The Deadliest Lifeform in the Universe Loves Me-Volume 3: Gamma-12, Chapter 3.34

The Deadliest Lifeform in the Universe Loves Me-Volume 3: Gamma-12, Chapter 3.34

After our first victory we met back up with Kianna and went to some country-looking bar at the base of the paradise-core mountain together to celebrate. Apparently Kianna was able to watch the whole thing from the stadium stands, both the actual arena from up high and on some dozens or hundreds of floating monitors. She said we all played like total pros and Eve seemed like an action-star duel wielding her weapons. There wasn’t any audio available, so she was rather curious why I was just hanging around to get shot like I did, but we told her it was all part of the strategy.
Of course, since we won our battle-royale we’d be moving on to the next round and were given a schedule for the next few matches. Tomorrow we’d have our first 1v1, and then the next day we’d play the other two preliminary matches. It freed up a lot of the day, and while we didn’t think we’d have time to get all up in camping, we figured we could still enjoy some hiking trails, maybe do some hunting or fishing even.
We spent the rest of the day lounging around, Zyno and Yun telling us some of the other sim-games they’ve played. Zyno was just a big gamer nerd like me, but apparently Yun was in some clubs back in college with dedicated leagues and everything. It was wild to me how there were so many sports and games available out in the Empire, and there were leagues and professionals for pretty much all of them.
The next day we got up bright and early and decided to watch the matches other teams were playing, see if we could learn more tactics to implement. These new arenas would be much smaller and on a more regular field all leading to bases like half-open towers with significant cover, so you had to wrap around the back to get to the base-orb. There was also an open area in the middle of the field with shorter rows of zigzagging cover, so you either had to go around the sides or blast your way through. Most teams left one or two players back at their base, but every once in a while there’d be a rushing team that went in with all six players trying to just overwhelm the other team. It was a pretty good tactic, unless the other team was smart and played with cover right, then they would slip one person through and could get the base-orb easily. Still, for the dozens of games we watched, only a handful ever won by retrieving the base-orb.
Finally it was time for our first match, and we decided Zyno and Yun with their sniper rifles would hold up at the base and post up in the second floor to get a good overview of the field and could even relay information back to us through their headsets, meanwhile the rest of us would act as the assault team, trying to flank around best we could with Eve’s senses. We set off at a steady pace following along Eve’s planned route, adapting to how our opponents were moving. Even with snipers up on the tower of the base, it wouldn’t allow you to see much past the halfway point of the arena; it was still a thousand feet long with so much random cover it simply blocked their view after a certain point, and it wasn’t like they were that high up in the first place. But still, once we started getting closer to their base we’d be within range of the enemy sniper if they were using similar tactics.
Eve sensed there were four opponents by us hooking towards the middle into the open field, trying to draw us out probably. Instead, we doubled back alongside some cover and waited for them to break into the open area before we unleashed our own assault. Easy as always, our flank and ambush tactics left most of the enemy team disabled. We continued towards the base, Eve warning us where the opponents were so we could avoid their line of sight. We got to their base and Eve rushed forward to disable some shotgunner at the doorway, allowing us easy access to the last player, a sniper on the tower, and from there we just overwhelmed him with our numbers.
Two for two, I was sure we would get bracketed with the way we were playing and winning.
The next day one of our matches was bright and early, and this one ended up being against a rusher-team. Eve warned us right away she could sense all six making their way straight towards us at a fast pace, so we decided to move around some cover and wait for them to pass before we attacked from the back. Thanks to Eve’s senses we found the perfect hiding spots, and the moment they moved beyond us on our side of the field, we popped out of cover and took all six out like it was nothing.
We decided to stick around and watch a few more matches while we waited, and we were finally able to see some really good teams at work. Some teams we saw cleared down corridors and hallways as though they were a military team, and Vinnago warned us it was quite possible as these kinds of games always attracted soldiers and veterans looking to get into some safe but fast-paced action. Still, while their tactics, aiming and what we could see of their communication seemed flawless, we had our own tactically trained agents plus Eve—Eve alone could probably win it all for us.
Our last preliminary match was against a much more tactical opponent, this one moving calmly down the field as they cleared out every hallway before moving forward. They decided to only leave one person back at their base though, leaving them more vulnerable than most. We were halfway down the field when Eve turned to the rest of the team with an idea, “You know I could rush forward and grab their orb and take it to our base before they could even blink, wouldn’t even need to engage them.”
I waved my hand in a weighing gesture, “Relying on your senses is one thing, but I feel like that’s taking things too far.”
Eve cocked her head to the side, “Really?”
Lobae nodded, “Yeah, and there aren’t any natural creatures that can move anywhere near as fast as you do, so there would definitely be some kind of investigation or scans to see if you’ve got any enhancements, and we certainly can’t afford that kind of scrutiny.”
Eve seemed to understand then, “Ah, right, don’t want anyone else to know about the existence of the Predazoans.” She said blithely.
I grabbed her hand, “You okay?”
Eve smiled at me, “I told you before darling, your opinion is the only one that matters to me.” She shrugged, “I might exist as some kind of phantom in the Empire, so long as you see the real me, that’s more than enough to make me happy.”
We decided to ghost our opponents from behind, but we waited for them to get far enough to our side so their sniper couldn’t see us, while also getting close enough so our snipers would see them. There was still too much cover around for our snipers to get many opportunities, but the opponents would be close enough to be within range at least. Once they hooked around a corner that put them at the most disadvantaged position, we finally rushed forward to intercept them from behind. We disabled two of their players easily and Zyno ended up getting a snipe off to tag a third, leaving just two left who dug in tight behind some cover. We slowly pressed forward with constant rotations of suppressing fire to keep them pinned. The shotguns me and Lobae used needed to be cocked after every shot, so we could fire every couple of seconds. The assault rifles Eve and Vinnago used could fire in short bursts for about 20 rounds before they needed to do some reload re-prime thing at the back of their gun that took about three seconds—all to keep things fair or realistic I would guess. The sniper rifles didn’t need to be reloaded, but there was cooldown to how often they could shoot, I think it was about three seconds. With all six of us firing together, there was no downtime at all, so there was nothing the opponents could do. Eventually they just gave up, putting their hands up and standing out of cover to be blasted and paralyzed by our entire team. From there we just had to run to their base and take out their last guy, and then we won our fourth match in a row, all finished with the preliminaries.
The opponents we beat were good sports about it all though and told us which bar most of the more serious teams liked to meet at—players who belonged to clubs or leagues back in their regular lives. We met up with an excited Kianna and headed off to the bar to celebrate the end of the preliminaries. The bar itself seemed all geared up for the Sim-War with matching decorations and everything, with floating TV monitors showing highlights for some of the matches. There was even a scoreboard on top that showed 30 teams so far were tied with a maximum of 200 points, with a listing of most the other 1,024 bracketed teams.
We all grabbed a booth together and Eve got into my lap as usual as I wrapped my arms around her waist. I nodded up to the scoreboard, “You think that’s official?” I asked.
Eve shrugged, “I imagine so, all the droids and computers are linked up to the same system.”
“They haven’t announced we’ve been bracketed yet though.” Zyno added.
Kinna waved off towards the door, “There’s still some matches playing, but since you guys got perfect scores there’s no way you could be bumped off at this point.”
“Yo, you guys got perfect scores in the tournament?” The alien at the next booth over asked, a humanoid who looked like magma that’d mostly cooled into obsidian except around his glowing red joints.
“That’s right, we’re American Automations.” Vinnago confirmed.
The black and red alien stood up in his booth, his red-orange eyes growing wide, “Son of a bitch, I watched you guys play—you were amazing!” He turned to the rest of his party, 5 other aliens that all seemed to be mineral based races—crystal, glass, a couple plain rock-ones like Roote, and even one brilliant sapphire female that was beautiful in a very alien way, not the traditional feminine way as I could see it, “Guys, this here is the team American Automation!”
The rest of his team left the booth to come greet us. They introduced themselves all in a friendly manner; the magma guy was Burze and the sapphire lady was his wife, Crystilla. The purple crystal man was Gergo with his wife the glassy woman Shermy. And the two brown and grey rock aliens were brothers, Sed and Hyno. The males of the group were all tall and broad just like Roote, while the females were more slender but still about as tall as I was. They complimented us on our teamwork and asked where we were from, so Vinnago and Lobae fell into the easy explanation about our company and all our fabricated pasts. When it was revealed Eve and I were newlyweds, well-wishes were offered as usual.
Crystilla placed a hand on her husband’s shoulder, “That’s so cute, congratulations. When we first got married we vacationed in the Holistia Nebula and got the honeymoon treatment and everything.” She looked to her husband and smiled, “So we’ve been coming back whenever we can.”
“We’ve heard that so often from other couples I’m started to think we’ll have to do the same.” Eve said giddily.
The rest of their team pulled up some chairs as they gushed how good we were, then explained a little about their team. They were named the Titanos Team based on some famous warlord from their home planet’s history, and they were actually part of a league back home. When we admitted this was the first time we all played together they warned us some people took it all very seriously.
“You’ll have to watch out, they’re soldiers who join in these games treating it all like a real war and having fun picking off weaker teams without mercy.” Burze said seriously, then nodded his blocky head at the scoreboard, “See that top team up there, team Dead Space?”
I snorted, “Like the video game?”
“What?”
I waved it off quickly, “Never mind. So, what about them?”
“They didn’t book an actual tour, they just signed up to stay on this station for like 10 cycles, and every cycle they win the Sim-War tournament. It’s all they want to do, just play and fight and win, every day, every cycle.” Burze explained.
“Apparently they’re soldiers in the Imperial army stationed out on frontier worlds, and every time they’re on leave they come back to the Holistia Nebula—to
Adventure-7
specifically to join in the tournaments.” Gergo added.
“Really? I mean I’m having a blast, but I can’t imagine
only
vacationing on this one station playing the same game over and over when there’s so much more out there.” I reasoned.
“They must be a bunch of psychos, blood drunk soldiers who don’t get enough action out on the frontier.” Zyno added.
“What’d you say about my boys, tiny?” A screechy voice rumbled from across the bar. We looked over towards its source to see a dark red man-bat with ears bigger than my head surrounded by five other burly looking aliens.
“Oh shit…” Burze whispered, and suddenly his team didn’t want to be around ours anymore.
The Dead Space team—like the fucking video game—all got up together and stood before our booth, trying to look as menacing as possible while everyone else in the bar watched with bated breath.
“Hiya, the name’s Adam, this here is my team American Automations—name of the company I work for too.” I bounced Eve on my lap, and she giggled, “And this is my new wife, Eve.”
Apparently, Dead Space wasn’t there to make friends. One of the men, larger than all the rest, stood forward; he was that same kind of tall, muscular shark alien like Doctor Wit, but there was nothing to detract from his menacing appearance as he glowered over our group.
Lobae gestured to the man-bat alien, “Ah, echolocation abilities I’m guessing, no wonder you always win.”
The shark alien sneered, “Yeah, and we’re gonna keep winning, prove how psychotic we really are.”
I turned to Eve, “What are you thinking, Mighty Ducks or Karate Kid?”
She shook her head, “No, it’s all too silly, I’d say it’s more like Dodgeball.” She reasoned.
“Oh, good answer.” I said, then gave her a quick kiss.
“The hell are you two talking about?” The man-bat pressed.
I shrugged, “Just trying to figure out what kind of cheesy sports movie villains you’re acting like. For the record, we decided you’re acting like a sports-
comedy
movie.”
“You think this is fucking funny?” Another alien asked, one like a roided out version of a blue squid alien.
Kianna just scoffed, “Oh go hit the gym again or something; it
is
funny, it’s
all
fun—you guys are playing a fucking
game
, you know?”
Zyno sighed, “Always that one group that ruins it for everyone.”
“Hey fuck you!”
Yun rolled her eyes, “And such
astounding
wit.”
The shark alien leaned his fist on our table, “We’ll see how funny it all is when we destroy you guys.”
I sighed and held a hand up, “At least introduce yourselves first since we’re
obviously
going to be rivals at this point.” I gestured to the meatheads before us, “I’m assuming some of you are named Blazer, Taser and Razor or something.”
Eve shook her head, “No darling, in the movie it goes ‘Blade, Laser, and Blazer’.”
“Oh that’s right, thanks sweet-thing.”
We introduced ourselves in a polite, friendly manner, while the Dead Space team acted like speaking full sentences was difficult. The shark-man alien was their leader,
Captain
Rush, they wanted us to know that specifically. The man-bat was Lieutenant Dreve. The blue squid-man was Corporal Nek. The next three were privates, and all looked like they spent too much time at the gym; a red lizardman named Grinno, a spikey purple man named Freddish, and a buff grey lady with weird spiraling skin named Liolana.
“We’ll see you guys on the battlefield.” Captain Rush said as menacingly as he could.
“Okay, goodbye friends!” I said cheerfully as they left. Our team all found the whole thing ridiculous and silly, a bunch of grown men treating the game like it was a real battle. But like Zyno said, there was always that one group that ruined it for everyone else.
“Well, I think it’s high-time someone dethroned Dead Space, wouldn’t you all agree?” Lobae offered eagerly.
Vinnago turned to Eve, “About Dreve’s sonar, think you could disable it?”
Eve trilled a cute little laugh, “Are you kidding? Its rudimentary echolocation all based on his hearing; that’s basically the easiest one to disable.” She waved it off easily, “I could emit a frequency so high-pitched it would completely deafen him during the match.”
I grinned, “Alright, we just need to make it to the finals, then we should have a real fighting chance.”
“
Or
I could emit a frequency so focused it would blast out all their eardrums, putting the whole team out of commission for good.” Eve offered reasonably.
Zyno sighed and shook his head, “I can never tell when she’s joking or not…”
I rolled my eyes and pulled on Eve’s hair tentacle, “I told you before to quit scaring my friends, Evie.”
Eve wrapped her arms around my neck and tried to bite my lips playfully, “Maybe I only act out to get more attention from you, ever think of it like that?”
I quirked up an eyebrow, “I thought I was giving you plenty of attention?”
Eve’s smile brightened, “I never said you weren’t, but I would still always enjoy more.”
We flirted a little until we got some protests from the rest of the group, and from there we hung around until the bracketed teams were officially announced. Sure enough, we made the cut, and what was even better we were placed on opposite sides of the bracket from team Dead Space, meaning we really could face off against our rivals in the finals.
Starting tomorrow, we’d be fighting against the best teams who made it into the tournament, but with Eve on our team, I was predicting a clean sweep.

Volume 3: Gamma-12, Chapter 3.34