Scrim (4)
Oh Sujin, the midlaner and ace of Team Brilliant, finished her training session and took a short break, fiddling with her phone.
Lately, she'd been visiting other teams' social media pages more often than her own team's. Her team's likes and follower counts were the same every day anyway—no point in checking.
The team she visited every single day was none other than Shining Star.
Today, Shining Star's social media was flooded with photos of players deep in practice, B-cuts of them eating meals or napping during breaks, and tons of selfies where they'd dolled themselves up prettily.
'Ha, for real. Do these bitches think the Eternal Combat pro scene is a total joke?'
Oh Sujin left malicious comments under each photo, tearing down Shining Star and the players in them.
Her own team, Team Brilliant, might not have made it out of Division 3, but they were kings of the Academy League.
Still, because it was the Academy League, they got zero attention—no articles unless it was promotion matches.
Meanwhile, this Shining Star team had grabbed eyes during the offseason with public auditions, picking only pretty faces to farm male aggro.
No-talent girls selling looks to boost fame. Once they got popular, they'd ditch pro gaming for idol gigs.
Oh Sujin hated Shining Star.
Envy and jealousy!
Driven by those emotions, she'd been spamming hate comments on Shining Star's SNS daily.
But today was different.
Someone was replying to her hate comments one by one, mocking her right back.
'Who the fuck is this?'
Oh Sujin got into a fierce keyboard war with the mystery replier until training time hit, then slammed her phone down in frustration.
Simp-ass dude obsessed with girls. Probably just another pathetic fan drooling over Shining Star's faces. They'd lap it up as "fans."
She already hated Shining Star—now she had one more reason to crush them in scrims.
"Hey, Seona. Stop with the comments already. What if they figure out it's you..."
"Wait a sec. This bitch keeps saying we're talentless, have celebrity syndrome, use filters—it's pissing me off."
Despite Ha-young's pleas, Seona dove headfirst into a comment war with the anonymous hater on the team SNS.
Right as training time neared, the hater stopped replying.
Seona slammed her phone down and burst open the capsule room door.
"Sera! Yuna unnie!"
"What?"
"Why do you look so pissed?"
"1v1 me today!"
"I'm down, but unnie, what's up?"
"Gonna absolutely demolish them in this scrim!"
"Nice mindset. Sera's practicing lane with Eunjae and Hayoung anyway—let's duo first."
News of the public scrim between Shining Star and Team Brilliant spread slowly among users.
Not big enough for articles, but it popped up now and then on community info boards.
Especially since our players looked like idols—decent male fans for a team with zero official records.
Offseason for global Eternal Combat leagues meant nothing to watch, so the public scrim drew extra eyes.
Whether good or bad, our girls' looks spread word-of-mouth—people showed up for faces even if not for skill.
Still, Academy level—nowhere near Division 1.
And so, the big scrim Saturday arrived.
20 minutes to start, I gathered all players for final reminders.
"Remember their tactics from the strategy meeting?"
"Yes!"
"Eunjae, you say it."
"First support's full roam focus. Wards mainly on river hills both sides and their jungle interior. Ignores offlane relatively, lets mid roam free."
"Good. Yuna, offlane setup cautions."
"Enemy second support sticks to jungle stacks and lane care. Carry usually pushes mid for efficiency picks. Jungle feeds mid mostly, skips own camps—picks champs that perform without items to harass offlane."
"Sera."
"Enemy offlaner's pure sustain and counter-engage. Specialized for punishing if we start fights."
"Last, Seona."
"Enemy mid pushes lane hard for constant leads! Shoves to tower, eats support-stacked jungle to snowball wider impact!"
"Hayoung, summarize."
"Their comp's 80% ace mid Oh Sujin—rest support her. Wards on river hills and their jungle to block her ganks and secure stacks.
Offlane/carry seem vulnerable but pick counter-engage champs, so hard to dive. Teamfights? Loaded with targeting CC—strong there.
But minus Sujin, all early-mid game. Weaken late. She carries then, but beat 'em before and it's nothing."
"Seona, good with Nightcrawler?"
"Who, me? Kim Seona. No one in the world mains it better."
"Confidence is good. Don't choke weirdly. Yuna, call when their support's gone. Hayoung, Eunjae—drag Seona back if she yolo dives."
"Got it~"
"Join game. You can win this. No nerves! Play like practice! They're worse than your bot practice foes!"
Players filed into capsules; I spectated from the booth.
Teams joined, moved to tourney lobby. In-game crowd like auditions—small but waiting.
Couldn't hear players from lobby, but as coach, I saw/heard all.
Minutes after faces, trash talk erupted.
Brilliant's provocateur: ace Oh Sujin, our key watch.
"Whoa~ Mid still caked in makeup for scrim? Really pick on looks? Even if women's Eternal Combat's looser than men's, this is extreme~ Anyone can go pro like this."
Seona bristled forward, but Hayoung held her.
Yuna? No stopping that.
"Ha, what? Game hasn't started and you act like you know our skill? Jealous? You're ugly, no fans, but we're hot with bodies and fans already? And get this~ Soon skill gap shows—you're fucked."
"Y-Yuna unnie!"
"...What?"
Vein popped on Sujin's temple. Yuna kept poking.
"Staring at Seona's chest earlier? Super jealous? You're flat, she's rocking melons? More fans too? Ah~ That's why the ugly trash talk?"
Yuna back-hugged Seona, groping her chest.
"Kyaa! Unnie, hands off!"
"Mm... first feel, but damn impressive. Seona, you mad?"
"Crazy bitches. Fucking nuts. See you in game. Won't go easy."
Sujin ground teeth, cursed, returned to her team.
"Those fucking bitches piss me off. Crush 'em."
Brilliant burned with fight fire toward us,
"They called scrim and start shit? Psycho bitches?"
"Ignore. Win and humiliate."
We matched.
Game start. Our picks: Seona's Nightcrawler, rest same as auditions.
Us red, them blue.
Minutes in, mid pushed hard. Nightcrawler weak laner + enemy early nuker Tinsmith.
Laser (Q): Deals heavy fixed damage to target and blinds briefly.
Heat-Seeking Missiles (W): Fires missiles auto-tracking up to two nearest visible enemy champs for damage.
Suicide Bot March (E): Summons marching suicide bots along wide path for set time. Explode on enemy contact.
Mech Reset (R): Channels after heavy mana cost to reset most item/skill cooldowns. No cooldown itself.
Seona barely clung to life; other lanes quieter vs mid.
Expected. Planned for 2-3 deaths worst case. Hayoung reined her in each overextend.
Seona hit 6 for ult—Eunjae roamed top to mid.
As Eunjae neared, Seona flash-jumped Nightcrawler, landing core Chain Spike on Sujin's Tinsmith.
Purification Blood (Q): Slight delay, then damages nearby enemies over 1s (half to self). Clears all debuffs/CC during.
Chain Spike (W): Leap forward, impales first enemy champ hit. Tethers them—can't stray far from spike.
Essence Shift (E): Passive. Each attack steals enemy's STR/AGI/INT temporarily, converts to your AGI.
Shadow Veil (R): Short true stealth—unattackable/untargetable. Attacks don't break it. Huge MS/HP regen out of vision.
Near-tether: quasi-root.
"Gotcha!"
"Shit..."
Sujin sensed gank, dumped skills to burst Seona—but Nightcrawler ult Shadow Veil vanished her. True stealth, attacks don't break, dodges all but nontarget. Tinsmith's kit? All targeted.
Can't touch Seona, Sujin grit teeth and kited—but tether limited range.
Eunjae's Moon Priestess moon arrow nailed—long stun, Sujin doomed.
'Damn, shoulda backed up sooner...?'
Falling, Sujin saw Seona/Eunjae beside her.
They squatted/stood at light speed by her corpse.
"Shh. Shhh. Die. Die. Fucking bitch. Shhh. Shh. Shh. Die. Die. Fucking bitch."
"Shhh. Shh. Piss off. Shhh. Shhh. Shh. Hey. Hey. Piss off."