image [https://imgur.com/aUXNrTd.png]

As planned, I marched into the Middle Lane. Mr. Atlas went top, and Reens bottom.

I was not used to going into a lane alone. I used to play Support, after all. But in 3v3, there was no Support, nor was there a Jungler. There were three lanes, and the meta was simply one player from each team per lane.

I took my position under our team's outer mid tower. The golems, our minions, were on their way there, several paces behind me. I looked around to see which enemy would match my presence in lane. None of us knew our matchups.

In the shade of the enemy tower, was Lady the cat. As I laid eyes upon it, its lips curled, as though smiling with satisfaction.

Reens told me about her skills. She technically had three separate normal abilities and an Ultimate, but her normal abilities were near-identical. Though each had a different Mana cost and cooldown, all of them summoned blind, exploding mice.

Her first ability summoned a mouse that sprinted in a straight line, then exploded when it hit something. It was her fastest mouse.

Her second ability summoned a mouse that she could control. Its tail sticked straight up, like an antenna.

Her third ability summoned a mouse without a tail. It was arguably the most dangerous of the three. This mouse was fully autonomous, and used its sense of heat and smell to seek out prey on its own. It had infinite range.

Reens didn't have any intel on her Ultimate skill.

"I'm surprised," Lady said to me, a tinge of amusement in its voice. I could tell it was trying to suppress its natural feline hiss. "Sophia. The prey, now an aspiring predator."

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

I did not answer. That thing deserved no answers except my bullets.

"I was hoping to fight you," it said as its eyes narrowed. "You, who once hid to save dear old Saber. Now you gambling away the lives of your friends. What changed? Hah, did you finally learn the trick of the game?"

My golems met hers at the midpoint of the arena. I fired my first shot at an enemy golem. Lady summoned a single mouse that ran towards my cluster of golems. I ignored her words; I needed to focus on strategy. Reens had told us that these Bounty Hall leaders were strongest when fighting against lone enemies. Right now, I was at a disadvantage. I didn't need to win. Fighting her to a draw was good enough. Our chance to strike back would need to wait for when we would group up as three.

The cat tilted its head at me. "Good job, very good, you've finally figured it out," it hissed. "This is a single player game."

The mouse ran head-first into one of my golems. It bursted into a cloud of red mist. My golems, though made of stone, began to corrode away, as though eaten by acid.

"Bravo! You finally get it!" The cat stalked towards me and raised its voice to an elated, feral pitch. "These are games you play for yourself! You've reached the philosophy of the strong! No friends, only pawns. Isn't that right, Sophia? Isn't that what you're teaching your heart to feel?"

I continued to shoot at the enemy golems.

"I wonder how strong your heart is," the cat mused, approaching me slowly. "You think you've lost everything? You think grief has hardened you, isn't it so? Haughty little Sophia thinks she's stopped caring! Entertain my curiosity. How far can I push you before you break?"

There it was. Where I wanted it.

I fired my Frost Missile at a dying golem, taking it out. The projectile then ricocheted into the cat's flank. Its eyes widened with shock, only for a moment, before the impact launched it airborne like a ragdoll. It flopped back on to the ground with a bloodied thud. So much for catlike agility. For all its trickery, it was as frail as it looked.

It scowled at me, for but a brief moment. It was trying hard to keep its composure. I kept its center of mass in the sights of my gun. With the golem I just killed, I had gained enough XP to reach level 2. I conjured a disk of swirling water in front of me, violently swirling like a maelstrom.

"You should fear the one with nothing to lose," I finally replied.