Chapter 22 - Capture the Flag (1/2)

A few other groups of military cadets aside from Kyam's were wandering around the conference as well, Gray thought this was strange for a game conference but considering the game it made some sense. Gray did his best to maintain a low profile around these groups in case someone else recognized him. The rest of the conference ended up being uneventful for Gray and the rest so they went home. Gray dragged his feet by the entrance hoping to run in to Felicia one last time, but sadly she was nowhere to be seen.

"Oh well, guess it wasn't meant to be." said Gray to himself before finally leaving the conference and go home for the rest of the night.

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The next morning Gray had his usual instant meal, good old bachelor life he thought. After breakfast Gray felt like taking a nap as Monday mornings were the best for napping. Something about climbing back into bed while the rest of the world just finished their weekend that made Gray enjoy it all the more. Still, he actually really wanted to get back into the game, but was afraid that most of the players wouldn't be online due to it not being the weekend.

As Gray logged in, he was happy to see his whole team was already online.

"Whew, I thought it would only be Geoff and myself." Gray thought since he remembered that Geoff also took time off from work to play but didn't know what the others had done.

Gray opened up the team chat window on his HUD and asked where everyone was. The chat window quickly filled with replies:

'Stacia: We are by matchmaking'

'Geoff: Waiting on you asshole!'

'Yurika: Hurry up! I want to shoot things!'

'Caleb: I thought you were more reliable than this'

Gray sighed inwardly. "Nobody told me we were waiting on each other."

Gray hurried over to the matchmaking board to find the other 4 staring anxiously at him.

"Gray! Where were you? We agreed 10am would be our meeting time!" said Geoff angrily.

"10am? I don't remember that..." said Gray honestly.

"We talked about it yesterday! Caleb, didn't you say you meet him earlier in the real world and would send him a message about our agreement?" asked Yurika to Caleb.

Caleb pretended to not pay attention and said "It doesn't matter anymore, let's just begin!" as he walked over to the simulator pods.

Gray, Geoff, Yurika and Stacia looked at each other and rolled their eyes as they all came to the conclusion that Caleb didn't send a message.

"Random again?" asked Gray to everyone else.

"You're the leader, we'll let you pick what we do when we're doing matchmaking as a team." said Stacia.

Gray really enjoyed objective games like Capture the Flag so he decided to be a little selfish and selected Team Capture the Flag once everyone was in their simulator pods. After a few minutes of waiting, a match was finally found.

A different arena than any of the Team death match spawned for them and the 5 of them were standing around a blue flag with their team name on it. Inside their HUDS a picture of the enemy flag came in to view, it was red with the name "Grizzly Lords" on it and an emblem of a roaring grizzly bear on it.

"Awww, how come they get an emblem?" asked Yurika

"Because it costs merits to add and I'm trying to be frugal" replied Gray.