Fatal | The Second Life I [COMPLETED]

Chapter 3: Elevation

     I wake up to my alarm going off, and it reads 6:30 on it. Turn for the qualifiers. I hopped out of bed, still incredibly groggy. It would be fun.. once I woke up.

     I get JP and Caden up before walking to the bathroom and getting myself ready. I put in hair gel, brushed my teeth, and got some new clothes.

     This would be really fun. Us 6 made up a perfect team dynamic. I tended to be aggressive and a leader. Caden was uncontrollable and an aggressive wildcard. Zach and Nick were very calculating, doing most recon. Evan and JP, then, were the cheesy ones, always finding new ways to eliminate the enemies.

     I step out and Caden immediately takes my place. As I get to the bed, I hear the door lock. I flip to the bed and get my shoes and cap on. It was game time.

     "You ready for this?" I asked JP.

     "Let's get this bread," JP says.

     "We're the breadwinners!" I say, and I hear a hoorah from the other room. Our gaming group was called 2RAW, but we liked to call ourselves "The Breadwinners" because of the meme.

     "We've ascended to memes," Caden says, walking out of the bathroom. JP follows, and I grab a water bottle from the mini-fridge in our room.

     I flip the Tv on, waiting for the rest of them to finish. There was even more stuff about the President's comments, and I realize this could be serious. But it couldn't lead to anything. No one's stupid enough to start a nuclear war.

     "Alright, am I the last?" JP says, walking out of the bathroom and looking into the other room. "Yep."

     "Then let's go, boys." I say, and we exit the room. We walk down the hallway, with JP and Zach laughing at a meme on one of their phones. I eventually press the "ground floor" button for the elevator, and the door opens.

     "I should push all of the buttons," Nick says.

     "You won't," Evan says.

     "Oh, I will," Nick says, pushing five more buttons just as the elevator begins to descend.

     "I hope they don't suspect us," I say, laughing.

     "Me neither," Nick says, pushing a couple more buttons.

     "Oh fuck, I think that's enough," I say, laughing as Nick moves away.

     We exit the elevator, and a person walks in behind us. We all scurry to the front entrance before they scream at us for clicking all the buttons. Sure enough, Ashley is waiting there.

     "Hi again." She says. She looked to be about 19, something I never actually noticed. She's our age. But she also had a wristband. One that we had for.. Elevation.

     "Hi, but.." I begin. "Are you in Elevation too?"

     "Okay, how did you know?" She says, a little creeped out.

     "Your wristband," I say nonchalantly, and she relaxes.

     "Ah, ok." She says. "Game time, 2RAW. Time to go up against PUR3."

     "Fuck." Caden says, getting into the car. We all follow suit, and Ashley gets in front of us. Her blue hair falls around the headrest, and we pull out from the parking spot.

After a couple of minutes of conversation, we end up at the location, and we all exit the van. The building was an elegant tower, right next to a school and Central Park. It was really a great choice.

The gatekeepers scan our bands, and we walk into the 2RAW section. 6 Consoles and LCD Screens were waiting for us. We were stacked in two levels with 3 in front and 3 raised a bit in the back.

We all choose a seat, and I sit in the center back. I was the team leader, after all. We all plugged in our headphones and entered a party chat.

"Hellllooooooo????" I say, and they all respond with ear-rape. "Good to know everyone's here."

"Yeah, now let's get practiced a bit," JP says.

We hop into a match, where we eliminate one of the highly ranked teams after a couple of rounds. It felt good, but it didn't mean anything. The practice was just.. well, practice.

"Ladies and gentlemen." I hear, and we all take off our headphones. It was our announcer. "I'm pleased to announce the commencement of the 2018 Elevation Festival!"

His greeting is followed by a slew of claps and cheers. This was one of the hardest places to get into, and we were at center stage. If I hadn't conquered my fear of stage fright.. I couldn't do this.

"Our first matches," He begins. "Will be the qualifiers. 16 teams are here, and only 4 can make it to tomorrow's semi-finals. And then day 3 will be the finals. So, our first qualifier will be between Retro Gaming and PUR3 Clan!"

We watch as Ashley's Clan gets a decisive victory over Retro. PUR3 was really good, better than we thought. Then, two clans we didn't know fought, and then two more. And then even more matches. Then it was time for us.

"And now, to narrow it to 8 teams, 2RAW vs. Variety Gaming!"

We readied up and carried a decisive victory on the first couple rounds, just barely choking the fourth we needed for a flawless win. We enter the fifth round 3-1, and after some excellent communication, win the match. As soon as Nick pulled the last kill we all praised him and took off our headphones.

"And there we have it! The Entente of Eight! Now for the Final Four!"

We watch the two unknown teams face-off, in a very heated and tense battle. Even the announcers were surprised with the 4-3 Result. Two other less interesting games finish as well. Then, it was time for our challenge. 2RAW vs. PUR3.

We pick our characters and head into the battle, playing more tactical and cautious than ever before. It wasn't enough though, and they took the first round. I looked up just in time to see Ashley slide a small smirk.

"Guys, let's get them good," I say over the chat, and we choose our new characters. "We may want some more aggressiveness."

"They seemed to do really well with that." Caden points out. "We need a flank. That'll open them way up."

"Then we'll use it." I declare. "Evan, you and Zach flank."

We enter the second round, where the flank works pretty well and we manage to take that round. 1-1. We enter the third round, where we mess something up in our defense and it costs us the round. Then, fourth round, we win. It continued until we were 3-3.

"And now." The announcer starts. "The final round. Whoever wins this is entered into the final four, and whoever loses is disqualified. Let's go!"

We enter the seventh round, where we quickly work out a plan to flank. The opponents eventually show up, ready to capture the site. The flank plan had failed our last round, but it seemed like our best chance and so we tried again.

I drop from an open hatch and slowly crouch to the doorway to the site, where they are planting the bomb. I hear an explosion, and figure it's a new entrance getting blown open since only 4 are on the site. Only.. they stopped moving. They seemed to be AFK.

I slowly picked them off, one by one, until I hear the sound of Zach in my headset. "Holy shit! Run!"

I look up and through one of the windows.. is. A flaming tower. It begins to tip and falls on one of the school's wings.

Holy shit.

I get up from my chair and run out of the building, not seeing my crew anywhere. The only person I saw was... Ashley. The streets were crowded with people running into their homes.

"What the fuck!" I yell, and Ashley looks at me with worry. "You New Yorkers are fucking crazy."

"I don't know what just happened.." she says, running to the front of our tower. I follow her and see a faint green cloud over the entire Central Park. It had already gotten to us.

And that's when I saw the first monster I've seen in my life crawl from the fallen tower.