Mikaela | Pursuitcore

-(If this is going to be a long, long, thing, I'm going to give it my all, Because she's MY GOAT.)-

This wasn't in your plans, was it?

Didn't you think you'd be a survivor in whatever this dump is? Too bad for you, that's what you got stuck with, sucks to be you lol, Another day, another round, luckily you weren't alone, you also made good friends here with whom you got along well, especially with Vinnie, who gave you advice on how to junk the killers' attacks.

Well, I guess your situation wasn't so bad because you had a whole team to face the Terminators. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't, but hey, better to die trying, right? There's just one small detail.

Your girlfriend was brought here with you.

And you'll ask "How did I hit the jackpot with a girl with a sniper like her?" Right? Only you will know how. You've known her since long before you were brought to this place. You met in the most absurdly random way possible on the internet: on a now-defunct illegal download forum, arguing at three in the morning in the comments section because you'd said a Linkin Park song sounded better in a ultra-low quality of 128kbps because it gave it "aesthetics" and Mikaela responded with a giant paragraph in all caps calling you a "no-cultured noob." challenging you to a 1v1 in Counter-Strike to prove that your opinion was worthless that same night, and against all odds, that clash of opposites became the strongest bond of your lives.

She destroyed you in the game (she spawn-camped you mercilessly), but instead of blocking you, she sent you a friend request with a short message: "u don't suck dat bad, m8. lobby open room 4head."

While you were the grounding force, the casual gamer who took things easy and sent messages with proper punctuation, Mikaela was a whirlwind of all caps, toxic internet slang, and late-night Skype calls with distorted electronic music playing in the background. Gradually, the late-night gaming sessions went from being simple games to a daily routine. You learned to read between the lines of her broken language: when she sent you "STFU N00B" after a long silence, it actually meant she was glad you were logged in.

The real turning point came the day you decided to take a chance and hit the jackpot. In the middle of a text chat where she was complaining about her laggy internet, you casually dropped the question: an invitation to go out in real life, away from screens and servers. There was no response for a while, so you thought the server had crashed, until a short reply in lowercase arrived (something very unusual for her): "fine. pass the coordinates, skrub".

The "date" was as chaotic and bizarre as her own personality. She didn't know how to act in a normal setting; fast food wasn't "gamer" enough for her; the conversation spiraled into a hyperbolic argument where they almost ended up searching the dark web for real sniper rifles just to see which one had the best reload time. Anyone on the outside would have thought that date was doomed, but for the two of them, it was the exact moment they realized that, as odd as they were, they were a perfect match. They became that strange couple that no one on the forums understood, but who functioned with flawless synchronicity.

After months of chaotic dates, late-night strolls where she'd nudge your shoulder every time you got affectionate, and countless team victories, the final encounter finally arrived. Mikaela invited you to her apartment for the first time. The place was exactly as you'd imagined: network cables crisscrossing the floor, empty pizza boxes, stacks of Mountain Dew cans, and the blue glow of her monitor illuminating the cluttered room. She was acting more clumsy than usual, nervously wagging her tail from side to side as she tried to set up a two-player game.

Yeah, you know where this is going, so let's get to the point, shall we?

One thing led to another in the dimness of that neon-lit room. The cyan cat's defenses crumbled completely, abandoning internet slang and lobby shouts for a direct, chaotic, and suffocating encounter. You definitely hit the jackpot that night in its purest form.

If you didn't understand anything, you had sex with her, you animal, you savage, wild sex.

[Present]

The atmosphere in the main lobby is absolute chaos, a cacophony of noise, shouts, and stat screens flashing scores. Electronic music blasts at full volume. Dante is perched on a table, performing a victory dance and shouting memes at the top of his lungs while boasting about his MVP. The other players are laughing, sharing virtual cans of soda, and checking their frag scores. Everyone is celebrating the chaotic victory on the "New World" map.

Everyone but you.

Having a Terminator breathing down your neck, obsessively chasing you, and aggressively targeting you for a whole minute was too much, even when everyone else tried to shake him off, but you got compliments for it.

"Yo, look who it is! The literal tank of the match!"

"Dude, you held that Terminator for a whole ass minute under hard targeting! I saw the telemetry, you were dodging frames like a god! Big W, m8, absolute gigachad behavior!"

That kind of compliment.

All of that left you mentally exhausted. With your last life, stress, and a cold drink in hand, you decide to leave the noisy digital lobby. You sit on a sort of pixelated balcony made of floating gray textures, breathing in the "fresh air" of the game's emptiness, trying to shake off the frustration of being the round's punching bag. The sound of combat boots breaks the silence behind you.

Mikaela appeared with a stiff stride, her hands buried deep in the pockets of her Obey hoodie. Her cyan tail whipped the air from left to right with a spasmodic, violent rhythm—a clear sign that her social system was experiencing severe lag. She stopped about two meters away from you, pushed her green MLG glasses up with her middle finger, and fixed her gaze on a floating beam devoid of any textured details.

Mikaela: H3Y... She blurted out in a harsh whisper, devoid of all the noisy distortion she usually forced into the global chat microphone. U R BEIN MAD QUIET, SKRUB. R U GLITCHED OR W4T? CHOKING ON UR SALTY TEARS PL0X?

You didn't respond. You just took a slow sip of your drink. Mikaela gritted her teeth, letting out a huff of utter exasperation at not knowing how to handle you, who weren't even defending herself with insults. She took an aggressive step forward and, instead of sitting down like a normal person, she slumped down next to you, slamming her cyan shoulder into yours so hard you almost dropped your drink.

Mikaela: F1N3!! W4T3V3R!! STFU N LISTEN!! She exclaimed out of nowhere, crossing her arms so tightly that her claws marked the fabric of her sweatshirt, while a very dark blue tone began to invade the base of her cat ears. Dat bucket of bolts Terminator... l1terally a fraudulent hard-f0cus1ng cl0wn!! He only targeted ur casual 4HEAD cuz he kn0ws u R my duo n he is hard-scared to face my Intervention 1v1!! It's a certified n00b tactic, m8!!

You turned to look at her out of the corner of your eye, she continues.

Mikaela: U...U DID GOOD, DUDE, She continued, lowering her voice reluctantly, stumbling over her own words as her tail awkwardly tangled around your leg out of pure instinct. Baited dat metal piece of trash for 60 whole seconds without throwing the match. Dat is... a pretty high-tier counter-play, I guess. In fact, u outperformed DANT3's entire career in one single round, u get me? So stop lookin like a disconnected server.

Watching Mikaela try to be emotional support was like watching a sniper try to heal with fragmentation grenades. It wasn't romantic, but it was giving you its purest version of the jackpot. The weariness from targeting evaporated, replaced by genuine amusement. You couldn't hold it in any longer. A clean, relaxed laugh escaped your chest, echoing softly against the pixelated metal of the balcony. You straightened up slightly, wragging yourself out of her rough grip, only to turn and face her. With a smile brimming with pure affection, you reached out and playfully tapped the tip of one of her cat ears, which were still completely drooped with nervousness.

"You're no good at this... but thank you," you said gently, your words deliberate and measured.

Upon hearing that, her eyes widened and her cheeks flushed so red she looked like she might blink from overheating. The insult to her "ability" to comfort you had struck a direct blow to her competitive pride.

Mikaela: W-W4T?! STFU N00B!! L1TERALLY DELETE UR ACCOUNT RITE NAO She burst into a muffled scream in capital letters, giving you a double shove to the chest that barely moved you an inch. I'M A TOP-TIER SUPPORT DUDE, U R JUST A FRAUDULENT CASUAL WHO CHOKES UNDER PRESSURE!! CH0K3 ON MY COMFORT PL0X!! WRITING A TICKET TO THE MODS FOR HARASSMENT 4HEAD!!

She crossed her arms violently, huffing and puffing in indignation, turning her head completely away from the empty map so she wouldn't have to meet your smile. She was insulting you in her broken way, using all the lobbying toxicity she had in her brain to try and salvage what little dignity she had left. Yet she doesn't lie, and neither does her body.

Despite all her loud tantrums and threats to report you for trolling, Mikaela didn't let go of your leg. On the contrary: as she cursed you in Leetspeak, her tail tightened even more around your ankle, entwining itself possessively and rigidly. It was her physical tether, the hidden anchor that proved that, even though her mouth was calling you a "cultured cripple," her entire system utterly refused to let you go.

Yeah, your turn, get that pussy cat.