind the bridge, and switched out to his off-hand sniper. Seunggwan was underneath the bridge in case someone on the other team were to jump Chan, “There’s a black box next to it,”

“Huh, that’s weird. Should we try to talk to him?”

“Yeah, let’s do that. Here, I’ll send the invite,” Seunggwan’s fingers swiftly darted along his controls, making sure that he didn’t miss too much of the game. He had just finished sending the message when a sniper round went off. Chan’s screams flooded his headsets; Seunggwan congratulated his best friend, “Aw yeah, Chan! First blood!”

“That wasn’t me. Someone shot me!” Chan’s voice gained a few notes higher as he screamed at his TV. Ever since he had gotten good at video games, he had never been the victim to first kill. If anything, he was the one who was always awarded the First Blood accolade. Seunggwan checked the left hand corner and read ‘Digidroid took First Blood!’ followed by ‘Digidroid sniped jet_leechan!’ Chan’s mouth dropped as he watched his killcam to see how the heck he could have gotten killed. Digidroid’s point of view appeared, speedily jumping on top of the train, got into position and drew his scope upwards. The way the player moved wasn’t that of a first time player, in fact, it was that of a professional. Chan couldn’t believe what he was seeing, “Seunggwan, that Private quickscoped me! It wasn’t even a hardscope!”

Seunggwan’s eyes widened when the Xbox notification popped up, “Chan, Digidroid joined our party!”

“What do you want?” a slightly pitched male’s voice harshly asked them. Chan and Seunggwan literally froze. They had no idea who that voice belonged to, it didn’t sound like any of their classmates’ voices or anyone they knew for that matter. Chan took the initiative and answered, “Yo, bro. Do you realize who you just sniped right now?”

“Yeah, I know. The infamous Lee Chan. Popular with the ladies and whatnot. Heard you’ve got a few older girls around your finger as well,” Chan followed Digidroid around the corner and attempted to knife him to no avail. Digidroid jumped off the stairs, turned around and sniped him faster than anyone he had seen before. He yelled once more, using all his strength to keep from cursing. He wasn’t someone who would curse but he sure was itching to. It was only a few minutes into the game and already he had died twice. That was a new record for him.

“Okay, so you know who he is. Great,” Seunggwan sniped a player who was camping behind a trashcan and proceeded to teabag him, “Now tell us who you are,”

There was no answer. He quickly pulled up the party list; Digidroid’s mic was on but he wasn’t talking. The air was quiet, every once in a while with Chan and Seunggwan yelling at Digidroid whenever they were killed. Digidroid never answered them once. Chan was having the worst day in his life; 30 deaths and 35 kills by the time they switched sides for the next round. Seunggwan wasn’t a great player already, but he couldn’t even bring himself to look at his kill/death count. His deaths probably outnumbered his kills by twice. Though, he did have a lot of assists. By second round, Digidroid was leading her team to victory with 53 kills and 3 deaths. Neither of the two boys had ever seen her switch out to her secondary. She was singlehandedly beating them with a single shot sniper. As far as they were concerned, she didn’t use any stealth perks either because he was still a low level. Lower levels had a limited amount of options to choose from because not all of their guns and perks are unlocked.

The Final Killcam played on their screens, showing Digidroid’s view once more. He was running in the middle of the map, not even bothering to hide behind a plant or something. He was seriously just going in without a second thought. Chan and Seunggwan saw their players far away in the back, but not close enough that their usernames would flash above. In fact, you could just barely see the top of their heads from behind the rock. They weren’t even that close but for some reason, the player could easily recognize who they were from far away. There was no way that someone could have spotted them from that far away. Pulling up his scope, Digidroind quickscoped once more and the bullet went right through the two of them. The entire lobby was a mess once they arrived back at the menu. Some were cursing at the low leveled player while others were cheering. Finally someone showed jetlee_chan up at his own game. Digidroid had just shot up from being at the bottom of the lobby player list to second under Chan. He leveled up as well.

Throwing his controller onto the floor, Chan ripped off his headset. He was so fed up with this player. Yelling into his microphone, she cursed, “ you, Digidroid!”

“Oh, what’s happening?” a pair of round chocolate orbs stared up at her 112in TV. Her Xbox notified her that she had lost connection to her party and that she was taken back to the main menu. She turned off her headset and unplugged it from the controller. Shrugging her shoulders, she set her controller down on the glass low table where her feet had been resting and pressed the power button on the TV remote. Looking at her watch, she realized that her client would be coming over soon. She had just left her bedroom with an old laptop in hand when the doorbell rang. Jogging over to the door, she unlocked it and was greeted with the bright smiling face of her schoolmate and transfer student, Yao Mingming.

“Hi, Jinki!” He grinned, speaking like a native Korean. Jinki smiled back as he cutely waved, “Can I come in?”

Opening the door, Jinki allowed him to come in, “Yeah sure! Here, set your things down on the table over there. I’ll be with you in a second,”

Mingming nodded, and gasped at how large her house was. Junhui, his best friend, sure wasn’t lying when he said that her house was big. The entire room was spotless and white, sporting a modern, chic black and white design. The furniture and lighting were square but the pillows and other small details were round. It was literally a contrasting room. It wasn’t full of furniture either. As far as he could see, there was one black rectangular couch, two square-like armchairs and a glass table. On the table was a black and white Asus Gaming laptop which he figured belonged to her. A large flatscreen TV hung up on the wall to Food Network. There were black on white stairs leading upstairs closed off by a glass half-wall and he could just barely see the kitchen counter through the glass divider.

It was actually Junhui who recommended Jinki to him to get his computer fixed. His Chinese mate swore that Jinki would be able to fix his computer faster than their school technician, Mr. Joo. Taking his word for it, he decided to call the first year student up and schedule an appointment. He didn’t realize that her family was that well-off. He figured that she was just middle middle class. Not upper middle class to lower upper class.

Jinki closed the door with her foot and made her way to where Mingming was standing. He was her only appointment for today and she was glad. Saturdays were her lazy days. She laughed when he looked at her, unsure if it was okay to sit down, “Don’t worry, you can sit down. Now, tell me, what’s wrong with your laptop?”

“It’s making clicking noises,” Mingming started to explain, sitting down as he handed his laptop over to her outstretched hand. Jinki turned his laptop upside down and pulled a few tools from inside one of the table drawers. This wasn’t the first time she had heard someone tell her this. In fact, it was pretty funny because Junhui, his best friend, actually approached her with the same problem. She took a few minutes to pick around the laptop while Mingming made small talk. He wasn’t that great in the Korean language yet, but luckily Jinki had chosen to study Chinese over Japanese in her school so they could somewhat converse in either language. Mingming folded his hands on her lap, still afraid that he might mess up the neatness of the room. From the corner of his eye, he caught sight of an Xbox console on the display stand below the TV, “Oh, you play?”

“A little. My parents both work for Microsoft as video game marketers and designers. MY mom is the CFO of Microsoft Korea. They work on Xbox projects,” Jinki took out his hard drive and looked it over, “Usually they get discounts for anything Xbox related. If I’m lucky, I get games and consoles for free,”

Mingming’s mouth formed into a small ‘o’ and grew quiet again. Jinki was in his Chinese 2 class since she had learned Chinese 1 in her middle school. There were many students who would often leave their classroom to attend another class if they were advanced. It wasn’t unheard of. They sat next to each other in his class. He also talked to her every so often after school and at one point they worked on a project together. You could say they were okay friends.

Jinki figured out what was wrong with his laptop and laid it out for him, “So your PCB isn’t working. My laptop over here has the same PCB. What I’m going to do is switch the PCBs around and it should solve the problem,”

“But then won’t it make the clicking noise on yours?” Mingming asked.

“Nah, it’s fine. I don’t use that laptop anyway,” Jinki reassured him, handing him his laptop back.

“Wow, Jinki, you’re so cool!” he exclaimed and then thanked her. Mingming slipped it back into the case and stuck it in his backpack. Never in a million years would he be able to do what she did best. He admired her for knowing so much at a young age. When he was in first year, he was busy living doing whatever to try and procrastinate on homework. Getting up, he bowed his head, “Are your parents here? I don’t want to keep you or anything so I think I’ll be going now,”

Jinki smiled and took a controller from the table, grabbing another one for herself, “No, they’re not here yet. But do you want to play a few rounds before you go?” She held out the other one out at him.

“Well, if you insist,” Mingming sat back down and turned it on. He wasn’t a great gamer per se and he definitely wasn’t tech savvy. It made him a bit nervous that maybe a girl might be better than him, “So, did you hear about the Kyung Rim Gaming Competition?”

“Who hasn’t?” she scoffed. Yeah she knew about it. In fact, the company her mom and dad worked for was the one who was giving away the grand prize: 4200 Microsoft points as well as a guaranteed free Xbox One when it was released in the upcoming months. On top of that, the winner got to receive a free, limited edition version of Call of Duty: Ghosts. The Kyung Rim Gaming competition took the top 32 players in their high school and put them head to head against each other. Both girls and boys could join. It was set up like any sports bracket: Rank 1 would go against Rank 32, Rank 2 against Rank 31 – the obvious.

“I heard your classmate lee Chan is pretty good. He’s currently ranked at number one, isn’t he?” Mngming asked, remembering a few of his classmates that were part of the Dream Assassins talking about the first year boy.

Jinki looked down at her laptop screen that showed the complete player rankings. She eyed Chan’s username and number of kills smirking, “We’ll see,”

author's note : horray for the first chapter! i'm so sorry that i haven't updated this since i first posted the foreword. i've been studying for my finals which is coming up in two/three days. anywho, for those who have been following my other stories, i might be updating toepick! and hey there, brace face! later tonight. it really depends on when i finish studying otl.

also, i hope i didn't confuse some of you with all the cod terms. i'm not sure how many of you do play cod or xbox in general but i'll try to keep gaming terminology to a minimum. i will try my best to incorporate a variety of video games in this story.