Daisy had been taught that it was always advantageous to have the high ground in any FPS game, but man, numbers definitely counted for strategy too. And her team was outnumbered three to one.

“Guys, watch our left flank. I took out their sniper but I don’t have eyes on their front line anymore.” Daisy frowned at Mark’s information, quickly checking her ammo reserves and silently motioning to Yeri to move behind cover.

The order came not a second too soon, as a hail of bullets landed where Yeri had been not a second before. “Thanks,” the blonde huffed, blowing a strand of hair out of her face.

“Mark, fall back to us but keep sniping. We’re gonna need all the help we can get, they’re pinning us,” Daisy said. “Lucas, Mina, watch the ladders behind us, that’s where we’re likely going to get ambushed from.”

The five of them had worked together as a team for three years now and they played with a tight synchronicity. Daisy wasn’t usually the team’s shotcaller but their usual leader wasn’t here. She hadn’t even responded to the call for help on Discord.

Yeri swore behind Daisy. “Last mag! We gotta move soon.”

Daisy did some mental math, counting ammo and respawns. With Yeri on her last mag, they had to risk moving out of cover if they didn’t want to end up sandwiched between the two halves of the opposing team. Victory was slim, but still possible. She had a plan, at least she did until…

“Exit’s blocked Daisy, they’re coming up the ladder like you said.” Lucas fired off a few shots from his gun but jerked back a second later as the two enemy soldiers riddled his avatar with bullets. His holographic avatar disintegrated into bright purple pixels. “, and I’m out of respawns.”

Daisy spun around, quickly taking out one of the invaders who shattered into green pixels as the force from her shots toppled him off the edge of the building to the concrete below. The other one was a little faster and managed to dive behind an air conditioning unit to avoid getting hit.

Mark had reached their team by now and had set up a new sniper nest. He calmly aimed down the sights and took out two enemies as they tried to rush to the building they were trapped on. “It’s like shooting fish in a barrel. I’m low on ammo though. Got maybe two or three kills left in me. Where the is Chaeyoung, she’s supposed to be our leader!”

XXX

“, ,” Chaeyoung swore under her breath, racing down the sidewalk on her bike. She had taken the long way home from school just in case she ran into the neighborhood bullies. Which didn’t account for anything apparently because as soon as she turned the corner in front of her block she found her path blocked. “What do you want Jackson, I’m late for a clan match.”

The older boy smirked. “Clan match? Check it out Yugyeom, this FPS wannabe thinks she’s gonna be the next Champion!”

Yugyeom giggled next to him. Chaeyoung sighed, knowing she wouldn’t get anywhere with these two. They always made fun of her for liking videogames and art instead of what most other girls her age liked. If only she could meet them on the battlefield with her FPS team, she’d show them who’s boss. “Wow Jackson, you’re so original. I definitely haven’t heard that insult before. Seriously, what do you two want?”

“The same thing we always want, Son.” It was always the same with the two of them. She slung off her backpack and began rifling through her pockets until she found what she was looking for.

“Don’t spend it all in one place, boys,” she said, pressing a couple of crumpled one-dollar bills into Jackson’s hand before pushing by them with her bike. They’d held her up almost five minutes, she hoped the clan match wasn’t over yet. “Ugh, Daisy’s gonna kill me.”

XXX

“Welcome back to the show, our next guest is this year’s winner of Amateur Gamer of the Year, he’s also been named one of the 12 hottest up-and-coming professional gamers. He’s also the Varsity FPS captain at Arcturus Gaming High, put your hands together for the Golden Maknae Jeon Jungkook!”

The studio audience went wild as the teenage superstar jogged onto the stage, wearing his team jersey and flashing his brightest smile. “Hi everyone, I’m honored to be invited to the show today. My name is Jeon Jungkook and I’m the captain of the AGH FPS team.”

“So Jungkook, how does it feel to have been named winner of ESPN’s Amateur Gamer of the Year?”

“I of course was honored to even be nominated for such a prestigious title, but it’s really all thanks to my fans that it panned out the way it did.” Jungkook grinned and pointed over at a section of the audience that was filled with a group of fangirls that were waving little signs shaped like his face and cheering him on. “But I’m not here to talk about my accomplishments, I’m here to show them! Who’s ready to see a trickshot demo?!”

XXX

By the time Chaeyoung got home she was worried that the match was already over. She dropped her bike on the porch and quickly got out her house keys, speeding past the living room with a rushed, “Hey mom. School was fine, gotta run, bye!”

She dashed up the stairs to her room, throwing her backpack roughly on her bed and booting up her gaming computer. “Damn it, where’d I put my headset?”

Finding it hidden under a pile of clothes on her bed she plugged them in and loaded up her game. Her comms crackled to life as she was patched into the game already in progress.

“They’ve broken past Lucas on the ladder, Mina’s at low health and we’re losing ground!” Chaeyoung heard the rapid-fire sound of a machine gun, which meant that someone on the opposing team had wracked up a killstreak.

“Chaeyoung picked the best possible time to be late to a clan match, we’re gonna lose at this rate.”

Finally. Her game finished loading and she grinned, pressing the start button. Her avatar materialized in-game and she quickly dispatched the three enemy soldiers that had her teammates pinned on the roof. They exploded in a deluge of green pixels. “Sorry I’m late guys.”

Daisy poked her head out from behind cover. She looked a little worse for wear but still sent her captain a wry smile. Being leader was so not her style. “Glad you could finally join us, Cap.”

“Alright guys, on me! We haven’t lost this yet.” Chaeyoung looked around at the situation. Lucas was gone, and both Mina and Daisy didn’t have a whole lot of health remaining. “We out of respawns?”

Daisy nodded. “But so are they. As long as we play it careful we still have a chance.”

Chaeyoung fell into her leader demeanor and motioned for the other two girls to follow her. “Mark stay on sniper position until you fall.” She cracked her neck and readied her gun, moving forward. Two opponents quickly fell to her superior aim, the third had barely enough time to get a shot off while Chaeyoung holstered her main weapon and drew her sidearm, hitting him right between the eyes. She kicked his disintegrating avatar off the roof. From behind her, Mina and Daisy looked on in awe.

Chaeyoung turned to look at them. “Holy did you guys see that? With the whole reload and headshot with my pistol? That was insane, I—”

“Chae, watch out!” Daisy’s gun fired and the enemy that was sneaking up the ladder was knocked out.

Chaeyoung watched his body hit the ground and she grimaced. “Ew. Thanks, Daisy.”

XXX

Back at the studio, Jungkook was regaling the hosts about some of his gaming feats. “Now Jungkook, you told me backstage about something called ‘pubstomping’. Can you elaborate on that?”

“Sure. It’s a gaming term for when an organized clan or professional player joins a random server in order to really kick some . It’s a great way to warm up before practice and more often than not people don’t know what hits them.”

The hosts giggled. “Well then Mr. Golden Maknae, we’ve brought along a gaming computer, let’s show our viewers how good you really are. And to any of you viewers out there, you might get the chance to meet one of the world’s best players!”

XXX

Back on the battlefield in-game, Chaeyoung, Mina and Daisy had managed to get off the roof and were now holding in a ready position behind the building. As captain it was Chaeyoung’s job to somehow find a way to salvage the match. “Uh, okay guys. Right flank, Wolf’s Formation. It’ll be dicey but we have a shot.”

She tossed one of her bricks of ammo to Daisy and ordered them to fan out. Daisy and Mina would watch the sides of the building. Lucas’s voice crackled in her ear. “Just like the Seoul Invitational, eh Chaeyoung?”

“Of course. Alright guys, let’s do this on three. One two…”

“Chaeyoung, did you let the dog out?”

. “, sorry guys hang on, life aggro. I’ll be right back after Iet the dog outside.”

Mina growled, “Not now Chae, we need to—and she’s gone.” Chaeyoung’s in-game avatar had frozen mid-step and was now running through its set of idle animations.

Mina and Daisy holstered their weapons. “So,” Daisy said. “I guess we’re waiting. How was your weekend Mina?”

“Not bad, I went to the movies with Sejeong, did some homework for a project…”

Chaeyoung must have still had her headset on because occasionally her avatar shouted things like “Tofu, where are you?! Tofuuuuu!”

Mark climbed down the ladder and paused when he saw the three girls huddled together. “What are you guys doing?”

“AFK,” Mina responded dryly, picking at her nails. “We really need a new captain guys.”

Suddenly, the game’s music cut out. “Guys what’s happening?”

Lucas swore, “I’m being respawned back in the game, what the hell? I thought we were out of spawns.”

All the players that had been eliminated from the game suddenly respawned, and the insignias on their battle armor all became the same. A booming voice suddenly echoed in everyone’s ears. “THE GOLDEN MAKNAE APPROACHES. DEFEAT HIM OR PERISH.”

Daisy paled. “Oh god. We’re so dead.” She waved a hand in front of Chaeyoung’s motionless avatar. “Cap, come on this is no time to chase your stupid dog, we’re about to get our asses handed to us!”

“We can’t stay huddled up like this, that’ll just make us easy—” Mark never finished his sentence. A single bullet had struck him between the eyes and he fell back into purple pixels.

“RUN!” Mina cried. Jungkook’s avatar sat lazily on the roof as he aimed his gun at their group, smirking.

“Heeere Tofu! Where are you, you stupid mutt?” Daisy tried to drag Chaeyoung’s motionless avatar with her but Mina stopped her.

“Leave her, Daisy. We can’t help her anymore.” Daisy looked torn but upon looking up at Jungkook’s silhouette she nodded and ran for cover with Mina.

XXX

Jungkook was having the time of his life, watching the players run around like little ants as the game announced his arrival. He had taken out a sniper with one shot of his pistol, and was almost skipping down the road, gleefully murdering any player who so much as breathed in his direction. It was a great warm-up and an ego-boost. He casually sunk three bullets into a player’s avatar who thought he could ambush Jungkook, stepping nonchalantly over his dissolving body. He stopped as he saw a girl standing right out in the open. Her avatar muttered, “Damn dog.”

“Huh, looks like we’ve got an AFK’er.” Jungkook turned to address the TV show hosts. “That means away from keyboard. This player’s avatar is here but the person behind the screen is gone for whatever reason. Maybe she saw me coming and ran. I think I’ll have some fun with her.”

Jungkook pulled out one of his grenades and perched it on Chaeyoung’s head. He walked about ten paces away from the girl, out of the blast radius and slowly raised his custom-skinned golden pistol. He wondered how many shots it would take him to hit the grenade. He fired.

XXX

Chaeyoung found Tofu cowering under her mother’s bed and had to crawl under it in order to coax the tiny Pomeranian out. She held the dog tightly in her arms and all but ran to the back door, opening it and shooing Tofu outside. With her job done she bolted back inside and made a beeline for her chair.

She hadn’t heard the server-wide announcement of Jungkook’s invasion and when she finally re-joined the match she wondered why her teammates had left her all alone. “What the fu—”

Chaeyoung found herself staring at the end of a golden barrel. It registered in the back of her mind that only the best players in the world had golden guns, but the more pressing thoughts were oh my god someone’s about to shoot me.

The next few seconds happened as if they were in slow motion. On instinct, Chaeyoung stepped backwards. The grenade rolled off her head and she pivoted sharply to the left, barely avoiding taking a bullet to the face. Jungkook didn’t see the grenade as it rolled to a stop between his feet, and Chaeyoung took advantage of the situation.

She knelt and aimed for the grenade, taking a deep breath in and squeezing off three shots. Jungkook’s avatar was caught in the blast radius of the grenade and he exploded in a green mist of pixels.

With her opponent dead, Chaeyoung sat on the ground, breathing heavily as the adrenaline coursed through her veins. “That was way too close…guys? Are you still alive?”

Her comms were silent. All of a sudden the chat filter exploded. You killed the Golden Maknae. Holy , that was the most badass thing I’ve ever seen. Who is this girl?

Golden Maknae killer? Chaeyoung scrolled up as the messages kept rolling in and she almost dropped her mouse on the floor. There, in bright red letters were the words: TigerCubChaeng has killed GoldenMaknae. “Oh. My. God.”

Mina and Daisy ran out from where they had been hiding and rushed their Captain. “Chaeyoung, you killed one of the world’s best players!!”

Chaeyoung was still completely speechless as her teammates all shouted their congratulations through the game’s voice chat. What had she just done?

XXX

It turns out what she did was humiliate Jungkook on live TV. He tried to play it off by saying that it was a videogame, anyone could have gotten killed. The local gaming media however immediately ran with the story and soon Chaeyoung’s gamertag was trending across the country.

“Who is this nameless player who got the upper hand on one of the country’s best FPS gamers?”

“Son Chaeyoung, also known by her gamertag TigerCubChaeng of the 99Line clan has reportedly been invited to enroll at Arcturus Gaming High, the most prestigious gaming school in the country. Most students from Arcturus end up graduating with multi-million dollar contracts lined up, will Chaeyoung become one of the next great players from the academy?”

“Just because she killed Jeon Jungkook once doesn’t mean she’s the next greatest thing to happen to the FPS world. One kill does not a warlord make, gentlemen.”

XXX

THREE DAYS LATER

“You will not study art here at Arcturus,” a cold female voice said. Damn shame, Chaeyoung thought. She really liked the art classes at her old school. “You will study the art of war. Arcturus Academy is the best gaming school in the country and we only look for the best. Work hard, play hard, and your time with us will be a cornerstone for the rest of your gaming career.”

The video ended, and Chaeyoung sat back in her chair. Never in her wildest dreams did she think that something like this would happen to her. “This is actually happening. Everyone’s saying I can’t do this, but I have to try don’t I?”

Her entire clan was with her on comms, voicing their opinions. She loved her 99Line clan but joining Arcturus Academy would mean the end of playing with them.

“Don’t listen to them Chae,” Daisy said. “You’re the best captain we’ve ever had. If anyone can rise to the challenge, you can!” Mina, Lucas and Mark heartily agreed.

“Chaeyoung, the reporters are here!”

Chaeyoung sighed. “I gotta go guys. It’s been an honor playing with you these last three years.”

She signed off and steeled herself for the coming interview. Chaeyoung had wanted nothing more than to play on an Arcturus team ever since she was a little kid, but now that she had the opportunity she didn’t know what to do. This was her dream, wasn’t it?

So why did she feel so scared?