Sometimes our lives become too interesting happening to look real, it starts smelling like hollywood. This one time it happened to me.
It is an awesomely cool story.
A guy is watching a rookie from a distance. The rookie is fighting amongst the professionals. He is not winning but he is not quitting either. He has the raw energy, but not the subtle moves of the master of the art. The technique is almost not there. Nonetheless he looks promising.
The observer, the coach. The forgotten legend. The champion. Been there done that, more than hundred times. He imagines the moves he would have used instead. Smooth and precise, touch of perfection from the master. Everybody knows that this man rarely teaches anybody. But all of a sudden, he decides to make an exception. For this rookie.
There was this brand new online gaming phenomenon called GunZ-the duel. The greatest free massively multiplayer game available in India. This was a world of guns and swords. Fights are held in amazing artistic arenas ranging from prison to dungeon to mansion to colosseum. The gaming experience was unlike any game played before. Fast as hell, shoot and slash faster than any game played before. You can run on walls, perform flip offs of them, climb higher on it by stabbing it with your sword and jumping higher, quick mid-air dodges in any direction and what not.
There were certain secret combos to show-off in that dynamic arena. The most difficult and celebrated one was called the butterfly. With 'the butterfly' technique, you can not only continuously dodge sword and bullet attacks using your rapidly slashing sword but also attack with the sword. 'The butterfly' move was legendary, a very few knew the combo, and among them hardly a few could actually perform the same. You needed to be perfect to perform that move.
When I was in the initial stages of my GunZ career, I was a decent fighter. I though was merely level 10, with my low level weapons I was able to beat the crap out of many higher level players. During one of those late night sittings, my fight was being watched by a player called DS. In that arena he killed many, used 'the butterfly' many-a-times. Tough I couldn't win the round, I gave him a tough time. He invited me to a new arena. We chatted a bit about the game. He told me that he liked my gameplay and asked me "do you want to learn 'the butterfly'?" That was one of the best moments of my online gaming life.
He took me to a new arena 'training the_devil', locked by password. Hahaha! Funny name, how can you train the_devil? Anyway, I accepted. And the training started. Moves broken down to pieces, then smaller level combos that were the basics and finally, the butterfly. Thoughout the training, many players kept whispering into the arena, begging DS to train them as well. He ignored them. The training went on. It took about one hour to teach me the move to a certain level. To reach perfection I needed to put in many more hours of practice. After that we chatted more, when he told me how a player called NightShade had taught him this technique a few weeks ago.
Man!!! I was living in a fantasy world relishing the best moments.
I developed my 'butterfly' technique to a certain level below perfection, but never found enough time to play the game, let alone practice the move. But the master rookie thing in hollywood movies seems quite real to me since then.