Nolan leaned against the console, arms crossed, eyes coolly scanning the ga-over screens now lit in red across Calien, Selin, Ruvin, and Erik’s stations.
Their shoulders were slumped, jaws clenched, eyes stuck on the quiet failure flashing in front of them.
He cleared his throat and said, not unkindly, "Maybe it’s your movents. Defensive stances too. Don’t just defend yourself—defend your team, too. This is multiplayer and not a single player, so you all should play as a team."
His voice echoed gently in the whole classroom, even, calm, asured.
The kind of tone that held neither judgnt nor comfort, but there was a subtle sting of disappointnt tucked beneath the surface like a knife under silk.
The other students listened as well as they were defeated too in their ga.
But the students didn’t respond.
They were too sure. Too certain that they’d done it right. That the strategy was correct. They’d seen it work. They knew it worked. Their minds clung to the victory they’d seen in the film just monts before like it was scripture.
Selin whispered, "We just didn’t execute properly..."
Ruvin’s face was tense, his voice sharp, "We had it. He faked the swing. It was just bad luck!"
Calien’s fists were clenched, eyes full of frustration. "No. No. We had the weakness. That was the right way. We just need to try again."
Erik nodded quietly. "Yeah. Again and again, we just need to be used to the strategy we devised."
Nolan would smirk, they are really acting like they made their own strategy, it was amusing, but outside, he just watched them silently, with an unreadable expression on his face.
Not long, the team restarted.
They respawned at the alley. The sa setting. The sa tension. Except this ti... the air between them was different.
No more of the wordless synchronicity from earlier. Instead, the tension had fernted into friction. Heat without cohesion. Movent without flow.
They advanced to the building—first floor. Fought off the infected. Sloppier this ti. Ruvin went too far forward. Selin didn’t catch one that grabbed him. Calien tried to support but collided with Erik in a narrow doorway. Small mistakes, but noticeable.
Watching them, Nolan would knit his brow. He could feel sothing had changed.
Second floor. Screams. Frustration.
"Watch your left, Ruvin!"
"I was watching it, Selin, where the hell were you?!"
"You pushed forward without cover again!"
"I cleared that hallway already!"
"Guys, calm down," Calien said, breathless. "Let’s just keep moving—"
"Then tell her to stop bossing around like she’s team leader."
"Don’t talk to her like that!" Erik snapped.
They didn’t stop to sort it out.
They moved anyway.
Third floor. The bloater erged, its steps heavier than ever. It was the sa monster, the sa fight—but this ti, it was fighting a fractured team. And it felt it.
"Dodge right, right!" Calien shouted.
"I am dodging—!"
"Then why’d you eat the swing!?"
"I didn’t! That wasn’t supposed to connect—!"
"Just do what we did before!" Selin yelled. "Wide swings, twist, seams! That’s all!"
"It’s not enough!" Erik scread. "We’re out of sync!"
"It’s your fault!"
"No, it’s yours!"
They fought, and the bloater absorbed their anger like fuel. It roared, its massive limbs swinging wildly. Calien barely ducked. Erik tripped over rubble and took a blow to the back. Selin stabbed a seam too early, doing no damage. Ruvin baited a swing, but no one followed through.
They were loud.
Not from pain—but fury.
"Why didn’t you follow up?!"
"I had two on , what do you want?!"
"I told you I’d pull aggro—where were you?!"
"Stop yelling, it’s not helping!"
"You keep pulling too far ahead!"
"No one’s covering !"
"Why are we even listening to your calls?! You’re the one who—"
"SHUT UP!!" Erik finally scread.
And then, as if the air itself snapped, a sharp click echoed across the training chamber.
Their screens froze.
Movent ceased.
The bloater stood frozen mid-attack. The infected paused in suspended animation. Like the ti itself in the ga collapsed into stillness.
The real-world lights humd gently above them, illuminating their stunned faces.
Nolan had clicked the override.
His expression was unreadable, half-lidded, still calm—but this ti, that stillness was razor-thin.
Silence pressed into the space like a held breath.
It was suffocating as they realized their mistake.
They looked up.
A long mont passed before Selin finally broke the silence, soft and crushed: "...We’re sorry."
Nolan didn’t respond imdiately. He turned his back to them, facing the large display on the wall. His hand hovered over the controls for a second. He let out a long, audible sigh, one that stretched with exhaustion.
"I get it," he finally said. "You know the strategy. You know that it would work like in your imagination. You morized the seams. You executed the bait. The steps were there."
He turned slightly, his gaze sharp now—not cruel, but cutting.
"But you forgot one thing."
No one moved. Even their breathing seed shallow.
"It’s not just what you do. It’s how you do it. Plus, the ga is made to be much more difficult to challenge the players..."
His voice softened, but the words he spouts hit them harder each ti they land on their little heads.
"You think knowing the weakness is enough? That you can just repeat what you imagine or saw, mimic it, and it’ll work exactly the sa? That a monster like that doesn’t adapt? That you can face chaos, rage, and violence with a checklist and no unity?"
He stepped closer to their row, standing just behind them now.
"You didn’t lose because the strategy was wrong. You lost because you moved like four separate players in a room, not a team. You didn’t support each other. You didn’t cover flanks, sync rotations, or control aggro zones."
He pointed at Calien’s screen. "You charged first, too far ahead. No one covered you."
To Selin: "You called directions, but didn’t check if your teammates could hear or follow them."
To Ruvin: "You baited the swing—but failed to confirm if soone was in position to follow up. Why bait, if no one’s ready?"
To Erik: "You flanked, but no one knew. You disappeared off formation. You isolated yourself."
Nolan took a breath, his voice low and firm now, like stone hitting steel.
"You want to win? Then stop acting like individuals. Stop shouting. Start communicating. Not just screaming orders. Real communication. Understand each other’s timing. Understand the enemy’s rhythm. Fight the fight you’re in, not the one you wanted to be in... I told you all already, you are not in a single player... you are in multiplayer mode."
Soon, he paused.
Then, more quietly, "If you’re so busy blaming each other, you’ve already lost."
The words lingered in the air. Raw. Heavy.
The students didn’t speak.
They just stared at their frozen screens—at the Bloater mid-swing, at the infected stuck in ti, at their failed positioning and the trails of health bars they’d all watched fall too fast.
Nolan let the silence stretch, long and thick, giving space for the sha and understanding to settle in. Then, finally, he walked back to the console.
He didn’t look at them this ti.
He simply said, "Okay. Continue. I want to see what you learned from my guidance."
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