Chapter 8: Double kill
So, season four began; finally a season where things were just going right for us... at least for a while. It was a rollercoaster season for us to say the least. In our season opener we humiliated a team of Nali in a domination match, and things just rolled well from there. The league offices had issued some new weapons to the arsenal, my personal favorite was the assault rifle. Though it lacked in comparison to the other weapons when it came to firepower, it was one of the most damned accurate weapons I could handle plus reloading was quick and easy. The lightning gun was also introduced since the Liandri offices banned sniper rifles from the tournament, a move that very much upset Arielle since she was one of the best damned snipers I ever had the honour of fighting alongside. The real threatening addition though was the ion cannon. It's primary fire simply emitted a laser to paint a target, but damn when that secondary fire went off, get the hell away from the blast radius. Another change that was made by Liandri was the removal of assault matches. Since the competitors became too blood-thirsty, many of the matches only lasted one round before the other team was entirely wiped out. Ratings plummeted because of this decision, it was common knowledge that fans loved assault, and now that it was gone, people stopped watching… I suppose that's why new weapons were added. Despite all the drastic changes that occurred that season, we still kicked the ass of every team that dared come against us, even our allies the Iron Guard. A new type of competitor was also added that year, the Juggernauts. This was a group of science experiments gone wrong, then placed in the thickest battle armour you'd ever seen. Genetic and cybernetic enhancements made a single juggernaut more than a handful for a small squad of competitors, which led to them quickly rising to dominate the death matches. Outside of the death matches we held the top ranking in every match type, I was happy to let it stay that way, but Bjorn, damn Bjorn, he had to get too ambitious.

I remember sitting in the study of the dorms when Bjorn gathered us together. His cybernetic eyes panning over us.
"Juggernaut has been getting far too much momentum lately, they're going to start invading the other brackets soon. I say we beat them to the punch and show them what the Dark Phalanx is all about." Only Blake seemed excited about this decision… stupid kid, he never even knew what was coming. "I have accepted an open challenge thrown down by Gorge, their leader. Next Thursday we meet Juggernaut in a team death match, standard rules will apply. A point per take down, but I'll be candid right now in saying don't feel upset if an accident happens and a few of them don't make it out alive, understood?" We all nodded in hesitant agreement, I wanted so badly to say "No Bjorn, I won't go." but mine was to follow, his was to lead.

Thursday came. We piled out of our transport and stood outside of what was an incredible facility. The entire arena was placed in a valley, but the bases on the outside were crafted like ancient Japanese structures, and further down the valley were bridges and tunnels of the same design, it was breath-taking. As the marshals did their usual routine with Ophelia, we could hear the other transport hovering down into the valley at the base somewhere behind the mountains. The buzzer sounded and we immediately took defensive positions in our base, if there was one thing we knew about our opponents, it was that they would be attacking fast and viciously. Several minutes passed, and we were wondering where our enemy was, by all accounts they should have been all over us by that time. Then Blake started to get antsy… the poor idiot never even saw it coming. He peeked around a corner to look out the front door of the base and in a blink of an eye a round from a lightning gun flew clean through his head and out the other side, he was dead before he hit the floor.
"Steady!" Bjorn shouted as we heard them running up our front staircase. Gorge led his Juggernauts into the front hall of our base and we opened fire. I emptied an entire clip from my assault rifle into Gorge's chest and it didn't even slow him down. He didn't even fire a gun at me but swung his heavily armoured arm instead and knocked me right out the door and sent me rolling down the stairs. The score buzzer sounded quickly, signaling another point for Juggernaut… at least I was still alive. I managed to get up as my team mates all came running out of the base, we were missing a few… not a good sign. "Fall back to the caves!" Bjorn ordered us. We ran as fast as we could towards the opening in the mountains, but a lightning round blew its way clear through Bjorn's knee. Bjorn crumpled to the ground and slid in the mud. I doubled back to get him but he waved me away. "Get out of here!" he ordered, I hesitated but followed everyone else into the cave. We looked from the shadows as the Juggernaut team filed confidently out of the base, not paying any mind to anything except for our fallen leader who laid in the middle of the field. We all had to fight our urges to run out and defend Bjorn, we all knew a frontal assault on the Juggernaut team was suicide. We had only taken one down so far all match where we had lost four, and looked like we were about to lose our fifth, which would be grounds for a forfeit. The Juggernaut team hovered over Bjorn. A male Juggernaut stepped out from the circle and stared down at Bjorn, he was the Juggernaut known as Ravage, but something was oddly familiar about him. I took Arielle's lightning gun and looked through the scope. It was Condor from my first match. He was so different now, he was pale, looked almost inhuman, the experiments on him had warped him almost beyond recognition. Bjorn looked up in fear at Ravage, clearly he also recognized who he was looking up at.
"You said I wasn't good enough, Bjorn. Now look at you, you lay here helpless while I stand over you, your very life is my plaything." I knew I was a lousy sniper, I couldn't have taken Ravage out, but I tried anyways. The lightning blast shot behind Ravage's head and took out a Juggernaut that stood behind him… at least I got one I suppose. Ravage looked at the cave and shouted taunts to us, but we never had the nerve to come out and face them. Ravage then took out a rocket launcher and held it in one huge armoured hand. He looked down at the barrel that dangled tauntingly over Bjorn's head, Bjorn was unable to move even if it WAS possible to dodge the blast. Ravage stared down at Bjorn for several seconds and then pulled the trigger. The sound was deafening, even in the caves our ears rang for a while from the explosion. That was five kills, the forfeit buzzer would go off in fifteen seconds. I threw down my assault rifle and grabbed a ripper that lay in the shadowed corner and ran into the daylight, screaming like a maniac. I fired relentlessly as I ran closer to the Juggernaut team, who was not expecting any opposition after the fifth kill, especially not from one lone soldier. I fired at the closest, a Juggernaut named Plague, he didn't even get a shot off before the ripper sliced his arm right off, even through the armour. I fired at random at the Juggernaut team, now that I knew those damned ripper blades could penetrate even that armour. I saved one blade though until I was close enough to aim properly. One special blade was reserved, it was reserved for Ravage. I stopped about twenty feet from Ravage. He lifted his rocket launcher to fire at me, but he missed me terribly, I suppose standing right next to the blast effected his steadiness, last mistake he would ever make anyways. I let the blade fly and the world seemed to slow down. The sickening sound of the blade leaving the gun usually made me feel nauseous with fear, but now I salivated from the sound, knowing it was not for me, but for the piece of trash that stood before me. The blade spun in a blur and made a loud clang as it cut through the neck support of his armour, removed his head, and continued its path until it hit the wall of the base and stuck into the rock like a dart. The forfeit buzzer sounded just as Ravage's corpse hit the ground. Final score, Juggernaut with five fatalities and three casualties and Dark Phalanx with four fatalities and no remaining casualties. We killed four of them and heavily wounded three… but Juggernaut had been more thorough and made sure casualties didn't stay casualties for long. Immediately the weapons went inactive as the buzzer ended. Gorge and I stood face to face with our guns ready, but the triggers only clicked. Without order, Juggernaut gathered their wounded, but left their dead. My team mates slowly emerged from the cave once Juggernaut left. They gathered four bodies, sadly there was not enough left of Bjorn to classify as a "body".


Now begins the downward spiral that Jordan will be going on. Poor Bjorn is gone now, and Gorge is pissed. Read on