Project Battle Royale
A Gamelit Survival Book
L.S. Halloway
Savage Tiki Time
Copyright © 2021 Savage Tiki Time
All rights reserved
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Cover design by: Savage Tiki Time
To the Surf Bros
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
About The Author
Books By This Author
1
Dropping In
The seats of the plane were packed tighter than a twelve pack of Mountain Dew. The air transport sat four to a row with an aisle that split them down the middle. Goemon and I ended up somewhere in the middle, but positioning did not matter so much. Passengers on this ride had the power to leave whenever they wanted.
The cabin lights did little more than stop people from bumping into each other. It might have been nice to use the downtime to check the gear on the other players, to see who was spending their allowance on skins and who was saving up to buy a crate and a key. The lurch of the plane and the overall darkness made it too difficult, though. I just focused on the map and the flightpath of the transport instead.
The cargo airliner appeared in the bottom left corner of the popped-up screen that was the map. It appeared to be headed at an almost exactly 45-degree angle across the map to the northwest. This meant nearly all of the First Island map was open for business- we could jump out and parachute far enough to make it anywhere. We called it First Island because it was the first island in the game and the real name was impossible to pronounce. In a few seconds, the plane would be over land.
The players onboard screamed and howled at each other in anticipation. The sound barely reached above the roar of the engines. Half the crowd failed to form words due to the sheer excitement, or possibly, stupidity. Some shouted general obscenities about each other’s moms, or proclamations like “China number one!” More tried to bait players into dropping at a high population area like Big Town- “Meet me at Big Town or you don’t have any balls,” was the preferred method of communicating that sentiment. The rest, including Goemon and I, sat mostly silent, contemplating and planning the round by ourselves.
“Where do you wanna drop?” I asked.
“I don’t know. The Spot?” Goemon said.
“We always hit The Spot. What if we mix it up?”
“Sure, why not? We can’t do any worse than this streak.”
“Alright. Here!” I said and placed a marker on the map for Goemon to see.
“Atlantis, huh? Risky, but I guess it’s not Big City or Gun Range. I like it.”
Amidst the yammering of players and the engines’ wail, the cargo door of the plane opened up to let in some fresh air. Players began to leap out the back of the plane, most of them likely headed to Windy Harbor below. Sometimes dropping with the a huge group off the plane was good for a laugh. The problem was you usually end up with nothing but a crowbar to go along with some shotgun shells without the actual shotgun. Meanwhile, everyone else already has a fully-kitted M4 trained on your uncovered head and the round is over as soon as it began.
About a third of the plane had emptied out the back and the marker on the map approached fast. “Let’s do this!” I yelled upon leaping out the back of the plane. Rather than take in the sights, I angled my body like a bullet straight down in order to maximize freefall speed. It worked in old secret agent spy movies and it worked here too. When I got oriented enough I looked back up for Goemon, who was not there.
“Where in the world are you going?” I screamed through the wind into the comlink.
“What? Oh, right,” Goemon said calmly. I could see nothing but his displayed name in the distance. I opened the map and saw my partner had missed the drop point. Not by much, just a measly few thousand feet.
“Great, guess I’m going to get there first,” I said while closing the map. Of course, that was wishful thinking. The parachutes of players who had dropped a few seconds sooner opened beneath me and filled the horizon. I would be the first of the duo to get there, sure, but I would be far from the first player to arrive at Atlantis.
To land in the middle of the city was suicide. First off, every building in the town had at least one window facing toward the center. This meant already equipped players just had to peek out of their respective houses for a free kill there first. Then there was the issue of a distinct lack of any serviceable weapons in the middle. To top it all off, the water ran deepest in the center, too. This caused a real issue with trying to actually move, and moving was a crucial part when it came to avoiding bullets.
My parachute deployed automatically once I fell close enough to ground level. With only a few seconds left before touching down, I tried to pinpoint where the closest threats would land. I counted six right off the bat, but had to stop when I realized where my landing trajectory was headed. The center of Atlantis, the big barrel of fish, sat right beneath. I banked left as fast as possible and smashed through the window of a building. It was not the most graceful landing, but it was better than ending up in that swamp.
Even though everyone else in the city knew where I was thanks to the crack of the shattered window, I opened the map one more time and marked the building for Goemon’s sake.
“Try and land on the roof here, hurry. There’s like ten people in this city. This was a terrible idea,” I said.
“Alright, just stay alive,” Goemon responded.
“Good advice.”
In the distance, the low burst of gunshots declared the official start of the round. It was always amazing how some players managed to not just land so quickly, but find, equip, load, and fire their weapons, too. At least the shots were far off- probably closer to Windy Harbor or The Big City- instead of in my humble home.
Speaking of a humble home, the first floor of my chosen building just so happened to be about three feet underwater. If there was any loot to pick up, I could not see it through the waist-high muck and did not want to waste any more time playing scrap diver. The first floor was a loss, but that was fine. There were two more floors to check just up the stairs.
Another duo was kind enough to tell me that they knew exactly where I was by launching hot lead through the broken window. They might have missed my body, but the jolt was enough to kick my heart into overdrive already. I ducked beneath the window and watched more bullets whiz overhead. Judging by the angle and the sound, they must be on the top floor across the way- better than being right outside the door.
“I picked a real bad house,” I said, just before taking a deep breath and bolting up the stairs. I checked my torso for a leak, but everything appeared intact for the moment.
“I’m about to land. Which building are you in?” Goemon said.
“The map! Look at the map!”
“The top building or the bottom building?”
“The top!”
Goemon landed on the roof of what he presumed to be the top building. Unfortunately, it was not the one currently occupied by me.
“You picked the wrong one!” I yelled.
“Oh, you meant the bottom one,” Goemon replied. “Holy smokes, there’s a ton of people here.” He was scampering around the rooftop.
“I told you. Just find a gun and get over here, this house sucks, I’ve got nothing.”
“There’s...there’s someone up here with me.”
“Get out of there!”
“No time. I’m gonna have to get my hands dirty.”
The second floor of my spot proved more fruitful than the first, if only slightly. The gunshots from the opposing White Building Duo ceased for the moment, thanks to my proximity to the dirty floor. They must have had a bad angle. I slipped on a level one vest, which worked about as well as an umbrella full of holes in the rain. It was better than nothing, though. The can of soda might not have been exactly what I needed at the moment but I grabbed it anyways. The ten rounds of shotgun ammo I collected hinted tantalizingly at the presence gun itself, but it was unfortunately absent. Finally, I found a Revolver and 15 rounds of ammunition for it.
“Oh shoot! He’s trying to punch me,” Goemon said.
“What did you think was going to happen?”
“I don’t know. Get back! I’ve got a pan. Don’t make me use this!”
Goemon failed to find a ranged weapon, but he found the next best thing: a cast iron frying pan. As far as melee weapons go, the pan sat alone at the top. It worked about as well as you might think heavy metal cookware would in a fight. However, it did a fine job of covering your rear end from sniper fire in the late game.
I loaded the Revolver with the knowledge that it would not do much good against anyone with anything bigger. Still, it did instill some amount of confidence which did not exist at all only half a minute prior. In fact, I felt so good that I decided to peek out the window to take a closer look at White Building Duo who had me marked. They were still trained on the building, but were looking at the wrong floor. They had apparently lost the scent for the moment. Normally, I would take the opportunity to line up a perfect headshot with the Revolver, followed by firing and missing the shot far wide left while at the same time alerting everyone in a three mile radius, including the target, of my location. This time, I held off thanks to a shotgun-wielding intruder making his way up the stairs of the very building occupied by the duo that had so aggressively tried to fire at me. Karma came hard and fast in PBR.
Neither member of White Building Duo knew what was coming to them. They were simply too preoccupied with searching out the window- for me, most likely- to focus on any threat beneath them. The shotgunner sprinted up the stairs, spurred on by the knowledge that two distracted and therefore helpless targets waited on the next floor.
I turned back from the window and moved to the top floor as the sound of shotgun blasts rang out. The gunfight next door would buy more than enough time to get geared up for battle...if there was any gear to speak of.
“People are going down out there. People got auto shotties already. Are you still alive?” I asked.
“Yeah. I hit him once with the pan and then he just straight up jumped off the roof. Where you at?”
“I’m still in the same building I marked. Third floor. There is jack in here. Do you have a gun?”
“I have a pistol and a vest.”
“Wait, shh.”
The slap-thump of footsteps. But from where? They sounded close, almost inside of the house, but that was impossible. The only way in was splashing through the water on the first floor. I hit the deck and listened intently for the source of the noise. I succeeded in getting my eardrums blown out by the sound of a spraying and fully automatic AK-47 nearby.
The racket of the AK joined with another, smaller rifle. Neither of them were aimed in my direction. So I snuck a glance through the window again. Two fresh duos had taken to the rooftops and spotted each other. Now their meeting was so great they decided to exchange hollow points as gifts. It did not matter who won the engagement, the victor had Goemon and I outgunned either way.
“I think we should bail out,” I whispered into the comlink, as if the enemy duos could hear me over the gunfire.
“I was just thinking the same thing.”
“I can dip out the back window. Can you make it?”
“Way ahead of you.”
I crawled under the window and headed back down to the second floor. One window faced mayhem and bloodshed. The other, an open field and a fresh start. I hopped through the glass, shattering it with all the silence of the airliner they rode in on. Goemon was already waiting in the field, a Glock or something in his right hand.
“You can’t use the front door?” Goemon said.
“Not if you want me to survive. Nobody heard me, they’re too busy shooting each other to pieces. Let’s get the heck out of here.”
“Alright, where to?”
“Think we can make it to The Spot?”
“Might as well try.”
2
Shacked Up and Good to Go
Goemon and I put our backs to Atlantis and sprinted. Two pairs of gunshots continued to sound off from behind. It was not soothing exactly, but there was something reassuring about the gunfire being in the opposite direction rather than dead ahead. Unfortunately, the dead zone between Atlantis and The Spot now loomed.
“We probably should have just landed there in the first place,” I said.
“I mean, probably. But we always drop there,” Goemon said. It was surprising, I figured he would have been bummed and eager to hassle me for making the terrible decision.
“I guess sometimes we gotta mix it up.”
“Exactly. We’ll bounce back, baby.”
The punishment for dropping at Atlantis could have been worse. For starters, we both could have died right off the bat, like the Jungle Island fiasco. It doesn’t get much worse than that. Or one of us could have died, and that was just as bad. Losing not just your partner but your best friend that early in the match made for a terrible round. Now all we had to do was hope The Spot still sat vacant, and a fully loaded duo was not headed in our direction.
The dead zone left no discernible towns separating Atlantis and our destination. We did the only thing there was to do: run like gazelles across the savanna. At least the grass provided plenty of cover for our ankles in case any sniper watching had a real problem with bare feet. The rest was completely exposed, and still helmet-less to boot.
“You see any cars?” Goemon yelled, his own head on a swivel.
“I think I see a motorcycle. No, actually that’s just a rock,” I sighed.
“Shoot. We have to try and find something. Maybe let’s check the shacks.”
“Sounds good.”
Goemon arrived at the shack first. At only the size of a janitor’s closet, the little structures typically did not contain much in them. On an average round, if you already had anything close to a rifle it was not worth stopping. This was no average round and our duo had nothing that resembled a rifle so it seemed worth it to stop.
I played watchman while Goemon searched the dilapidated shack. It was only built for one and really more of an outhouse than anything else. There were worse jobs than standing guard. Besides, the team worked better the faster Goemon got a gun into his hands.
“Oh, Baby with a capital B,” Goemon shouted.
“What’d you get? Hurry up already.”
“What’s a three letter word for happiness?”
“Uh. Fun?”
Goemon pushed the door of the shack open and it fell off the hinges, smacking into the ground. “Close. But the answer is Uzi.” He raised the small, ferocious, and altogether Chihuahua-like weapon in to the air as he emerged back into the plain. With his free hand he t
ossed a grenade to me, which I began to juggle back and forth in a panic. “Relax, it’s not cooked. I thought you might need it.”
“Jeez, thanks for giving me a heart attack,” I said.
“Should we go to another shack?”
“I mean, I’d like a gun, too.”
Another ramshackle establishment stood slouched on a small hill nearby. This one boasted as many as three walls, which made looting that much quicker. Unfortunately it made protection that much worse if anyone happened to be watching. This time I led the charge as we headed toward the embankment. I was desperate for something, anything better than the Revolver I had equipped. And the grenade did not count. I never did figure out the physics of how to throw them the right way.
Goemon brought a lot to the table in our rounds together. Sure, he could shoot straighter than I could and he had a careful patience that usually kept us both alive more often than my attention span did. But when we cruised around together either in game or IRL we carried an unbreakable sense of camaraderie. Even in empty expanses like the dead zone plains we found ourselves in, we moved and acted as one unit. We were always on the same page, no matter what. Plus, I always knew he had my back- I did not have to turn around to know he was there, even if I could hear his footsteps clear as a map marker in front of me. Except…those were not his footsteps. He was gone.
“Where are you going?” I heard him say over the comlink. I turned and saw my teammate headed in the other direction, about 50 meters from where I thought he should have been.
“There’s someone here!” I tried to keep my voice down. “Right in front of me. West. I mean North. I mean, 45 degrees.” I never could read the compass to make effective callouts under duress. I hit the deck, hoping they did not hear me as clearly as I heard them. I could tell they were close, either just on the other side of the hill or already on top of it. I slithered like a snake behind a tiny boulder that provided cover to about half of my body. It cost the ability to see the exact location of the approaching duo. “They’re coming up the hill, going to the shack. The shack that we were supposed to be going to. Together.”
Project Battle Royale: A Gamelit Survival Book Page 1
