Chapter 3

The game timer hit fifteen minutes. TTC was bleeding gold.

Jess leaned so close to his monitor his nose almost touched the glass. His eyebrows were pulled together in a tight, angry knot. He was staring exclusively at the mid-lane wave.

Chester's champion suddenly walked forward, past the river line, into complete darkness. No vision. No backup.

"Is he out of his mind?!" Jess screamed into the microphone. "There is a jungler sitting right in that bush!"

The second the words left his mouth, the enemy jungler leaped out of the brush, closing the gap instantly.

Chester panicked. He burned his Flash spell. But he didn't flash toward his own tower. He flashed completely sideways.

The champion materialized directly on top of the enemy mid-laner's lethal skill shot.

Chester's screen turned gray. First blood.

Jess ripped his headset off his ears and slammed it down onto the desk. The plastic cracked against the wood.

He stood up, took a deep, ragged breath, and sat back down. He picked up the headset. His knuckles were completely white from how hard he was gripping the plastic.

"My grandmother could hit a better Flash using her feet," Jess said, his voice a low, dangerous sneer.

The chat exploded into a wall of 'LMAO's and brutal insults directed at Chester.

The broadcast abruptly switched to the jungle. Harlon was trapped.

He was trying to contest the dragon objective, but because Chester was dead, four enemy players collapsed on him from all sides.

Harlon's mechanics were flawless. He dodged two spells, traded a kill, but the math was impossible. His champion collapsed.

Jess watched Harlon die. A sharp twitch pulled at the corner of Jess's left eye. His chest tightened, a physical ache blooming right behind his ribs.

He violently whipped his head back toward the post-fight stats. He needed a target for this pain.

Jess pulled up the damage graph. He pointed a shaking finger at Chester's pathetic damage bar.

"Look at this," Jess spat, pronouncing every syllable with lethal intent. "This guy has done less damage the entire game than the neutral Scuttle Crab in the river."

The chat lost its mind. Scuttle Crab Damage began spamming across the screen so fast it blurred. A new meme was born in real-time.

A few viewers typed: He's just having a bad game, Soft. Chill.

Jess let out a dark, humorless scoff. He opened the replay tool, slowing the footage down to 0.25x speed. He zoomed in on Chester's mouse clicks.

"Watch this," Jess demanded. "Right before he dies. Look at his character model."

He paused the frame. "Two full seconds. Two seconds of zero inputs. He didn't click. He didn't move."

Jess leaned into the mic. "This isn't a bad game. This is a professional attitude problem."

On the main screen, the enemy team pushed into TTC's base. The Nexus shattered into blue shards.

Game two was over. The series was tied 1-1.

Jess slumped back in his chair. His face was so dark it looked like a storm cloud was trapped in his apartment.

He stared at the official player cam. Chester was staring blankly at his screen, showing absolutely zero emotion. No frustration. No anger.

Jess's fingers hovered over his keyboard. He typed out the word Match-fixing in his stream chat box.

He stared at the letters. His heart hammered against his ribs. He hit the backspace key, deleting it rapidly.

His eyes narrowed into sharp, dangerous slits.