Title: call the ocean waves ashore

Rating: T

Summary: Funny, the things people do in the name of Glory. [OC-centric, eSports!OC, starts pre-canon, AU]

Warnings: None.

(AN at bottom.)

.

.

call the ocean waves ashore

"04: as the sea clouds gather"

.

.

GhostFyre v. Echo. Final Score: 0-15.

The numbers are clear and straightforward, as clinical as they are mocking in their overwhelming simplicity. 0-15. Xia Lan frowns, and with the confusion of the disbelieving, refreshes the page. Nothing changes. Fact, pure and simple, and she is finally forced to admit to herself that there is nothing about what is currently laid out before her that can be denied. These unforgiving numbers, this sort of score, it's…

She'd say it's impossible, except, clearly, it's not.

(People lie. Numbers don't.)

Xia Lan switches her gaze to her monitor where Athena is still online in the Heavenly Domain, scanning through her friend list, and perhaps it's not a surprise that none of the players from the Pantheon's competition lineup are currently online. Not now, not with defeat so fresh in everyone's minds. There's somewhat of a minor furor going on in the guild chat, even –everyone had so strongly believed in their team, had seen all the victories that the Pantheon had accrued over the months, years, and to be met with such solid defeat straight off the bat in the preliminaries…

It's disappointing. Disheartening.

Xia Lan wonders if she should wait until recordings of the match are online, or if she should just contact the team directly. Would it be insensitive of her to go looking for them, so soon after their match had just ended? … Not to mention, she hadn't even watched the fight, and had no idea what could've happened to make them suffer such a solid loss straight off of the bat in the first round of preliminaries.

Wait, were they even still in the running for the tournament? This wasn't a single-round elimination match just now, was it? Xia Lan hadn't looked too closely at the official rules for preliminaries since she wouldn't be competing, and she'd had every confidence that her team would make it through the preliminary rounds.

Now, though…

Xia Lan hesitates.

What's the right thing to do, in a situation like this? She can't… she can't just walk away and pretend she doesn't know anything about it. Sticking your head in the ground like an ostrich never solved anything. But…

Xia Lan slowly scrolls through her friends list. TheREALHera, offline. Vespertine, offline. dante, offline. It's not exactly a surprise, that everyone is collectively offline at the moment, considering the circumstances, but at the same time she can't quite bring herself to really–

Ares, offline.

The young girl pauses upon this realization. Ares, offline. Him, too? … Their team, the Pantheon –or rather, they should be called GhostFyre, now– it's not too much of an exaggeration to say that Ares is the heart of them all, the one who brought them together as a team in the first place and held them together. She can only imagine how he must be feeling right now, in wake of such a disastrous match; the first match, even, and doubtlessly GhostFyre will call into question the team's skill, the captain's competency–

Ah, she's stalling again.

… Enough stalling, now.

Before she has the chance to convince herself otherwise, Xia Lan deftly plucks her phone from where it's precariously balanced on the edge of her desk, and taps open her list of contacts. Jasper Weiss [Ares]. She presses the call button and–

Click.

"Hey, Lilith." There's something that runs a little ragged in the young man's voice, and that's… that's not good. Not good at all. "I was wondering if I'd be hearing from you."

"Is everyone alright?" The words fall out of her mouth automatically, reflexively, and Xia Lan winces almost immediately afterwards. Surely, there are better words for what she wants to convey, but nothing rises to her lips. Aimlessly, Xia Lan's gaze falls on the open window of the screen she's sitting in front of as she hurriedly searches for something to say. 0-15. No, bad topic to start off with, think of something else to comment on. "… How are you doing?"

Great going, Xia Lan.

"Still as awkward as ever, I see," Jared laughs from the other end of the line at the sheer transparency of her attempt at small pleasantries, but it's not a happy sound. He sounds tired. Xia Lan can feel something inside her chest twist and twinge at this realization. "Don't worry about us, we'll be fine. It's a little… upsetting, but it's nothing we can't pull through."

We'll be fine, he says.

… If 0-15 is something that can be considered fine, she'd eat her hat.

"What happened in the match?" Xia Lan asks, finally deciding to press on for details despite her reservations. "I was leading a boss hunt earlier, so I completely missed it. There aren't any recordings out yet, so I was wondering what happened for the results to be so incredibly–"

"Can't you tell by the score? We got our asses handed to us on a silver platter."

The sardonic words come out as a bitter drawl, dully mocking, and Xia Lan knows perfectly well that they aren't directed at her, not entirely. Jared's irritation, it's… understandable, even if she doesn't really appreciate the tone he's using with her right now. Then again, she's probably asking for it, throwing out such a tactless question like that so soon after the disastrous match.

"Sorry," she says quietly.

"… No, I'm sorry." The uncomfortable pause that falls between them for a few nerve-wracking heartbeats after her apology is eventually broken by an explosive exhale, accompanied by Jared's own apology. "Right now, I'm extremely that we lost our very first match like this, but that's no reason for me to take it out on you. I'm sorry, Lilith. Forgive me?"

"There's nothing to forgive," Xia Lan responds, entirely truthful. "My choice of wording was… very poor; it was not my intention to antagonize you, so I am at fault here as well."

"Guess that makes two of us, eh?" Jared laughs again, and this time, there's a trickle of something a little more good-humored in it, even despite the defeat. "… We fucked up. We really fucked up today, Lilith."

Xia Lan waits patiently for him to continue.

"… Remember how we used to get so much grief for fielding three Warlocks in the beginning? People would keep on taking them all out before had a chance to properly set up their spells to control the field, until we finally figured out a good dynamic to get it all going." Vaguely, she hears the sound of fingers typing over a keyboard from Jared's end of the line. Click-clack. Is he still sitting in front of his computer? If so, why isn't he online? "It's been so long since that's happened to us that I've almost forgotten what it felt like. Feels like, I guess. Damn."

Xia Lan blinks. Yes, the unconventional setup of fielding three Warlocks on the same team was extremely difficult to balance at first. Coordination, for one –three players throwing around a similar set of skills, more often than not tripping up their own team rather than the opposition. But Daniel, James, and Matt –dante, splishSPLASH, Vespertine, respectively– were talented, dedicated players in their own right, and they managed to make it work. It hadn't been deliberately planned, but slowly, the team came together.

Three Warlocks for control. A Cleric for healing. To take care of long-range damage, a Spitfire. And for close-range melee, a Knight and Blade Master to clear the way.

"What happened?" It's a harsh question, but one that must be asked. Xia Lan doesn't understand. Yes, to anyone else, this is a severely unbalanced team that can only truly excel at long-range, but the combined strength of a Knight and Blade Master is nothing to sneeze at, particularly when backed by four supports on the field; Ares, equipped with the silver-class Aegis, is not so easy to break through, and–

"Our main emphasis has always been on team coordination, for all the team matches out there. But the official rules include 1V1 PVP matches in the competition, right? So we've been trying to get up to speed individually on that recently," Jared explains. "But Team Echo… they're not just a stray team from nowhere, Lilith. Yes, they're not officially backed by any established eSports group, but they're the collective top players from Abyss, Illuminati, and Checkmate."

Familiar names, those guilds. It takes Xia Lan less than a second to recall where she's been repeatedly seeing them. "Aren't they the ones pretty much dominating the leaderboards for Top 100 in the PVP Arena?"

Xia Lan used to have a pretty respectable ranking, before dropping out when she started focusing on team competitions with Jared and the others. And afterwards, what with gathering materials and running the guild, she's admittedly a little out of touch with the PVP circle, but that doesn't mean she's oblivious as to what's going on over there. Courtesy of Chitter, mostly.

"Yes, that's them," Jared mutters darkly. "And it's just our luck to run headfirst into them for our first round. Our manager is furious."

… Yes, she can imagine that. The entire point of scouting a team is ensuring that the group will have a strong competing team in the new circuit; Xia Lan can take a guess at what GhostFyre's management has to say about the dismal score of 0-15, and it's nothing good. Fortunately –or unfortunately, depending on the perspective– all the papers for the season have already been signed, and there's not much that GhostFyre can do to change the lineup of their competing team for GLORY this year.

"So… the 1V1 matches. We lost all five of them?" Five 1V1 individual matches, one 7V7 team match. This was the structure the MLES chose to go with, if she remembers correctly.

"Yeah."

That was not a particularly happy tone of voice there. Tacitly, Xia Lan takes the hint and decides not to pursue this line of conversation any further. "Then, what happened in the team battle?"

There is a brief moment of silence from the other end of the line. "We… we miscalculated. They didn't –they didn't do any surveillance of the terrain; they just came straight for us! Shortest distance, shortest time, and they had their fucking Qi Master target me, right off the bat –who the fuck even goes for a Knight at the beginning of the match, anyways?– and then their Battle Mage just charged in and blew our entire formation apart–!"

To be honest… even though she's directly hearing it from her captain, Xia Lan is not entirely sold on this. A direct frontal assault straight off the bat in an official match, against a team known to be strong –it doesn't make any sense. Team battles are different from 1V1's. From the sound of things, Team Echo is a team filled with top-class PVP players, which had given them an edge over GhostFyre in the first round of 1V1 matches; fine. Xia Lan still can't quite believe that Jared and the others lost every single 1V1 match, but, fine. 1V1 is not their specialty; they're better than the average player, certainly, but all their efforts have been focused towards working together as a well-organized team. So, it's understandable that they're at a disadvantage against highly-ranked PVP players in GLORY. Okay. Xia Lan can accept that.

But conversely, teamwork is where GhostFyre shines. It's that very teamwork which has drawn them the attention of an official eSports group in the first place and secured them a professional contract, after all. So to lose in teamwork as well to a group of 1V1 PVP specialists, that's just…

… Really, really bad luck.

Xia Lan doesn't remember ever running into a mixed team lineup consisting solely of top 1V1 players from Abyss, Illuminati, and Checkmate; this means that Team Echo must be a relatively new team formed for the MLES circuit, one that definitely hasn't had as much experience as them competing in team tournaments. It's rare to see bullheaded charges like that in team matches nowadays; maybe that was what threw Jared and the others off? Having grown used to the higher level matches, where strategy is key and every move needs to be well-coordinated, maybe they'd simply been thrown off guard by Team Echo's unconventional ways?

Because as she's listening to Jared elaborate on the team's disastrous first match, it definitely sounds like Team Echo is a team of powerhouses who have no concept of what working together as a single unit really means, but somehow managed to tear apart GhostFyre's formation and wear them down in short order, turning what should be a team match into a heavy-handedly enforced set of seven 1V1 matches, essentially repeating their method of victory from the earlier–

Hold on a minute.

… Perhaps… perhaps this is their strategy? Matched against a team far superior to them in teamwork and coordination among its members –force them to abandon teamwork by dragging them into 1V1's? That's… much easier said than done, and no one in their right mind would ever think of playing a team battle this way, not unless–

Not unless they were a team of 1V1 specialists who were fully aware of their shortcomings against a well-developed team, who just so happened to favor a balance of players unsuited to engaging in 1V1's, who happened to be weak in 1V1's but deadly together. So their only chance at victory would be to tear this team down before they could get themselves set up properly, to force them to fight on their terms.

"That's…"

"Just a thought," Xia Lan shrugs after explaining her suspicions. "I don't know if this is really the case with Echo here, but… we're not exactly a no-name team anymore, and we haven't made a secret about the Pantheon's competing team being contracted by an official eSports group for the upcoming season."

"So, I shouldn't be surprised that there are people out there getting a head start on making strategies against us, because we've been competing in every possible team competition there is?" Jared groans, a static crackle on the other end of the line. "This just keeps getting better and better, doesn't it?"

"That might not necessarily be the case. I'm just bringing up a possibility here."

"Nah, it doesn't matter if that's the case for Echo or not," Jared responds firmly. "I didn't even think about this before, but you're right. Thanks for bringing this up, Lilith. We have a record out there, so it makes sense that anyone serious in aiming for victory is going to have plenty of material to study from when they prepare for a matchup against us. I don't regret it; we needed the experience to grow and develop as a team, but this definitely also means we have to do something about it before another team tries to do the same thing Echo pulled here."

"Echo is a bit of a special case, though," Xia Lan reminds him. "1V1 specialists, right? We're not ranked in the top PVP leaderboards, but we're still nothing to scoff at in regular 1V1 matches against your average player; it's just bad luck that pitted us against a top leaderboard lineup for the first match. Unless there's another team out there full of top tier PVP players, it's highly unlikely that the same strategy would work twice."

"It better not work again," the young man mutters darkly. "We're definitely still going to pick up the slack on our 1V1 training."

"That would probably be for the best," Xia Lan agrees. What she said is true; Jared, Cynthia, and the others –none of them are weak. But there's a marked gap between them and the top PVP players, and given the emphasis on single-player matchups in the MLES circuit so far, it's a good idea to try and close up this gap as much as possible. "But teamwork is important, too, so make sure you guys don't neglect that."

"Of course not," Jared laughs. This time, the sound is definitely something much lighter, and the girl feels a tension that she hadn't even realized was coiled in her body relax with it. "Thanks for calling me, Lilith, I really appreciate it."

"No problem," she responds, a small smile beginning to curve over her lips. They may have lost the match, but they are not defeated, and that's all that matters. Because gaming is supposed to be fun, right? Jared is the heart of the team, and as long as he has not fallen, Xia Lan has full confidence that everyone will be able to pull themselves together.

"We're only allowed a single loss in the preliminaries, before we actually get eliminated. This means that for all of our remaining matches, we can't afford to lose." His words are serious, but there is a fire that has been reignited in him again, burning brightly. "This might be a bad start, but we're going to win this thing, Lilith. And next year, we'll get to win together, yeah?"

Xia Lan smiles.

"Yeah, we will."

.

.

[Chitter]: so I hear u guys just wiped out the last team 15-0 yowch angry much?

[Chitter]: [Shiver][JPG]

[Athena]: :)

[Chitter]: srsly whats with this pattern first u go down 0-15 then u come back 15-0 what's next an 8-7 or something is ur guys' manager really okay with this?!

[Athena]: Thank you for your concern, but I believe that's none of your business. :)

[Chitter]: !

[Chitter]: SO COLD

[Chitter]: SO CRUEL

[Chitter]: [Cry][JPG]

[Chitter]: my heart just broke, athena. look. it's lying there on the ground in pieces.

[Athena]: There there [Pat][JPG]

"Lilith! How long are you going to stay cooped up in your room?! Didn't I tell you to clear out your schedule because we're heading to the zoo today?"

Briefly, the girl closes her eyes, and mentally counts to ten. Deep breaths. Acting on impulsive irritation does no one any good; this isn't the first time that Wu Yueru has previously promised Xia Lan a day to herself, then promptly backtracked over her words. Her mother is making an effort to be involved in her life now, which should be a good thing, a positive change. Marrying Vance Gundersen has clearly been good for her, given how Wu Yueru smiles much more and has a lighter spring in her steps, and despite how she still comes home late from work, it never seems like there's an invisible weight dragging her down anymore. She's also been trying to coordinate weekly family outings, trying to bring her husband and her daughter's out with her for family recreational activities, and Xia Lan can't fault her for that, shouldn't fault her for her efforts–

"Lilith!"

But sometimes, the girl can't help but wonder.

(Wu Yueru wants a close-knit family that consists of a kind, understanding husband and a docile, doting daughter. Given Xia Lan's aspirations for gaming, she very clearly does not fall neatly under the 'docile' label anymore; no need to add even more unnecessary grief onto Wu Yueru's shoulders. Wu Yueru, who only ever wants what's best for her family. Wu Yueru, who just wants to be happy, and how can happiness ever be wrong?)

[Chitter]: so care to share anything about ur escapades in pvp lately? i've been hearing some veryyy interesting things from sololo

[Athena]: Sorry, gotta run now.

[Chitter]: uh

[Athena]: See you around. [Bye][JPG]

[Chitter]: …..

[SYSTEM]: Player [Athena] is offline. Your message has been sent, but is currently unviewed.

[Chitter]: [Cry][JPG]

It takes less than five minutes for Xia Lan to shut down her computer and set aside her earphones, pull on a pair of socks and throw on the baggy school sweatshirt hanging in her closet above her old keyboard. Less than five minutes, but her mother is visibly displeased and impatient by the time her daughter makes it to the door, where she is standing with Vance.

In sharp contrast to Wu Yueru's ire, Vance gives her a sympathetic look. I'm sorry for what's coming and I tried to stop it, but you can't really expect me to go against the wishes of my lovely wife and your mother, right?

Xia Lan returns the silent message with a short nod. Thanks for trying.

"Young lady, I'll have you know it's rude to keep others waiting for you like this," Wu Yueru says, words sharp and lips turned downwards in a disapproving frown. "Vance and I might not mind, but you can't expect everyone else to stand around and waste their time waiting for you, understood?"

"Yes, mother." Xia Lan says nothing of how Wu Yueru had previously said that she could have Sunday to herself if she went clothes-shopping with her mother last week, only to promptly retract this literally right before Xia Lan went to sleep yesterday. There is no point in aggravating her mother when her ire has been incited like this. Even if she was the one who made these last-minute arrangements with an offhanded, 'A coworker offered me tickets to the zoo earlier this week and they're going to expire this week, it would be a fine shame to let them go to waste now, wouldn't it?'

Xia Lan had been half-asleep at the time her mother had announced this last night, and not entirely sure that Wu Yueru had actually been including her in that in the first place. Well. Now she knows for sure.

She gets a commiserating pat from her stepfather on their way to the car, for what it's worth.

"So, how's school going for you, Lilith?" Credit where it's due; Vance is a genuinely cheerful, easygoing person, and it's easy to see how his presence always manages to lighten up Wu Yueru's mood. How he manages to lighten up the mood of any room he's standing in with his jovial attitude. "Anything interesting happen in class lately?"

"Not really. My studies have been progressing well." That's an understatement. Ever since her declaration to graduate early, Xia Lan has been nothing if not meticulous in finishing her studies and taking her tests and putting everything in order –and while her teachers have always been under the impression that Xia Lan is a bright girl, they hadn't believed that she'd be able to pull off graduating two years early. Not until Xia Lan throws her full effort behind finishing her studies as soon as possible, and there is a truly marked difference in her performance that has them giving her funny looks like they can't believe it's actually her completing this work, but it is.

Recently, they've been trying to convince her to apply to college early or find herself a research program; maybe even an internship, if she's interested?

But Xia Lan knows what she'll be doing, once she graduates. It is for this very reason that she has been quietly rebuffing parent-teacher meetings as much as possible, and dragging Vance to stand in as her parent when such meetings are unavoidable. Thankfully, the man doesn't seem to mind, and legally she does count as being under his custody, so it's all good.

"Very concise," Vance chuckles. "So, are there any boys I need to beat off with a stick, then?"

"I'd save that stick for at least five years later down the road," Xia Lan responds, voice as dry as the desert sand, and her stepfather laughs. To the side, Wu Yueru just shakes her head, though there is a wry little smile of her own that surfaces over her lips. All jokes aside, she is pleased with the girl's response; in the past, Wu Yueru has made it very clear that she didn't want her daughter dating until she was at least in college, preferably after she graduated and found herself a steady job. Dating will distract a person from their studies, or so Wu Yueru had claimed.

Xia Lan hadn't really been listening. There was literally no possibility of her dating any of her fellow schoolchildren in the first place, so there hadn't really been any point in listening, anyways. She rather doubts that she'd form a romantic relationship with anyone, period, but she would save that can of worms for another time.

"Ha! Knew you had a sense of humor somewhere in there," Vance snorts. "Have you been to the zoo before?"

Once, yes. But that had been when she still lived in China, during a rare time when Wu Yueru and Xia Hong hadn't been arguing with each other, and decided to go on a small family outing much like this one –two parents, bringing their little girl to the local zoo.

"I don't really remember," Xia Lan doesn't quite lie –she doesn't remember very many details of that family trip so many years ago, so it's not actually a lie– and there's nothing more for her to say on the subject. "What's it like?"

"Wow, you haven't been to the zoo before? Well, lemme tell you, there's…"

The outing goes well. Xia Lan acts appropriately surprised when seeing exotic creatures, and properly intrigued when zookeepers go in to feed the animals. Vance is quite familiar with the zoo himself, and acts as a mini-tour guide, and Wu Yueru drifts by his side, every bit the charming lady, and the happy couple turn many heads on the streets that day. A perfect little family.

When they finally return home, Xia Lan is so exhausted and drained from the day's activities that she doesn't even bother logging onto Athena's account for a few last rounds of PVP before she goes to sleep. The day isn't altogether unsatisfying, and it does have its highlights, but nonetheless she still wishes that her mother would give a little more warning in advance before springing things on her like this. It would be very much appreciated.

.

.

GLORY.

The words leap across the scene, accompanied by the familiar sound of blades crossing, sliding and interlocking. Bold colors, blazing brightly.

Victory.

Xia Lan lets out a sharp exhale, leaning back in her seat. This match was… much more difficult than expected. She's been spending more time in the PVP arena, ever since Echo's successful example of the advantages in having considerable 1V1 experience, and even though she's unable to compete –well, there's nothing wrong with preparing for the next season a little early, is there? Even though she's a good hand at PVE and multi-player battles, thanks to her earlier stint in the team and the numerous boss hunts she's led, it's been awhile since she took PVP seriously, and that's a major oversight that she needs to rectify. And so, she's been working on it.

Climbing the ranks again has been slow going, since she's splitting her time between the guild and her personal PVP training, and in the beginning she kept having twitchy habits of getting distracted because of all the full-out, messy brawls she's been in (read: wild boss hunts), but she's been improving. Getting better at reading her opponent, and predicting their movements.

This particular opponent, though…

Cloudburst: Qi Master, level 60. He was… not hard to read, per se, but the way he chained his movements, smooth and efficient and in a way that kept forcing her to adjust Athena's attacks, it was decidedly difficult to land a solid hit on him. And he was sneaky; some openings weren't actually openings at all, and Xia Lan has been getter at reading feints and making her own feints, but if it hadn't been for her faster speed in chaining her attacks to eventually overwhelm him in the end, she definitely would've lost.

… Well, this would be why she needs more practice. More experience. She needs to improve, to be better, if she wants to be able to help her team next year. Jasper and Cynthia got one of their friends to stand in as a replacement Blade Master, and he's skilled, he works well enough with the team, but James and Matt had both privately confided in her that he had a tendency to get a little overenthusiastic and fall out of the team's rhythm, or push too fast a beat for them to properly match up to.

She's seen the recordings. It's… it's true. But he's been improving; the entire team has been improving, and Xia Lan is very much happy for them, even as she pushes herself harder and harder, because she refuses to be a liability for her team. If she's going into professional gaming, she's not going into it half-assed.

Hence, PVP practice.

[SYSTEM]: Player [Cloudburst] has sent you a friend request. Accept? [Y/N]

Xia Lan reaches up, stretching out her arms and her upper back, before settling down into a more comfortable position in her seat and picking up her mouse again.

[SYSTEM]: Friend request accepted! Player [Cloudburst] is now your friend.

He's good. Really good. Definitely a heck of a lot better than most of the players she's been practicing on lately, though that might be because she hasn't moved back into the top tier rankings quite just yet. Still, this is the toughest fight she's had in a long time, and Xia Lan can respect that.

[Cloudburst]: Hello

[Athena]: Hi

[Athena]: You're really skilled! Thank you for the match.

Always good to be polite, right? At least, that's what Cynthia says.

[Cloudburst]: Ah, thanks.

[Cloudburst]: I was just about to say the same, actually. You have very nice precision, and that APM is nothing to scoff at.

Xia Lan blinks, surprised, fingers stilling over the keyboard. Cloudburst was able to deduce that after a single match with her? Well, the APM part is a little obvious, but no one aside from her teammates have ever commented on her precision controls in-game.

[Athena]: Thank you.

[Cloudburst]: You're welcome. May I ask how long you've been playing?

… Huh. She's never really thought about it all that much, but she first started gaming when she was eight, so… seven years, approximately? Although, GLORY only came out in recent years. Strangely enough, this is the first time that this has actually came up for her in casual in-game conversation, discounting her teammates.

[Athena]: I started playing when GLORY was first released, so… three years, give or take.

[Cloudburst]: Very impressive.

Well, it's not like she's the only one. Most of the Heavenly Domain players all started on the first server in the initial release, and–

[Cloudburst]: Have you ever thought about going pro? You're definitely skilled enough for it.

Xia Lan tilts her head. She's not narcissistic enough to think that everyone playing GLORY knows her name, but Jared and the others have been doing pretty well in GhostFyre recently, and they're starting to make a name for themselves in the MLES circuit. And prior to the official debut as GhostFyre, Athena had been a regular member of the Pantheon's team in online competitions; most of the older GLORY players all know of her relation, to some degree. By default, Athena has been receiving a bit of a popularity boost in-game, as well.

Cloudburst's skill definitely doesn't strike her as that of an amateur, and from his question, he isn't altogether unfamiliar with the professional gaming scene, either? … She's a little confused.

[Athena]: I'm already joining up with a team next year.

[Athena]: This… this isn't a recruitment pitch, is it? If that's the case, I must respectfully decline.

The response from the other end is nearly immediate.

[Cloudburst]: No, no, sorry, that's not what I meant.

[Cloudburst]: [Laugh][JPG]

[Cloudburst]: It's great that you're aiming to play professionally! Always good to see new talent.

Okay, now she's even more confused. The GLORY circuit literally only started this year.

[Athena]: ?

[Athena]: … Are you a pro gamer?

It's the only feasible explanation she can think of, and Cloudburst is definitely skilled enough for it, but even then, it doesn't entirely make sense–

[Cloudburst]: Nah, I'm retired. [Smile][JPG]

[Cloudburst]: Played in China's league for the last three years, but I'm a little too old to keep up with all you younglings. Well, that doesn't mean I can't still dabble around for fun.

[Cloudburst]: So, how about another round?

.

.

…

.

EDIT 19.01.09: Minor grammar edits.

Author's Notes:

Ch 4 up. Apologies for the delay; RL has been pretty busy over here recently. It'll probably be awhile before we can get back to weekly updates.

On a brighter note, ocean waves now has fanart! Thank you to followtheherd for a lovely depiction of Xia Lan/Athena. :) I've reblogged it on my Tumblr page, and the link is also up on my profile, if anyone is interested.

In this chapter: A long conversation with Ares following the unraveling of the disastrous 0-15 scoring, some happy family moments, and we get a glimpse of the first canon character! Anyone know who I'm referring to? ;3

… Granted, it's only the canon character's game avatar popping up at the end here, and this is the canon character with the least amount of screen time, period…

Note: and all the lovely angels sing has also been updated! Again. (I actually slipped into second person while writing this chapter for ocean waves after angels sing so many times it's not even funny. Let me know if there are still any second person tidbits wandering around in the text and I'll fix it, yeah?)

No idea when the next update will be. Hopefully sometime within the next few weeks? By early November at least, hopefully, but I've got exams coming up soon. #goals

Ta,

XxZuiliu