Chapter 19: Battle in the Lava Crossroads! Part 4

“There’s only one way to go,” I say softly, “Obviously they are not going to point the Orbital Strike to themselves, so after the next Orbital Strike I have to cross the bridge no matter what.”

“Right!” Ana says happily and the changes her tone to a softer one, “That’s indeed the only way, but be careful, the ones inside the tower and maybe the ones outside must have the same thoughts as you.”

I nod to her words. Indeed, the Orbital Strike is a formidable weapon of mass destruction. Not only its damage is terrifyingly high, but with a cooldown of less than a minute its power is in another level. However, you don’t use a cannon to kill a mosquito. Trying to kill single players with a weapon like that is not very efficient, the first Orbital Strike was a fast one because the Satellite was preloaded, it took me and the other players by surprise, but now that surprise factor doesn’t exist anymore.

I quickly scan my surroundings and notice the crashed Levitating Charger, “Damn, you are a good vehicle.” I move towards it and I notice that its shape is terrible, but it is a fact that a terrible Levitating Charger is still faster than me. “Ana, try to repair the Levitating Charger as much as you can, when the third Orbital Strike falls we will depart!”

“The third? Roger!” Ana exclaims and immediately the Tech-type Carrier Orb starts to do basic repairs to the Levitating Charger while I’m sitting there, looking at the sky.

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

This time the Orbital Strike was aimed to the south of my position. After some time I see as another group of clouds starts to swirl and the sky is filled with that hellish red glow, not long after a red beam descends upon the land.

*BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM*

Although I’m about 2000 meters away, the unfolding scene sends shivers down my spine. “Did I actually survived that?” The sound of the explosion is very loud and after that you could see giant boulders flying everywhere. In fact, there are some smaller boulders and pieces of rubble mixed with lava that are falling less than 100 meters near me. Of those pieces of rubble one catches my attention because it is not a black piece of volcanic rock, is a white metallic tile.

“That metallic object…” I stare at the white metallic tile, it is quite uncommon. All the volcanic floor is composed of cooled lava, thus all the floor is pitch black, the only plausible option is that that metallic tile is from something added to the map, but it is too big to be a piece of a vehicle. I try to concentrate and an idea comes to my mind. “Damn, they are blowing of the bridges!” I say a bit shocked.

Upon hearing me Ana says worried, “Should I stop the repairs?”

“No, definitely not, I need all the speed possible, there are four bridges, don’t worry.” Although I say this I’m not totally confident. The current Levitating Charger can only exert 30% of its speed, it's only faster than my avatar by a tiny margin, thus the repairs are imperative. To make repairs the vehicle must be still, that’s why I gave Ana until the 3rd Orbital Strike to make the most important repairs for the charger to have at least 80% of its full speed.

The first Orbital Strike was definitely aimed to the densest zone of players. Four doesn’t seems like a lot, but 4 out of 20 players firing each other in a 43 square kilometers map is a lot. After witnessing the domineering power of the Orbital Strike most players would chose the ‘safe zone’ near the tower, because no matter how stupid you are, you are not going to point that kind of weapon of mass destruction near your position. However, trying to be in this ‘safe zone’ means that you have to try to cross the bridges, aiming the weapon there will result in the most causalities. It is a very clever stratagem.

If each successive Orbital Strike will destroy a bridge it means that I have to reach the tower before the fifth one. If Ana finishes after the third Strike, that means that I only have one and a half minutes to infiltrate the Orbital Weaponry Control Tower, otherwise, is game over!

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

The system message for the third Orbital Strike pop ups and I see as the sky near the north bridge is turning crimson red.

“Are you done Ana?” I say while tilting my body into the levitating charger.

“Done! 70% of the repairs complete! I couldn’t repair the weapon nor the hull, but I don’t think that’s a problem if what you want is speed and maneuverability.” Ana says confident of his work.

“Of course that that is exactly what I needed! Haha, I love you Ana!” I say excitedly and turn on the Levitating Charger waiting for the impact of the third Orbital Strike. To be honest I forgot to tell Ana to focus the repairs only on those two aspects, the fact that she did it without me telling anything means that she is really focused in doing her part of the job properly.

Ana blushes after hearing me and says shyly, “Can you say it again?”

“I say that it is exactly what I needed.” I reply her. It seems that she didn’t hear me.

“Not that…” Ana says even more shyly, “The other thing you said…” She says in a low tone.

“What?” I couldn’t hear the last line that she said.

Ana pouts angrily and stomp her feet in the ground, “You bast…”

*BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM*

The third Orbital Strike hits the ground with its mighty destructive force and fills the landscape again with a red glow. I don’t want to waste a single fraction of a second so I start moving immediately. With the help of Ana’s repairs, the Levitating Charger could go at 90% of its maximum speed. Although the hull is badly damaged it doesn't matter to much because what I really need the most right now is speed and maneuverability.

Currently my position is in the north-east of the map, and precisely the nearest bridges to me, the east one and the north one, are destroyed. Therefore only the south and west bridge remains. Both bridges are at a similar distance from where I am, but I have no way to know which will be the third one to be blown up.

‘There’s no point of thinking too much about it, I will just go south.’ Thinking means time, time that I don’t have, so I decide to just follow my instincts.

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

’35 seconds until the 4th Orbital Strike’ I think inwardly while doing my best effort to speed up. Right now I am near the vestiges of the east bridge and there are a lot of boulders blocking the path, however this terrain is not rough enough to hinder the movements of the Levitating Charger.

*Swooooosh.*

After leaving behind the east bridge zone, I notice someone running towards the south bridge about 200 meters away from me. He notices me too and turns to fire at me with his Machine Gun. I lower my head and hear as multiple bullets impact on the frontal shield of the Levitating Charger, ‘This bastard wants to destroy the vehicle that Ana carefully repaired!’ I curse mentally.

I fix my course and speed directly towards him while watching carefully his movements, it’s obvious that he is shooting ar me and he is going to do a last moment dodge, the problem is what kind of dodge he will perform. As the distance between us shrinks I notice that he bends slightly both of his legs. ‘And aerial dodge? Well thought, I would have done the same.’ Since he is not tilting his body to neither side, it was obvious that he will try to jump over me and maybe will fire in midair, however it is useless since I know what he will do.

“Harrrg!” The human in front of me exclaims as he does a frontal flip.

“Hehe.” I let out a soft laugh and stab him in the air with the Advanced Piercing Plasma Saber, he just impaled himself.

*Swiiish.*

*Spluurt.*

“Headshot. Fatal Strike. You have killed player Sumire. Berserker State Lv. 1 activated for 5 seconds.”

Another flash of light and I score another kill. Luckily for me I didn’t have to detour and it was a clean and quick kill. I change my course slightly again and I speed up alongside the border of the magma lake that makes the tower only reachable by bridges.

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

“Where is it?” I ask Ana impatiently.

“It seems it is near the West Bridge.” Ana replies immediately, she was just waiting for the system message and looking at the distance in search for the red clouds.

“Haha, I can’t believe that they were that brazen.” I say with a joyous tone.

“What do you mean by brazen?” Ana asks a bit puzzled.

“They just destroyed the bridges counterclockwise starting from the east.” I say while laughing loudly. With two bridges left, the west one and the south one, it seemed as if it was a 50-50 choice, but a deliberate thought came to my mind and I picked up the south one in case they are destroying the bridges counterclockwise, and it is the case.

In reality it is not as simple as that, they could have not a plan and chose the south bridge all of sudden, or they could have destroyed the first two bridges to make it seems as if they are destroying them counterclockwise making all the players to want to go to the south bridge and ambush them with the Orbital Strike there, but at the same time, maybe some players would chose the east bridge for fear of this kind of ambush. It’s a psychological game with no end.

No matter what, the fact that I choose the south bridge paid off.

*BOOOOOOOOOOOOOM*

The third Orbital Strike falls followed by a tremendous explosion, filling again the landscape towards the west with a red hellish glow and countless boulders and pieces of rubble flying in every direction.

I’m about 100 meters near the south bridge and I notice two players charging in, it seems that they were waiting for the third Orbital Strike in order to go all out. I pause momentarily and do a quick inspection of the white bridge and I notice that there are a lot of walls, sandbags, and trenches. If I try to go with the Levitating Charger I’ll be slowed down significantly and I’ll be an easy target.

Ana opens the status screen and tells me that there are only seven players left, the last Orbital Strike killed 4 more.

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

“All or nothing!” After seeing again that system message I stop idling and speed up to cover the last 100 meters to go to the bridge.

“Go Captain Kortef!” Ana roars wildly, it seems she is a bit emotional right now.

*SWOOOOSH*

I go from 0 to max speed in split a second but as soon as I start to move someone start to fire at me.

“Are you out of your mind lying an ambush right here?!” I roar angrily. MadMan is wreaking havoc and some idiot decides to lay an ambush in the south bridge. If he wants to forfeit so badly then I better grant his wish and score another point.

*Clang, clang, clang.*

My Levitating Charger is hit repeatedly in the front, it is going to explode at any moment. I pick up both Plasma Guns from the rear of the Levitating Charger and immediately jump from it doing a backwards flip.

While in midair I wait for the Levitating Charger to be near the player who wanted to ambush me and then I fire with both Plasma Guns to it.

*Pe-Pew. Pe-Pew. Pe-Pew.”

*Clang, clang. Boooom!*

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

The Levitating explodes and the player named Yinta dies. “You were a good vehicle Levy Charger, I’ll pray for you to have a good place in the Scrapyard.” From the start of this match the Levitating Charger helped me a lot, its final act of service was killing a player who wanted ambush me in this desperate situation.

After landing I don’t waste any more time and I start running towards the bridge. I have roughly 30 more seconds to reach a safe spot, or at least a place out of the primary impact zone. I run frantically and pass some obstacles doing some front flips and side rolls in case someone else is laying another ambush.

I advance the first 200 meters of the south bridge without any problems and the density of the walls and sandbags start to diminish, in fact, there are no more protective walls, just sandbags and tiny trenches.

I cover another 100 meters while I focus my gaze in the distance and my heart suddenly thumps in despair.

*BANG.*

A sniper shot is fired and I throw myself to the floor just in time to barely evade it. While lying on the floor I notice that a pair of weapons are lying there too, it seems that those weapons belonged to the two guys who charged before me.

Without standing up I roll until I’m near a sandbag pile and I crouch there, then I open a voice chat with Ana and say in a sincere tone, “Ana, it seems that I can’t win this tournament.”

“What do you mean?” She says frantically, “Look at the status screen, there are just 4 players left! You can do it!” She says trying to cheer me up.

“Yes, only three left, but those three are teaming! That’s why MadMan took control of the tower so easily.” I explain to Ana what I saw previously. There are three players in a formation, one Sniper (long range specialist), one Assault Soldier (middle range specialist), and one Striker (close combat specialist), with those specific roles it is hard for any non-organized team to even scratch them! If you aim to the Striker or the Assault Soldier the Sniper will obliterate you, and if you aim to the Sniper you will create a huge opening for the Assault Soldier or the Striker to kill you.

Ana reclines in her chair helplessly, “Then… is it over?” She says in a sad tone, she is about to cry.

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

“I said that there’s no way I win the tournament, but I’ll definitely be in the top 3!” I say with a tone full of confidence and arrogance.

END OF CHAPTER 19.