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Wraith watched the dice roll on her communicator screen, leaning against the wall of the dropship with a bunch of chatty fledglings who had no business being as excited as they were. You’re all literally going to be murdered, she thought. Fledglings only had three lives before they died for real. At least, if they were stupid enough to try again a fourth time. Unfortunately, they were often stupid. If they got up to Mid-Tier they had like, forty lives or something, but only High-Tier and Legends had infinite revives. The Apex Officials seemed to consider them worth the cost. But there were only ten Legends and twenty High-Tier players and thousands of fledglings. Cannon fodder.
Her communicator beeped, showing her Elliot and Bloodhound’s portraits. She looked up as they walked over to join her. “I hate your dumb duckface portrait.”
“Cry me a river, Naurto.” Elliot grinned while Bloodhound chuckled, coming out as a weird ventilation huff.
Wraith threw her hands in the air. “What does that even mean?!”
“It’s an anime.” Bloodhound said.
“You watch Naurto?” Elliot furrowed his brow and gave an interested side glance Bloodhound’s way, though they said nothing in reply. Wraith had to resist the urge to smile too much. Ever since she found out about them via breaking and entering on their and Elliot’s porkchop date night she’d noticed just how much of a personality Bloodhound was letting through. It was still mostly “praise Allfather” and “don’t fucking touch my bird” but they’d let little tidbits slipped now and then, mostly around Elliot. It was cute. Her communicator beeped again and she looked down.
“Looks like I’m jumpmaster. This time.” She went to the window, teammates following. Elliot pinged the Bunker, while Bloodhound pinged Relay, which is what Wraith followed after realizing most everyone else was going to jump to the hotspot nearby. They landed, got some decent loot (though Elliot stole her fucking purple armor) and then grouped to decide on strategy. Bloodhound was evidently feeling a little bloodthirsty as they insisted everyone follow the tracks they’d just found, but Elliot and Wraith wanted to camp like assholes and, outnumbering Bloodhound, won the argument.
They stayed to the sidelines, Wraith and Elliot straying towards the back and letting Bloodhound get their kills in, alert but also gossiping about nonconsequential shit. Mostly about Anita’s new hair (Wraith argued the blonde fade looked pretty good, Elliot insisted it was too much) and how hot Gibraltar’s boyfriend was. Wraith watched carefully, but this conversation didn’t seem to bother Bloodhound. They either didn’t care or were good at hiding it…or they agreed.
Eventually Bloodhound got tired of their chatting and shot them as much of a look as anyone can without any visible eyes, so they went ahead and started looting as the circle guided them towards the Cascades. Things were quiet for a while, until Elliot’s voice came over Wraith’s earpiece; “Mozambique here.”
She and Bloodhound, armed with a flatline, RE-45, and peacekeeper and longbow respectively, ignored him.
A few moments later. “Mozambique here.”
Wraith rolled her eyes.
“Mozambique here,” he and his ping came over the communication line again, making Wraith twitch. She and Bloodhound scouted ahead a few moments later, sitting on a ledge overlooking the Cascades. A ping. “Moooooozambique here.” Elliot sang over the line.
“No one needs a fucking Mozambique ever, Elliot.” Wraith snapped.
“Ja,” Bloodhound quietly agreed, off-line. They surveyed the area with their scope, then put their finger near their ear. “Elliot, come meet us. I’m in need of a decoy.”
“Roger.” He said. A beat. A ping. “Mozambique here.”
Wraith could have sworn she saw Bloodhound’s face twitch under the mask, somehow. Elliot joined them and shot out a decoy; this instigated a fight with what had to be two of the seven remaining squads. Wraith ran ahead into battle, jumping between rooftops and phasing in and out. Elliot sent in decoys periodically in all different directions, confusing even her once or twice while Bloodhound picked off slackers with their longbow. Battle settled down but the circle was closing in towards where they already were, so they all repositioned at a higher vantage point, on a cliff just below the start of the auto-kill zone. Elliot went down for a quick loot. “Mozambique here.”
Bloodhound inhaled.
“Oooooh a turbocharger! How disappointing! Oh, also…” the ping noise, “Mozambique here.”
Bloodhound exhaled. Slowly.
“Mozambique. Med kit, nice, oh and a Mozambique…”
Did Bloodhound just aim at Elliot?
“Mozambique here.”
Oh yeah. They were definitely aiming at Elliot. Lucky for him Bloodhound had already gotten a no-friendly-fire feature implemented in game-Caustic had been on their team and smacked their bird (Heflin? It was a weird name that’s all Wraith knew) and they’d just turned around and shot him in the face. Apparently “nobody did that before” so they implemented some kind of bullet absorption system in case Bloodhound inspired any copycats. Or, you know, wanted to shoot Caustic again. Elliot joined them again, whistling. They waited as squads gathered and started wrecking each other. Elliot dropped a… “Mozambique here.”
“Shut up.” Bloodhound hissed, turning to, presumably, glare at Elliot. “No one wants a Mozambique. Ever. Stop, for the love of Allfather stop.”
Elliot’s eyes widened and he held up both hands in surrender. Wraith breathed a sigh of relief as Bloodhound nodded and returned to peering through their scope, thinking that might be the end of it.
Not quite.
A firefight started ahead of them again as the circle tightened. Sticking with their camping policy, Bloodhound started ticking off one opponent after another. There was so much firing and chaos going on no one could figure out what direction it was coming from, no one was even looking at them- Wraith knew that for certain. The teams dwindled from four, to three, two, and then only one other than themselves. Bloodhound inhaled deeply, paused, and shot down one. Without any distraction, the other two came out and began looking-Bloodhound took out another. The last member saw them and started shooting. Wraith and Elliot both aimed and began firing as he moved, Bloodhound keeping their eye on the opponent, waiting for just the right moment to strike.
Then he did it.
Elliot aimed his sights towards the battlegrounds, towards something, then pinged and, just loudly enough to be heard over the gunfire, said, “Mozambiq-“
Bloodhound shot up to their feet, yelling and waving their sniper wildly. “STOP PINGING THE FUCKING MOZAMBIQUE! ALLFATHER GAVE ME PATIENCE BUT EVEN HE DOESN’T HAVE ENOUGH TO DEAL WITH YOU!”
Before Wraith could do anything Bloodhound had grabbed Elliot by the scruff of his jacket, pulled him in front of them and literally put their boot to his ass and kicked him off the cliff, in the same movement pointing their sniper at the last remaining, and very confused, opponent. Elliot fell as the Champion announcement rang over the speakers, landing and rolling in the mud to the bottom of the hill. At the end he stood up, covered in mud and laughing while Bloodhound took big, quaking breathes through their respirator.
Wraith just sort of stood there, trying to figure out if this was domestic violence or a game. Or maybe a kink. Bloodhound looked around for cameras, but they seemed to have gone to focus on Elliot and then looked down at Wraith. “Do me a favor.”
Wraith, wanting to avoid somehow getting flung into the mud as well, nodded. “Sure?”
They pulled a vial from somewhere in their coat, again looking down at Elliot, who gave them two thumbs up and grinned before smashing the teleporter on his wrist, vanishing straight to the locker rooms. “Oh don’t you dare think you can smile your way out of this.”
“Huh?”
“Sorry. Here.” They tossed the vial at her, it hitting Wraith in the forehead and landing in her hands. Uh, ow.
“What is this?”
“Phase through his walls and pour it into his conditioner.” Heflin flew down from the skies and landed on their shoulder. They lifted their hand over their teleporter and paused. “It’s the red bottle.”
Wraith didn’t ask how they knew that.
They didn’t implicate themselves further and lightly tapped the teleporter, disappearing in a wave of bluish digital blocks. Out of fear for her well being if she didn’t, and because she was curious, Wraith skipped the showers and tainted Elliot’s conditioner (one of like, five fucking bottles) and slipped out before he came in. The next day he walked in to the Apex cafeteria with neon green hair and a glare personally cultivated for Bloodhound, who simply watched their bird drink. But they did, just briefly, look her way, and she could sense it like she did guns aimed at her head that they were smiling.