Master Tier Challenge! (2)
19Sonyeo.
Why use a BJ name that strange?
The first theory says it's because she started playing Legend of League at nineteen. The game ID she made back then was 19Sonyeo, and when she eventually began streaming—long past nineteen by then—she simply set her BJ name to match. That's the story, anyway.
The second is the theory viewers push the hardest: that she was never meant to be 19Sonyeo at all, but "Rated-19 Girl," and she accidentally left out the character for "rated" when she registered the name.
There's a decent amount of sense in that.
I'd caught 19Sonyeo's broadcasts fairly often before my sex changed, so I understood the viewers' second claim—joke though it was—better than I cared to admit.
It wasn't that she ran cam shows flashing skin, or locked herself into some sexy concept. If anything, 19Sonyeo had never once hosted a cam room.
It was just that the way she talked was unbelievably dirty.
Her streams were a place where every filthy joke a woman her age was supposedly above came spilling out as naturally as breath.
"Hnngh! Solo kill—I'm taking it!"
"Jayce's hammer... that hammer is just too thick, too hard!"
More or less the atmosphere of 19Sonyeo's old broadcasts, dragged back up out of memory, chat window and all. Calling it a mere streaming persona didn't hold—she herself enjoyed the dirty talk, and the chat's explicitness naturally ran high to match.
And that same 19Sonyeo had just been matched onto the enemy team, planted squarely in the way of my promotion to Master tier.
I was going to beat her. No matter what.
The early game tilted the moment top lane gave up a solo kill. Bot felt slightly behind, mid was a wash, and I'd seized the initiative in the jungle—but top, as ever, was the problem. The matchup was already a losing lane, and on top of that he'd handed over a kill, so Ornn looked hard-pressed even to pick up CS. I had to relieve him somehow.
The trouble was that I knew it, and so did the enemy team. They would be ready. They would set a trap. And in that situation I would have to gank already stripped of Guillotine Match 4. No matter how I turned it over, it was a fool's play. So I abandoned top once more, praying with everything I had that our top laner was not a case of Top-Lane Syndrome.
Fortunately, he was a sane top laner. I tossed him a light compliment in chat, then checked the vision above mid with a pink ward and an Oracle Lens. Empty, thank god.
Irelia pinged a ward planted on the lower side of mid. The read went ice-cold. High odds Jarvan was waiting on it. I couldn't bring Guillotine Match to bear in a two-versus-two, so I signaled Irelia to pull the wave and cut off toward the enemy blue.
Sure enough, right around the time I finished the remaining toad, a fight exploded in mid. Galio Flash-dashed in with a taunt and pinned Irelia where she stood, and Jarvan chained straight into a flag-and-lance charge. She slammed help pings and thrashed. She Flashed in under the tower, but Galio body-blocked first while Jarvan poured out every drop of damage he had, ultimate included. When the tower's repeated shots put his life in danger, Galio slipped out of range and cast his own ultimate. A shield bloomed around Jarvan. They killed Irelia and crawled clear of the tower's fire by a hair.
Beautiful coordination. A perfect tower dive. But they should have known—that while Irelia fought for her life, an assassin had already returned to the bush above mid and was holding her breath.
Now!
I couldn't trigger Guillotine Match 4, but both Jarvan and Galio were running on empty. Their ultimates were down, and Galio had no Flash. A table already laid.
The instant that innocent Jarvan tried to slip down the alley between his team's outer mid tower and the upper bush, Diana's Q—Crescent Blade—knifed out of the brush. It struck him clean and left a stark white mark. A marked enemy resets the cooldown on E at once, so I didn't hesitate: E over the wall, W layered on top, an instant burst.
"Yes!"
He was so drained he never even thought to run. He died on the spot. Galio, recalling at his leisure in the middle of the lane, startled and bolted downward—but it was already too late. Alistar, who had read Irelia's help ping and my signal and rotated in ahead of time, came roaring in and sealed the lower escape. Galio ate the pounding combo, failed to get out, and fell to me.
Two kills in a flash. A dragon on top of it. Our mid had taken the loss, but my own growth had caught a second wind.
Whatever it takes... I promote!
The moment I steeled myself, grim news arrived from top once again.
"......"
"Oh, come on! Just try it. Get caught and you're blacklisted on the spot."
Win or lose, the game was sinking deeper into a maze.
The longest game I'd played since my sex changed.
Teamfights were a dead end. I realized it in the fight over the third dragon and told my team the only answer left was a backdoor. By then I already had the game by the collar, dragging it alone, so they agreed—carefully. From that moment I watched without rest for an opening, and the instant a four-versus-five standoff formed in front of the Elder Dragon, I boldly Flashed over the wall and started hammering the enemy's last pair of twin towers.
That was when the light of a Teleport dropped onto a nearby minion's head. My heart plunged. If even one of Jayce or Galio came back, the energy I'd burned below half forcing the tower wouldn't be enough to end the game.
Then a flood of messages erupted from my teammates, and the Teleport's light vanished. Ornn—humiliated all game long—had canceled Jayce's Teleport with his ultimate. I spammed praise at him without stopping, finished tearing the tower down, and started beating on the enemy base. Lucian and Jarvan recalled in a panic, but they were already a step too late. I landed the last hit at my leisure and blew their base apart.
"Aaah, finally!"
Amid the viewers' roaring support, I watched my proud Master-tier emblem wash over into purple. A moment that truly swelled the chest.
"Wow... truly, thank you to the two of you who set the mission, and to every viewer who congratulated me. Thanks to all of you, I was able to reach Master tier."
"Insulting the jungler is an instant ban. Remember that."
With Master tier achieved, the mood on stream was boundlessly good. Viewers other than the fan-club president and vice president sent their own modest congratulatory Water Balloons, and word must have reached the community galleries, because the viewer count jumped for a moment. Even so, my peak concurrent record had already been pushed so high that it was nowhere near enough to clear the mission.
Ding—!
"Uh..."
From my days as a viewer I knew 19Sonyeo reasonably well, if not completely, and she was not the type to send another streamer a friend request first. That she had sent one to me anyway meant it wasn't some light impulse. There had to be a reason. I pressed accept, carefully.
A haymaker came flying with no warning at all.