Chapter 191: Chapter 172.2 : Event Concludes

‘Seven minutes left,’ a scarfless Lane noted as he looked up. He lay sprawled on a grassy patch, soaking up the sun, the epitome of carefree.

Unlike everyone else, Lane hadn’t moved an inch from his initial spot. As a former assassin, efficiency was always on his mind, so the idea to run around randomly in search of others wasn’t even entertained.

Instead, he would wait until the thirty-minute mark arrived, and then swiftly hunt down everyone. He would lose the element of surprise but he didn’t mind. The former assassin had great confidence in his combat skills and physical prowess, believing that the combination would allow him to best anybody he'd come across.

At the twenty-five-minute mark, Lane got to his feet and…began stretching. ‘I relaxed a bit too much, better warm myself up.’ With this intention, he completed his sequence of stretches before picking a random direction and striding off.

‘15 left, hopefully, they aren’t too spread out,’ Lane wished as he glanced up at the student counter. He wanted the Event to end as quickly as possible; he had Psi games waiting for him after all.

His mind had been occupied with them since the Event started - no, even before then. Psi gaming had dominated his thoughts since he woke up and even during his dreams.

‘Hmm, maybe that’s what Ralf was talking about. No doubt, it is addictive. And those aren’t even the real things.’

As his thoughts moved to fabled real Psi games, desire and anticipation began bubbling in the former assassin’s heart. ‘He mentioned Charlotte was needed, so it probably involves overlaying telepathic illusions. With that, colour and sound can be added…though, from the way he spoke about it, I can’t imagine it’s that simple.’

With Charlotte coming to mind, her earlier words naturally came barreling into his thoughts as well. Remembering them, Lane scrubbed the laxness from his being and sharpened his mind.

While he didn’t care too much about the result of the Event, he had made a promise - well, he was forced to make a promise - to give it his all to prevent Ralf’s victory. With his word given/taken, he, now a member of the newly formed People Against Ralf Alliance (PARA), had to play his part.

‘Two minutes to go - oh, mm? What a mess - wait, is that Skye…and Ralf?’ Baffled by the discovery, Lane approached the bloodbath his eyes had locked onto. Arriving at it, his sharp senses moved over the massacre.

Including Ralf and Skye, there were six ‘dead’ students present, all stained red. Observing the scene, Lane’s brows furrowed up. ‘What happened here…it doesn’t make much sense,’ he thought as he struggled to reconstruct the scene. ‘Instead of all at once, it looks like they were killed one by one. Were they brought here after being killed elsewhere…would the rules even allow for that?’

Pondering this, his eyes swept over the dirt tracks in the surroundings. ‘Strange, if someone carried them, I’d expect the sunken dirt to be a dead giveaway - no, more than that, who beat Ralf?’ His brows knotted up further as he posed the question.

Lane held Ralf in high esteem; yesterday’s performance and more recently, his CAT results proved he was incredibly formidable. Truthfully, Lane reckoned he was the only one who could defeat his new friend, so Ralf being eliminated came as a great shock to his system.

After brainstorming for a bit and coming up empty, Lane decided to put the matter behind him, literally. He turned and walked away. ‘It is what it is, at least, Charlotte will be hap-’

Swoosh!

Not questioning his instincts in the slightest, Lane immediately swerved to the right. Seeing the paintball streak pass his shoulder was all he needed to understand what was happening. His body filled with tension and he shifted into combat mode. Shifting leftward to avoid the second shot, Lane swung around and returned fire.

*Splat* *Splat*

He would only stain the tree though. Ralf had responded swiftly, rolling away and then throwing himself into a second roll to arrive behind Skye’s ‘corpse’. On his knees, he took aim with the paintball gun in his right hand. Lane flickered minutely, dodging the projectiles with ease while sending his own shots. Ralf tilted his head to avoid the first and used his newly appointed meatshield to block the second one. With his left hand, Ralf yanked Skye up by the collar, just in time to tank the projectile.

Struck by it, the air Mimic’s face cringed in both pain and incredulity. Ralf ignored his plight and broke into a dash after tossing him aside. He didn’t head for Lane, but instead to a second paintball gun at his 3 o’clock. Running and gunning, he scooped up the gun with a slide and then started duel-wielding the handguns.

Click click click, three shots sailed past Lane’s evasive figures. At seven metres away, the former assassin comfortably dodged the projectiles, doing so with minimal motions at that. Ralf was coloured impressed, and so chose to up the ante. He angled his guns inward and then fired them simultaneously.

‘!?’

Lane’s mind momentarily blanked at the explosion of red before him, yes, before him. Ralf’s bullets had struck each other and exploded to form a rapidly approaching large blob.

The red blob grew with every passing metre as it searched for a canvas to call its home. Lane wouldn’t be that canvas though. Experience kicking in, the former assassin snapped into action; he ducked at the last second, letting the newborn amalgamation pass overhead without so much as a spec touching his figure.

Ralf’s eyes flashed with admiration before he dove in. He’d use the Bullet Bloom tactic again if he could, but the second gun was out of bullets. Staying low, he avoided Lane’s rushed shot and closed the distance. The former assassin was quick to shift gears and adjusted his posture for close combat.

To ordinary eyes, the two blended into one anomalous blur. To enhanced eyes, the pair’s movements appeared as art in motion. Dodging and parrying, the two speedily avoided each other’s bullets and conventional attacks alike, displaying sublime skill and precision.

Observers were at the edge of their seats at the gun-fu, with those nearby, nearly falling off their branches from excitement overload. The performance was spellbinding, dirt and wind swirled around them as a melody of gunshots accompanied the pair’s dance.

‘Not bad not bad,’ Ralf thought in praise as he shifted the other’s barrel with his elbow. He had high expectations coming in, but his new friend had managed to shatter even them in these last few seconds. For the first time since coming to the Hunter Academy, Ralf was made to sweat, at least mentally. Glee filled his expression as he relished the rapid exchange.

On the opposite end, Lane was blank-faced, fully focused on battle. While close combat was his speciality, Ralf’s gun-fu pushed him to the brink and kept him there. He was doing his all to just keep up. Still, the former assassin didn’t give up; no such thoughts crossed his mind as he searched for victory amidst the storm he was weathering.

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Swoosh!

Spinning, Ralf swung his left hand holding the empty gun at Lane. Mid-swing, he pressed the magazine release button. The former assassin blocked Ralf’s arm before immediately tilting his head. The magazine still struck his face, though instead of his eye as Ralf intended, it struck the former assassin’s sturdy cheekbone.

Unfazed, Lane sent a left jab, which Ralf avoided with a backstep while simultaneously dropping his empty gun. Following the miss, the former assassin fired from his hip, only for Ralf to swiftly twist his body. The bullet flew past the Transmigrator’s flapping shirt by mere centimetres. Lane noted the sight for what it was, a failure, but didn’t lament over it; he tossed away his now empty gun and raised his left arm to guard, blocking Ralf’s subsequent attack.

After dodging the projectile, Ralf did a quick turn and swung his gun down upon Lane, looking to pistol-whip him. Stopped by Lane’s firm guard, the momentum seemed to force Ralf’s fingers to squeeze the trigger. With a click, the gun’s last bullet was shot into the air.

Lane noted the trajectory before enduring Ralf’s next attacks.

Discarding the empty gun, the Transmigrator began unleashing a flurry of punches. Lane didn’t dare match his opponent; he took a closed boxing stance, soaking up the damage as he bobbed and weaved, all the while zigzagging backwards.

‘So strong,’ he thought amidst the lightning-quick barrage.

In the passing seconds, he was forced to juggle more things than he was accustomed to. Enduring Ralf’s speedy and weighty attacks while navigating the uneven and littered environment was a tough task by itself, so having to also keep track of the descending paintball, slightly overwhelmed the former assassin.

The usual nonchalance he felt during combat was blown away, replaced by an urgency he had never felt before. This urgency stirred something in the youth…excitement. It felt good, really good. As this emotion seeped in, his brain seemed to catch a second wind and his mental cogs sped up.

But by this point, it was too late.

Ralf closed in, posed to strike. But instead of launching his fists, he continued onward and slipped through Lane’s guard to wrap himself around the other in a bastardised version of a hug.

‘Huh?’

The former assassin was confused by the other’s action; he could clearly see the descending bullet in the background, a tenth of a second away from dying the dirt red. He had no clue why Ralf would engage in a wrestle at this point. Even so, Lane responded in kind. After lowering his posture, he snaked his own arms around his opponent…but this was exactly what Ralf wanted.

Hearing the whistling air, Ralf smiled, the bait had been taken. Doing a half-shove as a feint, Ralf did a quick rotation, forcing Lane to switch positions with him. The former assassin applied the breaks quickly, but not quickly enough and…

*Spalt*

Lane’s eyes bulged as the stinging sensation registered in his brain. A paintball had struck his back. He froze in place, disbelief coursing through his veins at the happening. Ralf used the other’s pause to slip away, letting the second descending paintball pass by harmlessly, before dodging the subsequent red rain with a few zigzags.

Coming to a stop, he looked toward the direction the volley came from. Lane did the same and was surprised at the finding. ‘How…how long was she there? I never even noticed,’ a visible frown surfaced at the observation

Some fifteen metres away, on the edge of a hill, a person could be seen, guns aiming in the pair’s direction.

That person was precisely Elena, the Luxen native. Ralf flashed her a smile, which prompted her to throw up a certain finger before leaving…well, pretending to do so. Using his Echo Scan, her location was clear in his mind’s eye. She had been at that spot for the last ten minutes, patiently waiting for an opportunity to arrive.

Ralf knew this and used her for his own ends, essentially borrowing a knife to deal with a formable opponent. With the thirty-minute mark nearing, he knew she would shoot her shot pretty soon, so he made sure to lure Lane into an open patch, where she could do the deed easily.

When she saw the pair wrapped up and unmoving, Elena’s eyes flashed with victory. Ralf and Lane were her biggest threats, so eliminating them both at once was too great a prospect to pass up on. She took aim with her two guns and hoped her volley would do the trick.

‘At this distance, I should have sensed her, but I couldn’t…and yet he could,’ Lane’s eyes shifted to his friend, his mental image of the other updating in real-time. ‘Even during all that fighting, he was able to spare some attention for her and her actions…Ralf Fawkes, he’s amazing,’ the former assassin thought, admiration surging in him.

Ralf seemed to sense the former assassin’s emotions as he approached with a smile. “Not bad Lane, I expected much and got more. That was a blast,” he praised as he patted the other’s shoulder. “Making you my friend was the right decision, you’re definitely worthy.”

“Thanks,” Lane replied, a sliver of joy escaping him.

Ralf gave him one last pat then walked off to pick up two of the paintball guns in the area. Duel-wielding them, he orientated himself towards the hill. As he did, the thirty-mark was reached and giant Psi beacons appeared above the remaining students.

Ralf flashed a predatory smile. ‘Playtime’s over. Now, the hunt begins.’

Following the thought, he set off. Expectedly, the Event didn’t last much longer. Not even five minutes later, the counter was reduced to ‘1’ and Cole’s voice rang out to declare the victor.

[Paintball Royal has concluded. The last person standing, showcasing a dominant performance with twenty-eight kills to his name, the mysterious Pather and Combat Master…Ralf Fawkes!]

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