Fireballs surged past Emma's face as she sprinted through the white sand of the beach towards her final opponent. He had terrible aim, though, and only around three actually hit her. That was enough to bring her health down to 70%, though, so she popped an [Emerald Heart] into her mouth as she ran. The jelly-like regeneration item went down like Jell-O, and tripled her regeneration rate for twenty seconds.

Her opponent, a tall man with long brown hair and rippling muscles, gave up on trying to hit her with fireballs and pulled out a large two-handed sword from the sheath on his back. It glinted in the bright sunlight as he raised it above his head, prepared to bring it down on her head when she got close enough. 

As far as gear went, this guy had the advantage. His enchanted iron armor that he'd probably found in a Tier 4 chest shone with the telling signs of a Reflection enchantment. 50% of any incoming damage to that piece of armor would be dealt back to the attacker. She'd been defeated by someone wearing similar armor last game. The broadsword in his hands was good too, it looked like it had some sort of flame enchantment based on the orange aura surrounding it. He must have been pretty lucky with his chest run. 

All that Emma'd found was a single Emerald Heart, a minor mobility boost, some shitty leather armor, and a shortsword. Sure, it was practically suicide to fight someone this decked-out with such terrible equipment, but they were the last two people in the whole game. This was the deciding fight. Whoever won this, won the game. Twenty-eight spectators looked on to watch the final showdown between these two fighters. 

She ran right under his sword, feinting a blow to his midsection before stepping off to the side. He didn't fall for it, and instead brought his sword down a bit to parry the attack. As expected of someone who made the final two... He isn't a complete idiot, at the very least. 

Emma did not relent. Leaping forward, she tried getting behind the range of his sword, aiming a slash at his throat. The cumbersome broadsword wouldn't be able to match her speed. He seemed to have been expecting it, though, and dealt a powerful kick to her midsection. She went down, doubled over and brought to 80% health. Her opponent grinned triumphantly and raised his sword, bringing it down in a mighty slash. However, she managed to ignore the pain and rolled to the side, evading the attack by less than an inch. 

She got back up to her feet, panting. A smile slowly crept across her face, and her eyes widened. This was... surprisingly fun. Much more than she'd expected of a stupid online game. Adrenaline surged through her as she readied her shortsword for another attack. 

"You're... pretty good, for a newbie." The muscled man grunted. His player tag read 'Kaidus_66'. 

"Am I?" Emma asked, smirking. "I thought you were just shitty for someone with over two hundred hours of playtime."

He glared at her. "What did you say?" 

Emma put a surprised look on her face, crossing her arms. "You didn't hear me? I was saying, you can't even aim your fireballs properly. And you're getting your ass kicked when it's only my third game. What kind of veteran are you?" 

"You little bitch." The grip on his sword tightened. "Just shut up and fight." 

"Gladly." Without a further word, she dashed straight towards her opponent, sword at the ready. 

Kaidus_66 swung his sword in a vertical arc, the slash aimed at Emma's midsection. 

She dodged in a squat and the heavy blade passed over her. Now, he was wide open. She held the shortsword in two hands as she leapt forward once more, escaping the range of the sword. Her opponent's eyes bulged as he realized what was happening. 

A wild grin spread across her face as she aimed a slash for the man's throat once again. 

Realizing that he wouldn't make it in time, Kaidus simply dropped the heavy sword and quickly brought his hands in front of him, and charged up two fireballs with everything he had left in his mana pool. Now she had nowhere to run. His mana dropped to zero as two beach ball-sized blasts of fire burst from his hands.

Emma had not anticipated this in the least. In a vain attempt to dodge, she turned her body sideways and was grazed by both blasts. Pain wracked her body as the intense heat charred both sides of her abdomen through her leather armor. Her health dropped to twenty percent, and rapidly decreased due to her [Burned] status. 

She fell to the ground, landing on her knees.

"Hahaha! Serves you right. Learn to respect your elders next time." The man prepared a kick aimed at her throat, and his heavy metal boot missed, instead hitting her directly in the chest. Her health fell to 7%. 

Emma was thrown through the air, falling on her back. Despite the pain, she struggled to her feet. There was no way in hell she was losing, especially after coming to the final two. Adrenaline was replaced by frustration and anger. 

Her health was falling quickly. She had less than five seconds before she'd die of her wounds. 

The man she'd been fighting was walking towards his broadsword, bending down to pick it up. 

A chance! With all the speed she could muster, Emma dashed towards the man and stabbed him in the most readily available place. 

The poor man took twelve inches of steel right up his ass. Well, it didn't quite go 'up', it kind of just went 'through'. 

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 Kaidus screamed, grabbing his wound with both hands and turning to face her. 

The last mistake he made that game. Just as he turned, a shiny, unstained shortsword brutally slashed through his throat, bringing his health to zero. 

At 1%, Emma's health stopped falling. She was the last one standing, and had won this Melee, her third game. She fell to her knees, panting. 

I... I won... 

Congratulations to player "Emmanent" on winning this round of Melee! Wins: 1

+300 MR. Present rank: 1,300 MR

2nd: Kaidus_66 -- +100 MR

3rd: Grendel -- +30 MR

Rewards for kill count will be distributed shortly.

+20 MR (Killed 1 person)

As the game ended, the lobby restarted and the two fighters found themselves in a room with the twenty-eight fallen players. Screens showing scenes of their fight with 'Winner' overlayed over each of them covered the room.

The room erupted in laughter. "Yo, did you see that shit? She stabbed him in the ass! That's what he gets for being careless." 

"If he had finished her off with another kick instead of letting her sneak up on him, he might have won," said one player. 

"I'm clipping this! That's hilarious." The clip ended up going viral not long after. 

That feeling of ecstacy she'd felt as she delivered that final slash with only 1% health remaining lingered for only a minute or so. But it was enough to drive her to want more. On her first day of playing, she got a taste of the thrill of victory in a battle to the death. It was a seed that would very soon grow into an unhealthy obsession with the game, and turn her already-enormous ego into full-on narcissism after a while.

She'd never felt something so good in her entire life.

"Having another fantasy about Scotty, Emma?" came a voice, interrupting her as she reminisced. "Your cheeks are bright red, you know." It was Rachel, her self-proclamed 'best friend', punishing her for zoning out in Art class.

"Hm? Who?" Emma replied.  

"You know! Scott! The hot guy in our Math class. He was in our group earlier." Rachel's eyes practically sparkled. She was clearly the one with a crush on him. Though, it wasn't hard to admit that Scott was an attractive guy. Blonde hair, blue eyes, tanned skin and toned muscles. Half the girls in the school had a crush on him. 

"Oh, right. Him." Emma wished that Rachel would leave her alone. Why did they have to have so many classes together? Still, she offered her best smile. 

"Don't tell me it was someone else?" Oh, great. Now she was going to nag until she found out who it was. There was only one way of getting out of this.

"Well... yes, actually." Emma said, looking away as if she were embarrassed. "I may have found someone I like. He probably doesn't like me back, though." 

"No way! Do you have a picture of him? What's his name?" Rachel asked greedily. 

"No, no pictures... His name was Kaidus." She grinned. It wasn't a complete lie. Nothing compared to the feeling of superiority and pride she'd felt because of him that day.

The two engaged in meaningless discussion until the end of art class. Though Emma didn't much care for Rachel, she was the only one to talk to her after being transferred to this new school. She suspected that the other students had learned about her reason for switching schools, not that she cared. So for at least not making her look like a complete loner, she was grateful. . 

Art was their last class of the day, and the two of them had buses on opposite sides of the school. They said their goodbyes, and each headed towards the buses that would take them home. 

The bus ride home was always a welcome experience for Emma. She sat in the back of the bus and quietly did homework. Emma disliked music, but kept headphones in her ears so that nobody would try talking to her. If she managed to get everything done, she could start playing as soon as she got home. 

Taking out her four assignments and getting everything situated, she got to work. This stuff was all way too easy. If you paid attention to even half of what was said in class, you could easily get an A. Yet there were people that failed. Utterly absurd. It was hard to believe monkeys like them had even made it this far into high school. Tenth grade must be terribly difficult with such a small amount of intelligence. 

Speaking of unintelligence... "Can I sit here?" came a male voice from beside her, as the bus grumbled to life under them.

She turned to look at the source of the voice. A short, curly-haired boy with glasses stood next to her. He scratched his head, reaching through tufts of black hair, and grinned sheepishly. "I'd sit somewhere else, but there are no more seats... I don't mean to bother you." 

Emma gave her most gracious smile and scooted over. "Sure you can." Ugh, why can't this midget sit on the floor or something? 

His eyes lit up. "Thank you!" 

"You seem surprised I said yes." Emma observed. 

"Well..." 

"Well, what? Did you think I was going to have you sit on the floor?" She offered a smile, and the kid's face turned bright red. 

"N-no! It's just that, well, people say you're kind of mean, and there are rumors... I can see that they're obviously not true though. You seem way too nice to do any of that stuff." He fidgeted with his hands as he spoke. 

"Rumors, huh? Like what?" she asked. 

"Well, some of them said you were sent here for being a bully in your school, another one said you, like, killed someone." He laughed. "That's why I don't like rumors." 

"You never know. You could be sitting next to a murderer right now," said Emma. 

The kid laughed again. "Yeah, right. I'm Toby, by the way." He blushed. 

"I'm Emma. So, I'm guessing you're a freshman?" She looked away from him and continued doing her work as they spoke. 

"Freshman? No... I'm a senior." Toby looked sort of hurt. 

"No way are you a senior. You're too small and cute." Emma smiled. "All the seniors I see are these huge, hairy dudes who dress like a hobo or in preppy-ass expensive clothes." 

He laughed. "Well... you aren't wrong." He took notice of her schoolwork as she did it. "Wow, you're like a machine! You do the problems so quickly." 

Emma felt kind of annoyed. Obviously she did them quickly, she was the top student in her grade. "Haha, thank you..." 

The bus suddenly stopped, causing her to draw a line across half the paper by mistake. She nearly groaned. 

"Well, this is my stop, so I gotta go. Here's my n-number if you wanna, like, talk, or something." He flushed red, handing her a small slip of paper, then fast-walked off the bus. 

It was only natural a boy would start to like her eventually. Emma was confident in herself, and was a very attractive girl. She had pale white skin, cool blue eyes, and long brown hair. As far as facial features went, she could easily be considered beautiful, and she wasn't lacking in the curves department, either. 

She could do better than Toby, she was sure, but cute submissive-looking people like him were exactly her type, being a complete sadist and all. She could probably mess around with him for a while, and try to get reactions out of him to see what he did. Yes, that would be interesting. 

She watched the short boy as he walked down the street towards where his house probably was, a bit of a skip in his step as he walked. 

You're gonna be mine, like it or not, Toby.