Chapter Text
"Woo!" came a voice through Tae's headphones, right as he was dropping them near the edge of the map. "Got a good feeling about this match! I am HYPED."
Tae smiled to himself as his thumb hovered over the microphone switch. Usually he didn't use his mic but the man's excitement was contagious. He'd just had a few shitty games where he wasn't the jumpmaster and his random teammates dropped them where half of the lobby also landed, then cursed at him while they were downed as he was still trying to find a gun, or even a grenade, to fight with.
He switched his mic on. "Let's win this," he said.
"Oh shit!" The other player, called TheOnlyMirage, broke off and landed a little ways away from Tae, at a different cluster of supply bins. "Finally someone who comes on mic before screaming at me for not clutching in the middle of four squads. Yeah, let's win this!"
Tae chuckled as he ran around looting. He found his favorite sniper rifle and a decent mid-range gun, so once he was sure he had enough ammo and decent attachments he ran over to the other player, who he decided to just call Mirage for ease.
It looked like Mirage was debating whether to swap something from his inventory for some extra heals. "You got everything you need?" Tae asked.
"Yeah, think so, just wanna have enough ammo but also heals, y'know." Tae opened up his own inventory.
"I've got some extra space. I can carry some for you?" he offered.
Mirage's character dropped a stack of ammo and the heals disappeared from the bin. "Thanks, that's real cool of you." It helped that it was the same ammo type as Tae's mid-range gun, so he'd just drop some if Mirage was running low.
Without saying anything else they both went on the jump tower and Tae pinged a location right at the edge of the safe zone. Mirage pinged an 'OK' to it and once they arrived, they quickly checked the already opened bins before heading into the little house that was there.
Tae sent out his drone to see if there were any teams near them, but it didn't seem that way, so he recalled it. Mirage was sitting right next to him.
"You good there?"
"Just protecting you… drone boy."
Tae snorted. "Thanks. Let's go fight some people."
They exited the house and could hear the thundering noise of an airstrike in the distance. Both headed there without any further communication and Tae hid in a bush while he examined the area through his sniper rifle.
"They're reviving." He centered his view carefully on the enemy character's head. "You want honorable kills or easy kills?"
"Pff, easy." Tae smirked behind his screen as he pressed the shoot button and both characters collapsed before turning into death boxes.
ELIMINATED AirstrikeLady_5
ELIMINATED NY0000M
"Damn," came Mirage's voice. "You're a good shot." Tae grinned as he reloaded his rifle and sent out his drone. "No more squads here."
They ran over to the area where the fight had been, which looked an awful lot like a graveyard. They managed to snatch some pretty nice gear before they headed more towards the center of the safe zone.
"So, uh, you been playing for long? I couldn't see a level on your banner." Mirage's character had sent out a decoy which he was trying to get to jump onto a small ledge.
"Since launch," Tae responded, looking at the struggle going on with Mirage's decoy with amusement.
"Oh, neat! Same! Wonder if we've ever killed each other…" Finally he managed to get the decoy up, but at that exact moment it disappeared. "Aw, man…"
Tae couldn't hold back a laugh. "Better luck next time, right?"
They headed up the hill, Tae again entering drone view when they were safely inside the house there and announcing that there were two squads around them.
"I think they're in the bunker," Mirage said. "Can hear some pretty loud kabooms from here." Tae navigated his drone through the steel doors and the little bleeps were enough to tell him Mirage had been right. One team was holed up inside one of the rooms, trying to heal, while he could see the other team at the top of the stairs, grenades at the ready. For some reason it irked him when a team had the high ground and was using that to deny access to others, so he activated his drone's EMP and took a nice chunk off their shields. They tried shooting the drone but the squad down below used that window to push them, and soon they were turned into death boxes.
"Alright, just one squad in there now," Tae said after recalling his drone. Mirage's character was positioned right next to him again and he let out a soft chuckle.
"You have a nice laugh," Mirage commented, walking his character out of the house. "Ah, sorry if that was weird."
With a big grin Tae followed Mirage out of the house. "Thank you."
The squad had left the bunker which allowed them to check the boxes before they went out the other side and were abruptly ambushed from both sides. They'd been hiding out on the elevated platforms.
"Aw, man, that sucks," Mirage said, as Tae looked at the SQUAD ELIMINATED screen. "Wanna try again? Let's say that was just a warm-up, yeah?"
"Alright," Tae responded, exiting the match before sending Mirage both a party invite and a friend request.