The sun was bright and warm as Blaine and his girls moved down the crowded sidewalks towards the competition center. Their look had finally come together, and they were turning a few heads on the sidealk. Blaine was dressed in his usual urban tiger-stripe pants and a gray tee shirt, with a red desert scarf around his neck. His tactical vest bristled with stick magazines, and a fighting tomahawk hung at his hip.

Flanking him, Vytke and Katya had chosen to coordinate with his look in their own ways. Katya had rolled down the waist on some gray camo capris, which allowed her red thong to ride high on her hips, and cut off another tank top. Vytke had opted for a high-collared red vest that she had unzipped almost to her navel, and tight gray booty shorts. When they moved together Blaine felt as if he was one of those kingpins flanked by femme fatales.

"Something's different," Vytke pointed at the competition center. Blaine peered ahead. The building had always been an elegant octagonal shape, high and regal over the sidewalks. Today there seemed to be a piece missing. Had they remodeled? He didn't think someone could have blown off a chunk. People would have been buzzing about something like that happening. Most of the other meisters were either stepping out eagerly towards the competition center or coming back with extra pep in their step.

"It's probably a special event," Katya said. "They have one every month. Some sort of novelty match, with prizes like credits or unique gear or even extra weapon slots."

That sounded interesting. Blaine found himself looking forward to seeing what sort of scenarios could be made within the game. He'd heard about a big alien invasion event that happened every year, would this be tied into that?

"I need two! Two more for the event!" someone shouted.

"One more! No car needed!" someone else chimed in. People were coming back out of the competition center calling for recruits. And something about cars? People could spend their money on vehicles if they wanted. Blaine hadn't bothered because he always slept in hotels near the center of town and could walk anywhere he wanted. There was a lot more vehicle traffic now that he was thinking about it... cars weren't parking in the instanced garages around the competition center, they were going around the building and disappearing in the back.

Odd.

His phone buzzed. Taking the device from a chest pocket he swiped, eyes never leaving the street. "Blaine here."

"Hey man!" it was Troy. "You up for a match?" "Maybe, if I can figure this out," he replied. "What's going on?"

"It's a death race. With cars. Pretty cool idea actually."

Shit. "Sounds fun, but I don't have a car and I'm a little broke at the moment."

"No, don't worry about that," there was a faint chime on the phone that told him his friend had joined his instance. "I've got a car. Where are you?"

"In front of that statue of the big alien guy," Blaine peered down the street. "What are you driving?"

"A red full-sized truck. Black flames. Stay there, we're pulling into the block. Is Katya with you?"

"Why wouldn't she be?"

"Well, my sister might not want to stop if I tell her we're looking for an ugly old man. Tell Katya to stand at the curb. You go hide or something."

Blaine snorted. "Fuck you too."

"Okay, we see you. Walk across the street, meet us in the garage there."

Blaine jaywalked to the garage in question, drawing irritated honks from the drivers on the road. This structure was another example of instancing. Each person or group who passed through the door found themselves in their own unique version of the garage. This meant that there was never competition for parking spaces. Several cars were always there, but they were purely decorative.

His phone chimed again. Troy was inviting him to a group. Blaine accepted, and a moment later a full-sized dually pickup pulled into the garage behind him. The driver's side door opened and Troy hopped out. He bumped fists with Blaine before opening the back seat and starting to don his heavy juggernaut armor. Saori got out the other side and waved at Blaine. A moment later she was joined by an equally dainty Asian girl, dressed in a matching school uniform.

"Oh yeah, Blaine," Troy was grinning. "Meet Kaori. She's an APC9K, a machine pistol. With her I can clear a room in one burst. I contracted with her last night."

"Kaori," Blaine nodded. "And Saori. Troy, you sure you don't want to try for a theme?"

The young man barked a laugh. "What can I say? I'm a weeb at heart. Can you grab that plate for me?"

Blaine was slotting a ceramic plate into the back of Troy's armor when the light from the entrance dimmed. He looked up and saw a sleek Marussia B-4 supercar pull in to park at an angle across from the truck. His eyebrows rose. That thing had to be millions of credits. When he tried to count how many kills it would take to pay for something like that he found himself viewing the driver in a new, slightly more respectful light. The door scissored open and a striking dark-haired woman stepped out. She wore a tank top and tactical vest, which showed off full sleeve tattoos. Her eyes were gunmetal grey and they came at Blaine like a couple of bullets. A couple of reactions tugged at him, everything from blading up to a potential threat to standing at parade rest for a strict NCO. He forced himself to hook his fingers into his vest and stand casually.

"Oh, this is Blaine," Troy called. His voice came out with a grunt as he hefted his shield from the bed of his truck. "He's our fifth."

"Is that so?" she shifted her weight to one leg and continued to stare at him. Katya pressed nervously into his shoulder, she must have picked up on his reaction.

"That's me," Blaine got tired of the staredown and pulled off his glove before offering his hand to shake. She relented, and stripped off her own protection to return the gesture. Her grip was iron.

"Blaine, I'm Alex," she said. "Troy's my little brother. So you're the guy he's always swooning over?"

"Not swooning!" Troy shouted, outraged. "He's just a cool guy, okay?"

"I'm aware of the effect I have on men," Blaine deadpanned.

Alex might have smirked at that. "It's good to finally put your face to your name." Her eyes scanned over his vest. "You're a flanker then?"

She must have identified his stick mags. "For now, anyway."

"Well, I think that'll be good for this game. Troy did you fill him in on the match yet?"

"Not yet," Troy finally joined them. "I thought I'd wait for Marcus and Viridiana."

"Fine," Alex glanced at her phone. "They're a minute out."

The idea of a full team plus their guns crowding into the garage seemed excessive, so Blaine tapped his holster twice. Katya and Vytke both shimmered and took their places under his hands. Vytke dangled from a single-point sling, sporting a massive drum magazine, which drew Troy's eye. "Damn, you've really built her into a bullet hose haven't you?"

"I like customization," Blaine ran his fingers over the grip tape. "And I think there's a balancing mechanic in the game, the more fine-tuned the weapon system the closer you get to parity."

"Seems reasonable," Troy held up his massive revolver. Saori had been given a blued finish, her barrel had been lengthened, and the grips held a laser sight. "I can make plates ring at a hundred yards from the hip with this setup, or bust a skull like a cantelope."

The long heavy barrel as a weapon hadn't even occurred to Blaine. It was a sobering thought. What else can I look forward to at higher ranks? So far he hadn't found many ways to cheese the gameplay, but he was sure there were niche exploits waiting to bite him in the ass.

A large van interrupted his thoughts as it pulled into the parking garage. This must be the other two teammates. He tucked his hands into his vest and watched with mild interest as the door slid open to reveal a muscular woman in heavy armor similar to Troy's, and a lean black man whose armor was crisscrossed with grenade launcher rounds.

"New guy?" the amazon stuck out her hand and he shook it. "I'm Viridiana, and this is JaMarcus. He doesn't talk much."

"S'up?" the stoic in question nodded to Blaine before turning to open up the van. Blaine watched as he took out a grenade launcher and a Tavor bullpup carbine, slinging both over his shoulder. Viridia waited for him to get out of her way before she reached in and dragged out a .30-cal light machine gun on a bipod. He didn't recognize it. Probably a Chinese design, there were some interesting weapons coming out of the East nowadays.

"Ready up," Troy announced as he ran his arm into his big shield's grips.

"Ready up," the others echoed. Blaine added his voice to the chorus as all eyes turned to Alex.

"All right, so it's some sort of car deal," the leader held up her phone. "The details aren't very clear. It says to bring any vehicles we like. Each vehicle that we use gets a free repair voucher, so don't worry about damage. I'm thinking that it's some sort of race. Leave the van. We'll take Troy's truck and my car. Viridia and JaMarcus will be in the bed of the truck while Troy drives. You guys are support by fire, just lay the hate on anything that moves and give me opportunities to get through. Blaine, you're going to ride with me."

Simple and direct. No point in trying to plan more when so much was unknown. Blaine opened the door and carefully slid into the plush leather seats. He felt rather silly and out of place with all of his gear. Even with the seat all the way back and Vytke's stock folded there was barely room to move in the supercar. Alex got in. Her weapon was a Kalashnikov variant, which rode in a custom rack mounted on the door itself, and her pistol was an antique Beretta M9 in a thigh holster. She seemed to be a very pragmatic sort when it came to gear.

Her music system was playing some sort of classical piece he wasn't familiar with. He stayed quiet and enjoyed the new experience while she led their two-car motorcade out of the garage and into the traffic that streamed into the competition center's new vehicle entrance.

A swing arm forced them to stop for a ticket booth that was manned by the receptionist he usually saw at the front desk. She gave them a cheery wave. "Hi! Is your group ready for the Death Race?"

"Clan Wolfguard plus one," Alex confirmed. She hooked her thumb back at the truck. "Them too."

"Parking Level sixty! Good luck!"

The arena turned out to be a large circular track, banked slightly, which ringed a pit with no safety rail. There wasn't much room to maneuver. When Blaine peered across the chasm he could see three cars lined up in a row on the other side. That must be the enemy team. Even as he squinted, he saw a flash from weapon muzzles and heard the impact of a round into the supercar's body.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Alex didn't hesitate. She slammed down on the accelerator and the car roared forward. Troy's truck tucked in behind them. There was an angry chatter from Viridia's machine gun, but the other team was moving too and she sat back frustrated as the vehicles began to maneuver.

The first lap was unremarkable. A few potshots were exchanged but neither team wanted to burn ammo hoping for a lucky hit. Alex was chewing on her lip as she drove, eyes narrowed. She was thinking over her options. Blaine rolled down his window and tried to crawl out so he could sit on the sill like in the action movies, but there wasn't any grip on the roof and he wasn't confident he could lock in his feet under the seat. He settled for running the seat belt around his legs and hanging his torso out the window, Vytke in hand.

Alex began to accelerate, trying to catch up to the enemies on the far side, but they sped up as well to keep the distance. He could barely hear her over the wind noise as she talked on the radio, relaying instructions to the truck. Then he lurched in his perch as she took off. The truck slowed down as she howled around the track, separating from the heavy weapons to try to catch the other team in a pincer. Not a bad idea, Blaine thought, as long as Viridia didn't over-shoot and hit them instead. As he watched, the other team hesitated before deciding to separate as well.

Alex decelerated at once when she saw this, but the enemy team seemed to have a good plan. One car continued forward, accelarating to engage with Troy's team, while the other two waited for the supercar to catch up so they could overwhelm the lightly armed pair.

Gloved fingers yanked on his pants leg and he pulled himself back into the supercar.

"Recline your seat," Alex ordered. She'd already lowered hers and was sitting up awkwardly so she could barely peer over the dash. "We're going to pass them and hit the other vehicle from behind."

Blaine doubted the car could punch through the skirmish line that had formed ahead of them, but he dropped the seat and tried to scrunch down into the footwell as far as possible in hopes that the engine block could shield him. The speedometer was climbing again. Rounds impacted off the front grill and radiator as they swept around the curve.

The windshield spider-webbed and Alex had to peer out the window. There was a heavy impact. Rounds tore into the compartment, zipping over his head. One went off his helmet and it felt like he'd been hit by a hammer. He struggled upright. They were still moving. Alex was shouting something but his ears were ringing and he couldn't understand–she was reaching over, grabbing the seatbelt, then shouted another warning before there was a tremendous crash. The car flipped. Blaine's body was hurled about in the tiny space.

Movement was painful, but action was life. He crawled across the inverted cabin and out the window, sitting up and peering down Vytke's red dot sight back at the skirmish line. They'd punched through all right, and someone was laying in a twisted heap. He put two rounds into their body to make sure before switching to the group that was already turning their cars towards him.

He knelt for a better shooting surface and fired in single-shot mode, putting bullets into the tires, the windshields, anything that might slow down the oncoming attackers. Another gun opened up across from him, Alex must have gotten her Kalashnikov untangled from the back seat. They blazed away at the two cars that swept towards them, forcing themselves to take measured, carefully aimed shots.

One of the cars swerved towards him. He jumped sideways, rolling almost to the edge of the pit, and felt the wind gust as the car missed him by inches. There was a smashing sound as the other car impacted the Marussia again, probably trying to crush Alex. Blaine switched his attention to this stationary target and Vytke chattered angrily as he dumped the rest of the drum magazine into the driver's side door.

He transitioned to Katya as he ran forward and punched her muzzle brake through the window. The webbed glass finally shattered in, and he put two shots into the driver at contact range. The passenger shot at him with her pistol, her round impacting his left hand and traveling nearly all the way up his arm before exploding from his triceps. He staggered back. Before either of them could decide what to do next there was a burst from Alex's rifle that shredded the interior of the vehicle and everyone still alive in it.

He ran around the back of the car to see Alex crawling out from under the wreckage of her car. She'd been firing from a low angle, almost through the floorboards, and her legs weren't working right. Blaine holstered Katya and grabbed the Wolfguard leader by her drag handle, hauling her away from the two tangled vehicles.

"Don't mind me!" she spat. "Go! Back up Troy!"

He ignored her, pulling her back around the vehicles till she had her own angle of fire on the gunfight happening a hundred yards away. Then he dropped her, did an awkward one-handed reload of Vytke, and started running towards the action.

Troy's truck was slamming back and forth between the two vehicles. Viridiana was nowhere to be seen but JaMarcus was sloshing around in the bed of the truck trying to reload his grenade launcher. As Blaine watched someone bailed out of one of the vehicles and started circling for a good shot into the truck's cab. He raised Vytke and started shooting. There was no way he could hit anything at this range while in a dead sprint, but his covering fire had the desired effect–the flanker looked up startled and abandoned their efforts to focus on this new threat. They raised a shotgun and blasted at him, he caught a couple of pellets and kept coming. Another blast knocked him to his knees. Gritting his teeth, Blaine drew Katya again and brought the red dot to bear.

Darkness.

Blaine jerked upright in a lounge area typical for regular matches. "Ahhh shit," he groaned as he rubbed his eyes. "Only got one."

"No, that one was good," Viridana pointed at a monitor. "See? And you got Alex back into the fight."

The dark-haired leader was prone, glaring down the sights of her rifle. As Blaine watched she punched rounds through the cab of one of the vehicles, bringing it to a standstill. A woman, presumably the driver, appeared in the lounge a moment later.

Troy was bailing out. He staggered from his truck and rushed the shotgunner, taking two 12 gauge blasts to the chest before he brought his massive pistol down. Just like he'd boasted earlier, the heavy barrel smashed open the guy's skull. Blaine was impressed. Troy didn't have time to hesitate though, he jerked and stumbled back as he was lit up by the last vehicle's driver. His thick juggernaut armor absorbed most of it but several rounds went into his helmet and clearly disoriented him.

"Come on man, both hands on the gun!" Blaine clenched his fists.

In the bed of Troy's truck JaMarcus was barely moving, but he lifted one shaking hand over the edge and dropped a grenade. Troy and his enemy both spotted it, but all three vehicles went up in a fireball that spared no one.

Match Complete. Team Win.

"Ha!" Troy, JaMarcus, and Alex all appeared in the lounge. "JaMarcus, what was that?"

The stoic man shrugged. "It worked."

"You blew me up!"

"It was justified," Alex said crisply. "We got the win. Don't be such a baby. JaMarcus, I'll remove the strike when we get back to the compound."

Troy sat down with a chuckle. "I guess I can't complain. So how did Blaine do?"

"Adequate," those gunmetal eyes forked Blaine somewhere around the #brainpart. "He stayed calm and didn't do anything stupid. He'll do."

"All right!" Viridiana offered Blaine a high five. "You don't understand, she's practically sucking your dick."

Alex ignored this with the cool distain of a distant mountaintop while Blaine turned red. "You need a guild, the offer's there," she said. "I need you to get Troy to Gold rank as soon as possible. I'm tired of rolling with pickups."

Blaine thought about it. Honestly, he'd only just gotten used to Katya and Vytke sharing his digital life. A whole team of Meisters, and their guns as well, that was a lot of people suddenly relying on him. Pressure to perform, the frustration of failure, it was emotional energy he was only just learning to tap into again.

His mind went back to his time with the #team and the people he'd know there. The lives that had depended on him. The blood and sweat and tears of training. The adrenaline of action. The highs and the lows...

An old team leader's words echoed. "Humans are pack hunters, Carter. You can only look in one direction at a time. When you find a corps of good people you stick with them, and you'll go far together."

Blaine nodded. It was time to join a team, and if Troy vouched for them that was good enough for him. Stripping off his glove he offered a handshake. Alex took it, and he followed her to the Marussia.

“Real estate is more valuable the closer you are to the event center,” Alex explained as she turned onto a highway. “And it’s never instanced. Unlike the event center, the mall, or the starter area, every residence is unique. The developers wanted to make excuses for people to spend money. Earn credits, earn prestige, spend credits, get more prestige, on and on. There isn’t enough room for clan estates in the middle of the city, though I think Girls Inc owns one of the towers and their higher level members all stay there. For the rest of us, it’s the neighborhoods.”

Blaine could see the reasoning, even though it irked him. “It’s like the grindcore games of the mid-2010s. Packed with filler content to stretch the story out.”

“You’re dating yourself,” Alex chuckled dryly. “That was before my time, before the first major studio collapse. But you’re right. Like I heard you had to hunt like fifty rabbits in one game just to get an extra slot in your pouch, each one had a cinematic you couldn’t skip.”

“And like three voice lines for the cinematic, yeah. Drove me nuts. I never finished that game. It was Game of the Year and everything too.”

“Money talks.”

They lapsed into comfortable silence for a while. Alex turned up some eastern european death metal, and the howling lyrics were oddly soothing to Blaine even if he couldn’t understand the language. The desert landscape scrolled by, very beautiful in its own stark, minimalistic way. Looking over his shoulder he could see the others in convoy strung out behind them.

“Oh, if you need to take a shit or something now’s a good time,” Alex added. “You can log out inside my vehicle, as long as you let your guns know not to relocate you it’ll be fine. We’ve got about ten minutes still to go.”

Blaine grunted and touched his temple. It was good advice. Even through the muffling VR system he could tell his body was dehydrated. He needed to get a drink of water if nothing else.

The world faded, and the #landscape was replaced by his dingy apartment. The dull grey walls tried to intimidate him, but somehow… they had lost their power. He chugged his sports drink and smacked his lips to try to restore some mobility to the dry tissues, then wheeled himself into the bathroom to change his catheter bag. At least this was one thing he didn’t have to worry about, taking a shit in-game.

The nasty business concluded he #reflects a little, maybe realizes that his life is better than before.

“All right I’m back,” he said, sitting up. “What did I miss?”

“Not a lot. We’re almost there.”

And sure enough, they were turning down a lane and coming up towards a gated lot. The fence was stone, the gate a wrought iron thing that opened at a touch to a remote. As it slid back he saw several more vehicles parked out front. Including a dusty chopper with custom apes…

“Who rides?” he asked, pointing to the hog.

“That was TJ’s ride before he quit the game. Since his account was deleted all his assets went to the guild. It’s been parked ever since. You ride?”

“I used to,” he didn’t elaborate, and Alex didn’t ask. They climbed out of the vehicles and spent some time slinging their weapons. Blaine noticed that no weapons were in their human forms, the entry would probably be too crowded if they did. There was a palm reader at the front door, Alex scanned in and unlocked it.

“So here’s the place,” she said cheerfully. “Bedrooms are down that way, they’re big enough for you and your harem. Reloading benches are in the garage right now. The rules are simple–clean up after yourself, no sex in public areas, no sex with other teammates. If you want to get fucked by Viridiana, take that shit to a hotel and don’t let me catch you. Seriously, that shit makes drama and I hate drama.”

"Drama is never worth the price. What about the reloading benches?"

"When you get into higher ranks the type of ammo you use will affect your performance," Alex drew a spare pistol mag and stripped out a bullet. He examined it. The casing was old, it had been reloaded a few times now. The bullet reminded him of a Corbin powerball, a hollow-point that had had the tip filled in with a steel ball bearing. When it entered flesh the ball bearing would break off and form a separate wound channel. A nasty little bit of work.

"You can't buy the higher grades of ammo in stores," she explained. "And depending on your weapon system, you can get a way higher level of performance from hand loads. Most people don't bother with automatic loads, beyond maybe fine-tuning the power to match their exact strength profile, but with pistols, shotguns, and sniper rifles you can get a lot of return from building custom rounds."

"I've seen some interesting shotgun loads," Blaine nodded. "That makes sense."

She led him down the hall towards the bedrooms. This wing of the estate was the largest, and when she opened the door to the unmarked suite he could see why. This building was clearly designed with Meister's in mind. The room was massive, with an Alaskan King bed in the center, and several smaller beds and couches around the edges so that a full harem could make themselves comfortable. He went further in and found the closets and shower room were also designed with a large group in mind. He could barely imagine the idea of a dozen beautiful wet women in the shower room, lounging on the benches and fogging up the watered glass wall #orwhateveritscalled. Damn. Hugh Hefner must be rolling in his grave, thinking of this place.

He came back out of the bathroom and patted his thigh twice. That was the signal for his guns to change form. Katya and Vytke shimmered into existence, and immediately scampered through the suite on their own examination tour. He sat down on one of the couches and watched as they exclaimed over various features he hadn't noticed. Life was good, he reflected, as he released the snaps on his vest and pulled it off with a sigh.

"I'm glad you found a good squad," Katya said as she finally came over and joined him.

"They seem like a good crew," Vytke agreed from across the room where she was peering out the window. "And they have a shooting range in the back yard! You should take us out there for some fun later."

"After some fun in here of course," Katya purred in his ear.

"Of course," Blaine opened his arms and both women cuddled up to him. Today was a good day, and showed no signs of slowing down.

"Hey man," Troy walked in without knocking and Blaine almost hit the roof. "The crew is about to go back into town and hit the bar. Coming?"

"You know what... I think I will."