His tick was as painfully evident as everything but thankfully he had managed to wipe all of the sweat off his brow. It was the first time he had done anything in months that actually required him to come out of the house.
The overwatch bug had bit him and he had found someone whose screen handle was PorterHouse42 to partner up with and now they were participating in a live tournament. Rhys only hoped he could contain himself because as he watched all of the people go back and forth staring at his sign on it's little cardboard box, that was all they did stare. No one stopped and he knew he was young but even so none of them stopped.
One woman had even dropped her tablet and it had landed against Rhys' foot. He clumsily picked it up being all thumbs and handed it back to her and she smiled. When he stuttered out why, she simply said that it had been broken but now it seemed to be working just fine. He simply nodded, confused as everything and shamefully finally held up a sign with his screen handle on it as well.
Cheshire Cat. He took a lot of pride in his screen handle but right now he just wanted to tuck tail and run home but he promised himself he would at least stay out today and maybe win a tournament.
I had for months now been working on my rank in Overwatch, i started with my old COD clan but they slowly fell apart as they realized it wasn't all camping, sniping and kill streaks. NO this game required genuine team work to succeed and no amount of golden shit talk could save you from that small fact. While half of my clan would run off and chase kills leaving the payload sitting motionless I quickly understood i needed new comrades if i wanted to sit atop the leader board and laugh at the puny mortals who tried to climb up to the peak with me.
Either way after a long hard search I came across my new road dog, who played a fairly decent roadhog actually even though it wasn't his main, the user name Cheshire Cat would join along the soon to be fabled Porterhouse For Two! or Porterhouse42 as it appeared to those who fell to me in combat. Chesire or Ches as i called him played a mean Mercy and wasn't afraid to pocket me when I played Dva and trashed through the competition. Still I was at my best when i was blinking in and out of combat as Tracer, bobing and weaving and doing over 75 percent of my teams damage annihilating anything that happened between me and my objective!
The thrill was real, it was such an escape from my racist home town of bumfuck georgia! And to think my mother thought i was spending the weekend at my friends house across town, if she only knew i was all the way across the country! I walked off the bus and looked back and fourth. So many people, all of them would soon know the taste of defeat at the hands of Porterhouse42 and I promise it would be well done!!
Out the corner of my eye I saw him, a bit puny but what could expect from a mercy main amirite?
"Ches!," I exclaimed "Its me Porter! Good to finally meet the main who raises me on a regular basis!,"
Respond. Respond. Rhys stood there like a bump on a log and finally nodded.
"J..j..just doing my job,"
His voice failed in comparison to Porter's. Speaking he felt like an idiot if he had to refer to him as Porter. He wiped his hand and extended it although it was a bit shaky.
"You can call me Rhys, nice to meet you. I went ahead and took the liberty of registering us, well attempting to register us,"
he said as he began to walk and then paused waiting for Porter to follow him.
"I swear it's like machines hate me though. I got our names halfway in and they said it was okay. We are actually seated up front, well two rows back from the very front. Wait until you see the station set up. It's circular, a bit like a maze and I get a bit excited thinking about it. How are you liking California so far?"
This kid talked more in person than he did online, still as long as he brought his mad heal skills and was able to keep from getting pounced on by some over aggressive winston in a wannabe dive comp then he could rattle on all he wanted. I glanced around at the hordes of people as the excitement continued to boil. He had made all the arrangements, we had one more guy supposed to be meeting us here. We had entered the 3v3 lockout elimination together so we wouldn't have to carry any losers with us and the grand prize was still pretty legit.
"Cool, I don't know how your a gamer Ches...," He wanted to be called by his real name? That was weird but whatever "uh Rhys, but yea not sure how you game when you hate electronics but still you seen 1trick76 yet?,"
1 Trick was pretty much what the name said, a damn good dps when it comes to playing Soldier 76, thankfully for us most of the soldier skills transfer over to any hit scan hero so he can play our DPS during the tournament without being useless when 76 is locked out. "We need to get some game talk settled, i still don't like our 3rd team make up. You should be mercy while we are on our third stringers so you can raise us if we screw up, but we can talk when 1trick gets here..,"
Rhys shook his head. He stopped almost suddenly and looked around, trying his best to ignore all the sounds of the talking in an attempt to find 1trick76. Rhys had no idea what the guy looked like but when you considered the 110 plus hours that the three had clocked together he hoped that he would not be too hard to find.
Rhys exchanged signs and pointed over to a corner. He looked back at Porter and thought a minute before he spoke.
"Come on, that is our station. I will hold up this sign and he or she should be able to find us. We have..."
He looked down. Oh right he had tossed his watch because it kept being weird and who wore watches anymore anyway? Regretfully he opened up his bag and pulled out his phone. He began to explain before even being asked just out of habit.
"My dad likes to keep tabs on me, hence the phone and I don't like spinach but I need vegetables so I eat it. It's like that with electronics. I prefer to do things with as less of electronics as possible but it's not the way of the world so I adapt..just at a turtle's pace even though I do not like it. Besides you never seen me game in person."
Rhys did not know what it was but it was an excitement unlike any other. Probably the start of an addiction but he was so young he could hopefully kick it.
"When we win this tournament, you'll see what I mean. You and 1trick76 can have all the money by the way. I do not want any, just the rush of winning will be enough for me."
That was when the shadow of 1trick76 came to them and Rhys looked up. Naturally his face was hooked to his phone. Rhys rolled his eyes and put his hand on the phone.
"1trick76, Porter's going to want your full attention so I will just hold onto this for you while we discuss strategy, Porter go ahead,"
Rhys said as he plopped down on the floor. He looked at 1 trick's phone, it was a lot like his own just more decorated. Rhys wondered what his ring tone was for default calls and almost instantly some song that Rhys had never heard. Rhys dropped 1trick's phone and his eyes went wide. He did not recognize the song at all but he did like the beat. Wait..
"Oh Rihanna,"
Even in his boy cave of solitude he knew who Rihanna was. #Dreamgirlstatus# Then it happened, Rhys went into his own world. He began to bob his head and he might have even threw in a clumsy looking dab but none of his dance moves were important. He picked 1trick's phone up and his too and began to use both of them as a set of drum sticks against the floor.
I need this on my phone. I need to make a note to download it when I get home.
Then he had his little moment where he forgot he was in public and he stood up because Rihanna just did that to him. He stood up and for one reason or another thought that his poor dancing would actually get better but the truth was it only got worse. So bad in fact that Rhys actually dropped both phones, with his own phone landing on the bottom of the two screen up and 1trick76's phone landing on top of it.
Rhys did not even have to look at his phone to know that it was cracked to hell and back. None the less since it had been his own fault he handed 1trick76 his phone back and sighed as he looked at his broken reflection and not just because his screen was cracked. He was surely in trouble. His father had chastised him for less. He shook it off and tossed the phone into his bag.
"Alright now that my moment of daydreaming is over, what's the strategy?"
1Trick76, was a bit older than I expected from my best guess he was at least 40. He was going slightly bald and grey around the corners. He had at least 4 chins and the bottom of his belly stuck out under his Green Lantern T shirt. He looked like one of those guys on the sexual predator website my mama is always scrolling to make sure no one was in my neighborhood. She swears she seen Mr Jackson my math teacher on their once but can't find him again.
"OK so simple guys, we just take a deep breath and pretend this is quick play. We need three winning combos, I say we hit them hard as hell with a Dive. I can Dva, get Ches here on Zen and 1trick you come hard with 76,"
I continued my strat, their looks and new faces didn't matter anymore I was in the zone. "We should have a win by then so i say we take a turn and go full cancer, Orisa, Bastion and let Ches Fall back with a Ana healer. Finish it off with Mercy, I can Tracer and 1 Trick can roadhog for us."
Now that I think about it he kind of looked like road hog.
"Sounds good," he grunted and I smiled. It was time to take these fools down!
Wow. Rhys stood up and as far away from 1Trick76 as he could and while he knew they were in it to win it this man looked..Rhys chuckled nervously to himself.
***
To say it was a nice four hours was almost an understatement and now that they had left 1Trick76 back where he had came from Rhys and Porter were headed back to his house.
"My dad has this machine that will count the money for you. Also you're probably going to want to get it all mostly in smaller bills, not carry more than a bunch of twenties so people don't think you stole it. Also everything in my house runs off of one network because my dad is the fat lazy type so just ignore all the stuff. It's just basic stuff you know, tv's, alarm system, phones, so on and so forth."
He said as they finally arrived at his house. He rubbed his head self consciencely and stopped.
"A quick thing or two Porter. First of all my dad is a bit of a sleaze and second he has a pacemaker. I mean he's a bit of a hard ass but he's my dad you know so even though he's a douche I'm sure he means well. Come on let's get you set with your money and headed on the way."
The door handled jingled open before Rhys could get in good and he stepped in quickly falling under his father's shadow.
"Dad this is,"
Before Rhys could get it out good his father grunted in a way that signaled that he did not care. Rhys sighed and that was when his father began.
'You were only to be gone an hour and a half. Rhys it's four hours later, and you damn well that when we make an agreement I expect you to stick to it.'
"I lost track of time, but I'm back now."
It was not what his father wanted to hear though, to his father it was just his kid giving him another excuse. Rhys watched his father's hand go up and he felt the fear enter his body, slid down his spine, and shiver across his arms.
"STOP!,"
Rhys said as he held his hands up in a self defense motion and believe a stop was what happened alright. Rhys watched his father fall over. His eyes went wide with panic and he motioned as he spoke to Porter.
"Porter close the door."
Rhys said as his voice came out as shaky as a leaf on a crisp autum day. Rhys looked around the room tossing his bag across the room and his phone slid out next to his feet as he did his best to turn his father over on his back.
"Such a fat bastard,"
he said as he looked up at Porter.
AFTER YOU SHUT THE DOOR, CALL 911!!!
he screamed at Porter. That was when he felt his phone vibrate and he heard a beeping. As much as he wished it was the pace maker it was not. It was a device that his father had, some ALRT, personal emergency response device. In Simultaneously his phone and the emergency response device came across and the voice of an operator was heard.
911, What's your emergency?
That wasn't what caught Rhys' attention though, his father even in possible death was about to come back and cause trouble for him. Everything on the network started going haywire. The television begin to blink on and off, the alarm system begin to set off, causing lights on and off on the outside of the house, all noise heard over the phone by now for sure. The operator was once again heard.
Hello? Calling 911 when it's not an emergency is not a game to be played.
Rhys needed to be slapped back into reality and quickly it seemed.
Winning was great, getting rich one PK at a time. That's how it feels to be a professional gamer, it was good and as soon as we ditched 1trick (he was creeping me out a bit) we were able to party a bit as we headed towards my mate's home. I needed a place to crash before that long bus ride back to georgia. I didn't expect what was next that's for sure, the fight between Rhys and his father was more than intense, it was when the TV's and phones started going crazy that really freaked me out.
"No, no it's an emergancy," I blurted out randomly in the air. The Tv's were blinking and the voice of the operators where coming from every speaker in the house. He seemed to have some sort of sound system hooked up so every eletronic in the home was connected. Rhys was freaking out, shaking and trembling and his father lay motionless on the ground.
Why did I have to always keep my cool, it's just like in the 4th round of the tournament when 1trick and Ches both dropped and I had to solo the last two by myself on tracer. A Roadhog and Mercy to boot that's not an easy task. Still I kept my cool and dropped the litle bitches like no bodies business.
"My friend just fell to the ground, he isn't moving. I think he has a pacemaker we need help he may be having a heart attack,"
Before the operator said anything else everything went black. The lights, the phones, the TVs all turned off. I looked at Rhys confused "Your wiring sucks! How do we get this back on? Do you know CPR what are we doing Rhys snap out of it,"
I took the liberty of slapping my friend hard on the cheek to get his witts about him "GOd Damn it Raise him Mercy, its your dad!,"
Rhys wanted to answer but he..he did not feel the need. He felt the slap and blinked a couple of times. The operator, well that seemed shot to heck now. Rhys heard the last few words.
"He's dead, it will do no good. I don't know how I know I just..know."
Before he got to say anything else he heard the ambulance. The e.m.t.'s rushed in pushing the two boys to the side. Rhys thought that he would rather them not have showed up but right now he was slotting that under being selfish and spiraling straight down into a system of grief. He picked up the phone that he thought was Porter's and gave it to him.
"Go home and forget this ever happened. I will be in touch."
Sadly Porter was his only..friend? he supposed was the word.
*** Two days ago***
It was unusual for Porter to not be on, and Rhys well Rhys was not worried but the two had witnessed something that to Porter might have been traumatic even though it was months ago. As Rhys looked the dots over, he supposed he was headed for the school where Porter still was, after all he needed his phone back. Also a friend was nice, because friends kept you from doing stupid stuff or at least did the stupid stuff with you and played games with. No matter. He needed his phone back.
Plus the way he seen it leaving this house, was the only thing good right now and who knows maybe Porter had actually got into something fun.
