Chapter 77: Fierce Matchup

"You’re playing right here," I said, stepping into the middle of the room and motioning toward Piercer’s dual workstation setups. "Amanda will use your secondary rig. That way, when she beats you, you won’t have a single excuse about hardware, latency, or comfort."

Piercer let out a quiet giggle, slumping out of her beanbag and dusting off her oversized pajamas. "Okay, man in the suit," she drawled with a smug, sleepy grin. "If you say so."

She walked over to her side-by-side desk setup, hitting the power button on a secondary liquid-cooled PC that instantly glowed with pastel RGB lights. Amanda pulled up a heavy gaming chair, taking her seat with a sharp, laser-focused intensity. She adjusted the mechanical keyboard, tested the mouse DPI, and settled her headset over her ears.

Piercer created the custom lobby, setting the parameters to standard 1v1 tournament rules—first to five kills, direct choke points, no external abilities.

"Alright, setup’s live," Piercer said, leaning back with one hand on her mouse, looking entirely too relaxed for a high-stakes duel. "Don’t cry if you lose your captain title on your own recruit drive, Luna."

"Just focus on your screen, Piercer," Amanda snapped back, her eyes locked onto the display as the countdown timer began to tick down on both monitors. "I’m not the same player you fought last time."

I stood directly behind them, arms folded, my posture straight and sharp as I watched both screens simultaneously.

3... 2... 1...

"Match start," I announced smoothly. "Show me what you’ve got."

The match was pure art.

Piercer was terrifyingly smooth. She barely moved her wrist, using long-range sightlines and patient zone control to force Amanda into doing all the running. But Amanda didn’t break. She used the aggression as bait, sliding through tight sightlines and baiting Piercer into narrow corners before flanking from behind to catch her off-guard.

It was a total bloodbath. The killfeed traded back and forth continuously—1-0, 1-1, 2-2, 3-3.

By the seventh round, both of their character models were stripped of armor, operating on a sliver of health. Amanda managed to close the distance, dodging a volley of bullets to pull out her tactical knife for the execute. But just as she lunged forward, Piercer pulled a desperate, unhinged move—cooking a short-range grenade and dropping it straight at her own feet.

BOOM!

[ DOUBLE ELIMINATION ] LUNA_SKY, PIERCERXI

The explosion wiped both of them out simultaneously.

"Are you insane?!" Amanda yelled through her headset, slamming her hands on the desk as her screen went red. "You blew yourself up!"

"Hey, if I’m going down, you’re coming with me," Piercer giggled, leaning back in her chair with a rare spark of real adrenaline finally lighting up her eyes.

I stood behind them, watching the scoreboard update on both displays.

[ MATCH POINT: 4 - 4 ] FINAL ROUND

Silence fell over the pastel-colored room. The lazy, indifferent vibe was completely gone. Both of them sat up straight, knuckles white on their mice, locked into a deadly standstill.

"Final round," I said, my baritone cutting through the tension like a blade. "Whoever takes this point leads the team."

round eight loaded, and the atmosphere in the room turned ice-cold.

Neither of them pushed. For the first sixty seconds, it was a terrifying game of cat-and-mouse—footsteps baiting audio cues, crosshairs pre-aiming pixel-thin angles. Piercer secured the high-ground position early, pinning Amanda behind a crumbling concrete wall in the center lane.

Amanda’s health was steadily getting chipped down through wall-bangs. 80 HP... 45 HP... 18 HP.

"Is this really the best the prospective captain can do?" Piercer teased, her voice growing cocky as she stepped out of cover to finish off Amanda’s trapped model. "You’re boxed in, Luna. It’s over."

She overcommitted.

The second Piercer stepped into the open sightline to land the final blow, Amanda executed a high-level animation cancel. She faked a retreat to the left, dropped a smoke screen directly on her own feet, and used the obscure audio cue to wall-bounce off the opposite structure—vaulting straight over Piercer’s head.

Piercer’s crosshairs flicked upward, but it was too late. Amanda adjusted her mid-air recoil with mathematical precision.

Crack.

[ HEADSHOT — LUNA_SKY ] !!! VICTORY — MATCH OVER !!!

Piercer’s screen flashed red, while Amanda’s screen lit up with the glowing gold match summary: 5 - 4.

"YES!" Amanda screamed, jumping out of her chair so fast her headset tumbled onto the desk. She spun around, her face flushed red with pure victory. "I TOLD YOU! I told you I wasn’t the same player!"

Piercer sat frozen for two whole seconds, staring at her defeat screen in complete disbelief before a slow, genuine smile broke across her face. She dropped her head back against the chair, letting out a soft laugh.

"Okay... wow," Piercer admitted, shaking her head. "You actually pulled that off. That was disgusting, Luna."

I stepped forward, putting my hands in my jacket pockets, my gaze shifting between the two S-rank players with absolute satisfaction.

"Contract stands," I said, my baritone cool and decisive. "Amanda is your captain, Piercer. Welcome to the roster."

Piercer shrugged, leaning back in her chair with a lazy, satisfied smirk. "Whatever, man in the suit. But next time we 1v1, I’m taking that title back."

"Keep dreaming," Amanda shot back, though she was practically glowing with relief and pride as she picked up her headset.

With our first S-rank player officially secured, it was time to move on. We said our goodbyes to Piercer and headed back out to the car.

"Who’s next on the list?" I asked, starting the engine and pulling away from the white mansion.

"LownGun," Amanda said, scrolling through her phone. "He’s our prospective backline marksman. His raw aim is unreal, but... he hasn’t replied to any of my messages today. Luckily, I met him once at a local LAN tournament last year, so I know where he lives."

She gave me the address, and as I plugged it into the navigation system, the route took us straight out of the high-end residential district and into the rougher, industrial outskirts of the city.

Twenty minutes later, the polished skyscrapers bled into a grid of rundown streets, cracked pavement, and flickering streetlights. Groups of people hovered near alleyways, eyeing the sleek supercar as we rolled slowly down the block.

I gripped the steering wheel a little tighter, my eyes scanning the mirrors and corners. I used to frequent areas just like this back in my college days—I knew firsthand how fast a quiet street in a neighborhood like this could turn dangerous if you weren’t paying attention.

Amanda looked out the window, shifting uncomfortably in her seat as she looked at the faded street signs. "Uh... yeah, LownGun lives around here. It’s... a little sketchy, isn’t it?"

"It is," I said, my baritone dropping into a calm, alert focus as I put the car in park outside a weather-beaten apartment complex. "Keep your phone in your pocket and stay close to me. Let me handle the surroundings; you just focus on getting us to his door."