The countdown timer reached zero and Dan and his team immediately sprang into action. All of them agreed that they would go for the credit box located about two hundred meters from their current position. The second credit box was too out of reach, and at least one other team such as the Genesis Talons would easily outpace them.
The team kept a steady but methodical pace through the hazy streets of the arena. The filters in Dan’s mask functioned as intended in keeping the strange smog out of their lungs. Dan could tell from his watering eyes that the impurities in the air would impede their progress if they breathed that crap in.
The team had another ninety-two meters to reach before they arrived at the first credit box. Dan led from the front, Angie in the middle while Li pulled up the rear. He glanced back and saw the ambient pink glow surrounding Angie’s Aero SMG, indicating her use of her enchanted firearm ability. As the team approached closer to the credit box, the exact amount of credits popped up next to the yellow icon.
A private channel opened with Dan receiving a call from Li.
“We’re getting close. That also means that an enemy team won’t be far behind. Get ready.”
Dan’s pace became more methodical with him checking his corners and backalley more frequently. By the time his HUD said fifty meters between him and the credit box, his heart rate had gone up as well.
He couldn’t tell whether it was excitement or fear that had built up inside him in anticipation to encountering Rachel and her team of Prime Swords. If what the voice said was true about those agents being their most dangerous competition in this round, or even the entire Combat Games, then Dan knew a showdown between him and Rachel’s team would get bloody.
Li voiced filled his mind again. “Hang on. We’re holding out position here while I get inside this building. I need to find a good vantage point for my sniper.”
Both Dan and Angie quietly walked toward an alleyway while Li hopped through the broken window of the building behind them. While waiting for Li to get into proper position, Dan leaned his body out from the alley and saw the area that contained the credit box. The box was perched on top of a fountain in the center of an opening within the densely packed residential town houses.
“I’m in position,” Li said through the private comms.
“Good. Should I go for the credit box?” Dan asked.
“It’s too quiet. Either nothing is nearby or we might have a more covert team like the Hellhounds hiding somewhere waiting just like us. Or, the Genesis Talons could have been here before any of us and are also lying in wait so that they can ambush and eliminate their competition early. Those Talon could be lying on the roofs above us somewhere and if they catch us on the streets, it would be over for us. You know I’m not a wishful thinker, Dan.”
Dan glanced at the fountain once again then darted his eyes to various position surrounding the fountain. The house behind the fountain, the pavement along the various paths leading to more houses and corners and alleyways that could easily be hiding agents from the opposing teams.
“How do you suggest we approach this?” Dan said.
“Angie’s hologram ability will prove useful here,” Li stated. “If it’s anything like the hologram we saw from the Prime Swords’ deathmatch, our enemies won’t immediately be able to tell the hologram from the real thing. Have Angie send out a hologram directly to the fountain and we’ll see if anyone is lying in wait and pulls the trigger. Understand that the other teams are just as anxious if not more than we are. We all saw that introductory match with Rachel’s team and know how competent those guys are. And more than likely, at least a few teams might have had the chance to watch our replay and saw our victory against another team of Talons. Everyone in our specific match is going to be trigger happy and won’t have time to question little details as to why Angie is suddenly running blindly out into the open.”
“So send out a hologram and simply hang back and see what happens? And if an enemy team does reveal themselves, just mow them down?” Angie asked.
“Precisely,” Li responded.
“Alright then Dan. Stand aside so I can send out my hologram,” she said.
Since Dan was standing the closest to the opening of the alley, he stepped further in and traded places with his teammate. Angie aimed her body directly toward the fountain and a near perfect copy of her flashed into existence and walked out of the alley.
“Stay out of sight while I watch our hologram,” Li said. Since the stealth specialist was in an elevated position in one of the nearby buildings, Dan tugged at Angie’s arm and the two recessed back into the alley. Li would be their look out for any trouble.
Not even two seconds later, Dan’s ears picked up loud staccatos in the air and the cracking and shattering of concrete.
“There it is,” Li said cooly over the private channel. “Taking the shot, now.”
Dan picked up the loud booms of two nearby rounds fired. Li’s sniper rifle spat out fire that briefly silenced the gunfire from an enemy team.
“I took one out at a window but the other got away,” Li said. “I’ll keep them busy but someone needs to go and snatch that credit box.”
Dan was about to volunteer himself to run out into the open before a hand grabbed his shoulder and halted him.
“Hey Dan, let me do it,” Angie said. Her expression was grim and serious, a far cry from her upbeat self.
“I’ll cover you,” Dan said without hesitation. “Grab it and get back to us. Don’t engage the enemy. Let Li and I handle the shooting.”
Angie nodded and she dashed out of the alley and made a run toward the fountain. Li’s sniper rifle thundered behind as Dan spotted movement from a shattered windows of one of the houses across from the fountain. He raised his seventy-seven and squeezed the trigger, opening fire on that house. Mini geysers of dirt and brick spat out of the front of the structure as tungsten hollow-point rounds smashed into the the building.
Dan glanced at the fountain and saw that Angie had lept up and snatched the credit box laying on top. A stray bullet smashed into the center piece of the fountain and the pillar-like structure collapsed into the pool of water and smashed apart the side. All the water poured out of the pool and began flooding the pavement surrounding the fountain.
Angie turned and sprinted back to the alley. The credit box appeared larger than he thought. The box exceeded the size of a basketball.
“My hunch was correct,” Li said. “The team that shot at Angie’s hologram were the Hellhounds. Their positioning was solid. If we hadn’t sent out that hologram to fool them into revealing their positions, we would have hit the dust. You got the box?”
“Yeah, Angie has the box,” Dan said. Angie hopped passed Dan and further into the alley.
“I’m getting an updated waypoint,” she said. Dan then noticed the spinning icon in the center of his vision and then watched it disappear as an updated waypoint appeared on his HUD. The nearest vault to cash out the credit box was around three hundred meters away.
“I got it too,” Dan replied.
“You two proceed without me,” Li said. “I’ll stay a little bit longer and harass these Hellhounds to keep them from chasing you.”
“Don’t stay for too long,” Dan ordered.
He looked to Angie who still held the box under her left arm. “How heavy is it?”
“It’s not bad, just bulky with sharp ass corners and edges,” She tossed it up and caught it in her hand. “See? Look at this. You could poke someone’s eye out with these corners.”
As the two quickly emerged out the other side of the alley, Dan opened up a private channel with Angie and gave her a call.
“How fast can you run?” he asked. “While Li is busy keeping those Hellhounds in check, we have no clue what’s going on with the Prime Swords or the Talons. We need to get to that vault ASAP.”
Dan watched the path ahead and saw a clear and empty street beside a field of dead and decaying trees. The abrupt scent of rot and death smashed into Dan’s nose and he was immediately put on guard. The haze that reduced the visibility to only a few dozen meters ahead didn’t help.
“My highest record was around thirty-six kilometers an hour,” Angie replied, looking back at him. “What about you?”
“Around the same, but I think if I activate my berserk, I could run faster since it gives me a stat increase across the board.”
“Why not just inject one of those booster you grabbed from the armory? Wouldn’t that be a bit safer and less straining on your body?” Angie suggested.
Dan remembered he had his booster, a safer but most likely less potent method of granting him a temporary stat buff. He reached into the inner pockets of his coat and grabbed one of the booster stims.
“You’re right,” he said. “I’ll pop one and hand that box over to me. I’ll lead the way and I can get the box to the vault the fastest.”
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” she said. “What if we get ambushed on the way there?”
Dan held the booster in his hand and stuck the end of it into his neck. His body felt the immediate sensation of unknown substances flowing through him and quickly surging throughout his body. Unlike the healing stim which had a icy cold sensation, the booster warmed up his neck and he could feel himself already sweating under his armor.
“That’s why we need to get there fast,” Dan said. He lifted his arm and noticed he was shaking even through his armor. He clenched his fist, feeling the added strength the booster granted him.
Angie tossed the credit box to him and Dan snatched it out of the air and then began running. His acceleration speed surprised even himself as he blitzed past Angie with speed he had only known through the berserk mode.
“Hey, wait up!” Angie shouted behind him.
Dan grabbed a light pole and used it to swerve himself around a ninety degree turn on the street between the row of houses and the skeletal forest. His rapid footsteps stomped along the pavement and Dan could feel the hazy and impure air smack into his face. His HUD breifly flashed a message that read:
New speed record: 57 kilometers per hour.
Dan had never before ran this fast for any length of time. He was easily traveling at the speed of a car on the average road. Dan didn’t hold back the excited grin beneath his mask. His heart not only from the effects of the booster but from the thrill of being the fastest agent in this particular match. The waypoint off to his left and the distance measurement beside rapidly updated to reflect his enhanced speed. By the time he reached near the end of this particular street, he had closed the distance to only eighty meters.
“Holy shit,” Angie said over comms. “Those boosters are doing their job.”
Dan looked over his shoulder and saw he was so far ahead of his teammate that he couldn’t even see her through the haze. “You need me to wait for you?”
“No, get to the vault first,” Angie said. “Li and and will meet you there, one way or another.”
Dan already wasn’t a fan of Li staying behind and having their team split up, but by injecting the booster and not even thinking to hand one to Angie, he had unintentionally made that problem worse. Because of his recklessness and his focus on getting to the vault the quickest, all three of them would be separated in this town with poor visibility and multiple teams trying to take each other out.
“Fuck Angie. I should have given you a booster. It was dumb for me to speed ahead like this,” he admitted.
“Relax Dan. I’ve fucked up and done dumber shit than this in the past. Now get going. We need to cash in those credits and take the lead.”
Dan quickly put his guilt aside and stared directly at the waypoint to the vault. He had to cut through another alley before he could clearly see where the waypoint would take him. Dan put his enhanced physicals to use as he lept into the alley and speed through the narrow spaces. He kicked over a trash bin as he emerged out and saw another relatively open area. His mind raced as the possibilities of an ambush and from what angles filled him with apprehensions about proceeding any further.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
But Dan knew that he still had his berserk and glare abilities in his back pocket, ready to be used if shit hit the fan.
He pressed forward and ran across the open ground. His HUD flashed the waypoint as he drew closer to a row of ATMs. The chosen vault to cash out the credit box was an ATM at the end of the row. Dan rushed toward the ATM and immediately he was perplexed with how this giant box and the credits it held was supposed to be deposited into this typical machine.
Then his HUD spat the answer out in plain text.
Stand in front of the vault and allow it to scan the credit box.
Dan followed the simple instruction and just held the box in fron of the ATM. He saw a green beam of light shine from the machine and onto the credit box.
Scan complete. Please wait 60 seconds for the credits to be earned and added to your team’s score.
Sixty seconds on a battlefield was a lifetime. Anything could easily happen during that time. It was possible some other team could ambush and outwit Dan while they somehow rig the ATM to cash out the fifty thousand credits for themselves.
Dan was also reminded that his booster would only be active for a few minutes at the most and when the countdown ended, his booster would soon follow after.
He walked a few steps toward the abandoned banking branch and smashed his fist through the glass window. He crouched and stepped through the smashed window and kept lookout for any enemy agents while the cash out process was ongoing.
Dan opened a private channel to both his teammates.
“The cash out process is is in progress,” Dan said. “Keeping look out now.”
“Nice,” Angie said. “Don’t let those other asses get their hands on that money.”
“On my way,” Li said. “Those Hellhounds were forced to back off, but it burned too much of my ammo. I only have two magazines left.”
Dan periodically leaned out and scanned his outside surroundings the best he could. The haze still obscured the streets and he could barely make out the silhouettes of buildings that would be walking distance. The sporadic gunfire in the air didn’t ease him either.
Then a inhuman screech echoed in the air.
Dan remembered one of the constrictions for this match was the placement of mutated eggs taken from Church-controlled territory and was reminded that mutated beasts could also be another enemy aside from the opposing teams.
Thirty seconds had passed and Dan could feel the booster’s effects waning as the surge of energy throughout his body plateaued and began gradually decreasing. The remaining thirty second felt like half an hour as Dan kept his seventy-seven rifle pointed upwards, ready to unleash armor-piercing rounds at anyone trying to steal his team’s credits.
Aside from the distant gunfire, Dan’s ears picked up rapid footsteps just outside the banking branch and was immediately put on high alert.
“Wherever you are, don’t shoot,” Li said thorugh the private channel.
Dan poked his head through the smashed window and checked his right. He saw the stealth specialist along with a distant silhouette that revealed itself to be Angie. Li was breathing hard and trying to keep his posture straight.
“How did you get here before Angie?” Dan asked. He recalled that Li was busy keeping the Hellhounds at bay while Dan and Angie headed off first.
Dan noticed a brief burst of red static fizzle out from Li’s legs and the answer sunk.
“I have the berserk ability as well,” Li said while breathing heavily. “I used it to make leaps across the rooftops and overtook Angie. I don’t know how you can handle its effects.”
The minute was up and Dan was greeted by another message on his HUD.
Cash out complete. Your team has been awarded fifty thousand credits and has taken 1st place!
His HUD also pulled up the scores and ranking of the other teams.
2nd: Genesis Talons w/ 30000 credits
3rd: Prime Swords w/ 20000 credits
4th: Spec Ops Hellhounds w/ 0 credits
Time left: 11:07 minutes.
The next set of credit boxes will spawn promptly.
“We’re in the lead,” Dan said. “But we got eleven minutes to go and any of our competition could catch up and overtake us in credits.”
“Right,” Li said, finally catching his breath. Angie had a huge grin on her face celebrating their team being in the lead.
Dan’s HUD updated with the waypoints for three credit boxes on the arena. The credit amounts also popped up beside the yellow dollar sign icons. He frowned as the two higher amounts of fifty thousand and thirty–five thousand were both six hundred and seven hundred seventy meters away respectively. The nearest credit box that was a reasonable distance away was the lowest amount, coming in at fifteen thousand credits.
“We’ll have to go for the nearest one,” Li said. “I don’t think I can keep up a sprint with the berserk mode while going for the other two boxes.”
The nearest credit box of fifteen thousand credits was only two hundred meters away according to Dan’s HUD.
Dan didn’t need to explain himself as he broke into a run along the row of ATMs and his two teammates quickly followed behind him. Dan initially held the lead over them in running speed. His lead only lasted another six seconds before the effects of the booster finally ran its course and his physique had returned itself back to its baseline stats.
Booster has been used.
Dan’s teammates finally caught up to him and they ran through the empty roads and through the alleys of houses to reach the next credit box. The waypoint to the box updated and relocated itself to the third floor of a residential building just another block ahead.
The team finally stopped in front of the building and Angie held her hand up to the others. “I’ll go up there and fetch that box. Wait for me.”
“Alright then,” Dan said. “Li, we’ll keep watch for any enemies.”
“She needs to be as quick as possible. We can’t stay here any longer than we have to,” he replied.
Angie twisted the door knob and entered into the abandoned property. Dan and Li stood outside, then they both realized how dumb it was to stand outside without any cover. Dan rushed to an abandoned jeep parked across the street while Li smashed through a window of a neighboring house and broke in.
Dan leaned out of the jeep and took in the surroundings past the vehicle. The street was directly beside what used to be a dock filled with water. Now it was just a vast pit of mud with a boat sitting at an awkward angle in the recessed pit.
“Geez, can’t believe people used to live here,” Dan said.
“It’s hard to fathom. When I walking inside that house to take up a sniping position, the placed was definitely lived in. I have no clue what the hell happened before we were around, but it seemed that the Alpha Corp decided to make this ghost town into a makeshift fighting arena for its agents instead. I’m not sure how to feel about money and resources spent on the Combat Games all the way out here instead of improving the living conditions to invite the former residents back.”
Dan didn’t expect this place to have such a grim backstory. Former residents forced out of their homes and the Alpha Corp swoops in and used their abandoned homes as battlegrounds for their young agents.
The haze wasn’t nearly as impenetrable at the former dock compared to the rest of the arena. Dan could see the row of buildings at the other side of the dock, which was a distance he estimated to be about seventy meters away.
His eyes caught an small orange light through the haze and he made out a humanoid silhouette on one of the roofs of the houses across the dock.
“Do you see that?” Dan said over the private channel?
“No mistaking it,” Li responded. “It’s the exhaust coming from a Genesis Talon’s jet pack. They’re right across from us it seems.”
Dan spotted multiple more flaming exhausts from additional Talons flying up to the roofs. He counted a total of five agents now perched on various roofs along the buildings across the dock.
“I hope they haven’t spotted us,” Dan said.
“That will be the least of their worries,” Li said grimly. Dan glanced back at the stealth specialist who hid himself within an alley. Li pointed his finger back at the buildings across the dock and Dan’s ear’s picked up the sudden gunfire.
He turned his head back and saw all five Genesis Talons and their muzzle flashes, shooting at something Dan couldn’t quite see.
One of the windows at the top floor of a building smashed to pieces and a sixth agent emerged out and jumped from the broken window up to the roof. The same agent returned fire on the attack Talons.
“Who the hell is that?” Dan said.
The unknown sixth agent jumped and sommersaulted in the air, seemingly weaving through gunfire from five different Talons without being hit. Once the unknown agent completed the move, the nearest Talon took a kick to the face and flew off the roof and smashed into the pavement below.
Dan could only see a dark outline within the hazy cloud obscuring the line of buildings. As he wondered who this unknown agent was, his HUD chimed in on the details.
The attacking agent is a Prime Sword, specifically agent Rachel Cutter.
As Rachel engaged the rest of the Talons on her own, another window from the same building she had emerged from bursted open. Dan expected another one of Rachel’s teammates to climb out. Instead, Dan squinted and saw a dark blur leap out the window and land flawlessly on the street. Whatever landed stood on all fours and its silhouette in the haze resembled a tiger or puma. It was no agent. A green glow emitted from the creature’s body and through the haze.
“What the hell is that?” Dan said.
“It’s some creature, but who knows what it actually is,” Li said.
The unknown creature let out a screech and Dan swore he briefly saw the haze around the creature dissipate. Then his HUD gave him a grim update on the situation.
Warning: mutant creatures have hatched and have entered the arena.
The creature then pounced onto the unmoving body of the Talon who Rachel had kicked off the roof. The creature began gnawing on the Talon’s arm. The team of Genesis Talon became further divided as one agent saw the mutant creature eating his teammate and disengaged from the fight with the Prime Sword and jumped down to fight the creature.
From this distance, the lone Talon opened fire on the creature and it dived out of the path of rounds, narrowly avoiding the barrage of gunfire. The Talon continued shooting at the creature and Dan couldn’t tell whether it was dodging the gunfire or the bullets simply had no effect on it.
Dan’s eye refocused on the battle on the rooftop featuring Rachel against the remaining three Talons. On a roof that was slanted downwards, the Prime Sword managed a sweeping kick against a Talon while firing an entire magazine from her pistol into the Talon’s abdomen. The next Talon took to the skies and jumped upward, flying into the haze.
Dan shook his head, realizing that with such poor visibility, the Talon’s mobility advantage wasn’t a factor in this particular fight. The outline of the Talon was still faintly visible in the haze, until Dan saw the jet pack of the Talon suddenly burst into flames. The Talon sputtered out of control, performed numerous high-speed rolls before crashing straight into the mud where water used to be in the dock.
Dan looked up and saw a flying creature with an expansive wingspan as it swooped down and landed beside the unmoving crashed Talon.
He squinted and saw what looked like a giant hawk with a bizarre color and shade to its feathers. It’s coat was all black with some faint purple energies spilling out of its feathers, leaking into the air like fumes.
The spinning icon popped up in his his vision which eventually expanded into a full image and brief description of the strange bird.
The up close image of the creature was a black hawk with a sharpened, elongated beak as well as deep red eyes. If this was how one of the mutated birds looked like from Church teritory, he shuddered thinking what other native wildlife could have been mutated.
Then the unsettling description rolled beside the image.
Various birds such as eagles, hawks and even some species of crows were poached from American soil by cults of the Church of Nano-Evolution and subjected to experimentation, both through scientific and “otherworldly” means to give such avian creatures enhanced lethality to serve the Church.
Such birds are now equipped with hardened and sharpened beaks and talons, not unlike the bone density improvements to an agent’s skeleton. Visual acuity is also sharply improved, along with higher stamina and endurance. Generally used by the Church to harass enemies and cause distractions. Mutated birds are sometimes capable of dealing fatal injuries to unsuspecting agents.
By the time Dan’s ears picked up Angie’s footsteps coming out of the house, Rachel delivered a punch combo on the final Talon on the roof then promptly executed a flying kick and sent the Talon flying down into the ground out of sight.
“Got the credit box,” Angie said.
“Good, let’s get out of here,” Dan said, backing away from the jeep.
Dan checked the timer on his HUD and they still had another eight minutes to go before the round ended. His HUD updated and the next nearest vault was only a hundred and ten meters away from their position.
“So did I miss anything?” Angie asked.
Before Dan could tell her the battle he witnessed, a message appeared on his HUD.
The Genesis Talons have all been eliminated. There are now only three teams left in this match.
“Woah, you guys saw the message too?” she said.
“Yeah, Li and I were watching another battle happen at the other side of the dried up dock,” Dan answered. “My biggest fan took on the entire team of Genesis Talon on her own.”
“Seriously? That bitch can actually walk the talk? That’s not good,” Angie said.
“She had a bit of help, but not from her teammates,” Li said. “Did you see that warning that mutated animals are joining us this match?”
“Yeah? Did you see any?”
“We saw two of them. One was a mutated tiger or puma and the other was a bird that caused a Talon’s jet pack to explode and he crashed landed.”
Dan made sure to check his surroundings as he ran together with his team. If anything like that utated tiger roamed the back alleys around them, he had to be ready. Not only did he have to worry about enemy agents, but also hostile and enhanced wildlife.
The waypoint for the vault took the team inside an unassuming house. The team found the vault inside the living room of the house. Dan’s nose picked up the broken plumbing and he spotted pools of dried blood along the wood floor.
Angie lefted the credit box and held it in front of the ATM. The machined scanned the box and a new message popped up for Dan.
Scan complete. Please wait 60 seconds for the credits to be earned and added to your team’s score.
As the cash out process began, Dan slammed his back against the wall and kept an eye on the hallway they just walked through. Li climbed the stairs and took up a position on the second floor, looking for potential targets.
Even as the cash out timer approached closer to zero, Dan was on edge and gripped his seventy-seven rifle tightly, anticipating a tough opponent like Rachel to bust in and try to take the credits his team had obtained. Or a mutated beast bulldozing its way into the house.
Cash out complete. Your team has been awarded fifteen thousand credits and is now 2nd place!
“Come again?” Angie exclaimed. “Who took the damn lead over us?”
Dan pulled up the team’s earning and compared their score with the other teams. The results shocked him.
1st place: Prime Swords at 75000 credits.
2nd place: Alpha team at 65000 credits.
3rd place: Hellhounds at 50000 credits.
“I thought those Prime Sword fuckers were only at twenty thousand credits,” Angie said. “How they hell did the find another fifty-five thousand credits?”
Dan recalled the elimination of the Genesis Talons and wondered if Rachel might have stolen any credit boxes the Talon carried and redeemed their credits instead. He also remembered the other two credit box locations that his team deemed too far away to worry about. Now it made sense how they caught up.
“Rachel and her crew are no joke,” Dan said. “If we don’t continue to be aggressive, our team could be overtaken by the Hellhounds and we’ll bumped down to last place. Only the top two teams can progress to the next round of the Combat Games. We can’t lose.”