Crossover Escape: Gotta be more than Lucky to survive

1.18 Practice match

After Luca promised to meet at the building entrance in two hours, he closed the door. Luca turned back to the room just as Ghost walked into the main area from one of the bedrooms. Luca gave him a narrow-eyed look before he said “How come you can ghost into a room on the third floor, but I have to pull you up when where together?”

“I delicate flower,” Ghost responded.

“More like virulent weed.” Rӓv cut in with a disgusted look.

Luca shook his head and then tapped his ear twice to bring everyone’s focus back to the coms so they would use quieter voices. [Lucky: Moving on. We’re being challenged so that means we need to do the equipment re-cap now.] Luca looked specifically at Holly as he spoke since Holly had the least understanding of what was on offer and Luca was unsure if he had more to offer.

Holly snapped to attention just short of saluting. [Holly: I only have the sonic mapper and specialised rations. Since I primarily do mazes.] Holly shrugged at the end and Luca nodded. They’d already used the mapper and rations didn’t need further explanation. Luca gestured to Tails to go next.

[Tails: Right, specialised Kevlar body suit, layered casual body armour and heavy-duty Kevlar fatigues. Holly your casuals are just black pants and a long sleeve shirt. I’d say don’t layer like Luca but after last night…]

[Holly: I’m good with layers.]

[Rӓv: Seconded.]

[Tails: Motion carried.]

[Lucky: Ghost?]

[Ghost: filtration tablets, lightweight heavy-duty filter included water bottles, and special glowsticks.] Holly nodded pulling out the small bottle of pills, the pair of water bottles and finally the strip of heptagonal tubes in a belt as Ghost spoke.

When Ghost didn’t continue Rӓv rolled her eyes before adding [Rӓv: Ghost’s sticks have injection claws at the ends so you can toss them at anything, and they’ll stick. They have seven uses each a different colour.] Rӓv stared hard at Ghost throughout just daring him to interrupt. Without Luca prompting Rӓv continued. [Rӓv: You already got Coms and the detector from me. Here are some butterfly drones for everyone. I’ve been working on them and after the hell we’ve had with random attackers you are all required to always keep at least two active and on you.] As she spoke Rӓv pulled out boxes that looked like makeup cases and tossed them to each person.

Luca flicked his open to check, two rows of five butterflies. With an amicable motion Luca activated to and had them settle beneath the colour of his clothes ready to be deployed as necessary. Luca looked closer at the second row and laughed when he realised that they where moths instead of butterflies.

[Lucky: Step knives, metal tube for using as a climbing step attached to a spring-loaded peg for stabbing into any solid material. Hook wing, wrist attached retractable grappling hook and hot pops, a less painful form of flash bag. They flash white and heat and area to throw off thermal goggles and a secondary speaker is ejected to pin to the roof that plays death metal at high volume designed as a masking distraction. If you need anything specialised, we all have a few extras, Tails had the medical kit, Rӓv more tech, and Ghost has some thief kit.] Discussion continued as everyone went over how things worked and how they could be used. Luca waited to check there was nothing else anyone wanted to ask or add before he checked the time.

[Lucky: Rӓv find out where there holding this, we have one hour before the pre-match meet. The rest of you warm up.] Luca stretched and jogged around the room until minute before they had to go. Rӓv pulled through at the last minute as a series of images were sent to the coms while they walked downstairs.

[Rӓv: There is a training obstacle course here and Zeno and his team as well as some of the other teams have been training on.] Luca looked over the relatively high-end obstacle course in the images paying particular attention to the images of Zeno’s team fighting with Desmond’s team in the centre of the course.

[Tails: Tower defence?] Luca nodded in agreement. It looked like the contest would be two groups trying to get  through the obstacle course from opposite sides. Three-part goals, get through the course, stop the other side from getting through and likely beat some time requirement.

Fairly solid TacWar scenario, thus a perfect chance to scope out the opposition’s strategy, combat ability and efficiency. What Luca found the most interesting was that every image showed only one on one fights.

Luca pondered the concern of as he went through the motion of greeting the dark-skinned man who’d invited them. Luca searched his mind trying to put a name to the face and no realised that the man hadn’t in fact introduced himself. Which was interesting as a big part of TacWar was to make a name for yourself so you could get the better offers.

Rӓv obviously realised the same thing as she strolled forward a bit to talk. “So what team do you normally play for or are you freelance like me, Oh I’m Kristina the ‘Rӓv’ by the way.” Rӓv held out a hand and used her best winning smile.

“I’m Derek, I normally do freelance for smaller comps in the states. Was lucky to get the invite.” The man smiled back and explained easily but there was something off. The conversation continued the entire walk, with Holly and Tails shifting to strike up similar conversations with the others. Ghost stayed next to Luca curiously silent.

It wasn’t till just before they reached the field that it struck Luca what was off. All the men of Derek’s time walked silently there moves seemed casual, but it was like there was a lack of weight or something to their steps. Also they showed no real interest in Rӓv it was more polite their responses. Rӓv was stunning and while she might not be their type for whatever reason she was also a well-known player with a lot of skills, but they didn’t seem interested in understanding her at all. It was like they discounted her combat effectiveness. That sort of underestimation was usually reserved for the stupid or the overconfident and this group read like neither of those.

Luca realised that the reason Ghost hadn’t been talking was because he was observing them with a frown. Luca caught his eye and raised a questioning eyebrow. Ghost tilted his head and then glanced at the obstacle course as he spoke. “Is good, familiar things make for fun times.”

Derek turned back as soon as Ghost spoke but responded with a relaxed laugh as he followed Ghost’s line of sight. “Like obstacle course, do you?”

“Da, have done many. Brings joy to life.” Ghost rolled his shoulders slightly demented smile firmly in place. Luca flicked his eyes over the course and the other teams while he mentally swore. Luca didn’t recognise the team and yet Ghost said that the men seemed familiar. That they were likely people they’d encountered but hadn’t seen the faces of. Which was only the Faceless Masks and Black Mufflers of late. Luca didn’t question Ghost’s instinct they hadn’t been wrong yet and more caution avoided early deaths.

Luca figured he should be happy that he knew where at least some of the attacker’s information was coming from. However he then had another concern did he want this ‘practice’ to be a set up or not?

If it was a set up that meant the plans the attackers were using had stayed the same, but it also meant they were going to be in the open for a clear easy attack. If it wasn’t that mean someone’s plans had changed, and Luca was more worried about what the new plan would be than dealing with the old plan.

“Yo Lucky, come to test your luck?” Zeno called out as they reached the edge of the course and the teams gathered up. Various groups laughed at the joke and Luca raised an eyebrow

“Well someone’s luck will be tested not sure it will be mine. Nice to see you back to normal though Zero the charm was scaring me.” If he wanted to talk nicknames Luck could accommodate. Besides this was practically on field callsigns were appropriate now.

“Da was like snake,” Ghost chimed in

“Horrifying in its proximity so you just can’t look away? harsh man, harsh.” Tails finished off. Silence followed as the groups didn’t want to offend Zeno but weren’t sure how to face an allied front from what they no doubt assumed was a temporary grouping.

Zeno’s eyes narrowed at the snappy follow up from Ghost and Tails. Luca smiled gently he figured Zeno might have still been trying to sow discord, but he’d picked the wrong topic considering it was Ghosts and Tails that had made the nickname stick in the first place.

“Everyone is here now? Good I’ll explain the rules then.” Mr Important Suit’s voice sounded out and Luca twitched involuntarily there was a WIC suit organising? That meant this was even less casual than Luca had been thinking. It seemed WIC might be trying to get a read on whether any players and which ones had been messing with there place last night. That was fine, Luca didn’t mind messing with them a bit more anyway.

“It is a tournament style match. Teams will be paired off and duke it out over a series of three matches on the obstacle course. First to two wins, wins the match and advances to the next level. There is to be a three-on-three grouping, a duos match and a solo match. The win condition is to be the first to the other side of the obstacle course. You may use any means but lethal force to stop your opponent getting past you to your end of the course.”

Luca nodded that was pretty much what he expected reach the opposite sides ‘tower’ before they reach yours. The match up types where surprising Luca had expected individual or full groups. Though this form was something he could take advantage of. They needed a bit more practice working with Holly anyway.

“All members of a team have to participate in one type of match, and one person can only participate in a maximum of two formats in a given match.” Luca nodded seemed fair but the way a few of the other teams smirked at Luca had him wondering what they thought about it. It seemed they thought Luca’s team would be disadvantaged he just wasn’t sure why.