Chapter 18: Battle in the Lava Crossroads! Part 3

“Why the sudden rush?” Ana asks me before I speed up again.

“It’s the Lightning Reaver! That’s why people are fighting so hard to control it.” I answer her and hesitate whether or not it will be a good idea to go in the Charger or to go on foot.

A War Reaver is normally a four stars vehicle, but the Lightning Reaver is a Heroic ranked vehicle, it is fair to rank it with 7 stars. Its speed, its agility, its defense, its attack power, every in the Lightning Reaver is absurdly overpowered, you can only get this vehicle during a brief moment in one of the campaign maps where your squad is outnumbered 60:1, but thanks to the Lightning Reaver the mission is achievable.

*Swooosh.*

I think about it and finally I decide to go in the Levitating Charger. It seems the other players dismounted because their vehicles are heavily damaged, but my Levitating Charger is still in decent shape so it can give me the edge I need in order to acquire the fabled Lightning Reaver.

I look towards the nearest player and I notice that it is a Specter. I align my Levitating Charger and advance towards him at full speed.

*Bang, bang, bang.*

*Clang, clang, clang.*

The specter detects that I am speeding towards him and fires multiple rounds from his Assault Rifle to me, all of them impacting in the front shield of the charger. He fires nonstop and waits until the last second to do a side roll in order to dodge my charge.

‘Sorry mate, too late.’ I laugh inwardly. Although waiting to the last moment to do a side roll is a common and effective maneuver to avoid being run over, there’s a counter maneuver to that.

I hit the brakes of the Levitating Charger and at the same time I motion it to turn abruptly, causing the vehicle to do a spin. The rear of the Levitating Charger hits the Specter sending him far away. Although he didn’t die immediately, I’m sure he is not far from death.

Not long after someone shot some barrages to the Specter killing him on the spot.

‘Those bastards KS’ed my prey!’ I watch hatefully as someone else scores the kill after I did 90% of the job.

*Bang.*

I hear the sound of a sniper rifle and reflexively duck my head, the bullet was off by less than 20 cm. “Damn, there are Snipers.” Without thinking it twice I accelerate not caring about the direction, if I remain still a second sniper shot could kill me instantly.

Sadly for me, the fact that I am the only one riding a vehicle attracts the attention of a couple more of players, either because they feel threatened or simply jealously. While fleeing I receive a couple of shots damaging my shields by 23%.

“Time to retaliate!” After making some distance I make a 180º turn. I’m facing the Lightning Reaver again but there’s a 400 meters distance to cover and 5 players that will not let anyone else approach it. I narrow my eyes and quickly scan the area for the ones that took advantage of the moment in which I was fleeing from the Sniper to shot me in the back and I notice that they are trying to push forward again.

“Round two!” I spot them and charge immediately to one of them. It seems that they are making a truce or something like that, because they are actually close and they don’t shot each other.

With the high speed of the Levitating Charger the distance between me and my new prey shrinks quickly to 60 meters while I activate the dual Light Machine Guns. The downside is that activating this weapons makes my Charger go slightly slower, however, the upside is that this two streams of green laser beams shot forward obliterating everything it hits.

*Clang, clang, pow, pow.*

In less than 2 seconds the each of the Levitating Charger’s Light Machine Guns shot 24 rounds, that’s 720 rounds per minute in each Machine gun, of those 48 rounds only 14 impact on the body of the guy I am aiming but that is enough to transform him in a flash of light.

“You have killed player Red Zealot. Berserker State Lv. 1 activated for 5 seconds.”

Everything happened so fast that he had no time to take a better cover or he just couldn’t because I was somehow flanking him with the other 3 guys that are in the other side. However, the one that I am suspicious of being his partner is in a somewhat safer spot and after noticing that the other guy died he points at me with a submachine plasma gun.

*Clang, clang, clang, BOOM.*

With a lucky hit he destroys one of my Light Machine Guns. Since he is taking cover behind a collapsed rock pillar and the Light Machine Gun from the Levitating Charger is located only half a meter above the ground, there’s no way I can find an angle to hit him. However, I am almost 2 meters above the ground and my angle is totally different.

I turn to face him and reach with my right hand one of the Plasma Guns I placed in the rear of the Levitating Charger earlier.

*Pew. Pew. Pew.*

“Headshot, headshot, headshot. You have killed player Zuter. Berserker State Lv. 2 activated for 7 seconds.”

Three shots, three headshots, and my third kill. I grin inwardly seeing that half of the players that were fighting for the Lightning Reaver are now dead.

I check the Levitating Charger state and I notice that now is heavily damaged, a couple more of hits and it will probably blow up, killing me in the process. I hesitate. I’m thinking whether or not is a good idea to risk my only life and use again the Levitating Charger in order to defeat the other three players and pick the Lightning Reaver, or just go by myself without it.

My hesitation only lasts a moment. I make up my mind and I decide to leave the Levitating Charger, its damage is just severe and dying because your vehicle is blown up is demoralizing. However, just as I am about to step on the dark volcanic floor a system message pops up stopping me in my tracks.

“Player MadMan has taken control over the Orbital Defense System.”

“Warning: Positronic interference detected in the stratosphere, Orbital Strike imminent.”

‘Fuck…’ I look up and see as a red glow appears in the sky. The clouds absorb this glow turning the sky in a red inferno and they start to swirl, that’s the signal of an imminent disaster. All the players who are near stop firing at each other looking at the sky and can only think of one thing.

“Flee!”

Everybody, myself included, thinks the same. I mount again and without even thinking about the Lightning Reaver I turn 180º and speed up the Levitating Charger as fast as it can.

*Swiiiish.*

*BOOOOOOOOOOOOM.*

A red column about 10 meters of diameter descends in the blink of an eye. When it hits the volcanic floor a huge explosion resounds filling all the surrounding landscape with a red glow. The power of the orbital weapon can only be described as catastrophic.

I close my eyes by reflex and I don’t dare to look back. The ground is shaking violently and although I evaded a direct impact I could be hit by an after wave of the Orbital Strike and die anyways. I can hear as giant pieces of rubble that were blown off by the initial impact are colliding against the floor near my back, obviously a piece large enough can crush me and kill me.

*Crash, crash, rumble.*

Just as I feared a giant boulder descends in front of me. There’s no way I can evade it in time so I throw myself to the ground letting the Levitating Charger collide against the boulder. I roll on the ground for several meters and after stopping I try to stand up and look up to see if any other giant boulder is coming towards me, luckily I am just hit by tiny pieces of rubble.

I stop looking to the sky and my gaze fixes towards the site of the impact, if my avatar had a jaw it would be in the floor. The red column of light transformed the rocky plain in which I was battling alongside with 6 other players in a pit 300 meters wide and at least 800 meters deep, there’s no doubt that everyone that was in that zone died instantly.

“Warning: Accumulation of positronic particles detected in the Ionosphere.”

I am just recovering from the shock that I barely survived and this system message badly startles me. “What? Isn’t it a bit too fast?” I curse inwardly the host. The tower has minor perks and can give you an edge in order to achieve victory? Bullshit! This Orbital Weapon is at least 5 times more powerful than the one in the campaign and its delay is too short! In the campaign you have to wait 4 minutes in order to make a second Orbital Strike! The tower doesn’t give you an edge, it’s the key to ultimately crush your opponents!

“Wait, don’t panic Marcus,” Ana’s sweet voice is trembling, but she continues, “After the warning of the positronic particles accumulating in the ionosphere there’s a delay of 25 seconds before it arrives the stratosphere and then a 10 seconds delay until impact.”

“Yes, I know that,” I reply to her shaking my head, “Still, the fact that the systems shows first warning means that they activated the Orbital Strike 10 seconds ago,” I clench my fist angrily, “That’s a delay of just 45 seconds between shots! Whoever MadMan is,” I pause and point at the newly created crater, “He can do that damage each 45 seconds!”

The worst part is that even with the first system warning I can’t do anything, only after the positronic interference reaches the stratosphere is possible to see where the Orbital Strike will land, meanwhile I can only look at the sky helplessly.

END OF CHAPTER 18.