“Oh my word,” Llenn remarked, having sped through the text on her device.
“C’mon, why don’tcha give us an explanation? And make it simple!” ranted Fukaziroh, who had to pull herself up from the brink using her own power, since everyone else was too busy looking at their devices.
She crouched next to the pile of rubble and waddled over to Llenn.
“Ghosts!” Llenn exclaimed, breaking into a smile.
“That doesn’t tell me anything!” Fukaziroh shot back.
“Oh, sorry. The people who died can come back into the game as ghosts! But they can’t attack us, and we can’t attack them. They just earn points.”
“Ah, I see.”
“But it’s a chance for us! I’m sure Pito’s got some ideas! We can still fight! Thank you, shitty rules!” Llenn said excitedly, waving around the Vorpal Bunnies.
“Fine, fine, I get it. Just put that pregnant belly away. You almost pressed the switch on it.”
“Eep!”
Llenn hastily activated the safety on the grand grenade.
“So what now?” smirked her helmeted partner.
Llenn said, “First of all, shoot off Rightony and Leftonia! And then—”
She didn’t even get the rest of the sentence out before Fukaziroh started shooting.
In fact, the shooting started around the words First of all, which made Llenn want to believe that Fukaziroh was actually psychic.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Grenades!”
Distracted by the ghost of Lux appearing twelve feet to the side and the abundance of text on the Satellite Scanner, David and the rest of MMTM did have the presence of mind still to react when they heard the firing sound and saw the descending bullet line.
It was one of Fukaziroh’s high-arcing grenade attacks. What if it was another plasma grenade?
David was about to order his men to shoot into the air again, but then he remembered something Llenn had said an hour earlier.
“They’re all normal grenades!”
Yes, just before blowing off the roof of the brick mansion in the neighborhood, Llenn had said that Fukaziroh had a stock of twelve plasma grenades. That was crucial information.
Knowing her personality, she had shot them all off earlier. And they had exploded in the air. If no one died, then there was no chance they’d been refilled.
“Roger!” his squad replied, taking action to avoid the bullet line with minimal movement. An ordinary grenade round was lethal to a radius of about five yards. As long as they moved farther than that and hit the ground, they’d be safe.
David glanced to his right at the girl he wanted to ask out for tea—at Vivi—and her teammates, who were busy doing the same thing.
A ghostly Tomtom and Shinohara were nearby, but not within ten feet. They only hovered around the edges of the scene.
They were doing something to the ground, trying to communicate with Vivi. She looked confused; whatever message they were sending, she didn’t seem to get it.
“What should we do, Captain?” Kenta asked, speaking for the rest of the squad.
“It’s our chance!” David said, making a lightning call. He put his left hand to his ear and switched off the channel to Vivi. “Finish off Llenn’s group now! Flank them from the left.”
In his head, David was thinking they’d finish off that team, leaving only Fukaziroh alive, perhaps, then chasing her over toward ZEMAL.
It might be a tricky strategy to pull off, but he believed that, with their level of expertise and coordination, they could do it.
And if they did, Vivi would be grateful to him. His stock would rise in her eyes.
She would find him more appealing.
The perfect plan.
“Roger that!” his squadmates said, completely aware of his motivations.
They knew what he was doing, and they wanted to assist his quest for love. They were okay with it, because if it worked out, it would be funny, and if it didn’t, that would be funny, too.
Ghost Lux was panicking, his expression worried behind those sunglasses, but David didn’t see it.
✦ ✦ ✦
“David, pull back. Regroup.”
Shinohara and Tomtom lined up the ammo from their magazines to spell out a message for Vivi, finally getting their intent across.
“Attacking right now would be a bad idea… David?”
Vivi was trying to send him a friendly warning, but David could not hear her by now.
✦ ✦ ✦
The five surviving members of MMTM swung around to the left as fast as they could, moving toward the mountain of rubble. The six grenades that came flying toward them exploded in vacant space and did no damage.
They backed each other up, covering blind spots and sight lines, executing to perfection their brand of methodical advance. The men slid from barricade to barricade, with one person on the move while the others always stayed vigilant, a smooth and practiced formation.
If Llenn’s group popped out from the barricades, they were ready to shoot back at any time, but there were no shots forthcoming. They passed the final barricade, with only the sixty-foot open space beyond.
Jake silently crouched, held his HK21 in position for covering fire, and the rest of them prepared to rush in.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Let’s goooo!” Pitohui commanded.
“Huh?”
Kenta, the lead in MMTM’s formation, was about to cover the last sixty feet when he saw a woman in black charging at him with a glowing photon sword in either hand. He was stunned.
“Son of a—!”
He slowed down a bit and fired his G36K. All the bullets passed through Pitohui’s smirking face.
Next to him, Summon saw a large man in green with an M14 EBR pointed in his direction.
“Gah!”
He fired, too. The bullet from his SCAR-L passed through M as well.
“Uh…”
“Crap.”
That was when they both realized that they’d just been turned into ghosts.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Fire!”
Boss, Anna, and Tohma had climbed to the top of the rubble heap and started shooting for all they were worth with their Vintorez and Dragunovs.
Their targets were the two members of MMTM who had just gotten distracted. They were charging toward Llenn, so their flank was wide open. Very easy targets.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Damn!”
Bold saw his teammates getting shot ahead of him and continued his rush. If he stopped moving and turned now, that would only make him an easier target to hit.
He had a Beretta APX 9 mm pistol in his hand. His usual assault rifle, an ARX160, had been broken by Clarence.
He’d seen through the enemy’s strategy. There would be no more teammates turning into ghosts. This location was easy for SHINC to attack, so he was going to rush straight for the rubble for cover, then attack Llenn behind it.
Pitohui and M were just ten yards ahead. He rushed straight for them, like he was going to execute a body tackle. When he was within four yards, they slowed down unnaturally, and at three yards, they were thrown backward.
✦ ✦ ✦
