Rise Online: Return of the Legendary Player

Almost ten years ago, the nickname Kaizen became world-renowned in the gaming niche, which, although large, was not as large as traditional sports.

Initially, Kaizen drew attention for being the youngest professional video game player in history. He was only 13 years old and would already compete in the same category as men and women over 20. Of course, there was no shortage of people criticizing and doubting him at the time, but he didn't care, he just wanted to play among the best.

In a world where social media was the great rise of the 21st century, all the professional players and prodigies were already famous, only Kaizen was a complete unknown and this caused strangeness in the public and in the professional scene.

His four new teammates in Myth2 were no exception to the long list of people who underestimated him for being someone unknown, but as soon as they saw inside the servers what Kaizen was capable of, they already thought:

'How has this boy been anonymous for so long?'

His deduction skills were otherworldly. The way he read the opponent's moves, the battlefield, the lanes, and passed all this on to his colleague who was the leader within the match impressed his teammates from the very first match together. Not to mention his mechanics were as good as those of a professional with years of experience.

Before long, thanks to his readings of the matches, Kaizen became the in-game leader, because it was much more useful for his allies to just listen to the guidance of what they should do than to hear everything that was happening and probably would happen on the battlefield. His reasoning ability proved unmatched, because after Kaizen became an IGL (In Game Leader) they never lost another match.

Kaizen's teammates saw him as an incomparable genius and with his help, anything was possible and it was no wonder that they won a National Championship that took them to the World Championship, which they also won undefeated. This was the first time that a team won a World Myth2 Championship without losing a single map.

Even so, there were still many questions from the community about Kaizen and many suspected him of being a hack for coming out of nowhere to become World Champion in one year. Kaizen was not shaken by these comments, because the opinions of random people did not matter much to him, but rather those of people important to him, such as his family.

Again, in the second year of his career, when he turned 14, he won the National Championship, confirming his favoritism and qualifying for the world championship. Everything went smoothly until the day of the last best of five, which would decide the great World Champion. No one had ever won two World Myth2 Championships in a row, but TeamBones, Kaizen's team, had the chance now.

However, the tragedy with Rhyzer happened and with one phone call, Klaus' world lost its ground.

Klaus knew that his mother had not told him about Rhyzer's accident in order for him to drop everything. She was just desperate and never blamed her for his decision to abandon the World Championship Final, because that was his decision.

His teammates, the coach and the entire coaching staff were confused and stunned. They prepare themselves all year long for this moment. However, nobody stopped or tried to convince Kaizen not to go to meet his family at this difficult moment, both because of the news of the accident and because everyone knew that Kaizen was the one who had worked hardest for them to get there. It was not fair to try to stop him.

TeamBones put the sixth player in Klaus' place and tried to impose the same style of play they already had, but the final result was the one everyone predicted when the line-up of players for the grand final became public.

Klaus' teammates were not angry with him for being abandoned, because they knew that the following year they could get to this same place with the prodigy's leadership and steady progress.

When Klaus' father, Michael Park, went to tell the coach that his son was retiring, that was the moment when everyone was furious and decided never to contact the boy again.

Even with all these problems, the other TeamBones players tried to continue competing after this atrocious team ending, only their professional lives were never again as successful as when they were with Klaus.

After seven years of all these events, Myth2 was already a dead game that many felt only nostalgia for, and as a professional player's career can be short, his fame is even more so. All the legendary undefeated champions of TeamBones were already going their separate ways, without even being assimilated as great World Champions.

Peter Hopkins, one of TeamBones' supporting players, was now in his 30s. On a certain morning, he was just checking the news of the day as he daily did during breakfast. He had invested the money he had earned from his e-sports career very well, so he was now living off the compound interest on his fortune and also investing in some promising businesses.

Suddenly he noticed a news tab from the gamer world on the page of the news site he was on. Curious, he clicked on it. Peter was still a game enthusiast.

Interestingly, there was a feature story about the new game he had recently been playing, called Rise Online. In fact, everyone was playing it.

Still a little sleepy, his eyes slowly ran over the title of the story, reading one word at a time.

"The emergence of a new mystery..." As soon as Peter read the next word after that collection of words, his eyes paled. "Kaizen, the baiter of the Boss raid."

At the same time, he stood up from the chair he was sitting in, dragging her wooden feet on the clear floor of his new apartment.

Peter was totally chilled. A feeling that mixed anxiety and nostalgia plagued his chest. He had the feeling that he was being haunted by a ghost from his past.

'No, it can't be him. Not after all these years. Kaizen is a famous word, isn't it?' he thought.

Just then his phone rang, bringing him back from this shock of reality. Peter picked up his phone that was on the table and when he looked at the contact name, he was confused.

'Raiden Cortez? What does this guy want?' He thought and then answered the phone. "Hello."

"Looks like he's back." Raiden, who had a thick smoking voice, stated.

Peter Hopkins pushed the phone away from his face for a second, sighed, and when he returned, he asked:

"We're going to get together to go after him, aren't we?"

"Humph! No doubt about it."

...

Edited by: DrHitsuji

If you want to see original illustrations of Rise Online characters, consider helping me on pa treon: Pa treon.com/NandoFalske

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