Chapter 8: Do You Believe in Reality?

"Jsus Chrst! Wht hppend hr?" Cry said, his voice muffled by his gas mask. He was wearing a full-body asbestos suit and a gas mask. Fray, who had a black eye and several cuts smiled, revealing several missing teeth, sat up and said, "Had a fight. And it was awesome!" Ray, who had a solid knot on his head, continued the statement.

"No it was NOT awesome. I swear, I've gotten more hurt in the last 10 minutes than I have in my entire life." He stood up, looked around and said, "Now could someone direct me to the idiot who started this mess?" Fingers started pointing.

"Soul did it! I swear that little trickster is always causing trouble!"

"WHAT!? No way! It was ApekFreak! He was the one who decided to punch Dusk!"

"No, no! It was Dusk! If he didn't shove ApekFreak we wouldn't be here!"

"All f yo sht up!" Cry yelled. Everybody stopped the accusations. Cry walked over to me, Soul, Dusk, and ApekFreak, pulled off one of his rubber gloves (which revealed another glove underneath) and proceeded to slap all of us in the face with it. Then came the matter of fixing the numerous wounds everyone sustained. (Apparently, friendly fire doesn't stop you from getting hurt outside matches) Allow me to count the numerous wounds everyone got. Cuts, bruises, broken bones, missing teeth- I could go on all day. (It was miracle no one had died of blood loss yet) 'I am so freaking thankful that I have a medigun.' I thought as I used it on everybody.

Next on the agenda: Explaining everything. Needless to say, it didn't take very long. (We've done this several times already. Give us a break.) Cry's first reaction went along the lines of mumbling 'Ths cnt be hppnng.' Multiple times. After about five minutes of this, he airblasted ApekFreak over the edge of the building. (Talk about irony.) For kicks, I shot him with a syringe on his way down.

"Very funny Cry." ApekFreak muttered in his general direction, with a hint of anger. Unfortunately for him, Cry heard him. (Let's just say that we agreed to ban Cry from being let near matches afterwards.) Freak wasn't the last victim though- he went ahead and pissed off almost everyone there during his 'rampage of fury'. (Or at least I thought it was.)

I went to watch him for a while (I mean, given that he already hurt ApekFreak, some peeps are going to get injured.) He went up to Jester who was playing baseball by himself against a wall and talked to him. I was some distance away, so I couldn't hear too much of their conversation (Cry's gas mask muffling his words didn't help too much either) but from Jester's expression, it was probably going badly. Next thing I know, psycho Cry went and pulled out his flamethrower for a 'game' of fire tag. Thankfully, Jester managed to escape due to his high speed.

"Son of a-"he said mid-sentence when the flames erupted from Cry's gun. He called to the others, but I don't think they heard him. If they did, I wouldn't have had to deal with so many patients that day. I continued following him, and in hindsight, I should've warned the others, but I brushed off his first action as a personal vendetta. (He and Jester had a slight grudge after an incident during one of our game sessions.)

When I caught up with him, he was chatting with Fray and Ray. It was probably something about testing the airblast on projectiles, since Fray took out his rocket launcher and fired. Cue deliberate miss which sent the live explosive into a bottle on a nearby crate. It caused a cataclysmic fire to erupt- as if someone threw a Molotov. Watching the two burn up, Cry just laughed, revealing a bottle. He pulled off the label. He replaced the water in Ray's bottle with gasoline.

Getting where this was going, I went off to warn everyone else- first person I went to was Gold since he was nearest. He was chilling in the courtyard with his self-made sentry.

"Dude, Cry's on the loose. Might want to tweak that sentry A.I. or something."

Shrugging, he simply responded, "I knew that. I saw that fiery explosion from here." He pulled out his wrangler for good measure. Nodding, I went off to the Intelligence Room to try and find Dusk. (He likes the air conditioner in there) Apparently, I was too slow, because when I got there I saw both him and Soul on fire along with the culprit, who I swear is enjoying his sick revenge on everyone. I think he spotted me as well, and while he doesn't really have any matter which torching me would justify, he'd probably do it anyway.

"Cry, if you decide to burn me alive, I swear I will rip your pancreas out before I die from the burns." I took out a scalpel I had on me and aimed at his abdomen in case I'd have to actually carry out that threat. I don't know what sort of reasoning he had, but he backed off. (Maybe he finally cooled down by then) I pointed to the door and he left without another word. I went ahead and patched up the two burning kids and sent them to the infirmary for treatment along with the others which I went to go and find.

"CRY!" that was a pretty much universal call from the five injured people in the infirmary when said person came in to apologise. (Manic rushes of his don't really last very long).

"Srry abt brning you gys. I thht ths ws anther trck. I thht tht you gys wr jst tying with me. I thht tht…" Cry's speech was silenced when he saw the angry glares of the injured teenagers. They probably would've wanted to get revenge or the like after I healed them (I even saw Ray try and pick up his grenade launcher to blow Cry's face off but he winced from the burns on his hands and dropped it), but we got yet another announcement after so long.

"All successful recruits, please proceed to the Administration area on level B1."

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Again, thanks for reading what I've written and I would like to apologise if chapters go up late from now to the end of the exams (I know, I've mentioned this so many times already, but I simply can't keep uploading at one chapter a week right now.) Anyway, review if you can, constructive criticism is always welcome, and I'll see you guys whenever I can finish the next chapter.