An announcement had just been made, stating that the arena was finally ready. The damage that had been done during the fight between Hastam and Lucas looked like it had never even happened in the first place.

The audience members started to say goodbye to their team members showing their support as they made their way to the stands. Meanwhile two men dressed in black suits had arrived to escort the two teams to their preparation area.

"Would you please follow me to the locker room to prepare for your match." The man said.

"Wait, one of our players isn't here yet," Scarlett said.

"I'm afraid there is nothing we can do about that, the match was originally scheduled to start around two hours ago, we are unable to delay the game any further today." The man explained. "Even the online events and streams have been pushed back, do you still have enough members to participate in today's game?"

The Montem team then looked at each other. Unsure about what to do, it was clear that something had happened to Novis and they were wondering if they should just give up on the match or not.

"What about Novis, shouldn't we go look for him he, might be in trouble?" Ashley said.

Out of everyone there, Alex was the person who was in two mindsets the most. He had been waiting for this day his whole life. If they at least won this tournament then it would be a good thing to put on his resume and get him into a good university that focused on Esports.

This was the lowest Level tournament and most of the top-level Universities wanted an achievement like this at the bare minimum. Afterall there where several county tournaments being played all over the country.

But at the same time, Alex started to think back about what would Novis do. If Alex hadn't turned up when he was meant to, would he have abandoned the game and searched for him?

Just then though, as the group was in the middle of something, they all had received a group text.

From Novis:

Guy's I'm sorry but I won't be able to make it to the match today. I have an emergency. Good luck to you all I know you can beat Westgate, when I come back, I expect to hear our schools name to be blasted all over the internet.

Alex had made his decision, he stepped forward in front of the Gold ware corp worker.

"We have five players, we will play in the game."

With Alex stepping in for Novis that made their team fo five and they were still able to participate in the tournament.

"We will win this game for you."

As the stands where slowly filling up, at the top of the stands was a special area reserved for live TV broadcasts and Media companies. This time around there were a lot more people compared to Montem's and Westgate's last match and this was all because of the hype that had been built up between Novis and Lucas.

Although not many had turned up for Novis, as he was still a relatively unknown name, they just knew someone who was meant to be a rival to Lucas was arriving today.

At the arena floor though, from Tick media, Josh and Cindy were sitting down at a table just off to the side of the Virtual Arena. There were three seats in total and at the moment two of them were filled.

Two other representatives were filming for Tick media today as Josh and Cindy had been asked to commentate on the match as experts, since they both had experience in the Secondary school gaming filed. However, they were both wondering just where on earth had Hastam gone.

"Wasn't he meant to be here by now?" Cindy asked.

"Yeah it is strange, I mean he hasn't even let us know. I'm sure they said he arrived at his hotel yesterday yet no one has seen him." Josh said.

Josh was a little worried for Hastam, as Josh and Hastam both knew each other personally. After all, Josh was the first one who recognised Hastam's talent and told the world he would be big one day. The two of them formed a relationship after and had a strong bond.

He was actually also the person that recommended Hastam for the commentating today, he wanted to hear what his opinion was on Novis. To see if he could see the same sparks of fire as Josh did.

But Hastam never did turn up and the two of them would have to continue the commentary on their own.

"Ladies and gentlemen the two teams are now ready and it is the time you have all been waiting for." The announcer said. "Introducing the first Team Montem."

The crowd cheered and so did the Montem supporters as loud as they could. As they saw the members walk through the tunnel and enter the stadium floor one by one, but the cheers then quickly turned into chatter and whispers.

"Hey, I don't see Novis?"

"Did something happen to him?"

"Bill do you know?" His friends asked.

"He was here this morning, he was in the car with me and Mum, did they replace him? No, they couldn't have." Bill said shocked by the whole thing.

"Let me try to call him." As Bill picked up his phone and tried calling his brother there was no response. He tried again but still, there was no response, no answer, no text back, or anything.

"What happened bro, I thought this was the stage where you would prove to everyone how great you were."

As the Montem VSW team walked up to the pods in the centre of the arena and stood by each one, even Josh was so shocked he stood up from his seat.

"He's not here, but why!" Josh said, "What could be more important than a game like this?!"

Without Novis, Josh felt like the Montem team had no chance of winning. Sure, they were skilled players but against a monster like Lucas, they needed another monster.

However, the announcer moved on and went on to announce the next team.

"Now introducing from the other end, the Westgate team!!!"

Cheers erupted even louder than that on the Montem side, after all, there were people in the crowd who had come just to see Lucas play, but then as the Westgate team came out, they too could not see their star player on their team.

Instead of chatter and support like the other side though, the crowd interrupted into a loud roar of boos.

"Where the hell is Lucas!"

"I didn't pay to just see some little kids play, did they lie about him being in the tournament?"

"No, I saw him in the last game he was meant to be in this one too."

The atmosphere on the Westgate side was also replicated online as well. Many people who were watching the streams started to tune out as soon as they saw Lucas would not be in the game. A few of the broadcasters who usefully didn't cover secondary school games, also started to pack up their recording equipment and leave the stadium.

They had all come in with the mind of writing a special report on Lucas Bell but now that he wasn't going to be in the game, this was just going to be a regular county semi-final match that no one would be interested in.

"Look at them!" A Westgate player said, "They have forgotten that we were the ones that took the school this far every year even without Lucas."

"Yeah we played for three years and got to the finals nearly every single time and all they want to do is watch Lucas play."

But the Westgate team didn't let the boos and hate comments distract them. Instead, they let this fuel their anger and it would be used into the game they were about to play.

While Josh was sat down in the commentator chair, he had completely forgotten the job he had been asked to do. As the contestants were entering, he was meant to be talking about the two teams' backgrounds but Josh had prepared to talk about the two rivals Lucas and Novis.

The two teams were now stood opposite each other on each end of the virtual field. It was a strange atmosphere in the stadium. One side was filled with chatter while the other continued to boo.

It was hard to believe that these two teams where just about to play a semi-final match but as Josh sat back down in his seat and looked at the fire in the two teams' eyes, he knew this game would not be a boring one.

The two teams then entered into their pods and the field started to generate. It was time for the semi-final match to begin.

*****

Special thanks to _Kaitlin_, Shurikyn_13, and AsuraNineThoughts for the gifts, your support means a lot and allows me to keep on writing.