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Halo: Slayer
I suddenly phased into existence, along with three other blue armored figures. Something told me to run forward, which I did, and noticed the firearm in my hand, and recognized the comfortable feel of a DMR, the normal HUD of the Mark V helmet, and, oddly, a small area in the lower right, displaying the words "Team Slayer", over the word "Asylum", with two bars, one red, one blue, containing the number zero. Suddenly shots rang out, and words on the left of my visor displayed that someone had "struck someone down", and the number in the blue bar changed from 0 to 1. Suddenly, a red armored person ran in front of me and let loose from an assault rifle. My shields cracked, and then two rounds shattered my visor, another one through the head. My vision turned black, and I realized I was dead. However, a few seconds after my death, I phased back several dozen meters away. The numbers in the bar were 6 blue, 4 red. A clock ticked away above the numbers, displaying 10: 47. I shook off the shock being brought back to life and targeted an unsuspecting red, bringing him down with 8 shots, 7 for the shields, 1 to the head. Upon scoring the headshot, a graphic displayed on my visor where the words said that I killed someone with a headshot, displaying what appeared to be a dark purple skull. I chucked a grenade, and another kill appeared. This time, another graphic appeared with a gold circle encompassing two silver stars, and a deep, disembodied voice announced "Double Kill". "Did you hear that?" I whispered to the Blue beside me. "What?" He said, taking his eye off the enemy for a second. "That voice, it said 'double kill'," I informed him. "You must be new; that was the announcer, idiot," He exclaimed. Suddenly, a single sniper shot stripped his shields and eviscerated his head. I took cover and tried to identify the sniper. I saw him while he was reloading and shot him in the head, prompting two graphics to appear, above the words "Reload This!" and "Avenger". The numbers now displayed 15 blue, 13 red. Suddenly, a blue plasma grenade attached itself to my leg, and, panicked, I crouched down, with my hand seemingly punching the ground, to contain the explosion and protect my teammates. A white aura surrounded me, and the grenade flew off, and a graphic displaying a lock with the words "Rejection" below it appeared. 22 blue, 18 red. A red with his back turned to me appeared, and I ran to him, drew my knife, and drove it through his helmet. Yet another graphic appeared, with a red circle under a knife. "Assassination" it said, causing me to wonder what other types of assassinations there were. I threw another grenade, with a fifth kill. This prompted a picture of a four pointed blue star and the announcer to yell "Killing Spree!" At the bottom of the HUD, a message appeared, saying "Achievement Unlocked: What's A Killing Spree?" a question I found asking myself. The numbers then said 41 blue, 30 red. I kept going, kept killing. I had just reached my tenth kill, followed by a "Killing Frenzy", when the battle ended, and I phased out.
After the battle, I discussed with older soldiers to find that it was a game, and the graphics were medals, the numbers score. Before I could ask any more questions, another game started, and now I was my normal colors, steel and silver, and there were only three others, also in normal colors. One told me "Welcome to Firefight."
I quickly learned what firefight was; wave upon wave of alien enemies, whom we had to survive against. They ranged to small ones with pathetic weapons to large ones with swords I'd seen in the last match. We kept fighting, and died most of the time, until the others died and didn't respawn. The game clock displayed 30 seconds, and I realized that was how long that I had to survive before the game ended. I thought it to be an easy feat, before a truly mammoth alien stormed our hiding place with a hammer, backed by two other small ones. 10 seconds left. I decided I couldn't survive by trying to kill it, so I tried to dodge not only the hammer but the spikes shot by ones behind him. Finally, the clock reached zero, and all three dropped dead, before the others respawned. One nodded his head at me in approval, before we phased out.
For months, this cycle started and stopped over and over, game started, x amount of kills, game over. Over time, I became better, a better killing machine. I was the MVP every time, and, something unknown to me at the beginning, my rank, began to go up. I finally reached a rank they called "Inheritor", a rank someone told me was the highest I could go. The lower one respected me, and yearned to be like me. I had turned to love this thing called "Multiplayer", and every time I phased into the battlefield, I had grin under my visor. Respawning was unknown to me, and I completed almost every game without dying. It was great. I had truly become a slayer.
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