It seems like no time has passed, as the practice area disappears, and I am staring at the city from above. Out of nowhere, I hear a deep, booming voice, ringing through my ears. Chilling my skin, with a strange presence. The voice of Caesar.
“Welcome contestants! The moment you have been waiting for has arrived. The game is simple. Choose a place in the city to spawn. Survive six hours. Then, the first 99 people who enter into the gate to heaven in the Heavenly Tower will win. Nothing else matters. You have all been equipped with level III grav suit control on your cybersuits. Now get to it!”
Immediately, I feel the option to choose where I spawn, and I immediately imagine my room, my apartment. And before I can blink, I am there, disoriented, adrenaline flowing through me. Acting quickly, I grab my Plas 1300 Repeater rifle, and my Starburst Plas pistol. I throw the Repeater onto my back, my cybersuit magnetizing it to stay there with a thought. For flare, I have my cybersuit grow out to have a gun belt, and a magnetized holster for my starburst. “Looks are everything. Killing is pointless if you don’t look cool” I think, as I grab four green Plas mags from the shelf by my bed, two standard size 30P mags, for the repeater, and two pistol 10P mags for the starburst. “Both my starburst and 1300 repeater consume about 1P of energy per shot, so they hold 30 and 10 shots respectively. Honestly, I prefer the starburst, due to its size and ease of use, but the repeater is much better for longer ranged engagements.” - I think, as I load my repeater. Then, pulling my starburst from my hip with a single graceful movement, I throw the starburst up into the air, watching it do a full spin, catch it and load the mag, and kiss the gun for luck. As I do, I notice a small sphere floating above my left wrist. I holster my starburst, and I instinctively pinch it between my right index and thumb, and notice a small line pointing out of it, going straight down forever. I continue to grasp it, and spin the small sphere so the line is pointing straight at the wall in front of me. “Wonder what this will do” I think, as I let go of the sphere.
Whoosh!
My legs fly out from under me, towards the wall, and the rest of me follows. I crash feet first into the wall, and after a dizzying moment, I manage to catch my balance and stand. On the wall.
Caesar help me, I think I am gonna be sick. After a moment longer of recovering my breath, stomach, and adrenaline, I walk around on the wall a little, and even try jumping. It is like the entirety of the direction gravity pulls me has changed. The wall is down. After running in circles on the wall for a few more seconds, I grab the sphere, which is still hovering just slightly above my left wrist, and point the line coming out of it back towards the ground, and it seems to snap to a certain point when I move it close enough. I turn myself to face the floor, and take a deep breath.
“Heck, if I am gonna win today, I need to master this thing” I think to myself as I release it. "Today, I am not Josiah Pottinger. No, people won't know me by that name. They will know me by the name I display, the name I have chosen for myself. Dhedjeshdi."
As expected, my legs fly out from under me, the rest of me following, and I fall feet first onto the floor, mastering my balance a little more this time around. “With the ability Caesar gave us being called grav suit control, I think I will call the little sphere above my wrist a gravsphere. And the line coming out of it acts as a target for where my new gravity direction will be, at least so far as I have tried it. So I can call that the Grav target line.” I think to myself, as I continue to acclimatize myself to gravity not being fixed, and being able to change it. After a few minutes of experimentation, I find that it only yanks my legs out from under me to face the new gravity direction if I change the Grav target by about an 80 degree angle in any direction or more. Not only that, but I quickly realize the versatility of grav control. By changing the Grav target line from being straight down towards the surface I plan to move on, to about a 25 degree angle away from straight down, I can make it so that the angle of gravity makes walking what would normally be a flat surface, angled in relation to my gravity, so that I am always walking or running downhill. It’s pretty dang amazing. But I shouldn’t spend all day practicing. If only the first 99 to enter the gate are Champions, I need to move. Take a spot near the Heavenly Tower. Kill any nearby competitors, to guarantee that I will be one of the first 99 to enter the gate to Heaven, in the center of the city. To guarantee that I will be a champion.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
___________
I walk out of my apartment, into the hall outside. Straight ahead and to the right, there is the hallway connecting our building to the main skywalk. As I look to the right, I see another competitor walking out of a room, roughly 30 feet from me, loading a 1300 repeater. His cybersuit is colored black, and it looks like he has a pistol of some form on both hips. “Hell, I’ve got an idea” - I think, as I grab my gravsphere and aim the grav target line straight at his chest, between his two shoulders, and release. My legs whip out from under me, and I am falling straight for him. I have already covered about half the distance between us by the time he looks up, and when he does, I can see him freeze up. He tries to raise his repeater and fire at the last second, but is already far too late. My feet crash into his shoulders, his shields breaking, knocking him over with a burst of force onto his back, and I hear an audible crack as he hits the ground, and watch his repeater go flying from his grasp. After falling a few feet past him, I spin the gravsphere and set my gravity to the floor. With a thought, I have my cybersuit withdraw from my hair and face, and roll my head around my neck as I brush back my hair with my left hand. As I walk up to the competitor lying on the floor, I draw my starburst. As I get closer, he voices a question.
“Who are you?”
“The name’s Dhedjeshdi.”
And with that, I unload two shots from my starburst into his head. Now that, that is what I call a satisfying first kill of the day. Suddenly, I hear the strange, chilling voice of the Last Caesar, echoing throughout the world.
“Andddd, we have first blood of the Championship, going to Dhedjeshdi. As Dhedjeshdi now holds the most kills, he is your now your KILL LEADER. The KILL LEADER will receive 100 additional shield for their cybersuit, a 30 second shield regeneration delay, 4 shield regen per second while regenerating, and double the speed of Plas mag regeneration.”
Damn! That is one heck of a bonus. Normally, a cybersuit would have 100 shield, and would take 60 seconds to start regenerating after being damaged, and would regenerate at the rate of 2 shield per second. So I am doubled in all shield categories as long as I remain kill leader. Plas mag regeneration, for the green mags I use, is normally about 1P of power every 10 seconds. So if that is doubled too, that’s 1P every 5 seconds, meaning if I fired all 30P from my Plas Repeater, it would be back to its full 30P in 150 seconds, or slightly longer than 2 minutes. Considering I have a spare mag for both guns that I can swap out to, I can practically spray and pray then for as long as I remain the kill leader.
As I look down at the body of my first kill, I check his weapons. He has two starburst’s, one on each side. I decide to grab one of them just in case I need it, and magnetize it to the left hip of my cybersuit with a thought, to mirror the starburst on my right hip. Then, looking both ways to see if anyone else is around, I have my cybersuit cover my face once more. After a few moments, I notice his cybersuit condense into a small cube, and then fade into a strange, black dust. Nobody knows why the cybersuits do it, but normal cybersuits always condense and fade into dust when there wearer dies. I find it beautiful. A cloud of black dust, fading away. The final death, fading to dust. But I don't have time to waste being sentimental. I turn to face the hall to the main skywalk, take a deep breath, and start walking.