Lizzie
Not much after the special dinner, we were in Krakow. For both me and Ezra it was the first time this far to the east. Erik and Aidan were in Krakow before and Joe never visited Poland, but went to Russia once. While Ezra and I look around in surprise, Erik and Joe navigated us to the hotel. Sabine and Luis were getting along better and better every day and I had trust in them, to create a monster draft for the games for third place. Once checked in, we were picked up by some rioters to visit the Stadium and see where our prep room was. Once there, we immediately went to the area where we would play. I smiled when I saw that they were testing our seats now. Suddenly all the casters were next to us too. "Excited?" Eefje asked me and I nod. "Yeah, I never thought we would actually make it to a stage like this." I say and she smiles. "I believe you can make it to worlds this year. In fact, I am silently rooting for you." She says and I smile. "Thanks, but I am sub these games. Alfie's contract ends next week so we want to let him play some games. If they don't win and we need to go ham for a reverse sweep, they'll switch me in." I say and she laughs. "Yeah I guess." She says and I smile. "And if you win, excited to go to Korea then?" She asks and I nod. "Yeah, I am. I always wanted to try something else than the decent Kimchi we have here in Berlin." I say and she laughs. "Believe me, it is great there." She says and I laugh, feeling warm inside. Suddenly they take Ezra and Aidan from the group. "Feature?" I ask Eefje and she nods. "One game will be mid focus, one will be ADC focus." She explains and I nod.
After Ezra and Aidan return, we walk to the prep room and sit behind the PCs they had set up for us. "So here is where you can train for the next few days. If there are any other questions, we have plenty of people around here who you can ask." The rioters closes off and I start the PC where my mouse and mousepad lays. "Who is in for some streaming?" I ask as I set up my webcam and my laptop to read donations and comments. Ezra immediately joins in with Aidan and Erik. Joe smiles. "Let's do this, teamqueue." He says and I laugh. "Let's all do random and see what we get." Ezra suggests as I invite them to the game. We all select random and I launch the queue. I quickly set up the stream and see the people coming in. I click the AFK-check and we are launched to champ select. "SUPPORT." I scream and laugh. Aidan got ADC so I smile wickedly. "And I am last pick, oh how much fun us this going to be." I joke and he sighs. He picks Jhin, so I start giggling. Once I get to pick, I instalock Jarvan and hear him sigh. "You are support, not a feeding toplaner!" He screams from the other side of the table and I laugh. Once we are loaded in game, I get my Relic shield and healthpots, starting with my E. "Full AP Jarvan so I can make PeacePidgeon proud and swagflag the living shit out of people." I smile and Aidan sighs. But the game goes surprisingly well. I managed to steal A dragon and a baron with my swagflag, and I the carries everytime Aidan ulted. My streamchat kept spamming PogChamp and Kappa. At one moment a donation came in. "$4.20, hey FeedMe, last time Jarvan support worked was when I was high on all the crack in your stream. 3 you rurururururururururururururururu." The text-to-voice said and we all laugh. "Yeah Sneaky got the memers, Febi the flamers, and I the crack addicts." I joke and Erik starts laughing. At one moment Ezra starts gigglin. "Guys, look who is online in our discord?" He says and I laugh. "SNEAKY SENPAI." I scream and swipe his speech icon to our stream one. "Hellooooow" he says as he notices he is in my stream now. "Aaaay LMAO." I say and he laughs. "I just tweeted your stream, so wait for the views to update." He says and I look at my laptop as I wait to respawn "How did it go from 1200 to 6k?" I ask and he smiles. "The power of the crack and the memes." He says and I laugh. "Meme me senpai." I joke and he laughs. "Come to worlds and I will meme you everyday." He says and I laugh. "I will try Senpai." I laugh and Ezra laughs. "Idiots." He says aloud and I laugh, as I get a three man ult off an make sure Aidan gets a double kill. We run for the nexus, finish the game and smile as we see the LP gain. "Plus 21, OH HELL YEAH." Ezra screams next to me and I laugh. I create another game and not much later we load in again.
Back at the hotel, we decide that me and Freyja share a room and we walk there. I sit down on my bed and look outside. "What is it?" Freyja asks and I smile. "It is just that less than 3 months ago, I was nothing, and now, I am suddenly popular. I am cool, awesome, and what more. It's just so strange." I explain and she hugs me. "I know, all the guys are struggling with all the sudden popularity too." She says and I nod. "How is it, being in Krakow after everything that happened in the last month?" She asks and I smile. "It feels godly." I say and she smiles. "Can I ask you something?" She asks and I nod. "Is Alfie actually going to play?" I nod. "He comes in tomorrow, missed his plane from Heathrow. Why do you ask?" I tell her and she nods. "Because the team is terrible without you. They make terrible calls because you aren't shotcalling, and to be honest, Alfie is just too unexperienced to actually be good." She tells me and I smile. "I know Freyja, that you and Luis aren't fans of that choice I made, but believe me, if they are 2-0, I will be subbed back in and make a reverse sweep." I say and she looks at me. "It will be too late, Lizzie, because the Unicorns are really strong right now. We all need you on that chair from the first game on." She says and I shake my head. "I won't do that, Freyja. I will give Alfie his chance, and don't forget, I am usually the huge, annoying surprise." I explain to her and she sighs. "We'll need you, you'll see the day after tomorrow." She tells me and leaves for the bathroom.
Two days later we walk backstage. Alfie arrived yesterday and soon had the feel again, something was missing. Alfie was still a little shaken from his ban from Riot, but promised us to play as good as possible. We didn't expect any less from him. We were backstage, and they were playing a games against bot to warm up a little. I smiled as I saw how their communication got better and better, and I smiled at Sabine, looking quickly at the clock and give her a nod. "We are ready to launch." I say and she nods. The guys closed off the game and quickly we went through all out strategies. Ban on Nidalee, maybe Kha'zix, Alfie on his comfort pick Lee Sin, Ezra on Ziggs, all the other bans and counterpicks. A little too soon we were visited by the Riot boy, who had to pick us up and bring us to the security check. I went though it too, so I could sit with Sabine and we could decide to sub me in. But to be able too, I had to get checked too. While Sabine and the guys walked to the area where they had to get up, I went to the little, empty hallway where two PC screens were set up, one on either side of the corridor, and walked to the guy that guarded the one with "DMF" on the PC. He nodded as I passed him and sat in one of the two chairs in front of the PC. I watched them get on stage and saw the pick and ban phase. It was over too soon. We had an okay teamcomp. Darius top, Zac jungle (they banned our Lee sadly), Ezra had Victor mid (to counter their Azir) and bot was Aidan's favourite lane, Nami and Vayne. That was while they had a Mao'kai top, Elise jungle, Azir was on mid and the botlane was Sivir and Braum. Sabine joined me not much later, her notepad open, making quick notes of the gameplay. The game, went okay, until Alfie had to gank mid. Ezra was doing pretty well and rarely missed more than one wave of CS, while Exileh was trying to hard to poke Ezra out of lane. Alfie's passive, the second life that would grant him, was on cooldown, and he was low HP. Exileh easily played around him and solokilled both Alfie and Ezra. Dissapointment flooded my face. Exileh secured the first turret gold with that move and placed us out of the game we wanted to play with them. That was not the only mistake. Alfie kept diving as a madman, forgetting he was behind on gold, and dying everytime. Even though bot was doing a great job at keeping steady and even, Joe and Ezra struggled a lot more, since Alfie's focus was all on bot. I looked to Sabine with a face of disappointment as the Unicorns closed out the game. "If they lose the next game, you sub me in." I say and she nods.
The second game was even worse. Non of them got a pick they were good on, none of them could secure a laning phase, we even didn't get one turret when the unicorns closed the second game too. I didn't see it happen, I was changing into my jersey and walked to the security again, to get my stuff and give it to the Rioter who had to install it. I walked to them and they all had a look of relieve. "Alfie, go backstage to Oliver and Luis, I take it from here." I say and he nodded. The meeting was too short to discuss everything, but we had the basics. I was going Kha'zix, so we could assasinate them all. While we walked to the stage, I vaguely could hear Quickshot's voice telling the people that I subbed in and that everything was different now. I sat down on my stage, breathing nervously. "Okay, this is the plan. We now are going to play all on botlane, ganks are botlane focussed, every move should be for bot." Sabine tells us and I nod. We get into the banphase, and I sigh as I see their bans. "Kha, Shyvana and Xin?" I say and Sabine suddenly laughs silently. "What?" I ask and she turns to me. "They didn't ban Sejuani." She tells me and I look at her. "You want my Sejuani? I mean she isn't an assassin." I say and she smiles. "That doesn't matter, what matters is the fact that you can ult them, you force them to play flawless, which makes them make mistakes." She tells me and I nod. Soon we got a great team. Renekton, Sejuani, Taliyah, Vayne and Nami against the Unicorns' Mao'kai, Lee, Aurelion Sol, Ashe and Braum. I smiled as we loaded in. "Good luck." I say and prepare myself.
The games, were a massacre, for them. We managed to secure first blood on an invade, we trampled them to dust, and to top that off, we managed to get the first Sejuani pentakill in European proplay. I didn't look up from my screen until I saw we secured the win. I rose and took of my headset, walking off stage to hold a small meeting for the next game. Everyone was going crazy in the audience and I smiled as I saw a devastated look on the Unicorns' faces. We were back in this. Game 4, was less exciting but the last game, the closing game, was intense. We started with picking the ultimate team for us. Joe had hovered Darius, until the last second, and then locked in Heimerdinger. I quickly followed by locking in Kha'zix. They already had Gnar, and quickly locked in Draven and Braum. I nodded to Ezra and Aidan as they locked in Vayne and Lulu. They responded with Karma and Nidalee. Erik turned his attention to Joe. "Want to pull out the little piece of mutant inbred shrooms?" He asked Joe and Joe smiled wickedly. "No, hover Azir, last second locking in Teemo." He explained and we all laughed. "Oh you are rude." Ezra says and I smile. Through the bright lights, I can make out the confused face of Move and giggle. "Lock it now." Joe commands and quickly everyone switches so we all have the right champions.
That game was a party for us. Joe had sacrificed all defensive stats and went full AP, granting him a huge head start in the game, something Vizicsasci never expected to face, and I happily camped top to give Joe an even bigger head start. Ezra managed to solokill Karma a couple of times, and the only one who died was Erik. It was an absolute slaughter and as Ezra channeled his inner xPeke and prepared for a backdoor, I was running through our jungle, picking up all the buffs we had and ran into Veritas, doing my red buff. I jumped him and deleted him, followed by his support Hylissang, and cleared mid and helped Ezra run it down. The death times were long, too long for them to stop us. Exileh was up first, but not even his Karma did enough damage to take us down. We ended and we jumped up, hugging each other and cheering. I was the first one to leave the group, after mere seconds, and made my way over to the Unicorns, and shaking their hands. Move pulled me in for a quick hug and I smiled. "Well played little noob." He says in a teasing tone and I smile. Veritas looks a little tilted, while Hylissang smiles. "We'll try our bests to come with you guys to worlds." He says and gives me a tight hug. I smile and see that my guys followed me.
After the whole post-game shenenigans, I walked with Erik backstage, talking about the game and after a while the conversation ends on me and Eefje. I sigh as he asks me if there is nothing I could do. I stop him, not noticing Eefje and Trevor walking behind us and look at him. "It is Eefje, possibly one of the straightest girls I've ever known, one of the most popular girls in the complete scene, including streamers and youtubers, and who am I? The little strong jungler from a new team in the LCS, with only one secret, and that is that I am lesbian. She doesn't love me Erik." I hiss and look up as I hear a gasp. A second later a hand connects with my cheek and I see Eefje running away from me. I stand in shock as Erik looks to Trevor, who quickly follows Eefje. "You were right." He says as he pulls me in a hug. I start to tear up a little. "I messed it up, now she won't ever talk to me again." I cry in his arms as he keeps saying comforting things.
What I didn't know, was the aftermath this was going to be...