by Devin Hunter
“They aren’t.” Grey balled his fists, so angry he hadn’t seen it sooner. He’d been so blinded by his desire to learn Lam’s style that he hadn’t realized she was out to sabotage him like this. It might be too late to recover if she succeeded. “I’ll beat you no matter who is in my squad.”
Lam laughed at that. “No, you won’t. I’m gonna go find Kiri.”
“Leave my squad alone!” Fear set in as he realized Lam’s offer could be just as tempting to the rest of his squad. And if he lost any of them now … “Why won’t any of you play fair?”
“Because fair hasn’t gotten us anywhere,” Lam said. “Haven’t you figured that out yet?”
“Yeah, but I want to prove you all wrong,” Grey said. “It can be fair.”
“Why can’t you join my squad and be done with it?” Lam asked, and just as she did, someone else came through the door.
Kiri.
She didn’t look happy. Grey’s eyes went wide as he realized she’d probably heard Lam’s offer.
CHAPTER 5
Lam smiled when she saw Kiri had come in. “Kiri, just who I wanted to talk to.”
Kiri didn’t look at her but instead stared down Grey. “So are you leaving us? Is that what I walked in on?”
“He said no.” Lam put her hand on Kiri’s shoulder to get her attention. “But if you want to take my offer, I’d be more than happy to have a sniper of your caliber.”
“That was your plan all along, ay?” Kiri pointed to the door. “Get out.”
Lam shrugged as she went to leave. “Offer stands. I’ll go find Finn and Hazel.”
“Don’t you dare!” Kiri yelled after her. She turned back to Grey. “Please tell me this is the first time she’s done this.”
He nodded. “I said no. Why are you mad at me?”
“I’m not. I’m mad that she did this. I want to believe people will play fair and …” Kiri put her hands on her hips. “I’m glad you said no. It wasn’t easy, was it?”
Grey shook his head. “Is it easy for you to say no?”
“It’s hard,” Kiri admitted. “Especially now.”
“You think Finn or Hazel will take her up on it?” Grey asked.
Kiri pursed her lips as she thought. “I don’t think Finn will—he hates that sort of play style, and he’s your mate in real life. But Hazel … I dunno. She’s scared to stay here another season.”
Grey let out a sigh. He remembered when Hazel told him she didn’t have anyone in the real world, how she was afraid she might die if she was in a coma too long. If any of them might take Lam’s offer, it would be Hazel. “So much for not having any drama in our squad.”
“If we don’t make drama, it comes to us anyway,” Kiri grumbled.
“Let’s find them quick.” Grey rushed out of his cabin, hoping he could find Finn and Hazel before Lam did. He knew Lam wouldn’t stop her quest to recruit someone from Grey’s squad, but he hoped he could at least prevent it for a few more games. He needed his squad to focus on the game.
He needed them to stay in his squad.
Grey never thought he’d say it, but he didn’t want Hazel to leave. She’d improved a lot, and she wasn’t so mean anymore. He liked her and believed she made their squad better. Grey could find someone to replace Hazel, but he didn’t want to. It would mean even more drama because he’d have to choose between Ben and Tristan. Leaving one of them out felt worse than leaving both out. They had been a team for so long.
Sure enough, Lam had found Finn by the campfire that was in the center of the cabin circle. Finn was laughing in Lam’s face. Grey assumed Lam had already attempted to recruit him.
“Finn!” Grey called as he ran over.
“Hey, dude,” Finn said as he pointed to Lam. “She thinks I’m gonna join her squad. Isn’t that hilarious? Betray my best friend so I can hide out in boxes all game. Yeah, right!”
“Glad you feel that way.” Grey looked around for Hazel’s bright green hair, but he didn’t see her anywhere. “Let’s go talk strategy for today.”
“Where’s Hazel?” Lam asked.
“None of your business,” Kiri said.
“We’ll see you in the battles,” Grey said. “Otherwise, stay away from us. Forget practicing.”
Lam pretended to be sad. “Oh no, what will I do?” she said sarcastically.
Grey walked away from her. Finn and Kiri followed. Finn caught up to Grey and asked, “Did she ask you guys, too, or just me?”
“She asked me first and then Kiri,” Grey answered as he went to find Hazel. He hoped she was already in the battle warehouse waiting for them. They usually went there at the start of each day to talk about their plan for the day.
“Ugh, not even first pick,” Finn said. “Rude.”
“She’s messing with us,” Grey replied. “Even if no one leaves, this is a distraction that will take our focus off beating her. We can’t let mind games get to us.”
“No problem here,” Finn said. “Should we warn Hazel?”
Grey stopped before he got to the battle warehouse. He hadn’t thought of warning Hazel that Lam was trying to recruit. Even now, he was scared that if Hazel knew, she would decide to leave his squad right away. But if they kept it from her … she would probably think they didn’t trust her.
Finally, Grey nodded. “Probably.”
“You sure?” Kiri asked. “What if she leaves us right now?”
“Then we’ll have to deal with it. I can’t make anyone stay if they don’t want to.” Grey kept walking, and the moment he stepped inside, it wasn’t hard to spot Hazel.
She sat at a table by herself, and when she saw them come in, she shouted, “What took you so long?”
Grey, Finn, and Kiri sat at the table, no one replying. Grey knew his friends thought he was the one who should tell her, but he struggled to say it.
Hazel’s brow furrowed in the awkward silence. “Is something wrong? What happened?”
There was no reason to drag this out. Hazel would want Grey to tell it to her straight. “Lam is trying to recruit someone from our squad. She’s asked us all, and now she’s looking for you. She thinks recruiting one of us will tank our chances to beat her for the top spots.”
“Oh …” Hazel’s eyes brightened with more hope and interest than Grey wanted to see. “She’ll take any of us?”
“Yeah,” Grey said. “Learning our style, messing with us, and I guess this recruitment was all part of her plan to ensure she stays in the number-one rank. She thinks if we fall apart, there will be no one to challenge her squad.”
Hazel leaned her elbows on the table, not looking at any of them. “She’s right. They already beat us a ton with just three squad members. Taking one of us to her side would make them overpowering.”
Grey struggled to talk past the lump in his throat. He could see what he feared—Hazel was seriously considering Lam’s offer. “But this means she sees us as a threat to her position. I hope we can stay together and fight her for it. I think we can win. I promise I won’t be hung up on her play style anymore. I got caught up in trying to be like her, and I shouldn’t have done that. We should have kept doing our own thing, improving our own style, instead of me trying to copy hers.”
Hazel pursed her lips as she thought. “I’m not gonna lie—Lam’s offer is super tempting. There’s no way I can turn it down right here and now without thinking about it.”
“I get that …” Grey said, though he was disappointed.
“I’m not saying I’ll leave,” Hazel said. “I’m just being honest that I can’t ignore a guaranteed spot in the top five. No matter what I decide, I won’t be like Ben and Tristan and just disappear, okay? That’s the best I can promise right now.”
Kiri let out a sigh. “I guess the honesty is nice, even if you clearly don’t have faith in us.”
“It’s not about that,” Hazel said. “Do I think we could do it? Yeah. I really do. But it’s still a risk, you know? And a risk isn’t a guarantee. It’s hard to pass up
on that. You can’t tell me you weren’t tempted, Kiri, when we’re this close to the end.”
Kiri frowned. “Of course it’s tempting, but that doesn’t make it right.”
“Is it wrong, though?” Hazel asked.
Before any of them could answer, the daily announcement sounded throughout the area. Battles begin in thirty seconds!
“We can’t worry about it now,” Grey said before they were teleported to the line. “Let’s do our best today to get Victory Royales—that will help us all no matter what people decide in the end, right?”
“Right,” Hazel said. Finn and Kiri agreed, too.
But as the battles began, Grey didn’t feel good at all. Even if everyone tried to do their best, the tone of the squad had already changed. Grey wasn’t just on edge because of the competition—he was on edge because at any minute Hazel could decide to leave his squad and fight against them. A seed of distrust had been planted, and it would only grow from there.
CHAPTER 6
Despite Lam’s attempt to make trouble in Grey’s squad, they were able to win the first three games of the day. Zach and Hui Yin took the fourth. But Grey hoped those three Victory Royales would somehow convince Hazel to stick around as they faced the final battle of the day.
Instead of waiting until the end of the battles to fight Lam, Grey had tried to find her squad earlier. He knew how much Lam liked to load up on materials before she faced any fights, so he targeted places like Wailing Woods and Lonely Lodge where there were enough trees to fill an entire squad on wood materials.
He got lucky on three of the five games, having found them early enough to take them out before they could build their fun houses. Tae Min was right—Grey needed to play his own game, and fighting out in the open favored Grey’s squad.
But after the first three games, Lam stopped going to her farming spots and she was harder to track down.
“This loot sucks,” Finn said as they finished picking over Wailing Woods.
“I know,” Grey said as he broke down a nearby tree. “But it’s worth it if we can get Lam’s squad early.”
“True,” Kiri said. “Just those three early losses knocked her out of first.”
“Not for long with Tae Min purposely tanking,” Hazel pointed out. “He literally dove right into the sea this time to take the one hundredth rank.”
“I miss him being godly,” Finn said. “He was fun to fight.”
“Yeah, it’s not the same.” Grey didn’t know how an amazing player like Tae Min could accept those kinds of losses. Tae Min seemed like the kind of person who would hate to lose, even if he was doing it on purpose.
There were still fifty players left in this final battle of the day, so Grey believed they had time to find Lam’s squad before they got too geared up. He headed over to Tomato Town in search of better loot, and luckily there was some left, though it was obvious a fight had gone down. Piles of loot sat out in the open next to some small builds. The best gear had been taken by the winners of the fight, but there were still a few things that Grey’s squad was happy to have, like a better sniper rifle for Kiri and a whole stack of small shields.
“Why’d they leave these behind?” Finn said as he grabbed the shields.
“Must have had big shields or a chug jug,” Hazel said.
“We need to be careful if they do—whoever was here might be aggressive if they see us.” Grey looked around. Tomato Town had been broken up, and there was evidence everywhere of looting, but he heard no one. He glanced at his mini-map. The storm was closing again soon. They needed to get west pronto.
“Lam will already be heading to the center of the safe zone,” Kiri pointed out. “We’ll be in for it.”
Grey knew this was true, but there was nothing else to be done but face them. Hopefully he could find a way to defeat Lam’s squad in his own way in the latter part of the battle. So far he’d only won when he caught them early. “Whatever we’re in for, we’ll need better loot than this.”
“Seriously,” Hazel said. “I still have all gray weapons.”
“Let’s try Anarchy Acres.” It was a big farm in the northern part of the island. Much like Lucky Landing, it didn’t get a lot of players because sometimes the storm circle would be hard to get to. In this battle, it was circling over Dusty Divot, so all they needed to do was rotate south after looting Anarchy Acres and eliminate anyone they might meet.
As they approached the east side of Anarchy Acres, Grey could tell that someone had been there gathering loot because the houses and barns had walls missing. But there wasn’t much in the way of player-built structures, so there couldn’t have been much fighting going on.
“Keep a lookout,” Grey said. “They might still be here.”
“We gotta be quick,” Finn said. “Next storm starts in a minute.”
“Let’s split,” Kiri said. “Me and Hazel, Grey and Finn.”
“Good plan. We’ll hit the west side.” Grey moved cautiously across the open fields on his way to the other side of the farm. He scanned the area for any movement, but there was nothing.
When he and Finn entered the first building on their side, loot lay around open chests. Someone had been here and taken what they needed just like in Tomato Town, but there was a lot more left. There were clinger grenades, impulse grenades, and some med kits that would be useful.
“I hate getting leftovers,” Finn grumbled as he upgraded his SMG from gray to blue. “And there aren’t any traps or bouncers or launch pads for us.”
“Yeah.” Grey knew it was a big problem—those items always came in handy when fighting Lam’s squad. “We need to find some people to eliminate. Maybe they’ll have some.”
“This has been a boring battle for sure.” Finn peeked out a window to check for any other players, but by his groan, Grey knew he saw nothing. “Where is everyone? There are forty on the map still!”
“I don’t know.” Fortnite Battle Royale was strange like that. Sometimes Grey and his squad would land with plenty of enemies to fight right away, and sometimes it would be abandoned until they hit the smaller storm circles and were forced closer to their final opponents.
Just when Grey thought Finn might protest out of boredom, he heard the sound of SMG fire in the distance.
“There’s a duo on us,” Kiri said with a shockingly calm voice. “No sight of extra players.”
“They’re good. Might be Zach and Hui Yin,” Hazel added.
“Or Ben and Tristan. Or Yuri and Vlad,” Kiri said.
“Save some for me!” Finn ran out of the barn. Grey wanted to yell at him for being reckless, but he wasn’t nearly as paranoid now that Tae Min wasn’t around to snipe out of nowhere.
“Remember they have the better loot!” Grey called as he followed Finn toward the sound of the fight.
“It’s all about how you use it,” Finn claimed as he built himself a protective wall and ramp. They were playing cat and mouse outside and inside the farmhouse.
“The thief skin is low,” Hazel said. “Got him good with my shotgun.”
“I see him!” Finn opened fire, and it took no time to see the notification.
Finn knocked down Ben.
Kiri eliminated Tristan.
Once Kiri did that, Ben was also eliminated, and his loot spilled from his avatar like a piñata. Grey felt bad, but not too bad when he saw the good stuff they had. He wasn’t surprised they’d pick a location on the outskirts—they would be trying to preserve their rank as much as possible, hoping they could still make top five when they were so close.
“Grab it all,” Grey said. “Storm’s coming.”
They’d gained some of the tools they needed, so Grey considered it worth the risk even though they ended up getting caught in the storm and taking damage. They had enough healing to make it out, and the better loot allowed them to take out another lower-ranked squad on the way to Dusty Divot.
Lam eliminated Zach.
Pilar eliminated Hui Yin.
“Well,
they must have found Lam’s fortress,” Finn said. “Two more out of the way.”
“Yup.” Though as they approached Dusty Divot, Grey watched the number of players dwindle. Many were taken out by Vlad and Yuri, but then they were ultimately taken down by Lam’s squad as well. Whatever Lam had created for this battle, it had to be formidable. With all the losses Grey had handed her today, she had to have been out for revenge.
The crater was in sight, and Grey took shelter in the broken warehouses on the cliff. He peeked into the crater, expecting to see some elaborate fun house that Lam’s squad had built in Dusty Divot, but to his surprise he saw nothing but the lab buildings. There was evidence of people having been there to fight, though it seemed more like small fights that ended quickly.
“Maybe they’re not there …” Kiri offered.
“But this is where the safe zone will be,” Finn said. “Lam always camps in the safe zone.”
“We changed it up today,” Hazel offered. “Maybe she did, too, after you beat her so much.”
“Maybe …” Grey looked down at the lab again. He had a feeling they were being watched. “Kiri, stay here and protect yourself. Take shots if anyone shows.”
“Aye, aye, Captain.” Kiri began to build herself a small base, even if it was only Grey’s squad and Lam’s squad left.
“Down we go.” Grey wasn’t sure how to approach when there wasn’t an obvious location to target. Lam usually made it obvious where they were, but maybe she had learned from yesterday’s practice when Grey tried those decoy towers.
Grey expected to take some fire as they built their way down into the crater, but it was quiet. Too quiet. His squad’s loud footsteps had to have told Lam’s squad that he was there, and yet Lam’s squad still didn’t move. He didn’t hear anything in the area to tell him where they were.
“Where are they?” Finn asked. “The storm is closing in again. They have to be here.”
“They want us to play hide-and-seek,” Hazel said.
“Yeah.” Grey looked over the buildings, noticing that at any place there would have been a window, there was now a wall. It was a trap—one exactly like he’d built in their last practice—except Lam had used Dusty Divot’s existing buildings to employ it. “How many explosives do we have?”