The Yellow Devil Sniper sprinted across the abandoned beach, her patchwork yellow spray-painted armor clanging as she slid smoothly into cover behind a bombed-out tank. She propped up her anti-materiel rifle, and began to scope in on the Screza Commander setting up a perimeter behind some makeshift sandbag cover. That is, until she noticed the orange-tinted sparkle of another scope trained at her. She hastily ducked behind the tank, and pulled out her radio.
"Okay, I take the 'One for All' action to give my sniper's attack to my Grenadier." I rolled my explosive damage against Max's ruined lighthouse, and pumped my fist in celebration as Max groaned and the whole edifice came crashing down on top of his unit.
"Ugh, I thought for sure you'd just try to take the shot. That's GG, I think."
I grinned. "Hey, it was a good trap! Can't get me with something like that, though. I'll go post the results."
It was tournament day, and the store was buzzing. Most folks were finishing up the final turn of the first round now. I felt a little bad for conquering Max's army so quickly in round one, but at least the tournament was double elimination. If he was as good as he said, I'd have a chance to see him again in the finals.
I took a moment while the other games were finishing to peek at Belle's results. Another loss, it looked like, against someone called Jessie. I think I'd been introduced to her as one of the four back-room free-for-all players? Probably? I glanced at the overall bracket, and saw that she was due to face me in the very next round. Well, then, vengeance for Belle it was! Heh. Just playing was nice, but tournaments were where the game really shined. Where you could make friends and rivals and famous last stands! There really wasn't anything else like it.
Recon said there was salvage to be gained here on the beach, and there it was, scattered into a dozen pieces by the surf. The team's sniper put the scope to her eye and took a look to their opponents for the day: a group of spindly, green-skinned humanoids, with large dark eyes, small mouths, and strange laser weapons. They were also wearing cowboy hats, chaps, spurs, and one of them had a big shiny marshal's badge.
"Star Rangers? Really?" I tried not to sound skeptical.
"They're the game's obligatory silly faction and I love them," proclaimed Jessie. "Besides, they're due to get a buff soon."
I held my tongue at that one. Every Star Ranger player I'd ever met, online or off, had said that they were due to get a big buff "real soon now". They'd been saying that for the last five years. It's not that they weren't viable, it was just... well... I wasn't exactly expecting this to be a long match.
"Right, girls," said the sniper. "Go loud, but be careful. They might have some kind of trick up their sleeves."
The soldiers, in various clashing shades of yellow, spread out and advanced along the shoreline. The aliens... walked straight into the water.
The grenadier squinted. "What the hell are they up to?"
Jessie cleared her throat. "Okay, that's the end of round one, right?"
"Yeah?" I said, still not sure what in the world was going on with her positioning. She wasn't even behind any cover, she'd lose half her units next turn.
"Okay, cool. Now we roll for tide."
I picked up a die and rolled. "Looks like it's coming in."
"Yes!" crowed Jessie.
"Huh?"
The tide surged in, and suddenly all the aliens disappeared beneath the waves.
"Shit!" the grenadier panicked, and threw a grenade directly into the middle of where they'd all been, moments ago. It fizzled under the water without so much as a bloop.
The sniper thought quickly. "Okay. They'll have a hard time moving underwater, so swarm up the beach and grab as much salvage as you can! Go go go!"
Heedless of cover, the militia ran across the hot sands and started grabbing everything that wasn't nailed down. Then, of course, the aliens began to emerge from the water, bruised but intact. Their strange red-and-copper blaster pistols spat hot lasers across the beach. Two of the girls went down, and the team's heavy gunner got shot right in the ammo pack, abandoning it as she fled behind a boulder.
From her position barely behind a washed-up crate, the sniper frowned at the waves. Laser fire pinged off of her flimsy cover and singed her armor as the aliens took potshots at her. She pulled out her radio. "Heavy gunner!"
"Bit busy, here!"
"Listen, I need you to charge them."
"With what? My fists?"
"Just trust me!"
The stocky woman charged down the beach towards the oncoming group of aliens. She let out a battlecry as she leapt past their oncoming fire and swung a gauntleted haymaker at the green marshal. It ducked under the heavy swing and backed away with its squad, all leveling their rayguns at her.
"Wait!" I exclaimed. "That's the end of the round, isn't it?"
"Oh, uh, yeah. I forgot I'd already shot with him before."
"Cool. So, we roll for tide again, right?" I tossed a die in the air, and caught it.
Jessie looked down at the board. "Oh, shit."
I crossed my fingers and rolled the die. "Come on..."
The heavy gunner braced for oncoming fire, but it never came. Instead, an enormous wave hit every single alien and stopped directly in front of the heavy gunner's feet. As it pulled away, it revealed a dozen alien bodies, bruised and broken and spitting up sand. The sniper leapt for joy. "Yes!! Now let's finish scooping up this loot and get out of here before they recover."
It was a close thing - way closer than I would have liked to admit - but I managed to eke out the victory on points. My Devils extracted their wounded and their loot off the map, and the Star Rangers were left pounding sand.
"Goddamn, what a game," I said. "I can't believe you tried that, and that it almost worked."
"Ah, well, you can blame Belle for the idea," said Jessie, packing up her units. "They pointed out that your crew doesn't have any good way of dealing with the water debuffs, so I might be better just hanging out in the surf, extra damage be damned."
I paused. "They gave you advice about my army specifically?" Did they want me to lose?
"Oh, don't take it personally!" Jessie waved her hands in front of her face. "Belle does this for everyone! I was lucky I faced them round one. Free win, plus great advice. I'm sure whoever they were up against in round 2 is going to win round 3. That's kind of how it goes. They just can't catch a break, but they sure know their stuff."
"And they show up to these tournaments every month? Just to play two rounds and get knocked out?"
Jessie shrugged. "It's not like they don't get to keep playing. As soon as two people get knocked out, they might as well play against each other. And everyone likes playing against Belle."
I folded my arms and started tapping my finger. "Just because they keep winning."
"No!" Jessie's mouth twisted. "Well, not just that. People here like Belle. And they give really good advice on army building, sideboarding, terrain tactics, you name it."
I looked up at her. "You've known Belle longer than I have. Can I... ask you a question about them?"
"Yes, they're single, but don't expect them to go on any dates with you. Max has been trying for months now, and just about everyone has asked them out once."
I felt my face go hot. "What? No! Not, not that question. I mean, why do they always lose? They know the game inside and out, they know their army, even just by sheer chance you'd think they'd have won at least one game by now. What's going on?"
Jessie hesitated. I tried to put on my most trustworthy expression, and tried not to let how much I really needed the answer to show. Everyone should get to win sometimes. The fact that Belle didn't was both a crime and a mystery, and I couldn't resist the both of them together. The question had been bothering me for weeks now. So, mostly I was trying not to break out into a flop sweat while Jessie looked into the middle distance, trying to decide what answer to give me.
"They... okay. It's obvious to basically anyone that they're pulling their punches. Sure. I think it's also obvious that's not enough to explain it. I mean, people have tried to lose to them, on purpose, and even that didn't work. If you ask them about it, they clam up worse than usual." Jessie leaned in closer, and whispered under the noise of the crowd. "You didn't hear it from me, but the only thing I've ever heard that was even close to an answer was that 'Miss wouldn't like it.' No idea what that means."
I frowned. "Miss?"
Jessie made a shushing gesture and looked over her shoulder to where Belle was playing. "I think whoever 'Miss' is, Belle's got some kind of complicated history with her." She sighed. "Look, I'm telling you this because you seem like the kind of person who might not let it go without an answer. It's not much, I know, but for Belle's sake: drop it. Just... leave it be. Belle seems happy to lose, so it's fine. Better than dragging up bad memories."
I nodded, and went to go post the results. She was right. I wasn't the kind of person to let this go without a real answer.
