Damian had been planning for weeks. He was making charts, looking at statistics and endlessly searching Google and Youtube. He waited until his dad came home and happily offered him an evening beverage.
After his dad had lazily fallen asleep, Damian copied the numbers off of his credit card. CCV code and all, he had done his research.
The day was approaching fast.Everything he did and everything he thought about, was leading up it.His parents were going out for an anniversary dinner and would not be home again until the next afternoon. They had decided to let Damian stay home alone for the first time ever. As soon as he heard, he knew exactly how he was going to use that time.
Castleday.
It was all anyone at school could talk about.
Castleday.
It was the basis for every Youtube video and podcast he had ever seen.
Castleday.
The game his parents refused to let him play.
He was 13, he couldn't understand it.Some of his friends had been playing since they were Nine.
Nine!
He wondered how it was possible to catch up to that much experience.
It was not like he had never played before, all he had to do was go over to a friend's house. He'd be allowed to watch or maybe play some of one game. Worse yet, his friends would get bored and want to do something else.
Not this time.
Damian had installed the game on the house's main computer earlier in the week. He read that all he had to do to hide the installation was delete the icon and turn off the automatic updates.
Despite the fact it was a free game,he had taken his dad's credit card.
There is no way I'm going into my first real match in a default skin...BLEH!
Damian looked out the window to make sure his parents were gone.
He waited five minutes.
Then thirty.
He checked again. They were gone, for real gone. He sat down at the Pilot's chair, ready for launch. He was surprised to find that he was shaking.
Razor Naga side button mouse?
Check.
3D Stereophonic headset with voice activated mic?
Check.
GTX 7800 Readon video card?
Check.
$30 Power Ranger avatar?
Check.
It's game time.
Damian's head was swimming. The graphics popped out at him with flashy cartoon brilliance. His main T.V. was much larger than his friend's computer monitors.
The game began. He was dropped out of a giant mechanical Stork. It delivered all one hundred contestants to a militarized island, where in the end; only one team would survive.
His friends' voices came through loudand clear over his headset, he felt like there was no way they could lose. They hit the ground and a chaotic frenzy of construction and destruction ensued.
The virtual world completely absorbed Damian.
He watched his friends fight masterfully, they were very good, much better than he.
His research told him that: "If he can't contribute then at worst, don't be a burden." He stayed close but out of the way. Dodging bullets and building castles was enough for him, he was just happy to be free.
His friend sounded the alarm.
"No!" Eric's voice was gravely concerned.
"What?" Jenetta asked. Eric was the best of them all, when he got worried, it was time to worry.
"No, no, no," Eric said again,Damian felt his stomach sink.
"What!" They all yelled at once.
"Look at the Killfeed, He's here.."
"Who?" Damian begged.
"He's here?" Jake asked.
"Ya." Eric assured him.
"Who!"
"You'll see."
Damian saw a name popping up on the Killfeed. It came up again and again.
TheBlackBadger.
Jake was ready for action: "What do we do Eric?"
"Ok, we have to make a castle...likea sick castle with all of our mats."
"Have you ever faced him before?"
"Sure D, ya lots of times don't worry."
"Did you ever win?" Jenetta sounded skeptical.
"well...there was...well...no.."
Silence covered the airways.
Eric led them to a cliff where they attached a huge castle to the mountain.
"Are we safe here?" Damian wondered aloud. He had made a little window in the side of the castle to watch out. All he could see was carnage; decimated Castles and discarded items littered the valley below.
"Well we will take a long time to dig out, he will probably kill everyone else first and then come for us." Jenetta consoled.
"Oh..."
When their time was up, it was clear.TheBlackBadger began firing a rocket launcher at the base of their castle on the cliff. If the final support gave, the whole castle would fall with them inside.
Eric, embarrassed by such an obvious technical blunder, charged out of the castle to buy them time.
"Cover me as I attack, if I die,scatter!" His voice was rushed and panicked.
Damian did whatever he could to protect his friend but The Badger was impossible to hit. Walls popped up on every side as The Badger danced through the air on instantaneously procured platforms.
Damian was struck by the bravery of his friend: it was clear that he never had a chance.
After a valiant effort, Eric fell.Eric began screaming into the general chat mic, he had taken the showdown quite personally.
"What is wrong with you freak! Don't you have anything better to do than pick on kids?"
A deep low laugh was The Badger's only reply.
"Run you idiots!" Eric frantically yelled at his team.
Damian had forgotten the second part of the plan. He charged out of the structure just as The Badger fired a rocket at the last support. Jenetta and Jake, who had also been transfixed by the battle; did not get out in time. Damian looked back just as Jenetta was trying to jump out the door. She almost made the cliff edge but was just short and fell, with the castle, to the bottom.
There was no one left in the game except The Badger and he. Damian was terrified to look away from the falling fort, knowing it only meant to see The Badger barreling down on him.
Damian froze like a deer in the woods.
The Badger, free of predators,curiously inspected his prey:
"Hey!" The Badger said.
"Me?" Damian's voice cracked over the general chat. The two were just a few feet from each other.
"Connection issues eh?"
"Umm....."He held the last letter like he was a buzzing bee.
"No?" The Badger laughed, "Well then, weren't you going to run or shoot at me or something? We are the only two left in the game you know."
"Would it matter?"
"Humm... suit yourself."
BANG.
Damian jumped back from his chair. He stood up panting and stumbling.
I felt that bullet.
For the first time two hours Damian realized he had been playing a video game. He shook off the realization and went right back to it.
The same thing happened again and again. No matter where they went or what they did, TheBlackBadger found them and finished them every time.
Frustration grew.
They played long into the night. Eric had to go when his father got up for work and found him still playing. He received an earful and the whole team felt terrible.
Sometimes voice activated mics aren't the best...
On Monday at school the mood was grim.
"Like what is even with that guy?"Jake had been venting all morning. "He plays squads as a solo and wins? That's just ridiculous, I barely want to even play anymore."
"Ya I looked it up," Eric didn't look away from his food. "He claims that no single person can beat him, he just thinks that 4v1 is more fair.
"Who is he?" Damian inquired, "we have to do something about it, he is ruining the game!"
"No one knows," Jenetta whispered."He not a streamer or a poster, he only plays North American and pretty much the same times we do.
"He's a weekend Warrior?" Jake asked.
"That's what Reddit is telling me so I dunno take what you can from it."
"OK well, we have to get back to class. Good game guys."
"Good game D, Good Game E." They call one at a time.
If ever there was a perfect contrast to the brilliant excitement of Castleday, it had to be Math class.The dullest worst possible torture from the dullest worst possible teacher. Damian watched videos on his phone until he got sent to the principal's office with Eric.
After a brief interview with the principal and a 24 hour confiscation of their electronic devices, the boys were ready for revenge.
The school bell had just gone, all the classes were empty. Eric and Damian made their way to the school buses.
"Hey, I have an idea. You go to Mrs.Rottenburg and say that some boys are fighting in the yard. I'll sneak into the room, grab her phone and send out a really mean Facebook post!"
"Damian, I don't know we are already in trouble."
"Just do it, when she gets there just say they must have run off."
"OK, OK."
The plan went off without a hitch but when Damian opened the Facebook browser, he dropped the phone. He stepped back and was forced to catch his breath. His hand trembling, he reached for the phone to confirm what he had seen.
Mrs. Rottenburg's default Facebook page featured a very familiar face.
It featured the Avatar of TheBlackBadger.
Damian shook, he fumbled and hastily put her phone back in the bag. He charged for the door but Lo and behold Mrs Rottenburg was coming in at that exact moment. Damian yelped and then covered his mouth.
"Everything OK?"She asked.
Damian didn't say a word. His eyes were wide open and his hand still over his mouth.Mrs. Rottenburg looked at him strangely but ignored him. Damian slid out the class, all the while his hands holding a scream in his mouth.
Damian charged Eric and Jenetta before they got on the bus.
"It's her!"
"Who is her?What...is...here?" Eric confused himself in responding.
"The....Black...Badger...it's her...Mrs Rottenburg."
Eric and Jenetta both looked at Damian, confused until they got the joke. They laughed long and hard together. Damian was not laughing at all, he was panting.
"No its true she has his Facebook open on her phone."
Eric stopped laughing and considered the idea.
"OK but...I've heard his voice, its a man, man,...and Mrs. Rottenburg is neither Black nor a Badger."
"I don't know,maybe she's altering her voice or something. You said it yourself that she hides who she is."
"Sure thing D."
Damian found it impossible to convince any of them it was true.
When Damian got home he realized that he had forgotten to erase the icon once again,Castleday was loaded and on the main T.V., his dad in front of it.
"Oh, WOO!" His father jumped up from the chair and saw Damian.
"Have you tried this? It's amazing!" Damian took two steps back, ready to run.
"Well..um..it got sent to me in a link I um..it installed itself...um and then it was free so..."
"Free? My favorite price! Here let me show you how it works."
His father eventually left and gave Damian his blessing to play. Confused but happy at the outcome of his subversion, Damian joined his friends who were online all waking non school hours.
"Guys it's her I'm going to prove it."
"How" Jake asked.
"Let's build that castle on the cliff again, I have a plan."
"You mean the one that got Jake and Janette tumbled off the mountain?"
"The exact one"
The others agreed that there were no other options.
Sure enough, their team played brilliantly. Sure enough, Eric was a strong and brave leader who fought valiantly. Sure enough, TheBlackBadger began his list of head-shot victims. The team retreated to their castle on the cliff. Once again they alone stood between The Badger and victory.
Eric went out to face The Badger. As they fought, each made architecturally impossible staircases and walls in elaborate combinations of tactics to deflect incoming bullets. Eric was clearly hard to kill but he never even landed a shot on the Badger.
Sure enough the rockets came. Damian thanked Jenetta and Jake for their contribution.
Damian walked out of the castle and threw down his weapon before The Badger's Flaming Skull Avatar.
The Badger jumped down from his floating platform to study the final contestant.
"You again eh? Power Ranger?" The Badger taunted over general chat.
"I know it's you."
"Oh? You know I'm who?" The voice laughed long and hard.
"Mrs. Rottenburg!"
The laughing stopped sharp. A strange sound came over the chat, followed by Mrs. Rottenburg's voice.
"How could you have possibly known that!"
His friends gasped.
"I was on your phone, I saw your Facebook, I'm so sorry...I was mad."
"You what!" The Flaming Skull Avatar drew a rocket launcher and pointed it at the Power Ranger.
"I'm sorry! Please don't shoot! It's just that you are ruining the game for us, we can't ever win, you kill us all the time."
"I'm ruining the game for you?Try teaching math to you little monsters. Do you know why I started playing? Because I know perfectly well that you all play this game. I have been studying it for years just to take revenge on all you little miscreants that make my life miserable day after day. Which one are you by the way? It's you isn't it Damian... that's what you were doing in the classroom wasn't it?"
Damian got scared. Real life had just crashed into fantasy, his teammates were holding their breath. He had to think of something.
"Maybe I can offer a compromise."he said.
"Oh?"
A cold silence fell while Damian's mind reeled.
"If you promise to leave my team alone...um... we will promise to be good in class."
"Not good enough!" The Avatar began breathing fire as it approached.
"OK,OK," Damian ducked as if he had been shot at. "How about if our team maintains an 80% average you leave us alone?"
Silence.
Then laughter.
"I accept your terms, Little Gunslinger; but err even a little and I will be right back here."
Damian's group cheered.
"That was all I had to say Badger,you can finish me."
"Ha ha no, Power Ranger, the honour is yours."
Damian picked up his gun and finished TheBlackBadger. His friends wailed in victory, it was their first ever as a team in the game.
"But guys..."Damian said concerned: "Now we actually have to pay attention in math class."
"Meh," Dismissed Jenetta "What's the worst that could come of that, nice job D."
The others agreed.