Why Me?
Why would I—
Just because I'd gone roaming to pick up kills didn't mean Qiyana had been glued to her lane the whole time.
While Elise and I were eyeing top, Qiyana shoved her wave and dropped down to bot.
The moment Qiyana slipped out of vision on her bottom-side path, I slammed a retreat ping on bot. Their bot lane had a poke-heavy comp, so ours was already under serious pressure—but they'd managed their health well enough that we still answered the dive cleanly.
Bot's spells are all down, though…
A loss was a loss, but it wasn't a bad one. Nothing cost more than dying. And with Qiyana's spells blown too, I could start looking for a solo-kill angle on the right timer.
Of course, what I was really hunting wasn't a solo kill on Qiyana. I wanted the enemy jungler screaming MID GAP into the void.
Getting outplayed in lane shakes your mental. Getting flamed by your own team cracks it clean in half.
There was a reason people called Leori a disease of a game.
I shoved the wave and checked the other lanes. Qiyana had rotated back. Every instinct in me wanted to cash in a solo kill right then, but I wasn't even six yet—and more importantly, I'd burned Ignite in the last fight, so the angle simply wasn't there.
Gromp was still up. I'm sure of it.
When I'd killed Karthus on blue, the enemy Gromp had still been alive. After Karthus went down, Elise and I had headed top together.
When Karthus was taking blue, he was level three with no mana.
Meaning he'd cleared three camps on his red side and path straight to blue.
And after he died, red-side camps wouldn't have respawned yet…
Normally, Karthus would have path bottom for the scuttle—but at that exact timing, our ever-curious Thresh had dropped a ward on the dragon-side crab. For the entire duration of that ward, Karthus never showed bot side.
Which meant he'd almost certainly started on Gromp, cleared wolves, and only then cut a bottom path.
I ran the route in my head, finished the analysis, and walked straight into the enemy jungle. A quick check topside confirmed the Raptors had just respawned on cue. The second they popped, I hopped the wall into red buff's pit—and came face-to-face with Karthus, who'd just finished the Krugs and was heading for the Raptors.
"Bingo."
He clearly hadn't expected to meet Talon there. He scrambled for the wall and burned Flash—only to slam face-first into a thicker stretch of terrain than he'd bargained for. A textbook wall-Flash. Karthus froze in place, the kind of movement that looked like he'd just died of pure embarrassment in real life, and I sent him on his way without fuss.
Even in passive form, Karthus didn't so much as twitch. I turned my back on him and strolled back to lane.
How much longer can he hold out?
Now that I was on the same team as Curry—now that I'd felt that raw, desperate hunger of his—I needed someone else to torment in his place.
Unfortunately for him, that someone was a perfectly innocent Karthus.
"Wow. She's on our team and she's still an absolute monster."
Curry muttered the words in quiet awe as he watched Karthus die to Talon yet again. The chat in Curry's stream—infamous as a den of pure toxicity—seemed to share the sentiment, a rare wave of pity rolling through.
With jungle and mid constantly showing up, Curry's lane had gotten comfortable enough that he could afford to spectate the rest of the map. Top lane was so thoroughly collapsed he had the luxury of sightseeing. A starved Jayce was never going to hold a fed Camille—not without some absurd mechanical miracle.
He was casually shoving the wave when the enemy Jayce stepped up for a cannon minion. Curry didn't miss the window. Camille's hookshot buried itself perfectly, and in a blink Jayce was chunked down to a sliver.
"Just go home."
Whether the warning landed or not, Jayce vanished behind his tower. Curry, already grinning at the thought of free tower gold, pushed the wave with a little curl at the corner of his mouth.
"Oh, so you're not going back…"
He sneered at the Jayce still hovering on a paper-thin health bar, too greedy to give up the wave. One hookshot and a couple of autos would finish it. The second he decided to punish this insolent holdout—
Talon's retreat pings made Camille hesitate. Curry flicked his eyes to the minimap to figure out what the fuss was about—and what filled his vision was Qiyana, Karthus, and Lux all marching top.
Forbes' number-one most hated scenario for a top laner: the four-man gank. Every enemy except the ADC dropping by for a visit wasn't common, but it happened often enough. Top laners with half a brain respected an ally's retreat ping and left. The ones who stayed because the solo-kill angle or the wave state felt too good to abandon—those were the ones people called top-lane psychos.
"Where the hell do you think you're going?!"
Curry was a textbook top-lane-psycho streamer.
The lunatic mindset of I'll take their top with me even if I die finally came due. Camille stuck the dive and killed Jayce—but there was no escaping the three enemies tightening the net.
"Good try. Not a bad spot."
He'd donated seven hundred gold for two hundred ten. Curry shopped with shameless ease, mouth still running.
While Curry was still enjoying his shopping spree—
The announcer's voice kept stacking, each line more ominous than the last.
Who the hell was massacring people this mercilessly? Curry rushed through the rest of his buy and swung the camera—and it locked onto the enemy inhibitor tower.
Half-HP Talon was crouched behind a wall, waiting in ambush. Who was she even hunting at this point?
The thought had barely formed when a freshly respawned Jayce stepped out past the inhibitor tower. The waiting Talon didn't miss a beat. She vaulted the wall, closed the gap in a blink, and the Q–auto–W–Tiamat combo detonated on contact. Full-HP Jayce went gray all over again.
"What the…"
While Curry had been happily shopping, NayeonQueen's Talon had assassinated three people—and had just finished the fourth.
The main camera had been too busy shopping to catch any of it, so every reaction in chat was some flavor of question mark.
"Okay I genuinely want the replay on this. How did that even happen."
"Nayeon's high Grandmaster?"
The chat claim pulled an automatic, disbelieving retort out of Curry. Fair enough—he'd never once seen this sniper named Nayeon play a real game of League. If they'd shared a lane he might have gauged her actual level, but a top-lane psycho's defining trait was tunnel vision on their own island. Even after all these games together, this was the first time he'd properly watched NayeonQueen play.
Hearing high Grandmaster suddenly made Talon's pathing look refined. It was the exact feeling of eating ordinary chocolate, learning the price tag, and somehow tasting it richer afterward.
"Ugh, what the hell is wrong with you people."
Curry stepped in himself and purged the one viewer muddying the water.
"Can you please stop with the disgusting shit. Before I sue you."
Between chatting with viewers, the game had drifted into its endgame. Nobody on the enemy team could stop Talon's rampage—and nobody had the will left to try. A ward in the fountain revealed Karthus standing against a wall in quiet penance, holding Tear of the Goddess and five Broken Stopwatches.
"No wonder Elise looked cracked too."
They marched into the enemy base to end it. Not long after, the twin towers fell. Curry took the last hit on the Nexus, and the game was over.
"Carry."
Having finally secured the first win of his promotion series, Curry wore a smile dripping with confidence. The sheer punchability of it made chat recoil and start typing curses.
"Aww, c'mon guys. I know you all love me."
The second the conversation turned against him, Curry clamped his mouth shut. In silence, he changed the stream title, then sent NayeonQueen a friend request.
NayeonQueen accepted. Curry opened the messenger and typed immediately.
It was the most polite message Curry had ever sent. None of the usual playfulness. Not long after it went out, the reply arrived.
NayeonQueen accepted the request without resistance. Once the exchange was done, Curry broke the silence on stream.
"Playing with her all this time, I even started getting a little attached, you know…"
"…I want to finish the rest of this promo series on my own strength."
He laid out his feelings with quiet honesty. Seeing this unfamiliar side of him, chat flooded the screen with thumbs-up emotes without anyone needing to coordinate.
Curry steeled himself, set his jaw, and hit queue.
NayeonPrincess has joined the lobby.
Umaha has joined the lobby.
Titan has joined the lobby.
TheLonelyGourmet has joined the lobby.
keepmeup has joined the lobby.
"You said you wouldn't snipe, what the fuck—!"
The second that familiar nickname hit the champ select chat, Curry dropped a genuine, full-volume curse. He fired off a protest in-game.
A beat of silence. Then a single line appeared in chat.
The moment that message hit his eyes, Curry grabbed the back of his neck and collapsed.