Disclaimer: I don't own Unreal Tournament, and I never will. I do, however, own Em, Linds (especially Linds), and the rest of the group, or at least the ideas behind them.
Author's Notes: This is the second version of a fanfic that I did over a year ago. It's very different- Gren was dead, Shasta was part of the original team, Linds was saner, you get the idea. I was not especially fond of that version, but there was a conversation between Em and Linds that made it worth saving. That conversation was why I rewrote it, even if it didn't end up how I imagined. That conversation is Chapter 2 (which you don't need to read to get this part), just because I like it so much.
The Game
She held the gun, and she could not fathom life without it. Here, pain was everything, but it meant nothing. She lived to die, and died to live. It was an endless cycle, but she had chosen it- they all had. It was not slavery that had made them stay, even though it may have been slavery that had brought them here.
No ties bound them here, just their own madness.
She was no different.
Em cocked her gun and prepared to fire, her senses alert to the breaking point as she leaned around the corner, looking for the flash of red which would herald the approach of her enemy. She didn't wonder where Linds or Samantha was- she didn't wonder about anything at all. When the red came, she would shoot, or she would die- that was all that mattered.
That was her life.
That was all of their lives.
That was the way the game was played.
There- she saw the movement, and she pulled the trigger. The man fell hard, his chest a gaping hole, and she smiled as he disappeared over the edge of the platform. One down- she checked her wristband- twenty-four to go.
His blood had sprayed her blue uniform, soaking her hands and flecking her gun, but it didn't matter. Nothing mattered in the game except the killing. The adrenaline. And, if you were good enough, the winning.
-----
Em shuddered as she took in her team. She was soaked, and she could feel her uniform sticking to her body. Most of the blood wasn't hers and she could feel it penetrating her skin. Even she, however, wasn't as bloody as Linds, his dead eyes unreadable as he gazed past her at something only he could see. Samantha grinned tiredly at her.
"We won, Em," she said, her green eyes bright and her skin white against her dark clothing.
"Was there ever any doubt?" Em asked, trying to return the smile, only half succeeding.
The other woman shrugged as Jonathan and Gren entered. Gren sat down beside Linds, her black hair falling out of her braid. Ignoring his state of disaster, she leaned back against him, resting her head in his lap and closing her eyes. His hand drifted down to her hair, and he ran what remained of his fingers through it.
Suppressing another shudder- Linds was a god when it came to killing, but his mind was all but gone- Em turned to Jonathan. "What's our standing?"
The older man met her eyes. "If we win our next two matches, we're in the finals."
She nodded. "That's great news. What do you think, Sam?"
"Absolutely bloody lovely," Samantha said, baring her teeth in a feral half-sneer. "When's our next match?"
"Tomorrow, 0800 hours," Gren said, almost purring at Linds ministrations. "0800," Samantha breathed. "Bloody fucking wonderful."
Em nodded, her heart already pounding with adrenaline. "Get some rest, everyone," she ordered. "You'll need it."
That was the aftermath of the game.
-----
0800. Two teams- one red, one blue. There was no need to read the rules- there were no rules. Kill or be killed. Fight or die. Camp and make your location known to all. Get the ammo, get the power-ups, get the hell into the melee.
That was how to play the game.
And it was, really, no more than a game.
Everything else was secondary.
Em stood with Linds, Gren, Samantha, and Jonathan, waiting for the match to begin. She had stopped wondering, a long time ago, what the point of the game was.
The point of the game was the game itself. There was nothing but the game.
And she knew that the sad part was that they all believed that, and hadn't believed anything else for a long time.
-----
The match was hell. Em was seriously wounded, Linds nearly died permanently, Samantha had a chunk blown out of her side, Gren fell seven times, and Jonathan was still in surgery.
But they won, and, according to the game, that was all that mattered.
-----
As they recuperated in their rooms, waiting for the next sunrise and the next match, Em turned to Linds.
"Linds," she rasped, feeling as though her throat had been torn apart, "What the hell is wrong with us?"
He turned his false eyes to her, still looking past her. She held her breath as she waited, wondering if he would actually respond. In her almost ten years in the ranks, five of those on this team, she doubted that she had heard Linds speak more than twice.
For the first time, he looked directly at her, and Em could feel his black eyes boring into her. She was vaguely uncomfortable, and had to remind herself that he couldn't actually see her.
"We fear life," he whispered, his voice like a rusty gate. "We fear life."
For them there was no life- there was only the game.
-----
The morning dawned, pale pink and golden, but they didn't see it.
Em hadn't seen a sunrise in ten years. She would never see one again.
Linds had never seen a sunrise in the first place.
That afternoon, Gren died forever.
And, with that, the team shattered, but the game didn't change.
The game never changed.
-----
Samantha was joining another team. A red team. She hadn't wanted to leave but, all things considered, the team had failed Em. Therefore, Em need to start fresh- with a new team.
Jonathan had been injured again, and he wasn't expected to recover any time soon. He was out of the ranks, and he would probably never be back.
Linds was Linds. A hundred teams loathed him, and a hundred teams wanted him. It was always best to have the killer on your side.
Em was broken, but she was ready to try again. She had no choice. That was the game.
-----
Em surveyed her new team, her dark eyes wide. Shasta was new to the circuit, and she reeked of it. James was an old hand, and his entire team had just died- the last legacy of Em's old team. If you can't beat them, join them. Annah was half-woman, half-machine, and all killer. And for the last member- well, Linds was Linds, even if Em had to go practically head to head, alone, against another team to get him.
If only she had Samantha instead of Shasta, everything would have been perfect.
If... there was no time for ifs. There was only time for training, and their next match- their first as a unit- was painfully close, and the game made no exceptions for the unexperienced.
-----
They won, but it was close. Much too close for comfort, and Em's leadership was challenged by James. That was not an option. Conflict in a team could mean failure on the battlefield. And so, Em challenged James to a one-on-one challenge, and then she killed him permanently.
And so, Em got her way, and Samantha came back.
And no one noticed, because it was all part of the game.
-----
"Linds," Em said again, turning to her companion. They were showering, the red blood faded to pink and running down their skin as the hot water beat down on them. "Why are we afraid to live?"
She didn't expect an answer, and she nearly fainted as the shade of a ghastly smile passed over his face. For the forth time, he spoke to her, this time in complete sentences, his speech eloquent, if harsh.
"We fear to live because living means loving, caring, settling down and never leaving. This is our suicide." His face practically split in two as he smiled, his black eyes tearing her soul into a thousand tiny pieces.
"Our suicide?" she asked, meeting his gaze.
"Our suicide..." he whispered, his voice mocking her. "Our suicide, measured out in shallow cuts instead of deep ones. Our suicide, bound for neither heaven nor hell, but instead for darkness." He started to laugh, shaking as crimson tears ran down his dead face. "You understand, don't you, Em?"
She pulled away from him, wrapping a towel around herself as she turned away. Her voice, however, was as calm as ever. "Yes, Linds, I do."
-----
It was all just part of the game.
The game had already claimed them all. The only difference was that Em, Samantha, Shasta, Annah, Linds, even Jonathan- they were all still breathing. The body refused to accept the fate that the mind had already selected.
The game was just the path to that, the prelude to the end.
And yet, the game was simply itself, and nothing more.
It was endless, eternal, soulless.
It was the game, and it would always be the game.
Nothing would ever change.
That was the nature of the game.
Endnote: I like Linds. I find him very intriguing. A while ago, he had his own (incomplete) piece about how he got the Tournament and why he's blind. I learned how he was blinded soon after I wrote the first version of this piece- he ripped out his own eyes. Why? It's a rather long, twisted story. Needless to say, he has compensated quite well, but he was never mentally stable and now he's gone over the edge (in this version, at least).