Fragile Rangers

Alex lurked in the shadows as he hunted both Joseph and Oliver down. Alex moved with absolute caution of his surroundings, fully expecting an ambush from both players. He was particularly motivated to show off his capabilities this round due to his disappointing performance last round. Alex noted down his only advantage in this skirmish,they were already severely damaged by Mateo earlier and he needed to take advantage of this fact. He sneaked around the area hoping to catch Joseph and Oliver off guard, in this manner, he cleared every corner precisely. "Alex! Flare is coming behind you!" Ware informed Alex urgently through the radio.

The area they are in was enclosed by an invisible barrier within the map boundaries, they have reached the limits of the map already. Alex upon hearing that retracted his unhurried advance and swiftly checked every possible corner they could be at. After checking through various corners, he stepped towards a rather huge crate with growing apprehension in each step, he readied his Taker and before he could pre-fire that angle, Oliver ran out from behind the crate and leapt across Alex, already firing his Solofire at Alex. Alex's anticipation of danger led to him reacting quickly and he immediately flicked to Oliver's head and tracked his movement perfectly, landing all of his shots. "Fire Joseph!" Oliver shouted as he got pelted by bullets mid-air, his Solofire's spray was all over the place as he dealt minimal damage to Alex. Oliver could not survive this onslaught and was killed mid-air, turning into a lifeless corpse hitting the ground before Joseph came out and aimed at Alex.

Joseph's right hand grasped the entirety of his mouse, the X60 HeavyLoad. It is gripped tightly and followed his every command. His performance so far was decent, his every motion was filled with intent. Yet, his mental anxieties was triggered unknowningly at a crucial moment. Two seats away from Joseph, Oliver's widened eyes were completely fixated on Joseph, fully expecting Joseph to finish Alex off. Joseph was however, lacking of urgency nor any desire to act upon this golden opportunity to kill Alex. Joseph was completely frozen, devoid of any motion. "Ouch!" Joseph reacted as he was pinched by Ellie sitting beside him, he was also rocked on the shoulders by Danny beside him as well, snapping him out of his plight. Upon recovering he flicked to Alex a little too late inaccurately and fired a few millimetres off from Alex's head, it of course did not register and Alex pounced on this mistake. Alex did not hesitate and spray transferred from Oliver's body to Joseph's body, spraying ferocious bullets to Joseph's body. Joseph shifted back into cover hoping to recover but he was shot through the crate by many penetrating bullets from the menacing Taker. Joseph was helpless in this situation and could only await his death.

"Oliver killed by Alex" , "Joseph killed by Alex" and "DOUBLE KILL!" was announced in game afterwards.

Flare came just as Joseph was killed, his Taker completely melting away Alex's body who was exposed at this moment. Alex could not escape from the same fate as Joseph and fell to the ground as bullets greeted him from behind. Flare was now left in a 1v3. "Hahahaha! This will be fun!" Flare declared as he ran right back, towards where the three academy players are at. Joseph, Oliver, Ellie and Danny got off from their gaming chairs and went to look at Flare's monitor. They saw a man exuding confidence despite the odds , his face smiling at the challenge ahead of him as he sprinted towards his academy players. Mateo at this point was completely healed up while Ware's and Loren's health were low, choosing to completely heal up and trust Mateo to finish off Flare for them.

"Against the odds you must firstly, isolate yourself to individual duels, taking 1v1 instead of a 1v3." Danny blurted out, flexing his experience in similar situations. Ellie nodded and added : "You must use everything you have to your advantage, his shuriken burst will help him massively here." Flare darted across the map, traversing past multiple broken trains before finally encountering the three players. The three players were all sprinting barehanded to maximise their speed currently, they were surprised by the figure of Flare already pointing his Taker at them and quickly spreaded out. Flare took this moment to rapidly fire at Ware who jumped off and strafed to his right side, intending to take cover behind a train, his movement is perfect but even with the minimised damage from his movement, he could not escape death as he was killed by Flare. "It is important to take initiative, earlier on, the academy players were not prepared at all by running barehanded and Flare was able to deal damage before they could." Ellie explained the sequence leading up to now to her teammates.

Flare continued his relentless pursuit and went after Mateo and Loren immediately who ran off to his left side. They were both covered by another train stretching a few metres, they both intended to run to the end of the train together and attack Flare from that angle. Flare used his grappling hook and latched it on the ground before swinging towards Mateo and Loren, using the ground as a pivot. He landed perfectly on top of the train and fired at Loren, who he observed earlier to have been damaged by Ellie and Danny earlier. Ellie explained as they all witnessed Flare's incredible movement : "He is now creating positional advantages and shooting from unexpected angles, forcing both players to react accordingly." Mateo flicked to Flare and landed a few shots on Flare's moving body as Flare fired while running away from the both of them, not allowing Mateo to shoot accurately at Flare's shrinking figure. In this time, Loren took out his plasma shield after taking a singular shot to his head and a few more to his body. "Lets see how you would shoot us now Flare!" Loren ridiculed Flare's attempt to 1v3 as he stuck close to Mateo.

"Whooosh!" A shuriken burst landed on the wall beside them, in between Loren and Mateo. "Move back with me!" Loren demanded of Mateo as he attempted to shift his position back together with Mateo so that his shield would block the shuriken when it explodes. Flare sprinted back at them at this time, his figure now becoming bigger on top of the train from Mateo's perspective. Flare shot from his Taker at Mateo, prompting Loren to shift his shield in Flare's direction to protect Mateo." NO!! LOREN! YOU-" Mateo screamed through his microphone. "You are too careless Loren!" Flare scolded as the shuriken burst exploded behind Loren and Mateo, killing off Loren and dealing massive amount of damage to Mateo. The shuriken burst also dealt a stun effect to enemies, which meant that Flare could freely fire at the helpless Mateo.

"Clutch!" The game announced as Team A yet again won another round against the Winged Rangers.