Fade to Bck

  Angel set the giant crystal on the ter ptform to a stant slow rotation and stood o it, sword at the ready. Luke on a tower, and Nova was in a a right ao Luke’s. They had picked their towers based on which dire foot traffic would pour out of the four square holes in the floor around the crystal ptfradie was on the ground floor, hugging oower, to get line of sight on any ehat might try and hide from Luke or Nova, and to cel as he dashed around cutting them down.

  Or at least that was the pn, hammered out by Luke and Angel in a few seds, adjusted and tweaked a bit as the sounds of gamefight flowed out of the stairwells and more lightbeams fshed in the sky.

  After what felt like forever, after Gradie’s anticipation, which he normally tried to subdue in the Hardworlds but here let go and even egged on into a cresdo of excitement, had reached a frenzied pitch, held itself there for a minute or so, then started the slow dest down to pcy, the fight started with a bang.

  One of the stairwells exploded and two figures shot out of the explosion, unched into the air, and immediately drew fire from Nova, Luke, and Gradie.

  One of the two faded from purple to white and vanished after firing two grenades mid-flight that exploded harmlessly across the polished bck ground, while the other nded into an immediate sprint that was cut short when Luke direct-impacted him with a grenade.

  “Good shit yall!” Nova yelled, his voi the s blooming with warm energy, a strange aspect of the s direct e to his Spirit that set Gradie’s trigger fig.

  But there was another pause, more cartoon sounds eg from somewhere, even a soft shuffling of feet iairwells, muffled and smoothed out into 64bit ambience.

  Then another explosion, doubled this time, and a handful of ehrew themselves up and out of the colored fshes and scattered across the sky.

  Nova’s sniper and Luke’s bombs went wild, but before they had gotten more than two of them and just after the explosions had finished eg off the bck velvet sky, anroup of enemies leapt out of the far staircase in some kind of practiced formation, and ended up aiming four different dires from a crouched position, looking to Gradie like a c book version of an old NAVY ad.

  It was ical, for a sed, then they opened up and moved out, and the two sided fight turned into a cluster fuck.

  The survivors of the first wave used the crystal for cover and threw everything they had at Nova, who swore on the s and ducked back. Luke fired grenades as fast as he could but couldn’t quite get the arcs right, so they skipped across the ground and exploded he wall somewhere to Gradie’s left. Half of the Navy Seal wannabes fired at Luke while the other half shot at everything else; the first wave, Nova, and finally, Angel, who had dashed out from behind the crystal to cut down the first guys, but upon seeing a tightly formed squad advang from the stairwell to the crystal ptform, ughed like a streetfighter who’s oppo had tripped on a banana peel.

  “Fuck yeah!”

  He sliced the ground and dashed towards them, but their goofy stance belied their ability. They scattered like shrapnel before Angel got to them and he only got one of them before his leg and shoulder had turned spackled white. He flicked his sword and dashed back behind the crystal as the other three engaged Luke and the other enemies.

  Gradie had purporsely held his fire, and now opened up ohree, sensing that they were the biggest threat. He was correct. They swiveled on a dime aheir bined fire right at him so quickly he barely had time to duck bato the wedge between the wall and the outside curve of the tower before the air he had been occupying lit up in rainbow death. He realized, betedly, that Luke and Nova had been forced back behind cover by exactly the same trated fire.

  He took the opportunity to s out for a fresh mag, and the oform tripled in iy. He peeked out and saw at least frenades boung across the ground, one skipping off the crystal. The explosions were followed by more enemies p out of the stairwell, and the cluster fuck was in full swing.

  The group hadn’t noticed him and he gunned down all three of them with a single sustained pull of the trigger.

  “Tripple kill mother fucker!” He whooped in the s, but was cut short by another volley of fire and dove bato the partial safety of the wedge.

  “Saved your fug life bro!” Nova said. Gradie peeked out in time to see the fading white remnants of two ehat had apparently been ing right for him. A shot gun and a gun he didn’t reize but looked like someone had redra5 from drunken memory fell to the ground.

  “Thanks,” Gradie said with a sour taste in his mouth. He looked for target’s but the battlefield had ged drastically in under five seds. The crystal had rotated and was now showing one side to him, whigel hugged for dear life. Against the low wall ringing the area, and right under Luke’s tower, five eood formed up, oh a shotgun aimed up at the tower, the rest pelting the crystal and Nova’s tower with grenades and fire.

  “Luke! Shoot me!” Angel said, like a realization. From Gradies unique and very ve vantage point, he saw Luke back up oower and fire a single grenade just as Angel backed away from the crystal. Angel blocked it with his sword like a bunt, took two steps bad strode over it like a sprinter just as it went off, and the explosion unched him into the air.

  “Shoot me! Shoot me!” He said again, and for a moment Gradie thought he was talking to the enemies, but Luke fired anrehat he caught in his non sword hand and threw down at the attackers like a God casting judgment. They scattered, but not in time. It detonated on impad two of them vanished.

  Angel nded in the middle of the explosion before it had dissolved and darted out, his bde fshing down every half-sed, every strike cutting through an enemy and striking the bck ground, sending him flying in another dash that ehe same way. Be bounced around the floor like he was really made of light. It was amazing, and Gradie felt suddenly like a kid watg his older brother beat a boss he had been struggling with for hours.

  Luke stepped up to the edge and started firing grenades. Nova’s sniper beam went wild. Gradie emptied his fresh mag. In a few seds, it was all over.

  “God damn bro, they’re not gon you get this shit in rotation for a while,” Nova ughed.

  “Whoo! They just stood there for it!” Angel whooped.

  “They couldn’t really move much, on at of all the bombs and sniper shots,” Luke said dryly.

  “Yeah, thanks yall. God damn.”

  “Allright, so do we wanna stay here and wait for another wave, or –” Before Nova could finish, a grenade went off feet from Luke, turning his right side white.

  “Shit!”

  They all looked around at the stairwells, but those were still as death. It wasn’t till the grenade his time right where Luke had been before he jumped off the tower, that the rest of them figured out what Luke had clearly guessed.

  “Above us!” he hissed as he rolled across the ground. Gradie found it amusing that his Hardworld training was so ingraihat he para-rolled across the ground when in this gameworld nding from even up a few hundred feet felt like a short hop.

  “Shit, the moon!” Nova said, aiming his sraight up in the air.

  Gradie followed the barrel and saw a circur cluster of color floating in the air, moving slowly across the sky. It was impossible to judge he or how far away it was, until something moved on one of its small knobs and anrenade flew towards them. Judging from the size of the guy firing it, the moon was about the size of a very rge house.

  “Scatter!” Nova yelled, firing up at the moon while sprinting backwards. Angel watched the greently without moving and Luke fired a greraight up in the air that arced towards the horizon and fell somewhere down on the orbitals surface.

  “Oh,” he said ftly.

  The moon brenade nded harmlessly oop of the crystal a off with a yellow burst that made Gradie far mitated than the rest of the team.

  “Looks like three of them,” Angel said. “Lets go up and fuck them up.”

  Another white beam shot through the sky, and Nova poi it.

  “Fuck em. Lets camp this shit and kill these dudes. Moon boys will be outta sight in a bit.” He drew an arc with his finger leading from the drifting moon down beyond the horizon. Angel shook his head.

  “Then they’ll e back while were in the middle of a fight. We should just deal with them now.”

  Anrenade bounced down a off before Angel finished. Luke swore and ran for the crystal’s and pad.

  “Aight, Im goin up there. These s are asking for it.”

  Another white beam shot through the sky, but this time nded on the moon with a puff e.

  “Wait, let em fight it out,” Nova said, watg through his sniper scope. Up on the moon, fshes of cred out of the dark openings that riddled it like Swiss cheese. They all stood there a moment, watg the light show, and Gradie studied the colors like they held a prophecy, all his other thoughts floating away. The fight had aligned his mind into a single dire. He wao get more kills.

  The lights stopped and the moon floated on without a single sign of life on its surface.

  “How many are—” Angel asked Nova, but before the rest of the wot out, everything in Gradie’s world went e, then bd white, then smeared upwards as he fell.

  “Shit! Move! Move!” Nova yelled on the s.

  “What the fuck?” Gradie asked.

  “Headshot,” Luke sighed. “Sorry bro, I’m about to fuck em up. How do you aim this thing?”

  The world stilled and Gradie found himself in a familiar white space, and it really pissed him off.

  “What the fuck? I thought I was going to respawn at the crystal thing?!”

  “Shit, no bro, you gotta win your duel. They had to add that cause—. Fuck!” Nova cut off and Angel broke in.

  “No bro, unch me first.”

  “I'll suppress them with my ‘nades, dude,” Luke said real venom in his voice.

  Gradie tried to ighem as the white room solidified, but another part of him hoped they would keep talking so the dual wouldn’t feel like a one on one.

  “Fight!”

  He raised his desaturated AR and aimed around, looking for the staircase he had seen st time. It wasn’t there. The shapes were pletely different.

  He heard footsteps and pivoted, quiough to let off a burst at a white form dashing among the grey. He moved in the dire the guy had been running and tried to hop from cover to cover, but the shapes were odd sizes and some only came up to his hips. A fear rose in his chest. He saw himself being taken by surprise by a shotgun guy again and bsted down into the red jail, where he would have to wait alone or try and find his way all the way back up to the bounce house, then the uncher…

  He shook the thoughts out of his head and focused on his monoatic sight.

  Then he saw him.

  A figure standing straight on, sword in hand, ing down a ween two long blocks. Gradie opened fire and the sword came down hard on the ground, sending the guy flying off out of sight. Gradie backed up to the blod sed around. Another saw sound to his left, somewhere behind a drical block. He stood still, waiting for the guy to move, but nothing ged in the gradient ndscape. He thought it over. The guy’s weakness was range. He had to get up high.

  He ran and jumped up on to the der and sed the area, and there he was. A grey figure, stopped dead mid stride, looked up at Gradie, and swung his swradie smiled as he fired. What did he think that was going to do fiftee away? But as the guy ducked and rolled, trying uselessly to dodge Gradie’s bursts, something didn’t feel right. About half a sed ter, his brain filled him in.

  Why is the swetting bigger?

  Another half a sed ter the sword sliced Gradie in half and the world smeared upwards again.

  Another bird’s eye view repy revealed that the guy had thrown the sword the moment he saw Gradie up on the der, and that Gradie had shot him at least twice before dying. Judging by the little health bars iher side of the “s”, had Gradie shot him one more time, that would have beech.

  “You have died. Select a respawn,” the voice said, and two boxes with text floated in the air in front of him.

  [random spawn]

  [Red Room]

  Then he was ba the red jail, which was embarrassingly, mogly, pletely still and silent.

  It be like that sometimes. ime, bodies needed in the bloodiest er of occupied spaext episode, Squad.