ALL NOVEL It's A Warzone Out Here
The circle was really small now, with the next one only occupying a little less than half the stadium.
It's unfortunate that the map does not show the actual layout of the stadium so I could not tell where was the best place to hunker down.
That meant we would have to look for one ourselves.
I looked back at the girls to check if they were ready.
Amber had, as I thought, chose to use dual pistols as her main weapons though she did take a rifle as a backup weapon.
As for skills, we had a few new additions for each of us.
For me, I kept the grappling hook and the drone skills for myself. In addition, I added the airstrike skill which allowed me to drop an airstrike on a target location once. There was also another skill that allowed me to send out a hologram of myself that I could control to misdirect my opponents.
As for Amber, she took the self destruct one which I openly questioned her on why she would even use that. She claimed that if she was going to be beaten, she would rather go out with a bang instead of a whimper.
I pointed out that activating a grenade before they die would have achieved the same effect but I had to agree with her when she said that the skill would be easier to activate than a grenade.
Aside from that, she also took the active camouflage from me since I didn't really need it and I don't think I would have as many chances to use it as compared to her anyway.
I did keep the sword though, since no one else seemed to want it. I thought Amber would want the sword but surprisingly she did not want to use it even as a backup.
Aside from the self-destruct skill, she also found a "Freerunning" passive skill that allows her to basically switch the direction of gravity for herself.
That's not exactly an accurate description but it allows her to decide which surface is the 'floor'. So if she set that the ceiling was the floor, she could run on the ceiling and even jump up and down with her landing back on the ceiling as if the direction of gravity had been inverted for her.
But the skill does not allow her to just change the direction of gravity which would make her 'fall' towards the sky.
It's a… Rather weird skill but Amber really seemed to like it.
Lea still had her passive camouflage skill and the 'wall hack' skill. She also found a copy of the hologram skill like me and took that as well.
As for Ries, the only skill she had was a passive skill that basically allowed her to activate a shield around herself that would protect her from a set amount of damage before it breaks. The cooldown for it was a good sixty seconds but the shield buff was quite significant.
Seeing all of these skills, I wondered if there were actually real life equivalents out there in the form of mods or equipment?
Making a mental note to check that out later, I led the way towards the door of the locker room and tapped on the button that made the door slide open.
When the door opened up, I found the remaining parts of the stadium had literally turned into a warzone.
Explosions, gunshots and contestants were flying around the place.
For now, the fighting was still kept confined to the stands but the map showed that the circle would be closing in until we would be forced onto the field where there was practically zero cover.
Initially, I had thought that it would be a good idea to secure ourselves in a space at the back of the stadium where we would have the high ground and pick off as many people as we could from there.
Then when the circle starts closing, we would fight our way down and take out the people running for the next circle from behind.
Naturally, I wasn't expecting that plan to go without any problems but it seems like it would be difficult for us to even make our way to the top of the stadium with how intense the fight was going on.
Heck, we had only just stepped out of the room and two different teams had noticed us and started firing at us.
Instead of ducking back inside the room and trapping ourselves, we decided to just take them out.
Both were teams of three so we were pretty much equal in terms of number if you were to include my drone as well.
One of them was using a sniper, one was using a shotgun and the other four had opted to use rifles instead.
Ries quickly activated her shield and stood in front of me, blocking the shots aimed at me with the minigun's shield.
"Nyahahaha! Too weak, too weak!! All of you ain't good enough!!" Ries laughed, revving up her minigun.
She pulled the trigger and the high pitched whine of her minigun lighting up could be heard throughout the stadium.
One of them immediately disappeared into particles as his health was reduced to zero before he even got a chance to react.
I peeked out from the cover Ries had given us and took aim at the shotgun guy, pulling the trigger several times to shoot at him.
His shield managed to protect him from my shots, giving him time to dive for cover.
The sniper was taking aim at us but Lea was faster and shot him faster than he could take the shot, her bullet piercing through his shield and then his head.
Seriously, that sniper of hers literally one shots any targets if it's a headshot. The only negative thing about it is that it needed time to charge before it could fire.
I thought they actually teamed up to fight us but it seems like that wasn't the case as one of them smashed the butt of his rifle across another guy's head, knocking him into the ground.
The guy who got knocked down quickly raised his own rifle to fire a few shots at the one who just knocked him down, breaking his shield.
Amber took the opportunity to shoot her pistol at the guy with the shattered shield, hitting him in the head but unfortunately not doing enough damage to kill him.
I helped her by firing a round through his head as well, dropping his remaining health to zero and eliminating him.
The shotgun guy peeked out and fired a shot at us, only for his pellets to bounce off Ries's shield instead.
Ries swivelled her minigun towards the shotgun guy and absolutely blasted the guy to bits.
Just as I was thinking where we should move to after we finished off the group in front of us when an explosion blew up the remaining guys in front of us.
As though that wasn't enough, several shots came from the side and shredded through the ones who managed to survive the grenade blast.
Ries spun around and pushed us behind her, raising her minigun to raise her shield and also activating her skill that boosted her shield, right as several gunshots rang out and the bullets ricocheted off of her.
Damn, looks like even more groups are here…
I ducked behind Ries and ejected the magazine to slam in a new one.
"We need to move, Ries, we're too open here! Move to the higher benches!" I shouted over the din of the firefight.
She let out a laugh and started walking forward while spraying her minigun in the direction of the new group that shot at us.
The rest of us huddled behind her and took potshots at anyone that we saw an opportunity to shoot at.
Obviously Ries could not tank all the damage so there were a few times where we had to break and seek cover, giving the cat girl the time she needed to recharge her shield and her shield boost ability.
We managed to take out a few more squads that way but the wave was never ending as every enemy or squad we took out, a new one seemed to take their place no matter how many we killed.
The fight just seemed to get even more intense and it looked like pretty much everyone was now concentrated within the circle and engaged in their own firefights.
At this rate, we might get overwhelmed even if we were to take the high ground. Heck, the circle would already start closing by the time we reached there so it was definitely not a good spot anymore.
I turned back to the girls, "We're going to have to hunker down here! Ries! I need you up here and deploy your health crate! Lea, you'll be in the centre! Amber, support Ries! I will cover for Lea's back!"
Yes, we're going to have to make a stand here and hold out until the circle starts to close.
It's ok! We can win this!