Gabriel King, E-Sports Coach

Gabe was having a hard time getting hard. This happened far more frequently than he would have liked. His brain was a never-ending avalanche of ideas and anxieties. Even with Hilda going down on him. They were supposed to be fucking in the closet but his concern about getting hard had inevitably led to this situation.

“Come on.” Hilda urged, not unkindly. She’d been excited about this. But time was stretching on and their match was coming up. “They’ll be looking for us.”

Add getting caught to the debris tumbling through his mind. “Yeah, I know. I’m almost there…” Lies. He'd all but given up on getting hard and was now just trying to find a graceful exit out of the situation.

Her words or his thoughts had either summoned the beast, or… Gabe didn’t know what. But regardless the closet door flew open in the next moment. “Nice.” Jasmine, the flower named she-beast stood there, scowl trained on Gabe.

Hilda deflated like a popped balloon and skunked away from him. Kicked dogs looked less pathetic. “We…”

“You’re late for the match.” Jasmine took Hilda by the wrist and pulled her out of the closet and away from Gabe.

Less than humiliated Gabe was panicking. He reached out for Jasmine, pants still around his ankles. “I…”

“Can finish just fine on your own.” She slammed the door, in his face and was gone.

“Perfect.” Gabe allowed himself a minute of self-imploding pity, before he pulled his pants up, and walked out. People were waiting for him, and it's not like this closet was getting any more productive.

Gabe was a little Angel, blonde hair, blue eyes, and the face of a cherub. He was wearing a jersey that said “Furies” black shirt with red and orange trim. He’s found the artist for the logo, found a supplier, and got everything sized. These were his shirts.

Outside the closet, there was a whole world, swathed in pink, red, and blue lights. A mumbling crowd of nerds waited in the studio. Gabe climbed down the stairs from backstage and ducked his way into the front row. One of his girls would have been swarmed on sight, but he lived in the comfortable anonymity of a professional.

Vera the den mother gave him an affable smile. She moved her coat out of a seat and patted it for him. “Saved it for ya.” He could always count on her to be a friend.

“Thanks.” He plopped in his chair, and hoped he didn’t smell too much like wet dick. Despite what was a career-ending mistake back there in the closet, he cared about what Vera thought about him. At the moment he was juggling with a few losses and he didn't want her respect to be one of them.

“How are they looking?” Lana peered out from behind Vera.

Gabe smiled softly at her. Was it wrong that he found his girlfriend’s face so much hotter when it was on her sister? It felt wrong. Good news was that if Jasmine had her way, him and Ana wouldn’t be anything in a few hours. “They look good, plus Ydrassil is on their alternate today. I’m feeling good!”

‘I want to die.’ A strong selling point of him being the 'furies’ coach had been that he wasn’t a sexual predator! Once the owner heard about this, he’d be out on his ass. He'd do it if he was in her position.

“This is so exciting. When we were kids, I was in theater. Everyone figured I’d end up on stage, but it was the computer girl who made it.” And the best thing about Lana is that she meant it. Gabe had only know the woman for a few hours, but he felt intensely attracted to her positivity. She had it all, her sister's good look, and none of the cynical snark.

“She’s very special.” Gabe agreed.

“Think they’re nervous?” Vera asked.

They’d been playing Living in Sin for twelve hours a day, for three months. Gabe would feel like that was all a huge waste of time if they didn’t make it past their first match. So it was safe to say they were nervous too. “They got nothing to be worried about.”

Jasmine had finished whatever she’d been meaning to do backstage and now joined the three cheerleaders in the front row. “I told her.” She said simply.

Yep.

They sure as hell better win now, otherwise, he really was a complete piece of shit. Well, he was one way or the other but the least he could do was be good at his job while he was slutting it up around the house.

“You told her before the match?” Gabe hissed. “Why are you putting that in her head three minutes before?”

“You were putting your thing in Hilda’s head five minutes before.” She poked him in the chest. He was sure she’d intended to pierce his sternum with that. “So shut up.”

“That was an accident.” What the fuck? He couldn’t believe he said that. There was just something about this woman that made it impossible for him to back down. They'd actually started out as friends, she's the one who hired him onto the team. They'd gotten drinks, had a great time. Then he'd started dating Anna, and that was that. Jasmine made it clear, that her stance was that no coach should be sleeping with their athlete. She made it clear everyday in every way she could .

She was equally unimpressed by his excuse. “I gave you slack for Anna because you two had the cute couple thing going on, but I’m not going to let you treat these girls like they’re your own personal harem.”

That had been the final word on the matter. After that the festivities began.

The Furies were one of Sixteen teams that made up the North American Sky League, an all-female E-Sport league. Each team was made of three players, plus an alternate.

The game of Choice was living in Sin. A chaotic 2D team fighter. Players built up a team of fighters and engaged each other in one on one matches. Mid-fight the players could tag out with another team member so their character could rest and heal. The cast of characters was a fun mix of historical figures, all women. The roster was somewhat small, but when you chose a character you picked a sin to brand them with. A branding animation played for each character and it could not be skipped. These brands unlocked new powers and moves for each girl, which made the same character play drastically differently depending on their choice.

The Furies mains Line up was:

Anna as their starter playing Bloody Mary (Rage) this was a default option, but still solid. Mary absolutely tore up unprepared players, and Ana never switched out, she just savaged the enemy team doing as much damage as she could before she was finally put down. Anna also just happened to be the number one ranked Mary Player in the country.

After that it was Precious playing Cleopatra (Lust). Lust turned Cleopatra into a zoner who used mark Anthony as a puppet to do melee damage. While her main body was safe on the other side of the map, Mark Anthony was juggling opponents against a wall. After fighting Anna, Precious had plenty of time to learn her opponent’s behaviors and usually had an easy time blocking her foes moves.

Their Sweeper was Hilda, playing Joan (pride) Joan was the only Pride character that didn’t her to be the starter. This meant she got all of the stat boosts, and didn’t have to go into the game blind. Additionally, Pride characters couldn’t switch out, but since their team was built to ignore that mechanic this didn’t matter. By this point in the games, their opponents were on slivers, while Hilda had a fully healed, fully buffed character-ready roll.

This is how they would conquer the world, or at least North America.

The match had a long preamble where the hosts introduced the league to the world. The sponsors were appropriately fellated, especially a hotel chain Gabe had never heard of.

Then came the presentation. The league had sent out a camera crew to film micro-documentaries on each of the teams.

The Furies were founded by a Generationally wealthy woman named Daisy, who was the current Junior Senator for Texas. She wanted Dallas to be at the fore of E-Sports and video games in general, so she went on a spending blitz to recruit talented young women to Dallas to live in train in her team house.

Each of the players got a spotlight, and backstory.

Ana played video games since she could crawl.

Precious was a stat monkey who crunched the numbers on every game she played to find the most efficient route to victory.

Hilda was just out of high school and loving life.

And even the film crew couldn’t miss the tension in the team between them and Night, their alternate. They’d depicted her as some dark waiting in the wings when another player showed weakness.

They were spot on.

Then it was on to the cheerleaders.

Vera got a few good shots of her cleaning up the house, or talking about how the girls would starve on cherries and Mountain Dew if she didn’t them down to eat.

Jasmine got shots of her working out in the gym. Partially because she looked great sweating, but also to reflect the intensity she brought to her job as the team’s manager.

The final spot was for Gabe, but the attention was all too embarrassing for him to watch. It was the tale of a formerly washed-up champion soon to be a disgraced champion.

Then came their opponent’s video, which was equally inspiring and plucky. And finally, at 40 minutes of build up, the teams came out.

Vera leaned over. “Gabe, shouldn’t you be on comms?”

He'd gotten so prepared for getting fired, that he forgot he still had a job to do!

“Shit!” He launched out of his seat, not bothering to duck this time. “Shit shit!” He ran backstage and saw Night sitting his seat. “Alternate PLAYER!” He barked at her, and all but shoved out out of the chair and headphones.

“Oh fuck off.” Night rolled her eyes, and slipped another pair of headphones on. “Jesus Christ our lord and savior has returned.”

“Sorry everyone.” His voice sounded out over the comms. “I was talking to Jasmine.”

“I bet.” Hilda’s voice was soft in hisears.

“Let’s all just focus up. And do our best. This is our Debut. Let’s show the sponsors that we’re winners.”

The first part of the match was the draft. Gabe's favorite.

Each side picked 3 characters, you can’t have the same character in your team multiple times, but each team can have a copy of a character. However, Sins are in a pool. There are only seven, and there are no duplicates. That meant each player was either good with multiple characters, or if you were Ana a master at one character in all seven forms.

Ydrassil won the coin toss, which is right where gabe liked to be. You could tell a lot about a team by their first pick. His team didn't feel the same way. With only seven sins that mean the odds were pretty good one of their main characters could be taken from them at the very start. They are an inflexible bunch, and that’s what had Gabe nervous tonight.

Their first player is up.

The crowed tittered when they saw Bloody Mary appear on the screen.

“Oh no.” Precious groans. She and the other two are sure they're going to have their first pick stolen out from under them. Their player would pick Wrath, forcing Ana to player a lesser version of her main.

Luckily she chooses Mary (Gluttony) which is also bad. It’s a counterplay against Mary (Wrath). With gluttony she becomes a damage sponge on top of the bulk and health points gluttony grants all characters she gains a bunch of feints and counters with her mirror.

Their strategy is to absorb as much damage from Ana as they can.

It’s smart.

But Gabe knew Anna. She was salivating at this choice. She took a special kind of joy in ripping apart Mary players.

Usually she’d make some kind of comment about it over comms, but she was deathly silent.

“They’re ready for us. Stay on your toes.”

Anna says nothing, but she locks in her choice: Bloody Mary(Wrath)

We get the second pick.

"They know what our comp is." Precious says. "We gotta throw them off."

"Calm down." She's anxious from the crowd. "Stick with the comp round one, we'll adjust in round two."

Precious locks in her choice: Elizabeth (Pride)

Comms exploded with everyone screaming at her, even Gabe.

Elizabeth (Pride) jumps ahead of Mary and will be their starter for this round.

Precious was right about one thing it catches their opponents off guard. They scramble to find a counter for Mary who's now in the second slot. But the group doesn't see what they pick, they're all scrambling to crucify Precious for her rash decision.

This was not a sudden reaction. Gabe had this argument with her many time over the training period. She wanted to be the starter, and thye'd tried comps with her leading the charge, and it was just never as good with Ana in the lead. Now she decided to spring this on everyone in front of an audience, in front of the sponsors.

"What do I pick, what do I pick?" Hilda is panicking and Gabe was right there with her.

"Just stick with Joan." Night demands for Gabe.

"What's Sin? There's only greed and envy left."

"Pick greed." Night says.

"I've never played that!" Hilda's panic is starting to seep into Gabe.

"Envy then." Gabe answers. He closes his eyes and tries very hard to center himself though he feels like strangling Precious, and Jasmine, and himself all in this moment. But there was only one person he could punish. “Precious, you're out! I'm putting Night in next round."

Precious just laughs. "You'll be singing a different tune, once I carry this."

---

She did not, in fact, 'carry this.'

It was a disaster. They got wiped in the first round, and Gabe made good on his promise. He switched Night out, finally in the driver seat. That round went better but they were so thrown off by the first round that it wasn't really even close. They'd won the third round, which had been worse than losing the whole set. Now they knew they could have won, had Hurricane Precious not blown through.

It was a cold bus ride home. Silent too, except for the rumbling of the bus. Anna had her earphones in and was watching the replay of their game, and the commentators were not being gentle with their reviews.

Gabe sat next to Vera, in a weirdly Zen mood. Sure, they'd just blown their shot, but it wasn't going to be his problem for much longer. The stress of steering this team through the league was nothing compared to the terror of unemployment.

"It's not that bad, guys." Lana tried to sue for good cheer. "You're in the losers bracket. You can lose two more times before you're out!"

Precious was to latch onto this sentiment. "She's right. Now that we know what it's like out there, we'll be prepared for the next round."

Jasmine shook her head. "Precious you're going to be lucky if the senator doesn't rip your contract up as soon as we get back to the house. Both you and Gabe are going to be looking for work."

"Very classy," Gabe grumbled.

"You want to talk to me about classy?" The manager whirled around on Gabe. "How about sleeping with half your athletes? How's that for classy? You're supposed to be leading these girls, and instead you're having them suck you off before a game."

Gabe stood up in the rocking bus. He could take his own , but Hilda didn’t deserve to be called out. "She's right there! You can't save this for a private meeting?"

"Oh Gabe." Vera shook her head miserably. "Tell me you didn't try something with Hilda."

"Guys?" Lana was out of her seat, and walking towards the front of the bus.

"It's my fault." Jasmine shook her head. "When you started dating Ana I looked the other way, I knew it was wrong, but I told myself you're both adults. Then you go after the actual child."

"She's not a child."

"She's eighteen."

Hilda stood up now too. "So I'm old enough to move out of my parents house and in with you guys, but I can't decide who I sleep with?"

"Guys?" Lana waved her arms, for attention.

Jasmine shook her head, and tried to be gentle with the young woman, but Jasmine was not made for gentle. "He's ten years older than you, you didn't decide anything."

Hilda shook her head. "Vera's ten years older than Gabe, and he's not sleeping with her even though she's constantly throwing herself at him."

"Hilda!" Vera cried out, she was shocked. “How could you say something like that?”

Night and Precious had started arguing over who was going to play mid-next game, and their fight had reached equal volume to the main conflict.

"Will you all just shut up?!?!" Anna cried, tossing her phone at a window. "You all ruined our big day! I brought my sister in and everything, and... where is she?"

"Guys!" Lana screamed.

Now she had their attention. All arguments stopped, as the blonde pointed miserably at the driver, whose body was slumped over the steering wheel. “Our driver!"