In the days leading up to the race to world first for fatal mode Operation Heathrow, the guild players set out to farm materials used for runes, food and potions. The by-products of having to farm these materials in areas populated with mobs and open-world quests allow them to craft other items, such as cosmetics.

Then comes Tuesday morning, where everyone is urged to log in early, so they can have patch 2.1b downloaded, with some fixes for some issues that were deemed less urgent by the manufacturer than the ones addressed in 2.1a. And, of course, Breathalyzer News has a podcast about the race to world first active and rotates among the forerunner streamers.

As Karine starts the stream early in the morning, some of her colleagues tune in on her stream, especially those working remotely, while the bulk of the viewers tuning in are either European or Asian.

"Welcome to the pre-race stream of the Operation Heathrow Race to World First, brought to you by Monseigneur Tanking!" Karine opens the stream, seeing hundreds of viewers at once.

And, of course, many of the tank lovers of MAA, especially bishop fans, have come to watch her on Twitch, by virtue of being a community favorite of people wanting to watch ranged high-evasion tanks.

However, the RWF draws viewers to high-end raiding who wouldn't watch raid streamers otherwise. The people who don't pick streamers to follow based on one's skill with a spec. The people who vicariously raid through a stream because they can't do it themselves.

For those who want to watch a specific spec, though, Breathalyzer News breaks down streamers based on the specs being run on air, as well as a link to the streamer's page in BN's system, where one can check on a player's raid progression status. A few minutes before fatal mode opens:

"This week will be rough, as we will be going into uncharted territory. Because we'll be playing against teams from around the world, and our main opponents are expected to play for very long hours, please make sure you have your provisions at the ready! Coffee, energy drinks, food, you name it" Karine harangues her players, while some of them have entire crates of ramen close by, as well as drinks.

In MAA's world, however, as soon as the reset hits, at 1PM GMT, and hence players are able to log in, the magical portals leading to Operation Heathrow have crowds of people waiting for their turn to enter it along with their respective teams. May Clavet take good care of Karine's home while I'm off to fight Belzebuth, Monseigneur starts thinking, while she's standing in a crowded area inside a castle room with hundreds of people piled up in a cramped space.

"And... let's roll!" Karine yells while the frame rates of everyone involved appear to diminish as they rush into Operation Heathrow's portal. "Operation Heathrow is go!"

Once they get onto the portal, the Death Fiscalists find themselves at the Terminal 5 roundabout, where an improvised repair shop is set up, complete with a blacksmith, a tailor and a leatherworker to repair weapons and heavy armor, light and medium armor respectively.

In fatal mode, a new type of trash mob is deployed on the access ramp to Terminal 5's departures plaza, and the outskirts of it, other than just airport security, squad cars and riot police: SWAT officers, the latter hiding behind riot police. And firing flashbang grenades that force Karine to pop the high mass on them, right after drawing the bright line in front of the melee DPS.

While the high mass causes the SWAT officers not to fire any further flashbang grenades, the flashbangs that did detonate near them end up stunning them for a few seconds apiece, causing the riot police to target the party at point-blank. In turn, the ranged DPS pop their stun-breakers and pelt the blinded riot police with massed area-of-effect attacks that affect the SWAT officers in their sleep.

"And now, the moment of truth: the overpass turn collapsed in a previous stream last week, let's pray that the overpass has been repaired since our last trip!" Karine tells her viewers as they are about to get to the sharp turn on the access ramp.

The answer to this question is yes, where they fight another trash pack not unlike the previous one. The guildies then sigh of relief when they realize the overpass hasn't exploded underneath them. Before they pull the boss:

"Be on the lookout for extra mechanics; there's usually one or two more in fatal mode"

Speaking of extra mechanics, the first phase forces the players to stack on a narrow strip to take down beacons that reflect all attacks made against it from outside melee range. The healers remain on the cart island, which isn't safe anymore. And realize the hard way that they need to stand on a thin white line when they want to hit beacons, while potentially getting hit by the taxi stampede, since the beacons are on lanes. It also seems like the taxi stampede continues until the beacons are destroyed here.

However, they go into the second phase with several characters dead, which makes them lose any hope they can take out the security chief on the first pull. They keep going, but the group's DPS is a little low, so they get to see all the extra mechanics of the second phase, even in death. Yet, Karine grabs all the reinforcements summoned by the boss, and herds them to the boss, with another bright line to blind them. Béteulle is about to get the third stack of the turnstile curse, time to AOE taunt, I guess... Karine starts thinking, while her teammates whose characters died are watching a variety of other streamers.

"Guys, it appears that Kataparuto is in the lead! They are closing in on the kill!" Caroline, a panicked DPS, whose character lays bloodied on the floor, yells on voice. "There's a third phase, where chunks of the plaza are fired at using an attack helicopter, aiming at the players! Stack on each other at the edges of the plaza and then go back to the boss for that phase!"

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Kataparuto? That's one big surprise to me; Japanese guilds never seemed to amount to much in past MAA RWFs, Caroline starts thinking while both Kataparuto and the Death Fiscalists wipe on their own sides, when the DFs hit the second phase's enrage timer.

"You now have a better idea of how to deal with the beacons when the taxi stampede mechanic happens?" Karine asks her players.

"Also, for phase three, once the red circles are locked in, we have five seconds to get out and it tears off parts of the platform" Caroline comments on the third phase, which is new in fatal mode.

"Ready check!" Ram then presses on the RC, before counting down the pull.

But now that the players know just how narrow the safety stripes are for the taxi stampede mechanic, they try their best to step on the safety stripes dividing lanes, knowing the taxi drivers can also drive straight through the cart islands in fatal mode. This caused carts to get plowed by the taxis.

As they get to the third phase, here Kataparuto and the Death Fiscalists are neck-and-neck, they feel like every second counts. Every drop of DPS counts even, and they pop buff potions right after they return to the boss in phase 3, to which they get by some miracle with only one battle rez in phase 2.

However, in phase 3, the boss is standing in one of the circles left behind by the players. And, because Ram can barely step out of the circle, the boss doesn't get out of the blast radius in time. As the floor collapses underneath the boss, the boss falls down the hole in the plaza, and the plaza collapsing kills some police officers. Which causes the remaining mobs around the fallen to chase the raiders around the arrivals access ramp.

"Get as close as we possibly can to the fork in the road, and then mow down the mobs alongside the boss!" Karine changes her plan, since the boss falling a collapsed departures plaza causes the three melees to lose some DPS uptime.

The ranged DPS, as well as the tanks, take potshots at the boss as well as at the trash clinging on to him as they run down the departures access ramp, so the loss in DPS isn't total. With, of course, Karine drawing a bright line on the arrivals access ramp to blind the airport security.

It took the boss about sixty seconds to catch up to the players, and, for the most part, the departure access ramp's guardrails prevented the SWAT and squad cars from hitting the raiders since they had no line of sight. However, the raiders punched holes in the access ramp, with falling debris hitting trash mobs.

By that point, however, the world is watching them as Kataparuto appears to have wiped once more, and the other two front-runners at the RWF had an extra pull but only started phase 3 on their current pull.

If we wipe here, and the boss falls down a collapsed departures plaza again, at least there shouldn't be more trash bothering us from outside the terminal, another Death Fiscalist DPS starts thinking as they get to the fork in the road, and leaps his character towards the boss. By doing so, that DPS puts his missile on the departures access ramp.

And the bloodied corpses of the riot police officers litter the arrivals access ramp while the squad cars are still operational, but right next to the boss. With the 3 melees tunneling the boss, they are about to realize that the squad cars can put them in a world of hurt. As such, one of the melee DPS puts a missile on the squad cars, destroying both.

Yet, causing the boss to fall down a collapsing floor made other teams readjust how to approach the third phase: some of them, namely Kronborg, would rather put the boss into the blast radius, while others, such as Donghua Networks, prefer to have the boss out of the "stupid" on top of the players. But as the Death Fiscalists hit the final enrage timer, they are picked off one by one by the boss, causing an ending that's all too familiar to them: a wipe.

"OK, we killed off trash on the arrivals access ramp, but don't worry about the loss of DPS. We didn't know the third phase well, but then again no one does yet" Karine sighs while the guild prepares for another pull.

The departures plaza and access ramp are rebuilt between pulls. Now that there is no more trash to kill on the arrivals ramp, in phase 3, the melee DPS jump down immediately after the collapse of the departures plaza's floor. And the ranged DPS don't need to use AOE attacks anymore, and they can then focus on the boss itself.

And, since none of the 4 forerunners have a kill on this boss, it's still wide open. But by this point, a fifth challenger appears to catch up to the other four: the Korean guild Bulgogi.

"Kataparuto, now Bulgogi? What's going on there?" a puzzled Caroline asks her guildies as her character dies to a lag spike causing her to eat a missile she shouldn't have.

With the gain in DPS, they appear to be on track to kill the boss, but they redouble their efforts, seeing both Bulgogi and Kataparuto hot on their trail, and, unlike them, prefer to keep the boss out of the missiles' blast radius. Yet, for some reason, Kronborg seems to be struggling.

But then the DPS start falling one by one because it's more difficult for melee DPS to dodge attacks and then get back into the fight. When the Death Fiscalists are up against the rage timer because of these deaths, they are down to the tanks, the healers and 2 ranged DPS, but at the same time, the boss is down to 2%. It's then that Francis finally dares rez Caroline's character, and she needs to run like the wind to even get in range to start hitting the boss again.

To stall for time, Karine draws a bright line near the fork in the road, causing the boss to be blinded for a while, and then she activates target painting when all 3 ranged DPS are still attacking, raising their critical rate by 80% for 10 seconds. So like, Caroline, whose "normal" critical hit rate is 40%, would hit crits 72% of the time during these 10 seconds.

But then the boss behaves erratically under the effects of the enrage timer, and even Karine's kiting, while buying precious few seconds for the party, ultimately gets her character killed.

"Béteulle! Béteulle!" Karine starts chanting, powerless over what's happening around the fork in the road.

Béteulle also dies shortly thereafter. Down to the ranged DPS, and to 1%, they stay focused on getting a kill on the boss, and, because Caroline is the lowest on the "aggro table", a few seconds later, she's the last one standing, and she then drinks a burst potion. It's down to her to get one last high explosive round in as a skirmisher.

And... boom! Direct hit, and the boss dies in an explosion of its neck, causing blood to be spilled on the asphalt pavement.

"We did it! We killed the first boss of fatal Operation Heathrow!" an overjoyed Karine shouts on voice.

"And... Kataparuto, too" Caroline adds, upon checking Breathalyzer News for clears.

Now, that's the kind of moments I play and stream MAA for! Even if we don't win the overall race, being the world first on an individual boss is better than nothing. So at least I have something to show for a week off from work, Karine reflects on the early successes of Canada's Death Fiscalists in this RWF.

But killing the security chief is just the beginning for them. After he dies, all damage to the access ramps and the departures plaza is repaired. All players hurry up and repair their equipment before proceeding further inside Terminal 5.

"There's no telling which one is more advantageous in fatal mode, between entering the baggage handling system from the check-in counter and the carousel, so we clear all the trash at both!" Karine orders her team to round up as much trash as possible on both floors of the terminal.