Screams.

The sound of screams that filled my nightmares. I shook myself out of my stupor. We didn't have time for this. I could see the chemical fusing into their skin. This was… horrible. Listening to their screams, but soon it wore off and they were breathing heavily as their flesh felt the phantom pain of being stung by a million bees. Bloodhound had collapsed. I wasn't sure if they died or not. The other two were sitting there, mortified.

"Woah bruddah… Not even Caustic's gas burns that badly." The Somoan man grunted, his voice so raspy I could barely hear it. "I feel… wrong now."

I had to admire his grit, he was still pushing himself up. Tightly gripping the shotgun pistol.

"My condolences, then." I muttered as I shot him in the chest.

Octane was frozen on the spot. Not moving just kinda staring at the woman, who stared back. She nodded and let out an uneasy smile, and just sat down.

That was a forfeit if I ever saw one. I looked at my wrist-pad, I had six kills and was still not considered the Kill Leader again, Bangalore had four and Octane had two. So that means whoever this current Kill Leader was had at least six kills that were more efficient than mine. The sadistic part of my mind did not like that. It wanted me to be the head honcho. The best of the best. To show everyone how much better I was. The part that was trained into me by the Syndicate at a young age.

I hated that part. I knew it was going to resurface as soon as I joined the Games. I had hoped it wouldn't have, but it did.

"That was… intense, amigo." Octane muttered, "Not very Support-like if you ask me."

I continued to walk, "The best support I can give is a dead or neutralized enemy."

"I guess…"

"I'm sorry if I hurt your girlfriend, but here we have to dissociate. They are our target, and we must act accordingly. I will apologize and make amends later, but I'm sure the three of them understand."

Octane nodded, and began to follow. Bangalore had not broken stride with me at all. This woman truly was a professional. She knew what needed to be done and would respond in an appropriate manner.

I stared forward as I continued to walk. We didn't have time left for idle chit-chat. Our team had made it to the next ring. The artificial voice echoed throughout the canyon, announcing the beginning to the second round. The sound of gunfire echoed from beyond the cavern in front of us. Until suddenly, the panicked shots stopped. And there was silence.

"There is a new Kill Leader."

I looked over at the banners we passed by and saw him. The tall man in the yellow hazard suit.

Caustic.

"New Kill Leader, eh? Let's do something about that."

We rotated through the cave next to the Meat Market, and stepped out into the canyon proper. In front of us were a bunch of small shacks, with two rickety looking bridges crossing the canyon. I didn't trust those bridges at all, but I didn't want to traverse through the river below. That would just make us an easy target.

I heard heavy footsteps crossing the bridge, and coming out of the darkness was a tall man. He walked with a limp and was slightly slouched as if he were eternally exhausted. His dark hair was matted and long. Almost like he didn't care about his personal health.

It was the Kill Leader, Caustic.

He was alone though, his fist tightly clenched around something. He shoved that hand into one of the many pockets on his suit. His gait was unsteady, as if he was injured. He looked like he might topple over. Caustic noticed us and stopped, standing up a little straighter.

"More vermin. Wonderful. I thank you for providing me with more data." He grabbed something off of his belt.

It was a large yellow grenade. He coughed slightly, and as he pulled the pin a green gas began spewing from the sides. With a callous expression, Caustic threw forward the grenade. It clattered against the ground and began hissing as more green gas began slowing coming through. It filled the area around us and began to slowly sting.

My vision blurred and I stumbled forward. My chest felt tight. The air around me was heavy. Everything was slow and sluggish. I slowly stumbled out of the gas, holding my breath as the corrosive substance stung my skin and left it red. Caustic looked at me, his eyes cold and calculating.

His face was motionless behind the gas mask that he wore. I could tell this man felt nothing at what was happening. Not joy, not pain. This was completely impersonal. I stumbled out of the gas, my lungs and flesh burned.

I coughed up blood and collapsed to my knees. If my Blood Surge was worse than this, I felt bad for that squad who experienced it earlier. I pushed myself to my feet, I was not going to lose to this barely functional piece of degenerate scum.

Octane and Bangalore both collapsed, and Caustic stepped forward with a Wingman in hand and put a bullet in each of them. Their bodies went limp and a green glow came from their wrist pads. I stumbled towards him and shot him a couple times, his body glowed blue and I heard a shattering sound.

He turned towards me with an expression filled with complete and utter disregard for my existence. He punched me in the face, sending me back to my knees, and kicked my gun away from me, over the cliff and into the river. I heard it splash into the water below.

"You made an attempt on my life. Brave perhaps, but ill-conceived." He shook his head and aimed the Wingman at me.

"Ill-conceived, sounds like something your mother would say when you were born." I muttered.

He stopped briefly, "What?"

That brief stop was all I needed, I lunged for him and punched him in the face. The glass goggles on his gas mask cracked and he stumbled over the edge of the cliff. In the quick succession in which that all happened, he didn't have time to activate his jump jets and I heard a cracking sound as he hit the ground below.

"The Kill Leader has been eliminated. Attention, there is a new Kill Leader." The voice announced. I looked at the nearest banner, and saw it was me again.

"Kill Leader? Just my luck…"

I shook myself off and walked over to the bodies of my team. On each of their wrist pads was a glowing green chip. Out of curiosity, I picked it up. And immediately about fifty meters away, a symbol appeared on my map. It was a green diamond with a heart in the middle and two lines surrounded the heart.

A Respawn Beacon. I'd read about them in the manual. I had to insert these two chips into the Beacon and it would take about six seconds to activate and another few seconds for them to land. It was a risky play, because it was very obvious to everyone in the match, but it was also risky to try and play without a squad.

In the end, my decision was made. I ran towards the Beacon.

Hopefully I didn't regret this…

I stood in front of the massive red machine. A holographic green dropship hovered over it, and there was a small console with two slots for the chips. I inserted the chips into the slots and leaned against the machine as it counted down on the small screen. As soon as it hit one, the hologram disappeared and there was a flash of green light as a dropship appeared in the sky.

As it flew over where I was I finally rechecked my map. It was Round Four, and the ring was shrinking again. There were only two other squads left. One of them had to have been the champion squad, because I didn't hear anything about them being eliminated.

My two resurrected allies fell from the sky in front of me. Octane was brimming with adrenaline and Bangalore was stoic as always.

"Woah, what a rush!" He said, "Let's go get our stuff back!" He then pumped himself full of the chemical and ran towards his former resting place.

Bangalore and I followed at a much more sedate pace. As we approached where they died, there were crates sitting where their bodies used to be. I looked over the edge of the cliff and saw Caustic's body had also turned into a crate.

"Death Boxes. Legend's turn into them after a short time of being dead. But only if they're crowd favorites like we are." Bangalore said, noticing my gaze. "Any FNG's, they just die."

"So not only do many people have to go through initiation matches, but if they actually make it into the Games, they could just actually die anyway?" I asked.

She nodded.

"Stupid system. What if they're just unlucky? All the loot and stuff is RNG based, right?" I asked.

"Sucks for them, they either win or don't." She replied.

I hummed. I didn't quite like that answer, but it was an answer for sure. As they opened their Death Boxes and looked through, I heard the sound of footsteps. I turned my head slightly and saw a man running towards me, it was one of the members of the Champion Squad, Mirage. I aimed the Wingman that Caustic dropped at him and pulled the trigger. His form flickered.

"Bamboozled! Bam-bam-boozle!" The hologram said as it faded.

Holographic Trickster. Duh.

With the shot of the pistol my two squadmates leapt to their feet and surveyed the area. I glanced around and saw a zipline. Riding on it was Mirage, and the Champion himself, Pathfinder.

But where was Wraith?

A cold sensation emanated from behind me. And the barrel of an R-301 Carbine was planted in my back.

"Not this time."

Well shit.