The match had not started off well. Not for Owen, at least. She had been easily overwhelmed with the amount of incoming fire from the offensive team. Tank was easily Owen’s least favorite role to fill in UMDK. She’d sooner follow Aoife around as a pocket healer than frontline against an enemy team. It was just so antithetical to the playstyle that she usually gelled with. If you give a fish a bicycle its gonna do fuck all to help the team.
On paper, you could try to find some similarities between the roles. Owen was a distraction, a high velocity miscreant that will get a pick or two and distract the team enough to secure a victory. A tank was usually responsible for pulling attention away from the rest of the team in a similar manner, but the method was the crucial difference. Owen never stopped moving, using the game’s robust movement system to stay out of trouble and move throughout the battlefield causing chaos. PertinentHorse had very little to help with that playstyle.
That left Owen quickly racing back towards the fight after respawning in the defense side base. She had been killed immediately during the first fight because she had no way to really avoid damage. 30 seconds into the match and Owen was already deeply regretting her choice to try to fill the tank role within their team. She didn’t have any augments to help with that playstyle other than the 25 extra health from [Ballistic Vest]. Even that paled in comparison to all of the other tank augments in the game.
[Wr4th: Jesus, Owen. Try to live more than 5 seconds next time.]
[PertinentHorse: What the fuck do you want me to use? I’ve got starter abilities, and a single extra unlock slot. How would I ever tank like this?]
[Wr4th: That’s a great question, buddy. You better find the answer real quick.]
Luckily, Aoife had landed a crackshot on their backline support player just after Owen died, leaving them unable to make much out of their first push without any healing. Any chip damage they took would stick with them until the support respawned making it better to wait about the respawn timer.
Owen analyzed the kill feed as she ran back into the fight. [Malfeasance] was the username of the support that Aoife had picked off. That had to have been Malik. An odd choice for their support player. Owen wondered if Malik was the one to pull the shortest straw for who was going to play support that round. He had done incredibly well in his previous match playing as the tank of the team.
Owen was painfully aware who the enemy tank was due to the unfortunate beginning of the round. Richie had taken up the tank role as he always did, and dove directly into the team with buffs from the support player.
That left Castle and Steven unaccounted for. Steven would likely play a damage focused build. It’s what Owen saw him doing during tryouts, after all. But Castle? That was the pressing question. Owen knew enough about Castle to know that they wouldn’t play a damage focused character, which meant they had doubled up with tanks or supports.
[Nintendo Femicom: I see them coming up the right side, info booth.]
Aoife made the callout just as Owen made it back to the fight. The information booth was a good side entrance to use for offense, so it made perfect sense as to why they had picked it. Fortunately for Team 1, UMDK had destruction mechanics, and the info booth became significantly less useful once destroyed. Owen activated [Frag Blast] and threw the grenade into the small window of the info booth. Even if the enemies moved out of the way, the booth itself wouldn’t survive.
A damage indicator flashed across Owen’s screen as the frag blast detonated.
[PertinentHorse: Richie injured in the blast, but he still has plenty of health left. Not sure where the rest went.]
[Sarah6258: On the left!]
Sarah’s callout, while helpful, came a little too late. By the time that Team 1 turned their attention towards the surprise attack, Team A already had the advantage.
[SRGT STeg ===> Nintendo Femicom]
Aoife had been ambushed by Steven before she could activate one of her defensive abilities to escape. It left Team 1 without one of its two damage dealers seconds into the fight. Owen turned her attention towards Steven in hopes that she could take out their biggest source of damage first. She fired her assault rifle towards Stegman and watched as the burst of bullets bounced uselessly off of a shimmering blue bubble. [Prismatic Aegis]. Castle had managed to throw the protective ability over Steven in time to block all of the damage. The same ability that had saved Owen in a crucial moment of the tryout match was now vexing her in this practice round.
Owen glanced over to her other teammates as she reloaded her rifle. Deacon was rapidly switching targets between Richie and Steven, even landing a few headshots to stack his [Rancor]. Even through the intense healing that he was receiving from Sarah, he was close to dying. Owen acted fast, opting to take out the player who was preventing most of Deacon’s damage from going through. Castle. As soon as Owen found her target, she started firing at Castle, who was perched on top of a table inside the half-destroyed information booth. They had remained far behind the rest of the team, which made sense to Owen, since that was the same playstyle they had used all night long when they were skirmishing in Owen and Aoife’s dorm room. Owen’s volley of bullets impacted Castle, only for the shimmering form of Castle to dissipate altogether. Owen muttered some curses under her breath as she recognized the augment [Holographic Mirage].
It was a massive time waster for Owen. When she turned around to look for where the real Castle was, Sarah had been killed. Or at least, she would have if not for her [Guardian’s Blessing] triggering as restoring her to half health. Unfortunately, during the brief revival period for her to be restored, Deacon was killed without the sustained healing that he was receiving from Sarah.
Now it was just Sarah and Owen. Unlikely that they would be able to get much done with just the two of them, the best they could manage was to escape further into the payload map to rejoin the other team members when they respawned.
[PertinentHorse: Run to me, Sarah, I’ll try to get us away from them for now.]
Owen decided to finally use the only new ability that she had gained from playing on the PertinentHorse account a few times in the afternoon. [Concussive Blast] was another one of the ‘starter’ augments that are not often used once players get ahold of the much more interesting augments. It was yet another grenade-like ability, but this one detonated instantly upon contact with the ground, and would disorient the enemies screens and limit their aiming capabilities during the stun. It was a relatively boring ability compared to what Owen usually had equipped, but it wasn’t as useless as some other boring augments in the game.
Sarah used some of her quick movement capabilities to rush towards Owen as she threw down the [Concussive blast]. Owen and Sarah immediately ran down a hallway during the stun, partly in hopes that Team A would lose track of them altogether, and partly because it connected back towards the defense spawn if you went down the hallway far enough.
The concussive blast gave the two of them enough time to make it back to safety with the rest of the team. During their regroup, Team A had managed to push the payload a significant portion of the map. Giving them only two more real choke points left.
[Wr4th: Is this what you wanted, Owen? You wanted to show off with a starter account to stroke your ego?]
[Nintendo Femicom: Oh my god, Deacon, just leave h-him alone. We’re not going to win if you’re complaining all match long.]
Owen noticed the hesitation in Aoife’s voice as she said ‘him’. Aoife had been close to saying ‘her’ without even thinking about it. While it caused a brief rush of euphoria to spread through her chest, it was also scary. A real slip up in a public setting was terrifying to even consider.
[Wr4th: We’re not going to win even if I stop complaining.] Get faster updates on g.com.
[Sarah6258: I think we still have a shot. They have a strange comp, and I think we can exploit that if we plan for it.]
Aoife and Owen both found it refreshing to have Sarah join the conversation to provide an actual solution to their situation.
[Sarah6258: They went with two supports, but from what I can tell, neither of them have too many healing abilities. They’ve focused their kits on barriers and buffs instead. That means any damage that we deal should stick. We wait out the initial burst and then I can use [Gravitational Syzygy] for Aoife.]
It was a good strategy, one so similar to Owen’s own forming strategy that it made her question whether Sarah had plucked it right from her own mind. If they could make it past the shields and the buffs that Malik and Castle were continually providing, they should be able to chip away at their team in a battle of attrition. It made even more sense why they backed away in the first push once they lost Malik. They’re trying to win a fight in 10-15 seconds by burning all of their cooldowns at once. Not to mention the game winning usage of [Gravitational Syzygy]. If Sarah hit it correctly, it would throw the enemy team into the air and hold them there long enough for Aoife to land a collateral sniper shot on multiple enemies.
[PertinentHorse: Sarah is spot on. I think if we can make it through all of their initial abilities, they'll be largely useless. Even more than that, if we can take out Castle, their whole comp falls apart. Castle shields Malik, and Malik shields Steven. We mess up that chain, and we disrupt their team.]
[Wr4th: Well you did so good at surviving their cooldowns in that first fight, so I’m sure this will go great.]
Deacon had already gotten into position in front of the next primary choke point. Owen couldn’t help but fear the next fight that they had. Deacon wasn’t entirely wrong in his criticism. For the supposed tank of the team, Owen was having a hard time surviving for long without any sort of movement abilities.
[Nintendo Femicom: Here they come! Look for Castle first if you can find them.]
It was a blur of colors and voice lines almost immediately. The amount of augments that Team A utilized immediately was terrifying. Owen found herself pinned against a wall by a web, and unable to move away from a large AOE of fire that Richie had spat out. Without healing from Sarah, Owen would have been out of the fight in the first few seconds again. Shots rang out between both Teams, with quite a few of Deacon’s shots aimed precisely at Richie’s head. Some successfully hit their mark, while others were stopped by a blue bubble just before they reached his head. Castle’s [Prismatic Aegis] once again causing problems for the entire team.
Owen did her best to try to keep up with all of the augments that Team A used. They were extensive, and sometimes hard to establish which enemies were using what abilities. Fortunately for Owen, she was incredibly efficient at keeping tabs on multiple things at once. A savant-like talent that had caused her parents to not so subtly ask about her interest in being tested for autism. A question that had quickly been brushed off by Owen. In her mind, being able to put a name to some of her behaviour meant very little.
[PertinentHorse: Castle has already used [Prismatic Aegis] and [Holographic Mirage], Richie is down his [Resurgent Pulse], and Malik already used [Adrenal Overdrive] on Richie. Sustain is down, focus Steven out of the fight.]
The callouts were quick and precise, but no less effective for their brevity. Capitalizing on Owen’s callouts, Deacon shifted his assault towards Steven. With the damage stacks from [Rancor] that he had gained from hitting Richie in the head numerous times, he quickly double tapped Steven with a bodyshot followed by a headshot before either of the enemy team’s supports could shift their focus. Now Team A was down their primary source of damage. Deacon let out a satisfied cheer under his breath as the fight shifted into a 3v4 in favour of Team 1. Owen didn’t expect to get any kind of praise for the callouts from Deacon. She could only hope that he knew that kill had only really happened due to her decision making. With Steven down, they had a shot of winning the team fight and putting Team A into a rough situation with their remaining time.
BWURRRR
Owen’s eyes widened at the sound cue that denoted a very underused, but very powerful augment called [Supplanting Bullet]. It was Castle’s final, and most expensive augment that had been unaccounted for up until now. Their ULTRA augment as it was called. Every player had one, or at least every player except Owen had one. In the build system, one augment slot was designated the ULTRA augment, and could be thought of very similar to an ultimate ability in a hero shooter. Although the designers of ULTRA MEGA DEATH KILLER had tried very hard to avoid ever calling it an ultimate in an effort to distinguish their game from a typical hero shooter. ULTRA augments could only be placed in the one slot, preventing players from equipping multiple ULTRA augments in a single build. In the beta for UMDK, they only had the point system for builds, where a build would only be limited by the “point cost” of each augment. But when people started putting together builds of low cost ULTRA augments together, it got out of hand. Hence why the full game implemented the aptly named ULTRA augment slots.
The reason [Supplanting Bullet] was such a frightening ULTRA was due to its high skill ceiling. With a low cooldown (for an ULTRA, at least), you could fire a single charged bullet towards an enemy at high speed. If the bullet hit, the players would have their positions swapped with one another over the course of a single second. Before anyone on Team 1 had time to process what happened, Sarah had her position swapped with Castle, who was hunkered deep behind the enemy team. Without her [Guardian’s Blessing] there was almost no chance of her making it out alive. She was immediately charged by Richie [Voracious Grasp] and thrown even further away from the team and into a wall, stunning her for long enough to be killed before getting a chance to retaliate.
Our only chance to even the playing field was to capitalize on Castle’s position within our own backline. It was the reason why not many players were brave enough to use [Supplanting Bullet] in the first place. If used without communication, you’d only put yourself deep into the enemy team and die in seconds. It’s why it was only ever used in combination with other augments to allow oneself to escape after swapping with an enemy.
Deacon was the first to react, shooting a bullet directly into Castle’s head once the swap had finished. To everyone’s shock, the bullet went directly through Castle’s head, before the image of their player dissipated into the air. It was a [Holographic Mirage].
[Wr4th: God damnit Owen! You said they already used the hologram!]
[PertinentHorse: They did! At the beginning of the fight they were-]
Owen nearly slammed her palm directly into her forehead upon realizing her mistake. [Holographic Mirage] can be given an action upon activation, but can’t be changed after the activation. You can set the hologram to run in a direction, but it will continue to run in that direction until it is shot or expires. Additionally, you can make the hologram pretend to attack or support, where it will continually enact its command. Usually when a player is standing still shooting or providing shields, it’s a clear sign they set up their hologram to pull eyes away from their actual position. Owen had assumed that the Castle standing still in the backline of the fight was the [Holographic Mirage], but it never was. Castle had the balls to stay a stationary target in the wide open during the fight with the hope that everyone would expect them to be a hologram instead. It was such a risky tactic that Owen hadn’t even begun to expect it. Castle was good. Shockingly good, in fact. Despite Owen, Castle, and Aoife playing UMDK together for hours earlier in the day, these strategies were entirely new. Owen was desperate to know just how massive their deck of tricks were in UMDK.
[PertinentHorse: They were pretending to be a hologram earlier, I didn’t even consider that-]
[Wr4th: Great fucking callout, Owen. Keep it up.]
Castle was almost certainly going to get away with the [Supplanting Bullet], with the hologram destroyed, it was clear they activated their [Camouflaging Strafe] at the same time to escape. They could have gone in any direction, and it was pointless to start shooting in random directions with Malik and Richie still a threat.
Richie immediately charged towards Owen once he was done taking care of Sarah. Without support from Sarah, the fight looked bleak for Team 1. Owen fired a volley of bullets towards Richie as he charged forwards, finishing the magazine of lead with a [Frag Blast] directly to his chest that was detonated prematurely by Owen’s final bullet. That combo would have easily put down the average enemy, but Richie was still under the effects of [Adrenal Overdrive] from Malik, greatly reducing the amount of bullet damage that he took. With the [Frag Blast], Richie was left with a measly 20 health left. Before Owen could swap to her sidearm to finish him off, Richie, charged her with yet another [Voracious Grasp], picking her up by her throat and tossing her into a nearby wall. Upon contact with a surface, [Voracious Grasp] inflicted a small stun. But a small stun was all Richie needed. The additional rate of fire provided by [Adrenal Overdrive] let Richie sink a few shots of his shotgun into Owen before she had a chance to escape.
Deacon and Aoife were left alone. With a well placed finishing shot from Aoife, Richie was killed before either of his supports could assist him. With a 2v2, you might think it was evenly matched once more, but Deacon and Aoife’s low remaining health was a difficult match up against two full health enemies. Even with Deacon spotting the now revealed Castle, there was little he could do before he was dived by Malik. Once Malik made it in close range to Deacon, Owen was finally able to see what weapon he had selected. Quite a fierce one, as it turned out. [Leech] was not a very common pick for a support player to choose, due to its extremely short range of use, but it was perfect for the situation Malik was in. He had used [Expeditious Shadow] to teleport forwards and directly on top of Deacon to begin draining his health with his primary weapon. [Leech] was like an artificial timer. While in close range, it would drain an enemies health while simultaneously healing yourself. Its low damage and very close range kept it from being overpowered as a primary, but it was a perfect choice in certain niche situations. It forced the enemy into a situation where they had to outdamage you in a short span of time, or flee fast enough to escape the range. Deacon couldn’t manage either. With low health, he wouldn’t be able to kill Malik in time, or even get far enough away from him to avoid the damage.
Aoife was having just as difficult a time at executing Castle with her sniper rifle. She had landed a very potent shot to their chest, bringing them into one shot territory for a follow-up, but landing that follow-up was much harder than she originally anticipated. The subsequent shot had met another blue bubble, the cooldown for [Prismatic Aegis] was over just in time to save Castle once more. By the time Aoife had time for another shot, Malik was already on top of her. This story is hosted at novelping . com.
With fast reaction times that made Owen blush just watching, Aoife had used [Gravity Sling] to launch herself up into the sky at an angle to escape close quarters with Malik and sink a follow-up directly into Castle’s head. An unnecessary flex, given that they only had enough health that a body shot would have killed them just as easily.
It was down to a 1v1, with Sarah’s respawn timer being only seconds away. The payload was getting dangerously close to the finish line all the while. With one of Team A’s members pushing the payload by proximity nearly the entire time the fight was playing out. Contesting the payload’s motion required an enemy to be within the same proximity of the payload, which was out of the question for most of the fight. Aoife, seeing just how close the payload was to the finish, started sprinting back towards Malik and the payload.
10 meters.
Aoife fired a shot towards Malik, hitting him square in the shoulder.
8 meters.
Another shot, this time a miss as Malik intelligently ducked behind the far side of the payload to continue pushing it while remaining in cover.
6 meters.
CLICK. Aoife’s rifle needed a reload. She instead switched to her sidearm as she neared the payload.
5 meters.
The payload stopped, with Aoife now close enough in range to contest the movement of the payload. She was now also in close range of Malik, who emerged from his cover to stand on top of the payload and begin draining Aoife’s health with his [Leech].
[PertinentHorse: Keep him busy! They have 5 seconds left until overtime, you just need to survive!]
Sarah had respawned within the base and began running towards the outside to reach the payload and potentially heal Aoife before she was killed by Malik. She wasn’t fast enough.
Aoife barely had enough time to get off a couple of sidearm shots before she was killed by Malik’s prolonged life drain.
4 meters.
[OVERTIME]
The enemy team had run out of time, but it didn’t matter. As long as Malik stayed on the payload, overtime would continue and allow him to capture the objective. He didn’t even have much health remaining, but Sarah’s entire kit was built around support, and lacked any kind of damage whatsoever.
[Wr4th: FUCK! Get in there to contest or something, Sarah! Owen and I will be up in a few more seconds]
3 meters.
Owen bit her lip in tense contemplation. Deacon’s plan wouldn’t work, and she knew it. Sarah didn’t have enough time to get close to the payload even if she kept sprinting.
[PertinentHorse: You won’t get there in time, if you can-]
[Sarah6258: I got it.]
2 meters.
Her reply was entirely unexpected from Owen. Not only had she interrupted someone for the first time that Owen had ever heard, but she spoke completely confidently. Owen held her hands above her mouth and watched intently at her screen to see what Sarah had planned.
1 meter.
With a righteous screech, Sarah slammed her healing staff on the ground in front of her and activated her ULTRA augment [Gravitational Syzygy]. Owen leaned even closer to her screen as the erupting earth shattered forth from Sarah’s mechanical healing staff and reached Malik. It launched him high up into the sky and suspended him there. Sarah had no way to follow up on her ULTRA augment, it was meant to crowd control an enemy team to set up for a massive damaging ULTRA. The only reason Sarah had picked it in the first place was to combo with Aoife by allowing her to get easy headshots on suspended enemies.
But Sarah had no intentions of following up with damage.
“FUCK YEAH!” Owen leapt up from her chair with a triumphant shout before anyone else had even realized what Sarah had just done. Malik had been thrown high enough into the air that he was out of the payload’s proximity. Without a player from Team A to contest the payload, the overtime timer fully depleted before Malik ever had a chance to fall from the sky.
[VICTORY!]