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Octane’s leg bounced as he tapped his long fingers against the barrel of his R-301 in a steady beat. He was so full of pent up energy and wanted to run around the building to burn some of it off but the look that Bangalore threw him wiped the idea from his mind. They had been set up on top of the same house since last round and Octane was counting the seconds until ring movement so he could stretch his legs out. He could hear the distinct three clicks of the choke as Bangalore looked down the sight of her Triple Take. Octane squinted into the distance, following her sights to try to see anything. He realised too late that it looked like he was staring at Gibraltar and jumped, sitting upright.
“Sorry, compadre.”
Gibraltar gave him an easy smile and shifted his grip on his shotgun. “No problems, brother. You seem to be wound up.”
Octane grinned behind his mask, his leg resuming its steady rhythm. “Not used to staying in one spot for too long,” he tapped his chest, where his stim vials usually slotted in, and wobbled his head around. “Gotta keep moving.”
Gibraltar nodded. “Like a shark.”
Octane outright laughed and Bangalore gave him a look. “Yes! Like a shark!”
The announcement comms overhead reported ring movement and Octane could just about kiss someone he was so happy. He was on his feet in an instant, jumping from foot to foot as he threw his gun on his back and stretched his arms out. His fingers were itching toward his stim vials, ready to feel the rush through his veins.
“Race you to the ring, amigo?” he quipped, nudging Gibraltar. “Hey, I’ll even give you a head start!”
“Enough foolin’ around, let’s get moving,” Bangalore shouldered her sniper and jumped down into the sand. “Ring movement in 10.”
They had barely made it past the stone walls surrounding the houses before a shot rang out from behind them. It clipped Bangalore, halving her shield, and she deployed her smoke canister to give herself some cover to relocate. Octane looked behind his shoulder to follow the shot and spotted the full squad on top of the market, staring down their sights at his own squad. Bangalore ducked back into the house on the edge and Octane heard her slowly charging her shields using singular cells. Gibraltar jogged to cover behind the stone wall while Octane slid behind a truck parked outside.
“Full squad on top of market. And they do not look happy with us,” Octane laughed, chancing a look over the top of the truck. He ducked back quickly with a wide grin when a bullet whizzed past, narrowly missing his head. “Wow! So close, amigo, so close!”
“I could call in my air strike,” Bangalore’s voice crackled through Octane’s earpiece. “Could throw it right on top of the market.”
Gibraltar’s voice quickly joined. “They could just retreat indoors using the zip lines and avoid taking any damage that way,” he pointed out.
“But it would zone them,” Bangalore called back. “We could be in Skull Town before they can even step outside.”
“Good thinking,” Gibraltar said. Octane could see him poking his head above the wall every few seconds to check if the enemy squad was pushing in on them. It looked almost comical, as if this large man were a meerkat, and Octane fought back another laugh. The situation seemed serious and Bangalore might pull him by the ears if he made light of it. “Ready when you are.”
Bangalore stepped out from the house she had been set up in, kneeling beside Octane behind the truck. She held a canister in her hand, the whole thing glowing a bright red and spouting smoke. She tested its weight in her hand before standing and tossing it as far as she could. “Heads up, ladies,” she called. “Dropping the pain.” Octane watched with wide and excited eyes as it soared in a wide arc before clattering in front of the enemy squad who were still on top of the marketplace roof. Octane couldn’t help his loud laugh as they all scrambled to the zip lines for cover.
With Bangalore yelling into his ear to move, Octane ran out from behind the truck. He joined Gibraltar and jogged on the spot for a moment, waiting for their third to catch up. Once she had reached them unharmed, they ran together towards Skull Town. Octane ran backwards as he watched Bangalore’s artillery strike hit the top of market and the surrounding sand. His smile lit up as the rumbling explosions started rolling across the blast zone.
“Woah, awesome!” He took one last look as the sand settled before sliding down the incline and running full speed to launch himself over the low wire fence surrounding Skull Town. His eyes widened as a shot grazed his arm, tearing a wound into his flesh after breaking through his shields. A shot from a Kraber. A shot that hadn’t come from the market.
“Another squad!” Gibraltar called. He gestured for Octane to join him inside the string of buildings. “Coming in from above us.”
Octane closed the door behind him and thought about using a medical syringe on his gunshot wound. He stared down at it for a moment before deciding it wasn’t worth the health he had lost. His leg shook as he held himself up against the closed door and pulled out a shield battery, looking out through the clear spaces for movement as his shields regenerated. They had no word from Bangalore so they could only assume she was holed up in a room somewhere, hopefully trying to make her way towards them. Octane hoped she could make it back with the sniper outside, considering their height advantage and powerful gear.
“You think they saw the strike above market and wanted to come clean us up?” Octane looked past Gibraltar, into the connecting rooms, with a frown on his face. Could’ve sworn he had heard something. “Maybe they thought some big fight happened. Easy pickings for them, hey?”
Before Gibraltar could even open his mouth to respond, something rolled in through the window and clattered against the floor. Octane looked down at it, surprised, before Gibraltar threw himself towards it with his gun shield raised. The frag exploded with a loud bang and Octane heard the gunshield smash into pieces, taking half Gibraltar’s personal shield with it. He flew backwards and hit the wall with a grunt, leaving Octane wide-eyed as he stared out the open window at the squad coming towards them. He swore under his breath and turned to Gibraltar.
“You ready for a fight, compadre?” he asked hurriedly, pulling his RE-45 from his belt. He checked the magazine was full and cursed himself for giving Bangalore his disruptor rounds. Where the hell was she anyway? “It’s just us against them.”
“Full squad?” Gibraltar grunted, using singular cells on his shield. Octane nodded, flipping the pistol in his hand. “Circle ends in the Thunderdome so we need to start making our way there. I saw Bangalore head into the building across from us so we should cut through there first. Stick together as a squad.” He pulled himself to his feet, grabbing his shotgun from his back and pumping it to load in a new round.
Gibraltar started walking his way down the stretch of buildings they were inside, while Octane opted to hop through the open side and cover the outside. He saw Bangalore poke her head out to check the footsteps and signalled her to follow towards Thunderdome, tapping the small device he wore that showed the map and ring movement. She gave him a quick nod and slipped into the next room, out of sight.
Octane walked forward down the abandoned street of Skull Town, rolling his shoulders as he tried to keep a steady pace. Every bone in his body was screaming at him to jam a stim into its slot and run for it but he knew Bangalore would have his head if he split off when there was only 3 squads remaining in the game. He heard movement behind him and spun on his heel, aiming down the digital threat he’d scored early on. Nothing showed on the crackling display and he cocked his head, waiting. Something to the right shifted and his sight was aimed on it in a second. Someone was running out of an open door towards him.
His finger squeezed the trigger and his bullets hit the man, who promptly exploded into a shower of blue pixels. Octane cursed, reloading quickly as the real Mirage jumped through the window to his right. Octane always felt like the world’s biggest idiot whenever he fell for those infuriating decoys. Usually he could spot them a mile away, their programming just flawed enough for him to catch onto the way they blurred at the edges, but every now and again they caught him off guard. Mirage hit him in the side with two taps from his wingman and Octane threw himself to the left, emptying half the magazine of his pistol into Mirage. Both left without shields, they stood in a standoff in the middle of the street.
“Hey buddy, seems like you got a little confused back there,” Mirage laughed through his gritted teeth, the hand not holding his wingman clutching his shoulder. Octane could see the blood starting to seep through the fabric of his bodysuit. “I fooled ya, didn’t I?”
“Do you usually talk this much during a fight, pendejo?” Octane teased. He was hyper aware of the fact that he only had half a magazine in his gun but any movement would result in a bullet to the head. Mirage might be an idiot but he was a hell of a shot.
“Hey! Who you calling pendejo, estúpido?”
Octane laughed and immediately felt pain flare in his side. Behind his mask, his eyes flicked to the buildings lining the street for any sign of his squad mates. Surely they hadn’t gone far enough to miss the gunfire? In the distance, they both heard a grenade go off. His gaze made it back to Mirage in time to see him shift his footing and look towards the noise. It was quick but enough for Octane to switch out his guns, holstering his pistol and pulling the R-301 from his back. He aimed quickly and shot towards Mirage, who yelped and tried to move out of the way. Octane heard several of his bullets hit his target and Mirage panicked. He cloaked himself and sent out several decoys out running towards Octane in a desperate attempt to escape. Octane swore again and sprayed the air, the decoys exploding into pixels around him. His gaze fell to the ground and zeroed in on the footsteps he could see being kicked up in the sand as they headed towards the fence surrounding the outskirts of Skull Town.
“Got you, embaucador.” he muttered, switching to the R-301’s singuar mode. He fired off a shot and saw Mirage’s body flicker back into sight, hitting the ground with a thump.
Octane left Mirage behind to bleed out, knowing his squad would be hot on his heels now that one of their own was knocked. He reached into the space he kept the vials of stim, grabbing one and slamming it into the waiting slot. He felt it rush into his veins and took off at a sprint, holstering his gun and vaulting the fence. He just needed to make it back to Thunderdome and meet up with his squad before the rest of Mirage’s found him. He didn’t even have the time to spare to stop and heal up. He just needed to run.
He made it to the end of Skull Town before the Kraber shot connected with his shoulder. He tripped over his own feet, slamming into the hot sand and rolling down the incline. Maybe he should’ve healed before running into the open when he knew there would still be a sniper in the area. Octane hit the bottom of the incline and laid there in the sand, his face squashed into the ground. He groaned quietly, trying to move but failing miserably.
“Need some help, brother?”
Octane angled his neck so he could stare up at his squad mate. Gibraltar had dropped his giant dome shield over Octane and was kneeling beside him, Bangalore standing beside them as she aimed down her sights towards the sniper. He could see the way the blue of the shield glittered under the light of the sun and shoved his face back into the sand. Gibraltar laughed, rolling him over gently. Octane let out a sharp gasp of pain and felt his hands twitch.
“Makoa,” Octane coughed suddenly, his hands coming to scramble at his face. Gibraltar moved reached down and moved his mask down. Octane spit the blood in his mouth out onto the sand and made a face. “I can’t move, dude.”
“You can’t move?” Bangalore repeated, looking down at him.
“I feel like I am about a minute away from bleeding out,” Octane said. He groaned as Gibraltar tried to sit him upright, pain flaring through his whole body. “Mirage got a couple of hits on me back there and I took a Kraber shot coming across the dunes. Hadn’t had a chance to patch up, ya know.”
“Stupid. You should’ve-” Bangalore stopped when Gibraltar shot her a look over his shoulder. She knelt down beside Octane. “We can drag you to cover. Use a revival syringe.”
“If my counting is right, there’s only one squad left. Heard a fight in Skull Town,” Octane coughed again, rolling to the side. “And we know where at least one member is.” He squinted towards the rooftop where they’d last seen the sniper and saw movement. It was Wraith. She was aiming down her sights towards them, stock-still. It seemed like she was...waiting for something.
The dome shield timed out above them and Octane scrambled to yank Bangalore forward, the Kraber shot whizzing past and missing her head by a millimeter. In an instant, Gibraltar had picked Octane up and thrown him over his shoulder. They only had a few seconds while Wraith reloaded. He started running towards Thunderdome, Bangalore close behind him and dropping gas canisters in their path for cover. Octane coughed when the smoke billowed up around them and let his head flop against Gibraltar’s back as they ran into the center of Thunderdome.
“We should set up on top,” Bangalore said, pointing to the structure above them. Zip lines hung down around them and swung gently in the wind. “Get the positional advantage.”
“High ground,” Octane quietly slurred, closing his eyes. “Good thinking, señora.”
Bangalore stared at him for a moment before moving her gaze to Gibraltar. “He doesn’t have a lot of time. We have to move.”
Gibraltar nodded and moved to the nearest zip line, tightening his grip on Octane as they were pulled up onto the top railings. He gently set Octane down on the grating and readied the revival syringe as Bangalore kept watch. Octane grumbled quietly to himself, shaking his arm as the feeling slowly returned to his body. He hated this process. Always felt like he was being babied. It was enough that he got knocked in the first place but now he had to be held down and brought back to a functional state by people he looked up to. People he felt he needed to prove something to.
“Ring’s moving,” Bangalore called, checking her map. Her grip on the Triple Take hadn’t shifted, aimed towards the back end of Skull Town. She knew that Wraith had to come from that way; she didn't have time to make it around the outside. At four rounds in, the damage from the ring would kill her. “Hustle up.”
Octane tugged at the bottom of her shirt and pulled his backpack around. “Hey. Take these, sí?” He dropped two stacks of light ammunition and a shield battery onto the floor and Bangalore frowned down at him, confused. “I’ve been running double light and I probably won’t be much help so I figure I’ll give it to someone who needs it.”
“Why you bein’ so altruistic all of a sudden?” Bangalore took his offering anyway, shoving it into her huge backpack. When had she scored that? “Sponsors get on your back about not being a team player?”
Her tone was teasing but Octane still made a face. It made her laugh and he remembered his mask was still hanging around his neck.. He felt weird having his face half out; the only thing covering him was the goggles. He felt exposed. “Nah, I’ll still probably drop a jump pad in front of Gibraltar mid fight just to see how far he can make it into the air.” He clicked his fingers and pulled another shield battery from his bag. He still needed to heal up. With one hand on the battery and the other pointing towards Gibraltar, he grinned wide. “Now go win us the championship, por favor.”
They watched as the ring slowly closed in around Thunderdome, Bangalore still scoped in on the back end of Skull Town as she waited for Wraith to show herself. The only noise surrounding them was the quiet whirring of sniper’s hop up and the impatient tapping of Octane’s leg against the metal flooring they sat on. Bangalore lent further forward over the edge of the structure, her face dropping into a frown. There was no sign of the last squad and the ring had stopped moving, circling Thunderdome with an angry orange glow. Bangalore started muttering under her breath, moving her scope to the left to start the search on the squad that had somehow found a way around outside of their sights. Something caught Octane’s eye to the right and he sat upright. He could see an enemy portal flickering in the distance.
A shot rang out loud across the arena and Bangalore fell forward, tumbling over the side of the structure and plummeting towards the hot sand below them. Gibraltar yelled for Octane to move and they both scrambled to move behind what little cover they had on the high ground. Octane could see Bangalore below them, unmoving. The shot would have been clear through the head to get through her shields and send her falling like that.
“What do we do, huh?” Octane asked hurriedly, pulling his gun out. Without Bangalore, the two of them were running close range only. They had to bring the fight to the last squad.
“Did you see where the shot came from?” Gibraltar asked, keeping his head ducked out of sight.
“From the right side. There was a portal.”
Gibraltar let out a quick laugh and shook his head. “Can’t believe we all forgot Wraith could do that. Damn. Looks like we gotta go to them.”
“Dios de madre, okay. We got this, dude, yeah?” Octane nodded quickly at Gibraltar, looking for reassurance and Gibraltar placed a large hand on his shoulder. “We got this?”
“You gotta calm down a minute, brother. Won’t be much help to the squad if you get shaky now,” Gibraltar gave him an easy smile and nodded once. “Let’s go win.”
Octane pulled his mask back up over his face and gripped the zip line with one hand, dropping down to hit the sand. Gibraltar landed beside him and knelt down to check Bangalore. She stirred weakly and Gibraltar pulled the re spawn banner from her wrist without a word. He straightened up and pulled a canister similar to Bangalore’s from one of the pouches on the outside of his armor. He tested the weight in his hand and raised an eyebrow to Octane.
“You spot ‘em?”
Octane took off at a run, his mechanical legs kicking up sand as he went. He spun a single vial of stim around in his fingers, knowing that if he used it he would be near impossible for Wraith to hit a clear shot on him before he was gone. He ran a lap around the outside of the Thunderdome, keeping his gun in his other hand in case he ran into the enemy squad. There was no sign of anyone anywhere. His face scrunched up and he relayed the information back to Gibraltar. His voice crackled back through the comms piece after a moment.
“Do we know how many are left?” he asked.
“I’m starting to think it’s just the one, hombre,” Octane ran on the spot, tapping his gun against his thigh. “They’re hiding out here real well.”
He heard a noise to his right and his ears pricked up, his head turning to stare down Wraith. He raised his hand back to his comms piece but stopped when Wraith raised her gun and aimed it toward his head. He tried to keep his hand as open as possible with the stim vial still slotted between his fingers, but her eyes flicked down to his other hand holding the pistol. She jerked her head towards it and Octane let his hand go lax, the gun hitting the sand with a quiet noise. Octane took note of the lack of sniper on Wraith’s back; the gun she held towards his head was a R99.
“Run out of bullets, fantasma?” he poked, trying his luck. “Not a very good shot, huh?”
Wraith smirked and tilted her head. “Tell that to your third.”
Octane shrugged and made a show of looking around. “So where’s the rest of your squad, ah? Close behind you, no doubt? You had mi cariño on your squad. Where’d she go?”
Wraith’s gaze averted for a moment, something passing over her face. “Lost Ajay in Skull Town. No re spawns left in the final circle,” she looked back at Octane with a small smile. “We never had a third. Some asshole pulled out at the last second. Decided she was too scared to leave the drop ship.”
“Not surprised you chicas made it to the top two by yourselves,” he considered for a moment, rolling the stim vial between his fingers. He could hear Gibraltar in his ear, asking for him to confirm his location. But with the gun still pointed between his eyes, he couldn’t exactly reply. “Wait, you didn’t get stuck with Mirage?”
“No?” Wraith sounded confused.
“Mierda, there must have been more squads than we thought in Skull Town.” Wraith’s eyes never moved from his face as he pinged his location using the holo device strapped to his wrist. She had gotten so used to his hand moving idly, she never even noticed.
Wraith’s footing shifted and she frowned. “Are you alone? Why are you… making conversation with me? I don’t know if you noticed but I’ve got a gun on you.”
Octane laughed, sounding almost manic, as a loud noise sounded overhead. “Ever been on a squad with me? If you go five minutes without hearing my voice in your ear, something is very wrong,” he jammed the stim vial into its slot and took off running, hearing Wraith curse behind him. Gibraltar’s defensive bombardment rained down from above, crashing loudly and breaking through Wraith’s shields. It was utter chaos as she phased, disappearing from Octane’s view. He pulled out his second gun and followed the tell tale blue trail as she moved through dimensions. Once her body flickered back into view, Octane emptied the magazine and whooped as her body fell to the ground.
Overhead, the presenter announced that the winner had been decided. As Octane saw Gibraltar jogging towards him with a smile on his face, he was already planning his apology to Wraith.