Chapter 1: The New Standard
Miranda rocked abruptly in her chair as the person sitting next to her shoved her shoulder. That and the hissing sound from next to her could only mean one thing, Kelly had big news. The blond could have been the class queen with her model level looks but she completely ruined the image with her careless fashion and constant playfulness. In truth, Miranda was quite good looking but next to Kelly she was nothing. Resigning herself to whatever new gossip she had Miranda turned to entertain her long time friend.
"Have you heard?"
"Heard what?" Miranda purposefully drawled.
Kelli pouted, puffing out her cheeks in displeasure. "Don't be such a sourpuss, it's actually news this time."
"Okay, okay. Sorry." Miranda gave a helpless shrug and fixed her own caramel colored hair which had started to cover her face. She smiled at Kelly who winked back at her.
"You look so much prettier when you smile you know." Miranda rolled her eyes and Kelly giggled.
"Well don't hold me in suspense."
"I heard that we have to take a class in Champion Arena: Reborn."
"What?" Miranda's mind went blank. "Isn't that the new moba coming out this year?"
"Moba?"
"Multiplayer Online Battle Arena," explained Miranda. "It's a kind of video game."
"Yeah. Yeah! That's the one." Kelly fully turned in chair as she went on excitedly. "They're creating an entire competitive scene for it like for soccer or softball."
"How do they plan to make that work? Esports are really popular but not THAT popular."
"They have government backing. But that's not important." Miranda raised an eyebrow at that. The fact the initiative had the government itself backing it seemed pretty darn important to her. "You can get discounts based on your rank! And free things! Just imagine everything I could buy."
Right. Even though Kelly didn't care about her clothes or her weight which she never seemed to gain no matter how many sweets she ate, she cared about everything else about her appearance. Eyeliner, skin creams, nail polish, perfumes, soaps, and shampoos she wanted the best of all. Ironically she didn't care a wit for makeup which always confused Miranda to no end. Whatever, it was just one of her eccentric friend's many inconsistencies.
"You probably have to be higher ranked than we could ever get for that." Miranda sighed and rested her cheek on her fist. "I'm not looking forward to this unit at all."
"What?" Kelly stared at her as if she was an alien. "Didn't you used to play Champion Arena? Like all the time?"
"I did. I dropped it." Miranda continued in whiny high pitched voice. "Stop feeding noob! Shut up you f*cking idiot! You are actually autistic." She growled in frustration and threw her hands in the air helplessly before continuing in her normal voice. "Non-stop. All the f*cking time. Everyone and their mother thinks their the best thing since sliced bread and purposefully throw games just to annoy others. I hate it."
"Oh." Kelly finally replied in a small voice after Miranda's tirade before brightening. "Maybe it'll be better this time. After all, more people will be playing it no just those horrible people."
It was a fair point but Miranda still gave her friend a skeptical look before continuing on to other topics.
The class started next semester and, unfortunately for Miranda, it wasn't optional. She walked into a computer filled room to find most of the students clustered in small groups and a few particularly loud ones bragging about how good they were at the original Champion Arena. She rolled her eyes at their bravado and went to join Kelly who was waving at her from the front row.
No sooner had Miranda taken the saved seat than the teacher walked into the room. As the teacher got everyone situated she reached out and started unplugging things from the computer.
"What are you doing?" Miranda looked up to find the teacher watching her warily.
"Am I not allowed to use my own mouse and keyboard?" She pulled out a much smaller keyboard to show the teacher.
He scratched his head. "Yes, it's fine. But next time ask first, okay?"
"Oh, right." The thought hadn't even her mind. She just started doing. "My bad. Sorry."
He smiled down at her and waved the issue away. "No big deal. All of you are allowed to bring your own mice, keyboards, and earphones if you want, but it's not really necessary. The school provided ones are more than sufficient. Right. Where were we?"
The first thing they had to do was register for the game on the website. Miranda was later than everybody else having taken the time to get herself set up while everyone else dived right in.
"Oh, that's really cool."
After creating her account Miranda was directed to customize an avatar. Instead of the paradigm the mobas of old used where each player chose a preset hero, CAR (Champions Arena: Reborn) made so that each player had an avatar that they would always use as their hero and instead picked classes. It functioned much the same way but visually she liked the new one better. Giving in to her vanity Miranda tried to make the avatar as close to her as she possibly could.
Winning CAR was quite simple, destroy the enemy Core. Actually pulling it off was another story. The map for the arena was divided into three lanes, two long curved and one short and straight connecting the two bases. Between each lane was the jungle. Every so often waves of minions spawned in the base and traveled down the lane assaulting enemy forces they came across.
Each lane had two Pillars, tall stone Pillars with powerful attacks and hardy defenses. At the end of the lane just inside base sat a Crystal guarded by a Pillar. After destroying the Pillar guarding it, one could destroy the Crystal which caused a friendly cannon to spawn in that lane every so often. As long as at least one Crystal was destroyed, one could attack the two Pillars guarding the enemy Core and then the Core itself.
For the tutorial, there was only a single lane with no jungle. Miranda impatiently waited while game went through its scripted scenarios and messages telling her how to play. It didn't really matter to her since she would go into the settings later and change everything to her liking.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone