Chapter 5: Luck?

“Respawn in 3… 2… 1…”

‘Phew, it worked.’ A bright light enveloped me as I respawn. ‘At least the Z coordinates change accordingly when the landscape changes.’ After spawning I rush to the sniper’s base with ease. I get there with 2:12 left for the match. The team bonus multiplier grows to 4x. With the spare time and in a relaxed manner the team started to chat.

- (Team) xXPozeidonXx: Hey, good strategy man.

- (Team) Funter: Yeah, good job!

- (Team) Kortef: Don’t be so happy yet, it’s the first of 3 rounds.

The spirits of the team are high.

- (Team) Funter: Don’t be so modest, you did good hahaha.

- (Kortef) Slave Orb: Yup, even still I was surprised that the snow storm worked like that, you did great!

- (Team) xXPozeidonXx: It’s the girl’s voice again!

- (Team) Big D.: It seems she is operating the carrier orb of Kortef.

- (Kortef) Slave Orb: Sure, I am.

- (Team) Funter: A manual operator in amateur category? Why?

- (Kortef) Slave Orb: Because it’s fun, got a problem with that?

“…”

Everybody seems terrorized with the aggressive tone of Ana.

- (Team) xXPozeidonXx: Hey by the way, why didn’t you told us yourself the strategy Kortef?

- (Team) Kortef: Well, if I said the strategy myself, you would have probably ignored me, but a gamer tends to be more obedient when they hear a girl’s voice.

- (Kortef) Slave Orb: So, you used me?

- (Team) Kortef: Sort of, was it a bad thing?

- (Kortef) Slave Orb: No worries, I kind of liked it *chuckle*.

“…”

- (Team) Funter, xXPozeidonXx, Funter: DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUDE.

All the team members roar in unison.

- (Team) Kortef: What?

I don't get why the uproar. Don’t they notice that Ana is just teasing them?

The countdown for the round 2 starts. It is now our team turn to snipe. Since my plan was a success, everybody ask me for a plan, so I decide to go for a basic strategy.

- (Team) Kortef: Our objective is to not let them have a full bonus score multiplier. Funter and Big D., choose someone with low defense on the red team and focus on him. If you have spare time you can shoot others but your main objective is to shoot just that one on respawn. Pozeidon and I will do the same with the Hybrid of the blue team.

The strategy is as simple as that, a shameless focus fire. My knowledge of the point system lead me to pick this strategy. When a team is in assailant mode on Sniper's territory, a player get 10 points for each 10 meters of distance they cover. If a single player covers the whole distance between them and the snipers, they get 1 bonus point for each second remaining in the timer. If multiple players of the team covers the whole distance, the bonus points of each of them get a 1x increase for each additional team member. In our case not only we got to the sniper base quickly, since all of our team members got there, each bonus score got a 4x multiplier making an outstanding 7.148 points just in the first round.

When you are in the sniper mode the point system is quite easy: you get points by killing players. Only the sniper team can damage to the other players, the other 2 teams can’t damage each other. Also each time a player gets to the sniper base, the sniper team reload time increases and their accuracy gets a penalty. That’s why I decided to double team the players from the start instead of spreading the damage.

Since the landscape changed because of the avalanche, many of the obstacles in the road that could have been used as cover to wait and recharge the shields were now buried in the snow. The landscape was now an open field.

I and xXPozeidonXx focus on killing a Blue Team’s Hybrid named DragonCunt, while Funter and Big D. focus on Berko of the Red Team. Although we are focusing fire in just 2 players, we often shot warning shots and kill those who try to speed up downhill indiscriminately.

The first one to get to the base is a Red Team member with 3:20 left on the timer.

“Don’t worry, everybody focus on your main targets.” I shouted trying to motivate the team.

*Bang, bang, bang, pew.*

Three ballistic rifles and one plasma sniper rifle resounded in unison. Although I didn’t pick a Sniper Rifle in the weapon selection I was provided with a basic one, but the rest of my weapons are locked.

“Fuck, not again.” I am giving my all but somehow my performance is not great. With just 1 player the penalty of accuracy is minimal and I missed horribly 3 shots in a row. This caused the assailants to advance quite quickly.

‘Come on, focus, focus, focus, focus, focus, focus…’ I am determined to win.

A bit later 3 red team members take advantage of an opening made by my mistake, crossing the thousand meters. Our team’s accuracy drops by 60% and the reload time of our weapons increases by 5.2 seconds. With all this hardships we try hard to suppress the last 4 players but now the other team member that my performance is terrible.

Ana grew worried. She knows that sniper rifles wasn't one of my specialties but I am not that bad. “Marcus, are you alright?” She asks in a private transmission. I am surprised by fact that she used my real name instead of my nick, maybe she is worried somehow?

“I’m fine, I just feel a bit dizzy and my neck feels strange, I don’t know why.” I reply in the same private transmission while shooting.

“Your neck?” Ana asks staring blankly. Battle Droids doesn’t have necks.

Ana is assisting me as a Carrier Orb so she is not in the VR itself, she is just in a laptop. But playing in a laptop is not less immersing as playing in a VRD in the sense that most of the time you forget about your surroundings, so it took some time to her to understand what was I talking about. “You mean your real neck?”

“What other neck could I be possibly talking about? An imaginary neck?” I reply with a tone full of sarcasm and mockery.

Being connected to a virtual reality means that your conscience and senses drifts to another world but your body is still in the real world. Any external stimulus will be felt by you even if you are fully immersed in the virtual reality. If the external stimulus are too high, for example, you are shacked violently or the room temperature rises or falls abruptly, the safety measures of the VRD triggers disconnecting you and bringing back your conscience so you can take counter measures to fix those external stimulus and connect again in a friendlier environment.

On the other hand, positive stimulus like a relaxing massage while you are playing or minor stimulus like a mosquitoes bites trigger weird sensations on the VR world as warnings that something is happening without forcibly disconnecting you.

“You bastard, I’m going to pinch your arm and leave a mark!” Ana distances herself a little from her laptop and turns to look where my body is sitting. “*Gasp* Ma… Marcus, yo… your shirt…” Ana says with a trembling voice but in the middle of the sentence her microphone drops.

“You? My shirt what? Speak up clearly, I can’t hear you! *bang*” I reply while shooting the rifle.

Ana picks up the microphone from the floor and nears it to her scarlet lips. “Marcus! Your shirt is drenched in blood!”

“So that was it.” I say indifferently. It seems that the nosebleed from moments ago didn’t healed completely and maybe because of the helmet didn’t let the air circulate a wound opened again.

“What? That was it? Why the fuck do you sound so calm?” Ana replies angrily.

“It’s ok. Please, cover me up with my jacket.” My tone remains indifferently.

“Marcus…” Ana is at loss. Her eyes become moist and her lips are trembling.

“Listen up, if a judge sees me they are going to forcibly disconnect me and disqualify me, so just cover me with my jacket.” Is paused and say with a resolute tone, “Let’s just finish with this round and we will see what we can do later, I’ll promise to do my best to win this and not disappoint you.”

“But Marcus, this is not okay, I… I wanted you to have fun… not to hurt yourself.” Ana says with a dejected voice, a voice full of regret.

“I’m not hurting myself, I’m having fun. Trust me Ana.” I reply to Ana with a sincere tone. What I said was true, I am really having fun.

“Alright… I’ll trust you.” Ana puts down the microphone. She goes to my side and picks up my jacket from a table with some leftover napkins from the snacks that we ate during the recess. She wipes a bit of the blood on my neck hastily checking her surroundings and covers me with the jacket as if it was a blanket laid by a mother to her child.

She stares my figure reclined on the chair. She stares at the helmet I am wearing. Although she has no way of seeing my face directly she stares deeply as if she could really see my face. In her mind, she could see the smiling Marcus of 3 years ago that was so important and inseparable to her.

Her heart starts to beat furiously while a lot of memories come one after one to her mind. She caresses my arm gently. “I found you Marcus, I will not let you go far away from me again.” After saying this, she wipes the moisture of her eyes and returns to the laptop.

Inside the game I just feel a gentle touch, a touch full of warm feelings.

*Bang.*

Thirty seconds of the match left. While Ana was speaking with me a second player of the Red Team got to the sniper’s base. Currently only 3 players left on the assailant teams.

*Bang.*

“Crap, I missed, kill DragonCunt and don’t let him in!” I shout.

“Reloading.” Big D. had just killed a player in the rear and is reloading.

“Reloading too.” xXPozeidonXx lowered the shields of DragonCunt but I missed.

“You have missed quite a lot.” Funter said a bit dissatisfied.

The team mood dropped a lot, and their opinion on me changed drastically. They surely are thinking that it was just a lucky strategy, or maybe I just copied it from a top player. To be honest my performance was utterly disappointing, I can’t blame them.

*Bang.*

‘Damn it, just an arm shot.’ I could just watch as the last red team member approaches to the base.

“Time’s up. Starting round 3 in 15 seconds.”

“Display match status window.” Kortef said.

‘This is not good’ I am uncertain whether or not we could win.

“Round starts.”

“CHAAARGE.” Big D. roars and take the lead trying to raise the spirits of the team.

“Go, go, go.” Funter and xXPozeidonXx says in unison.

“…” I remain silent. I glance sideways and start running.

The Red Team froze on the spot from the start of the round. At the naked eye it seems just that they are yielding but in truth it is something else. They want us to lose for the humiliation they suffered in the first round.

The players of the Blue Team couldn't complain, having only to focus on the Yellow Team clearly they have the advantage, a huge advantage.

30 seconds of the match went by quickly. I and my team had died twice without making any significant progress. Now that the Red Team are mocking us we are certain that we have no hope.

“There’s no point in going down only the four of us, we are just going to be practice targets and give them points.” xXPozeidonXx seems furious.

“Then why don’t we remain here? We have the lead by 1000+ points.” Big D. says in a casual tone.

“Well thought, if we don’t try to go they don’t get points!” xXPozeidonXx saw a ray of hope.

“Good one Big D.” Funter patted Big D. shoulder.

- (Team) Kortef: Can’t do that.

“Uh?” xXPozeidonXx looks at me with disdain.

“What are you talking about?” Funter seems to notice that it couldn’t be that easy.

- (Team) Kortef: Please speak in the team chat.

- (Team) xXPozeidonXx: Ok speak, why do you say that we can’t remain here Mr. Genius?

xXPozeidonXx tone is aggressive.

- (Team) Kortef: If no one crosses the line within the time limit the sniper team get a full swing, it gives each team member 1.000 bonus points and we only have a lead of 1.500 points, so you can calculate who is going to win.

- (Team) Big D.: What? You are kidding right?

- (Team) Funter: No, he is right, I forgot about it because is extremely difficult to do but I have heard of a full swing.

- (Team) xXPozeidonXx: So, we are doomed?

- (Team) Kortef: No, there’s still a chance.

- (Team) xXPozeidonXx: Cut the crap, this is your fault to begin with. If you haven’t changed the landscape there will be still some places to take cover but now we are just practice targets. Although I admired you because it was a brilliant plan, I thought you did it because you were good at sniping, but you are worse than my grandma at aiming.

xXPozeidonXx is enraged. While talking he grabs me by the shoulders and pushes me to the ground.

- (Kortef) Slave Orb: Hey! You are being just mean!

- (Team) xXPozeidonXx: Cut the crap you too, you are on the same boat as him!

xXPozeidonXx points at the carrier's orb camera.

- (Team) Big D.: Calm down Pozeidon, let him talk. You have a plan, don’t you?

Big D. intervenes and pulls xXPozeidonXx's hand while Funter helps me to stand up.

- (Team) Kortef: I can’t call it a plan, it’s an idea instead.

- (Team) xXPozeidonXx: Tch.

- (Team) Kortef: Sigh. First of all I want to apologize if you taught I was the hidden pro player that was going to carry you. I’m just as normal as you. The avalanche plan succeeded because the sniper team was a moronic one, if they sniped the ones going uphill or if they walked near a tree to wait for the avalanche they could have stopped their calamity.

My tone is sincere and modest.

- (Team) Kortef: With that said, there’s no time to lose, the idea is this…

“…”

“…”

- (Team) Funter: That’s fucking madness.

- (Team) Big D.: Hahaha I think it’s worth a try, don’t you agree Pozeidon?

- (Team) xXPozeidonXx: If I can punch some faces is fine by me.

“Time remaining: 3:42.”

END OF CHAPTER 5