As someone who has been on the internet for a decade and a half Stanley has been exposed to a great deal of stupidity and degeneracy that modern humans have to offer. Despite being an unfortunate textbook example of someone who is terminally online Stanley would like to think himself self aware enough not to display the typical symptoms of someone ‘diagnosed’ with that particular ‘illness.’ To that end he has cultivated something of a defense mechanism for keeping his cool when traipsing the internet and happen to find himself embroiled in some kind of online drama.

That defense mechanism is nihilism.

Now one might think it’s a joke but the nihilistic defense mechanism has brought Stanley back from the brink of many a online meltdowns, blowouts, rants and generally making a fool out of himself. Now given how outspoken, vulgar, stubborn and unapologetic he can be one wouldn’t think he could be capable of walking away and they would be right. His pseudo nihilism lets him become emotionally detached allowing his better instincts to take the wheel.

It is the most efficient means of dealing with any online drama by dishing out witty, vitriolic and scathing retorts without the drawback of becoming lost in the sauce. It has made Stanley come out on top of many debates, beefs and attempts to cancel him which started when he first started to do live streaming. Those first months when he gave the world a look into his semi-filtered thoughts were rough.

His brand took a hit, he lost a bunch of subs and made a few enemies although calling a bunch of randoms on the internet his ‘enemies’ was giving them too much credit. At worst they were annoying pests and at best they were a source of entertainment as he does so enjoy dunking on them whenever he’s got nothing else going on at that moment. His various interactions with these faceless morons have become the stuff of legends in his own fanbase and have earned him the respect and notoriety of certain corners of the internet.

With all that said there was an unfortunate drawback to this method that Stanley himself only realized recently and that is this approach to dealing with problems only worked for internet drama. For him it’s become easy to separate his online life from his actual life despite being terminally online because he knows that ultimately online drama doesn’t matter. IRL drama on the other hand was a different beast altogether and this one in particular hits close to home.

His girlfriend infected one of his only friend’s fiancée with what basically amounts to a virus. Regardless of whether or not this was deliberate or accidental was semantics. The point is she betrayed his trust at the exact moment when he let his guard down and Stanley didn’t know how to handle it. He couldn’t go with his usual detached attitude since this does matter. Keeping his distance from her both physically and emotionally was what he decided to go with as punishment for the time being. The other punishments involved verbal and physical abuse. The former would just make him feel bad and the latter made him cringe just thinking about it.

It didn’t feel like it was enough to him. He felt like he should do more just to get the point across but all his ideas would either be ineffective or needlessly cruel. He had to do something or at least he felt the need to do something. Luckily he spent the entire night distracting himself with various different things in an effort to calm his thoughts. It didn’t work out as well as he hoped and he still had all this pent up aggression that needed an outlet to release it. It needed to be something physical he realized which presented a problem in that he didn’t exactly have many options when it came to that.

Sex was out of the question since Ezraphel was on punishment and angry sex without any romantic notions was still sex which would defeat the purpose of the punishment. Nothing short of an intense crossfit workout routine or hitting something really hard continuously would do the trick. There was really only one thing that he can conveniently rely on in that moment and it was airsoft. Unfortunately if the previous outing proved anything it’s that regular airsoft wouldn’t cut it if he wanted to actually blow off steam.

Stan already knew this and thought of a way in which he could get as much from this outing as possible. On their way to the arena he stopped at an ATM making up some bullshit excuse that everyone took at face value. Their arrival at the arena this time was a lot more mundane since Ezraphel chose not to go with them this time. During breakfast she confessed her apathy for airsoft as well as not wanting to stay behind in a room to be ogled by strangers. She’d rather do something constructive and Amelia agreed to as she decided to stay behind with her to help and hang out.

The others took them at their word and if Stan were less cynical he would think Ezraphel was taking his ‘needing space’ to heart but that wasn’t this timeline. Concepts like space and distance don’t mean much when you’re spiritually connected to your significant other who can instantly teleport to your side, go invisible, intangible and fly not to mention whatever other surveillance magic she has at her disposal. Even now Stanley can sense her presence and feel her eyes watching him but he wasn’t really bothered by this. Hard to be mad when you know what’s going to happen and it’s not like he specified to her not to keep an eye on him.

As for Amelia Stan can only imagine what the two of them are getting up to. For all he knew she could be getting a crash course in mamono ethics and be a fully realized monster girl by the time they get back. Stan didn’t know, he did not feel comfortable getting involved in other people’s business so he had a natural aversion towards keeping tabs on a situation. It doesn’t help that said situation was one where he definitely did not want to get involved in yet he had to if he wanted to provide some kind of insurance to his friend.

Not that it mattered either way because Stan was about to do something completely insane and out of left field. When the two teams made it through the prep lobby and just as they were about to decided what game to play (Team Deathmatch) Stan hit them with a curve ball.

“Actually let’s play Rambo” he announced much to the surprise of everyone present.

“What’s Rambo?” Jamie whispered to Kendal who gave him the basic run down.

Rambo is a game type based on the iconic movie where a single player is pitted against a team consisting of 10-30 players in an epic Deathmatch type game. Naturally with such conditions it’s not a game type for the faint of heart. The player or ‘Rambo’ in this situation would have to be ridiculously skilled and the arena needed to compliment a kind of hide and seek play style. Obviously a small CQB arena wasn’t the place for such a game type and Stan’s abilities while good were not perceived to be actually godlike by any of his friends let alone the other team of strangers.

“Everyone here vs. me and I’ll even sweeten the deal” Stan continued reaching into his pocket to draw out a fat stack of bills “I’ve got five grand in hundred dollar bills. If any of you manage to tag me I’ll give each of you a hundred bucks.”

He piqued their curiosity when he first suggested the game type, he had their full interest when he pulled out the money but now with that declaration he had everyone’s attention and consideration.

But before anything more can be said Liam interjected “can you excuse us for a moment?” the started pulling Stan aside with the others following. Once they were out of earshot he hissed “what are you doing?”

“Making this interesting” Stan answered easily enough.

“Stan what’s gotten into you?” Kendal looking a bit worried for her friend.

“Are you actually out of your damn mind?” Kendrick deadpanned.

“Gonna have to agree with Kendrick here man” Jamie said looking very curious at this turn of events.

Stan looked at the only people he called his friends and sighed “alright full disclosure and not to sound like an anime character but the airsoft game yesterday was fucking boring. I literally had to take hits on purpose so I didn’t make the other team feel bad.”

“Are you being serious right now?” Kendal asked in disbelief.

“For what it’s worth I believe him” Jamie defended.

“So what, you want to take on everyone else to what? Give you a challenge?”

“That about sums it up, yeah” he nodded.

Kendrick stared at him in disbelief “you really are sounding like an anime character right now and that is fucking cringe.”

Ignoring Kendrick Stan turned to Liam “look man I just really need to blow off some steam right now and worst case scenario you guys end up making some easy money” he said holding up the stack of cash.

Liam didn’t look impressed by it “we don’t want your money.”

“Hey speak for yourself” Kendrick spoke which was expected but the next person certainly wasn’t.

“I agree” Kendal nodded much to Liam’s surprise

“Kendal?”

“What, if he wants to give away money then that’s his prerogative.”

“Gee Kendal don’t I pay you enough already?” Stan dryly replied.

“Yeah but there are these boots I had my eye on for a while now…”

You could feel the other men roll their eyes at her proclamation.

Stan looked to Jamie “what about you, looking to get paid?”

The man simply shrugged “I don’t really care about the money but if you want to Mr. Beast this thing then you do you man. You already know what I’m about.”

“Life, liberty and the pursuit of dubs”

“Damn straight.”

Then the two clacked rifles before Stan’s gaze went to Liam.

For his part the Liam could only shake his head while looking to the ceiling ‘am I truly the only sane person left in this group?’

When God didn’t provide an answer he made a decision “you know what? Fuck it, let’s do it.”

“Yes” Stan did a fist pump

“If only because I know you’ll be a pain in the ass if we don’t do it.”

“In the next couple of minutes it won’t be a ‘what if’ scenario” Stan spoke with a gleam in his eye that went unseen under his dye mask.

“That’s if the other team even agrees to this” Liam said as they made their way to said team.

“We’re in” the other team leader said and Liam’s shoulders slumped while Kendal and Jamie provided moral support by patting him on the back.

With both teams in agreement the rules of the match are as follows:

Players are split into two teams: the lone ‘Rambo’ (Stan) and the ‘Sheriffs’ (everyone else).

The aim of the game is for one side to eliminate the other.

Matches end when the timer runs out or one side loses.

Each match is on a timer of 15 minutes and should the time run out ‘Rambo’ wins.

There are no respawns, everyone has a single life. 

At the start of each match Stan will be given two minutes to go into the arena.

After his two minutes are up the others will file into the room in pairs in ten second intervals.

Usually for this game type each team is only allowed certain weapons to even the playing field a bit (machine gun, pistol and knife for Rambo and handguns for sheriffs). In light of circumstances however the Sheriff team isn’t allowed to go full auto with their weapons.

As agreed upon by the two teams if the Sheriff team wins then each player is awarded $100 by the other ‘team.’

Considering that it is a 1v10 in a relatively small CQB arena literally everyone in the sheriff team thought this whole thing was a farce. Stan’s friends thought he was going through a rough patch with his girlfriend (though they don’t know why) and wanted to do something outrageous to blow off some steam.

The other team thought given their recording equipment that they were YouTubers roping them into a stunt for content. They were fine with this especially considering that they would be getting paid for their trouble. They figured they would play a few rounds, get paid and get to do an actual match once they got enough footage for their channels.

They lost this sentiment five minutes into the game when Stan managed to eliminate half of them and then the other half a few minutes afterwards. That first round set the tone for what will eventually be recognized as the most memorable airsoft game for everyone present. For the next two hours Stan danced complete circles around everyone. He crept through the arena with speed, grace and silence that was damn near supernatural. Much like the iconic character that is his team’s namesake Stan stalked the other team ambushing them at points and eliminating everyone with extreme skill.

Every so often he would go the extra mile to assert his dominance over the arena by utilizing tactics straight out of movies and videogames. Talking about parkour, dodge rolls, knee slides, dramatic dives while shooting his handgun, ridiculously accurate blind fires and ricocheting BBs from walls. He seemingly defied reality itself by disappearing behind cover in one place and appearing somewhere else entirely. He’s even employed psychological warfare at points, taunting the others and may have actually traumatized one guy by emulating the Batman from the Arkham games.

It didn’t take the others long to realize that they were up against something different and actually started cooperating against the common enemy who took every opportunity to mock them in good fun.

By the fourth round they started coming up with plans. By the seventh round the ‘good natured’ ribbing from Stan started to get on their nerves. By the tenth round some were calling foul play and accusing Stan of cheating. By the thirteenth and final round they managed to corner him and through what was honestly a fluke finally, finally tagged him with a lucky shot.

“Hit!”

The sound of Stan’s voice was like a gong going off in an empty room. For a moment there was silence brought on by shock and then…

“We got him!” someone from the other team yelled.

“Holy fucking shit!” Kendrick exclaimed having been one of the few to survive this round.

As everyone started to celebrate and/or slump in relief Stan couldn’t help but laugh as he approached the man of the hour who clutched it in the end.

“Whoo, yeah baby! That’s what I’ve been waiting for! That’s what it’s all about! Whooo!” celebrated Jamie.

“You got lucky” Stan scoffed.

“Luck had nothing to do with it and even if it did I’ll take the win baby” Jamie replied easily enough.

Right at that moment the alarm sounded marking the end of the games and the appearance of the others who were eliminated.

“Did we get him?” someone from the other team asked.

“We got him.”

“Oh thank fuck.”

“Yeah, yeah” Stan rolled his eyes “congratulations you guys managed to cobble together a worthless plan and got lucky.”

“Doesn’t matter!” someone shouted in the background.

“We take those.”

“And speaking of which…”

Begrudgingly Stan paid them their money though he took solace in that he only had to do this once and the one to get him ended up being the one least likely to tag him. Not that any of the others cared, to them Stan was like a Soulsborne boss they’ve been stuck on for literal hours and were still high on the euphoria of finally beating him.

Shocking Jamie came up to collect as well to which Stan said “I thought you said you didn’t care about the money.”

“I don’t but it’s the principle” Jamie clarified “I’m going to be framing this bad boy and hanging it up on my wall as a testament to my greatness as the man who fell the legendary Airsoft God.”

“Airsoft God eh?”

“Don’t even start with that shit” Kendrick grumbled behind him.

Stan turned around with a shit eating grin “what’s wrong Kenny reality not working out well for you? I’m gonna miss our banters Kendrick since I think we’ve gotten definitive proof of who is the best Airsofter among us.”

“…you know what? Fine, I’m willing to be the bigger man here and admit that you are better at airsoft.”

“You’re God damn right” he said before walking away like a badass.

As he did he could hear the whispers and felt the stares from players and staff alike as he walked out of the arena. No doubt this event will be talked about for years to come and the fact that they have camera footage of the entire thing will only lend credibility to the no doubt impossible sounding claims.

‘That…might be a problem now that I think about it’ he frowned behind his dye mask before shrugging ‘eh whatever, not like people are going to care too much.’

For as much as Stan didn’t want Ezraphel to end up on a camera and becoming viral the truth is that a lot of seemingly extraordinary things get caught on camera that don’t really get much if any recognition by most of the world. There is always that ever present doubt that what people see is fake or scripted and people have gotten very good at fabricating videos to look authentic.

Still he will admit that he wasn’t exactly in his right mind during that game as he intentionally lost himself in the rush and exhilaration of completing trouncing everyone. As for how he managed to pull it off well, he can say with pride that he did not receive any kind of help from Ezraphel whom he knew was watching him. This was all him and he reveled in that fact but for now he needed to go deposit the money back into the bank.

Because fuck if he’s going to be walking around with four grand in his pocket.