Story [Issue 36] Between Tabs - Part IV

[Shedinja 1,488]

Part IV

 

* * *

Read Part I Here

Read Part II Here

Read Part III Here

 

 

It was a bright blue and beige Thursday afternoon when the school's alarm began its routine chirping, signaling the students to flood out into the courtyard and gather their lunches. However, I wasn't in the mood to brawl with the flock of teenagers clamoring for food at the serving counter, so I decided to take a hike down to the on-site library.

 

On the way there, I crossed the paths of a few tankers I had recruited in the weeks before. One of them, Dane, gave me a small wave. "Heya, Jon!"

 

I grinned and casually waved a pair of fingers back. Dane always seemed to have a relaxed air about him. I enjoyed hanging out with him. "Howdy, Dane. What's up?"

 

"Nothing much. Had that chemistry test in Mr. Bires' today, but other than that, same as always. Hey, so how's practice for that clan war coming?"

 

"We're getting better," I told him. "The only things I'm worried about are my accuracy at short ranges and Pokes' availability for the war." We grabbed adjacent seats at a set of tall, plastic tables, each of them supporting a heavy 8 x 12 computer screen and a Dell tower the size of a small monolith. Several of the thick glass screens have had abbreviations of mild gang names carved into them.

 

"You're trying to micro-upgrade your turret rotation speed, right?" Dane asked as he activated his ancient tower.

 

"Yeah, but the thing is, I don't wanna affect my turret speed too much, otherwise I'm going to have a harder time tryin' to hit something far away." I followed suit and pushed the large black button on my tower. My machine, as if the internal structure really was made of stone, began to make weak grinding and chugging noises. Soon, a low whine joined in as the tower awoke from its mechanical slumber and sprung to life. 

 

"Well, isn't that what practice is for?" Dane asked.

 

"You've got a point. How's your clan coming along, by the way?"

 

"Eh, still trying to recruit. It's hard to find dedicated players at my rank."

 

A bubble of sympathy grew within me as I remembered my difficulties setting up the clan I lead now. "Give it time, and pay attention to who you invite. Rome wasn't built in a day, y'know."

 

"Yeah, but your clan was set up in almost three."

 

"Hey, c'mon now, I didn't have a full player count then..." A sudden, silenced ping from the computer monitor told me I was ready to input my login information. With some minor jimmying, I slid out the heavy plastic keyboard and logged in. After a few more moments of the computer groaning in annoyance from having to awaken, the dark blue screen finally peeled away to reveal the district logo and several square icons. Without delay, I tapped the Mozilla Firefox logo and waited. "By the way, have you seen Josh lately? I've been trying to invite him to practice, but he keeps declining for some reason. It's starting to getting on my nerves."

 

With a suppressed smirk, Dane replied, "He's probably busy trying to buy that M2 Firebird he wants so bad. Probably sick and tired of using your Freeze all the time."

 

I sighed heavily. "I told him that he can use my old account for clan practice, not for tooling around with close ranged weapons..."

 

"Relax, relax, he uses DicoRail sometimes. I've seen him from time to time. He knows how to aim."

 

I scoffed in frustration. Criminy, Josh, why do you have to be such a sucker for tradition? "Well, if you seem him today, tell him to focus on using the only M3 set he has -- Hornet and Rail. We're not using anything non-XP or BP in practice, no matter how much he begs." A small sigh escaped my lips as I entered the main forum page's URL. "Well, I suppose it doesn't really matter too much right now. He's not taking part in this clan war, anyways. And besides, I..." I trailed off until my voice could only be heard within the boundaries of my thoughts. And I have bigger issues to deal with at the moment.

 

Upon entering the forums, I didn't see anything out of place, spare TankiMedic giving me the thumbs up for training today in the tactics PM we've been collaborating on for the past few days. Excellent, I thought. I've been wanting to test that new defense strategy again. I didn't feel like we moved quick enough last time. It looks like now we have another chance to set up.

 

I turned to Dane. "Hey, you remember that tri-point strategy Pokes and I have been developing over this last week?" 

 

Without turning his attention away from the crackling keyboard, he replied, "Yeah. You said you wanted to try and make the transitions smoother or something?"

 

"Uh huh. The main problem is that we're not all hitting the same speed, with my team using M2 Hornet and denex lagging behind with M1. Denex wants to use his M2 Wasp, but he gets flipped easily with any shot fired at him. These aren't very opportune times to use BP, with the auto-aim being so detrimental and such. He says he's stuck using Hornet for now, and its speed isn't up to par with the rest of the team. The speed difference isn't dramatically noticeable, but it's enough of a hamper to keep us from going in without attracting full attention."

 

"It's a Sandbox, nothing you do isn't going to attract full attention," Dane said bitterly. "Besides, it doesn't matter if his Hornet is even M0 -- you're pretty much forced to make him use Wasp. If it's his only viable M2 hull, then you don't really have a choice."

 

"I know, I know." Flustered, I generated a new tab and opened up Tanki Online itself. Since the library was hooked up to an isolated router and was funded completely by the library staff, the school's block system had no hold; therefore, Tanki Online and several other game sites were available to those who wished to chip off a little time from the day before having to return to the dust-colored blur of classes. Just a dot of color in an eight-hour shade of gray, I had first imagined.

 

It was strange for nobody in the clan to be on at this hour. TankiMedic was usually just waking up by this time, and school had long since come and gone for Pokemontrainer2 by now. ieatcookies should have been practicing his flag-taunting skills while waiting for dinner to come to the door. The unusual pattern of players online left my friends list lopsided with Generalissimos and the occasional Warrant Officer. The only players otherwise available were frequent chat room floaters and the occasional DM dominators who always seemed to be online. If this weren't such an inopportune time, I'd challenge badkidd's spot on the top of that roster. Without prior forewarning, Dane stirred to get out of his chair and collect his things.

 

"Headin' out?" I asked, curious.

 

"Yeah. Bell's gonna ring soon, and I want to grab something while the line's almost empty."

 

Oh, flab. I hadn't realized how fast the time had gone by. There were only six minutes remaining in the lunch period. Most of those in line would be people like me, who decided that tackling the mob would be a waste of time. Looks like it's going to be another lunch in English, I thought wryly to myself as I killed the monolith Dell tower and made my way to the cafeteria. Oh, Mrs. Reid is gonna love me...

 

 

 

 

 

The sand and loose asphalt crunching beneath my shoes made more satisfying sounds the faster I moved. The uneven sploscth, sploscth, sploscth made by walking turned into a quick but steady sctha, sctha, sctha, sctha as I picked up speed. I enjoyed running. It was probably the only thing involving sports that I was actually decent at. Since I was a skinny kid with less-than-average reaction time, I wasn't top choice when it came to making glorious tackles in football or playing defensive to keep someone out of a hoop. I could never move my feet fast enough in a different direction. Your screen name should have been Linoone instead of Shedinja, a teasing yet friendly voice spoke in my head.

 

Grinning in spite of myself, I shot back to the imaginary jester, I would have, but I guess somebody more headlong than me took that one. 

 

I also found teasing myself to be an entertaining pass-time. It was a self-taught practice for as long as I could remember, to help not only give me a thicker skin to help deal with unsightly characters who chose targeting me verbally over empathy, but to give me a small source of entertainment. The objective of my self-imposed mini-game was to defeat the teasing voice by attempting to turn its own words against it. I suppose my original plan was to learn how to talk back against my bullies, but I was never really a fast thinker. It's more beneficial for me to slowly put together an intangible mechanism of ideas and use those as a frontier to guide my thoughts into wider thinking than to try and spurt out my initial half-baked responses. That's probably why I tend to play better matches the second time around. I'm able to analyze my opponent's abilities and main strategies and use them against him after a while.

 

I was hoping I could maybe ignore Tanki for some time until I at least got home and rested my worn mind. However, it seems that there isn't any rest for a dedicated leader... 

 

Leader. The title seemed to be more of a grinding burden now than something to lift with pride high above the shoulders. It's no longer just a name for your buddies to call you simply because you wrote the title post, Jon. That name earns respect solely because of what the man behind the name does -- leads. Leading isn't an easy thing to do, and you know it as well as anyone who's ever been in the position. You can't just back down when things--

 

I stopped dead in my run, leaving a small skid in the sand behind me. Whoa! Back down?! Where in blazes did THAT come from? That's not an option and you know it, I scolded myself. I tried to walk off the strange idea, but like a parasite, it had latched into the weakened, stress swollen bulges of my mind. Can you even imagine how Medic would react if he even had a clue that you were thinking about stepping down as leader? And at such a crucial point like this? Not only Medic; what would the entire clan think? Your fellow tankers beyond?

 

I shook my head violently, as if the ideas were tangible enough to jar loose. I can't be wasting time with ideas like this. I have work to do. No matter how hard I tried to reset my psyche, however, a quizzical stain refused to budge. Why did my train of thought lead to that, though? You don't just up and start thinking of abandoning your colony. That's not a proportional reaction to when stress shifts its weight onto your mental foundation. I understand that you have plenty of misgivings as to the future of the upcoming match, but ideas like that shouldn't be coming out of the woodwork for a long time, if at all. A strong leader wouldn't be thinking along the lines of concession at the first sightings of danger, would they? You can't be weak in the knees now, not at this point, with more than the results of a war at stake. No matter what clan loses this, the leader is supposed to take the responsibility. And if you're cracking before the bell has even sounded, what kind of an excuse for a leader are--

 

Enough! a voice of reason finally interjected. C'mon, let's head home. I'm sure everyone would like to get practice started soon. With a brief backwards glance at the upper strata my halt had exposed, still somewhat lost in the swirl of now muted voices, I returned to my original momentum and pressed further into the desert.

 

 

 

 

 

It was maybe thirty minutes later when I arrived at my small mobile home on the outskirts of town, two miles away from the school I had left with great haste. There was no Carbon-gray Chevy Cobalt in the driveway. There never was before nine in the evening. My mother worked long daytime hours. I suppose it was appreciable, since she was able to return at the house for the night. Even in a town where the most frequent crime was drag racing in the distant mountain pass, the thought was still comforting. 

 

What was odd on that particular day was that my sister hadn't reached home yet. Huh. She's usually home by this time on Thursdays. Maybe a planned shopping day took place that I was unaware of? After more than a moment, though, I lost interest in the situation, set my school bag down next to my reliable recliner, and went into my room to search for my ASUS. 

 

What I expected to find was my laptop gently placed tentatively under my bland, green bed frame, waiting patiently for my return. What I did find was a bit more confusing.

 

The laptop was there, charger, battery and all. Nothing appeared to have been tampered with. Not even the surrounding power cords or mish-mash of Gamecube disc boxes seemed to be out of place. However, there was one new item in the mix, in stark contrast to the mess of black snakes and angular, colorful containers.

 

A note was taped to the top of the laptop.

 

Curious, I went to open it, wondering why writing on a slip on paper would have been more conventional than texting me information. However, when I unfolded the small, loose leaf scrap, I was hit with a small bulge of disappointment. The paper listed a series of chores for me to complete. Your basic household chores, mind you -- do a bit of sweeping near the furnace, finish up that minor load of laundry, pick up your books sprawled across the room -- something that's to be expected of someone more than halfway through high school. A mere reminder, nothing more.

 

However, as I was finishing gathering the remaining trash in the house to deposit in the disposal bin at the end of our driveway, I felt my mother's decision to use a note haunt me. Why the paper, though? A text would have more than sufficed. And even if a note was necessary for whatever reason, placing it on the dry-erase board right next to the microwave would have done well. Plain as day location, for goodness' sake...

 

It took me a good fifteen minutes to complete those minor household duties, giving me only about seven minutes to get ready for practice. Fortunately, I was already geared up for an XP match, so I fired up my Skype and prepped to build a private Sandbox match. It seemed like the gang was all here today: ieatcookies, viperf50, TankiMedic, Pokemontrainer2, Mr.Random.GT, cookiemonster_XXX, denex12, and myself. Well, most of the gang. yassinelegh and Sgt.Sam weren't online today. Yass said he was going out of town this week, I recalled. Still not sure if the Sarge is with us anymore. He hasn't shown his face in weeks.

 

Even though the conversation in the chat was lighthearted, I could still detect an electricity tinting the air by the time I made my appearance into the Sandbox. Upon entry to the Skype chat, there was a lot of rapid tapping, likely coming from TankiMedic and viperf50, who seemed to be in the middle of helping cookiemonster_XXX and denex12 get their own Skypes initiated. It's going to be a pain trying to communicate with Pokes without Skype, I pondered anxiously. He'll be driving blind. But the rest of the clan has all agreed he's our best shot. He almost never misses in Sandbox. The only one who's able to outdo him in accuracy is ieatcookies, and that was mainly before Pokes' prediction skills were sharpened. 

 

I glanced again at the map roster. Still, I'd rather not separate denex and cookies. They work well together, tagging the right people at the right time, and knowing exactly when the other's going to strike, so that they can take advantage of whatever move is initiating next. Unfortunately, cookies doesn't have a Skype or M2 Railgun, so we're in a bit of a bind. We can't have monster or viper play yet for the same reasons. The only ones with M2s are Medic, Pokes, myself and denex. 

 

"Hey, Shed, you there?" denex's tight-drawn voice drew me out of my stupor.

 

"Uh-- y-yeah, I'm set."

 

"Aye," TankiMedic grunted.

 

I readjusted the position of my headset. "Viper, can you send a live text feed to Pokes and cookies and tell 'em what's going down?"

 

"On it." Sporadic bursts of plastic chattering immediately followed.

 

"Alright, stand by. Medic, denex, monster, positions! Remember, this is a one flag drill, so let's see if we can get this down the first time!"

 

As I angled my Fracture-clad machine to crawl along the main wall lining the blue team's base, I spied Pokemontrainer2 prepping his team for the second out of the four attack types we collaborated on in the forums, with ieatcookies taking point. Smart. He's having the sharp shots line up in front so that the more steering-inclined players can take sweeping runs by pouring in from from the middle platform. I'm not going to have much of a window to have my team claim the top. I shuffled through my tabs until I found Skype and disconnected from the main call, only to rejoin by making a team call. I had learned from previous practices that it never hurt to have a team-specific window open. Maybe if I have Medic or denny take a long snap from the back, see if they can get a bead on cookies...

 

"Denny! They're setting up set number two. I need you to snap hard from the back of the north ramp and target cookies. You got it?"

 

"Aye!"

 

"Excellent. Medic and I will lean right, either pinning cookies to the left section of the wall or luring him out to target us. Monster, I'm counting on you to gun for the flag. If we can just make enough headway on the left side to get their attention, we can pull of a number four and sneak 'im outta there. Are y'all game for this?"

 

A chorus of agreement sprung up. "Just don't stand directly behind me, Shed," TankiMedic added. "I don't want to be lined up for Random or viper to hit us both."

 

"C'mon, I still have a few functioning brain cells left. I'll fall back a few feet and cover you initially. Once we have at least one of them down, I'll be right behind you."

 

For what felt like a long time, I was just sitting in a strange, medium-dim haze, with only the bed, the glowing laptop, and my churning, colloidal thoughts. Then, the red team finally broke their silence.

 

[Mr.Random.GT: ro?]

 

The small sphere of anxiety was starting to grow within me, but in that moment I swallowed it and input 'ro' onto my chat screen.

 

Immediately, I began to start barking into the mic as I sat tight behind the left corner, waiting for a shot. "Okay, so we've got maybe thirty seconds to make this offensive flush effective. Monster, start charging that flag, and take all the cover you can along the way. Medic and I will be there to assist you as soon as we draw out at least one of the wall-crawlers."

 

And sure enough, viperf50 whipped around the corner to fire, punching through the front of Medic's hull and zipping past my hiding spot. As soon as he came into sight, I set my own beam to charge and began accelerating towards open ground. Medic, lurching sideways from the impact, sent his prematurely charged beam into the sky and began leaning dangerously on his left set of treads. I did not leave TankiMedic's wound unavenged, though; a round clipped the front of viperf50's Hornet, causing him to crash into the wall and lose all reverse momentum. TankiMedic took advantage of this time to retreat to the shadowed side of the infamous shed, with viper giving chase. I dove back for the cover of the wall just in time to avoid a deep blue bolt from ieatcookies' general vicinity. denex12 gave a small crow of triumph after then nailing my previous assailant while he had exposed himself. The blast impacted directly into ieatcookies' turret casing, flipping him gracelessly onto his side.

 

"Alright, nice shot, denny! Let me go tip 'im, you go help Medic!" At this point, both viperf50 and Mr.Random.GT were in hot pursuit of my wounded partner, cutting off both sides of the house. "Shoot Random! He has full health!" I screeched into the mic as I charged impetuously across the upper platform in a desperate attempt to bowl over ieatcookies before he could right himself again.

 

Three things happened next of which the process still reaches just a bit too short for my imagination to grasp without prior belief that it could take place.

 

One: Pokemontrainer2, after feinting a shot made by cookiemonster_XXX, gunned his engine as hard as he could to get in front of me and ieatcookies. ieatcookies was lying on his side on the main platform, about a Hornet's length away from the edge and with his underside facing me. His turret was beginning to swing up from a position that he could right himself from, which I didn't understand at first. 

 

Two: Once in a direct line of sight past both ieatcookies and I, he began to fire a shot through ieatcookies to hit me. I couldn't see him charge up initially, due to the strangely pitched hull blocking my line of sight, so I only heard a faint but terribly familiar whir for less than a split second before my blinded self could figure out what it was.With a jolt of adrenaline, I reflexively hit my own space bar and began to reverse. The impact of Pokemontrainer2's blast a millisecond later knocked ieatcookies back onto his treads, completely unharmed. Just before this time, his turret was completing its semi-circular path to point at the sky. Which, when he was righted, was no longer pointing at the sky, but directly at me, with a crystalline glow already prepared and swerving down to meet my hull.

 

Three: As soon as those treads came into contact with the ground, ieatcookies plunged the cerulean saber directly into the engine of my Hornet, finishing my crazed offensive.

 

I was stunned. All I could do was give a blank, dumb stare at the screen for several long seconds as ieatcookies let loose with a heartfelt 'OH!' from the in-game chat box. Wait... did that just happen...? I felt dully aware of a floating sense of pride, like a distant oil lantern, bobbling through a thick fog. Suddenly I remembered that I was in the middle of a mock clan war. Of which they're getting the upper hand in, I thought morosely, as the game notified the entire world that viperf50 has taken our flag. Fifteen seconds, gone, and we've only made--

 

[cookiemonster_XXX has taken enemy flag]

 

Save it for later, we're not out of the fight yet. C'mon!

 

The instant I respawned, I darted as fast as I could over to the western side of the map to realize my fears a reality. cookiemonster_XXX, with severe damage taken to his Tundra-coated M1 Hornet, was being madly dogged by Pokemontraner2 and Mr.Random.GT. Oh, not good.

 

I roved out of my temporary cover and fired at Pokemontrainer2, the closer of the two to the flag-toter. To my pleasant surprise, he exploded and somewhat blocked the path of Mr.Random.GT.

 

Unfortunately, corpses can't impede Railgun blasts.

 

[cookiemonster_XXX has lost enemy flag]

 

"Get it, Shed, get it get it get it!

 

I was moving as fast the low torque on Hornet would allow me to. Sure, it had great speed capabilities, but it's rather annoying to drive once the drift starts to kick in. I could only hope that Pokemontrainer2's ruptured hull slowed him down enough...

 

Eight seconds remained on my mental clock for this strategy to be truly labeled a success, and Mr.Random.GT and I were grasping at straws, fighting so desperately to reach this small banner of red and gold. The only remaining impediment between him and the flag dissolved into nothing all too fast, and he was once again charging at full speed towards his target. Come on, just a little more, only a few more inches...

 

I was maybe a penny's distance behind him when he delivered the flag back to its post. Enraged, I unleashed a bolt into his retreating figure, but I did not give chase to him. I lumbered onward, past the ramp, past cookiemonster_XXX, straight on ahead to the resting place of the red flag and my long-term revenge to spite my long-since-fled attacker.

 

At least, that's what I thought until the blast hit me from seemingly above like an azure comet, careening into my vehicle with such force that I was cast forward like a toy car from a slingshot. Desperately, I tried to right myself in mid-air by firing a shot into the ground, waving my turret about like a walking apparatus, a cane of sorts, but it was too late. Momentum had implanted itself for too long in favor of my spinning that no force could have prevented me from collapsing onto my side, carving an invisible trench in the dirt that spewed clouds of dust where my Hornet had passed. I had six seconds left to charge my shot. Even if I did manage to aright myself, I'd only make it five feet before being blasted to smithereens. Fortunately, I didn't have to go through that embarrassingly pitiful retreat, since a mauve blast ripped through the remainder of my health bar and ended my life, leaving only the flag as a remnant of my presence.

 

The screen flashed with a victorious yellow notification, telling us that viper had indeed captured our flag. The fund had never grown past thirty four crystals, with viper grabbing a decent total of fifteen of them.

 

We were beaten again. The dream team, taken apart by the rest that the clan has to offer. My team had lost, even though we had a full set of Skype communications whilst Pokes drove without foresight from his fellow players. Our counter had crumbled like dust when we began charging for their flag.

 

And yet I have never felt prouder.

 

[shedinja: Guys... I think we're ready.]

 

 

 

 

 

Read Part V Here

 

 

.

Edited January 7, 2018 by Hexed

[PenguinNEWexp 11]

Nice job, Shedinja. This is my favourite story in the entire Issue 36.

[hogree 4,179]

Finding this series extremely entertaining! Keep going!

[delnina2 1,570]

One word . Awesome . 

[Gunslinger300 45]

that was 3 words

 

like these tho

[Guest]

nice

[fordmustang12345 3,910]

Best online (I would say book but that don't sound right) action series to read by far