EPT
I guess this is just how I remember it.
HerO/Puma Game Seven:
I had been sitting beside WaxAngel and grnp throughout the final. We'd enjoyed the QuakeLive, but were on edge to see how HerO would perform. As we watched the first game, we saw his heart-rate accelerate right up into the low 160s, BPM engaged in a gradual creep towards his APM. It's not an uncommon observation that HerO seemed nervous on stage, but this time there was some clear indication, something tangible to worry about.
He might be a genius on stream, a miracle worker, but it looks like our HerO has the heartbeat of a hummingbird.
I won't go over the entire sequence; it might bore those who watched the games and ruin it for anyone who hasn't had a chance. Suffice it to say that, byt the time the final game rolled around, we were on the edge of our seats, shouting, screaming, clapping and cheering. It would have been one thing had we been at home, but we were surrounded by the clapping and chanting of thousands.
Thousands of hands beating out an ovation for exquisite micro, thousands of mouths open in laudation, and, in few those moments when the game hung in the balance, thousands of indrawn breaths held until a resolution.
I'm not sure how it happened that we ended up rushing the stage when HerO won. I know that someone said it lightheartedly at first, in a sort of, "Wouldn't it be great if..." sort of way, but the seed had been planted and as the game unfolded we started to gravitate towards the stage.
There were minutes, interminable minutes, when it seemed like Puma had it won. Moments where we watched HerO make unfathomable decisions and Puma's near-perfect responses. It was a tug-of-war that felt endless, almost purgatorial; throughout it all, the cold poured up into us from the ice beneath the floor, numbing feet and misting breath.
To my left, Bumblebee's face was shining-pale in the dim of the arena. As Puma maneuvered his marines in and out of range of HerO's storms, he'd alterante between cheering full force and curling in on himself. That was how we passed the majority of the last game. For whole exchanges, his face was buried in his his coat, collar lifted to his cheekbones and held there as though he were afraid to see the game end.
I remember the moment of the "GG", I remember the rough surface of the stage under my right hand, a speaker underfoot briefly as we vaulted to meet the new champion. WaxAngel was ahead of me, Sheth at the door of the booth, TLO already inside to hug HerO. Somewhere in all of this, there was the feeling of Bumblebee's hands pressed down onto my shoulders as he leaned on me from behind, but I can't order the sequence of events properly. It's as though too much was unfolding too close together; it was all just happening at once. The next thing I remember was the man himself.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/aNg24.png)
HerO came out of the booth with a hand held up for high-fives. There was no shortage.
The booth opened and as he stepped out HerO was plunged into the wave of adulation, the sustained clapping cadence to the chant of "HERO, HERO, HERO!" In that moment, HerO looked out into the crowd and, for just a split second, glanced back at his teammates, one hand pressed to his mouth as though he had just realised all at once that this sea of people were here for him.
I've tried to remember another, but I genuinely think it's the single happiest expression I've seen on anyone's face.
Seemed so intense!
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/rkTt3.jpg)
