“A- ah!”
K stepped backwards, tripping over himself. His vision was dyed red, and all he could see was the blackened barrel hanging before his face.
“No!” A muffled rattling echoed down the dark corridor.
---
A whitewashed ceiling, with a swaying lamp glaring down on him. How many times has he looked up at this very same lamp? K grimaced, grunting as he sat up from the small, sterile bed he was on.
“Damn.”
He pinched the fingers of his right hand right before his eyes, and dragged them to the side. Accompanied by the tinkling of bells, a small system window appeared right in front of him, listing down his current position in the free for all raid he was taking part in, as well as his kills and deaths.
[Suburbs District 4 Rank 8/8]
[Kills: 1 Deaths: 27]
K stared at the screen for a moment, drinking in his utter failure.
“Shit!” He slammed his fist into the wall beside him. The grey concrete yielded, cracking slightly under his gauntleted fist. How could he be this useless? The assault rifle slung across his chest weighed heavier than ever.
Meanwhile, a teammate shouted at him. "Go to hell, you burden!"
The gun… was just mad. It struggled everytime he pulled the trigger, like a beast, tearing itself from his fingers. No matter how hard he tried to keep the gun aimed forwards, he could not control it. It would spray everywhere, and anywhere.
Even the Exoskeleton and Inertia Cancelling upgrades he had bought with the last of his beginner’s endowment didn’t help it. Strengthen yourself by 30%, it said. Reduce recoil by 15%, it said. But he couldn’t tell at all if it helped. While it had given him greater defense, it also made it harder to move for him. He was trapped in his own shell, locked in an iron locker of his own creation. He brought the sight to his eye, peeking through the reflex. Firing off a practice burst, he squeezed the trigger lightly - only to have the gun jerk upwards, knocking him in the face.
"Agh, damn!" Frustrated, he dropped the gun, letting it hang loosely before him. What could he do?
Could he use a bipod? Could he use weights?
And then, it came to him.
K drew his pistol, the P450, the weakest handgun in existence.
"Let's try this out."
Holding the world's weakest gun in both hands, he stepped out of the spawn room - and into the fray. A cool wind blew across his face, as the rusting metal grate below his feet creaked. Although he could not feel any sway whatsoever, K knew he was on a ship.
Breaking into a slow jog, K ran down the metal grating, looking at the minimal on his HUD. He could see his teammates, rushing wildly over the top two levels of the map; the last level deserted. This was because the most effective way of reaching the enemy point was the top two floors. The third did not justify for the time taken.
Or did it?
K climbed down the ladder, from the middle level to the bottom, and began sneaking across it, hiding amongst the many crates stacking upwards, sometimes even to the ceiling.His huge form was more difficult to hide, but there were no enemies on this floor anyways.
That was what he thought, until he turned around at the base of his enemies ladder, right below their capture point.
He could see shadows flickering from hiding position to hiding position. These were Assasin-style players, who ran with large caliber bolt actions which could kill in 1 shot. They also normally employed the Haze ability, which obscured all enemy movement by a certain amount.
That was probably how they had snuck past K, who only focused on moving forwards. And now.. He could kill them, could he?
Excited, K brought his handgun to bear, and squeezed off a burst of three bullets. The P450 had a 3 round burst mode as it's default, but most people used auto. K, who did not know this, simply used his extremely steady exoskeleton and Inertia Cancelling to aim directly at his enemies' heads, and send bullets into them. Headshots with the pistol had its damage multiplied by 1.7x, so even the weak gun could kill.
The lightly armoured Assassins, who were not expecting the attack, were caught off guard, and had 3 of their 4 man team killed in the chaos that ensued. The remaining one had sneaked off, probably back to his own team.
Slowly, K walked to where his enemies were. Dead enemies in a free for all like this dropped the weapons they were wielding. The only reason K still had his assault rifle was because it was a worthless, generic one, the base unit which could not be dropped.
He picked up all three weapons; a large shell revolver called the Pit Bull, an assault rifle known as the ACR-3, and a MP7 SMG.
Instantly putting the other two guns into his inventory, K equipped the MP7, which was a low-tier weapon.
. The remaining one rolled behind cover, and fired at K with a large hunting revolver. Ducking, he got back behind his crate - only to find a hole in it.
"Fuck!"
He fell flat to the floor, as the area above him was riddled with large holes.
Soft laughter reached his ears, and suddenly, many footsteps started moving towards him. What was originally one pair of feet suddenly branched into five or six pairs, moving in at him. Immediately, he identified it as the Echo Decoy, a low tier device that created directional echoes to faze opponents.
Getting to his feet, K leapt from the crate, rolling - and got stuck as the huge exoskeleton he wore weighed him down. He was literally, a turtle on its back, vulnerable. That had to be that his enemy was thinking, as the sole Assassin walked right in front of him, pointing the gun at his head.
K reached out his hand, and locked his exoskeleton gauntlets around the Assassin's leg. Watching the shocked expression of the Assassin, K lifted him up into the air, shaking the gun from his hands, and slammed him into the floor, using him as a crutch to stand. Lifting the P450, K let out a laugh - his first in the game.
A soft rattling resounded through the almost empty third floor, and his fourth kill was secured.
Due to the current battle being a free-for-all, all players dropped the weapon they were wielding at their time of death. The only reason K retained his assault rifle was because it was the starting gun, which could not be lost.
K walked to the corpses, bodies still warm, and stripped everything useful he could find. Aside from their weapons, they also had a small chance of dropping anything they had on their bodies, as K found out when he picked up a ceramic pauldron with a clan insignia on it. He also found four guns, all of large caliber. A TR-20 Antimateriel Rifle, an ACR assault rifle, a Bullpup handgun, and the huge, unnamed hunting revolver that had been shot at him.
K equipped the pauldron, which didn't really do much, but was better than nothing.
K put the guns into his inventory and climbed up the ladder right below the enemy's base. It was shut with a hatch, but as all things in the game, the hatch contained a degree of realism that made it destroyable.
Bracing himself to the ladder, which was nigh indestructible due to it being an integral part of the map, he put his arm to the hatch, and activated his own Device. Overdrive, a device of the lowest level that supercharged the exoskeleton. It had horrible power efficency and almost no usage, but it was the only thing he could afford. The joints on his body glowed a brilliant orange, heating up like a furnace.
Applying pressure against the hatch, he snapped it as easily as a cookie, and even scored a kill from crushing the poor chap who was lying prone on top of the hatch. He had been crushed against the adjacent wall.
K leapt out of the now broken hatch, just as his Overdrive entered cooldown. No one had noticed him... yet. Killed players could not talk for five seconds after death, a boon for those who relied on stealth to weave in and out of enemy lines. Taking in the enemy condition with his eyes, he saw five of them. One with a large Light Machine Gun, who was spraying a wall of lead over K's allies. Two with sniper rifles, and another two with what seemed to be a mortar.
K stalked over from behind to the two closest to the back, the mortar crew. Silently, he sent his heavily armoured forearms into their necks, crushing their spines against the solid iron floor.
Then, he picked up the mortar, walking towards the snipers. Two good hits on the heads with the heavy tube concussed them, while just his feet on their heads were enough to crack their skulls. After all, his exoskeleton weighed 200 kilograms alone. While it barely improved speed, it had gargantuan strength.
K drew his P450, walking towards the LMG gunner, who suddenly turned at him, drawing his own handgun. 5 seconds had passed, which meant the gunner had just heard the alarm. This also meant the pack of assassins were from a different team as these gunners. Were they cooperating? K pondered these useless things, as he squeezed the trigger of the P450. The gunner fell, lifeless.
[Suburb Districts 4 Rank 5/8]
[Kills: 10 Deaths:27]
He picked up the weapons he found on the floor, as well as a carbon fibre breastplate, with yet another insignia on it. Now this piece of armour actually had use. K also received an andrenaline cartridge; a mid-tier good that allowed a person increased health for a short period of time. While in the real world, it could ressurect a dying man, this cartridge could only pull of that effect 5% of the time.
K slid the cartridge into a slot in his armour, which was made of some generic alloy. Only his right pauldron and now, his chestplate had any sort of colour other than the sad brown of the starting armour. Making sure the cartridge was REPLACEed, K sighed, as his teammates, who were no longer suppressed, jogged towards him.
"Not bad."
"GJ."
They muttered small praises as they passed him, causing K to break out into a grin. He had never been complimented before. He equipped the handgun the gunner had dropped, a Glock .18, and followed at the back of the group. With a few shots, he made sure it wouldnt fly out of his hands the moment he squeezed the trigger, and was satisfied. It provided more kick, but was manageable.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
The group stopped at a door, the spawn room of the enemy team. Once they had converted the room by killing everyone within, the spawn room would be accessible to them. Such was the game structure of Virtual Shooting, a game where temporary fireteams were sent out from a few different hubs, with the aim to destroy the central spawn room of another Hub. While none had yet completed this challenge, it was said that riches followed those who could. K had even heard that a player dominated Central Spawn could be regulated by the player himself.
Of course, the reason K and his group, who were from the Athenos Hub could never reach the other hubs was because of the strange system the game employed. While one could capture spawn rooms, the spawn rooms would not allow infinite spawning. They allocated a certain number of respawns, after which the room returned to being empty, to be allocated again.
The number of spawns became less and less as they approached enemy hubs, and this was coupled with the fact that closer to the hub, more enemies could be found, to form an invisible barrier. It had been just months since the game, which was looked upon with disdain for its simplistic name, was introduced. Now, half the world was engrossed in it.
The leader of the group, a man called Aust, who was armoured with the what seemed to be the best armour, and wielded a special edition assault rifle dubbed the Bang Bang Stick, stood at the door. With his free hand, he signalled.
3.
2.
1.
Immediately, he kicked the door open, and tossed a grenade inside. A torrent of bullets flew out, killing a few of ours, but not Aust. Aust's armour, as usual, soaked up all the damage. Even so, there were about five players within, with guns. With the group only able to enter through the door, it meant they could focus on only one opening. But now, there was a grenade in their midst. What could they do, in that small enclosed space, except die?
K stood back, waiting for their screams, but instead, the explosion from the grenade swept Aust away. He was thrown back, and probably was dead. A stream of bullets shot out from the doorway, killing everyone - except K.
He was standing at the side, and thus was not shot. But what could he do? K grabbed one of his magazines for the P450, tossing it into the door as a test. Instantly, the sound of a few guns rang out, the highly strung people inside reacting wildly. Perfect. Now they would kill him if he so much as breathed in their presence.
His Overdrive was still cooling down; it had a 15 minute cooldown, and K had about 12 minutes left on the timer.
He knew the people within wouldn't come out as long as they thought they were alone, so he was safe, for the time being. That was, of course, until they regained their rationality, and realised K was only 1 person. While he had solved the recoil problem by dropping the assault rifle, he still couldn't take out 5 people at once.
He needed a shield to defend against their bullets. He needed a---
A grenade flew out of the door, bouncing off a wall and dropping right in front of him.
"!!!!"
Acting out of pure reflex, K grabbed the grenade and tossed it back into the room. Shouts of alarm rang in his ears, as an explosion rocked the inside of the spawn.
[Kill Streak 5]
Cautiously, K entered the spawn room, aiming at all times with his handgun. It was now empty, but he could see on the floor a piece of umbrella shaped cloth. The flimsy thing was probably what stopped Aust's grenade and redirected the explosion.
It was expended now, as seen from the many holes in the fabric, but it sure had worked.
K's entire team was wiped out, and were now walking to him from all the way back at the last spawn.
He entered the spawn room, placing his hand onto the small screen that authenticated his signature. After he claimed the room as his group's, K gathered all the weapons on the floor; a collection of varying handguns, and a LMG. He could not get anything better because all his enemies had already dropped their main weapons earlier.
Smirking, K gathered the weapons on the floor. This was turning into quite a profitable business. The team he'd just wiped out though, were probably cursing at him, all the way back at their hub. The game was made so that only one spawn room at a time could be obtained, so having your spawn room taken was the equivalent of openly inviting defeat.
[Suburbs District 5 Rank 1/8]
[Kills: 5 Deaths: 0]
K continued past the door, onwards, further into enemy territory.
Suburbs District 5 was the centerpoint between the Athenos Hub and the Ithios Hub, and as such, was one of the most heavily contested regions. Estimates had placed the area's population at around 200, with many famous fireteams patrolling the grounds. There was only 1 tier now, as all three levels from before recombined into one, and the only thing that served as cover was the cracked and broken remains of bridges, apartments, and buildings.
Hiding behind one of the walls, K realised that he had never got to this point in his life. Peeking over, he could see the top of heads, bobbing around. He could also see, if he looked closely, the tips of guns, swaying lightly. What seemed to be a barren wasteland was in fact a nest of enemies, a veritable demon's den.
Watching his flanks, K moved very slowly, sneaking and turning again and again, making sure there was no movement behind him. Keen and wary, he stepped softly - until the deafening sound of a gunshot blasted over his head, and he felt a bullet whizz past his arms. He fell to his knees, aiming the Glock in his hand in the direction of the bullet, and squeezing the trigger.
Rattata. Ratatata. The rattling of his silenced gun was unexpectedly loud in the deathly silence that blanketed the land.
His bullets had hit a wall, and missed his foe, who was now nowhere to be seen. Now, however, the element of surprise he had worked so hard to preserve was gone.
The sound of footsteps now echoed all around K. And this time, he didn't think it was Echo Decoys. Surrounded by enemies, K reloaded his Glock, and sighed. He didnt want to die here. There was only one thing he could do. Gamble. He activated Overdrive, letting the servos in his exoskeleton heat up to optimum conditions.
It was time. And he was really needing time.
Striding, he stepped out from behind cover nonchalantly, shocking the net of people around him. And for that brief moment, he was free, and in that brief moment, a cascade of bullets from the more powerful full auto Glock tore through two lightly armoured aggressors.
There were more than ten people around him, and all of them were currently squeezing their triggers, but K had activated Overdrive. With a single step, he barrelled into more enemies, running them down with his armour and weight.
Like a berserker, he knocked down another four of them, who were gathered in a simple to hit pack, and fired his Glock right at their heads, in short bursts.
[Kill Streak 11]
His health dropped rapidly, reaching critical in half a second as the rest of the people fired at him, but he had already prepared for this. Jumping, he rolled behind a wall and activated the adrenaline cartridge.
Almost immediately, he felt faster, more keen, and stronger. With the last of his Overdrive, he ran right into the midst of his enemies, firing his gun at their heads, making sure to aim before squeezing the trigger. He was aided largely by the exoskeleton, but it had to be acknowledged that he had a talent for aiming, and timing.
He downed two people, but there were still about five more. They were shocked at his kamikaze tactics, and had neglected to shoot, but these tactics could only go so far. K rolled to the side, drawing his P450 in the other hand and aiming both guns at his foes, all in one smooth motion. He didnt know where he pulled out the strength to pull of such a manueuvre, but he did it; and it paid off. He downed one more person with concentrated fire in the chest from both guns.
Now there were two left, but they were hesitant. One man had single handedly killed eight, with just pistols. The heavily armoured Assault type shifted his rifle uncomfortably, stepping back from K as K brought his weapons at them, while the Assassin type was starting to flee.
K stood from behind cover, and charged at them, and they turned tail immediately, running for their dear lives.
Little did they know, K was also running for his dear life.
'I'm out of ammo!' The Glock was just expended, while he had used the last few bullets of the P450 killing the last man.
He couldnt reload his guns with both his hands occupied, and he couldnt drop one gun as that would signal his reloading, which was a weak spot. All he could do was try to chase them away, and hope they ran. And run they did.
His gamble paying off, K dropped on to his ass, panting as he watched their retreating backs. Minutes passed, and he finally mustered the strength to pick up the weapons on the floor. There were magazines for all kinds of guns, as well as the guns themselves. K also found a superalloy armguard, as well as a ceramic plate for his thigh.
Yet again, they had different colours and insignias.
Sighing, K, who now looked like a clown-soldier hybrid, opened his kill death list. What was taking his teammates so long to find him anyways?
He opened the interface; and froze.
[Suburbs District 5 Rank 1/1]
[Kills: 19 Deaths: 0]
[Kill Streak 19]
His eyes were affixed onto that glowing 1/1. He had been abandoned by his team. Abandoned in the midst of enemy territory. Five seconds had passed long ago. Now, all of District 5 was going to come down on him. Hard.