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Breathe in… Breathe out… You got this, Elliott. You’ve done this before. Chill.
Mirage always needed to pep talk himself into every arenas match. He usually avoided arenas as much as possible but can’t really escape this one for PR reasons and he needed the cash. They’re fun in their own way but still very nerve wracking. Surprisingly more than the usual apex games. It’s still all too new to him despite it being.. Well. Not as new anymore and it sure wasn't new to the two he had to squad up with. Seer and Rampart. One is the hot shot new guy and the other his own roommate. Man why the new guy has to be here too…And Ramya will make his ass do the chores again if he doesn't get more kills than her. Oh the joys of competitive roommates. The usual deal.
He’s a complete newbie next to Obi and Ramya but at least today’s arena is in a new announced location, Oasis. So in a way it’s new to everyone. At least it doesn’t have to be at the graveyard of his poor crashed ship… Rest in peace, old girl. He doesn’t need that reminder. Renee and Ramya already gave him enough shit for it. Ramya mostly laughed at it. At least he gets paid a certain sum for them using it.
Mirage was starting to already think ahead of how he’d cope with a potential loss or complete embarrassment after this. Just to fall face first into some pillows and treat himself. Maybe buy a new sleeping mask and his favourite pizza. He needs the money but treating yourself once in a while doesn’t hurt right?
His thoughts quickly snapped back to the task in hand. The arenas. He heard the sadly familiar voice of Ash announcing that it was soon about to start. Shit the weapons. He scurried to the weapon racks and stacked himself up with everything necessary and within the arenas limits.
“Ay, Witt, daydreaming again? Get your tushy here we’re ‘bout to go!” Seer gave a side glance towards Mirage and a small amused smile.
“Coming, coming!” He ran up to the barriers with an EVA in hand. “And I was just daydreaming about seeing my face all over the media after we win and I get all the kills and save you two” Mirage automatically put a dramatic and egotistical act up. No he wasn’t worrying about losing and embarrassing himself in front of others just a second ago no not at all.
“Oh I’m sure you’ll accomplish that, Mirage.” Seer replied half sarcastically but not in a mocking way, weirdly. The reply alone caught Mirage off guard but he quickly shook it off and grinned.
“See, Rampart, he gets it.” He says while pointing at Seer. Rampart simply popped her bubblegum at that and seemed very unamused by Witt. “Uhuh, sure.” And with that the barrier vanished and so began the arenas match.
“Okay, team, let’s do this!” Exclaimed Mirage as they ran off into the field in search of the enemy team. He smoothly sled through the rows of flowers, feeling how the adrenaline had really kicked in as he ran into the building and headed upstairs with Rampart as Seer stayed downstairs to keep an eye on the enemies and tracked their whereabouts. Rampart built up her barriers the moment she reached the end of the stairs. Mirage threw a decoy running towards the others. As they were keeping their eyes on the two members of the enemy squad they didn’t notice how one of them snuck up to their makeshift base. Not long after Rampart’s barriers blew up into small pieces due to an all too familiar burst of grenades.
Rampart groaned. “Oh bloody hell, of course!” She kicked the metal scraps and right away went shooting towards a cackling Fuse. “Common gramps don’t be shy! Come out, come out wherever you are!”
The rounds went on and Mirage was lacking behind on kills and half the time was the first one to get downed. Not the worst but not the best. Ramya sure as hell was going to remind him of it later. Time for him to clean the toilet tomorrow.
The match was ticking close to its end. Mirage didn’t have luck on his side as he got downed after knocking two of the enemy team but not long after both of them got revived. With almost perfect grace Seer swayed his hips as he sent off the small and glowing moth drones from his chest surrounding the house, now also seeing the enemies walking patterns other than hearing their heartbeats. Rampart ran to join him with Sheila weighing on her back. How does she always carry that thing?
She however made her moves in a much more reckless fashion, a good contrast to Seer as she was laughing like a maniac kicking down doors and shooting straight through Gibraltar’s shield as Bloodhound retreated to heal themselves.
Somehow even with their visual differences of Seer and Rampart they both made their contrasts work. You can see the history between the two. His eyes naturally were fixated on Seer rather than Rampart, almost transfixed on the hips despite he himself laying against the wall while protecting a bruise on his side with a gloved hand. As Rampart took care of the fight, Seer looked back from the stairs to the wounded man. His eyes so easily felt.. Piercing. Mirage caught his breath as he looked back into the bright blue eyes, easy to notice from afar. He didn’t even really notice how long he had been looking or that Seer was taking a few faster steps towards him and knelt down. Only then he noticed how close the other was and didn’t know what to really say. Almost as if as they would say.. Have a frog in his mouth. Without a word Seer plunged a syringe into the trickster’s chest. He gasped, leaning forward as he felt the pain from his wounds quickly fade away. God, when will he get used to this. With another smooth movement Seer took hold of the man’s arm and pulled him up.
“Woah… Where did you learn those moves from earlier? A snake charmer?” Mirage smirked up at the man with a bit of shake in his voice. He wasn’t sure himself if he was trying to flirt or just ease his nervousness and the situation. Seer let out a brief airy chuckle
“Mph.. Charmed” The smile alone had Mirage dumbstruck for a moment again. Obi chuckled after a slight pause. “You seem distracted.” Elliott blinked “Ah uhhh uh-, not distracted… Just thinking.” Mirage stuttered slightly as he scratched the back of his head with an awkward grin, trying his best to act at ease.
Seer wasn’t going to comment any further, simply gave another small smile in return and signed with his head towards the stairs. Neither of them had the time to dwell on this. “Let’s finish this shall we? Can’t have Ramya have all the glory.” Mirage laughed at the comment, nodded his head and with that they finished off the round and with success. It didn’t take long for them to take down the rest of them. The whole round lasted for longer than it should have already. It wasn’t time for celebration just yet however as they had the last round to decide who would win this game… The tiebreaker. And oh the other team did not give any mercy to the three. Gibraltar threw in his bombardment that sent them running back into the building and in came in Bloodhound tracking them down and Fuse covering the inside of the building with all sorts of grenades.
“This is a nightmare!” Exclaimed Mirage as he tucked himself into a corner and hid from the window. His blood pumping loud enough for everyone and their mothers to hear it. “Fuck!” He ducked from another shot coming from another window. “Think we wacked the bee’s nest too hard?” He turned his head to Rampart who was trying her best to heal herself on the other side of the room. She laughed, throwing her head back, almost out of breath with how hectic this game has been.
“Ah ya think so?”
Mirage wiped the sweat off his brows and slowly stood up, securing a gun in his hands. “Yup.” He quickly peeked from the window, scoping the area until he saw Fuse and shot a burst of bullets into his side causing the man to tumble back. “Nailed it!”
Soon after Seer stalked up to Fuse while he was trying to take cover and heal himself. “Sorry, my friend.” Is all he said before finishing off the legend with a shot of his micro-drones into the man’s chest. With a quick retreat to another location he looked back at Mirage from the building’s window. “You did beautifully!”
This man was trying to kill him instead.
Seer didn’t leave it lingering for a moment longer and returned to the safety of the first floor of the house to try to track the other two down. Rampart already got her feet up and joined Seer to barricade the three doors for less access. She stroked her chin thinking what’s the perfect place for Sheila. Meanwhile Mirage lost track of time of the little time that did pass after Seer’s little compliment. Hasn’t really moved on from that. The trickster slapped his cheeks a few times to snap himself out of it and created a few decoys around the room and the rest of the house and one running outside of the building as a diversion.
Seer always memorized his squadmates’ heartbeats to be able to tell them apart from the enemies. Some were naturally slower but beat hard against their chests, some faster yet light. You could describe them as different rhythms and beats like music and instruments. It was harder to tell them apart during these bloodsports. It’s not like Seer has each of them memorized by heart but he tries to with whoever he’s teamed up with. It’s fascinating in its own way.
It wasn’t that hard to tell Mirage’s apart from the others.. Especially whenever he got into a more heated moment during the rounds or when.. Seer interacts with him (or sometimes even just by being around him) he has noticed. But he kept quiet about it. He noticed a certain beating, something most would call how a heart skips a beat and increased speed of the man’s heart when he threw a compliment his way for catching Fuse. In a way his heartbeat was… Pleasant, light-headed yet a strong and fast drumming. His lips briefly perked in a subtle side smirk at the thought before turning his attention back to the game. Can’t allow himself to get distracted in arenas of all things.
A synchronized yet satisfying steps and heartbeat followed closer to the building. Seer shifted his attention to it but that was enough to have him distracted from another member of the enemy team to shoot a perfect shot past Rampart’s barriers into his back. With a grunt he stumbled forward. “Ngwa (quick), Ramya behind us!” He shouted, keeping his attention on one spot, not letting them distract him again.
“On it!”
One by one the enemy team fell and so the winners were announced…
Mirage, Seer and Rampart. A flawless round was a cherry on top for their long drawn out match and the fear of getting blown up one way or another by Gibraltar and Fuse. Mirage cheered out loud with Rampart. He was too overjoyed and the rush of adrenaline equaled to him not really thinking about his actions and jumping to hug the person next to him who happened to be Seer.
“We did it!! We won!!” The man seemed slightly startled and stiffen up momentarily but eventually reciprocated his action, wrapping his arms around him, briefly squeezing tight. Thanks to that Mirage realized what he was doing and who he was hugging. Though it only lasted for seconds, the trickster had immediately pulled back. “Ah, sorry! Sorry...”
Rampart immediately punched Mirage’s arm which caused Mirage to wince and pull back. “Ouch!” The engineer simply rolled her eyes.
“Oh get a grip, Witt. We won! Knew you weren’t half bad in arenas”
“Huh really? Wow you’re nice to me for once?” With genuine confusion he didn’t notice that Rampart had thrown her chewed bubblegum near his boots which he had just stepped in. “Oh come on, I just cleaned those!” He groaned looking at the bottom of his boot as much as he could while standing up. He sighed, naturally his glance went back to Seer’s direction and into his eyes, one of them half covered by his blond dread. He quickly turned his glance away as he awkwardly went to sit down on step to get rid of the gum under his boot.
Seer heard the beating of the other man’s heart pick up a faster pace again with a more nervous flutter. With that Seer’s heart in turn grew more excited. Even he himself couldn’t really pinpoint why… Maybe he actually found the decoy engineer endearing. This time he also found himself distracted by the other for longer than anticipated. Curious to even how certain features of him would feel under his fingers. Hearing more of his laughter… Maybe the next time not as coded with nervousness, more genuine and warm. Seer felt himself smile a bit. They made eye contact again. But this time, Seer took the initiative and looked away. He took a deep breath and started walking off towards the general direction of the exit of this place where there were no transparent barriers up. He passed by Mirage. As he was walking he opened the piece on his chest and let a single drone fly into the palm of his hand, carefully stroking it with his clawed finger accessories before letting it go and fly into the other man’s lap.
It blinked a bright blue light a few times as it buzzed before it faded out. Mirage let his foot rest back on the ground as he blinked down at the drone in confusion. He’s never seen it before in detail and this close. “Um, Seer, I think your thingie got lost!” He held it up as he called for Seer but the man was already too far away to probably hear him. He sighed and looked down at it between his fingers, observing specific details of it before eventually slipping it into his ankle pouch and heading off.
Guess I have to give it back to him.