One World Apart

It was fourth grade when I met a young boy. He was quite the peculiar child, always smiling and laughing about something. His silver hair was well known throughout the school, and was greatly loved by all his classmates.

One day, I was playing a fighting game on my phone, when I hear him call out to me,

"You look lonely-want to play a match with me?"

"Eh, no"

He paused for a second, but almost as if he didn't hear me, he gave me his phone.

I look at it, then go back to playing my own game.

After another few seconds, he says

"If I win, you friend me, if you win, I will never bother you again." 

I was pretty confident in my skills, and have recently gotten a little bored of the game, so I accepted his challenge. He leaves after that and I go back to playing my own match.

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Later that evening, after leaving school, I get on my phone, and I see an invite to a custom match sent by the boy. I walk up to my room, and lay on my bed, preparing to start the game.

The game is in a 'first to 3 points' style, almost completely based off skill, but also with a little bit of luck . Each round, a random body part is chosen, and hitting that part will result in a point. But a key aspect of the game is that you don't know which body part the enemy is targeting, so you don't know which body part to protect.

The battlefield this time was an underground steampunk themed city. Dilapidated fences and buildings, worn down with time, are scattered across the map, with gas blowing into the air from vents on the ground. The gas blocked vision, and tall buildings provide players with lots of coverage. 

As a sniper, I have a higher chance of being placed at a high altitude, and with a special scope equipped, I can see enemies through smoke. The match starts, and the random body part is...The Quads, Specifically the Left Quad. I click my tongue, as this was a slightly more difficult body part to hit. I also don't know what the boy's class is, so being cautious here is my number one priority. 

I am already laid flat on my stomach, waiting for any signs of movement. I hear a sound coming from my left, and I instantly turn in that direction, seeing a silhouette of a man behind some smoke. Right when he moves, I shoot, hitting him straight in the leg. Satisfied with the shot, I wait, but no sign of gaining a point appears. I suddenly feel a presence above me and instinctively roll to left, just avoiding the slash coming from above.

I run and jump towards the next building, watching behind me, but he's gone. I turn around, and suddenly see him in front of me. Putting together the fact that he was able to sense me, produce a fake, and get to me so fast, I have now deduced that he was a mage-class, specifically, a jokester. But a jokester was special, people with that class are able to wield a knife as well. 

It was surprising, as it is known that a jokester is one of hardest classes to learn. 

I regain my composure and went invisible--one of a sniper's abilities. 

I moved towards a high platform, and after getting set up, I prepare to fire. Laying completely still, I wait...and wait....and wait. After scouting around for a few minutes, I adjust my eyes for a split second, but right when I turn back, I suddenly become immobile. I look at the scoreboard, and a point has been awarded towards the boy. It turns out, his body-part target were the eyes. I look at the replay and see that the boy has been hiding in the vents, and right when I adjust my eyesight, he shoots a magical bullet at my sniper. It goes through the lens, and hit me in the eyes right when I look back into my scope. 

Lucky shot! I mutter beneath my breath.

I stay calm, since it was only one point I lost in. 

The next round I am given the target of the Stomach, which is a lot larger of a target to hit.

The game starts and I shoot right at his body when he moves, a perfect shot!...but it was just a fake. I instantly jump and move to a different building, preventing him from being able to detect my location. I scope in to get a closer view at the battlefield and I see him on the ground.

He was trying to defend his stomach by facing it downwards.

He hides behind a wall, and seems to be trying to move to a place where he would be able to attack me. I wait patiently, but he suddenly runs out, I shoot, but missed his stomach during his roll, only hitting his shoulder. He took the time to get behind a cloud of smoke, but...

He doesn't know that I can see his silhouette!

As I start aiming towards him, I see him moving vigorously, I cannot tell what he's doing but I can see his body.

Now, here's a trick:

I alter the shape of my bullets to become more round-nosed and shoot the bullet towards the concrete walls at a shallow angle. This will allow the bullet to ricochet, and sure enough, the bullet bounced from the surrounding walls and hit him right in the stomach.

The third point was also won by me, as this time the target was the Carpus, or the Wrist. This round gave me a bit of trouble. I shot two quick shots to lure him out from behind the wall. As the wall was beginning to break apart, he decides to run behind smoke again, straight into my line of vision. This time, however, he raises a hand to shoot a barrage of magical bullet at me, unaware that my target were his wrists. But the shots were horribly off aim with no clear target, that I easily dodge the bullets, roll once, and shoot my own bullet towards him. It hits him right in the wrist, earning myself the point.

In the fourth round, however, I was given the Lats, an unusual muscle as a target. This muscle was particularly difficult to hit, since it was underneath his arm, and every angle I try to take just doesn't seem to work. The boy, however, caught up to me, and using gravity, caused a stalactite to fall from the ceiling, impaling my back. I was particularly grumpy about this point, since it seemed highly unfair to me, that I had to hit his lats while his target was my back, but I brushed it off as just bad luck. 

I completely focus up for this last point, who knows what type of tricks he would pull this time? The target I got was...the Head.

Wait, the HEAD!!! 

I was shocked by this insane RNG, the Head is commonly know has the prime target for a sniper, and one of the easiest shots to pull off. I position my self at the highest point possible, a building at the corner of the map and can see pretty much everything on the battlefield. But before I could even prepare, I hear a woosh and dodge just in time to see a magic bullet fly and hit the wall behind me. 

He already found me?!

Still on top of the building, I get a message from the boy,

"HAHAHA, almost got you there didn't I!?"

Tskk...

I ignore the message, only for another one to be sent:

"Oh yeah, and my target is your Feet!! Have fun!"

Completely confused as to why he would reveal his target, I decided to message back:

"What are you trying to get at?"

"It's just to help you a bit. I promise you, I'm not lying!"

Reading this I can envision him smiling when typing the last message, almost as if he was taunting me.

Instead of responding, I look and aim at the boy, particularly paying attention to defending my feet. I suddenly I see small chunks of rock floating in the air.

He's not going to drop rocks on me again is he?! 

Already seeing this trick, I dash to the right, but only see a great shadow looming above me. 

He used gravity to pull the rocks together into a massive platform, and predicted that I would dodge to the right!

He was trying to squash my whole body!

However, it was not enough. I use a slide ability to narrowly dodge the slab of concrete, and swoop around in an 120 degree turn, and shoot a bullet at his head.

Got you now! 

I smile with content, waiting for the bullet to hit, but right as it made contact, the boy disappeared, and I knew instantly something was off.

I fell for his trap.

That was a fake?!!?

Then where could he be now?!?

I suddenly look down, and realize the vents!!

But how will he hit me? The vent was not directly beneath me!

I suddenly see a glow, and realize his true intention. He wanted for me to dodge the massive slab with the 120 degree turn, and bring me to this specific spot.

Has he been planning this from the beginning?!?!

I now remember that during round two, he was facing downwards. I thought he was protecting his stomach, but he was actually drawing and setting up a trap in the floor before-hand. He intentionally drew it behind smoke, since I couldn't actually see what was on the ground behind smoke. In round three, he intentionally shot randomly at me, with no regard of aim, to distract me from noticing his left hand, which was being used to imbue a spell into the trap he set in the round before.

The Jokester class excelled at setting traps, but in reality, these traps would easily be dodged, that's why it was such a difficult class to master. 

But he played perfectly...

I had no more abilities left, and this was impossible to dodge. A second later, flames engulfed my lower body and the point was awarded towards the young boy.

A message pops up:

"Good Game! And very well played. I have never seen anybody so accurate on the sniper before! You truly are a great player."

"To see somebody play the role of Jokester so well....I guess it kind of fits you, but a good game it was."

I leave the game, and collapse on my bed. I groan and lay on my back. Although it may seem that I was salty about this defeat, inside, I was actually extremely excited. I have not had that much fun playing any game in so long.

After the match, I held up my end of the deal and friended him. Over the course of the next five years, we frequently play together, all genres of games, and soon dominated the leaderboards.