Hey all,

This fic has been left without an update for over a year, and it's not for my lack of interest.

I love this world, and the feedback I have gotten from SO MANY of you has always been so overwhelmingly positive and encouraging.

I still have trouble wrapping my head around the idea that a video game that almost all of you have never played worked as a backdrop for this fic.

But that's also the problem - not you all - but the video game itself.

The last time I took a lengthy hiatus from this fic, League of Legends and the tournament circuit and the regions were dramatically overhauled. It made coming back to this fic extremely difficult because SO much had changed SO SO much.

And then, of course, I took another year long hiatus from writing this fic and the game changed AGAIN - and what's worse, I haven't been keeping up with the changes or played much league in the last year.

Let me stress again, I am amazed at how much support there is for this fic, and how many of you have reached out over the years to express your love for it and your support for me. Seriously, I never thought this fic would be one that garnered more than a dozen reviews because it is SUCH a niche AU.

I wish, I really, really, really wish I could sit down and take this story to it's conclusion. But my outline notes were only through the All-Stars games in Rio (WHICH guess what? The Midseason Invitational Tournament just finished this weekend and it was IN RIO - the All-Stars used to be midseason, and are now at the end, so the MSI IS what All-Stars used to be. So fiction has become reality!). I know what I wanted to happen overall, but I don't have an outline or chapter notes to share with you.

But I want to share something, because yes, this post/update is me officially ending this fic.

Chapter 27 left off with the gang heading to the studio to play in the last weekend of the regular season.

They will win that game, and then comes two weeks of off-time as they prep for the Summer Split Tournament. The winner of that tournament, as well as the team who won the summer, as well as the team who has the most promotional points, are the three teams who get to go to Worlds - which has also changed. That's how they do it NOW. I don't even REMEMBER how they did it back when I started writing this but it was different.

TGW will go as the second team, with ZG going as the first team. I have no idea who was going to go as the third team.

Worlds lasts for a month. I think I had it planned out to be in China?

Worlds is broken down into several different stages:

Group Stages (groups A-D? Who knows how many this year. Each have 4-6? Teams and they all play round robin until they've played each other twice. The top two teams in the group advance.)

Quarter Finals. The top 16 teams.

Semi-Finals. Top 4 teams.

Finals. Top 2 teams.

Usually, each of these 4 stages are held in different places - so each stage would be at a different place in China.

Which means lots of opportunity for travel and sightseeing and fun times and Duo, Trowa and Heero actually getting to relax and even try going on a real date of sorts.

I also wanted to see Duo and Wufei interacting more. And Duo and Solo interact more.

Duo and Solo's relationship doesn't get resolved - it's still prickly and still healing and still just not enough, but they move closer together. Especially by the time of Finals.

For the Group Stages, no teams from the same region are there, so usually its like this:

North American Team

Korean Team

Chinese Team

European Team

Wild Card or Southeast Asia Team

The top team of each region gets sorted first, so that the top seed of Korea will not play the top seed of China or NA or EU. Southeast Asia and Wild Card teams kind of just got plugged in.

SO, with that in mind, TGW was going to be in the group with the best Chinese Team - which NOW is probably LDG although who knows and THEN might have been Royal. ZG, as top seed, would have been with a lesser team. I did both of them a favor and kept them from being with the best Korean team.

Both TGW and ZG make it out of Groups and to Quarterfinals. Now, I want to emphasize that in reality, North American teams SUCK at worlds. NA is NOTHING compared to China and of course Korea wins everything (EU won back in Season 1 and Korea doesn't win EVERYTHING but they have won… 4? Of the 6 Worlds I think)

So, in fantasy land, both TGW and ZG make it to semis and face off. TGW wins and advances to finals. WHICH DOESN'T HAPPEN FOR NORTH AMERICAN TEAMS.

So the final is TGW vs SKT, THE best team in the world then and now - and Korean of course.

And SKT wins.

But afterwards, Solo hugs Duo, tells him how proud he is, and it's… yeah. They didn't win. But no one beats the Koreans and no NA team has made it to the FINALS in Worlds so it is OKAY. IT IS STILL A HUGE VICTORY. HUGE.

And then everyone celebrates, Relena tackles Quatre and kisses him.

Duo, Trowa and Heero…

And here's the other problem with this fic.

The closer we get to post-season/Worlds the more gameplay explanations are needed and the less time there is for these guys to even figure out what they are or what they want to be.

I also just do NOT see this working. These gamers live so much of their lives in the spotlight - most of the actual professional teams do weekly 20-60 minute videos about life in the gaming house and they are interviewed all of the time and I just don't see HOW a triad wouldn't be a big deal, in the real world or in this fictional world where Duo's outness is such a big deal.

So, and this is going to break a LOT of hearts, they weren't going to work out. Heero and Trowa stay together, and the three of them find common ground as teammates and as friends. Friends who are just a bit handsy but friends.

So Duo ends up on his own - not ALONE because he has amazing friends, an amazing team and a bright future. He hasn't bagged THE ONE or the ONES yet but he has a damn good future ahead of him and he's GOING to find someone. He ends the story HAPPY and excited and in SUCH a different place than the Duo in Chapter 1 ever thought possible.

But it does not end as a 1x2x3 HEA.

HOWEVER. Hey, Chapter 27 is the last official chapter. You can imagine for yourselves that TGW wins that game, wins the tournament, wins worlds and Duo, Trowa and Heero kiss each other while holding that giant ass trophy together on stage in front of the world.

I say go for it.

And I also say thank you, once again. I'm sorry I couldn't get this fic to the finish line. But I will always be grateful for the reviews, the messages and the love for this story. Truly, I still can't wrap my head around the number of people who loved it. Who love it.

Thank you all, so very, very much.