”Fio, where are you? Fio, are you there? Hey!” Chiara repeatedly calls with her handheld radio but to no avail. Mai shakes her head in disbelief.
”It’s no use Chiara. Their radio is dead.”
”We’re all alone now. What now Chiara?”
Chiara looks at Hikari and Mai. Their gloomy expression says it all. They haven’t even managed to encounter JarPig or Vampire Squad and they are already losing. It’s not like Longhorn Squad would have been much of a push over to even warrant them being completely wipe out if Chiara’s worst case scenario were to be true. She can only hope there might be some survivors of whatever firefight they got themselves into. “We have to keep moving.” Chiara mutters under her breath before speaking up a bit louder. “We have to keep moving. If someone is still alive from Longhorn Squad, they would probably continue heading to the food court as we originally planned. Either way, we have to confront the enemy.” She raises her rifle at the hip, keeping her flashlight ahead of the group down the hallway. “Triangle formation. Cease fire unless fired upon or if I order it.”
”G...Got it.” Mai shoves a stripper clip of a few rounds into her Type 56 SKS. Hikari walks carefully from behind Chiara’s right shoulder as they traverse the dark employee’s only hallway leaving the dead NPC to disappear behind them in the pitch black void. Hikari attempts a bit of small talk as they traverse the hallway.
”Mai, I never expected you to be so reactive like that. I thought you were pretty confident with this game.”
”I don’t even know, Hikari. I’m not used to fighting in the dark like this. There’s so many hostile NPCs out there, I didn’t want to take any chances.”
”But you were genuinely scared, Mai.”
”Y...yeah but so were you.”
Hikari sighs. “I would be lying if I said I wasn’t.”
”If it makes you feel better Mai, I was too.” Chiara suggests.
”But you’re scared of everything...even socializing.” The girls have a small little laugh between each other.
”I’m glad you’re keeping your spirits up Mai. You’re the bravest members in our squad.”
”Aw...thanks Chiara, and you’re doing pretty good so far as our substitute squad leader.”
”I don’t know if that’s even true when we haven’t even come across any hostiles.” Chiara mentions humbly. “But I really want to win this. It would really make Emi proud if we could stand up on our own.”
”I think so too.” Hikari adds which surprises Mai.
”You too Hikari? Since when did you start caring about this game all of a sudden?”
”I already invested a lot of my own money in gear haven’t I, Mai? It would be nice to at least make a name for ourselves in the tournament, even if we don’t win the championship.”
”But what good would all this be for if it’s for nothing?”
”What else? Don’t you want to put that weird goth girl in her place after insulting you like that? I would be more than willing to help you make her eat her own words.”
”That would mean a lot of to me, Hikari. You really are a good friend you know.”
”I try to be, Mai. I try to be.”
The girls are reaching the end of the hallway. They can hear the subtle reverb of the main shopping area of the mall just outside of the door ahead of them. Chiara motions her squad to stack up behind her as she stands by the door side. She carefully and quietly opens the door, peaks her rifle through the opening and calls “clear”, to which Mai and Hikari follow Chiara out of that dreaded hallway. Once they are out of the doorway, the girl’s find themselves inside a kitchen area which has seen better days. Pots and cooking tinsels are scattered all over the place and the lights are flickering as they struggle to stay on. Chiara and her squad carefully navigate through the kitchen while trying to avoid making any noise with all the trash left on the ground. Before they can exit the kitchen, Chiara raises her hand with a “halt” signal” followed by two fingers with her hand. There are two armed NPC scavengers keeping guard where the cash registers are in the food stall. Chiara lowers her MP5SD and switches to her Taurus TX22 Compact with a suppressor. She then looks over at Mai and hands her crossbow to her which she accepts without any hesitation. Hikari stays right behind them in case their planned stealth maneuver fails. Chiara and Mai both cautiously crouch and quietly pace themselves beyond the kitchen entrance where they can get a clear view of the two armed hostiles. They are wielding AK74M assault rifles each but don’t have much else on them in terms of gear. Both are hooded and wearing ski masks as they look out from their position. Chiara motions with her hand to Mai that she’ll shoot the one on the left and Mai will shoot the one on the right after she takes out the first hostile NPC. With a nod from Mai. Chiara takes aim with her 22 LR pistol.
”PLAP” She shoots the hostile scavenger in the head, her pistol barely making enough noise for the other hostile to be alerted but before he can react, Mai shoots the other hostile with Chiara’s crossbow right in the neck, cutting any circulation as he falls to the ground choking. Mai rushes to the downed scavenger and finishes him off by smacking his head with her hammer, taking him out instantly before making any disturbances in the area. Chiara smiles at Mai and whispers “Nicely done.” They motion Hikari behind that the coast is clear and She follows behind as they vault over the food stall. They look around and see they had finally made it to the food court. They are positioned at the second balcony which has it’s own roll of food stalls in addition to the bottom floor level bellow. The upper balcony doesn’t have anything from what Chiara can spot other than some vantage points towards the center of the food court which houses a couple of empty standalone stalls and a vintage style carousel, accented with gold, ivory decorations with horses and carts. But something disturbing immediately catches Chiara’s attention the moment she looks at the carousel. “N….No…..that can’t be!” There is a crude graffiti of a smiley face with two pointed teeth painted in black over the hood of the carousel. Inside one of the carts, stacked upon each other are the rag dolls of Ramirez, Kimberly, and Fio who lay unconsciously on the cart on the carousel. Chiara and the others almost choking up in tears before feeling their anger build up within them as they desperately look around to find those who were responsible.
”Those bastards….they are going to pay for this…” Mai mutters furiously under her breath as she aims her SKS around, checking the upper and bottom levels of the balconies for any hostiles. “Where are they?! Why don’t they show themselves!”
Suddenly, the mall’s music system is halted completely as a little intercom jingle is played over the speaker system before a low menacing female voice is heard over the intercom. “Ah...I see you finally come out to play, Armadillo Squad.”
”You bitch! Where the hell are you?!” Mai shouts to the intercom.
”Let’s just say, I have a perfectly good view of all three of you.” The female voice chuckles over the intercom. “My squad and I could easily pick you one by one from our position. But that would be so boring. It would be much better to watch you suffer under my watch.”
”You’re going to pay for what to did to Longhorn Squad!” Hikari yells as she and the others take cover behind some dining tables in the second floor balcony of the food court.
”I don’t think so.” The female voice says nonchalantly. “Your friends barely put up a fight to begin with. We didn’t even wipe them out ourselves. So pathetic.” Her words deepen the angst Hikari and Mai are feeling for their adversaries. “Too bad your friends couldn’t manage to take a single one of us out. You and I both know this match is going to end very badly for you, but we can end all this right here and right now. Lay down your arms and call it quits and this nightmare will all be over for you. The outcome is already determined, Armadillo Squad. Your team simply is no match for us or JarPig Squad.”
”You want us to quit the match?!” Chiara cries out to the intercom speaking to them.
”I would prefer it if you quit the tournament entirely and save yourselves the humiliations and suffering we’ll be more than willing to give you.”
”Chiara, don’t listen to this psycho!” Mai shouts back to the intercom. “You want us to quit because you’re afraid we’re going to kick you asses. Maybe not in this match but when we have our real match! You just wait and see!”
”Oh no!” The voice over the intercom mockingly replies. “A bunch of amateur college girls are going to steal my once chance of victory in this tournament!” She then laughs maniacally. “Your squad really is that naive. So be it. Allow me to get this party started! Lucius, do it now!” The carousel’s gears start to grind as the lights on the hood flash on, followed by the build up the carnival music rendition of “My Melancholy Baby” starts to blast from the carousel’s sound system, echoing all throughout the mall as the carousel begins it’s rotation. “Attention Dead Mall Shoppers!” The voice calls through the mall’s speakers. “There is a blue light special going on right now in the second balcony of the Dead Mall Food Court. One Heckler and Koch classic, one vintage Type 56 SKS museum piece, and one very rare Russian AN-94 assault rifle. It’s a first come, first serve deal you don’t want to miss so hurry up and get them while you can...and oh, make sure not to shoot the cosplayers if you see them. Happy Shopping! HAHAHAHA!”
”Chiara! We got company!” Hikari shouts over the loud carnival tune projecting from the carousel as groups of armed scavengers are rushing towards their position from their floor level. Chiara grip on her MP5 tightens as she prepares to lead her squad into combat for the first time.
”Weapons free! Don’t let them overwhelm us! FIRE!” The girls peak over their cover behind some knocked down dining tables and open fire on the charging NPC raiders approaching their position. Chiara lays down full auto fire on the incoming assault. Her suppressed weapon make it’s easier to keep her SMG on her targets even though her range is limited. Some of the hostile NPCs take cover when they get close enough and begin to fire upon the girl’s position. It’s clear their skills are not as refined as some of the other squads Chiara and her friends had come across but the sheer overwhelming volume of fire coming at them is enough to keep them pinned down. Hikari’s AN-94 and it’s hyper burst make quick ends to those that managed to peak behind cover in mere seconds. But there’s barely enough time for Hikari to firing back at the raiders before she receives some more incoming fire from both her squad’s flanks. Mai is constantly having to load stripper clips into her Type 56 SKS as she’s burning through her 10 round capacity internal magazine faster than she could keep up fire. “There’s too many of them!” Mai shouts as she hides behind cover, loading her third to last clip into her rifle. “Chiara, we can’t stay here. We have to move!”
”I’ll make a zip line to the floor!” Chiara suggests through the gunfire and loud music from the Carousel. “Mai, do you have your C4 explosives? We’ll lure them in and blow them up to buy some time.”
”Ha! Good thinking, Chiara! But we need to distract them with something!”
”I’ll stay behind up here!” Hikari speaks up. “I’ll hold them off the best as I can while you two try to get down to the bottom level!”
”Hikari! You’re our medic! We can’t leave you behind!”
”Mai, we don’t have much of a choice! I have to hold them off so you both can try to escape. You both have to find where Vampire Squad is hiding!”
”I can’t leave you behind! We have to stick together!”
”Mai! Please! We don’t have a choice!”
”She’s right, Mai.” Chiara takes out her crossbow and reluctantly loads a zip-line bolt. “We’re going to get wiped out if he stick around here for too long.”
Mai is conflicted but she has to let Hikari stay behind in the second floor balcony of the food court. The hostile mobs are approaching closer and firing upon their position with everything they got. “Alright Hikari. I guess we have no choice but to let you be a hero. Just try not to die, okay.”
”Don’t worry about me Mai. Set the charges and let me know so I can get down before you detonate them. Now go! Hurry!”
Hikari peaks out from cover and continues to use suppressing fire on the hordes of scavengers. Before Mai can follow Chiara to the edge of the balcony, She picks up a few magazines from some AK-74 dropped by the raiders. “Here! Use these! They are compatible with your AN-94.”
”Thanks Mai, but you need to go now” Mai pats Hikari on the back with her palm before duck running towards the edge of the balcony. Chiara aims her crossbow at a pillar down in the first floor so that their zip line will have a stable platform.
”We got our zip line! Let’s move!” Chiara hooks herself to her zip line and descends down to the ground level. Next to the pillar opposite from their previous position. She can see the bottom area of the food court where there are several supporting pillars holding up the second floor and possibly the third floor. If Mai can detonate some C4 charges on those pillars, the enemies in the upper floor might be eliminated all at once but they have to act fast. She looks above as Mai makes her descent down the zip line. Suddenly, Chiara spots a guy in navy blue ninja attire running up towards her with a Katana drawn. This man is certainly not an NPC. Chiara reacts quickly as the blue ninja swings his Katana at her. She ducks down, falling to the floor while aiming her MP5 at the assailant. Before she can take any shots, Mai quickly makes her landing nearby the zip line and flips out her SKS bayonet, charging towards him to pin him down but the blue ninja catches wind of Mai’s approach and parries her bayonet with his Katana. “Mai! Look out!”
Mai jumps back as the blue ninja swings his Katana in wide swipes in front of her, the blade almost making contact on Mai as she dodges the attacks. She aim’s her SKS and attempts to fire from the hip. The blue ninja is hit on the shoulder but does not stop even as Mai continues to dump rounds into him. Chiara acts fasts and starts shooting the ninja with her MP5, nearly emptying her magazine into the guy until she sees hims stop in his tracks, and slowly collapsing on the floor, his sword dropping right besides him. “Jesus, that was insane. Thanks for the help Chiara.”
”Thank me later, we have to set charges on the pillars. We don’t have much time and neither does Hikari.” Chiara points to the pillars across from them in the food court, right past the carousel which is still doing it’s rotation and playing music. “I’ll watch you back, Mai.”
Chiara helps Mai back on her feet and the two sprint towards the pillars opposite from them. Mai looks around at the other pillars and determines which ones need to be taken care off. She only has a few charges to work with. “Chiara, takes these and plant them over there.” Mai tosses two charges to Chiara who separates from Mai to set them up on the other pillars. The C4 charges have a double sided sticky tape where the explosives are being held. There is a small micro controller unit glued onto the charges which is going to ignite wirelessly from Mai’s detonator. She simply presses the charge onto the pillars insuring that they don’t fall off once they are in place. She looks onto to Mai when she places her last charge. “That aught to do it. Alright let’s get…Ah shit, we got company!”
The three members of JarPig Squad pop out of cover from some nearby food stalls and start throwing various grenades at Chiara and Mai. They both cover their eyes as two flash bangs detonate before them as an attempt to blind them. When they open their eyes, they make an effort to fire back at the combatants taking cover at the separate food stalls. Chiara unfortunately notices that her red dot sight isn’t showing it’s reticle sight anymore. Her optic is completely killed and she can’t make precision shots. “Mai! My red sight isn’t working!”
”Toss it aside! Use your irons! I need to tell Hikari to get down!” Mai pulls out her handheld radio to inform Hikari but nothing is coming through the radio waves. “Dammit! My radio is dead! We got EMP’d!”
”EMP?! What’s an EMP?!!”
”I’ll explain it when we’re not under fire! Sorry!” Mai struggles to peak out of cover as JarPig Squad fires upon them. “Ah God, I wish I placed some C4 charges on that stupid Carousel! That music is driving me insane!”
“They are hiding behind the food stalls! We have to flush them out, Mai!”
”Ha, just what I had in mind!” She takes a grenade from her chest rig’s pouch, pulls the pin and throws it over to the food stalls while being completely exposed from her cover. “Eat this!!!” The grenade arcs perfectly over the cover and makes contact behind their cover, but before Mai can even react on time, she is in utter disbelief as the same grenade she threw towards them is suddenly pitched right back at them, this time heading for Chiara’s position as it arcs towards her. “Chiara! Look out!” Mai runs from her cover to shield her from the incoming grenade. It detonates and severely injures Mai and splits her SKS stock in half as she struggles to stand up. “Fuck. They got me, Chiara.”
”Mai!” Chiara screams.
”Forget me….go Chiara…..run!” Mai takes out her Hi Point C9 pistol and starts firing it widely into the general direction of the enemy before falling onto the floor. “She watches from the floor as another soldier, dressed in all black approaches her and aims his rifle at skull. The rifle shot echoing through the chaos of the mall.
”Hikari! Mai’s gone! Retreat! Retreat!” Chiara repeatedly screams as she tries to run for cover towards the carousel. Hikari can barely hear her from her rifle burning through all of her ammo. She’s already resorted to using the left over magazines from the enemy NPCs that she scavenged but they still keep pouring in from the second floor food court.
”Forget this! I’m out of here!” Hikari shouts in frustration as she prepares to retreat down the zip line Chiara deployed earlier. She throws one last grenade at the incoming raiders to distract them before making her move towards the edge of the second floor food court. She’s interrupted by a soldier, dressed in all black with a red face mask and black cape who attempts to swing his rifle at her with the butt stock of his rifle. Hikari ducks from the blow and attempts to shoot the assailant but he parries her rifle with his hand, causing her to fire away from him. He grabs her by one of the twin ponytails and forcefully throws her off the edge of the second floor. Chiara watches in horror as Hikari hits the ground hard and is nearly knocked out. Hikari’s vision starts to fade as her vitals are showing she’s critically injured. The soldier who threw her off the edge then takes aim with his suppressed rifle and one shots Hikari from the second floor, taking her out of the match. With all of her team eliminated, Chiara is the last one standing.
In a frantic panic, she hops into the carriage of the moving carousel and ducks for cover. She can hear bullets impacting the carousel around her from all directions. Her body is shaking in fear, she doesn’t know what to do. She cries out in frustration and blind fires her MP5 from the carriage hoping to hit something. It was a pointless action that only made things worse for her as the carousel comes to a complete halt. The music slows down and eventually stops in a slow motion fashion. All incoming gunfire comes to a halt. The ground soon begins to shake as Chiara covers her ears from a nearby explosion that seems to shake the very foundation of the mall. Smoke and debris fill the air instantly shrouding the entire food court in a dark dusty cloud. Someone had detonated their C4 charges, but it was all for nothing in the end. Chiara carefully peaks her head out from the carriage and sees nothing around her other than a cloud of dust and hardly any light. She reaches into her plate carrier but realizes she out of magazines and ammo for her MP5SD sub-machine gun. She leaves it behind in the carriage and takes out her suppressed Taurus TX22 Compact. The dust is making it difficult to see anything beyond a meter or few feet from her perspective. She sees a shadow of a silhouette slowly approaching her from the distance. She takes aim with her pistol, ready to lay down fire on the approaching target. The figure’s details come into fruition as it appears to be a woman dressed in black gothic clothes and tactical gear. She’s holding a large dagger in one hand and a stainless Luger P08 pistol with white ivory grips engraved with a black and gold smiley face with pointed teeth.
Chiara aims center mass and fires frantically into the girl. Her 22lr bullets hardly stopping her from approaching before the goth girl aims her Luger pistol and shoots Chiara in the arm which disarms her. She then throws the dagger at Chiara’s stomach, causing her to fall to her knees as her health depletes. Chiara nearly chokes in tears as the goth girl approaches her as she is soon accompanied by three other soldiers dressed in black and soon by another squad in navy blue cosplay attire. They have her completely surrounded.
”It’s over Chiara. I told you. You stand no chance against our team. You had lost.”
”So what now your highness? Shall we finish her off?”
”Not today Lucius. I think her team got the memo.”
”You highness, are you being restraint?”
”Just this once, Lilith.” Asura comments. Vlad and Lucius shrug.
Meanwhile, JarPig Squad stands there not really saying anything but look absolutely unsatisfied at how everything played out. Nothing about their opponent's defeat seemed glorious or well played. Even Kael seems to have a bit of guilt seeing the last member of Armadillo Squad like this.
”Don’t thank me for showing your mercy, Chiara. Kael was the one that suggested I go easy on your squad, but it seems you couldn’t even handle us at our worst.”
”H...How do you know my name…” Chiara mutters as her injuries make it difficult to form words along with the tears pouring down her from her face.
”I did more than study your last match Chiara Lorenz. I looked into every little bit of detail about you, your squad, and your teammates. You don’t do a reasonably good job with OpSec. I know you are a university student, studying music in a Texas school. All of this info if easily available online if know where to look. But don’t worry, I’m not one to dox people and do stuff with the information I know. I’m Canadian. It’s not like I am capable of doing anything to you in reality.” She takes off her helmet and lets her long black hair flow. Her eyes look directly into Chiara’s blue eyes. “You’re not like the others, aren’t you?”
”Wh...what do you mean?”
”You’re pure Chiara. You don’t look like the kind of girl who should be playing this sort of game. You’re too quite and timid. I would know.” Asura crouches down to meet Chiara at her eye level. Her voice softens as she speaks. “You remind me a lot of how I used to be.”
”That’s not true….I’m not like you.”
”Of course, you haven’t been pushed to the edge like me...and I wouldn’t want you to either.” She lifts Chiara’s chin with her finger. “Which is why I’m asking you now to surrender and afterwards….reconsider your participation in this tournament. There’s no need for you to go down this path. You should be focusing on your studies. This tournament will crush you, just as the previous tournament had done to me. With or without Emi, you have no chance.” Asura lets go of Chiara. “So. Do you surrender?”
Chiara reluctantly nods as she begins to break into a sob. In some twisted form of compassion, Asura wipes her tears with her her gloved hand. “Good girl. I knew you would be smart enough to get the point.” With that, the practice match comes to an end and everyone is teleported back to the training ground.
The three members of Longhorn Squad are back, as are Hikari, Mai, and Chiara. Everyone is absolutely devastated by how the match played out. Vampire and JarPig Squad stand before them. Neither team is showing any glee in their victory. Kael’s squad seems to have a guilty look on their face as Vampire Squad seems as stoic as ever. Asura as the alpha of the team addresses Armadillo and Longhorn Squad.
“Let this be a lesson to you all that you not professionals. You have no chance against my team and should honestly just give up on any hopes or dreams you have for the tournament. It’s very clear to me that neither of your teams have even trained to the level that is sufficient for the tournament. You might as well drop out and save yourself from the horrifying defeat that we’ll plan to give you on the day of the tournament should you not yield. We behaved quite well for your sake. We cannot promise that next time.” Asura finishes and then looks back at her squad. “Let’s go. This victory isn’t going to excuse from training some more. We got bigger fish to fry in this tournament.”
”Understood, your highness.” Her squad mates bow before they teleport out of the training grounds. Kael and his JarPig squad are just standing there awkwardly, unsure how to speak to their opponents on their own. Kael fixes the red bandanna on his hair before speaking.
”Well...um….we’re sorry how this all played out. I hope we didn’t anger you too much.”
”If you’re interested, we play also Phantasy Star World.” Trisha adds, hoping to make amends.
”We’d love to have you come play in our guild. We don’t have to be enemies.” Rena kindly offers.
”No, Thank You.” Mai answers grimly. “Sorry, but we aren’t interested.”
”Ah...I see.” Kael sighs. “That’s a shame. Well….good luck to you all...and please do consider Asura’s suggestion. I wouldn’t want to get on her bad side. I know that all to well.”
”No kidding, Kael.” Kaz shakes his head. “I don’t think you get the hint from her at all.”
JarPig Squad quits the training grounds and probably logged out of Mil-Sim story to play another game. Armadillo and Longhorn Squad just stand there in total silence.
”We….lost the match.” Fio muttered quietly.
”What now?” Hikari asks, trying to see if someone will take the lead. Ramirez eventually answers.
”That was going to happen, whether we liked it or not.” He sits down on crate of ammo and rest his shotgun on his lap. “But we did lose pretty badly. We didn’t have Tomio or Emi to lead our squad either. Honestly, we should wait for their return before we can figure out what to do next. He looks over at Mai, holding her SKS rifle which has been split into two from the grenade blast from the match. “We seriously need to overhaul our equipment while we are at it.”
”Well...that was embarrassing but it looks like it’s getting late.” Kimberly yawns. “Let’s not overthink this defeat, we all need to get some rest now.”
”I’m gonna play something else. Feel free to join my harem in Bachelors and Mansions!” Fio admits cheerfully.
”Oh my God, you actually play that game Fio?” Kimberly remarks almost appalled and laughing at the same time. Ramirez, Fio, and Kimberly log out of the game.
”I’m going to call it a night. You’re welcome to join me, Mai.”
”Y...yeah…” Mai responds as she looks over her destroyed rifle, her pride and joy in Mil-Sim Story. “I….I still have the real deal back home at least.” She lets out a big sigh. “Well...see you soon Chiara.” Mai and Hikari both log out leaving Chiara all alone.
”Emi….I wish you were here.” Chiara mumbles to herself. “I don’t know what to do anymore with this game.” She’s about to log out when something catches her attention in her UI’s mailbox. She opens the menu and sees she has a friend invite. “Huh...a friend request from….Asura?”