Let The Games Begin!

Gray woke up early, alone, and felt a little lonely since he had started to get used to sleeping with Yurika. He hadn't heard from Yurika or anyone else last night about what happened to Edward Teach, but today was the day of the tournament finally.

Gray got dressed, cleaned up and went to the cafeteria for breakfast as usual. Everyone except Jono and Yurika were present. Jono was no big surprise as he still lived in the virtual world and said he wouldn't show up until a few minutes before it was time.

"Gray! How'd it go yesterday with Yurika's parents?" Stacia said excitedly.

"Yeah, we took bets on what they were like. Most of us pictured her Dad as a hardcore military fanatic while her mother was mild-mannered, polite, but very attractive with the same kind of hair!" Geoff said while Caleb and Paul nodded in agreement.

"No! We picture her Dad as a career military man that is kind and doting while her mother is the true leader that is strong, passionate, empowering, and can kick ass and cook at the same time!" Stacia said while Xyra backed her up.

Gray thought about it for a moment and figured they were both correct partially.

"Well, I'd have to say this would be a tie then because you're both half correct. Her dad was a career soldier and now he's a fanatic of it, but he keeps himself in shape. Her mother…" Gray paused while trying to figure out how to word it so everyone could understand.

"What about her Mother?" Stacia asked, leaning in so she didn't miss anything.

Gray laughed slightly and said, "Her mother scares the crap out of me. You are right in that she is very polite and beautiful, but Yurika gets her temper from her mother as well as her talent for fighting. She also flipped me over on a table like a pancake!"

"I can see that… my only question is what did you do to deserve it?" Stacia asked.

"Nothing! I mean… I may have worn video game themed socks, but that was only made known after I was flipped over on my back. Not only that, her mom actually liked them and was wearing a pair as well! She thought I was questioning her abilities, but I hadn't said a thing!"

"So were you questioning her abilities?" Caleb asked this time after having become a little familiar with Gray's natural bad habit of liking to cause trouble for people.

"I may have thought about it, but I didn't say anything, honest!"

"Hah! You THOUGHT about it!" Stacia said triumphantly.

Gray rolled his eyes at Stacia and said, "Can't I think whatever I want to think? Don't tell me her mother can read minds."

"You can think what you want, she can't read minds, but you make this face when you're about to question something." Stacia said.

"Really?" Gray said skeptically.

"Yes! That face!" Stacia said while pointing at Gray's face.

Geoff, Paul, Xyra, and Caleb looked at his face as well. "Yeah, it basically screams that you're about to question something out of disbelief." Caleb chimed in.

"Whatever, anyways for our team and the 4 mech lineup, I was thinking Yurika, Caleb, Geoff, and myself. Thoughts?" Gray asked everyone else.

Paul shrugged and said, "I get it, you guys have known each other the longest and Stacia is the most timid out of you 5."

"Actually it has nothing to do with that, I based it upon your personalities and preferences. The matches are short so it won't leave hardly any time to set anything up so I went with who would best fit those. Paul, you're very defensive and we won't have time for that. Stacia and Xyra are too passive for a quick and fast match as well."

"Hmm… fair point, my best mech is quite slow after all." Paul replied, satisfied that Gray didn't choose the group of 4 out of favoritism.

"You would have put Yurika on the team even if she was awful though, right?" Geoff said wryly.

"Duh, she would kick my ass if I didn't!"

Paul looked at Xyra with a slight smile and said, "I think we need to find another team, again…"

Xyra gave a light chuckle then softly said, "I like this team."

__________

It was now 9:40 am and the tournament would start in 20 minutes. Many players began queuing up with their teams as early as 9:00 am.

Surprisingly to Gray, Jono had shown up on time, but what Gray was really worried about was that Yurika still wasn't there yet. Gray and the others were nervously watching the time and waiting for Yurika.

Kelly sent Gray a message that said, "You have 5 minutes to get in a simulator pod and confirm your entry, I will kill you if you are late and cause us to be disqualified!"

Gray couldn't help but wonder why women always wanted to kill him.

Gray's armlet said 9:44am, Gray had one minute now to confirm his entry. Finally, Gray saw a teal streak heading towards them and immediately felt relief.

"Sorry I'm late! Mom literally tried to hold me hostage!" Yurika said apologetically, breathing heavily from having sprinted here from her dorm room.

"Glad you made it! We have no time, in the pods now!" Gray said, then grabbed Yurika's arm, kissed her forcefully, and then ran into an open simulator pod.

Gray closed the hatch on his simulator pod and quickly confirmed his entry for the tournament, hoping everyone else would make it in time as well. He saw the timer still had 10 minutes on it and realized that the actual deadline was 9:55am, not 9:45am.

"Well, Kelly did like to be early for everything." Gray thought to himself.

Gray brought up the tournament brackets to see who they would be pitted against in each round.

"Steel Wolves vs. Team #81? Either that team sucks at picking names or the organizers are not revealing the names just yet."

Looking up and down the brackets, Gray saw that around half of the bracket had names like 'Team #81' in all of them so he guessed they were just waiting until other teams confirmed their participation in the tournament.

Gray received a message from Kelly, "Good luck in the 4 versus 4 match, hopefully we run in to each other!"

Gray laughed to himself thinking that Kelly's competitive side hadn't changed at all since they first met back in high school.

The timer reached 0 and a new timer popped up with a 5 minute duration on it. A screen with a brief explanation of the 4 player team tournament appeared in front of Gray. Gray read it quickly and wasn't exactly surprised by what it said.

For these small team matches, everyone will have the same mechs and same load outs. The Ranger Mk 01 and a medium range, high damage battle rifle that has been dubbed the 'DMR' (Designated Matchmaking Rifle). While Gray thought this would be boring, he also understood it was setup this way to make it about skill and tactics instead of equipment.

With only 1 minute left until the match starts, the bracket finally updated itself to reveal the team that Gray, Geoff, Yurika, and Caleb would be facing.

"Steel Wolves vs. The Narwhals" Gray said, trying to hold back his laughter. "I don't know whether to say that their name is amazing or that it is amazingly bad."

Gray, Geoff, Yurika, and Caleb were sent to the pregame lobby as expected, but the usual mech selection screens didn't pop up for them since they were all given the same load outs.

"Dang it, this sucks, I hate this kind of weapon!" Yurika complained.

"Why is that?" Gray asked.

"It is a single shot weapon that doesn't pack the punch of a sniper rifle, doesn't have burst or automatic fire, and it is good in every situation except for point-blank."

"Um… that actually sounds like a very good weapon to pick when you don't know what kind of situation you're going to find yourself in." Geoff said skeptically to Yurika.

"Well yeah! It's boring though! I want to spray bullets with a machine gun! I want to watch the metal fly off of my enemy when I blast them with a shotgun! I want to put 2 inch holes in someone's armor with a sniper rifle!" Yurika shouted, clearly getting emotional over this subject.

Gray, Geoff, and Caleb could only stare at Yurika as she started to get physically aggravated at the thought of everyone using the same type of all-purpose weapon.

"I consider myself somewhat of a gun fan, but you take it to fanatic levels Yurika." Caleb said dryly.

"Shut it! I can't help it! It was how I was raised! Some girls play with dolls, other girls play with weapons. I felt more comfortable holding a Beretta than holding a Barbie!"

Gray, Geoff, and Caleb couldn't really argue as they probably would have been too.

"Well, regardless, you've been our weapon's expert so we're actually happy that you were raised that way, right guys?" Gray said while looking at Caleb and Geoff and nodding his head.

"Oh, yeah! Don't know where we'd be with you!" Geoff said nervously.

"Agreed, you have proven quite effective at dispatching our opponents." Caleb said calmly.

"Right, so our first match begins in 20 seconds. We'll move in a pack of 4 at first, and then we split into groups of 2 if needed. No need to play the hero and take all 4 of them on at once, let's focus them one at a time."

"Affirmative!"

An AI voice suddenly sounded through every participant's simulator pod across the world. "Four Player Team, Round 1, Begin!"