Finish What You Started

Chamber's C skill, Trademark, lays a slowing field the moment anyone draws near — ally or enemy, it doesn't discriminate — and sounds an alarm for the whole team.

All of that, of course, only holds while Trademark is actually live. If Chamber dies, or steps beyond a set radius from the trap, it simply switches off.

And just now... I must have drifted out of range while I was trying to watch B Main.

I was sure I'd still been inside it...

The result was ugly. Raze, who had trusted me and was watching Garage, rotated back through mid doors and died to the returning Jett for absolutely nothing.

"I'm sorry. I was holding B Main and didn't even realize I'd left the range..."

It wasn't an excuse. It was simply the truth. For a former pro, the mistake was ridiculous — but then, I wasn't a pro anymore. Too many games down in the lower ranks, and it seemed some of that rot had climbed into me as well.

"It's fine, it's fine. Happens."

Garage had fallen in the most ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠hollow way, but this was an A stack — three defenders piled onto a single site. Even if the enemy committed to an A rush from here, it was still a fight worth taking, depending on who won the aim duels.

"They're hitting A, Eunha!"

"Rotating to A now."

"Yeah."

What I had to watch for was a lurk parked somewhere to catch me on the rotate out of B — an ambush, the old backstab. If a lurk deleted me for free, the players on A would be in even worse shape, and even if they won the site, the enemy only had to turn the hit around onto B and the round was theirs.

"Main is fucking stacked."

Snake's Q, Poison Orb, blooms into a circular cloud of toxic smoke when it arms. Anyone who steps inside catches Decay, a debuff that eats maximum health every second. Step back out and the health you'd lost returns — but for as long as the cloud is live, it's a beautiful tool for denying an entry. One of the reasons Snake reigns as the queen of map control is that very Q.

Fortunately Snake was buying time, so I no longer had to scramble my cover in a panic. I cut my angles apart with care and moved through CT toward A, hunting for the lurk the whole way.

The place I trusted least was the defenders' own spawn. I'd been holding shift to kill my footsteps, so if a lurk was tucked in there, pinning my timing would be difficult. In the end it came down to a reaction check. In spots like that, the one who swings first usually wins.

Bang!

I let go of shift, burst off the angle, and put a 150-credit round through the head of the Chamber waiting behind the wall.

No need for a lecture about frames and peeker's advantage. In Project A, the one who comes out first simply has the frames. Swing a Chamber who's tucked on a wall waiting for you, and you see him before he sees you. That fraction of a second — live or die — is the whole pleasure of an FPS.

"Oh, nice!"

"Footsteps. They're turning it toward B."

Their lurking Chamber was dead, and KAY/O's ZERO/point had confirmed the defense was stacked on A. The other team spun the execute in a hurry.

"I'll take B."

I was already on the rotate off B, so of everyone left I could refill the site the fastest. I pushed all the way ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠into B Heaven — the second-floor box inside the site — and checked whether anyone was already there.

"Nobody on B yet."

They already owned Garage. If they were going to hit B from there, it was one of two paths: a wide swing back through B Main, or a fast take through mid doors into B Link.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Footsteps. They'd decided to eat the site as fast as they could. If I could hear them from where I stood, they were coming through B Link.

"They're coming B Link."

"Rotating now."

"We drop this and play the retake."

In a spot like that, the stable play is obvious. Don't take the ego duel. Call the contact, fall off, meet the pack, and set the retake. I had no intention of playing it stable.

A collab with a big corporate streamer had pushed the room to nearly double its usual crowd. I meant to leave a mark on them.

I planted Rendezvous on the lip of the second floor, dropped at once, closed on the mid entrance, and peeked. They clearly hadn't imagined I'd be standing there. Phoenix was sprinting in with a knife out, fearless, and I handed over a 150-credit present.

Bang!

"Running around with a knife out. Not a scrap of fear."

"Nice. All three of them were just in mid."

What I hadn't been able to confirm myself, Geonmo — already dead — briefed clean as anything. The whole enemy team was mid.

"Oh, nice!"

"They've all hit B."

"Okay, rotating now."

They already knew where I was. Peeking again from here would be greedy, so I waited, meek, for the pack to arrive.

Four of us, not counting Raze. Three of them, not counting Jett and Phoenix. The numbers were ours.

"Dropping Leer. Go, go."

Reyna's C, Leer, is a pseudo-flash: it does nothing to allies and only strips vision from an enemy who looks at it. The moment she set it and it came alive, we hit B.

B Main was swallowed by Snake's E, Toxic Screen. I went for the deepest part of the site — back site, built like a squared-off U — meaning to take it for myself.

Pop!

KAY/O's flash, FLASH/drive, came in short and fast, almost on top of me.

Bang.

A shame for him. My reactions aren't bad enough to lose to a cheap little flash peek. I killed the KAY/O who threw it and swung — but I didn't believe back site had held only one body. The site itself had been empty. Assume one of them was on main, and someone else had been back here with KAY/O. I didn't let the aim drop.

Bang.

Maybe he meant to trade me. I took the head off the Jett who peeked in right behind.

"What the— Eunha!! What are you?!"

That emptied Headhunter — all four rounds. I'd have to pull my sidearm, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠but it didn't matter. There was an enemy pistol on the floor. I scooped up the Ghost lying across KAY/O's body at once.

Oh. A Sovereign skin. Gorgeous.

"Whoa, what is that Chamber?"

"Nice. Last one's main."

I had the last Snake pinned as well. A crushing four-on-one. I peeked main immediately.

Snake was deep on B Main, staring at the planted bomb. We opened up at once.

Crack. Crack. A sharper hit. Then the return fire, fast and ugly.

"Ah, so close. And it was the head..."

A Ghost headshot is 105. Past thirty meters, that damage falls to 87. If you haven't bought light shields, you're sitting on 100 health — which means a headshot still doesn't kill. So I caught Snake in the head and died to the trade anyway.

Get that one and it was an ace. A little disappointing.

"Snake's on one."

Not that it changed the round. Snake, dropped to a sliver after eating my headshot, never really fought back before a teammate traded me out.

We wiped the other team, defused the bomb, and took the pistol round in a rout.

Four kills in round one. In a single round I'd filled nearly ten percent of the mission's fifty. Maybe that was why Geonmo looked thoroughly pleased.

"No, Eunha is actually disgusting? I told you guys. I said she was good. All that smurfing talk? People forcing it. That's all it is."

On a normal day I would have played it cool. That's baseline, I would have said, and looked good doing it. Honestly, I hadn't known I could hit them that clean either.

What?

Why am I this good?

"Ahem... Baseline."

Honestly, even I thought that had been a lot of good. I was allowed to be a little proud of it.