Investing In Overlooked Women: I Get Cashback On Every Glow-Up

Just as LownGun’s automated crosshair locked onto her head, Amanda pulled out a live frag grenade, cooked the pin for a microsecond, and dropped it right at her own feet—standing directly in LownGun’s face.

BOOM!

The explosion ripped through the tight hallway. The kill feed flashed instantly: [ELIMINATED] Luna_Sky 💣 LownGun

Through the booth glass, Amanda leaned into her mic, looking directly at a shocked, dying LownGun with a wild smirk. ”Who’s crazy now, huh?”

Over the comms, Piercer burst out laughing mid-round. She instantly remembered their early training days when she had pulled a reckless suicide play against Amanda, and Amanda had screamed at her, ”Are you crazy?!” Now her captain had just pulled the exact same maniac move to clutch the Grand Finals.

LownGun slammed his hands onto his desk in pure, unadulterated rage, his face flushed bright red as his screen went black. Amanda just casually looked across the stage, gave him a small, polite wave, and leaned back in her chair.

With the explosion clearing, only two players remained on the map: Piercer and TitanSkell’s final support, who was already critically damaged from the blast radius.

Piercer swung out from the high lane, her crosshair dropping perfectly onto the target’s chest. One crisp, clean bullet ended it.

[ROUND WIN: ZENITH ESPORTS] [MATCH WINNER: ZENITH ESPORTS (3-2)]

The arena went completely quiet for half a second before exploding into absolute bedlam. Confetti rained down from the ceiling, the stadium lights flashed purple and gold, and tens of thousands of screaming fans jumped out of their seats, chanting ”ZENITH! ZENITH! ZENITH!” at the top of their lungs.

Down on the stage, NightEye and Angelo leaped out of their seats, throwing their arms around Amanda and Piercer in a massive team huddle. They had done it. They had beaten the triple-champions, broken their scripts, and taken the crown with pure skill.

Standing in the control room with the flash drive tucked safely in my jacket, I couldn’t help the massive smile spreading across my face.

Now, I thought, tapping the pocket containing the evidence, time to finish TitanSkell for good.

”That was... unbelievable,” the tech guy stammered, wiping a tear from his eye as he stared at the live broadcast feed. ”Pure poetry. I can’t believe they actually pulled that off.”

”It was,” I said, leaning over his console and tapping the external drive. ”Now, let’s make sure everyone knows the real story behind this win.”

He looked up at me, confused. ”What do you mean?”

I pointed directly at the main stadium router routing the broadcast feeds. ”I want you to override the main stream right now. Take the 240fps booth video, loop the hardware click delay alongside LownGun’s auto-aim kills, and pump it out onto every single screen in this arena.”

The tech guy froze, his eyes going wide. ”Wait... the main stadium monitors? The broadcast feed? That’ll go out to millions of viewers live!”

”Good,” I smirked, pulling out another roll of cash and setting it on the desk. ”Let them all watch. TitanSkell stole three years of championships with these scripts. It’s time to show the world who they really are.”

A slow, wicked grin spread across the tech guy’s face. The tears of awe turned into pure resolve. ”You got it, boss.”

His fingers flew across the keyboard. He bypassed the standard broadcast overlay, patched into the arena’s central jumbotron system, and slammed the key to broadcast the raw clip.

Down on the main stage, while Zenith was still hugging and celebrating under the falling confetti, the massive, four-sided jumbotron above the arena suddenly flickered.

The trophy presentation music cut out.

Instead of Zenith’s victory stats, LownGun’s face zoomed in on every giant screen in the stadium, framed side-by-side with his raw client feed in ultra-slow motion. A massive red analytical tracker highlighted his index finger hovering completely still off the mouse button, while in-game, his crosshair auto-snapped and fired a frame-perfect headshot.

Big, glowing white text burned across the center of every display:

[HARDWARE INPUT / GAME ENGINE DESYNC DETECTED: UNAUTHORIZED AUTO-AIM SCRIPT EXECUTION.]

The deafening cheers in the stadium instantly died down into a collective, gasping roar of pure shock.

Tens of thousands of eyes swung from the giant screens right over to TitanSkell’s booth. LownGun’s face went completely ghost-white as he looked up and saw his own cheating exposed in hyper-detailed 4K for the entire world to see.

LownGun instantly scrambled for his mic, his voice trembling through the broadcast system as he desperately tried to spin the narrative. ”This is a setup! That footage is edited! It’s frame-rate lag, it’s broadcast latency! Zenith is lying to steal our momentum!”

I stepped out from the tunnel, holding a microphone in one hand and the hard-drive casing in the other, my voice booming across the stadium PA system.

”Frame-rate lag doesn’t fire a rifle before a finger touches the mouse, LownGun,” I said, walking down the center aisle straight toward the stage. ”That clip is pulling raw hardware telemetry straight from your booth console at 240 frames per second. It’s timestamped, verified, and signed by the tournament’s own technical control team. You’re done.”

The crowd erupted into a terrifying wave of fury. The chants of admiration instantly turned into a thunderous, arena-shaking chorus of boos. Devastated fans in the front rows tore off their TitanSkell jerseys, throwing them onto the stage floor in disgust, while others pelted the booth with empty plastic cups and trash.

Realizing the game was completely up, LownGun sprinted off his stage desk, running down the steps to corner me before tournament security could step in. The arrogance was completely gone, replaced by pure, desperate panic.

”Ethan, please, man! Shut it off!” he begged, his hands practically shaking as he grabbed at my shoulder. ”You’re going to destroy my entire career! Nobody will ever sign me again! I’ll lose my sponsors, my contract, everything!”

When I didn’t even blink, he spun around to Amanda, who was standing on stage with her hands crossed, watching him cold-eyed.

”Amanda, please tell him!” LownGun pleaded, his voice cracking. ”You owe me! Remember last tournament when you threw that round and ruined my placement?! You owe me for that! Tell him to take the video down, tell him we can settle this quietly! Ask him to forgive me!”

Amanda didn’t flinch. The ghost of her past failure, the weight he had used to manipulate her for months, was completely gone.

”I don’t owe you anything, LownGun,” Amanda said, her voice carrying clear and steady over the stage mics. ”I carried that guilt because I thought you were better than me. But you’re just a coward hiding behind code. I forgave myself the moment we beat you on that map.”

LownGun fell back, looking at me with wide, terrified eyes. ”Please... don’t do this.”

I leaned in, keeping my voice low so only he could hear. ”You tried to break my team, you cheated the fans, and you tried to ruin Amanda. I’m not just ending your career tonight, LownGun. I’m erasing TitanSkell from esports history.”

Security swarmed the stage seconds later, grabbing LownGun and his teammates by their arms and escorting them through the back exit under a barrage of boos and trash, while the tournament commissioner officially announced TitanSkell’s permanent ban from the league.

The crowd completely lost their minds. Once the realization hit the tens of thousands of fans in the arena—and the millions watching the stream—that Zenith hadn’t just won a championship, but had defeated a fully automated cheat engine with pure skill, the applause turned into absolute thunder.

Back on the main stage, NightEye threw her arms around Amanda and Piercer, wiping away tears of sheer hype. ”Woo! Yeah, I might actually stay on this team forever!”

”You’re not going anywhere,” Angelo laughed, slinging an arm over her shoulder. ”We’re a package deal now.”

Piercer turned to Amanda, a rare, genuine grin spreading across her face. ”Honestly, cap... that suicide play you pulled back there with the frag grenade was absolute fire. I actually thought you were going to sacrifice us just to get a clear angle on LownGun!”

Amanda just laughed, shaking her head as the adrenaline finally started to settle. ”I learned from the best, didn’t I?”

The tournament official stepped up to the center podium, holding the massive, polished gold Grand Finals trophy. The arena announcers roared into their mics, ”LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, YOUR NEW UNDEFEATED CHAMPIONS... ZENITH ESPORTS!”

Confetti blasted into the air, raining down in gold and blue streams. The crowd chanted in unison—”ZENITH! ZENITH! ZENITH!”—shaking the entire stadium foundation.

Amanda grabbed the handles of the cup, but before lifting it, she turned around and pointed straight at me. ”Boss! Get up here!”

The team grabbed my arms and pulled me right into the middle of the stage, forcing the heavy gold trophy into my hands. Holding it up under the blinding spotlight, surrounded by the four of them screaming in victory, the feeling was unmatched.

Just then, a sleek digital notification pinged silently across my system interface:

[TOTAL TEAM INVESTMENT CALCULATED]

[50X CHAMPIONSHIP MULTIPLIER ACTIVATED]

[CASHBACK REWARD UNLOCKED: $25,000,000 LOADED TO ACCOUNT]

I looked down at my phone, seeing the massive eight-figure balance update, and a wide, satisfied smile spread across my face.

I looked up at Amanda, Piercer, NightEye, and Angelo, who were still jumping around and celebrating under the falling confetti.

”Alright, listen up!” I yelled over the deafening roar of the crowd, tapping Amanda on the shoulder. ”Pack your bags tonight. I guess I owe you guys a full-expense, private vacation.”