CHAPTER 17: Over and Over

Alex respawned and collapsed to his knees, the metal of his armor scraping the ground. His eyes were hollow and greyed, with dark sags and large wrinkles framing them. Three hundred and forty-one times he had died, failing to secure sweet vengeance any of those times. All of his past pain blended into sickness, and he was numb and broken. His face showed true hopelessness, exhaustion, and most of all, apathy. He spoke no words and gave no thoughts of anger, resentment, or self-pity. The only sounds he could muster were detached groans as he smashed his head on the floor. A minute had passed, and he walked upright again, moving at a sloth's pace. Frilo turned the corner and found the husk of Alex ambling around the desolate hallway. He wasted no time in opening fire. Alex looked up from his dead gaze at the ground, and his eyes widened into alertness. At remarkable speed, he effortlessly maneuvered in spirals around the walls and ceiling of the thin area, penetrating the hollowed parts of the concrete bricks with his fingers for traction and bouncing off the walls sporadically should Frilo seem to begin tracking his movements. Alex seemingly defied gravity by climbing in odd, almost unnatural ways as he approached his target, desperate to sink his teeth into the man's toughened flesh. But Frilo was also quick, and very nimble, too. Instead of retreating, he dashed forward to get a more accurate shot. Alex smoothly slid his gun from his back, his face tensing as he thrust his bayonet upwards towards Frilo's chest. Frilo out-maneuvered him and found his own blade attachment precisely placed in between a thin overlap of the armor, penetrating through the softer inner suit and into Alex's stomach, yielding a scream of pain. Alex screamed, but faltered only for a split second, his true plan now coming into action. Frilo had nowhere to run, no hope of dodging Alex. He grasped Frilo in a tight hug, expressing a grin of utmost relief and satisfaction. Frilo was, at first, confused at Alex's reaction, but that was soon reverted to fright as he felt a slight weight attached to his back. Before Frilo could claim his kill by pulling the trigger and letting the little metal devils chew up his victim, Alex launched him with a strong kick, sending Frilo flying and Alex scrambling backward, blood leaking from his stomach wound. The second Frilo landed on his back, a flash eruption of steel and light made the hallway glow. The special steel fragments twisted their trajectory through Frilo's iron hide, and the remainder of the explosion made its way through and charred his heat-sensitive skin. Frilo fell to the floor, his back uncontrollably tensing from the pain and damage from the shards and burns alike. Alex looked up, his body protected from the blast by his distance and the challenger's frame. His hands trembling and weak, Alex barely managed to raise his gun and deliver the killing shots. Two bodies collided with the floor, and Alex leaned to his side, curling up while pressing his arms against his wound. With his adrenaline fading, the pain clouded Alex's mind and sanity. The raw, intense sharpness made Alex convulse, both limpness or tenseness feeling unbearable. Alex stared downwards to his arms, between which seeped the essence of life which was being poured so wastefully on the ground beneath him. However, Alex endured. He waited for the pain to dissipate and worked his way up to a stand, his hand still clutched around his waist. He had the memory of every single stab or shot wound he received throughout the course of this death march, the pain still vividly recalled. However, he could not rest, as he had finally managed to kill one of those vessels of destruction which he was so desperately attempting to conquer. He wobbled towards the wall, using it as support to inch himself forward. The knife wound was thankfully a clean-cut and rather small, and his body prepared to quickly clot the hole. Over the course of his deaths, he was surprised by the durability of his body. Though this was not reality, he hoped with all of his might that the mechanics of this game hit their marks and accurately represent the power of the GMH. He had been through countless demolitions of this body, and started to know it well. Though this experiment was designed to improve his reflexes, techniques, and pain tolerance, it did little to the bare strength of his body. Even with this fact, Alex had seen a much higher efficiency in the way he ran, hid, maneuvered, and fought because he had nothing to lose, with the exception of his mind. He refined his own innovative tactics against the enemy, improvising and adapting new strategies as time went on. He could now understand the art of cunning, strategy, and deception. He tried and died until he made things work, and began to see a pattern in his more successful runs, though he had yet to kill both of his trainers. He had come close to killing one of them quite a few times as of late, and his breakthroughs came more often. His mentality always shattered when one of his more developed strategies gets discovered and thwarted. Fortunately, this time was different, Alex convinced himself. The time was now. With Frilo out of the way, the sniper was exposed and alone. Frilo couldn't respawn until Alex's own body hit the floor again, he figured. The wound had already closed and had toughened to the extent of somewhat comfortable movement. Alex started jogging, picking up speed gradually until he was striding at a solid twenty miles an hour. He would have to go relatively slow, if he didn't want the risk of being forced into a dangerous maneuver that would open the wound again. When he came close to approaching the glass section framing the doors, he slowed and became more cautious. Holts could be anywhere, and yet nowhere all the same. Alex decided to take a big risk. He Bolted for the door and smashed it open, glass flying everywhere. Mid-jump, Alex used his newly-learned ability. Glitters of white, water-drop shards were scattered in the air around him, each individual piece levitating leisurely in space. He saw as the shards drop down on the pavement, microscopic cracks forming within them, sometimes growing and developing enough to split the chunks and slide across the ground, bumping up and bouncing like a football. Alex observed the place around him, using only his vision to find any incoming bullet. The back-facing camera he had in his helmet couldn't help him in this state, so he shut it off, away from view. He fell into a role, no bullet in sight. He reverted his vision back to normal, but did not let his guard down. He had been killed countless times by Holts and had started to see a pattern in his perches. He stayed on the low-ground as little as possible, always moving fastest when switching buildings. However, due to his extreme accuracy and the reliability of his weapon, he commonly chose the taller buildings at the center of the base, where he ruled over the entire area's domain. Alex remembered as best he could the split second that he felt the bullet penetrate his skin, recollecting its trajectory and his location at the time. By this, he came to a conclusion on a couple of things: Holts never chose the exact same place twice, and that there were only a few places he could most efficiently snipe from. He recalled all of the places in the base (he had now seen its entirety through this game), and drew out the list of places Holts had remaining. Alex flew past the corners without hesitation, he tore down "Gila's" first line of defense, after all. He found himself in a meadow, Using himself as the bait that would lure his catch of the day. He made sure to turn his head and body slightly away from the vantage points where Gila lurked in the shadows. He ran to multiple places, trying to feel for a nibble. Nothing. Just what was Holts planning behind the comfort of his scope? Just then, an epiphany came to him. Holts knew. Tension and fear jumped through his body, a subconscious reaction to the pain he had constantly endured. He went into his altered state immediately, as slow as he could. Surely enough, a glint caught his peripherals. The bullet silently and danced across the air, its hypersonic body twirling like a dancer at the climax of their play. Alex had no choice but to use his legs and body to curl up into a ball in midair, hoping for just enough head movement to avoid the bullet's path. The idea was sloppy, but he had not figured out a better alternative. The bullet grazed his helmet, the process happening too fast for Alex to send a shiver down his spine. He was not out of the water yet, though. Holts could fire those devils almost as fast as an AK-47 could. Nine additional perfectly fired rounds he would have to slither around to have a chance at survival. The more quick simulations he played in his head, the more troublesome it became. He decided to take the low-risk route of a few injuries. As soon as his foot touched the ground, he fired off with a strength reserved solely for these scenarios. Bullets mangled the very edges of his frame one-by-one, the armor practically useless against the force of rounds that weighed in at a generous amount of kilograms. Alex's right leg was spent, the speed required to make Holts lose his incredible accuracy was too much for even this body to handle. Yet he continued on his suicide run, biting his tongue till it bled to distract from the pain. Holts took a look through his scope at the young boy, no, the young man who, despite his agony and messages of his body telling him to quit, persevered and trudged through the swampy depths of hell to deliver the wrath of three hundred deaths onto his behated foe. His bright hazel eyes reflected through the glass of the helmet, a fiery golden glow emitting from the bottom of his irises due to the glare of the harsh, unforgiving sun. A large gritted grin wrinkled his face, the fangs of his side-teeth bared to the gums. Holts saw every detail of that face in perfect, unobscured clarity. A feeling lost to him, the king of the hill himself, had planted a seed in his heart. Fear, fleeing, escaping for one's life. Holts' darkish-pink lips curled to complete his own wide-eyed grin.

"THAT'S MY BOY!" he bellowed, ducking back behind the ledge as Alex scaled the warehouse-sized building in a mere second and launched himself above and behind Holts. Holts himself had barely dodged Alex's dangerous clasp and bullets fired mid-air in the swing-around. Alex charged with his bayonet trained on the massive beast, while Holts dropped his ammo-less rifle and pulled out his pistol. The real fight had just begun.