Chapter 44: Challenged

"HAHAHAHA Now that those losers are dealt with, how about we find a rookie player that I can offer guidance and words of wisdom too." 

[Prime you so generous.]

[Your so manly prime, I want your babies.]

"I know, I Know. Hahaha now who shall I give guidance to today?" 

[Hey Prime there's a brand new player who is streaming, he has just won his 10th game in a row.]

[Oh yeah I know who you mean, I think his ID is Spector or something, he literally only started playing a few hours ago.]

"Hmmm let me check, ten wins and zero losses, not bad but he's still a rookie. He might be worth making my apprentice however HAHAHAHA."

[Wow Prime, talk about generous, would you really make an unknown player your apprentice?]

[Yeah I mean you have been searching for one for a while now but no one has met your expectations.]

"Hahahaha we will see if he's worthy, but his race is Earthling? I have never heard of that race before."

[Ohhh is it a new race to have recently joined the universal senate? I don't remember hearing about them.]

[Oh please, the news feeds stopped reporting on every new race that joined years ago, only if there is some special reason do they do any coverage on the topic.]

[Hey Prime if you beat him that would make you the first player and streamer to beat an Earthling on Space Rogue, maybe even in any game.]

[Yeah and if he loses he becomes the first Leonian and streamer to be beaten by an Earthling kek.]

[Moderator has banned …]

Prime didn't even react to the negative comment as if he didn't even register its existence before being deleted.

"HAHAHAHA Good point, good point. This is the perfect opportunity to set a 'Prime Example' of what they can expect from the rest of the universe."

[THERE IT IS. Prime's famous quote of setting a 'Prime Example']

[Go set a 'Prime Example' Prime.]

[Show them a 'Prime Example' of how good you are in Space Rogue.]

"HAHAHAHA." Prime laughed boisterously again before sending a challenge to Spector.

💫💫💫

Adam had just won his tenth match and he now had enough points saved up to be able to purchase one of the cheapest upgrades.

He went to the points store and filtered it so that it only showed items with a max value of 10 points before he started to browse through the available products as the chat made suggestions.

[Handsome3horns (Vinox 2): Upgraded sensors, you should totally get these so that someone doesn't do to him what he did to me.]

[Beczontop (Imperial Down): Nah the streamer needs better shields so he can absorb more hits, his future opponents will have better weapons after all.]

[Prestigious3horns (Vinox 2): Spector grab some upgraded weapons, the best defence is a good offence after all.]

[Handsome3horns (Vinox 2): Spector? Why are you calling him that all of a sudden bro?]

[Prestigious3horns (Vinox 2): Because that's his Streamer ID and I'm fed up off calling him 'streamer' each time as it gets confusing when watching multiple streams.]

[Superior4horns (Vinox 3): True but calling him Spector is also confusing since his ship and assistant are both called Spector.]

[StealthAssassin9 (Earth): I bet his assistant is the ships AI, I mean they both have the same monotone voice.]

[Justiceistruth: (Earth): Instead of Spector, how about Phantom?]

[Leonthemoneygiver (Earth): Hell no, the streamer ain't some horse riding, skull ring wearing vigilante who lives in a cave.]

[Justiceistruth: (Earth): He kinda did live in a cave through remember.]

[Leonthemoneygiver (Earth): Fair but still no.]

[Superhearofangirl (Earth): What about Punisher? I mean he punished those people before.]

[Whostolemyduck (Earth): Are you trying to get him sued lol, also Punisher is an anti-hero not a superhero.]

[Superhearofangirl (Earth): I can like both.]

[Gunlovergirl (Earth): Then what about Ghost?]

[Noobkiller9000 (Earth): Are you implying the streamer is a ghost who haunts his girlfriend after his death while terrorising Whoopi G for help?]

[Beinglittleisnotadisadvantage (Strathorp 7): Is it just me who isn't following half these references?]

[Tessisdabest (Imperial Down): Nope.]

[Whostolemyduck (Earth): You're all forgetting one important thing, if we start calling the streamer something else then every new viewer is going to ask us why we call him that.]

[Gunlovergirl (Earth): Ah fuck.]

As the chat debated about calling him something else in his streams Adam found a piece of equipment that caught his interest.

[Gravity controlled tractor emitter.]

[Special offer: 90% discount.]

[Cost: 2 points]

"Why is this on such a huge discount?" He asked as he selected it to read the description.

[Handsome3horns (Vinox 2): Oh that thing, yeah don't bother with it.]

[Prestigious3horns (Vinox 2): It's great for Campaign mode but is useless in PvP which is why it's so cheap and on sale since no one buys it here.]

[Beinglittleisnotadisadvantage (Strathorp 7): It's basically used instead of collection bots in Campaign mode to collect cargo and other things that are floating in space before pulling them into your cargo bay. It's also useful in a main story mission where you have to prevent a ship that's lost engines from crashing into a moon.]

[Tessisdabest (Imperial Down): Spoilers.]

[Beinglittleisnotadisadvantage (Strathorp 7): In PvP however it's crap for a few reasons. First your ship has to have an anti-gravity drive system not a thruster drive system. Second it's a huge power drain especially on small and medium sized ships since it requires you to divert power from weapons to be able to use it.]

"But what does it actually do?" Adam asked.

[Beinglittleisnotadisadvantage (Strathorp 7): It uses the gravitational energy from a ships anti-gravity drive to emit a beam that captures targets, you can then move the targets around.]

[StealthAssassin9 (Earth): Can't it be used to capture ships then?]

[Beinglittleisnotadisadvantage (Strathorp 7): It's been tried and while it does manage to hold a ship, all the opponent has to do is increase power to their engines to break free and since you can't use weapons while using the emitter you can't take advantage of the time there stuck.]

[Beczontop (Imperial Down): Remember that streamer who tried to make a name for themselves by making it work? Haha]

[Devil_Prince_Asura (Deverinian 9): lol yeah, he timed it wrong and disabled the opponents ship right as it had turned to face him so the opponent just opened fire with everything they had at point blank range lol.]

"But you can still move while the beam is attached to something right?"

[Beinglittleisnotadisadvantage (Strathorp 7): Yeah though your speed is limited by the mass of the object you're moving.]

"Interesting."

[Devil_Prince_Asura (Deverinian 9): Wait, you're not actually going to buy it are you?]

Adam smirked as he clicked the buy button before installing the gravity controlled tractor emitter on his ship.

[Handsome3horns (Vinox 2): WTF he brought it???]

[Sparesomechangebro (Earth): Bro if you have money to waste on shitty equipment send me some change.]

[Leonthemoneygiver (Earth): It wasn't actual money Bro lol.]

[Sparesomechangebro (Earth): He's still wasting currency and it annoys me. Angry face emoji.]

As the chat was bombarding him with questions a notification suddenly flashed up before him.

[You have been challenged by Prime]

[Map Selection: Random]

[Special Rules: None]

[Do you accept?]

"What's this?"

[1000yearsofdeath (Earth): Oh here we go, the streamer finally got challenged. kekeke]

[Devil_Prince_Asura (Deverinian 9): Oh godz it's Smurf Prime.]

[Beczontop (Imperial Down): Don't accept streamer it's a trap.]

[AlamoMatador4thewin (Earth): Smurf Prime? Trap?]

[Devil_Prince_Asura (Deverinian 9): Prime is a relatively popular streamer who primarily does mixed content including IRL. He is known for claiming to make Smurf accounts to train new players and Space Rogue is one of his favourite games to do it on.]

[Devil_Prince_Asura (Deverinian 9): He claims to be training you; however he just does it for the thrill of winning and then berates you for everything you supposedly did wrong. His chat is full of only fanatical followers because his mods are ordered to ban anyone who even thinks about criticising him.]

"What do you mean by claims to make Smurf accounts?" Adam asked after reading the chat.

[Devil_Prince_Asura (Deverinian 9): He claims he has a main account on Space Rogue but no one has ever seen it while the ID he uses for everything connected to the universal subspace network 'Prime' is the ID of the so called smurf account.]

[Devil_Prince_Asura (Deverinian 9): Also when his so-called Smurf account gets a certain number of wins he always deletes it and starts a fresh one so he can use 'Prime' as his ID. The reason he gives is so that he can keep training the rookies.]

"Hmmm sounds like it could be interesting." Adam mumbled.

[Devil_Prince_Asura (Deverinian 9): You're not seriously thinking about accepting are you? I mean we just told you it's a trap.]

"So what if it's a trap, it's only a loss at the end of the day. Besides I'm going to be stuck playing this game for several months while in subspace so why not make it more interesting."

After explaining himself Adam clicked [Accept] and he was instantly transferred into the Spector's cockpit again.