The sky was a wide canvas of cobalt blue, streaked with wisps of white. It was an unforgiving dusty and dry terrain, but one that had an alluring sort of raw beauty to it. A few scraggly tumbleweeds rolled lazily across the ground, pushed along by the howling winds that reminded me of gunfighters and outlaw gangs. I felt a southern accent tickling in the back of my throat already, the total immersion effect submerging me in a western movie set. Except this was real life, and the outlaws out there were ready to snatch my prize money right out of my hands.
Under the blazing hot sun, a mock-up town had been meticulously assembled by the great Onigen himself. For our last match, the Wild West surrounded us in all its rousing glory—ramshackled homes, free wagons hauling hay, and wooden saloons every few yards down the trail. Once we were immersed, I instantly felt the big globe of molten gold over our heads, the heat painfully unforgiving. Our HG didn’t accommodate the heat, which had me thinking that this was a stage challenge rather than a stage event like the other rounds.
Hell, I’d take alien abduction and low gravity over this heat wave any day….
“Are they trying to cook us?” Reina said, wiping her eyebrow already.
“This heat is going to slow everyone down, but Bram most of all,” I said.
“Or least,” Naomi added. “He can cool himself off with his ice.”
“Right, but he’d have to burn more stamina to tap into his meta.”
“I doubt he’d have a problem with that, seeing as his stamina is high.”
“Every bit counts. If you keep hacking away at it, it’d make an impression in their strategy.”
“Speaking of strategy, which egg are we going for?” Reina asked. “Basilisk or Coatyl?”
“We are dealing with one that is 100 meters away compared to 280,” Naomi said as she checked her sys board. “By default, two teams are close to one egg.”
“The issue is we don’t know which team is near Basilisk,” I added. Team Cheetah would be preferable. Naomi’s gift could squash Fiona’s, and I could challenge Canessi. Dot wasn’t a problem—being a healer, she wasn’t an offensive opponent. However, I had to expect that she had a few specialty items that would help her protect herself. Unless she made it her business to stick with her team throughout the entire 10 minutes, we had to anticipate a surprise from her.
Speaking of items….
“Reina, one of your item slots is empty,” I said, turning to her. “I thought I told you to ask Naomi for one?”
She huffed. “My apologies for getting seriously sidetracked last night!”
“This isn’t good, we needed all of our slots full,” I said, turning to Naomi. “You have a cloak jacket, don’t you? I need you to give it to Reina.”
Naomi would be short one item, but she had better options for defense than Reina did. And I trusted her capabilities in the field wouldn’t be affected by one missing item.
Naomi handed her the capsule that encased the cloak and Reina stored it in her inventory.
“Now, for the plan. We are going to let the other team take the golden Basilisk egg. Once it’s claimed, the drop off zones will be revealed. Reina, I want you to set up shop in whichever is closest to the dragon egg. You’re going alone, so make sure you aren’t being followed. Also, your cloak jacket is only good for so long, and with this heat, that timeframe is shortened.”
Her breath hitched. “You mean, the cloak jacket is affected by environmental conditions, too?”
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“Yes, so don’t get cocky and think you’ll be invisible forever. In this arena, there’s plenty of places for you to hide and snipe, it doesn’t only have to be on rooftops. Getting away from the sun will help you stay out of sight longer.”
“Speaking of sniping, how effective are those rounds?” Naomi asked Reina.
“It all depends on how much of my stamina I expend.”
“Comparable to your blades, how much are we considering here?”
Reina scrunched her face. “Don’t you worry about that.”
“I think we ought to. If your scythe only consumes two stamina points to summon, and your special beam from your blade, another one point, then we could safely assume that in a one v one fight, you’re consuming about 15 stamina points.”
“That’s on the high end,” Reina retorted.
“I’m playing it safe. Now, if every shot from your sniper costs three times as much, how screwed are we?”
“Reina did the math,” I said. “She has more than enough stamina for her strat, right Reina?”
“Like I said, I wouldn’t have suggested it unless I knew it would work.”
“All Reina has to worry about is keeping her distance from the other teams and focusing on staying on the extraction point.”
“Team Hawk has Basilisk,” Naomi said as she checked her Tec. On my map, I saw the same numbing information—an egg icon with an icy blue outline around it.
Team Hawk was blue
Team Cheetah was orange
Team Wolf was red
And today, Team Owl was green.
“The plan remains the same,” I said. “Reina will take the long route to Basilisk and set up shop. We will take the short route but flank from behind. Let’s go.”
Bram and his team already had a head start, being closer to the nest. It wouldn’t matter since Reina was going to take some time to get there. With her long approach and our back end one, we were sure to catch Bram by surprise. But when Naomi and I got there, things were locked down.
“They are surrounding the nest, all three of them,” I whispered as we hid behind a wagon a few yards away from the saloon, where the nest was located inside. Through the window, I saw them. “Bram, Yoleeha, and Sift….”
It looked like they were changing shit up too, being less predictable. In every other round, Bram was nowhere near the eggs. He was out there neutralizing the oppression. But now, the asshat was in the saloon, sitting on the stool along the bar with his crossed legs hiked up along the counter, looking unapologetically unbothered. He had his arms crossed and his head down, eyes closed, with no care in the world.
Yoleeha was on the piano to the right of him, playing a western classic, and Sift just walked through the swinging doors to play lookout.
“We have just under 40 seconds to get this egg,” Naomi whispered.
“But we can’t do anything until Reina gets here.”
“If we wait here much longer, we might lose the point.” Just as she said that, I heard a sniper shot pop off in my ears. The sound of glass followed, and I saw Sift rushing back inside the saloon.
It was Reina, and judging by the screams coming from Yoleeha, Bram was sent to the White Box.
I smiled. “Let’s go, Reina!”
“Bram is down for the count,” Reina said over our com units. “Advance, Nero.”
“We’ll try to draw them out for you, Reina,” I said, and Naomi and I were on the move.
I was my team’s shield, rushing in like a flaming inferno. I slammed my fists together and summoned my flame dragon, and it went out there and wrapped itself around the saloon in a strong chokehold. I was able to extract Sift and Yoleeha, and as soon as Yoleeha saw me, she opened her big mouth and screamed.
The blonde’s banshee siren cry brought my hands over my ears and my knees to the floor immediately. I snapped my eyes shut and tried to focus, but Yoleeha’s high note wouldn’t give. All of a sudden, another sniper shot went off, Yoleeha however, remained unaffected.
An invisible barrier dome item?
That didn’t make any sense–Yoleeha wouldn’t have been able to continue screaming if she had a barrier item protecting her from Reina’s shot… unless,
They had a shield sitting behind them, not around them…
That was a smart move. Luckily for me, I wouldn’t have to suffer much longer. I heard violent whooshing, a heat wave drawing closer to us. When Yoleeha stopped, I was finally able to open my eyes to see Naomi using the burning planks from the saloon to shut them out.
Her idea was creative, Naomi forming another dome for them made out of fire and wood. She was cooking them from the inside out, and Yoleeha couldn’t shout, unless she wanted to deal damage to Sift.
Either way, they were taking damage.
“They are going to ascend,” Naomi anticipated. To escape the fiery dome, Sift was going to use his meta to lower gravity around himself and Yoleeha. At least, that was what we thought he’d do. Instead, he anti gravitated the entire dome, lifting it off the ground just enough for him and his comrade to crawl out of it.
“Terminate the tank, and the rest of the team falls apart,” Sift said as he got back on his feet, and the black vertical lines on his face began to glow. Before I could retaliate, I was grounded, a shit ton of pressure pinning me down.