Bullets ricocheted off the hard metal floor, skimming at the feet of a woman as she ran for the corridor at the end of the ledge. The woman threw herself into the protective corridor, away from the stream of bullets. The doorframe was mercilessly pounded for a few seconds before the attacker gave up.
The woman was Tira, a competitor in the Unreal Tournament, a highly publicised, brutally violent competition which pitted a variety of races from across the galaxy against each other, the winner being declared Grand Champion, a highly coveted status.
Right now, however, she was in second place, and this was only a qualifier. If she wanted to make an impression, she had to storm this. She checked the ammo on her Link Gun, she was running low. Tira rested her back against the wall and grabbed her Enforcer, luckily, she had a full clip. She shuffled along the wall and peered around the corner, checking if her attacker was still there. He was, she quickly pulled back around the corner as Tarydium shards peppered the wall opposite her. Inhaling deeply, she skimmed her Enforcer across the floor. The distraction worked, her attacker unleashed a stream of bullets at the weapon, giving Tira enough time to aim with her Link Gun and unleash a stream of energy bolts, quickly blasting through her opponent's armour and burning the flesh below. Grinning, she threw the now empty link gun aside and ran to her Enforcer, picking it up as she ran back to the corridor, in search of more opponents.
She pressed her back to a corner and peered around. There were three of them, battling it out. It was situations like this that set Tira apart from other competitors. While most competitors would run in guns blazing, Tira preferred to not use the Respawners; she hated the feeling of being respawned, so instead she would observe fights like this, and pick off the stragglers afterwards. This way she didn't get as many frags as she should, but she also had fewer deaths on her record.
The battle nearby seemed to be winding down, so she grabbed her Enforcer and span around the corner. Only two of them were left, and neither of them looked like they would put up much of a fight. Ducking under a stray stream of Link Gun energy, she pulled the trigger on her gun, the bullet hitting one of them in the head, adding another frag to her score. Tira ran and slid across the floor to the cover her victim was using and poked her head over the top. Her opponent was using similar cover, a huge metal box that was commonly found in this waste disposal factory turned arena. She knew her bullets would do nothing to penetrate the box; she had to use another way to get to him or draw him out.
She quickly thought, weighing up her options, she knew that the person behind that box had superior fire power, and equal cover, so she had to do something quick. Thinking beyond her normal tactics, she sprinted across the corridor and vaulted over the box, planting a bullet into the top of his head, and once more to make sure. Breathing heavily due to the adrenaline pumping in her veins, she grabbed his Enforcer and checked the scoreboard that was built into her armour.
'Damn, one behind,' she thought.
"Five minutes remain," the announcer said over the PA system.
Tira had plenty of Enforcer ammo, but she knew she needed to pull off something spectacular in order to catch the eyes of the sponsors and judges. She could hear gunfire nearby, so again she poked her head out from her cover and looked down the corridor. There, at the end, was a circular room, and she could see at least eight different sources of gunfire, whether it be red hot Flak bouncing off the walls and floor or bright blue pulse beams from a Shock Rifle.
Not thinking twice, the woman ran at full speed towards the room, her guns beside here, loaded and primed for use. In her mind she knew that this moment would make or break her, if she could pull of what she intended to do, even by a half, she would impress the observers immensely, but if she failed, she would just become someone else's frag. As she approached the doorway, a beam of Link energy skimmed the floor in front of her, searing through her leg in the process. The brief contact didn't sever it, but pain like no other coursed through her body, and it threw her run off too. It was too late to stop, if she tried to stop now, she would be easy pickings, instead she went all out. She slid to her knees as she entered the room, raising her weapons and forcing herself into a spin, her eyes and arms darting from target to target, her eyes would spot, her arms would aim and shoot. She stopped in the middle of the room, and put her arm out in front of her to stop herself falling forwards, and looked around.
A smile spread across her face as she realised she was the only thing alive in this room, she didn't care at this moment if she had killed each one of them, she had pulled it off, albeit a lot fancier than planned, she knew that would impress the judges even more.
Her ears picked up footsteps behind her. Thinking quickly, she grabbed the Shock Rifle that lay in front of her and span onto her back, facing the direction of the footsteps and took aim, her fingers resting on the trigger. One of the cybernetic competitors rounded the corner, only to have a ball of energy shot at him from Tira's Rifle.
She took a deep breath and looked at her leg. The flesh was burnt almost to the bone, and the sickening smell of burnt flesh quickly filled her nostrils. Holding back a strong will to heave, she checked the scoreboard. She was now in the lead by six frags. Hauling herself up, she hoped there was a health vial or a health pack somewhere nearby. These things were invaluable for quick recovery in the tournament.
Ahead of her the signs pointed to a fight heading her way, so the fighter launched herself into cover, wincing slightly at the pain in her leg. Tira closed her eyes and pressed herself against her cover as the sounds of combat passed by; she really didn't want to have to fight for a while, not in this state. Her eyes opened as the sounds died down, and she looked at her gun. She could frag herself, sure, she would lose a point, but then she wouldn't be in this kind of pain anymore. No, these last few minutes were vital. It was in this window where everyone gave it their all, desperate to catch up or increase their lead. Everyone got reckless, which left her with more to pick off.
"Get back here and finish me off!" A voice shouted, pulling Tira from her thoughts.
'Sounds like a job for me,' she thought, pulling herself up and clutching her rifle.
She pulled herself up and over the box, landing in a heap on the floor and looked down the corridor. At the other end stood someone, leaning against a wall, clutching their lower stomach. Tira grabbed her rifle and fired off the last three shots the Shock Core could manage, and then threw the rifle to the side. Each one had missed, and the person down the corridor was now unleashing a frantic stream of Enforcer shells. Tira followed suit, drawing her Enforcers and shooting wildly, not really aiming nor trying to dodge, as the respawn would be something of a blessing at this moment. She threw away the now spent weapon, and again checked to see the results. Nothing. Every shot had missed. The woman at the end of the corridor was laughing, stopping every so often and coughing up blood, but laughing all the same.
Tira stood up and ran at the woman, not having much planned, considering she was out of weapons and not the greatest when it came to hand to hand combat. As she got closer, she recognised the woman as Lauren, leader of the Iron Guard team. Regardless, Tira continued her approach, ending it with a full bodied slam into the injured woman, sending them both sprawling to the ground.
Lauren, obviously more experienced, was up in a flash, delivering gut wrenching punches to Tira's stomach. Tira curled up, and then delivered a swift uppercut to the Iron Guard leader's wounded abdomen, sending her reeling. Climbing to her knees, she shuffled over to Lauren and landed a punch to her jaw, then another uppercut to the wounded spot on her stomach. Tira got to her feet and approached Lauren as she stood up. Tira swung at her again, but the experienced fighter battered the attack away, then delivered two swift jabs to Tira's stomach, followed by a hard smash in the face, which sent Tira sprawling across the cold hard floor. As Tira looked up, she saw Lauren running to her. Tira quickly got to her feet, only to be sent sprawling by a hard shoulder barge from Lauren. Again, Lauren was approaching fast, this time Tira was ready. As Lauren lowered herself for another shoulder barge, Tira got even lower and slammed Lauren over her shoulder, throwing her off the ledge and into a pool of thick green liquid below. Tira looked down, watching Lauren's armour slowly be dissolved, followed by her flesh, until only bones remained.
Something hard pressed against Tira's back and pushed her over the ledge, and the pool of slime grew closer. She closed her eyes and curled up as she fell, hitting the liquid with a low splash sound. Her face burnt as the liquid quickly ate through her skin, and after the few seconds it took for her armour to be disintegrated her entire body felt like it was burning, slowly her vision blacked out, and after a brief moment where nothing could be felt, the floor was at her feet and an Enforcer was in her hand.
Tira had to duck quickly to prevent having another death on her record, and quickly fired off six Enforcer rounds, three down each end of the corridor, earning herself another two frags.
"Game Over," came the announcer's voice, "Tira Allen wins by four frags. The top four competitors will receive their Quarter Final invitations within one week."
Tira grinned to herself as the competitors were ported out of the arena, where they would mingle, exchange compliments and threats, but none of that concerned Tira. She knew that any potential sponsors, and over half of the population of the galaxy, saw not only her multi-fragging clearout of the room, but also her fist-fight with Lauren. She was feeling very good about herself and her future as a Tournament competitor as the busy portal room came into view around her.