by Devin Hunter
Especially since they now had a secret weapon.
CHAPTER 8
After filling every remaining minute with practice, Grey and Ben headed to their cabin. Kiri would be sleeping in a different one with some of the other girl players. Hazel, who was already ranked in the thirties after her first day, teased Kiri as she went inside. It took everything for Grey not to say Hazel would regret that.
Players would figure out how good Kiri was eventually, but for now they had to keep Kiri’s budding abilities secret. It would provide that much more advantage for them in tomorrow’s battles.
Grey and Ben were the last to enter their cabin, and the other three guys stared at them as they chose their bunks. It turned out the “Lorenzo” on the cabin list was the football player who had also started that day. Tristan tried to pretend he’d forgotten who Ben and Grey were by only looking in the other direction.
And then there was the final guy, who must have been Tae Min.
Grey tried not to stare, but after what he’d already heard about Tae Min, it was hard not to want a peek at the guy no one could beat. The guy who could have gotten out the first season but was still here.
Tae Min was tall and thin, almost graceful as he arranged his area of the cabin. He had black hair that brushed his shoulders and hid part of his face. He seemed far more gentle than Grey expected, although Ben had described him as quiet. It was hard to picture this guy eliminating anyone in game. But everyone had counted Kiri out, too, and after the many times he got sniped tonight, Grey had a feeling she’d eventually be one of the best.
“Saw you took in that little baby girl,” Lorenzo said with a laugh as he plopped into his bed. “You trying to lose harder?”
“Ben likes taking in strays,” Tristan said. “Always has.”
“Everyone deserves a chance,” Ben growled back. “Aren’t you glad your new squad gave you one, Tris? You’ve gone around begging for five seasons now.”
“Ohhh, little guy’s got some bite!” Lorenzo said with a laugh.
“So much for ‘understanding,’” Tristan said to Ben.
“Just because I understand doesn’t mean I have to like it.” Ben leaned on the edge of the bed he’d chosen, glaring back at Tristan. “Will you come running back to me this time when they kick you out? That’ll make you a stray, right?”
“I like this cabin!” Lorenzo watched with a strange sort of delight, his eyes moved to Grey. “You gonna get in on this prime smack talk, noob?”
“I’d rather let my abilities do the talking,” Grey said.
“What abilities?” Tristan scoffed. “You get a couple kills and think you’re great now.”
“No,” Grey hated this feeling in the room. The competition. The bragging. The fighting. “But it’s my first day. I’m going to practice, get better, and then my ranking and everyone else can do the talking for me.”
“You’ll never beat my ranking,” Tristan said. “Ben’s been trying that ‘honest take’ for five seasons and look where he is. Same place as always.”
“We’ll beat your squad,” Ben said. “And then you’ll see.”
Tristan shook his head. “Go ahead and think that. You know it won’t happen.”
“We’ll do it tomorrow,” Ben said, his face now red from all the anger he held back. Grey worried he’d reveal just how talented Kiri was, but he didn’t.
“Sure,” Tristan held back a laugh. “I look forward to seeing that.”
All players must be in bed in one minute!
Grey climbed into his bed since there wasn’t much else to do. He didn’t have to clean up—all that running didn’t leave a single drop of sweat on him. Although after what Ben just said, he felt like he could sweat until his sheets were drenched. Maybe they could beat Tristan’s new squad eventually, but tomorrow?
Grey would never fall asleep worrying about that. Their squad had potential, but he wasn’t sure they had the kind of luck it would take to beat Tristan the very next day. But then, suddenly, his brain grew quiet and everything went blank.
As fast as Grey fell “asleep,” he also awoke in a snap the next day. There were no dreams. No feeling of time having passed. It was the strangest thing to sit up in his bed and feel rested in the blink of an eye. He could see why the Admin made them take a break, even though they didn’t have bodies in the traditional sense. After all the chaos of yesterday, his mind needed time to calm down. And he felt calmer.
At least until he remembered Ben’s assertion that they’d beat Tristan today.
Battles commence in one hour!
“C’mon, Grey, let’s find Kiri,” Ben said.
“You gonna strategize on how to beat my squad?” Tristan asked.
Ben glared at him. “You aren’t the only player in Battle Royale. We have to strategize on how to beat everyone.”
“Let’s just go.” Grey grabbed Ben by the arm and pulled him out of the cabin and into the bright, unchanging sun. They didn’t need to waste their time fighting with Tristan, and he had a feeling it would only get worse between them. “Don’t let him get to you. You’re right, we have to beat a lot of people.”
“Why can’t he just be cool about it?” Ben grumbled. “He doesn’t have to rub it in my face. I thought we were …”
Friends. Grey had known Ben for only a day, but he knew that was what he’d say. Ben might have understood how the game worked and that it was ruthless, and yet it didn’t stop him from caring about people. Grey thought that was an admirable quality, especially since it seemed like being stuck here had made a lot of people less caring and more like inescapable Internet trolls.
Speaking of trolls, Grey spotted Hazel and her squad standing around Kiri laughing at her.
“Have fun being last again today!” said a woman about Hazel’s age. She had long black hair like Kiri, but it was straight instead. Hazel and the woman laughed with two other guys Grey didn’t know.
“Thanks, Sandhya,” Kiri grumbled.
“It’s my personal goal to kill you first at least once today,” Hazel said with a wicked grin. “Just give up now.”
Kiri didn’t look so strong or confident in the face of this group. They were ranked in the thirties like Tristan’s new group, and it seemed wrong to watch them pick on someone who wasn’t even competition.
“Cut it out,” Grey said, though everyone in the squad was much older than him. “Why don’t you go smack talk someone your own rank? C’mon, Kiri.”
Kiri ran over to them, her lip quivering like she was holding back tears. “There you are.”
Hazel pushed back her short green hair. “You can tell me who to pick on when you manage to eliminate me, pipsqueak.”
Grey wanted to be bold like Ben and say he could take out Hazel, but they didn’t need to be the prime target of two top-forty squads.
“Ignore her, Grey,” Ben jumped in. “Let’s go practice a little more.”
“So much practice,” a guy in Hazel’s squad said. “So little progress. How long have you been here again, Ben?”
“One season longer than you, Jamar!” Ben called back, though he didn’t turn around. Grey didn’t know which of the two guys on the squad was Jamar, but he figured he’d learn sooner or later.
“Why is everyone always so mean?” Kiri asked.
Ben sighed. “I don’t know. Some seasons have been nicer than others. In season three, people really got on the ‘teamwork’ bandwagon. This one is shaping up to be cutthroat. Worse than season two.”
“Wonderful,” Kiri said as she stomped toward the practice warehouse. “At least I feel like I want to shoot everything today.”
“Good.” Grey followed her. He was ready to get some shooting done himself.
Before the battles began, everyone was teleported to the main warehouse the way they had started on the first day. They stood in the ranked line, and the Admin appeared in front of them like before.
“Welcome to Day Two of battles!” the Admin said. “To report on the state of the ga
me—all items remain the same and there are no changes to the map. No glitches have been reported, and there are no impending patches to the current game. Should there be a patch, you will be informed of changes one week prior to the patch.”
Grey raised an eyebrow. He hadn’t realized that there might be changes to the game while he was living in it. That could be interesting. Maybe those “updates” happened when the players “slept.”
“I wish you luck in today’s battles,” the Admin said. When she disappeared, the countdown for the first battle commenced.
Soon, Grey was back in the familiar air transportation and people began to jump out. The Battle Bus was packed even halfway through the drop, and Grey knew the reason immediately. The squads hazing them outside the game could tell who they were based on their skins, and they intended to make sure they trolled them inside the game, too.
“That’s Tristan,” Ben said to Kiri. “The one with the boring gear but the flashy pack. He’s definitely revealing who we are to his squad so they can get guaranteed eliminations.”
“So unfair,” Kiri said.
“These other ones are probably Hazel’s squad,” Grey said. They wore special skins that not only changed their clothes, but also locked in different hairstyles and faces as well. He had a feeling the green-haired girl with pigtails was Hazel, since she wouldn’t be afraid to flaunt her identity in game.
At least Hazel’s squad couldn’t talk to Grey’s and they didn’t have to hear all their mean comments. They just had to worry about Hazel’s squad eliminating them.
“What are we supposed to do?” Kiri asked. “Hazel really will kill me first. She spent every minute insulting me last night until we got forced to sleep.”
“We get Tristan’s and Hazel’s squads to shoot at each other first,” Ben said with confidence. “They think it’ll be fun to wreck us, but they’ll worry about their own rank more. They’re more of a threat to each other than we are to them.”
“That’s true.” Grey felt a little better with that in mind. “So if we just dodge and get out of their way, maybe we can pick off a few of them.”
“Let’s hit Fatal Fields. We can land on the tallest building and hopefully we’ll find a sniper weapon for Kiri,” Ben said.
“I’m in,” Kiri said.
“Going!” Ben jumped. Grey and Kiri followed right behind him. And sure enough, several people followed them out. Ben rushed for the farm and its cluster of buildings. He pulled out his glider to further guide his flight, and Grey tried to follow to the best of his best ability.
He also tried not to look back at all the people out to get them, but he was scared they would tail them right to the barn roof. He reminded himself they would need gear as well if they wanted to eliminate them. Some of the squad’s members would spread out to find items before they circled back.
The moment they landed on the barn, Grey used his pickaxe to break down the roof. Kiri was a bit slow but had hers out soon enough. No one had landed there with them. Grey imagined they would be on the ground floor picking up weapons to kill them with.
There was a big gold chest right in front of them, and they opened it to find just what they were hoping to find—a sniper rifle for Kiri.
“Sweet as!” She grabbed it and the accompanying ammo. “Can I have the shield, too?”
“Yeah. Grey, take the grenades,” Ben said. “I’ll deal with the pistol.”
“Okay.” Grey grabbed the five grenades, hoping they’d come in handy. He heard destruction downstairs, so someone else was definitely there, although he wasn’t sure which squad.
“There might be more items over here.” Ben ran for the opposite side of the upper barn, where there was an alcove behind some bales of hay. Sure enough, there was a chest there as well. They opened it to find a blue AR, bandages, and some more ammo.
It wasn’t a bad start. Too bad there were at least eight people after them.
“Back on the roof?” Grey asked after they looted up.
“Yeah.” Ben used the wood he’d gotten from breaking the roof to build a ramp back up, and just in time, too, because someone busted the flooring and shots poured through the opening. Grey wanted to cover his ears, they were so loud at this short distance.
Kiri screamed as she ran, since the panic of nearby opponents was still an issue for her. They needed to get some distance. Grey threw one grenade out. It exploded without hitting anyone, but their enemies stayed back. He threw another, and this time he got someone down.
“One down!” he called out.
“Eliminate her before they revive!” Ben said
Grey unloaded his grenades on the squad, and they scattered away from their downed teammate. The person’s items spilled from their body, and a shocking sentence appeared in Grey’s vision:
You eliminated Hazel.
She was the first to be eliminated in the battle. Grey had a feeling he’d pay for that, but it still felt good after all Hazel’s bragging and mean words. He ran up the ramp to the roof, where Ben was breaking down pieces to use for building. “Who’s the first eliminated now?”
Kiri laughed. “Yeah, but we gotta get outta here.”
“I need a weapon,” Grey said. Hazel had dropped a decent machine gun, but her squad took it and he didn’t dare face them all. “I’m out of grenades.”
“Take the pistol until—” Ben started, but then a loud sound came from behind them. “No!”
“What?” Kiri said.
“Rocket launcher! Run!” Ben jumped off the roof, but before Grey and Kiri could, the shot landed right on them. The roof exploded into materials. Grey fell to the ground on his hands and knees in “downed state,” but Kiri’s shield kept her barely alive. She jumped for shelter, her health flashing dangerously low.
Since Grey was in a squad, he could crawl around and hope to get in a spot where his squad could revive him. So he tried to get off the roof where his team jumped, but then he heard the second rocket. He was a sitting duck.
And then he was a dead duck.
Tristan eliminated you.
“That lucky punk got a rocket launcher right off?” Ben yelled. “Figures.”
“Well, that’s the game, isn’t it?” Grey said, though he wished for once he’d be the one to get the good item at the start.
“Rigged,” Kiri grumbled. “Sorry, Grey.”
“Just try to live as long as you can,” Grey said. “I was the tenth down, so your rank will already improve, Kiri.”
“Right. But yours won’t,” she replied.
“There are plenty more games.” Grey tried to believe it. If they had five games a day for two months, that was around three hundred games. He couldn’t panic after only six games. No one could get comfortable after so few.
As evidenced by Hazel’s early demise in this game.
Ben and Kiri didn’t last much longer. Tristan’s group had their number, and they took them down before they could escape Fatal Fields.
The moment the battle was over, Grey prepared for what might happen when they all came back to the warehouse. Everyone would be there, which meant Hazel and her squad would be waiting after he had eliminated her first. He wished that would shut her up, but he had a feeling it would do the opposite.
“Grey!” Hazel’s voice sounded like his mom’s when she was really mad.
He didn’t have time to find Kiri or Ben. Grey broke into a sprint, leaving the warehouse through the nearest exit. He could still hear Hazel’s voice yelling for him. But he was faster than Hazel outside the battle, where their avatar’s speeds were regulated to make it fair.
“Come back here so I can teach you a lesson!” she screamed.
Grey went for the practice warehouse and grabbed a few weapons. Then he planned to run for the hills as fast as he could.
“Where are you going?” Ben cried as he and Kiri caught up to him. He hadn’t even noticed they were following him.
“Hiding from Hazel!” If he could hide from her, that was his plan fo
r at least the rest of the day. “I don’t need to hear what she has to say about those grenades!”
Ben and Kiri both laughed. And Kiri said, “Good thinking, mate!”
“I know a good spot,” Ben said. “She won’t know it because she’s new.”
Ben guided Grey and Kiri to a river between two steep hills. There was a cave there, and Grey would have been afraid to go in if he didn’t know this was a video game and there wouldn’t be a bear.
“It wasn’t the best first game, but I think we can do this,” Ben said as he sat down on a rocky ridge. “And it sure was great to kill Hazel first.”
Grey smiled. “So worth it.”
“Guess you can tell her who to stop picking on now,” Kiri said with laugh.
“I doubt she’ll listen,” Grey admitted. Though the battle wasn’t a great rank at all, there was still something about it that made it different from yesterday. He wasn’t as stressed out. He might even say he had fun. “I liked how we worked as a team, though. It was nice of you to give people weapons that fit them, Ben. I think that works a lot better than Tristan just getting all the good stuff.”
Ben nodded. “I think so, too.”
“We just have to get luckier with drops,” Grey said.
“And we need more time to set up.” Kiri leaned on the wall near Ben, her face serious but not upset. “How do we get them off our tails? They know us by our rubbish gear. They’ll definitely target us next battle, too.”
“Let’s all go back to default settings,” Ben said. “Sometimes the top players wear it, too, so they don’t stand out.”
“My friend Finn does that!” Grey chimed in. “He pretends to be a noob and makes himself look like a default character.”
Ben smiled. “Wish he was here to help us out.”
Grey felt a pinch of homesickness. “Me, too.”
“If we jump in the first batch of players,” Ben continued, “it’ll be harder to figure out who is who. Even if they try to follow us, they have a much higher chance at guessing wrong.”
“I like that,” Grey said. “Where should we go next?”
“I know we’ve already tried the location, but there’s a cliff with a house on it just outside of Fatal Fields,” Ben said. “It’s got some decent gear, and it’s a good lookout spot.”
