by Devin Hunter
The battle ended not long after that, and when Grey appeared back in the forest by himself he smiled.
Rank eighteen the first game.
Rank fifteen the second.
Maybe he wasn’t so bad at leading. He didn’t expect it to go that well every time—people would soon catch on and take them more seriously—but it felt good to start the day out in the top twenty.
CHAPTER NINE
By the time the day was over and Grey stood in the ranking line, he almost couldn’t believe how many spots he’d jumped. He’d gotten several new skins, including some really cool full-body ones for making it to the top twenty-five. The Admin appeared and went on with her normal speech, but Grey only looked at the ranking board behind her.
He’d gone up five ranks. That was a lot for one day.
Everyone in his squad had done at least as well. Tristan out-ranked Hazel, and the rest of the squad was mixed with hers. If they had even a couple more days like today, they’d be higher than Hazel’s squad, guaranteed.
Grey had been so distracted with their standings that he didn’t notice the Admin disappear. It wasn’t until he saw the angry face and green hair that he snapped out of it.
Hazel grabbed him by the shirt collar. “How’d you do that, noob?”
“Do what?” Grey asked. Maybe he had found some confidence on the battlefield, but face-to-face with Hazel was a different matter.
“You know what!” Hazel shook him. He wasn’t afraid she’d hurt him, since pain didn’t seem to be part of this virtual reality, but he could never find the right words when someone was being so aggressive. “Your ranks! Did you find an exploit? You had to have cheated!”
Grey’s eyes went wide. “We didn’t cheat!”
“Don’t lie.” Hazel pushed him back. Her glare was enough to scare anyone into telling the truth. “Tell us all, or I’ll report you.”
“We did not cheat!” Kiri jumped in front of Grey, much braver than usual in the face of Hazel. “We just switched up our roles.”
“Yeah, right.” Hazel put her hands on her hips. “You can’t improve that much in one day just from a role swap.”
Grey let out a sigh. He should have known even doing well wasn’t enough. Instead of respect, they only got accusations of cheating. Everyone in the warehouse was looking at him. This was just what he’d feared—people would take notice of their rank jump, and the next day his team would not get so lucky. Maybe it was a good start, but tomorrow and every day after would be the real test.
“Kiri, let’s go practice,” Grey said.
“But—” Kiri looked back at him like she couldn’t believe he didn’t want to defend himself.
He shook his head. He didn’t want anyone even knowing for sure that he was the one who’d taken the lead. Their suspicions were enough. They could all see his kill count had gone up. Some might have even watched Grey’s squad after being eliminated in game. “Practice.”
“Fine,” she said as she glared at Hazel.
“I’m going to report you!” Hazel said. “You totally cheated!”
Now it was Ben who stepped in. “Go ahead. The Admin will review everything and show you got beaten by us all day fair and square. We have nothing to hide.”
Hazel folded her arms. “We’ll see about that.”
Grey gave up and kept walking. He didn’t like all the attention. He also didn’t like being called a cheater, but he knew what Ben said was true. They hadn’t cheated. And if Hazel really did report them, it would be a waste of her time.
The idea of getting reported still made him nervous. Maybe he hadn’t cheated, but Tae Min’s advice had been a major catalyst in his improvement today. More than Grey could have ever imagined it would be. His encouragement changed how Grey saw himself and gave him some motivation to try new tactics.
And then there was Kiri’s pep talk. She’d helped him get over his homesickness and use it as motivation and not a detriment. He wouldn’t have led nearly as well as he had today without both of them.
That wasn’t cheating, was it? The Admin had to have records of that as well as everything in the battles.
It couldn’t be considered wrong. The Admin had said before that sharing and practicing was allowed within the appointed times. He’d just gotten help to improve like most people here had done in some way or another. Hazel was just being a sore loser, and he shouldn’t expect anything else from her.
“Don’t worry about her,” Ben said as he caught up to Grey’s pace. “People report, but the Admin is fair and there’s rarely been a case of actual cheating.”
“Someone really has cheated?” Kiri said in surprise. “How do you even do that in virtual reality? I guess I can see hacks on a computer or something.”
“They found a bug,” Tristan said, “and exploited it instead of reporting it to the Admin. It was in the first season we got stuck here. The guy was in the top five, but his rank was stripped two weeks before the end of the season and he had no way to get back up in time without his cheating. He got home in season three, though.”
“That’s mental,” Kiri said.
“Yeah,” Ben said. “All the other times, the reports were just salty players who couldn’t accept when people got better.”
“I have more ideas for practice.” Grey was determined to stay focused. After leading for five games, he had seen where some of the gaps in their play could be fixed. “Kiri, we need to teach you how to block incoming fire with walls and ramps. Sometimes we just can’t protect you. You rely on us too much.”
“O-Okay,” Kiri said, though she seemed surprised by the topic change.
“It’ll make you even better,” Grey said as they entered the practice warehouse. He grabbed an endless supply of bounce pads. “And the rest of us need to practice with these.”
Tristan gave him a skeptical look. “Why these? They’re so situational.”
“I don’t think so,” Grey insisted. “We haven’t been using them to their full potential. I also think they could help us practice aiming.”
“I don’t see what you mean,” Ben said as he picked out a variety of weapons. “But given how we did today, I’m not gonna argue.”
“Lots of those top guys are shooting midair, while they’re on the move or when they’re bouncing on these,” Grey said. “I missed a ton of shots because I haven’t really thought of doing that. Aiming while build battling or while on these bounce pads—we’re gonna need to get better at that if we want to keep competing. Everyone, get some so we can use them against each other.”
“Okay,” Tristan said. “But if we’re stuck here next season, don’t wait for three weeks to offer up all these good ideas.”
A pang of guilt hit Grey. “Sorry. I wasn’t sure if any of my ideas were good.”
“Well, now you …” Ben trailed off, his eyes on something behind them.
Grey turned, and to his surprise, he saw Hans and his squad. They were looking right at Grey’s team, so they weren’t necessarily here to stock up for practice. It felt like they were looking for Grey. He gulped back his nerves. “Can I help you, Hans?”
“You played well today,” Hans said. He was a short, older guy who Grey thought might be in his mid-twenties. He was from Norway, and he led his squad, but that was about all Grey knew about him. “If you continue to do so, I would like to extend an invitation to practice against us.”
“Oh,” was all Grey could say.
He must have looked as surprised as he felt, because Hans smiled. “It is not a joke. Not everyone is like Hazel. I appreciate good competition. You are still new, but your building creativity shows promise.”
“Th-Thanks,” Grey said. “We’d love to practice if you think we’re up to the challenge.”
“If you stick at your rank for a couple more days,” Hans said. “We’ll talk, yah?”
“Definitely.” Grey didn’t know what else to say as Hans and his squad picked out weapons, so instead he motioned for his squad mates to follow hi
m outside.
As they walked to their usual practice spot, Ben said, “Did that really just happen?”
“I think so,” Kiri said.
“It’s a big compliment,” Tristan said. “Hans is very picky about who they practice with. As you know, he’ll even kick someone out of squad if they’re not up to par. He’d rather have only three elite players than deal with one weaker one.”
Tristan was referring to himself.
“You’re not weak,” Ben said, though he’d been the one abandoned when Tristan had left their squad a few weeks ago.
“I am compared to them,” Tristan said. “I can admit that now. I thought I was better than I am, but I see now there is room to improve. We’d learn a lot practicing with them. I learned a lot just in one day.”
“It would be a massive help,” Kiri said.
“No pressure,” Grey replied. There were already so many reasons Grey wanted to reach the top ranks, but this only added one more. His shoulders felt heavy with all the responsibility now on them. The only thing that would relieve the weight was practice, and that was exactly what he intended to do.
CHAPTER TEN
Resting did not feel as rejuvenating as it usually did. Grey and his squad had spent every minute they could practicing their aim while moving. Grey worked with Kiri so that she could get comfortable throwing up her own walls to block incoming fire. She hated switching between building and weapons, but she got better at it with the practice. Maybe it wouldn’t save her from Tae Min, but every little bit helped.
The day went … okay.
If Grey hadn’t had a day where he finished in the top twenty every game, he would have been proud. But it was spotty at best. As he worried, people took their squad more seriously now. Instead of enemies focusing on their build battles when Grey charged one in progress, both teams turned on Grey’s instead.
Grey’s squad rank was in the thirties. They traded either just beating out Hazel’s squad or just losing to them. Their ranking didn’t move up at all for the day but instead went down a hair.
Grey went to bed that night frustrated, even though everyone else said they were doing well.
As they all gathered in the battle warehouse before the day’s fights, Grey said, “Change up your skins again. Every battle if you want.”
Ben nodded. “That seemed to help.”
After the first two games of getting targeted yesterday, Grey tried that. It wasn’t perfect, but it seemed to help get Hazel off their scent.
That didn’t mean she hadn’t reported them like she promised.
The more Grey thought about it, the more insulted he felt. Instead of being seen for his hard work, everyone whispered about the possibility of him cheating. He’d never do that. Even if the opportunity was there.
As the Admin popped up to begin the day, Grey’s nerves hit an all-time high. Tristan and Ben had prepared him for how the ruling would go, but it still felt like there was a chance he’d get in trouble.
They had improved at an abnormal pace. What if he’d been cheating and didn’t know it? Anything seemed possible in a place like this.
“Welcome to Day Twenty-Three of battles!” the Admin began in her cheery tone. The smile was always the same, no matter the news that came out of her mouth. “All items remain the same, as do all the locations on the map. There was one report of cheating, made by Hazel against Grey, Ben, Kiri, and Tristan. The game footage has been reviewed in its entirety, and the judges have ruled no cheating has taken place.”
“What?” Hazel yelled. “That’s impossible! They were crap a few days ago!”
The Admin turned to her. “While their improvement is remarkable, it is not due to any exploits or bugs within the game. Footage does reveal that their squad practices in nearly every spare moment, with a calculated 30 percent more practice than the average squad. This was the only major difference we could determine. Perhaps it will be a lesson to other squads, which is why I share this information now.”
“That much?” Ben whispered. “I didn’t realize …”
“Ugh,” Hazel huffed. “How boring. Thanks, Mom.”
“I am not your mother,” the Admin said. “I wish you all luck in your battles.”
The Admin disappeared, and everyone was transported to the Battle Bus before they could say anything else about the matter. But Grey did feel better knowing he was in the right no matter what Hazel claimed. He took a look at the map to see the route the bus was taking—it was in the south, moving across only the bottom of the map.
“I bet the storms will push us north,” Tristan said.
“Or it’ll be a fight fest all in the south,” Ben said.
“Let’s go Lucky Landing,” Grey said. It was far in the south, but he liked the location. It was styled like some of the buildings he’d seen when his family visited Japantown on their trip to San Francisco. The thought made him homesick, but he told himself to fight hard if he wanted to get back. “Jumping in three, two, one!”
Grey leapt from the Battle Bus and scanned the sky to take inventory of where other players were gliding. A lot still headed for Tilted Towers, while others were on their way to the Salty Springs and Fatal Fields areas. More north. A better position if the storm circles popped up that direction.
But Grey stuck with Lucky Landing. A handful of other players also looked to be joining them, and his heart raced because their moving-target practice would be put to the test right away.
“Ben and Tristan, you pair up and grab weapons,” Grey said. “Me and Kiri will do the same. We don’t have time to gather as a group.”
“Good thinking,” Ben said.
“I’ll follow you,” Kiri said.
Grey landed on the balcony of one of the tan buildings. There was a basic shotgun on the ground with ammo. “Kiri, take it.”
She did, and they ran inside, though he saw other players going in through the roof. If he could get the loot first …
Shots fired, and he took damage. Grey ducked behind a wall, cursing because the room they were in had nothing to use. Kiri stood beside him, trying to take shots when she peeked out from behind the wall. But she took a hit, too, and neither of them had shields or bandages.
Grey broke down some of the furniture for mats and threw up a wall to protect them. But it wouldn’t last long. “Run back outside! Get to Tristan and Ben!”
Kiri began her run, and they both jumped off the balcony and toward the dots that indicated where Ben and Tristan were. But the enemies were still on them, and gunfire rang in Grey’s ears.
He knew this wouldn’t end well.
But he ran right behind Kiri so if they got hit he’d be the one to take the damage. Sure enough, he went down. Kiri stopped, but he yelled, “Keep going! I’m done for!”
She did as she was told, much to his relief. They didn’t have any resources to do much else. No materials to build protective walls. No weapons to fight back with. Grey knew this happened. But as his vision went black and white, he felt like it wasn’t fair at all.
Lorenzo eliminated you.
Grey was dead at rank ninety-five for the game. It was his worst performance for days. While he was already feeling pretty salty about it—he’d beaten Lorenzo’s crew several times—he tried to be the leader he needed to be. “Don’t worry about me, guys. Do what you can to get the highest rank possible for the game.”
“Sorry, Grey,” Kiri said. “I ran out of ammo.”
“It happens.” Grey switched over to Kiri’s feed so he could still watch where his squad was. “I’ll spectate you and try to help you guys if I can.”
“We have gear at least,” Tristan said.
“And now we know it’s Lorenzo’s squad. We can deal with them,” Ben said. Grey was happy to hear him speak with more confidence. Ben had been playing scared for a long time without realizing it was holding him back.
Grey’s squad did take out Lorenzo’s. It was close and all of them took significant damage, but they ultimately got out o
f Lucky Landing alive.
The battle didn’t last much longer for them after that, though, since they had guessed wrong on the storm location. The next safe zone was farther north, the border halfway through Fatal Fields. They barely made it inside in time, but there were people waiting for them. With low health as it was, they were all eliminated.
They finished ranking in the seventies.
“Sorry, guys,” Grey couldn’t help but say as they all waited for the rest of the battle to play out. He decided to switch to Hans’s feed to watch him, since maybe they wouldn’t be earning practice sessions with Hans’s squad after all.
“Don’t beat yourself up, man,” Ben said. “It happens. One bad game doesn’t erase all the good ones we’ve had recently.”
But it felt like it did. And Grey wished it didn’t have to be the first one of the day when they had to teleport back to the battle warehouse where everyone else would be. Of all the hard parts of being stuck in Battle Royale, he might have hated that the most. In the normal game, you walked away from a battle and moved on. None of the enemies could talk to each other. In this hacked virtual reality, people could rub your losses in your face.
“Let’s just win one today,” Kiri said. “That’ll cancel it out.”
“Okay, sure …” Grey let out a short laugh. They had only gotten one Victory Royale, and a lot of it had been luck. They were in the perfect position. They had gotten a llama. They had the best weapons.
“It could happen!” Kiri insisted. “We’ve gotten close a lot of times in the last couple days!”
Grey sighed. She wasn’t wrong, but it was hard to picture winning right after a battle where he ranked ninety-five.
The game ended with Hans’s squad taking a rare victory from Tae Min, and they all appeared in the battle warehouse. Sure enough, Lorenzo was already pointing and laughing at Grey. “See, Hazel? Grey’s not cheating! Maybe you just suck!”
