No... I can't. I can't keep running from my problems. I can't solve everything by removing myself. "Mai. This one's for you."

Sven turned to Cecil, only to see no Cecil. He turned back to face the boundary. "Hunh? Did I really take that long?" he asked, as if the boundary could answer him. He ran along the edge of the map towards the very western part, in the direction they were originally headed.

"Damnit."

Gideon’s heart leapt as he heard Adrian’s voice over the com system. After such a harrowing set of encounters, meeting a friend was just about the last thing he had expected. It did a man good to have an ally, especially one that he immediately felt that he could trust. If their interaction in the Incandescent Labs parking lot had been any indication, then Adrian was a good kid. And though something that Gideon could not pinpoint was different than it had been when they met, he could rest assured that there would be no betrayals here.

“Duuuude,” the drummer replied, elated. “Am I glad to see you, coffee man.” “I’m in a bit of a bind, though, bro,” he added, his attention returning to the unfortunate state of his proxy. He turned around to give Adrian a better view of his predicament, gesturing as spoke. “I can’t adjust the magnets on my stubs anymore, and this grenade is armed. Some bloke thought it would be funny to booby trap me. Unless I can figure out a way to sever one of my arms quickly after setting it off, I’m not sure what to do.”

Instance 1 (Jean, Amber)

As Jean opened fire, he managed to land a single clean hit before his aggressor quickly followed suit. Bullets from both of her guns, with their very much not empty magazines, riddled his proxy, rendering his Baselard inoperable and causing severe damage to his left arm and torso. Fortunately, her volley was cut short as a bullet pierced her head module, saving Jean’s proxy from being destroyed entirely. The body disappeared, the dust settled, and then… nothing. No more gunfire from the newcomer, no mysterious voice over the com. However, a cursory look at the map revealed a single dot nearby. Upon further examination, it seemed the group of four from earlier had split up, and two of them were now headed in Jean's direction.

***

“Actually,” Penelope spoke up as Amber finished speaking. “I’d, uhm… I’d like to stay with Jack, if at all possible.” Tiana gave the girl a meaningful look, but stopped when she realized nobody could see her face.

“No, Amber’s right. If we’re going to split up, that’s probably the best way to do it. Don’t worry, Amber is a very capable fighter.”

“But didn’t you said she-“

“Shush, it’s fine.”

Reluctantly, the girl joined Amber, and the two headed out into the rocky territory. Meanwhile, Tiana and Jack hunkered down behind some cover near the river and waited quietly, for all of five seconds.

“She’s totally into you, man.” Tiana said. Jack didn’t respond. He simply continued to stare at the tree line on the opposite bank, glancing at the map every few seconds to get a bead on his targets.


10 contestants remain.

__________
Instance 2 (Sven, Gideon, Adrian)

It didn’t take Sven long to catch up with Cecil, who was walking along the edge of the map at a leisurely pace. As the two continued onward, there were signs of movement along the tree line.

“Aha. You think you are clever, staying out of our range. However, I can assure you that your cowardly tactics will only postpone the inevitable!” The voice from before jeered.

“This was supposed to be a simple ambush. You and your damned flair for the theatrical.” The other chimed in.

“Yes, well. You’re a stick in the mud.”

“Ugh. What a mess. Hey, you two!” She called, addressing Sven and Cecil. “We’re sorry about trying to kill you and all. It would probably be much easier for everyone if we just teamed up. What do you say?”

“What?! Come on, sis. It was supposed to be just you and me. The dynamic duo!"

“Well, maybe you should’ve thought of that before you blew our cover. Would you rather we just leave them be and move on?"

***

“Oh. Heh. That’s pretty interesting.” Adrian chuckled. “It’s fine. A problem readily solved. Just disengage one of your arms. If they’re anything like the legs, you should be able to pop ‘em off just by thinking about it. Simple as shooting."


14 contestants remain

Well. Well.

As he lay motionless, Jean couldn't decide what to be incredulous of first: the fact that he was still in the game, or his mind-boggling stupidity.
Did he really think he could count the rounds of automatic firearms by ear? Imbécile! It would have been infinitely less risky to simply accept the woman's offer and stab her in the back when the opportunity presented itself. Instead, his unremitting stubbornness had now quite literally cost him an arm and a leg. To make matters worse, the rocky half of the map was getting crowded again! A battle-torn proxy was no match for another pair of opponents, and there wasn't going to be anyone to save his bacon this time around. Jean was going to have to talk himself out of this one.

Dragging his half-functioning robotic carcass towards the rocky wall, the mechanic prepared to greet the approaching proxy pilots as soon as they were in communication range.

As she and Penelope approached the overlooking hill she had indicated, Amber lowered herself to the ground lying prone with her Longsword pointing towards the position her map told her the enemy proxies were approaching from. Amber could tell that Penelope was nervous so she decided to try and reassure her.
"Don't worry dear, I'll protect you. Now lets kick some a**." Amber said then winked. She then realized that Penelope had no way of knowing that.
Penelope shrugged and laid down and aimed towards the same relative position as Amber. Amber was about to say more when she saw movement across the lake.
"Jack, Tiana, We've got movement across the lake." Amber said confident the enemy units across the river wouldnt be able to hear. She steadied her rifle and got ready to fire.

Instance 1 (Jean, Amber)

As Jean closely watched the map, the two proxies headed his way halted their approach, made a small loop, and stopped in what appeared to be a small incline overlooking the river. It seemed they would leave him alone for the time being.

Now all that remained was to deal with the mystery shooter, who still had yet to speak or make a move.

"Hmm."

Never mind.

"Yer a quiet one, eh?" A voice rasped over the comm. "Guess I'll have to break the ice. I didn't have to save you y'know. Probably would've been smarter to side with the young lady you just spurned, seeing as how her proxy is... er, was in pristine condition. Not to mention she seemed more cooperative. Yer just so much more entertaining, though." The man gave a hoarse chuckle before continuing. "Anyways, I've got a proposition. We both made it this far on our own, somehow, but I don't think that's gonna work anymore. What would you say to a bit of collaboration? Oh, and I'd prefer an answer in English rather than bullets, if you don't mind."

***

To everyone's surprise, a single proxy burst from the tree line in a dash for the river. It got no further than a single step before another proxy reached out and latched onto its leg, tripping it, and then dragging its prone chassis back into the underbrush.

"Are you f*** insane!?" A shout emanated from the forest, though no further exchanges followed. For several long moments, all was quiet.

What broke the silence was neither a voice nor a gunshot. Rather, a small, round object flew from the woods and rolled to a stop. The subsequent explosion kicked a large chunk of dirt and debris into the air, obscuring everyone's vision of the riverbank. Everyone opened fire, but nobody could tell if any of their shots hit the mark. At any rate, they certainly hadn't disabled the target, as another grenade flew from within the cloud, landing directly behind the rocks Jack and Tiana had ducked behind. The two immediately scattered, both narrowly managing to escape the blast radius. However, the explosion had rendered their cover useless, and they were now taking fire from the enemy proxies, who were shooting from the relative safety of the forest. With no apparent cover in the immediate vicinity The two were forced to retreat out of the enemies' range. A few bullets peppered their proxies as they ran, leaving one of Tiana's legs partially impaired.

As the dust settled, the proxy that had thrown the grenade could be seen running back toward the trees.

Son of a b**** Amber thought as she saw the first grenade explode. Why did we never think of that. She held her fire searching for a target. Then the second grenade hit the ground between Jack and Tiana. However, she kept her attention on the dust cloud on the opposite side of the river. As the cloud dissipated she saw the silhouette or the proxy that had thrown the grenade running towards the tree line.
Heh gotcha now. Amber thought as she led her target, then she fired a three round burst and watched to see if she hit her target.

"Other than the otherwise loud one you two seem to keep well hidden. That said, I actually like the loud one better," Sven called out to the forest. "Kinda reminds me of.... my wife actually. She was going to come out here with me but ended up getting called in to work. Stupid mass labor jobs." Sven muttered the last part, almost to himself.

Turning to Cecil, Sven said: "I'm cool with them around. Unlike that last one, these two don't seem to superimpose their will like stereotypical bossy women."

"You cool?"

Eh misère. This guy was a character.

Jean wasn't particularly fond of the idea of being someone's "entertainment", but by all accounts it seemed he was going to have no choice in the matter. Raspy McHoarsevoice was obviously a good shot and probably wouldn't take too kindly to the mechanic dragging himself off without a word. As many doubts as Jean had about the man's motivation for choosing such a crippled proxy as a partner, collaborating sounded much better than the alternative. Perhaps it would do him some good to know that someone was at least pretending to watch his back.

"If you're numskulled enough to be happy with a cripple for a team mate, suit yourself, 'partner'.
I'll have you know that I was doing just fine before you stepped in and blew my arm to pieces."

“Wait, wha-”

Gideon’s sentence was cut short by the dull thud of his proxy’s arms hitting the ground. They had disconnected the moment the thought crossed his mind, as was to be expected of machine parts operating on Incandescent’s incredible neural interface. Now there was a feature that would have come in handy earlier. It wasn’t much use worrying about it now, however. The past was, good or bad, and it remained untouchable. The future, on the other hand, was ever malleable, and with a soon-to-be mostly-functioning mecha and an ally, the drummer’s prospects of making it to the final four of the game were looking better every moment.

*plink*

The sound of metal on metal brought with it the terrible realization of what had just transpired. As Gideon looked down in horror, his mind filled in what the body of his proxy hid from view. The moment that his improvisationally-handcuffed arms had been disconnected from his proxy’s body, they had also lost their power source. The swiftly demagnetized alloy of his nubs had lost its pull while Gideon rejoiced, allowing the live grenade to break free and roll down the subtle incline on which the drummer stood. How long had the thing been active? Three seconds? Four? There it was. The moment that hope dared show its face, misfortune had poked its eyes out with a rusty fork and taken its place. Gideon dove. It was probably too late, but if any shred of the luck that had been with him up until that point remained, perhaps his head module would survive. It was his only shot.

Instance 1 (Jean, Amber)

"Heh heh." The man chuckled. "Could've fooled me, but whatever you say. Now, we need to act quickly if we want to have any chance at surviving this. I've been watching the map, and the two larger teams that are left seem to be fighting at the river. Ideally, they'd wipe each other out, but it's more likely that if left alone they'll either join forces once enough combatants have been eliminated, or one of the teams will curb stomp the other with few or no losses. Either way, that's bad news for us. There's a bright side, though. The team of four has split up into two groups. If we can sneak up on one of those groups, we can take them out of the equation and level the playing field a bit."

He paused as if expecting Jean to jump into action.

"Or, you know. We don't have to do that."

***

The proxy Amber had shot at stumbled as bullets ripped through its left arm and leg, rendering them useless. However, it still managed to hop to safety.

"Ha haaa, worth it!" A cheerful voice chirped over the communicator.

"It's no good!" Jack sighed. "We can't get any closer. There's no suitable cover left that we can reach. You two are on your own for now."

"Damn iiit." Tiana chimed in. "I wanted to kill some things." Jack continued, ignoring the statement.

"There are still two contenders behind us. If they attack now, we're done for. We can't fight a battle like this on two fronts. I think we should fall back and try to mop up those other two proxies."

"Um, I agree!" Penelope replied, apparently feeling the need to give her two cents for some reason.


Still 10 folks alive and kicking, come on guys.


Instance 2 (Sven, Gideon, Adrian)

"Yeah, I'm super cool. The coolest." Cecil responded. Without hesitation, he began walking toward the siblings. However, Sven got the strange feeling that something was amiss. Before he could make a move, there was an explosion where the twins were standing. Two elimination alerts sounded as the scattered pieces of their proxies disappeared.

Cecil instinctively raised his Longsword toward the source of the explosion and fired, but none of his shots found purchase on the unseen threat. In response, two clean shots flew from the forest, striking his Longsword and his head module in quick succession. His proxy fell to one knee.

"Oh, come now. You're making this too easy!" A sinister voice emanated from the shadows. "Surely you can offer at least some challenge. Entertain me!"

***

As Gideon's arms hit the ground, Adrian dashed forward, if it could be described as dashing. With no more than a second to spare, he kicked the grenade, sending it flying toward the edge of the map. It went off harmlessly in mid-air. Meanwhile, Adrian's momentum carried his other foot out from under him, causing his proxy to fall on its butt.

"Whew." The boy exhaled, standing unsteadily to his feet. There was a harsh screech of metal against metal as he instinctively tried to brush himself off, to little effect. With that out of the way, he moved to where Gideon had taken a dive and offered him a hand up.


12 contestants remain or somesuch.

Jean glanced at the map. The man was right, the team on the near side of the river had split in half, at least for the moment. This would undoubtedly be the best moment to strike, had his proxy been in working condition. Unfortunately, the machine was in far too pitiful a state to even consider a stealth operative.

"'fraid any and all 'sneaking around' will have to be done by yourself. I can hardly move, much less move quietly. More importantly, I'm worried about that lone sap over in the top corner. I'm not sure how long you've been stalking me, but I left my grenades around this hill. I'm not exactly privy to the thought of having them stolen and chucked at us while we skulk arou- "

The mechanic paused, stunned by the proxy's unresponsiveness. He had meant to gesture towards the approximate emplacement of his grenades with his left arm, but the limb barely moved. This was going to take some getting used to.

"Anyway, what do you say I drag my carcass bot to a more defensible position while you collect the grenades? After that, I can keep an eye on things while you play ninja."

Amber took a minute to mewl over their tactical situation. If we stay we run the risk of being attacked from behind, but if we move we will definitely be attacked from across the river.
"Jack, why don't you and Penny go take care of the two behind us while T and I hold position and keep those guys from crossing. I don't want those three across the river to be able to follow us with impunity." Amber said just loud enough for her team to hear.
Amber would knew from experience that Tiana was a capable markswomen and that she herself was the best shot in there group, therefore they were best suited to holding the other 3 off. Plus trying to separate Jack from Penelope would just make Penelope mad and therefore less effective.
"Also if either of you two have any extra grenades, I would be very grateful if you shared."

"Verdammt Cecil! Du bist ein Trottel!"

Being an adept gamer, Sven turned his head in the direction of the shots and prepared his modded weaponry. With Longsword readied and grenade in hand...stub...thing, Sven sidestepped to Cecil and examined him.

"It appears the visor has been damaged. Can you see anything? Your Longsword also appears useless now."

Cecil, you are a moron.

Whenever Gideon used the word lucky, it tended to be in the past tense. He considered himself fortunate for having been a part of Soaktorch, and he was grateful for the friends he had made and the experiences they had shared. But beyond that point, and with the exception of being able to meet the minimum requirements of keeping himself clothed and fed, he had not considered himself a particularly lucky person. Sure, he had a functioning, healthy body. That counted for something too. But lucky? No. Not him. Not anymore. Not until just now.

He was still alive, still in the game, and still in one piece. Mostly. It as a miracle. He wasn’t certain if his arms had survived the explosion, but it was reason enough to celebrate that Adrian’s quick thinking had saved his primary modules. In the periphery of his proxy’s vision he spotted his saviour offering him a hand up. Heh. The kid was an angel, if a little bit oblivious.

“Hey, thanks for the save, bro,” came Gideon’s voice across the com system, a little bit dizied. “Nice reactions you got there.”

A short pause. Seemed like Adrian still had yet to notice.

“I, uh… I would give you a hand, but, uh. I’m kinda short on arms at the moment.