Chapter Three
I KNEW IT. I knew it. I mean, I didn’t know it; no one could have known it. But I knew something like this was going to happen. From the second I met Ivan at Wizzcon, I had a horrible, tickly feeling that it wasn’t the last time I’d see his smug face, and this is when that premonition comes true.
So why am I surprised? Like, stomach-flipping, breath-caught-in-my-throat, what-do-I-do-with-my-mouth surprised.
“You made it,” he said. Of course I made it, I think. It’s you who wasn’t supposed to make it. I have no idea how the fiftieth-place finish I made sure Ivan got in the Wizzcon battle earned him a spot in the summer academy, but that is a mystery I’ll have to solve later.
Ivan looks pleased to be in his element, in the Wizzard Theater and at the center of attention.
It’s weird seeing him again, but only in the way it’s weird when you go to a farm to pick pumpkins and see a peacock hanging out in the pen with the goats.
It’s jarring at first, but after a few seconds you remember what a farm is, and that animals live there, and it’s not the peacock that’s incongruous; it’s you.
I’m going to ignore Ivan entirely and plop down in the first seat by the theater doors.
I hope that if I stay up here deliberately enough, my peers’ sudden, uncomfortable interest in me will wane—and it does.
Some conversations resume, but my interruption came just late enough for people to start wondering if now would be a good idea to sit down.
Ivan is exactly as I remember. His coffee-brown hair looks freshly cut, short on the sides and long on the top with piecey strands that bounce against his cheeks when he moves his head to survey his domain.
His essence hasn’t changed either, and those green, green eyes are the same as I’ve been seeing in my sleep.
I could sniff him out in the dark, recognize his core Ivan-ness if I were spun around and blindfolded. He’s just that awful.
“Zora … ,” Cass begins a warning tone.
“I’m fine,” I cut him off. “Let’s just sit up here.” I’d prefer to have an ocean between Ivan and myself, or maybe a planet just to be safe, but I’ll settle for a majority of the seats in Wizzard’s indoor amphitheater.
“Just.” He sighs. “Don’t let him ruin your summer.”
“I won’t,” I promise. “Unless he does something stupid. Then I’m going to ruin his.”
“Welcome to the Wizzard Games Summer Academy Royale,” a disembodied yet familiar voice intones through the theater’s million-dollar sound system.
Cass and I have a millisecond to exchange a glance and sit up in our seats before every light in the theater goes out.
A few players squeal in surprise, and down below a handful of them wind up looking unintentionally spooky as the glow from their phone screens suddenly backlights their heads with a ghostly halo of white light.
One by one those lights go out too, extinguished in a chorus of digital clicks that echo around the room.
It’s finally starting, and the excitement I feel rising up in my chest reminds me that Cass is right. I can’t let Ivan being here ruin my summer. What’s about to happen here is bigger than both of us.
“Please welcome to the stage … summer academy president and cofounder of Wizzard Games, Brian Juno!” A single light flashes back on, and standing center stage with two hands on a mic stand is indeed the Brian Juno.
His purple three-piece suit makes him look like he just stepped off the page of one of the many, many magazines who have profiled his genius, but I know he’s not dressed up just for us.
A flawless bespoke suit has been Brian Juno’s everyday uniform for as long as he’s worked for Wizzard.
It’s not always purple, not always three-piece, but I’ve never seen him wearing anything casual.
I don’t think anyone has. He probably sleeps with a pocket square.
The look, combined with a slick haircut and a camera-friendly face, sets him apart from the stereotypical game studio grunt who shows up to work in a hoodie and jeans.
The difference is intentional; it’s the costume of a ringmaster, the showman who knows it takes more than a good idea to sell a game.
It’s genius, really, when you think about it.
Instant brand recognition in the form of a popular industry figure who looks like a movie star, in an old guy kind of way. But Brian Juno is definitely a genius.
Brian may not have created the Guardians series, but he was the one who believed in what it could become.
He transformed a suite of pretty good games into a ubiquitous name and used the money from those sales to make even better games, pushing the boundaries of what multiplayer and competition could look like when you build a dedicated audience of a million hyper-focused, obsessive weirdos like me.
He is a kingmaker, and in light of that I can ignore the fact that he’s decided to punctuate his entrance with one of those Kendrick Lamar songs you really should think twice about using if you’re a white person.
“Thank you! All right! Yeah! Hello, New York!” Brian waves at us, graciously accepting the applause that peters out only when the music fades completely.
“Before we start, here’s something you need to know.” His voice drops solemnly, with the unsubtle touch of a French Canadian accent echoing alongside his words. “You. Are all. Rock stars!”
I know he’s addressing the room, but Brian’s face is too earnest and his aura is too wholesome not to feel like he’s talking directly to me.
I have never once identified myself as a rock star, but if Brian Juno says I am, then it is so.
It’s impossible to take my eyes off him.
He has that same gravitational, eye-dragging magnetism that makes people want to stare at Ivan.
Who is not what I’m supposed to be thinking about right now.
Wait—about whom I am not supposed to think.
“When I suggested that Guardians League Royale should kick off its one-versus-one mode with the biggest battle royale competition in company history, what do you think they said?”
Brian trails off, as if waiting for someone to respond, but no one says anything. The moment drags on, past the point of my personal comfort. I mean, he asked a question, right? It’s only polite to respond.
“They said yes?” I pipe up.
Brian points up to the last row, right at me, and snaps his fingers. “Exactly! They said yes.”
I feel like I just gained a permanent buff to my intelligence stats. Too bad he couldn’t see it was me up here being right. Hi, Brian! Teach me how to be you, please.
“And from that one yes, our journey together began. You all battled online preliminaries for a chance to compete in one of twenty-five regional competitions with fifty players each.” Hell yeah, bro, do that math!
“From those twenty-five competitions the top two players from each battle emerged, and here you are now. Champions in your own right.” An explosion of applause makes Brian break the stride of his speech to give us credit.
He sweeps his hands up, welcoming us to clap louder.
“That’s right! Give yourselves a hand; you earned this! ”
Not all of us did, though. At Wizzcon, Ivan said he didn’t play in any preliminaries and that Brian Juno himself had asked him to compete. Is that how Ivan got another chance? How did he do that? Can I do that too?
“Players like you are the future of Wizzard. You know our games inside and out, you know what it takes to win, and you know what you love about Guardians League Royale. I can’t think of a better focus group to help us make GLR: 1v1 the best game mode we’ve ever added, or a better pool of people in which to find the two players most worthy of revealing 1v1 to the masses in our first event ever streamed worldwide, live from the Wizzard Theater! ”
Brian leans forward and grips the microphone like he’s about to burst into an Adele cover. He lowers his voice again, a repeat of the trick that forces us to lean forward in our seats and pay attention.
“But how will we find our final contenders? A true top two, but this time only one can win eternal glory.”
Cass leans over in his seat and suggestively bumps me with his shoulder.
“Pinata,” I whisper back at him, but turn my head so he can see I’m smiling.
“I will tell you,” Brian continues with a flourish.
Flourishes are also one of Brian’s things.
Whenever he speaks, even if it’s just a video call interview, he moves like he’s conducting an invisible orchestra.
He shrugs and nods and bops around like every moment in his world has a kick-ass backing track that only he can hear. One day I’ll hear the music too.
“But first, who better to herald the first steps of a new class of champions than Wizzard Games’ first-ever champions?”
First-ever champions? Wait. No way. There’s no way they are here today too.
Brian’s white spotlight suddenly expands to cover all of downstage, making it bright enough for Cass and me to see each other’s faces, but our hype is beyond words or expressions.
Instead, we smack each other on the knees a few times in the universal gesture for Are you hearing this shit?
“Please welcome Team Unity!”
Okay, okay, wow. So. Unity is a Guardians League Online team composed entirely of GOATs.
And not the peacock farm kind, the actual greatest players to ever play a Wizzard title.
Guardians League Online is a team game, which means I’ll never play it on purpose if I can help it, but everyone who’s even remotely interested in Wizzard knows Team Unity.