After a few seconds of free falling, the jetpack strapped to my back kicked in. I regained control and followed Octane and Bangalore, they seemed to know where to land. I risked a glance at Octane and saw him randomly pointing to locations and as he muttered something beneath his breath and then beckoned his hand for us to follow.

We landed in a town underneath what looked to be a massive skeleton. The buildings were all ramshackle and the town had definitely seen better days.

"Really Octane? You bring the newbie to Skull Town!" Bangalore yelled over the sound of sudden gunfire.

Octane laughed maniacally, "No better place to start than the hot-zone! Welcome to the Apex Games, amigo!"

The two of them pushed into a building, and both grabbed a gun. Octane wielded a Wingman revolver and Bangalore had managed to find herself a G7 Scout which she was hurriedly inspecting. What did I find? A couple extra syringes and a Frag Grenade. Great.

A quick glance at the nearby house gave me the view of a VK-47 Flatline. Not my favorite weapon to use, but it'd do in a pinch. The only problem? Another person was rushing for it.

Couldn't have that.

"I'm going for that Flatline!" I yelled to my squadmates, "Cover me!"

Bangalore nodded and pulled the blocky gun off of her back and loaded a canister in. She pulled the trigger and launched it towards the building covering the area with thick smoke. Now or never, I pulled the pin on the grenade and tossed it towards the smoke. The explosion echoed throughout the town and I took that moment to move.

I dashed through the street and leapt through the window, the enemy and I made contact with it at the exact same time. Shit. I yanked the gun towards me which pulled the other one towards me.

"Oscar Mike, I'm spotted!" I heard Bangalore yell over comms.

"I'm going in!" Octane then let out a battle cry, "Woo, that's got a kick!"

My team was outside in a firefight of their own, so I couldn't rely on them. I didn't have enough time to grab the gun so I leaned forwards and clamped my teeth on his arm. Causing him to scream in pain as I swept his legs out from underneath him and grabbed the Flatline. Only one clip? That's all I needed. Two others pushed in at the sounds of his screams. I pulled the trigger and filled the first with bullets, and quickly maneuvered myself to shoot the second one.

The original one, slowly stood up and grabbed the Alternator his ally dropped and aimed it at me. I pulled the trigger and heard the dreaded sound.

Click click click.

"Ah shit… truce?" I tried.

He seemed incredulous, "Truce? You fucking bit me!"

"Okay, and?"

His confusion was all it took for me to push the advantage. I did something probably stupid, but if I could get his other allies EVA-8, he'd be dead. So I threw the Flatline at his face. Slid forward, grabbed the shotgun and unloaded an entire drum into his back. He dropped dead.

"There is a new Kill Leader."

The gunfire outside had ceased, I looked outside and saw Bangalore knelt down and panting. Octane was rapidly moving around and searching the bodies. One of the banners that I could see showed the Champion squad of Pathfinder, Mirage, and Wraith. It then shifted and showed me, a skull with a crown on it sat next to my name.

Octane saw where I was looking and laughed, "Check out mi amigo, the new Kill Leader!"

"Maybe you got what it takes after all, kid." Bangalore stood up and nodded.

"Uhh… Thanks?" I looked at the map display on my wrist pad, "We're pretty far from the next ring. So we should get moving unless we want to get melted."

Bangalore looked at her wrist pad, which had a map of the arena and nodded. We had a few minutes to travel several hundred meters. No pressure. We walked through the little shanty town underneath the massive skull, many corpses littered the ground. This was… intense. The most worrisome part about this entire thing though, wasn't the murder and the guilt. It was the lack of emotion over this.

After all, this is just a sport. They knew what they were getting into and it just so happened to end with me emptying bullets into them.

The walk was going to be long and boring. Neither of my team-mates were exactly the type for socializing. Octane seemed like an alright guy, just impatient and not really one for small-talk. Bangalore, I was afraid would shoot me if I tried talking.

As we walked through the open terrain of King's Canyon, I heard the sounds of gunfire.

"There is a new Kill Leader."

"New Kill Leader," Bangalore looked at the banners with a small grin, "If they're gettin' cocky, they're gettin' sloppy."

Octane groaned, "I don't care about the Kill Leader right now, I'm booooored."

"It's been like five minutes, dude." I said.

"Exactly! That's five minutes too long, amigo!" He threw down a small green pad that expanded, and then shot himself full of the green substance, "Let's go find some action!"

He then sprinted towards the Jump Pad and slid into it, sending him flying forward and onto the roof of a small building. Which he leapt off of.

"Shit, uh… hey chica. Crazy meeting you here, eh?" Octane's voice came over the comms.

Gunshots rang out and Bangalore and I made eye contact. I fully sprinted into the Jump Pad and went flying, Bangalore hot on my heels. I slammed into the roof and rolled off with a grunt landing in between Octane who was running away and a dark skinned girl with dyed hair, a small drone hovered next to her.

"Smoke, smoke, smoke!"

A smoke canister came flying from Bangalore who was landing in a slide. I scrambled to my feet and ran in the direction Octane went, vaulting over the rock he was hiding behind. He was laughing.

"Oh, what a rush! You need to work on your landings, brother."

"And you need to work on your communication skills."

"Ladies, we have bigger problems!" Bangalore yelled.

She pulled a small canister off of her belt and tossed it on the opposite side of the rock.

"Arty on my mark. Firin' for effect."

"Arty, who the hell is Arty?" I muttered.

Then I heard it. Rockets falling from the sky. Artillery. A rolling thunder barrage of missiles slammed into the ground between us and them. No way any of them survived this. The sound alone was deafening. This was likely to invite other people to show up. A big glowing sign saying BIG FIGHT HERE.

So we had to wrap this up quickly. I peaked over the rock and saw a massive glowing blue shield, two of them. One was more of a dome and the other was a barrier. The barrier vanished and the heavily garbed figure who was carving on the drop ship stood up. They looked around and the two of us made eye contact.

That was a mistake, they pointed at me and then there was a loud shrieking sound and they immediately ran towards me, a bright orange flash came our way.

"Uh-oh, we pissed Bloodhound off." Octane muttered.

Bloodhound? Great. I didn't know anything about this person, but with a name like that we weren't getting away from them.

"Smoke?" I suggested.

"No use, they can see through it when they get like this." Bangalore said.

"Great." I looked at my Flatline, and shrugged, "Fuck it. We got nuts. Stay close to me."

I mantled over the rock and ran towards Bloodhound, they paused slightly. Probably used to people turning tail and running when this happened. Little did they know, I didn't care. The hesitation didn't last long enough for anyone to capitalize on, as they quickly recovered.

They pulled out an R-99. Inaccurate, but a beamer if I got in close range. So I stopped running and started firing at them, their teammates were close behind. The big Somoan man threw down his dome and pushed out with a Mozambique in hand, a holographic shield came over his torso and head. The last one ran out and slid into the dome with a Hemlock, she grinned slightly at Octane and aimed her weapon at him.

Bloodhound was glaring hatefully at Bangalore, and the big man who looked so kind in the drop ship had a face of steel as he stared me down. Well, here goes nothing. This was gonna suck a lot and I probably would only be able to do this in the fight, but we needed it. It was kind of a stalemate in terms of people acting. Even though we'd only engaged for like twelve seconds, that was still a long time. I felt the needles dig further into my body and my head got light, a small red orb of liquid appeared in my hand.

"Apologies in advance!" I yelled as I threw the orb right as the dome dropped.

It hit the ground and nothing happened.

"Was… was that supposed to do something?" Octane whispered.

I nodded and suddenly the orb expanded and surged outward, until it popped and covered all of the enemy team with my blood mixed with a toxic chemical.