“Considering you haven’t shot me yet, man, I think you have enough reasons of your own,” Gideon remarked. It was a fair counter-argument, considering the events that had led up to the immediate predicament, and the drummer was banking on his captor-turned-mutual-hostage still being level-headed enough to realize that despite being taken off guard. Still, a failsafe was in order.

“But in case that doesn’t do it for you, broheim,” he added, “I’m also pulling just about as hard as I can to get my arms apart, and I think they’re pretty close to signing the papers, if you catch my drift. If you don’t want us both to go sky high, I say we take turns answering each other’s questions.” Gideon paused for the briefest of moments, making a quick mental check to ensure that he wasn’t missing anything important by immediately addressing the elephant in the room. Nope, that was pretty much it. He would think of more questions afterwards. For now, all he wanted was a confirmation of what he thought was already rather obvious. Without giving his new bosom buddy any space to object to the update to the terms of their arrangement, Gideon laid it out simply.

“Let’s cut straight to it, yeah? By any rights I should be dead and gone by now, but I’m still here. The only reason for that is ‘cause you haven’t put a bullet through my head yet. Why not?”

Gideon finished his sentence with a smile. This artificially high-stakes combat had managed to be completely different from what he had expected, but also twice as fun as he had dreamed. At present, he could not help but feel a little bit like a disk jockey. His gamble had paid off, and the tables…

...had turned.

"Eh. I'm not worried about it. A dead person... er... robot is a happy person... er... robot."

Sven walked over to the proxy with his armblade and carved lightly into the back of the head the four letters SVMO. "Makes it easy to identify which one is ours." Sven found a crease in the proxy and popped the head right open. Cecil asked Sven "What're you doing?" to which Sven quickly replied "Trying to figure out how the system works. I'm not entirely sure how well virtualized this environment is or whether this will actually work or not, but if everything goes well, remote control should be a thing." Before Sven continued on the proxy, however, he detached the longsword from the arm, and subsequently attached it to his left arm, under the armblade. He then kept working.

"You're a lot cooler when you come in with two guns blazing, instead of just one."

If Jean's proxy was sprinting at full speed, his mind was racing faster still.
Dissatisfied with the results from his grenade experiment, he mulled over what he'd learned and concluded from firing at the explosive. Pre-arming the grenade would be dangerous, for sure, but it wouldn't be an issue as long as he could guarantee the system would stay put until shot. Luckily, there was an easy solution: magnets. Using the electromagnetic stubs on the proxy's arms was out of the question of course, but the magnets used as grenade holsters would be ideal. They'd be easy to hack off with the left arm's blade, strong enough to hold the grenade's safety, and, best of all, unlikely to be of any use in any quantity larger than the amount of grenades he had on hand.

Before the mechanic could stop to tinker, however, 8 elimination notifications popped up on his screen. It was worrying that 8 opponents could be offed all at once - probably the handiwork of a skilled group working together - but with no way to tell where the combat had taken place, Jean couldn't do much to plan to avoid the victors. Come to think of it, he didn't know where he was going at all. Even if he didn't feel the strain of physical exertion while controlling the machine, he couldn't keep running forever. Running meant a lack of cover, and a lack of cover meant being shot at and eliminated. Unfortunately, the potential final destinations for Jean's sprinting session were rather one dimensional: The forest was less than ideal, likely already the territory of proxies waiting in ambush, and hiding at the bottom of the river would completely limit his movement and vision. He'd ruled out the center clearing long ago, so it seemed he would have to make do with the rocky landscape in which he started.

The trouble with his boulderstrewn position was that it was currently also occupied by his pursuants. They'd fallen a significant ways behind however, still darting around as if expecting a trap.

- "Well then," Jean thought, an invisible smirk appearing on his face. "Wouldn't want to disappoint."

The mechanic set to work immediately. He had ample time to prepare, and so meticulously started creating his newly-imagined long-range grenade activation devices. Careful not to damage the machine's chassis, he used the proxy's retractable blade to chop off the three grenade holsters on his left side. As delicately as he could manage with magnetic stubs for arms, he extracted the magnets, made sure they stuck reliably to his inert grenades, then armed and immediately stop-gaped each of the explosives' fuses. Satisfied with the lack of grenades exploding in his face, Jean concluded that his crafting had been successful: as far as he could tell, everything was working as intended.

Now remained the problem of deploying the explosives. The pair of proxies was still a ways in the distance, so Jean figured he could still afford to spend some time strategically hiding his grenades. He looked around for a cliff, somewhere difficult to approach without passing through an obvious path. Much to his frustration however, there weren't any really ideal drop offs in sight. He'd have to settle for a nearby elevated stretch of rock. It could be approached from all sides, but luckily, only the north and southwest faces were easy going. The rest were full of oddly shaped rocks, large enough that a proxy would have a hard time stepping over them quickly. Jean prudently hid a grenade beside each of the easy paths, then placed the third someway between himself and the approaching opponents. If they came at him directly and everything else went according to plan, he'd have a good shot at eliminating them then and there.

His work done, Jean sat down at the top of the elevated rock plateau, reloaded his Longsword, and waited.

As they walked, Amber and her new friend chatted. Amber learned that her partners name was Tiana and a few other things about the woman, for example they were the same age.
Now that she finally had a few moments to breath, she realized just how detailed the simulation was. she couldn't fathom the processing power that was required to make such a visual.

They finally reached a clearing when they saw a group of other proxies have a brief firefight.
“Hah, wow. What a bunch of morons, am I right?” Tiana said. Amber was about to respond in agreement when Tiana yelled for her to get down.
Without even thinking she dropped to the ground and rolled behind a nearby tree. In her ear, she heard Tiana release a stream of profanities.
f***, yeah that's about right Amber thought in agreement. "Tiana flank them, I'll cover you." she said through their private link. She then leaned out from behind the tree and released a stream of automatic fire towards where the enemy proxies were. She saw one of them that had been trying to sneak up on them leap behind cover, she also saw Tiana get into position and open fire on the proxies.

Instance 2 Sven

So much noise, he thought to himself with a cruel smile as he observed the proxies from afar. It made them such delightful targets, quite unaware that they had drawn attention to themselves with all their banging about and carrying a proxy. Truly, it made them quite easy to follow, easy to hunt. From the safety of the treeline, he fired bullets harmlessly into the air. He would let them know that they were being hunted. It made it so much more fun.

Instance 1 (Jean, Amber)

As Jean laid in wait, he heard the approaching footsteps come to a stop. For a while, there was no movement from them at all. Eventually, they decided to proceed, one of them taking the lower path while the other opted to cross the more rugged terrain. Recognizing the importance of staying spread out, they resumed closing in on the mechanic’s location. It remained unclear as to whether they actually knew where he was.

***

Moving as swiftly and stealthily as possible for a proxy, Tiana deftly circled around the enemies, concealed by branches and shrubbery. As she made her approach, she peeked around a tree and saw the one-armed proxy sitting with its back against a trunk. The young woman quickly took aim and fired a burst in its direction, but before she could land a hit, the other proxy appeared from the other side of her tree and knocked her weapon aside. This pair had been keeping a close eye on their flanks.

Tiana and the enemy proxy both extended their daggers and engaged in a grappling match, each struggling to gain the advantage while strategically preventing the other from landing a clean hit. The enemy had wisely positioned itself on the opposite side of Tiana from Amber’s position, and on top of that, it seemed to have her outclassed. It would only be a matter of time before it overpowered her. “Gah! Ballsack!” She yelled in frustration.

Things weren’t much better on Amber’s end. She hadn’t been able to get a clear visual on the proxy that was now attacking her partner, and now she was playing peek-a-boo with the one-armed proxy as they exchanged potshots with each other to no real end. Things took a turn for the worse as an active grenade landed about two meters from Amber’s position. Always with the grenades.


13 contestants remain.

__________
Instance 2 (Sven, Gideon, Adrian)

Cecil spun around as several gunshots split the air. “What the…?” He sputtered as he realized that there was no one in sight. There was no elimination alert either. Were the shots meant as a signal of some kind? “It sounds like we’ve got company.” He said, his expression tightening.

***

The proxy sighed as Gideon spoke, lowering his weapon. “You want to know why I haven’t offed you yet? Fine. To be honest, I just thought it’d be nice to have someone on my side in all this. That’s why I shot the proxy in the legs before, so he’d stop running away while I was trying to talk to him. That’s why I left your arms in tact, so that you could still be useful. Perhaps my methods are a bit… forceful. I guess I just can’t bring myself to trust anyone.” Without warning, the proxy shoved Gideon with both arms. The force was enough to separate the magnets from his torso and send the young man reeling forward. However, no attack followed. By the time Gideon had turned around, the proxy had disappeared among the debris. He spoke one more time. “It’s obvious I’m not much of a team player. I’ll be better off on my own. The next time we cross paths, I will not hesitate to destroy you.” With that, the communication line was cut off. Further correspondence would be impossible.

After a few seconds of silence, the air was punctuated by a gunshot from a new source, a bullet striking the ground a few feet from where Gideon stood. The easygoing drummer simply couldn’t catch a break. Not too far away was a solo proxy that seemed to be fiddling with its Baselard. A brief moment passed before it looked up, locked eyes… cameras?… with Gideon’s proxy, and ran off around a corner.


15 contestants remain.

Oh, fantastic. After an interminable period in which the pair of proxies hadn't moved an inch, they'd decided to split up right before walking within range of the farthest grenade Jean had placed. It was unlikely that they'd seen him place the explosive - given how often those cowards hid behind cover, it was impressive that they'd managed to keep track of him at all - but losing his opportunity to end the encounter as early as possible was frustrating to say the least. This whole simulation had taken up entirely too much time already, and if any of the other "tests" were going to be as intolerably lengthy, Jean was going to miss his second shift. It was time to get to work.

The opponent who had taken the rock-ribbed path was still well out of firing range and would likely remain as such for a while, given how slowly he was progressing through the craggy landscape. Meanwhile, however, the proxy who had chosen the non-obstacled passage was approaching steadily. Confident in his preparations, Jean descended into a prone position and took his aim. Not at his opponent: rather, at the grenade he'd placed on his opponent's way. If the mechanic's observations had taught him anything regarding his pursuants' mannerisms, it was that they were all too happy to duck for cover at a moment's notice. Jean had only to wait until the closest hiding place was the one in front of which he'd placed his trap, then fire in the proxy's general direction. The grenade would take care of the rest.

The moment of truth having arrived, he loosed round after Longsword round at his prepared device, not stopping until he was quite sure he had knocked the magnet off the fuse.

Crap, Amber screamed in her head, Grenade!!!! Acting quickly Amber leaped to her right, rolling as soon as she hit the ground. She rose behind another tree, thankful that they were still in the forest. She heard a BOOM as the grenade detonated but her tree protected her from the explosion.
I have to end this quickly, Tiana may be in trouble Amber thought as she ran through her options. Then she noticed something, a small indentation in the ground at the base of the tree her enemy was using for cover. She thought back to Sebastian at the beginning of the match and silently grinned to herself. Priming her last grenade she aimed carefully at the indentation and threw it. She watched long enough to see it land perfectly in the indention before ducking back behind her cover and waited for it to detonate.

As Sven looked up nonchalantly and with no regard to importance, he glanced over at the panicked Cecil. "Whoever it is it's their fault they shot. Now we know that they're around. Keep a keen eye out. They have to be visible to shoot. It's really hard to shoot with your eyes closed." Sven went back to work on the proxy.

"I could use some tunes right now. Does the simulation have that functionality?"

Instance 1 (Jean, Amber)

As expected, the encroaching proxy ducked behind cover as Jean fired on it. Seconds later, it dove desperately from behind the rock. However, it was too slow to clear the grenade's blast radius, and the explosion launched its body several feet. It landed prone, its right arm bent backwards, and quickly dragged itself out of Jean’s sightline. A few seconds later, a notification sounded.

The other proxy was making surprisingly good time across the rocks, having picked up the pace when it noticed Jean’s attention was elsewhere. Bullets whizzed past the mechanic’s proxy as it fired wildly with its Baselard, but all of the shots missed him by a very wide margin. It was a safe assumption that the enemy knew his general position, but couldn’t actually see him.

***

Tiana and the enemy proxy continued to wrestle as Amber fought. It was apparent she wouldn’t be able to hold out for much longer.
“Take that other one out, quick! I need help over here, dammit!” She called over the communicator.

One-arm fired a burst with their Longsword as Amber ran from the grenade, managing to land a few hits in non-vital areas, then began to reload their gun. However, as they did so, a muffled blast came from the other side of their cover. Peeking around their tree to see what was going on, it took a moment for them to realize that the tree itself was falling. Panicking, the proxy ran into the open, moving to cover that was closer to its partner, while also firing on Amber’s position. It would be impossible for her to retaliate without risking damage.


12 contestants remain.

__________

Instance 2 (Sven)

Sven’s partner ignored the man’s impromptu query and spoke again. “This is serious. Someone could be following us. That thing makes a lot of noise…” He said, gesturing at the still nonfunctioning proxy they had brought with them. “We should just leave it behind and move on before we get ambushed."


15 contestants remain.

Ignore him. You're in charge, just split off from him.

"Nggh!" Sven exclaimed. Cecil looked again at him. "The voices again. Alright, we can move." In a frantic set of actions Sven detached the proxy's arm, removed all of the head contents, and stuck a grenade and the arm into the head. "It moves wrong, it blows up." Sven put the visor on and sent it down the river. "Let's go." Sven pointed to the perimeter of the map. "We can just stay on edge. It'll be easier to see incoming threats." Cecil nodded and the two headed west along the edge of the map.

"Still wish I coulda figured it out though."

He heard the splash as one proxy fell into the river, though they did not attempt to search their surroundings. Just as he thought, they were afraid. It made his hunt all the more delightful, and yet, the hunt would have to wait. He would be able to locate them quite easily, the ramshackle attempts to bolster itself with the weapons of another proxy made it quite easy to track. Instead, he turned his attention to the proxy that had fallen into the river. Watching it bob downstream from the safety of cover, he fired a shot at the disabled unit.

He did not expect the succeeding explosion, unaware that a grenade had been planted inside the machine. It did not deter him however, he merely hoped that the explosion would cause his little mice to scurry faster. It made the game all the more fun.

14 Contestants Remain.

If any of Jean's communication channels had been open, someone would have heard an excited grunt: Finally, for the first time today, something had gone according to plan. It wasn't perfect - the mechanic had hoped to immobilize his target before it crawled away - but the fact that it had needed to crawl away at all was a good sign. If he played his cards right, Jean would be able to recoup the grenade he'd spent crippling the proxy in the first place. His hopes were almost shattered as a worrying elimination notification sounded mere moments after the machine disappeared from sight, but Jean quickly dismissed the possibility that his target had offed itself: After all, there weren't any cliffs nearby to fall off from, he had made quite sure. There was still a high chance that he could finish the job properly.

As he reloaded his Longsword and prepared to switch roles from hunted to hunter, however, the air rippled with the sound of several Baselard rounds whizzing by. Fortunately, they missed entirely, and, in fact, didn't really appear to be aimed at anything in particular, but as imprecise as they were, they made it clear that Jean's second opponent had closed a considerable distance while the mechanic had been occupied taking care of the first. He would have liked to take care of the trigger-happy dolt right then and there - with the proxy's pilot's cover-loving tendencies and complete disregard for subtlety, it seemed a trivial elimination - but the mechanic had been unable to assess the damage his grenade had done to the first proxy's legs, and, as far as he knew, it would be up and running in mere moments. He had little time to lose.

Moving to lower ground, Jean took care to remain out of sight of his fully functioning opponent as he ran towards the location of the grenade's explosion.

Edging out from behind her tree, Amber tracked her target. She could see bullets impacting the tree and the ground around of and infront of her, but the fact that her target was running greatly diminished their accuracy. She aimed slightly ahead of the enemy proxy and fired a burst.
Without waiting to see if her shots hit, she burst from her cover and ran towards where Tiana was grappling with the other enemy proxy. she saw that the enemy proxy was gaining the upper hand, so she had to act fast. ejecting her dagger from its housing on her left arm, she charged the proxy while it was distracted by Tiana and aimed her dagger right for its vulnerable neck joint.

Instance 1 (Jean, Amber)

As Jean approached the crippled proxy’s hiding place, he saw its head module peek out for a moment before quickly ducking back to safety. It fired off a warning shot with one of its weapons, hitting the ground on the path near the outcropping that concealed it. Then, Jean heard a voice over his communicator.

“Don’t come any closer.” The proxy spoke, his voice calm and unwavering.

***

As the pitched battle between Tiana and Grapplesauce raged on, Amber poked around the tree and fired at her aggressor. A bullet slammed into her right arm, damaging the magnet gate badly enough that it was too deformed to open. However, as she returned fire, one of her bullets caught One-arm’s leg. The proxy to stumbled and fell to one knee, barely making it to cover.

Not hesitating, Amber used this opportunity to close in on her comrade. As she approached, she could see the enemy proxy shake its head before slamming it into Tiana's. As Amber circled around and attacked, Grapplesauce twisted their body, pulling a disoriented Tiana off balance and into the path of the attack. With a sharp thunk, the dagger was embedded in her shoulder joint. The attacker then kicked off of her torso, completely removing her left arm, and sent her reeling backwards toward Amber. Once disengaged, the enemy immediately ran for a nearby tree. Meanwhile, One-arm reappeared and attempted to cover their partner’s retreat with a spread of bullets. Longsword rounds peppered Tiana’s torso.

“No... Damn it. Damn it!” She roared as her remaining limbs began to lock up.


__________
Instance 2 (Sven)

As the pair continued to skirt the edge of the map, the sound of an explosion caused Cecil to pause. He waited until he heard a kill notification before speaking.
“Someone was definitely following us, but it sounds like your trap paid off. Now we just have to survive until there are only four candidates left.” He said with a chuckle. “We should still be cautious, though. Once our positions get marked on the map, all bets are off. We should find a defensible position to set up for when that happens.”


__________
Incandescent Laboratories: Testing Room

“No, wait!” The girl protested as Sven moved to rip out the contents of her proxy’s head module. It was too late, however, and the mess of parts and wires came out easily. She had been playing dead after being shot, hoping for a chance to escape or get back at him, but now that wasn’t going to happen.

With a groan, she disconnected from the controller and took it off of her head. The sight that met her was the inside of the testing room, now considerably less populated. Most of the disqualified participants had already left, though some had stayed and were now meandering about the room. A meager gathering had congregated around the strange machine in the corner of the room in particular, shouting and cheering as the people still in the simulation continued to fight. She could make out bits and pieces through the yelling, 'twins’, ‘the party’, ‘ace’. None of it meant anything to her. Maybe she’d go check it out now that she’d been eliminated too. However, she was stopped short.

“What are you doing?” A woman asked, appearing in front of the girl. It was the same woman who had ushered them all into this room and briefed them, and she was holding a clipboard. “I suggest you plug back into the simulation unless you want to be disqualified.”

Unsure what to say, the girl raised an eyebrow. When the woman did the same in response, she spoke up. “Uh, I was already eliminated. Someone opened up my head ripped the brain right out of my proxy.”

The woman looked up from her clipboard and and fixed her eyes on the girl silently for a few seconds. “They did what?” Before there was even a chance to answer, she went on. “No, that’s impossible. There’s no way someone could do that with just those clunky magnets.”

“Well, that’s what happened.” The girl responded, growing impatient. “Can I get up now?”

“I wouldn’t recommend that. The head modules were never intended to be opened. The simulation isn’t sophisticated enough to replicate a proxy’s ‘brain’. Those parts are just gibs meant to fly everywhere when a proxy’s head explodes. They don’t actually do anything. In other words, your proxy is still functional.”

With a gasp, the girl jammed the helmet back onto her head. Oh, please please please please pleeease! she pleaded as the screen came back into view. She found herself floating face down in the river and sighed in relief. She was missing an arm now, and her head casing was wide open, but the game was still on. Suddenly, a bullet slammed into her from the side, and a moment later, an explosion ripped through her proxy. A notification sounded as what was left of the machine faded out of existence.

Slowly, the girl removed the controller once again and gazed emptily at the lady with the clipboard. The woman returned her glance, then shrugged. “Tough break, kid."