The Ruthless Captain's Secretly Pampered Star

Aries Mathis stared blankly at the secondary monitor.

The countdown timer for his monthly streaming hours ticked down, the red numbers burning into his retinas.

A heavy wave of irritation settled in his chest.

He moved his mouse.

His character paced along the edge of the map.

His fingers slammed against the mechanical keyboard, the sharp clacking sounds filling the otherwise dead silence of his bedroom.

Through his noise-canceling headset, Ricky Boggs' voice grated against his eardrums.

"Are you blind? Heal me! You absolute garbage fire of a medic, move your feet!"

Ricky was screaming at a random player they had matched with.

Aries felt a muscle feather in his jaw.

He reached up and hit the physical mute button on his microphone cord.

He opened the team text chat.

"Shut your mouth and focus on your lane, Ricky."

Ricky ignored the text.

He keyed his open mic again, his voice dripping with venom as he hurled a string of vile, degrading slurs at the random medic, each word more intensely personal and humiliating than the last, attacking the player's intelligence and worth. Aries felt a muscle feather in his jaw. He had heard standard trash talk his entire career, but Ricky was crossing a line into outright psychological abuse.

On the screen, the medic's character froze.

The player was clearly stunned by the verbal assault.

The temperature in Aries' eyes dropped to freezing.

He let go of his mouse.

His character stopped moving entirely, standing completely still in the middle of a war zone.

Aries reached up and flipped the mute switch off.

He keyed his global microphone.

"Your positioning is a joke, Ricky. You pushed too far left, ignored the sightlines, and now you are crying because a random player cannot fix your stupid mistakes."

Aries kept his voice entirely flat, the coldness in his tone heavy enough to crush bone.

Ricky let out a loud, defensive scoff.

"Look who is talking. Your stats in the league have been absolute trash lately, Mathis. Do not lecture me."

Aries let out a short, hollow laugh.

His heart pumped a steady stream of ice through his veins.

"My stats are dropping because I have to cover your blind spots. Your macro awareness is nonexistent. You play like a rookie who bought his account."

The chat on his secondary monitor exploded into a blur of text.

Tens of thousands of viewers were watching this internal team meltdown live, the text scrolling so fast it made Aries dizzy.

Aries grabbed his mouse again.

He moved his character directly next to Ricky.

He used a collision mechanic, wedging his character's hitbox perfectly against Ricky's, trapping him against a concrete wall in the game.

"What are you doing? Move!" Ricky screamed.

A loud crack echoed through the game audio.

An enemy sniper put a bullet straight through Ricky's character's head.

Ricky's death screen popped up, and he started screaming incoherently into the microphone.

A notification popped up on Aries' screen. The random medic had sent him a follow request. Aries' cursor hovered over the accept button, his finger trembling with leftover adrenaline. Instead of clicking it, he stared at the username, RiverBowman. He committed the tag to memory, a silent acknowledgment of the player who had endured Ricky's abuse, before he dismissed the pop-up.

"Stay behind me," Aries typed into the lingering team chat box.

What followed was a bloodbath.

Aries let muscle memory take over, his hands moving in a blur of terrifying precision.

He hunted down the enemy team, securing four consecutive kills in less than sixty seconds.

The victory screen flashed across his monitor.

Aries kept his face entirely blank as he clicked the button to exit the lobby.

Before he could queue up again, a massive donation graphic covered his secondary monitor.

A robotic female text-to-speech voice filled his headset.

"Did you hear the news? Former captain Elias Beck is coming back to North America."

Aries' fingers locked up.

His hand froze on the mouse.

The knuckles of his right hand turned completely white.

The chat on his screen shifted instantly, a tidal wave of viewers confirming the news, spamming links and screaming about the return.

Aries' lungs stopped working.

His chest tightened so fast it felt like a blunt knife was twisting between his ribs.

He slammed his hand against the keyboard, ripping his headset off his ears. He snatched his smartphone off the desk. He didn't dare open a browser on his streaming monitor with fifty thousand people watching. His hands were shaking so badly he dropped the phone twice onto his mousepad before finally unlocking it. He opened his mobile browser, his thumbs fumbling erratically as he typed the letters.

E-L-I-A-S.

He hit enter.

The front page of the biggest esports news site loaded instantly on his small phone screen.

A massive banner stretched across the top of the display.

"Tactical Mastermind Elias Beck Ends European Contract, Officially Returns to NA League."

Aries stared at the high-definition photo of Elias' cold, sharp face.

His stomach violently cramped.

Bile rose in the back of his throat.

He did not look at his chat.

He did not say a single word to the fifty thousand people watching him.

Aries reached down under his desk.

His fingers found the physical power button on his computer tower.

He pressed it hard.

The monitors went completely black.

The hum of the cooling fans died instantly.

Aries slumped back against his gaming chair, the leather squeaking in the dead silence of his room.

He sat in the dark, dragging ragged breaths into his burning lungs.

The cold air of the hallway hit Aries in the face as he pushed open the heavy glass door of the IAC team meeting room.

He kept his head down.

He walked straight to the very back of the long conference table and dropped into a chair.

He pulled the hood of his black sweatshirt up, hiding the dark circles under his eyes.

At the front of the room, Ricky and two other starting players were huddled together.

They were whispering.

Aries caught the sound of the word "Elias."

His jaw clenched so hard his teeth ground together.

The glass door swung open again.

General Manager Jensen Stein walked in, carrying a thick manila folder.

Jensen slammed the folder down onto the center of the table.

The loud smack made everyone jump.

The room went dead silent.

Jensen looked around the table, a fake look of sympathy plastered across his face.

He cleared his throat.

"I am sure you have all seen the news. Elias Beck is returning to the North American league."

Aries dropped his hands under the table.

He curled his fingers into fists, his nails digging so hard into his palms that the skin threatened to break.

Ricky let out a loud, mocking snort.

"Disgusting traitor," Ricky muttered.

Jensen held up a hand, silencing the room. "Ricky, take the others to the VOD review room. I need a private word with Aries."

Ricky smirked, standing up and jerking his head at the other starters. They filed out through the glass door, leaving Aries completely alone with the General Manager. Once the heavy door clicked shut, Jensen picked up a remote and clicked it at the projector hanging from the ceiling.

A spreadsheet appeared on the white screen at the front of the room.

It was a financial liquidation report from two years ago, the exact day their old team, Freefall Syndicate, was dissolved.

Jensen pointed a thick finger at a massive line item highlighted in red.

"Elias did not just leave for a massive signing bonus in Europe," Jensen said, his voice loud and theatrical. "He demanded a specific condition before he would sign."

Aries slowly lifted his head.

His bloodshot eyes locked onto the glowing numbers on the screen.

Jensen looked directly at Aries.

"Elias sold your contract to IAC, Aries. He packaged you up and sold you to the highest bidder to line his own pockets before he left the country."

The glowing red numbers reflected in Aries' wide eyes. The realization hit him with the force of a freight train, filling him with a twisted, sickening sense of utter worthlessness. He was entirely exposed, stripped bare in the cold glow of the projector.

Aries felt the room spin.

His stomach churned violently, acid burning the lining of his throat.

He could not pull air into his lungs.

Jensen kept talking, his voice a steady drone of poison.

He described how Elias sat at the negotiating table, cold and calculating, haggling over Aries' price tag like he was selling a used car.

An image flashed into Aries' mind.

It was the night before Elias left for Europe.

Elias' broad back, walking away down a dark street, never looking back.

A massive wave of humiliation crashed over Aries.

The betrayal felt like a physical weight crushing his spine.

He was a product.

He was a commodity.

Aries shot up from his chair.

His legs pushed back with so much force that the heavy office chair rolled backward and slammed into a whiteboard.

The metal frame of the board crashed to the floor with a deafening clatter.

Jensen stopped talking.

Everyone stared at Aries in shock.

Aries did not say a word.

His eyes were dead, frozen over with a layer of absolute ice.

He turned his back on the room and walked toward the door.

"Aries! Sit back down!" Jensen yelled, his voice cracking with lost authority.

Aries ignored him.

He shoved the glass door open and walked out.

He moved fast down the carpeted hallway of the team base.

His chest heaved up and down.

He pushed open the heavy fire door leading to the emergency stairwell and let it slam shut behind him.

He was completely alone.

Aries pulled his right arm back.

He drove his fist straight into the heavy metal door of a storage locker lining the wall.

The loud clang echoed violently through the stairwell as the skin on his knuckles split open instantly.

Blood smeared against the gray steel. In that blinding moment of agony, he didn't even care if he shattered every bone in his hand and ended his career.

He did not feel the pain in his hand.

He only felt the massive, gaping hole in his chest.

Aries leaned his back against the rough concrete and slowly slid down to the floor.

He pulled his knees to his chest.

He buried his face in his arms.

A low, guttural sound tore out of his throat, a sound of pure, suffocating agony.

The cold blue light of the monitor washed over Aries' pale face.

He sat in his dark bedroom, his eyes fixed on the screen.

He was playing a ranked match, throwing his character into the enemy lines with zero regard for defense.

It was a reckless, self-destructive style of play.

His phone started vibrating on the desk next to his keyboard.

The screen lit up.

The caller ID read Caleb Marshall, the captain of the NSN team.

Aries' hand twitched on the mouse.

His character took a massive hit in the game, his health bar dropping to red.

Aries ripped his headset off and threw it onto the desk.

He grabbed the phone, hit accept, and tapped the speaker button.

"What do you want, Caleb?" Aries asked, his voice flat.

Caleb hesitated.

Through the speaker, Aries could hear the heavy sounds of equipment being moved in the background.

"Elias showed up at the NSN base this morning," Caleb said.

Aries' heart stopped beating for a full second.

He forced a cold smirk onto his face, even though no one could see it.

"And?" Aries asked.

"He signed the paperwork," Caleb said quietly. "He is officially part of NSN."

Aries stopped breathing.

His eyes went completely hollow.

Deep down, buried under layers of hatred and pride, a tiny, pathetic part of him had hoped Elias would come back to IAC.

He had hoped Elias would fix what he broke.

That delusion was now dead.

"It is just business, Aries," Caleb said, trying to sound comforting. "Do not let it get in your head."

Aries ground his teeth together.

"I do not care about that traitor," Aries forced the words through his tight jaw.

Caleb sighed.

"I am just warning you. Next week is the preseason opener. IAC is playing NSN."

The words felt like a physical needle driving straight into Aries' brain.

Aries hit the red button on his screen, cutting the call off instantly.

The room fell back into dead silence.

The only sound was the low hum of his computer fans.

Aries looked at the defeat screen on his monitor.

A strange, twisted sense of relief washed over him.

The hope was gone.

Now, he could just hate him.

Aries reached out and grabbed the half-full glass of water sitting next to his keyboard.

His fingers gripped the glass so tight his joints ached.

Without warning, he whipped his arm back and hurled the glass across the room.

It smashed against the far wall.

Glass shattered into a hundred pieces, water splashing down the paint and soaking into the carpet.

Aries stared at the mess.

A dark, aggressive smile pulled at the corners of his mouth.

He picked up his headset and put it back on.

He reached over to his streaming deck and pushed the microphone slider all the way up.

He clicked into his stream chat.

"We play NSN next week," Aries typed into the public box. "I am going to show them what cruelty looks like."

The chat exploded.

Viewers started taking screenshots, the text moving at light speed.

Aries clicked the button to queue up for another match.

His eyes burned with a sick, toxic need for revenge.

The matchmaking chime rang through his headset.

Aries clicked accept.

The champion select screen loaded.

He did not hesitate.

He instantly locked in the most aggressive assassin character in the game.

He was going to kill him.