Chapter 78 - Doubts (1/2)

Gray's biggest concern over this match was that he'd never tried to control 16 players at once… While it may not seem like a big deal, paying attention to everyone was hard enough when it was only 7 of them. Gray was regretting not finishing his time at the academy now as he was sure they'd have some leadership courses for officers.

"No point worrying about that now." Gray thought.

The enemy team had stayed in a group of 16 and saw Gray and the 4 others climbing up the mountain. Paul braced his mech and held the shield in front of him.

"Xyra, Caleb, Carly, hold fire, Yurika, Stacia, Geoff, Paul open fire!"

Despite the tight formation with Paul in the front, Gray and the other 4 were able to open fire on the enemy at the top of the hill. The enemy team of 16 braced themselves at the top of the mountain, not moving down to chase and the 8 that were able to shoot back at Gray and the others opened fire as well.

Paul's shield held up extremely well due to the extended range of the attacks and that the enemies were not extremely accurate. The enemy didn't have any snipers, but they all had assault rifles or battle rifles. The enemy team wasn't balanced, but sometimes that works in their favor and since battle rifles had a little better range than assault rifles, they could cover mid-range and almost long-range attacks.

"Back down slowly, we want them to chase us." Gray said, then started to back down the mountain slowly while maintaining his fire to try and give some resistance to the enemy.

Unfortunately for Gray and the others, the enemy didn't take the bait and instead used only battle rifles to fire at them once the assault rifles went out of effective range. "Damn, they didn't take it." Gray thought.

"Ok, make it look like we're starting to panic and retreat faster downhill!" Gray and the others picked up the pace and even turned away from the enemy team to try and sell it harder. Gray twisted on his feet to try and fire back at them while trotting downhill, but he ended up tripping on the hillside. Gray's mech stumbled as he tried to catch himself but instead ended up falling on the face of his mech with several alarms going off at once in his cockpit.

Apparently this sold it for the enemy as 8 of them headed down towards Gray and the others while the remaining 8 still watched from near the top of the hill.

"Carly, encourage the remaining ones on the top of the hill to come down!" Gray commanded while trying to stand his mech back up. Carly fired a salvo of 8 rockets at the enemy mechs on top of the hill. Instead of turning and running away from the missiles, the enemy team did what every other game would do and instead ran in the direction they were facing since it wasted time to turn around. Since the rockets were unguided they struck the top of the hill and left a few small craters in the top of the hill.

Gray's mech finally got back up and ran without trying to fire up the hill at the enemies since they were now close enough that some shots were deflecting off of the armor of Gray's mech. Gray wasn't sure what to do… should he ask the snipers to shoot at the ones in front to slow them down, or shoot at the ones in the back to prevent them from retreating back up the hill.

Gray finally made up his mind though and said "Caleb, Xyra, go for the legs of the rear mechs, let's give them nowhere to run except down! Carly, aim for the ones in the back as well!"

Looking forward, Gray saw the spikey shell of the Armadillo open all of its spikes and release a full volley of 12 rockets towards the enemy in the rear and the muzzle flash of both Xyra and Caleb as they opened fire as well.

Xyra and Caleb both used their training AI enough to have it be able to assist them with aiming so their accuracy had improved significantly once they were able to use it to help adjust for temperature, wind speed, and even inertia offset by any movement. Gray had also finally been able to use his with an assault rifle as well so Tiara could now assist with aiming while before she was just assisting with target management.

"GameGo Gamers! Go! Need you on the top of the hill before they reach the bottom!"

The GameGo Gamers broke out of hiding and started climbing up the hill as the enemy continued to charge down it. As Gray and the others reached the bottom, the enemy team noticed the GameGo Gamers players trying to reach the top of the hill. The enemy paused for a moment, but it seems a consensus was reached as they decided to keep charging down the hill to avoid the 8 climbing up it.