School Competition

Man, life is tough nowadays. Well, It doesn't matter, as long as Emma is happy and doing great.' Aster thought.

Aster's room door was slammed by a teen girl that looked excited. "Big bro! Listen listen! I need your help!" she said, "What is it, Emma?".

"There's a competition in school for siblings! Two siblings together will fight against other teams of siblings on a combat server in Outrealm. Can you be on my team?".

Aster tries to never refuse a request made by his little sister, even though he doesn't want to do it. "Stay by Emma's side, please honey." Those were his mother's words in the last conversation he had with her before she died.

"But sis, the neural implant costs $3000, and I'm a broke college student, if I could afford that, I would have bought one since the release".

Aster wanted to play the game since it was released, but when he finally saved that amount of money, Emma wanted to try the game too and he chose his sister over himself.

"Ohh, I see… I guess it's fine" Emma said with a face full of sadness.

Aster too was sad, but he didn't have a choice, and working more hours in his part-time job isn't possible too.

The next morning, Aster was sitting in class waiting for the CS101 lecture to begin, when his classmate, a dark-haired girl, Luna, approached. "Hey Aster, I just wanted to let you know that we are hosting an event in my dad's cafe over an OR205x neural implant if you want to participate." Luna said.

"You're giving out Outrealm's neural implant worth $3000! How generous!". "Well, I won it in a giveaway and I already have one so I thought of helping promote my dad's cafe. He is taking care of me and my family, so that's nothing in comparison."

The conversation carried on with a talk about the class, which in Aster's mind wasn't present as he was overjoyed to tell the news to his little sister.

Aster rushed home on his bicycle that he had since he was 13, 6 years ago, carrying on the news to his little sister.

"It's an event with teams of four, and if I remember correctly, it's a general question one." He said.

"Leave the questions to me! But what about the other 2 on the team, who can we invite?" Emma said.

Emma is on scholarship to play for this type of school competition, so she is confident about her ability, but her concern about who to invite was on the spot. The lovely sibling didn't have many friends, especially Aster, who at the age of 14 had to start working and abandon his social life to be able to support his sister and himself after his last parent, his father's death.

"I know it, I will invite Chad!" Aster said, but it looks like he missed something.

"That makes 3 of us, who will be the fourth?"

"We will figure it out tomorrow at the cafe, no need to worry about it now."

Emma shrugged but didn't say anything, as she trusted that her brother would come up with a solution. For her, Aster was the big brother who always figured things out.