Episode 1 - The Sniper

“Ugh! I can’t believe I have to be a girl again!” Casey exclaimed, his voice heavy with exasperation. “And Astra Amethyst? She’s practically unplayable.”

“A bet is a bet,” Will’s voice crackled through the headset. On the screen, Will’s character, a popular male ninja, stood tall beside Casey’s new character: a young girl in a purple and white school uniform with matching boots and flowing cape. “You lost the bet, so I get to pick your character.”

“Why her though? Couldn’t you pick literally anybody else?” Casey asked.

“Because you’re actually good at playing her.”

“I’ve only played her that one time!”

“One time my ass!”

“That was just practice,” Casey scoffed. “And I hated it. Being a battlemage isn’t nearly as fun as being a sniper. Besides, her special commands need practice, and I can’t play her well because the game rejects my voice half the time.”

“Well, win the bet next time!”

“Fine, I’ll just be a sniper with… Astra Amethyst.” Casey could feel himself gagging at the saccharine sweetness of the cute magical girl’s name.

Will snickered. “Good luck with that. Pretty sure the sniper rifle is bigger than she is.”

Casey looked at his new avatar and rolled his eyes. Clearly the game’s creators had a particular aesthetic in mind when they crafted this character. Despite her character class, she had a petite figure, a cherubic face with a button nose and wide eyes, and an outfit with enough crinoline that even the most ambitious wedding dress designer would gasp at the audacity of it. “Whatever. Let’s get started already.”

“I want to wait for a few more people to join, I’m bored of one-on-one,” Will replied.

Casey sighed. It was bad enough playing as Astra Amethyst with just Will. It was even worse when he was playing with others. “You’re doing this on purpose!”

Four players joined over the next two minutes. An orc, a soldier, a pirate, and a female assassin.

Casey imagined each of these newcomers holding back laughter at his character.

“Is everyone ready?” Will asked.

Each player, including Casey, responded with “Yes.” Over the chat, Casey identified three voices as guys, and one as a girl. The girl's voice must belong to the female assassin.

“Capture the flag,” Will announced. “We’ll break into teams of three, with comms set to global.”

The pirate joined Will and Casey’s team, while the orc, soldier and assassin formed their own.

The game started. Casey often let Will take the lead and would lurk in the shadows, given his past experiences playing snipers in shooter games. 

“I’m going for the flag,” Will announced over the comms. “Cover me, Astra.”

“Don’t call me that,” Casey complained.

“Whatever you say, Princess Sparkles,” Will snickered.

“Don’t make me come down there and glitterbomb you,” Casey warned, setting up his scope on a distant perch. “I’m in position. Got a clear shot of the whole flag courtyard,” he said, his avatar — the cutesy Astra Amethyst, strangely equipped with a massive, high-tech sniper rifle several inches bigger than she was — tucked away against the icy terrain.

“I’ve got eyes on ninja boy,” blurted the voice Casey had identified as the assassin girl.

Will was only moments away from the flag when a blur of red and black materialized near the capture point — the opposing team's female assassin character.

“Will, you’ve got company,” Casey announced, staring through the scope as the sight weaved unsteadily due to Astra’s poor ranged attack stats. He then took his shot — and missed. “Fuck.”

“Nice shot, Sailor Moon!” the girl taunted Casey.

“Shit! She’s on me, Casey!” Will yelled, his health bar immediately dropping as the assassin initiated a combo against him.

Casey zeroed in again. The assassin was too fast, dodging and weaving just as he locked on with his scope. Casey kept missing. “Hold still!”

“Do something!” Will pleaded.

Casey, frustrated, tossed aside the sniper rifle and jumped down from the shadows.

The assassin stopped attacking Will and turned to Casey. “Hey Elsa, shouldn’t you be in school?”

The assassin was taller than Astra and wasted no time attacking her. Casey did his best to block all of the assassin’s moves, but nevertheless his health bar continued to plummet against her onslaught.

He slid Astra under the assassin and tripped her with her metal staff. She hit the ground with a thud, arcs of lightning racing against her skin as her health bar slowly ticked downwards.

“I got it!” Will exclaimed. “I got the flag!”

With the assassin momentarily dazed, Casey made Astra swing and cast random magic spells towards the assassin with minimal effect.

The assassin rolled back to her feet and launched herself at Astra, striking her in the abdomen and leaving her stunned.

“Move! Move!!” Casey yelled at his avatar, smashing his keys frantically.

Sensing that her victory was at hand, the assassin launched a vicious attack at Astra’s head, only to miss her by inches as Astra broke out of stunlock moments before impact. His hands shaking, Casey glanced over at his mana and saw he had just enough magic for one last trick up his sleeve. Astra’s special move. One of the hardest moves of the game. He punched in the key combination and cried “Cosmic Justice!” into his microphone.

Will could be heard snickering over the comms.

Astra Amethyst held up the staff and a meteor came streaking out of the sky, slamming down onto the assassin and disintegrating her instantly.

“You bitch!” the girl said over the headset.

“Damn, Case, you got really good at that!” Will said.

“Bite me.” Seriously, thought Casey, who designs a game where you have to shout voice commands into your microphone to execute a character’s special powers? Especially one with gender detection?

“I’m almost there!” Will said.

“Watch out for the others,” warned Casey, chasing after Will to give him cover as he took the flag back to base. 

First, Casey needed to recharge Astra’s mana. Glancing up at the blue leylines streaking across the sky, he quickly dashed to the area underneath where two of them crisscrossed. Finding a mana altar, he had Astra begin consuming the ambient mana floating in the area. After his reserves had refilled, he sprinted towards his home base to support Will.

He first stumbled across the orc, who would have taken his head cleanly off with a savage swing of its axe had he not ducked under it and tripped him with Astra’s staff. “We have to hurry, before the assassin respawns!”

“Too late!” the assassin girl said over comms. But Casey noticed she was nowhere near Astra. “I’ve got my flag back, there’s no way she can help you now!”

“Ahh!” Will cursed in frustration.

She? Was the assassin talking about Casey? She must have been referring to her character, not to him. Should Casey correct her? “I’m on my way!”

Out of Casey’s periphery the pirate came and knocked down the soldier. Casey had a clear shot at the assassin who was holding up her flag. Astra dashed forward, jumping up and slamming into the assassin.

“Girl fight!” one of the guys laughed.

“Fuck you, Gary, I’ll kick all y’all’s asses,” the assassin yelled back, rolling into Astra’s legs, knocking her off her feet and pinning her to the ground. 

Casey looked up at the assassin avatar’s digital face. Why was she grinning down wickedly at Astra, instead of finishing her off?

Casey smashed the movement keys back and forth in quick succession, and Astra threw the assassin off of her. He spun around, but neither Will nor the flag were anywhere in sight. Instead, the assassin stood before him, holding her katana in a salute. He held up his staff, spinning it around like a gymnastics baton.

The assassin charged at Casey with a combo, but Casey quickly cast Celestial Shield, and was able to block most of it with a shimmering purple forcefield.

The two female characters stood across from each other, panting, awaiting their player’s commands.

“Bring it on, cupcake,” the assassin’s voice beckoned. Her voice was endearingly cute — especially when she showed cockiness. “I’m ready for your power puffs!”

Both players charged at each other. The assassin was first to damage Astra, with a quick slash of her katana that caught her on her shoulder. Casey retreated with a backwards somersault and then popped to her feet and immediately rolled forward. She thrust her staff forward and nearly caught her off-guard, but the assassin was simply too fast for Astra’s agility.

Casey swallowed, hoping Will had the flag and was near their base. He knew one other Astra Amethyst move. He double-checked his mana level before raising Astra’s staff and shouted, “Galactic Crush!”

The ground shook, glitter and rainbows emerged from the staff, swirling about the assassin, buffeting her body and making her unable to move. 

That’s when Astra struck, swinging her staff down onto the assassin’s head and causing her to collapse to the ground.

“Get up!” the assassin pleaded, her health bar dangerously in the red.

That’s when the game paused, flashing Victory! across Casey’s screen, with one side showing Will standing triumphantly hoisting the flag overhead and the other proclaiming Astra Amethyst as the most valuable player of the match. After a few seconds, the screen faded to black and everyone was transported back to the waiting lobby.

The orc came over to Casey. “Nice moves, Astra.”

“Umm, thanks? It’s Casey, actually,” Casey replied.

The pirate came over. “Hi, Casey. I was wondering… do you have a boyfriend?”

“Wha—”

The assassin butted in, and pushed the pirate away. “Ohmygod, I am so sorry about that.” she said. “That’s Tom. He’s… he’s harmless — but he’s always flirting with girls online, no matter how many times I tell him to knock that shit off and let us play the game in peace.”

Casey needed to correct her. “Oh, I, um…”

“Hi, I’m Lexi,” the assassin said.

“Casey,” he responded. “Although I guess you already knew that.”

“It’s lovely to meet you, Casey. Nice job kicking our ass tonight — I’ve never seen someone pull off that electric slide tackle before. If you ever want to play without the boys, I’ve got a fun group of girl friends who play together sometimes. Let me know, and I’ll get you an invite to our Discord server. Gotta go — have a good night, Astra!”

Before Casey could object, Lexi’s assassin avatar vanished, followed by Tom the orc, then the pirate, and then finally the soldier.

“Dude.” Will’s voice boomed over the headset. “They totally thought you were a girl.”

“Do I sound like a girl?”

“I dunno bro, you just sound like you. Maybe it’s something with your mic?”

“This is all your fault, by the way. I could’ve been the sniper and nobody would’ve thought otherwise.”

“But you owned that character. Without you as Astra, we wouldn’t have stood a chance.”

“Yeah, but… but they thought I was a girl.”

“Who cares, Case. They’re strangers. You won’t see them again. Unless…” he trailed off, and Casey was certain he could hear Will smirking through the microphone, “unless you and Tom start dating. Or maybe that cute assassin girl instead?”

“Wait up — do you think that Lexi was flirting with me?”

“Big time. She barely acknowledged the rest of us while we were playing.”

“Huh. Weird.”

“Listen bro, I’d love to chat about your love triangle, but I have work in the morning. I gotta run.”

Casey glanced over at his clock, which read half past ten. “Oh crap, so do I.”

“Game tomorrow?”

“Can’t, my roommate roped me into a D&D game with her friends.”

“Aww, that sounds like fun — you should invite me next time.”

“Maybe I should. You could protect me from Abby and her friends. They’re a little… eccentric.”

“Alright Case, you have a g’night, bro.”

“Night, Will.”

As Casey ended the game, he saw a notification on the bottom of his screen. It was a direct message from ManicLexiDreamGirl. He clicked on it, reading: “hi casey, it’s lex - it was fun kicking ur ass tonight. love running into other grrls on here. let’s keep in touch! <3”

Casey stared at the blinking cursor. This was his opportunity to correct her. But did she really need to know? He’d never meet her in person, and he’d enjoyed her attention, he thought, blushing at the memory of her pinning him to the ground. So Casey simply responded with, “I had fun too. And I kicked *your ass*. Have a good night, Lexi.”

Casey pulled off his headset, logged off and crawled into bed, replaying his interactions with Lexi over and over again in his head. Girls rarely flirted with him, he reflected. It was nice to finally be on the receiving end for once. Hopefully next time he can flirt with girls when he’s not playing a girl.

Speaking of role-play, Casey’s mind drifted toward tomorrow's D&D game with Abby. He was imagining his character sheet. Someone unmistakenly grizzled and masculine, like a ranger, knight or a barbarian. He needed a character who was the polar opposite of Astra Amethyst.