By chilnak
Disclaimer: I don't own Unreal Tournament, Epic does. Go buy
it, its cool!
Summary: Someone ends up somewhere other than they expect.
This is a little piece I wrote for a map I was
working
on for the original UT. It quickly became apparent
that mapping was not my forté, but I liked the story
enough to hang on to it. I might add more to it, I
might
not, it depends on whether I can come up with
something
that fits. If I do, I will retain the 2nd-person
format (because
its cool!) :-)
Once again you set foot on the tournament grounds, as you have countless
times before. You have been placed into a large deathmatch on Morpheus, the
three glistening five-hundred-mile-high towers attempting to reach from Earth
into heaven.
You have been here countless times before, entering into
battle for the
honorable cause of entertaining the masses with
your death. You have been in
the tournaments so long that the
life you had before has faded almost completely
away. All that
is left is the tournament; round after round, again and again.
It is
who you are. When awake you think of it, when asleep you
dream of it, in all
things, you live it. Today is no different.
As the tournament begins, you hear the familiar taunts of
those around you.
Sarina gets first blood by decapitating Raynor.
Her taunt goes unheard by
anyone; everyone is scrambling to find
the best weapon, the perfect shot. You
notice someone new in
the match, someone you have not seen before, a Skaarj
calling
himself "SkUlLtHeiF". A new opponent, new tactics to learn.
Maybe this
will be an interesting match after all. You grab the
shock rifle and incinerate Necroth
and Athena with a shock combo.
You opt not to yell a victory taunt; such things
don't mean that
much anymore. You see SkUlLtHeiF up on one of the towers,
going
for the armor vest. You aim the shock rifle, and draw a bead on
him. The
thought of how he will react, if he will survive, is
mildly interesting to you. Just before
you pull the trigger, you
see someone out of the corner of your eye. You quickly look
in
time to see Loque, holding the sniper rifle, aiming it at you. You
dive for a wall,
knowing full well that with Loque holding a sniper
rifle, your chances are not good.
Time slows down. You're almost
to the wall. You see a muzzle flash. You sense a
momentary tingle,
no pain, and feel your life end. Head shot, no doubt.
But you're still alive. Mildly amused at Loque's typical good
luck, your mind
floats in the ether, waiting for the tournament
to reconstitute your body and throw
you back into it for another
round. This is the only true peace for a tournament
warrior, the
few instants between life. You let yourself drift for a moment.
Then the
coolness begins to stir around you. You prepare to
reenter your refurbished body,
bracing for the momentary shock to
avoid reentering the tournament disoriented.
The blackness turns
to a soft blue.
Something is wrong. The blue is becoming white. You feel
yourself moving very
fast, though you don't know in what direction,
or even if there is a direction. This is
interesting. You have
never experienced anything like this before. The break in the
normal routine has prompted you to actually consider what is going
on.
It has been much too long. It usually only takes an few moments
to respawn, but
you feel like it has been minutes. Faster and
faster you go, the winds howling around
you, as though you were
traveling through an endless vortex. Only it's not endless.
You
sense the end approaching fast now. Everything is blinding white.
Brighter.
Brighter.
You respawn.
You're not on Morpheus anymore.
This is not an arena you've been to before. Light filters
through windows high in
the walls. As usual you cannot see what is
outside, what is beyond the walls. Just a
beautiful, moody sky. This
place is not a Liandri arena. Liandri has nothing like this.
For
the briefest of instants, a thought flashes through your mind. Might
this not be
an arena at all? Dare you to hope for such a thing? But,
alas, it is only a glimmer.
There is a GES Biorifle in a corner to
your left.
So then, you will fight, you now know. The part of you that can
hope recedes
into wherever elsewhere it came from. You will fight.
There is nothing else. For a
few minutes, you are alone in the arena.
You soak in the quiet, the peace, knowing
you won't get much. A
scream. Cryss enters the arena somewhere. Others follow.
For a
minute, just a minute, no one fights. Everyone just looks at each
other, at this
new place. Then, one by one, they pick up weapons.
You grab the Biorifle, and
prepare to fight, in the most beautiful
place you've ever seen.