Chapter 2: New friends

Disclaimer: I own all the Unreal Tournament games and they all rock! No copyright or anything though.

(a/n) Hi there, I'm going to start writing my story in a different way now, and hopefully it should be longer too. Read and enjoy. Oh yeah, and try to review. :)

John slowly woke up, the TV was blaring away in the corner with the sounds of gunshots and an announcer with a deep voice saying things like: 'First Blood'. He didn't have a clue what it meant, but he had a feeling that he would be hearing it soon. John got up from the couch he had slept on and he felt rough like usual. He walked slowly up to a mirror and looked at himself, large bags were under his eyes and his hair was ruffled up. He looked too innocent to be here. His bright green eyes stared right through his reflection. His short brown hair made him look like a soldier because of the way it was cut, and his thin lips made him look like a veteran of combat, but he knew he wasn't.

"My god you're a mess" A deep voice sounded behind him. John saw a silhouette in the mirror and he quickly turned around to see who it was. "Sorry to startle you there. By the way I'm Lock, the captain of the new team I'm hoping to get you on. Kill Switch. I just had some free time and heard that new recruit was in so I thought I'd better check him out." He reached his hand out towards John: he didn't really know how to respond, he wanted to be nice.

"Hi, I'm John, John Horton." John shook Lock's hand and smiled. "Nice to meet you John, so, are you interested in this team or what?" "Well, I don't know, I don't even wanna be here, so I don't know." "Hell! None of us want to be here, but we have to, and we will always have to unless some of us rise up and defeat Phoenix. That guy has won the tournament already, and I know he's not gonna be a nice guy when he's up there." "Phoenix" John repeated, he couldn't remember much of the court room and his sentence, but he remembered that name. "Phoenix" John said again. "I know. None of us like to hear it, everybody on the blue team hates him and we will stop at nothing to bring him down. It's just every time we tried, we have been beaten and returned to the bottom of the league: it's really not fair." Lock looked at the floor, obviously remembering past experiences.

There was a moment of silence, neither of them said anything. "Sure. I'll do it. Anything to beat Phoenix and his guys. He screwed me over before, so he's gonna pay." Lock looked up and his face lit up when he heard John say this, but he was also curious as to what he said about getting screwed over. He didn't want to intrude, and since they had only just met, he didn't want to get too personal. "Great! You have passed your authorization classes first though right?" "What?" John replied. Lock sighed and said in a very patronizing tone: "If you haven't passed your induction, your not gonna get any where are you? You won't have a name, and armour, any weapons, or any chance. So just go down to the desk at the front and ask for an authorization test, and they'll do the rest ok? Good luck!" He left the room with John standing in the middle of the room.

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John walked nervously up to the main desk and there was a robot fixed on to a chair that could swivel on a stand connected to the floor. He was covered in wires, and looked rather intimidating. John approached him slowly.

"Welcome to the Liandri building sir. How may I help you?" the computer said in an eerie robotic voice. John took a deep breathe and said clearly without pausing: "I'd like to sign up for the tournament please." "Affirmative. Which team would you like to be on? Red or blue?" "Blue please." The robot looked at John in a funny way, almost puzzled by what he said; he only stopped for a brief moment and then spun round on his chair and reached into a filing cabinet, and took a folder, then spun back to John and gave it to him. "Name?" John wasn't in the mood for being creative, he thought of the first name that came to his head that he liked. "Viper" he said, and the robot typed it in on the computer. He then printed something off the computer in front of him and gave him some sort of ticket. "This is your pass for 4 upcoming matches, make sure you are there, they will not wait for anybody, and your armour will be issued to you in the next 12 hours. Thank you sir." "Thanks." Said John back quickly, and headed off towards his cell again.

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Phoenix dodged to the left and fired a rocket off in Malcolm's direction. The score was 5-1 to him, and he could see Malcolm starting to tire. 'Click', Phoenix's rocket launcher was empty, so he quickly drew out his minigun and opened fired, Malcolm was still on the run and could not afford to die again from Phoenix. There was already a gaping hole in the side of Malcolm's head, and he needed to find a health pack somewhere. He was limping and had one of his hands clutched over the side of his head. It wasn't long before Phoenix caught up with him and cut him to shreds with his minigun. "Ownage" Phoenix taunted as Malcolm's corpse dropped to the floor in a pool of blood.

Malcolm respawned and could still feel his back hurting, Phoenix must have used the armour piecing bullets when he shot him, and they hurt a lot. He jumped and grabbed his favourite weapon: the link gun. Suddenly, Phoenix jumped down from above and startled Malcolm but he was quick on the trigger and blew Phoenix apart instantly. "You like that?" He shouted to Phoenix. Malcolm spun round and took some armour and headed up towards to highest point in the map. A sniper rifle lay there and Malcolm took it and threw the link gun off the edge. He searched around the for map for Phoenix but he couldn't find him, he waited for him to pop out. Phoenix crept up very quietly behind Malcolm and pressed the barrel of a sniper rifle into the back of Malcolm's head. "Goodbye" Phoenix said and blew the back and front of Malcolm's head off, brains were scattered everywhere. Phoenix wiped the blood of his face and carried on.

The score was now 7-2 and Phoenix was very ready to be the new Tournament champion, and with the new tournament with the new vehicles starting very soon, he wouldn't have to wait long until he could get back in the action. He was perched up on the high peak with a sniper rifle and spotted Malcolm and blew his head off in one shot. "Head shot" the announcer boomed into Phoenix's headset. Malcolm didn't catch on very fast: it was only seconds after Malcolm had been killed that he made the same mistake. "Head shot" the announcer said once again. "Just one more kill" Phoenix said to himself calmly. He didn't want to get excited too early. Malcolm chose the same route again, except he fired first with his minigun and hit Phoenix in the chest several times. Phoenix swore and left the area. Malcolm knew where Phoenix was going to come out and cut him off with more fire from his minigun, a shot to the leg made Phoenix stumble and he rushed towards the medi pack as fast as his wounded legs would carry him. Malcolm grinned and turned the corner and looked down the long corridor where Phoenix could not escape from, but he wasn't there. Malcolm slowly walked down the corridor being extra careful not fall into any traps, but it was too late. Phoenix jumped from a ledge above his head and slaughtered him with a rocket launcher at close range leaving only a mangled corpse left with huge chunks cut out of Malcolm's flesh.

"You have won the match!" The announcer shouted and Phoenix raised his fist into the air and said: "anyone else want some!?" They both appeared outside back in the stadium where they both started and as soon as they appeared on their feet, Malcolm collapsed and started coughing and taking short quick breaths. Blood was pouring out of his mouth and any other gaps in his armour. Soon his green navy coloured armour was painted in smears of red. Doctors quickly rushed over to him and lifted him up on a stretcher and ran off carrying Malcolm behind them. A commentator's weedy voice came on. "Well folks this is our brand new champion of the tournament: Phoenix!" the whole crowd erupted in cheers and whoops. Banners went up and people started chanting his name. "Phoenix! Phoenix! Phoenix!" they chanted over and over again. Nobody really cared about Malcolm any more; it was Phoenix who was the new king.

John turned off the TV and clenched his fists and sat down. He can't believe a person who just put an innocent man in prison could suddenly become the good guy that everybody likes. Wouldn't anybody suspect him of anything? The rumour of it being a fix has now completely vanished now because he has become champion, it wasn't fair, it never was fair.

"Bad news huh?" It was Lock visiting John in his cell. "There is something really wrong about that guy Phoenix. His ability to kill without a second thought. To be happy when Malcolm was all screwed up like that, how he is so brutal in combat, the other night in a match he picked up just a brand new kid just a rookie, and slammed him into a wall again and again until he was dead. It wasn't right, people aren't supposed to do that. People aren't even supposed to do this let alone do that to a kid who is about 20 years old. I don't like it one bit." John realized that Lock really hated Phoenix too; maybe this is a guy he could really relate to. John lost most of his friends after they were recruited in the army to fight in the Human/Skaarj wars. Lock saw the ticket's on the side of John's couch and smiled. "Hey, your match is tomorrow, you done any training? You gotta keep fit if you wanna win this thing." "I haven't really thought about it much really" John replied. "Well it's not that hard anyway; you should fly through the opening rounds I'm sure. Once you do that, you can come to me and you can join my team. Come and see me after you've won. Room 275. Good luck!" "Thanks" John replied. Lock was a good guy. John headed into the small room with the punch bag and weights and quickly started to punch the punch bag with his bare knuckles. He wanted to get through to the next round and join Lock's team. He didn't want to let anybody down, especially Lock...