From the outside, it didn’t look very impressive. The only way to discern that this was the Palace Theater was by looking at the vintage vertical sign bolted to the brick wall. Apart from that, it could have been any ordinary store. A poster displaying some familiar branding was to only thing that confirmed to me that we were indeed at the right place.

In the window’s reflection, I could see my face. Without any makeup, it looked plain and uninteresting. Jade stood next to me, her face properly decorated and expressive. I had wanted to ask her for help this morning, but in the end, I was too afraid of raising suspicion.

Jade gestured towards the door. "Let’s go, I’m sure Rachel is already waiting for us."

Unsurprisingly, Jade wasn’t mistaken. Rachel sat on a chair close to the registration desk, completely focused. Her eyes peered down at the screen of an expensive-looking laptop resting on her lap, and she didn’t even notice us entering. Sitting next to her were three smaller versions of the same girl, the smallest of them not even reaching 4 feet.

“Jade!” the three girls exclaimed in unison, their high-pitched voices making both me and Rachel flinch.

Before acknowledging us, Rachel gave the girls a stern look. “Hey, calm down, you guys. The whole of Battingham can hear you.”

Seemingly paying no attention to Rachel, the girls ran over to Jade and started speaking with her like a bunch of fast-talking auctioneers trying to outdo each other.

“I’m assuming these mini Rachels are your sisters?” I said while Jade was engaged with the tiny horde.

Rachel nodded, a wide smile appearing on her face. “That would be correct. Claire, Morgan, and Brooke, that’s what the little devils are called,” she said, pointing at them one by one. “Don’t worry about them; my parents will be here in about an hour to keep them out of our hair.”

“Worry?” I said, wide-eyed. “I can’t believe you hid these cuties from me all this time!”

Her sisters looked quite a bit younger than Rachel. If I had to guess, there was at least an eight-year age gap between her and her sisters. One of her sisters looked even younger than the other two. As Rachel had mentioned her before, I assumed she was the 5-year-old sister. The way they were talking, walking, and just their behavior in general, they seemed completely unburdened, as if everything was still new and exciting, and there was nothing that could hurt them.

Rachel furrowed her eyebrows. “You don’t have to deal with them screaming in your ears every morning, I do.” She paused, taking a good look at me, as if trying to make a stealthy diagnosis. “How have you been holding up?”

When the whole conversation with my mom blew up in my face, I felt incredibly lost, like I had destroyed my own life and stranded myself on an island. Some very dark thoughts had been manifesting themselves in my brain. I couldn’t help but think my mother might have been right, and I hated myself for thinking that. But that’s when Rachel kept me from going over the edge, the way she spoke about her own struggles had struck me on another level. How fierce she sounded when she made me make that promise, never to be ashamed of myself.

But at that moment of darkness, I did feel ashamed. Like a recovering alcoholic stuck in a bad place, I almost grabbed the whole of that self-deprecation bottle. Luckily, I had a sponsor, Rachel. I had sent her that message asking for help, and she answered. She called me as soon as she understood what was going on and told me that I was brave for even telling my mother in the first place. I didn’t believe her, but I couldn’t deny it felt good. It felt good to have somebody tell me my feelings were real, that they, that I, mattered.

This is also when we came up with the whole plan to get me here. It only took some late-night phone calls to the rest of the team for it all to come together. But it worked; my very presence here was proof.

After everything that happened two nights ago, just seeing her stand here calmed me down. “I’m just happy to be here,” I said, trying to force a smile.

Rachel rubbed my shoulder. “I’m happy to have you here too.”

A high-pitched voice yelled out behind me. “Emily!”

Instinctively, I looked over to Rachel’s sisters, but they were still jumping up and down next to Jade. Before I could investigate any further, however, two arms wrapped themselves around me.

“Good to see you, Lizzy,” I said as I connected the dots. I pried her arms off me so I could turn around to face her, only to notice her having already run over to Jade and her tiny posse. Instead, it was Kelsey who now stood before me.

“Ready to claim the trophy, Emily?”

***

Of course, I knew we were playing in a theater, and I knew what a stage looked like. But even with barely any of the auditorium seats filled, standing on the floorboards made you feel special. On the stage, there were two sets of five tables positioned in a way to create two long horizontal lines. When playing, you’d be able to look into the auditorium past your screen. A large white canvas hung down from the front of the stage, the theater’s projector currently showing some test footage on there. It was just high enough that the audience could choose to look under it to see the players or look at the canvas itself to see the plays.

We had just tested the computers. Our first match was scheduled to start about thirty minutes from now. Sitting there in my seat, looking out over the auditorium made me think about the people in the audience. I could see some familiar faces looking down at the stage. Not familiar because I had seen them very often, but familiar because they were the faces of my teammates' families. Lizzy’s older brother, younger sister, and her parents were discussing something while sitting all the way in the back. Kelsey was showing her parents around, and Rachel’s sisters were now properly escorted by their parents. Even Jade, whose parents were on the other side of the country, was talking with her brother in the front row.

That empty feeling from two nights ago, it was once again invading my psyche. I had been thinking of him; he said he’d be here, but there was no sign of him. I texted him, but no response. Not even the unthinkable, calling him, had worked.

I noticed the sound of plastic wheels rolling over wood. Brown curls entered my peripheral vision.

“I’m sure your dad is on his way,” Rachel said while resting a hand on my back.

I met her gaze. “And what if he isn’t?”

“Well,” a grimace formed on her face, “That would be his loss. 'Cause I would feel really bad about missing my daughter winning a trophy like that.” She motioned over towards the front of the stage with her head.

Standing on a simple white column was a large silver trophy. Rising from its solid base, it ascended in a sleek, gradual curve. Carved into the trophy's top was the symbol of a lion, creating a sleek emblem. I knew that this was why I was here, why I had gone through all the trouble that I had. But why, when I looked at its silver shine, did I still feel so empty?

After a few minutes, a referee came down to lead me off the stage. A host would be coming in to open the tournament, and the stage needed to be empty. The backstage area of the theater looked like the opposite of the stage itself. Gone was the glitter and glamor; instead, it was concrete and functionality that took its place. I was led into a room filled with couches and screens, the so-called player lounge.

Rachel and Jade were already there as well, discussing something while they stood by a couch on the far side of the room. Spread out over the room were also other groups of girls, most of them wearing matching team jerseys. Some of them I recognized, some of them I didn’t.

“Emmy, what do you think?” Rachel’s voice sounded focused and deliberate, her entire mind already fully engaged in crafting the strategy for our opening game. “Do we open with a timing push right away, or do we play it safe, with a more macro-focused comp in the first game of the tournament?”

I tried to engage with her question, digging into the part of my mind that contained my Dota knowledge. And while setting aside the gallons of anxiety sloshing around in my head wasn’t easy, I could eventually find some strategic acumen. “We need to go hard right out of the gates; all the quarterfinals are BO1 after all, and I don’t feel like coming here to play just a single game.”

Rachel slammed her fist into the palm of her hand while smiling. “Offlane Death Prophet it is.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Jade nodded.

I turned around to look at the door, and almost as if on cue, Lizzy and Kelsey entered the lounge. They were wearing the same black and pink jersey as me, Jade, and Rachel. The whole team was together and properly prepared to face our opponent.

We talked a bit longer about our strategy, while the screens in the room started showing the two commentators who would be talking over today’s matches. I couldn’t help but listen in when I heard them mention my tag, Noblin.

“Noblin has shown herself to be the anchor of the team, often getting her hero picked early in the draft, and finding a good amount of impact in the game even when she is heavily counter-picked. She has a large hero pool and slots into a great variety of playstyles, the dream player for any captain to have in their team.”

It wouldn’t be long before another referee showed up to take us to the stage; our first match was about to start, and my fingers were tingling. I exhaled, rolled back my shoulders, and tried to calm myself down. I knew it was just a game, but feeling the passion of my teammates, knowing how they helped me yesterday, I didn’t want to let them down.

The auditorium was filled with way more people than earlier, and with the lights down, the atmosphere felt even more overwhelming. The booming voices of the commentators made my body vibrate, especially when the spotlights turned directly towards me and my teammates, the commentators loudly exclaiming, “TEAM UNDERCOVER.”

The people in the auditorium cheered, an unfamiliar feeling of confidence developed within me. We walked over to the other side of the stage, giving a hand to our opponents along the way. We had played against ‘G5’ online before, and I knew they were no pushovers. But they were also humble, and we generally got along well with them. I almost felt bad potentially knocking them out of the tournament right away, but then I reminded myself, today is not the day for mercy.

I sat down in my seat, the familiar hero grid already open on my screen. Rachel was on my left, Jade to my right. In front of me, a big crowd of people. I scanned through one more time, but I couldn’t see my dad. Just before I brought my gaze back to the screen, I saw the doors in the back of the auditorium open. I felt my heart jump as the prospect of my dad still showing up excited me, but instead, another familiar face stepped through.

The dirty blonde hair, the button-up blouse, was that? Arthur? What was he doing here? I really wanted to just focus on the game coming up, but my curiosity got the better of me. I watched a little longer as Arthur gestured towards someone else to join him. A somehow familiar looking blonde-haired girl walked out, and now stood beside him. My confusion, now complete.

Gwenington

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