Episode 68: Platform Exhibition, Day 2, Match 2 — Youngest and Oldest vs. Byeongsik and the Kids
"Man, Kwitch is actually disgusting."
"Shit, if that happened to me I'd genuinely lose my mind."
"If it were you, hyung, you'd already have spammed chat asking to take it outside."
Sprout Patrol, AFS's representative squad, had just walked through their first match of day two — a light win over NPT. Youngest and Oldest, the very team they'd face next, was on right now, so they were resting with the match up.
Most of the AFS streamers looked plainly afraid of the level Kwitch was showing. This young one was different.
"Come on. You think we'd fall for garbage like that?"
Where the others felt awe and fear, he sneered at their play and looked straight down on it.
"I can do that too. Let's be honest — somebody swings on me like that? I'll just put them in the dirt."
At first the AFS roster had tried to shut down the way he talked over everyone else. By now they had simply let go. Pilleulo was never the kind of person who listened to anyone.
"Fair. We've got Pillu. He'll win it for us."
He had shown enough skill to cover even that pigheadedness, and so nobody could really call him on it.
"Pillu, can you win?"
"I'll wipe them. Just trust me."
The exhibition was nothing but winning. All a loser had left was mockery and contempt. The others looked the other way at his tyranny to a point, and that only let Pilleulo run wilder.
"...Yeah. Let's just trust Pillu."
If AFS wanted to win, in the end they had no choice but to take the devil named Pilleulo by the hand.
Pilleulo watched the KKT–Kwitch match through bored eyes. He genuinely thought the Eunha and Nebula tearing it up down there were nothing special.
Acting good while you smurf on scrubs — I can do that much too.
He was rank 1 on a server himself, but he had never really been seen, stuck in the shadow of Nebula, who had taken rank 1 on the Asia server.
He couldn't even hold that number one. I'm still Korea-server rank 1.
People looked for Nebula. Not for him.
I can— I can play better than that guy—
Brrring. Brrring.
"Huh? What."
Mid-match, Pillu's phone went off. A friend's name, and an incoming call. He quietly switched his broadcast mic off.
A sub. That was what a sub was for — so he could sit one out, wasn't it?
Even without him, most of the team was decent enough. It shouldn't matter.
Or should it? Hm... honestly, he had a feeling they'd lose if he wasn't there.
So what. They just had to win the final, didn't they? The next match wasn't even the last one.
After a brief wrestle with it, Pilleulo made up his mind. He switched the mic back on and spoke in a grave voice.
"Hey. Hyungs."
"Hm? Pillu, what's up?"
"I..."
"Nebula's been tagged by Zero Point on B Main."
"This is a fake, right? Looking at where the spike is, and where the rest of the team is sitting, they're dangling the bait — we're going B."
"The question is whether Byeongsik and the Kids bite."
At that same moment Pola's Guiding Light went out toward Snake, hidden in the toxic smoke — and the Guiding Light Byeongsik and the Kids sent flying toward A Main...
Pop!
It tagged no one.
"Whoa, nobody got caught?"
"That only makes the fake more convincing. Do they take the bait?"
Nebula was on the Zero Point. Pola's Guiding Light had gone mid.
"That'll drop Ground's focus for Byeongsik and the Kids. Still, we have to see the fight."
Waiting because you are sure they are coming, and waiting because they might be, splits reaction time clean in half.
"Eunha's going!"
The Blast Pack's detonation carried all the way to Ground. Hearing it, he—
Pop!
He burst Guiding Light at short range and was already gone.
Even Eunha could not dodge a flash that popped that fast, that close.
"Smart. No reason to take a Judge fight from that range."
"Raze already burned Blast Pack, so there's no skill left to close the distance."
"Looks like Youngest and Oldest's rush is half shut down."
The plan had been to burst in, clear ramp, and swallow A site in one motion. Ground lived, cut the ramp from a safe spot, and the plan threw an error.
"Now they either swing the hit off the site, or eat the loss and kill Ground..."
Then a way through opened where nobody was looking.
Crack!
A bright gunshot, and a kill log. The name on it was Eunha's.
"Huh?! A one-tap with a Sheriff?? If Ground dies here, that's a disaster for Byeongsik and the Kids!"
"Wait a second — that means ramp is theirs!"
Eunha's primary was the Judge, and the other team knew it perfectly well from the round before. She had just entered on a double-Q with that Judge in her hands. Nobody had registered the Sheriff on her hip — all game, she had chosen nothing but close fights with the Frenzy and the Judge.
"Ground got greedy. He could have just held his spot."
If he had simply anchored there, the round might have gone another way. But he knew her gun was a Judge, deadly up close, and he reached. He peeked from safety, and the Sheriff Eunha already had waiting punched straight through his head.
"Eunha's something else. To even think of one-tapping that with a Sheriff..."
Whatever the story, the result was the result. Ramp was fully cleared, and Youngest and Oldest taking A site was inevitable.
They poured onto ramp with Ground's death. Nebula carried the rifle Ground had been holding toward A site, and Raze — Eunha — broke for vent, the center vent on the map graphic.
"A's empty, confirmed. They just plant."
"And look at Youngest and Oldest's setup..."
After the plant, Eunha held vent with the Judge — the lane you had to take if you came from mid. Nebula held A Screens with the rifle, the long way back around from B site.
Set the exhibition aside. The two hottest new stars in Project A were plugging both critical lanes, and for Byeongsik and the Kids, who wanted to avoid fighting Eunha and Nebula at all costs, it was a demon's gate.
Looping all the way through attacker spawn or A Sewer was already too slow with the spike down. In the end they had no choice but to kick the hornet's nest.
The result was brutal.
"Nebula!"
"That's Asia rank 1 aim! He wins the two-on-one!"
BS on Raze and Astra double-peeked into A Screens, but Astra, trailing so they wouldn't get skewered on the same timing, had no choice but to be late. Both lost the duel in a row. Two of Byeongsik and the Kids died to Nebula alone.
"They have to save the guns now, don't they?"
Three were already dead, the guns were gone, the defuse window was tight, and a Judge-Raze was holding center vent. Cold judgment said to leave. Byeongsik and the Kids chose with their feelings anyway.
"They're going?!"
A flash into center vent, and Snake and KAY/O dropped together, meaning to kill the Raze who should have been blind—
Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom.
They never got the chance.
Because Raze — Eunha — had never been flashed at all.
"The Judge!!"
"Eunha reacted to the flash! A flawless on a bonus round?!"
Center vent favors a point-blank gun like a shotgun. They had even burned a flash trying to crack the side of that advantage Eunha was holding, and it hadn't mattered.
"And Youngest and Oldest take the third round too!"
"Byeongsik and the Kids are in chaos. No money for the next round, and every rifle is gone. Youngest and Oldest are drowning in credits."
This had been a bonus, recycling the guns bought on round two, so Youngest and Oldest had spent almost nothing. Everyone had lived, they had wiped Byeongsik and the Kids, and they had taken every rifle — money overflowing, just as the casters said.
On the other side, back-to-back losses, and a round thrown away with the rifles they had barely managed to buy. If the next round had to be an eco, the score could run all the way out to 0–4.
Split is a defender-sided map, and Byeongsik and the Kids were the ones on defense. It was a desperate spot.
The casters were careful not to say it. Every viewer already knew.