Avery

 Avery darted to her room without another word spoken. Student after student called out in greeting to no avail, nothing was getting through that ice cold shell of hers. She barely gave notice her to surroundings–especially the vast lands just behind her back.

And thank Astella for that, because my sneaking was god awful.

Her door lay cracked, letting just a sliver of light through its narrow frame. Not enough for her to glimpse a peak at the outside world. But for a wannabe spy like me? A world of opportunity awaited.

I slid up the door and peeked inside, trying to take in everything I could without being noticed. She sat with her back facing me, head turned over her shoulder while she listened to music. Her hair was a mess of loose curls, and a set of headphones were tightly bound to her ears.

Her phone screen alit, a bright beacon in the darkness. The glow painted the side of her face, and I noticed a slight twitch at the edge of her mouth. I wasn't sure if she was actually listening to the music, or if she was just grinning at something she saw on her screen. Anything to relieve the edge I guess.

She sighed, tossing her phone against the wall and burying her head against the pillow. Her soft voice echoed out muffled within the pillow.

I watched in shock as she beat her fists against the bed, slowly rising to her feet as the anger set in. She pulled back the curtain of her hair, letting it drape across her shoulders. She stomped over to the corner of the room, kicking the dresser in the process. It hit the wall with a crash, rattling the pictures above.

Avery let out a howl of anger, burying her face in the blankets and screaming until her voice cracked. Her body jerked, spasming as she tried to contain herself.

"Girl... you ok?" You know, that may have not been the best thing to say, not gonna lie.

"Kaiden!" Avery shrieked, spinning on her heels as her eyes widened in shock. "What the hell are you doing in here?"

"Uh, you mean I wasn't supposed to hear that?" Yeah... maybe I should shut up.

"Who said you were allowed in here?" She huffed, folding her arms over her chest. "You know what, I don't even care." She stormed over to her bed, and in a split second she reached down and grabbed the lamp off the night stand. "Was beating me not enough, did you need to taunt me after as well?"

"Wait!" I screamed as she tossed it with all her might. "I'm sorry, ok! I'm sorry I came in here and I'm sorry I saw you, but can you at least try to calm down first?"

"Oh, so that's what you're going to say, huh? I should calm down because you're the victim here? Well guess what, Kaiden, I don't give a shit about your apology, your dumb luck! What does a girl have to do to rant in peace?"

"That was a really big lamp."

Avery looked down at the ground, her shoulders rising as she tried to contain her breath. She let out a frustrated grunt, kicking the dresser once more for good measure.

"Damn." She collapsed on the mattress, refusing to meet my gaze. "When did you start looking?"

"Just after we got here," I said, leaning up against the door frame. "I didn't want to spook you."

She rolled her eyes and huffed. "Well, aren't you a fucking gentleman?" She kicked off her slippers, pulling them over to her head and burying her face within them.

"What's going on?"

"Oh, just this and that," she grumbled sarcastically.

"I'm sorry my shot-"

"You don't need to apologize for that! It's on me for not practicing hard enough, not on you."

"But still, I don't get why you're so pissed. It's not like I saw anything." Stop talking Kaiden! Please!

"Because I hate being weak. I hate being so damn close to winning something I love so much and I couldn't even manage a damn bullseye." Her voice cracked at the end, a single tear rolling down her cheek.

"I understand why you're frustrated. I wouldn't be able to deal with it if I lost."

"Oh, don't give me that crap!" She scoffed, tossing her slippers against the wall. "No matter how hard I try, I can't seem to get any of the shit together. I've completely stalled. No, I've regressed. My average has only gone down since the year began. I've lost every one of my competitions, and I'm so damn close to losing my spot."

"I think you're getting too hard on yourself."

"It's on me, I know it's on me but..." She sighed, trying to take a breath and calm down. "I just wish it wasn't. I wish I had the drive to make it better. But it's so hard, Kaiden."

"You got people there for you Avery. Sam's been trying to help night and day. If you think you've lost it all, you've forgotten about how much you have left."

"I know, it's just... I try! I try so hard to take their advice, but when things fall flat I just tumble back here over and over again. It's just so damn frustrating!" She leaned back against the pillows, sighing softly as she tried to hold herself together.

I made my way over to her bedside, taking a seat right beside her and looking up at the ceiling. "Hey." I looked her right in the eye. "You can do this, Avery."

"That's the problem, I can't."

"Hey, can I see your phone real quick? There's something I wanna show you real quick?"

"You not have yours?"

"Nah, Charlotte convinced it, something about reaching my Astella limit for the week."

She chuckled. "Sure, why not."

Felix, you fucking genius. I scrolled through, pulling my video up and shoving that tab to the side. Astella came first.

I slowly typed in Vhub's address, careful to avoid suspicion. "You know, sometimes these things just take time. I remember the first time I got into editing, specifically to make clip compilations of Astellas streams. I had my way, nothing else would do, yet eventually I hit my limit. It took some advice for me to really learn how editing software worked."

"Of course, you would make clips of Astella. Why am I not surprised."

"I would jump off a cliff if she asked me to." The page loaded, revealing those familiar forums. "But by nature of me implementing all these new features, my pace slowed tremendously and stayed at that speed for nearly a month straight. But as all these new features got absorbed, my pace sped up, and up, and up until I was faster and better than ever before. The correct way sometimes takes time."

I searched through her data, scanning for any semblance of login data.

Nothing.

"And that's all there really is to it," I said, closing out of vhub and erasing my tracks. "Here's a good video I found on getting over that gap, it's worth a watch in my opinion."

"Thanks" She watched as I rose from the bed, eyeing the door. "Sorry for barging in like this, I'll try to knock next time.

My mind raced as I closed the door behind me. Felix had predicted everything perfectly, too perfectly. From Sam taking up my challenge, to my lucky win over Avery, even her storming back here–more than willing for me to borrow her phone for a few seconds.

Felix was a lot of things. Genius? Not so much.

So who gave Felix that idea?