Tokyo, 1:47 a.m.
ArenaX HQ. The review hall glowed with monitors looping the same clip: a voilet elf creating chaos on the scene while bombing is opponent into the sky. While the fight was unique to say the least but not very spectacular it still caught the eye of that one person.
"AAAND OUT." the avatar said.
The knight ragdolled into the ceiling, limbs flailing before bursting into pixel shards.
Half the room was laughing when it kept looping. The other half muttered about his thinking prowess, how did he even pull that off? You have to think really outside of the box to be able to calculate this level prediction or anticipation of the fight. Some would argue that even most pros wouldn't come up with this type of execution." A random worker said while others nodded in unison. A group even said maybe it's just luck. I mean look how wild that is, predicting where you would fall around and thinking he would get up again then launching him into the other bombs. Like come on, it's kinda far-fetched.
Kenji Arakawa adjusted his glasses. He only asked one thing: "How viral can this go and how fast can you guys add this to the current trailer, before we have the next update? No scratch the whole trailer, let's build it around the highlights of the best player. And i want this clip in it.
Without anyone replying, the dev team was already working to fulfill his request.
A nervous developer raised his hand "Sir, the ID's shows that he is a diamond player in the top 20, currently ranked 18th. With the name Arisu. But we haven't picked up anyone before with that name. So highly likely a player from the lottery and not from the main teams. Should we confirm before pushing this to the highlight reel?"
"Anonymous top twenty," Arakawa said, eyes still on the ragdolling knight. "even better. A nobody takes the game by storm, this would be the best out come for our game." Kenji started to pace accros the room. " I keep seeing players develop in such creative ways that. That i start to despise the current game system...maybe it's time to use that."
The room went quiet.
"Use it," Arakawa said. "Pair it with Vassili's highlights and get some others aswell. We will have some contrast with both players as main highlights for the update."
---
ArenaX Early Access | 1.4.1 Highlights
The announcer's voice rolled like a seasoned commentator: "Early access has shown us invention, recklessness, and brilliance. Five base classes. A forest of subclasses. And players breaking the rules faster than we can write them." Without missing a beat the screen changed.
Clips:
– An assassin vaulting off a wall into a fatal plunge.
– A mage freezing the floor so an enemy skidded past helpless.
– A barbarian hurling an axe through a torch mid-flight, setting it aflame before splitting armor.
And Then black armored knight appeared. A hammer in one hand and a rune-buckler glowing with warded light in the other.
Vassili Vassilikov looked straight at his victim through his spartan inspired helmet.
His opponent: An Earth mage that was floated into frame, adorned in robes laced with thick, curling vines and blooming petals. A crown of flowers spiraled down one arm, and from his other hand sprouted vibrant plant monsters, twisting into motion like dancers made of bark and blossom. Clearly it's a sub class variant that specializes in plants.
Without hesitation, the mage started to cast his spell initiating the fight. Vinebeast crawled out from the ground andsurged across the battlefield, roots spearing ahead like skewers meant to impale Vassili right down the middle.
Vassili didn't budge. He raised his rune-buckler and with a fluid downward motion in a sharp arc, deflecting the roots into the ground. Immediately he stepped towards the created monster and slides right between it's legs that shapped like stamps of a tree. His hammer connected with the vinebeast mid-leap right after jumping back towards the beast. The mage didn't let up and went straight to constructing multiple spells in one go and created a flower barrier around his beast while growing sunflowers from the ground that started to shoot pellets of seeds bursting through the air like an machine gun. Vassile turnt around and made his body do a split followed with a breakdance move titling the beast on the ground with the incoming pellets Vassili jumped over the beast body trying to block as much as he could while being chipped with damage from those pellets and using the beast big body as cover. Vassili braced behind the body and started to push the big body towards the mage slowly advaning until he made his hammer glow with red energy. While he was building up the energy towards his enemy the beast tried to get up but Vassili was holding him down and he couldn't find proper balance because of the pellets being shot consistently. then a burst of green sparks as the construct shattered into glowing debris when Vassili hit his hammer against the beast when he felt like that he was close enough to the mage. At the same time, he dropped low — a 90-degree back lean, slipping just beneath a second creature's lunging swipe. Roots grazed over his helmet but missed their mark. As a second beast jumped through the death of the first beast.
Without losing a beat, Vassili pivoted on his rear heel, shifting his weight cleanly as the second vinebeast changed direction mid-air. It lashed out wildly — but the knight's rune-buckler met it edge-first, a sharp parry that knocked the roots aside. The creature recoiled. Vassili stamped into the ground creating a small crater of fire burst upwards creating a small wall against the current pellets. The mage glided forward as more veins started to appear from the ground and he was skating on these veins creating unique movement scenario that made the fans look in awe.
As the mage glided around the big fire wall, he was met with a thrown body of the beast towards him. BAM! As the body crashed into his. He fell down hard.
The mage staggered back up, weaving another spell, walls of earth erupted from the ground, twisting and jagged. A carnivorous plant lunged upward, snapping toward Vassili's waist.
But it just didn't matter.
He charged through it all.
One root latched onto his leg — he ripped free with brute force. A wall tried to intercept — he vaulted it using his shield, kicking off the edge mid-jump. The carnivorous plant scraped across his shoulder, leaving sparks. More and more plant monsters started to pop up and Vassili started to burn bright with his hammer smashing through them one by one faster and faster until his only couple of steps away from the mage.
The mage tried to cast again as vines coiled for defense, but Vassili fainted a hammer strike, raising the weapon high, only to let it drop behind him with a thud. The mage hesitated at that was all it took. Vassili hurled his shield. The buckler flew like a discus, crashing into the mage's face. It knocked his hood back, staggering him into almost falling over. In the same motion, Vassili stepped forward, retrieved his hammer from the ground, flipped it in one hand, and delivered a crushing side-swing that sent the mage flying sideways across the arena making his body skip against stone.
The knight closed the distance.
He just raised the hammer with both hands and brought it down. And just kept pounding and pounding.
The mage tried to cast, but he was constantly interrupted — every spell cut off mid-chant.
Until the hammer began to glow — red light surging through its runes and exploded on impact.
CRACK.
The mage exploded into a thousand flickers of light, the force of the blow echoing through the stone coliseum.
A long pause.
Then, the announcer's voice came through — flat, almost dry:
> "Vassili... ughm. Great performance. Very… orderly manner. Can i curse... no? Well gentlemen and ladies. The best highlight of Vassili. "
The feed cut.
"And sometimes," the voice said, tone brightening, "you chose chaos...really? Is that best lines you guys come up with. And you expect me to be professional? We just had a psychopath beating in the previous clip but this one is chaos? Just $%@&^!" The announcer got cut off before the feed continued.
As it replayed, we saw an familiar face, the purple elf.
The bombs. The collapsing pillars. The knight's desperate swing.
BOOM—BOOM.
The Silver Knight shattered into confetti light.
---
Mexico City — Guapo
Fatty Guapo slumped in his desk chair, headset sliding crooked over sweat-damp hair. A half-eaten taco sat abandoned on a napkin, grease staining the desk. On-screen, his knight avatar somersaulted skyward for the tenth time, limbs pinwheeling like a broken marionette before bursting into pixels.
"Of all the highlights…" He dragged his palm down his face, voice muffled. "They had to pick this one?"
His chat didn't let up.
> RIP streak
50–0 ERASED.
bro's just a meme now
You just had greasy hands touching your face. Disgusting.
gremlin gaming LMAOO
Guapo jabbed his taco at the monitor like it was evidence in court.
"You can't tell me I played bad. I had him down." He groaned, staring at the looping ragdoll. "It's just… who the hell plays Bombardier in ranked? Nobody! Everyone called it cheeks, but noo what do get? The one and only otp that had to be a bombedier, which i only came across the lower ranks. ( otp means One trick player, meaning someone place only one character)
Maybe yes I got over confident, but I didn't play bad i just never seen such a player before. I would argue that non of you guys had seen or heard of it before without me anyways."
A donation popped up: Balloon Knight # skull emoji#.
The chat exploded with balloons.
Guapo froze, narrowed his eyes at the username. "Balloon Knight, huh? Real funny. Next time I see you, you're banned." He tried to sound angry, but the smirk broke through. "I swear, you clowns would laugh at my funeral."
Another donation pinged. "Don't uninstall, papi. We need more balloons."
Guapo groaned, head thunking against his chair. "Uninstall's looking tempting."
The chat doubled over in laughter, balloon emotes filling the screen until it looked like a festival.
For a moment, he almost laughed with them—until something in his chest tugged. That clip. That elf. Those bombs. Gremlin wasn't just a joke... i should have known i was in Ruby one to begin with. He was something else. Completely inside of his own world,
Guapo leaned forward. " it would be fun to rematch this guy when the real game comes out."
The chat roared approval.
But Guapo wasn't reading anymore. He was lost in his own thoughts.
---
Moscow Training Facility — Red Legion
The gym reeked of chalk, sweat, and iron as the whole team was working out.
Vassili Vassilikov sat on a bench, wrists taped, curling dumbbells with mechanical rhythm. His eyes never left the wall screen, where Maurice's fight replayed on loop. Bombs, pillars, the ragdoll knight.
Vassili has short brown hair with blue eyes, build like an absolute unit. Standing at 6'3 with pale skin and clean shaved face but with a huge back for his lean mass he has. He would have been cut out for the perfect swimming body if games didn't exist.
"Gremlin!" Jokic chuckled from across the room this bald loud mouth that shorter that then Vassil but like everyone else in the team quite well build he looked at him. "Captain, that's your future rival now. Careful he'll drop the ceiling on you too."
No one laughed.
Thomas the blond supermodel, the vice-captain, set down his barbell with a deliberate thud. His voice cut sharp as steel. "We don't joke about nobodies. Especially not when we're paid to dominate every format ArenaX, Or any game throws at us. Every seat on this team costs millions upon millions of dollars. You think highlights make rivals? No let me repharse that. Do you think that we the Red Legion have rivals?! Keep talking, Jokic, and I'll trade you myself. Thirty million out, and that nobody gets a rookie contract in. For not even a fraction of your worthless contract."
The room stilled. Jokic's smirk faltered.
"You serious? Do you think that i have no self respect you dickhead father bootinglicking Asshole. I wasn't even being mean and just cracked a normal joke you uptight slim lipped fish face. I bet the only reason you are on this team is because your father owns this club."
Thomas leaned in, eyes cold. "Dead serious. I never liked you to begin with. I don't see your value on this team at all. Al you do is joke around, be late for training and suck at the game. But who knows maybe you will prove me wrong when the game comes out. But shit thirty million for you? Welp fill in the blanks. We could have gotten Faichi with that money from brazil."
A teammate laid a hand on Jokic's shoulder, murmuring, "Prove your worth first. Joke later. Until then, watch your mouth."
Jokic struggled to keep his head cool but then decided to walk away.
Vassili didn't care about the bickering of those two as it was quite common. "Thomas disagreed the signing of the 24 years old Jokic Felaptis, since the moment the chairman had eyes on him. He is a Serbian all star in the fighting game world. But at least he was around three years ago. So I understand the frustration with the price tag of thirty million. When someone's market value is barely fifteen at the moment. Which doesn't make him a bad player, just overpriced." As Vassili thoughts process turnt back to the present.
"Gremlin…" His voice was quiet, but it cut through the room. "I'll remember him."
---
Maurice — Home
The café's neon sign buzzed and flickered as Maurice slipped out, one hand raised in lazy farewell to the receptionist. The night air carried fried food, gasoline, and damp heat.
At home, lemongrass tea mingled with detergent. His mother sat curled with a tablet; his father rattled in the kitchen, humming tunelessly.
"Eat first," his dad said, tossing him a bun. Maurice caught it without looking, biting before it even cooled in his hand.
Dinner was easy. His father complained about office politics at the water plant—five supervisor seats, ten men stabbing each other with clean boots and fake smiles.
His mother sighed about zumba instructors invading her Pilates studio, rolling her eyes so hard Maurice thought they'd stick.
Later inside his own room, sweat slicked across his shoulders from pull-ups, he sat at his desk, towel draped over his chair. Notebook open, bombs sketched with arrows and stick-figure knights exploding in doodles.
A notification blinked. ArenaX Early Access | 1.4.1 Highlights — LIVE.
As he watched everything he noticed something funny.
Chat spamming one word: GREMLIN.
Maurice stared, then grinned. Pen scratching, he underlined the word twice.
"Gremlin, huh?" he murmured. "Catchy name."
Maurice leaned back, twirling his pen like a fuse already lit.