I launch myself to the right, barely avoiding peppered with the green blasts. That would've been game over.

And I did not go down that easy.

The wall slams into me, and I have to spare a second to deal with the impact. I'm hit twice at that moment. My fingers tingle and my body becomes numb. But only for a second.

A flare of annoyance rises up in me.

I push it down and focus on the fight. The current situation was not good. Not good at all.

I twist and fire a barrage of projectiles back. The guy grimaces as he tries to dodge, but the weight of the mount slows him down that he's hit anyway.

An eye for an eye.

I push against the wall and fly towards one of the mini cubes. At the same time, blue lines that determine the trajectory of the shots heading towards me, are marked on my heads-up display. I auto calculate intersecting points and use that data to map out a safe path in real time.

While mapping the path, I am also following it, albeit with lesser accuracy than I would've liked. But that was what I get for splitting my attention.

I breathe out and fire a stream of green to give me a few seconds of relief. Once again, the guy finds himself unable to dodge, and he is struck squarely in the chest. But, unfortunately, his grip on the trigger doesn't falter.

Yet all of the shots stream in a straight line, letting me not have to worry about mapping out intersecting points yet again. But just for a brief moment.

I take stock of the situation. A couple people have their eyes on us. Rest are fighting amongst each other.

But that brief moment was enough. I kick the grey steel of the cube underneath me and careen off to the top of the sphere. I curl into the fetal position and spin to let my back face the wall, and brace myself for the impact.

I feel the cold first, and then the jarring sensation of a change in momentum. It has me wincing, but I get over it quickly.

The guy still hasn't fired yet, and when I look down I realize why. He cooked the gattling gun. The barrel has smoke wafting out of it.

The guy himself has his brows furrowed. He must've gone all out since the beginning to get the cannon. A bold move and it would've worked amazingly in a number of situations. Too bad he didn't account for all of them.

I shoot thrice. He tilts his torso to the left and bends back. The shots miss him by an inch.

I blink.

That was pretty cool. I don't see why he would choose a Gatling gun when he was that good at dodging. The smart move would've been doing what I'm doing.

Oh, wait. I just answered my own question. The smart move would've been doing what I'm doing. He's either a dumbass, newbie or just decided to act on plain impulse. Not that I'm criticising him.

Not when I sometimes do the same thing. What am I, a hypocrite?

Probably.

Heh. I wasn't gonna make the mistake of assuming I wasn't. Pretty much everyone is. Why would I be the exception?

I shrug.

Anyway, what should I do now? I don't think I'm leading, as I hadn't done as much damage as the others. But then again, I hadn't taken as much damage either. So, I was going to estimate myself to be in the top ten, at least.

Then the answer was simple. Get to the top.

How? Time to figure that out. Hmm...

Many ideas come to mind. I go through all of them, and then choose the one I like the most.

I open my mouth and yell as loud as I can.

"Sneak attack!" At the same time, I widen my eyes and then smile a little.

Faces turn towards me, confused, and then when they process what I just said, they look around suspiciously.

As I had bounced off the wall when I hit it, I'm already at the cube in the center of the sphere. The main one, that is. So, while everyone's busy multitasking, that is, searching for the 'sneak attack', defending and attacking, I'm mapping out the best places to shoot at. I'm also choosing particular players, and creating a route of retreat.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Because, let's face it, when I'm done, everyone's going to go full aggro on me.

The guy, the one with the gattling gun, is still firing at me. Yet it takes only little of my concentration to avoid his shots. I have a nice prediction model of him in my H.U.D.

I smirk.

Then I begin firing. My head snaps up and down, side to side, my body twists to let me fire from behind.

A counter in my H.U.D tells me I've fired around sixty-three shots when it stops working. Just like the other guy, I overheated my weapon. In my peripheral vision, I see smoke streaming, and my head is a bit warm, despite the heat protection. I take off my helmet, careful to not touch the sides, and instead push it up by the lip, before pushing it away. It bounces off one of the big cylinders.

A lot of people are stunned. Not including the gambling gattler, nor the fierce seething girl. They, I predicted, would be the first to go aggro on me. Then everyone else would follow suit.

Not waiting for that to happen, I kick off one of the cylinders, and fly by a girl. I grab her by her shoulders, and jerk her along with my momentum. Due to the force I spent on that move, I slow down. All already anticipated for.

I hear, rather than, see shots being fired.

I recall where I had last seen those two, turn around, and then use the girl as a body shield.

Alright, I don't exactly feel awesome doing this, but then again, battles are battles. In real life, I probably would do a lot more bad stuff if I had to obtain victory. Perhaps this would be a learning experience for her. Training, even when you know all you had intended was to shield yourself from getting hit.

I feel the muscles in her arms tense, and I just then push her away. I regain my velocity, just she is hit with more shots.

She must be angry. Probably. I expect her to turn around and shoot me soon as she is able.

The thought brings a smile to my face. I shake my head, and turn around just in time to meet the wall. I outstretch my arms, except I angle them to the right, and then push off. I find myself flying towards the left. Green blobs strike the wall where I was a moment ago.

I twist, and brace myself for the barrage. This was the moment where I estimated everyone to get over their surprise and fire at me. Purely out of rage. Luckily, I wasn't completely vulnerable. There was a mini cube offering protection from one side, and the cylinders giving me some cover.

As I expected, green blobs start raining down on me. Some serious twisting lets me avoid around sixty percent of them. But that forty percent probably couldn't bring down my rank by much, considering the number of hits I gained.

But I still cringe. Every point lost was a smaller chance of victory.

I snort, and shake my head.

Then I find the girl I used as a body shield moving towards me. I pull out my knife, and kick off the mini cube.

Her eyes are smoldering. Not really, but oh well, that's what it feels like. Her muscles are tensed, and by that, I know she is willing to go all out.

I wiggle my eyebrows and beckon her with outstretched arms.

She clenches her fists, and glares at me. I nearly resist smiling, knowing that it would piss her off...

But then I realize that a pissed off person is more easy to predict. Not realize, exactly, but recall. I also know that it would make her biased towards me in the future. If we ever met again, and if it was of any importance, I would probably be cringing.

She aims her gun at my head. My smile falters.

She grins wickedly.

She is only a meter away from me at this point. I make a motion to jerk my head to the left, making it obvious enough for her to see, but then I suddenly turn, and avoid the shots. The brightness of the green blobs has me spending a little more energy to block it out.

Then I stab her in the gut. Her legs spasm and her eyebrows twitch uncontrollably. I then sheathe my knife in a smooth motion, and grab her arm, and pull. We both spin, and I take note of everyone who is firing at me as I do so. She is nice enough to tank some of the shots for me.

What a nice girl. I should thank her later. Or profusely apologize. Probably the latter. Or maybe neither.

It wasn't like she would be a large influence in my life. But, wait, she was on the excursion with me. Hence why she was on this ship. Battling. With me.

Shit. I should apologize. If I didn't, then she could be a major thorn in my side. I could, of course, destroy her public identity, but that would be cruel. She hadn't done anything to me, and I don't think she really deserved it. So, yeah, I would go apologize to her after this match was over.

I cringe.

I was going to have to force myself, wasn't I?

She frowns.

I release my cringe, and then let go of her. She flies towards a group of people who were shooting at me, and I fly in the opposite direction. Some of the shots they fired, is being steadily absorbed as she head on her path.

I turn my eyes away, and spot the gattler guy. He's busy fighting other people.

He kicks a boy in the guts, then spins his gun to fire at three guys consecutively. All are hit. He then kicks off the cube he is nearest to, and then shoots five girls. All in three seconds. His eyes are darting around, looking for potential victims. His eyes lock onto me, but, to my surprise, he dismisses me.

He was smarter than I had initially thought. Smart enough to know that seeking revenge wouldn't do him any good. Or at least, that was what I was assuming. It could be a number of things. But my gut told me what my gut told me. And besides, that level of skill doesn't come without experience. Maybe his earlier performance was due to his not being level headed because of a bad day, or any other reason.

Then I outstretch my right arm, and feel the wall graze my palm. I push slightly, tilting my angle. I fly towards a mini cube. There, I jump in, and crouch.

I close my mouth, and inhale deeply through my nose. I do this until my breathing has returned to normal. Once that is done, I get up, and survey the battle. My eyes lock onto the gattler, and I see him punch, and kick, and fight.

But only for a few minutes. The buzzer sounds. Everyone stops, not all at the same time. Some curse, some whoop, some yell in frustration just as they were about to score a hit. A few fights that had become physical, have the students involved dragged away by force. And androids.

A holographic projection lights up in the sphere. Listed are,

Fernand Williams - 97 points

Daniel Zyron - 59 points

Ariande Smith - 52 points

Ninety-seven? Who the hell got ninety-seven? And I got fifty-nine? Hmm, well, I did get hit a couple of time.

Ariande... Ariande Smith? Ariande Smith? What the-