Infinity Legends

Chapter 14: The Star Rangers

“Heeere we are!” Vicky shouted, holding her cellphone high in the air, the frontal camera rolling as a swarm of emojis, comments and likes clouded the edge of the screen. “The Star Rangers HQ, ready for another good Saturday night practice session! There’s our charismatic leader, Sarista, aka Richard! Wassuuuup, Ricky boy?”

The comment section was suddenly flooded as fans praised the founder and official Battle Mage of the Star Rangers, who in return winked at the camera and shot finger guns.

“What’s up, guys!” he spoke to the camera as Vicky pressed herself against him, her blue hair brushing his lips. “Are you excited for the next season of Fantasy Stars Legends? I know I am!”

The comments exploded in thumbs up and agreements.

“I’m sure we all are!” Vicky spoke again, her wide smile ever stamped on her blue glossed lips. “Isn’t that right, guys!” the streamer turned on her heels so the camera would frame all the Star Rangers who were sitting in circle on old-fashioned velvet couches and Victorian armchairs that quite perfectly complemented the grand classical architecture of the room.

The bunch of players screamed affirmatives and raised their arms. Vicky went on:

“We’ll have to sign out to train soon, but while we wait for our friend Dana to arrive, let’s go talk to the others, huh?” the girl paced towards the circle, phone always up and frame perfectly square on her. “You sure know these guys’ avatars from our matches, but you might be surprised about their secret identity…

“Here we have Louis and Belle, they play Jack and Jill, our bro-sis riflemen!” the camera showed the pair. Belle was comfortably tucked into a hoodie and offered little more than a nod and a smile to the audience. Her brother, who had significantly lost weight in the last five years, was much more enthusiastic.

“Yo! How’re you doing fellow spacefarers!” Louis grabbed the cellphone to frame himself right. “Last season’s winners here, and we’re ready for more! Bring them on, ‘cause the Star Rangers are stronger than ever! Ain’t that right Henry?”

“That’s right!” Henry, a fair-skinned redhead sitting nearby, nodded. “We’re rolling like a well-oiled machine!”

“And that was our official healer: Doc! You know, short orange alien, kinda cute, two huge ears…” Vicky explained, and Henry waved. “Now, this one might be a bit surprising… Here’s our swordsman, swift as the wind. You probably see him less than us, considering how good he is at his job. Here’s Marcio, who plays… well, Marcio. Our rogue!”

An obese man barely fitting between the arms of his chair smiled gently, a large hand waving hello. As he did, the comments erupted with people remembering his historical feat from two seasons past, when Marcio snuck into the enemy fortress and assassinated the rival Spawn-Master, granting the Star Rangers a nearly instant win against a very strong team.

Vicky continued with the tour by placing the phone next to a laptop open on the room’s center table. The screen showed a blue-eyed blonde teenager boy with huge headphones.

“Let’s also say hi to Hans! Our first international player, the best techie-s***h-hacker in the galaxy: Tinker!” Vicky introduced.

“Hello, everyone!” Hans said through the videoconference call, his accent noticeable even as he whispered. “I can’t speak very loudly. It’s late here in Germany, and my parents are sleeping!”

“Hans will, of course, be here for the Legends Cup,” Vicky said. “But since that’s still months away, we have to live with the distance. Which is especially hard on me since… Hans, wanna tell’em?”

“Vicky and I started dating!” the remote player smiled. “I always had a thing for Fire Mages…”

“Guess we are pretty… hot!” Vicky winked at the camera.

Hans continued: “But I absolutely fell in love with Vicky after I saw her barbecuing that horde of Canyon-Slugs on the Pan-America semifinals last year. How awesome was that?”

“Just doing my part, sweety!” Vicky grimaced.

“You did way more than just your part that day, Vic,” Andre Schulze said, standing behind the streamer. Vicky quickly moved the frame up to show the man who needed no introductions, the most famous player of the whole team, maybe the most famous player in the world. The one and only Spawn-Master to ever spawn a Choker on a Legends Cup, the brain behind the Star Rangers’ winning strategies, Andre Schulze, more popularly known as Andrew Laserburn. “That day, you were truly extraordinary. I mean, more than you often are! We all have our star days, and that, my friend, was yours.”

Andre concluded his brief speech with a grin to the audience.

“And there’s the man!” Vicky said. “If any of you guys don’t know him, you’re probably on the wrong livestream! Oh, and did I mention he was so kind as to offer his house as our new HQ? I mean, look around folks! He’s got a fireplace! Five years ago we were practicing on the backroom of a stinky old pub. How’s that for an upgrade?!”

“It was only stinky when you were there, Vicky,” Dana said, unceremoniously slamming the door as she barged into the room. It was, after all, her stinky old pub that blue haired streaming b***h had just trash talked about.

“Ah!” Vicky tried an awkward smile as she approached the recently arrived teammate. “Dana, the sweet girl behind our huge tank Arlak… Always the joker, right, Dana?”

“Joker?” Dana asked, barely glancing at the camera. “If there’s a clown here, that sure as f**k not me.”

“Hey! Language!” Vicky squealed. “There are kids watching! This is live!”

“Oh! Kids?” Dana raised her eyebrows. “Can I give’em an educational message about pursuing dreams?”

“Pursuing dreams?” Vicky hesitated, then, with a very clearly uncomfortable glance towards her viewers, agreed. After all, the comments were going nuts with requests to hear Dana’s advice. “Sure… Go ahead.”

“Okay, kids,” Dana finally faced the audience, “when I was little, I wanted to be an astronaut. Now look at me!… I’m not a f*****g astronaut. Your dreams are bullshit, so just give up. Sleep late, screw green vegetables, skip school. If you’re gonna fail in life at least have some fun along the way.”

The room was dead silent once Dana finished delivering her piece of wisdom. Everybody exchanged weird glances, a fly making itself heard until Vicky giggled and stepped away from the other woman. But no matter how uncomfortable the atmosphere was in the real world, Dana’s sudden nihilistic frenzy had gotten the viewers to go insane with comments of “Dana’s my queen”, “#ArlakBestRanger” and “Anyone knows if she’s single?”.

“Hehe… Like I said… Always the joker… hehe…” Vicky tried to remedy the situation. “That’s it for tonight, friends! Now we have some training to do! Don’t forget to follow us at Star.Rangers.Official to show your support. It’s really important, given how this season public support will impact our Spawn-Point gathering rate. And do check out the merch on our website, teamstarrangers.com, we have shirts, caps, cups, custom Fantasy Star gaming rigs, you name it! See you soon, and keep on ranging!”

As soon as Vicky pocketed her phone, the nine smiles around the room evaporated.

“What is wrong with you?” Richard asked Dana.

“Hey, at least she’s honest,” Louis replied. “Let’s not pretend we didn’t feel like doing the same.”

“I know I did,” Henry, who played Doc, agreed. “Well-oiled machine my buttocks!”

“Quit whining, you big babies,” Hans said from the computer, his German accent magically gone. Then, even more magically, he stepped out of a cabinet on the corner of the room. “At least you don’t need to hide in a closet every time we make a stupid video. And don’t get me started on the damn accent…”

“Yes, don’t get him started,” Louis said. “If he starts yapping about the accent again, I’ll rip my ears off and stuff them into my earholes.”

“At least you’re not pretending to date him,” Vicky shivered. “Makes me wanna kill myself!”

“Lemme know if you need a hand with that…” Dana said, plummeting on a recliner chair as she checked her phone. “Huh… Looks like I was a hit with our fanbase. Who’da’thunk!”

“A hit…” Vicky shook her head. “A hit until parents stop letting their kids watch our stuff!”

“Don’t give a single crap,” Dana said. “I’m here to play and win, not sell T-shirts to preteens.”

“It’s not about T-shirts, tank-brain,” Andre stepped in. “This season, the more spectators on our side, the more Spawn-Points we get, we need popularity.”

“If points is what you want, we’ll just kill more stuff,” Dana said, throwing a crooked look at Louis and Belle, “assuming our riflemen get their heads out of…”

“Enough!” Andre screamed. “We’re here to train, we’ll train. Get your helmets on right now!”

At first, the tension was palpable. Richard glared at Dana. Dana glared at Louis, who glared back to Dana. Vicky glared at Andre, who glared at Henry, who glared at Hans (whose real name was not Hans), who glared at Belle, who glared at the floor.

Everyone had something to say, but nobody spoke.

Instead, they buckled their helmets and stepped into Fantasy Stars.

***

They had run two tactical sessions. The first simulated an attack by various cheap units, a true swarm of lowly thugs with plasma-knives and fragile drones with low-rate laser turrets. The second routine saw the team split into defensive and offensive players, with the first group needing to stop the later as they attempted to kill a colorful snail with little health-points. Arlak, Sarista, Tinker and Doc had done a good job at holding back the riflemen, and Vicky’s fire mage, Vich, but the defenders ultimately failed when Marcio silently slashed the snail in two while the protectors were distracted.

That was when Arlak declared he had to go take a leak and immediately left the game. The others had not seemed to mind, as Andrew Laserburn readily explained the next drill.

Little did they know that, in the real world, Dana was not headed to the restroom.

***

Dana’s hands hovered over the laptop’s keyboard. The same laptop that had recently hosted a call to Hans’ fictional home in Berlin, the laptop with a Star Rangers sticker glued to it… The same laptop the team had had for the last eight years.

The laptop where Barry Watson had coded his FSL Team Overall Power Analysis System.

Dana swallowed dry and looked around at the eight people she was about to betray. And she would betray them right in front of their eyes, without them ever knowing about it as their minds were anchored to the virtual reality of a training arena on the other side of the galaxy. Their eyes unable to see, their ears unable to hear…

Dana slotted the pen drive in, rummaged through the files and eventually came across TOPAS.exe. Team Overall Power Analysis System.

Just make a copy, save it to the pen drive… Let it load…

Dana glanced at Louis as he convulsed. She held her breath, expecting him to remove his helmet and catch her, but he did not. Odds were Jack had been hit by a plasma bolt or something just as painful, and Louis reflected the spasm.

All safe. The copy had been completed.

Letting out a long breath, Dana snatched the pen drive out without doing a safety check, shoved it into the pocket of her leather jacket, put her helmet back on and returned to the stars.