Timaeus' week had not been great. First, there was that whole thing with the Liyue fetor; then, he spent half of Lantern Rite sick. He needed a break. He went to the Cat's Tail, looking to unwind, and started a game with a pink-haired girl dressed in Watatsumi garbs.
He sent out his Raiden Ei deck. She utterly destroyed his setup in three turns and then wiped him out. He tried his Wanderer deck next, and she eviscerated him. His Emperor of Fire and Iron deck and his All-Devouring Narwhal-Xinyan-Apep deck lost. She systematically disrupted his strategy each time so he couldn't set up. It seemed her decks were tailor-made to destroy his.
They ended their fifth round with his Nahida-Fischl-Lyney deck in utter shambles. He rubbed the back of his head in disbelief.
"Wow, you're good at this."
The woman glared at him with the lethality of a sharply honed blade.
"You're awful."
"I mean… I know I'm not great, but…"
She slammed a fist on the table.
"Your lackluster skills aren't the issue here. I'd respect you if you were a newbie trying out a new strategy. Instead, you're using the most asinine top-tier decks!"
Timaeus blinked. "Well, yeah. I want to win."
"By making the game miserable for everyone else?! Do you think I enjoy building a deck specifically to counter the same strategy instead of developing my own strategy? Don't you think that maybe I would like to try out the new cards like Clorinde or Mualani without worrying, 'Oh, is my opponent going to use an anti-fun deck that will just set up and wipe me out?' Raiden Shogun burst spammers like you ruin this game. You people don't innovate. You just eat and regurgitate the same crap every single time and expect the rest of us to suffer because you don't want to play the game. Orobashi damn it, come up with something original that doesn't recycle obnoxious strategies, you stupid goober!"
Timaeus stared, utterly shocked by the sweet-voiced woman uttering such a foul-mouthed tirade. He couldn't quite formulate a response. Kokomi glared balefully at him like he was the scum of Teyvat.
"Um… you don't have to play with me if you don't want to…"
"Actually, I do," she hissed. "If you're going to make this game miserable for everyone else, then I'm going to make it miserable for you. That's my revenge on you Shogun spammers."
Timaeus sighed. The Cat's Tail had really gotten lax with regulating who could come in here. The whole place seemed to have gone downhill.
"Well, it's about time for me to head home," he said. "Thanks for the game."
"Shogun scum spammer," Kokomi glowered.
Timaeus smiled as politely as he could and left. Next time he came back, he'd either avoid playing with that girl or he'd throw out those scum decks.
This had not been his week.