The chill air of the morning dawn felt uncannily real to Jake. Grass scraped his legs as he walked, damp and ticklish yet not unpleasant. His body was lithe and long, able to carry him a great distance with smooth strides, far better than in his everyday life. He hadn’t even considered how much faster travel was in the game until he was put directly into the character’s body like this.

Yet he couldn’t get distracted. Distraction was what Bernard wanted for him.

If he stopped to enjoy the breeze, he would die.

He’d started off in the Archer’s body, so he needed to set that one headed to the mountain first. From there he could survey the territory, keep an eye on the enemy, and command a large swath of land while his Rogue laid traps and prepared to send the enemy to their death.

With the Archer set in the right direction, he switched to the Rogue’s body. It was tense and powerful, set to a hair-trigger, built to crouch in the shadows and leap at enemies. It was amazing how different they were, and how advanced the simulation was, that he could feel so different while controlling the various characters. Without even looking at his HUD he would know exactly which character he was inhabiting.

He sent Rogue to the base of the mountain and began to set his first trap. His fingers knew exactly what to do, mixing wire and chi to create a Sticky Trap that would lay near-invisibly on the ground and grab the first person who wandered into it — including himself, if he was stupid enough to forget where it was. It took exactly three seconds to create, and then he moved on to the next one.

The goal was cover this ground in traps, to make it impossible for Bernard to pass safely — at least, not without using up one of the Warrior’s special moves. After that move was used up, he could isolate the priest on the other side and destroy him before the Warrior could get back.

He set a pattern for the Rogue to follow, then switched to the Archer.

As he climbed he could feel the Chi slipping out of him faster, an unfamiliar sensation. It was like becoming exhausted or out of breath, but since he knew it was just a number in the computer it felt abstract and unreal. Still, when his Chi ran out, he had to stop and catch his breath.

He missed his Geomancer. The Geomancer could’ve floated the Archer up on a piece of rock for far less Chi. Given enough time, the Geomancer could then make the hill nearly unclimbable fro the opponent. And given even more time, he could’ve reshaped the land so the Archer could survey the entirety of it with his Long Shot.

That was the point of Mike’s trickery: to remove his advantage from the Geomancer, and to negate his superior skill at switching between perspectives.

He switched back to the Rogue and started laying another trap, then switched to Archer and saw the approaching Priest and Warrior duo.

Jake activated stealth for both of his characters. For the Archer, this meant he could only use Hidden Shot and could move very slowly. For the Rogue, it meant he couldn’t run, but he could walk quickly, set traps, and attack from the shadows. The wall of traps was halfway done.

Then they stopped approaching. They sat right outside the Archer’s accurate range and started dancing, taunting.

So Bernard wasn’t as stupid as he looked.

That was fine. Jake was in stealth, and he could set traps anywhere on the field. He slowly approached them with his Rogue, laying Sticky Traps as he went. His Archer came out of stealth — it was hard for him to climb while hidden — and slowly came down the slope, getting to the edge of the traps near the bottom of the hill.

This also gave him time to look at their stats and see which skills they’d chosen.

Warrior

Melee Attack

Taunt - demand attention. Can interrupt attacks and cause increased aggression towards the warrior and away from other targets. Effect lasts for 3 seconds, and is on a 10-second cooldown. Diminishing returns.

Shout - encourage others nearby, including self, increasing their melee damage

Hamstring - A cut that slows the enemy’s movement speed by 50% for 3 seconds. 5-second cooldown.

Determined - Reduce incoming damage by 50% and become immune to movement-impairing status effects (broadly defined) for 10 seconds. 120-second recharge.

Rush - From up to 8 yards away, can close the distance at 3x normal speed. 60-second cooldown.

Frenzy - For a large chunk of Chi, strike twice as fast for ten seconds. Thirty-second cooldown.

Priest

Heal - Heals a nearby teammate

Whack - Hits an enemy with their staff

Holy Fire - Casts Holy damage on one enemy

Dispel - Removes a status effect on an ally. Some status effects are more difficult to remove.

Awe - Damage-less AOE on nearby targets. They’ll be unable to bring themselves to attack the priest for up to 10 seconds (unless attacked by the priest). They can still attack other targets. 60-second cooldown.

Holy Shield - Protect allies with a shield that absorbs damage. Shield lasts up to 30 seconds, and once shielded, cannot shield the same ally for 30 seconds.

That was roughly the build he would’ve chosen for this match as well. The Priest could protect himself for a time, the Warrior could close distance, and as long as the Priest was alive the Warrior was practically invincible. The only downside was that the Priest would have to stay close to the Warrior in order to heal him, but given Jake’s choices, keeping close to the Warrior was a good idea.

He would have to draw the Warrior into a web of traps, get him to use up his movement specials in an attempt to kill the Rogue, and then rush the Priest.

The trick, though, would be to get the enemies to move! They hadn’t budged an inch since arriving just outside of range, even when the Archer had dropped out of stealth.

That did work to his advantage for now, as he had plenty of time to lay Sticky Traps, but it was suspicious.

He got closer and closer, laying them back and forth in seemingly random patterns across the field.

Closer…

Until the Warrior used Shout.

His Rogue was right at the edge of the move’s effective range, and his attention was pulled from the trap he was setting… making it explode in his face, pull him out of stealth, and stick him to the ground for 5 seconds.

Fuck.

He maneuvered around the traps with his Archer and sent off an Ice Shot. The Warrior triggered Determined before it landed, negating the slowing effect.

For ten seconds, the Warrior would be completely unstoppable.

Then, when he got into range, the Warrior used Rush, tripling the speed at which he approached the helpless Rogue.

And triggered Frenzy, doubling the rate of his attack.

Fuck.

He knew, intellectually, that by the time this barrage ended his Rogue would be almost dead.

Then he felt the first blow.

Searing pain ripped through him where the Warrior’s blade sliced. That was only 15% of his health?

Another blow, and another, horrifyingly fast due to Frenzy.

At least, two seconds into the barrage, he could move again. He backpedaled away then turned, sprinting as fast as he could, draining his Chi. A fourth blow landed, knocking him down to 40% of his total health. Three more hits like that and he was dead… and he hadn’t gotten off a single blow yet.

At least the Warrior’s Chi was almost down. That would give him an advantage — if the Warrior gave chase, then he’d run out his Chi and not be able to strike the finishing blows.

The Warrior did give chase, though at a walk instead of a run. A nice, Chi-preserving pace. He was backing up a wounded Rogue against a mountain, after all… how hard could it be?

This was a disaster. He couldn’t heal effectively, and it would take several minutes of rest to restore the lost HP. That was all if he was able to find enough distance that he could stealth again. The Warrior would regain his Chi before that.

He could, at least, put his Archer to use. He sent out another Ice Shot, and this one took effect. The Warrior started moving slower, and each step drained Chi as if he’d been running. The damage was only 5% of the Warrior’s total health, and was quickly healed by the Priest, but he hadn’t been doing it for the damage. It let his Rogue gain precious distance.

He sent out another Ice Shot as soon as the first one wore off.

Jake preferred being in the Archer’s body now, as it wasn’t wracked with pain, but he forced himself back into the Rogue. How close was he? He could sense his effective range for stealth, and he was almost there. The Warrior followed… and got caught in a Sticky Trap.

Finally, some luck!

The Rogue took a couple steps more and dropped back into stealth. His Archer did the same. They moved to a different position than where they’d become invisible and waited.

The Warrior started walking in the Archer’s direction.

Jake moved the Archer, and the Warrior adjusted.

That was weird. Did Bernard know where he was?

Reality Mode.

He got a tiny block of the outside world piped into his headset. The TV screens were blacked out, as they should be. Surely Bernard’s father wouldn’t reprogram these to not black out the screen for his son. The man didn’t seem that technically sophisticated.

Then he noticed motion.

Eddy.

He was looking at Jake’s TV and moving his hands, making signs.

Eddy was telling Bernard where he was.

They were cheating.

But with Bernard’s father sponsoring the event, would he be able to convince anyone that the boy’s increasingly-inevitable win was a sham? Surely someone would notice!

But as the Warrior got ever closer to the Archer, he realized that no one was going to step up.

He would have to take the loss and try again in three years, stuck in this purgatory of a life.

Unless… it was a wild strategy, and it probably wouldn’t work, but he had to try.

He broke stealth with his Archer, launched an Ice shot, and started running towards the opposite end of the map.

It had to look like panic.

When he was in the Archer’s body, it felt like panic.

The Warrior gave chase, slowly catching up. The Archer would shoot an Ice Shot and the Warrior would slow for a bit, but the time spent shooting the arrow actually made it a net loss.

That was fine.

He would be at the other end of the field by the time the Warrior caught up to him.

Meanwhile, he moved his rogue through the traps, towards the Priest. A more skilled player would have moved the Priest with the Warrior, but Bernard was only as good as his tricks.

Eddy was desperately motioning, looking obvious enough that even some of the bystanders were noticing, but Bernard was set on his prey.

The second Jake’s Archer reached the edge of the field, he used Surprise Attack with his Rogue on the Priest. The fool didn’t even have a Holy Shield up. Half of Priest’s health was gone in the first attack, and then another third was gone in a backstab. The cut of blade into flesh was shocking, but he didn’t have time to dwell on such things right now. He performed a third, regular, attack and the Priest was dead.

But so was his Archer.

Jake transferred back to the Archer’s body just in time to feel the horrifying pain of death.

He transferred back to the Rogue as quickly as he could.

Now it was a Rogue against a Warrior… and the Rogue had, effectively, no stealth. It wasn’t nearly as lopsided as before, but it was still a bad situation.

Jake hurriedly started laying explosive traps. Now that there was no easy healing, their damage might actually do some good. A good peppering of the field might turn this into a winnable fight — it seemed that Eddy wasn’t as good at pantomiming where the traps were as he was at pointing which direction to go.

But then again, his opponents only had two characters to watch now instead of four. Would their communication get better?

As the Warrior approached, it appeared that was the case. He deftly dodged the newly laid traps, carefully following Eddy’s finger motions. He still hit some of the older Sticky Traps, the ones the Rogue had laid before Eddy’d started paying attention, but those wouldn’t be enough to save him.

He’d tried his best, and he’d still lost.

His mistake was in thinking that Fantasy Tactics Online was fair.

Nothing in life was fair.

He saw commotion over in the Reality Mode, saw that the other match had ended.

Todd had lost, as expected. He was gracious about it. He shook his head, re-orienting himself to reality, shook Mike’s hand. Then he saw the screens playing the match, looked shocked.

Saw Eddy’s hands.

His face twisted into a snarl.

He rushed over to Eddy, and… stood in front of him.

Completely blocking Bernard’s view.

In the game, Jake hurriedly distanced himself and dropped into stealth.

Eddy tried to move to get back to where Bernard could see his hands, but Todd moved with him.

Jake’s Rogue snuck towards the Warrior, who panicked and ran into a Sticky Trap.

One Surprise Attack and Backstab later, the Warrior was down to sixty-five percent health. Jake triggered Shadow Flash, ran away, and dropped back into Stealth.

The Warrior wandered over an Explosive Trap.

Another Surprise Attack, Backstab, and Shadow Flash combo. Another drop back into obscurity. A better player could have interrupted it with a Rush, or pre-empted the Shadow Flash by triggering Determined, but Bernard was not a better player.

Another Surprise Attack and Backstab later, Bernard was dead.

Victory.