Chapter 125 - Let The Games Begin! (2/2)
Gray couldn't help but wonder why women always wanted to kill him.
Gray's armlet said 9:44am, Gray had one minute now to confirm his entry. Finally, Gray saw a teal streak heading towards them and immediately felt relief.
”Sorry I'm late! Mom literally tried to hold me hostage!” Yurika said apologetically, breathing heavily from having sprinted here from her dorm room.
”Glad you made it! We have no time, in the pods now!” Gray said, then grabbed Yurika's arm, kissed her forcefully, and then ran into an open simulator pod.
Gray closed the hatch on his simulator pod and quickly confirmed his entry for the tournament, hoping everyone else would make it in time as well. He saw the timer still had 10 minutes on it and realized that the actual deadline was 9:55am, not 9:45am.
”Well, Kelly did like to be early for everything.” Gray thought to himself.
Gray brought up the tournament brackets to see who they would be pitted against in each round.
”Steel Wolves vs. Team #81? Either that team sucks at picking names or the organizers are not revealing the names just yet.”
Looking up and down the brackets, Gray saw that around half of the bracket had names like 'Team #81' in all of them so he guessed they were just waiting until other teams confirmed their participation in the tournament.
Gray received a message from Kelly, ”Good luck in the 4 versus 4 match, hopefully we run in to each other!”
Gray laughed to himself thinking that Kelly's competitive side hadn't changed at all since they first met back in high school.
The timer reached 0 and a new timer popped up with a 5 minute duration on it. A screen with a brief explanation of the 4 player team tournament appeared in front of Gray. Gray read it quickly and wasn't exactly surprised by what it said.
For these small team matches, everyone will have the same mechs and same load outs. The Ranger Mk 01 and a medium range, high damage battle rifle that has been dubbed the 'DMR' (Designated Matchmaking Rifle). While Gray thought this would be boring, he also understood it was setup this way to make it about skill and tactics instead of equipment.
With only 1 minute left until the match starts, the bracket finally updated itself to reveal the team that Gray, Geoff, Yurika, and Caleb would be facing.
”Steel Wolves vs. The Narwhals” Gray said, trying to hold back his laughter. ”I don't know whether to say that their name is amazing or that it is amazingly bad.”
Gray, Geoff, Yurika, and Caleb were sent to the pregame lobby as expected, but the usual mech selection screens didn't pop up for them since they were all given the same load outs.
”Dang it, this sucks, I hate this kind of weapon!” Yurika complained.
”Why is that?” Gray asked.
”It is a single shot weapon that doesn't pack the punch of a sniper rifle, doesn't have burst or automatic fire, and it is good in every situation except for point-blank.”
”Um… that actually sounds like a very good weapon to pick when you don't know what kind of situation you're going to find yourself in.” Geoff said skeptically to Yurika.
”Well yeah! It's boring though! I want to spray bullets with a machine gun! I want to watch the metal fly off of my enemy when I blast them with a shotgun! I want to put 2 inch holes in someone's armor with a sniper rifle!” Yurika shouted, clearly getting emotional over this subject.
Gray, Geoff, and Caleb could only stare at Yurika as she started to get physically aggravated at the thought of everyone using the same type of all-purpose weapon.
”I consider myself somewhat of a gun fan, but you take it to fanatic levels Yurika.” Caleb said dryly.
”Shut it! I can't help it! It was how I was raised! Some girls play with dolls, other girls play with weapons. I felt more comfortable holding a Beretta than holding a Barbie!”
Gray, Geoff, and Caleb couldn't really argue as they probably would have been too.
”Well, regardless, you've been our weapon's expert so we're actually happy that you were raised that way, right guys?” Gray said while looking at Caleb and Geoff and nodding his head.
”Oh, yeah! Don't know where we'd be with you!” Geoff said nervously.
”Agreed, you have proven quite effective at dispatching our opponents.” Caleb said calmly.
”Right, so our first match begins in 20 seconds. We'll move in a pack of 4 at first, and then we split into groups of 2 if needed. No need to play the hero and take all 4 of them on at once, let's focus them one at a time.”
”Affirmative!”
An AI voice suddenly sounded through every participant's simulator pod across the world. ”Four Player Team, Round 1, Begin!”