"Rem, can I join you for a game?" Amarya chirped, tilting her head to the side.
Joan's eyes scanned her up and down, recognizing her uniform as the M High School uniform. "Sorry, there's a max of five per party." Joan gestured to the boys behind her. "The squad's full."
Amarya's smile remained unmoving. "A pity, isn't it? A 1v1 then. How about it?"
Her persistence annoyed Joan but intrigued her nevertheless. "Fine."
"I knew you'd come around eventually," Amarya giggled.
The young girl slipped into a Mortal Strike module as if it was natural, and Joan cocked an eyebrow at her bold behavior.
"Sorry, play without me." Joan waved to a stunned Navier before slipping into the Mortal Strike module beside the mysterious girl she had yet to know the name of.
"Ah- Huh? Wait, what? O-O-Okay, we'll watch." Navier gave an awkward thumbs up.
"What? You're ditching us so fast?" Viktor complained as he shook his head in annoyance. Secretly, he was excited to witness Rem's 1v1.
"What's your username?" Joan called.
"Hypatia."
The familiar name elicited a rise of the brow from Joan. She couldn't help but be reminded of Hypatia Owenby, the teenage girl who'd joined the Superhuman Division when her body had yet to be fully developed.
Not only that, but the girl also looked an awful lot like Hypatia with her small frame yet muscular build.
Joan shook the thought from her mind and friended the girl's account.
"What's your name?" Joan asked.
"Amarya Owenby."
Joan froze. Was she Hypatia's mother? Joan doubted it, but the twisting feeling refused to pass like a fading stomachache.
When Joan looked at Amarya's player statistics, her heart nearly leaped from her chest. Amarya wasn't just a casual player. She was an Apex player―one of the top 100 players on their server.
Even Joan had yet to reach that level. But taking into account that she had to carry lousy players every game, Joan doubted her current rank was an accurate depiction of her skill level.
"You're good," Joan noted.
"As are you. Immortal? Not bad."
Amarya's shrill voice held a mocking tone, one that Joan despised. She wasn't the strongest superhuman for no reason, and she refused to let some tiny girl step all over her.
"No way, she's an Apex?" Viktor whispered to Pablo. "How? She's so wimpy."
Pablo hummed as he scrolled through Amarya's player stats. "Not bad." A proud grin slowly spread across his face. "But Rem is better. That's for sure."
"Let's hop in, shall we?" Amarya said.
The world around Joan twisted into a familiar setting: Hollow Harrowgate. The ghost town was all too familiar to Joan. However, it was a terrain that Joan had yet to lose in. And she wouldn't lose to whoever the hell Hypatia Owenby was.
Joan looked around, scanning the area around where she spawned. She stood underneath the water tower, which was a few meters away from the ghost town��s outskirts.
"Lucky me," Joan said to herself as she climbed the ladder up the water tower. From the top of the building, she'd be able to snipe Amarya, but Amarya wouldn't be able to hit her. It was the perfect place to spawn in Hollow Harrowgate.
Joan pulled herself over the edge of the tower and squirmed to the edge facing the town. She pulled out her sniper rifle and set it on the edge. Silently, she waited for the first sign of life from the city.
She waited. And waited. And waited. But Amarya was nowhere to be found.
Joan frowned. Was Amarya waiting for her to make the first move?
However, as she was pondering the possibilities, a vibration stirred Joan's body. It reverberated throughout her body and shook her gun from its stable position.
What was going on?
Another vibration, and suddenly, Joan felt herself slipping from the side of the tower. She gasped in confusion, scrambling backward to prevent herself from falling over the edge and down to the ground.
She reached out to grab her slipping gun, but before she could, it had fallen over the edge and plummeted straight to the ground.
"Shit!" Joan cursed to herself as she scrambled further back toward the opposite edge.
The water tower continued to lean on its side, and Joan looked toward the base. At the bottom stood Amarya hacking away at the legs of the building with an ax.
She repeatedly swung her ax, putting her full body weight into the blow. Miraculously, the girl had cut two legs while Joan was sitting idly and was working on the third. How had Joan only just now noticed?
Joan scolded herself and pulled out the shotgun from her inventory. She rested it on her shoulder and pointed it at the girl below her.
Amarya, seemingly having sensed the gun, looked up and dodged to the right of the bullet. A melodic laugh left Amarya's module as her character disappeared under the water tower.
Joan hissed in annoyance as she put the shotgun back in her inventory. Her hands gripped the edge of the water tower as it continued to lean. She racked her brain, wondering what to do, but no concrete solution formed in her mind.
The water tower accelerated and began nearing the ground at an incredible rate. If she fell from this height, the fall damage would most definitely kill her.
Her eyebrows furrowed as she gnawed at her lip, judging the distance between her and the nearest building roof. The closest building was a barbershop with loose shingles.
The gap was massive, and Joan doubted she'd be able to leap it. But it was either that or dying from fall damage. Joan decided it was worth a shot.
As the top of the water tower neared 90 degrees, Joan sucked in a breath, squeezed her eyes shut, and hoped for the best. She snapped her eyes open, placed both of her feet firmly on the leaning water tower, and pushed off with all of her might.