by Devin Hunter
“Thanks … I think,” Grey replied. “But in the end, it’s not our business anymore. We gotta focus on our own stuff.”
“Exactly,” Finn said. “All this drama is annoying.”
It was annoying, and Grey tried to avoid it at all costs. But he had grown a lot in the last six weeks and knew that Zach’s squad breaking up would probably cause a chain reaction of squad shifts. He prepared for the reality that something could happen to his own squad—he wouldn’t make that mistake twice.
CHAPTER 3
Since Zach’s squad had split and didn’t pose a threat, the last two games of the day went better than usual. Zach and Hui Yin still put up a decent fight as two, but they were never able to get more than one of Grey’s squad members knocked down. Grey’s squad took one victory, and Lam’s squad took the other. As everyone teleported back to the battle warehouse for the end of the day, Grey could barely believe what he saw on the rankings board.
Tae Min wasn’t ranked first.
It was Lam instead.
“Yes!” Lam jumped up and down as she stood in her first place position. “Finally!”
Tae Min was now right behind with a smile on his face. “Enjoy it while you can.”
That peeled the grin right off Lam’s face. “I’m keeping it.”
“Maybe,” was all Tae Min said.
Grey was sitting in tenth for the day, with Zach and Hui Yin right ahead. Ben and Tristan were right behind him. It was awkward to say the least, since he could feel his former squad mates glaring past him at Zach.
“You stalked us down on purpose, didn’t you?” Tristan said.
“Of course I did,” Zach replied. “Blame Grey. He made this a fair game, and you two don’t have the skill to get home.”
“Don’t blame me,” Grey said. “It’s not my fault you can’t bring out the best in your squad.”
“Oh, is that how it’s gonna be?” Zach asked.
Grey wished he had bitten his tongue, but he knew Ben and Tristan had the skills. They just needed the right coaching. “Leaders shouldn’t blame their squad—they should question themselves first.”
“You think you’re so great now …” Zach grumbled. “You’re just a kid who’s gotten lucky.”
“He’s a kid who works hard and is good at the game,” Hazel said. “You wouldn’t have put a bounty on us if you thought it was luck.”
Zach didn’t have a reply to that.
The Admin appeared to finish off the day. She smiled wide. “Day Fifty of Battles has come to an end! As you all saw, the rocket has been launched and left cracks in the atmosphere. Be on the lookout for further hints of what is to come. We hope you will enjoy the changes we have prepared for you next season. There have been no reports. You are now free to use the practice area as usual.”
Once the Admin left, everyone split off into their squads. While Grey and the other top twenty went off for yet another practice, everyone else looked like they were meeting up to have fun as friends. People who had once been tough and competitive, like Hazel’s old squad and even Lorenzo’s, had given up and were now hanging out around the cabins.
Grey pressed forward. They had practice with Lam’s squad.
Though not many people went to the practice area, everyone who did eyed each other. People didn’t practice out front anymore. Everyone would be able to see. No one practiced together except for Lam’s and Grey’s squads. Grey figured it wouldn’t last for long. Maybe a few more days and Lam would say that was enough.
Grey would take it while he could. He’d already learned a lot from Lam, even if she had also taken some of his ideas.
After Grey and his squad gathered their items and materials, they hiked out to the remote spot Lam had chosen for practice. This forest was past the ghost town, and they walked so deep into it that they were near the barrier of the game much like in the other forest Grey liked to go to. He had discovered that the whole area was surrounded by forest and barriers. It reminded him of the storm in the battles, except that it never moved and you couldn’t pass through it.
“What’s the plan today?” Grey asked as they approached Lam’s squad. She was all business, so Grey tried to match that with as little small talk as possible.
“Fun house,” Lam answered. “You make one first.”
“Sure thing.” Grey had done this practice with Lam’s squad before—it was something she had come up with but he liked to do. One team would have a couple minutes to build a maze of boxes and ramps and towers, outfit it with whatever traps and bouncers they wanted, and then the other team would have to infiltrate it and try to eliminate the players inside.
Whether Grey’s squad was the one building or hunting, it was always a challenge and a good lesson.
Once Lam’s squad had moved far enough away not to see what Grey’s squad was doing, Grey said, “Let’s all build our own and see what they do. They’ll have to guess who is where and maybe it’ll give us an advantage.”
“What if we all build one, and then we pick one to hide in together?” Kiri suggested.
Grey smiled. “I like that. We could get the jump on them if they pick the wrong one.”
“What kind of build? Identical?” Hazel asked.
Grey pursed his lips. “It’s a good idea, but we don’t have time to decide on the build right now. Maybe next round. Do what you want this time. Build and then meet in Finn’s structure.”
“Got it.” Hazel ran to a different spot and began to build.
“We should hide in your building,” Finn said as he began to throw down walls in front of him, Grey, and Kiri. “It’ll be the best one.”
“But that’s the one they’ll pick if Lam thinks it looks like my build,” Grey said.
“Good point,” Finn said. “Better hurry.”
“Right.” Grey ran away from Finn’s build while Kiri went past where Hazel was building.
Grey started by building the base of a one-by-one tower, but then he added ramps and boxes all around it. In some of the boxes he placed traps, and as he built higher, he added some bounce pads as well. These might not cause damage if someone fell, but they would cause chaos and also potentially give his allies a way to escape a fight as well.
He tried not to think about the logic of his build, since he knew they’d be moving to Finn’s anyway. He had noticed that Lam thrived on logical builds, and sometimes it was better for it to appear as if someone with less skill had made the fun house.
A loud sniper shot echoed through the forest, indicating that the time to build had run out. Lam’s squad would be on the way.
Grey dropped one bounce pad at the top of his fun house and used it to get over to Finn’s tower faster. Since they were in practice mode, he could see his squad’s names over their heads and knew everyone else was already in the tower. But the downside of practice mode was that they didn’t have the private communication system they had in the battles. If they spoke, Lam’s squad would potentially hear them.
This practice was all about being quiet.
Once Grey landed in Finn’s tower, he crouched to reduce his footstep noise as much as possible. He hid behind a ramp, pleased to see that Finn had placed a trap behind it.
Grey couldn’t immediately hear Lam’s squad approach, and he wondered if they had paused in confusion when they saw the multiple buildings they would have to choose from. He hoped so. Impressing Lam was nearly as good as impressing Tae Min.
Once Lam’s squad got close enough, he could hear their footsteps change from the sound of walking on grass to walking on wood. So they had picked a fun house to explore.
Grey peeked between the wood slats, trying to figure out which building Lam’s squad was in. As he did, he began to worry this wasn’t the best strategy. Maybe Lam wouldn’t immediately find them, but Lam might be able to use the towers Grey’s squad built to her advantage.
If this strategy was to work, Grey’s squad would have to be aggressive. Except he couldn’t tell them when to attack without
the coms—he would have to hope he had taught them enough that they would know.
Or at least follow his lead.
Grey caught movement in his own tower. He planned to use the clinger grenades he had picked up to launch his attack, but then he heard a rocket launch from nearby. He saw it soar into Hazel’s tower, not his.
Lam’s squad must have split up.
And if they did …
Grey launched all his clingers at the tower he’d built, hoping that would direct his squad to pay attention to both buildings. Then he began to move down Finn’s tower because he was sure someone from Lam’s squad would be on their way here the moment they saw the rocket.
They would definitely try to bring the whole thing down. Lam’s squad was never ashamed to take advantage of the powerful explosives in the game. Especially now that so many other weapons had been nerfed. Grey had to get down to the lower levels and eliminate that person before his whole team was down because of fall damage.
Grenades and rockets flew through the air as Grey used his materials to drop down to the ground. The other structures he and his squad had built were in shambles, but he wasn’t sure Lam’s squad members had gone down in the flurry. Chances were, they had backed out enough to build their own defensive measures.
Grey ran around Finn’s tower trying to find evidence of the enemies. While he didn’t see anyone, he did see something worse—a C4 planted on a wall.
He heard the click of another C4 being placed, and he panicked. Maybe he could build more walls to keep the tower standing … but Lam’s squad would just have more C4 to take those walls down, too.
That was when Grey remembered C4 could damage the person who placed it as well. He realized there was another option: explode the C4 by shooting it.
He quietly moved to the edge of a wall and peeked behind. It was a risk since the C4 could explode at any second, but he had to do it. He spotted Lam throwing another explosive and took the shot, hoping he’d hit the C4 in the air and it would explode in Lam’s face.
He missed.
Lam startled at the shot but then triggered the C4. The whole building went down, and Grey took a hit that he knew would have eliminated him. Grey’s squad all dropped to the ground around him.
“You and your C4!” Finn said to Lam.
Lam only smiled at Grey. “You nearly had me. Building multiple towers was clever, though.”
“Yeah …” Grey sat on the ground, disappointed even though it was only practice. If that had been a real game, it would have been one more they would have lost. One more that would have put Lam’s squad in the lead. Grey and his friends couldn’t afford to lose anymore. Every loss could ruin their chance of getting home. “Guess I need to work on my aim.”
“Nah,” Lam said. “It’s already bad enough that you figured out I’d be down here.”
“We’ll get you next time,” Kiri said.
“Maybe. We’ll clear the towers over there.” Lam headed over to where Pilar and Trevor were already breaking down the rest of Hazel’s building.
Grey’s squad broke down his tower and then moved out to await their turn for hunting. He tried to shake off the loss, but it was getting harder and harder to do. “We need to win this next one, guys.”
“We’ll do our best,” Kiri said.
He stopped. “I need more than that—if we can’t beat them in practice, we’ll never beat them in battles. And that means we’re not going home.”
Kiri gave him a look he couldn’t place. “I know, mate. No need to get angry.”
“Sorry. Just pretend like it’s a real game from now on,” Grey said.
“I always do,” Finn said.
“Me too,” Hazel said. “You’re not the only one who wants to go home, Grey. Don’t act like we’re slackers just because Lam can beat you.”
The words hit a chord in Grey, and not a good one. He realized he was on the verge of tilting, and he needed to be careful that the pressure didn’t make him crack. Because if he couldn’t hold it together, chances were his whole squad would fall apart.
CHAPTER 4
The next day came faster than Grey wanted it to. He couldn’t stop thinking about yesterday’s practices with Lam and how often they lost. Had it been a mistake to practice with Lam’s squad? It felt like she had figured out Grey’s strategies much faster than he’d learned any of hers. Maybe they should stop practicing with her. Grey wasn’t sure what the right decision was.
“You seem troubled,” Tae Min said.
Grey startled, not having realized that people were moving around him as he sat thinking. The cabin had been emptied except for him and Tae Min. “Oh, yeah … I guess I am. But isn’t everyone who is trying to make the top five feeling troubled?”
“Probably.” Tae Min came over and sat by Grey on his bed. “But you are thinking of something specific.”
There was no point in hiding stuff from Tae Min, who was usually willing to help in his cryptic way. “I’m trying to decide if I should stop practicing with Lam’s squad. We keep losing. She’s figuring me out instead of the other way around.”
“You think so?” Tae Min asked. “Or are you playing her game instead of yours?”
Grey raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
Tae Min shrugged. “Perhaps you have her more figured out than you think, but you’re trying to fight her with her own tactics. It seems that you believe she is smarter than you.”
“She is.” Grey was certain of it. He was certain anyone else would agree. “She’s a lot older than me. And her strategies are winning her this game. I don’t win against her squad enough to surpass them.”
“Almost everyone here is older than you,” Tae Min pointed out. “What makes her so special?”
Grey didn’t want to say it out loud. He thought Lam was smart. He thought she was a good player. He admired the way she played the game and had learned a lot from her.
“Don’t try to be Lam,” Tae Min finally said when Grey let the silence go on too long. “You’re not Lam. You’re Grey. If you keep trying to beat her with her own strategies, of course she will win. She knows her play style more than anyone else could. Even if you’ve learned to mimic it, she will always have a leg up.”
“I’m not trying to be her,” Grey said.
“You are.” Tae Min got up and headed for the door. “Think about it. You haven’t been trying to get better at what you do best—you’ve been trying to be someone you’re not. How would Grey beat Lam? You’ve beaten her before, and I have a feeling those times weren’t when you were trying to be her.”
Tae Min left Grey alone after that. Grey stayed there to think. Was he really trying to be like Lam? He hadn’t thought of it that way, but if Tae Min said he was, then Grey had to consider the possibility.
When Grey’s squad had practiced with other squads, had he done the same thing? Had he tried to be like Hans or Zach or Lorenzo? Now that he thought about it … he didn’t. Grey had tried to counter them. But with Lam, Grey was trying to build like she would build. He was trying to place traps and explosives and bouncers where she might place them. Because he thought she did it better than he did.
Embarrassment washed over him. Tae Min had seen Grey’s admiration easily, and he worried that everyone else saw it too. In fact, he was almost certain that Lam saw it most of all. She had used his fascination with her strategies to distract him from his own strengths. He’d almost forgotten what he was good at in just a few days.
Tae Min was right, as usual. Grey needed to play his way. He needed to find a way to counter Lam’s strategies that worked for him. And it wouldn’t be copying her style.
Just as Grey was about to go find his squad, someone else entered the cabin. Grey’s eyes grew wide at the figure. “Lam.”
“Hey,” she said as she looked around the room. “Sounds like you and Tae Min are pretty friendly. I would have never guessed.”
“You were listening?” Grey gulped, suddenly even more nervous than before. W
ould Lam tell others about Tae Min? Why did Grey feel like he’d be in trouble if other people knew?
“Of course I was.” Lam sat on Lorenzo’s bed, which was right across from Grey’s. “It wasn’t on purpose, though. I was on my way here to ask you to join my squad.”
Grey stared at her. He couldn’t have heard right. “What?”
“You’d be guaranteed a spot home,” Lam said. “No one could challenge our squad if you were on it, too.”
She was right, and Grey knew it. If he joined with Lam, he’d sail right on home. His squad wouldn’t be able to beat them. All the others were already broken and weak.
But he would have to abandon his squad. His friends.
Grey had been asked a couple times to join squads, but it had been easy to say no. This time it felt harder. They were so close to the end of the season. There wasn’t time to improve, and Grey needed to win more battles than lose.
Part of him wanted to say yes. It was like Ben and Tristan had said—what’s most important is getting yourself home.
But the bigger part of him knew he’d always regret leaving his friends behind, even if he never got such an easy chance again. So he said, “I can’t. Sorry. You can probably get Ben or Tristan. Both of them really want to go home.”
Lam glared at him. “I’m not handing out charity. They’re already out of my way. I need your squad out of my way. The only reason we’re practicing is so I could see which person was the best to steal. That’s you. But if you don’t join me, I’ll just get one of your squad members instead.”
Grey knew their practices weren’t friendly, but he still didn’t expect Lam to try and steal his squad members. “So much for fair competition, huh?”
“It’s fair to get the best team possible,” Lam said. “And you can take Ben or Tristan back on if you want. Or do you think they’re worse than your current team?”
