Break the Cycle
August 12, 2010
11:30 PM IST
Taj Mahal Palace Hotel — Ashura Syndicate Suite
The air inside the suite was thick with silence, the weight of two days' worth of failure sitting heavy on every inch of carpet, every glass surface, every player's shoulders. No one had taken off their team jerseys — as if doing so would mean admitting it was over.
PhantomRift stood by the window, one hand braced against the frame, eyes locked on the glittering reflection of Dakhuria Lake in the distance. Its stillness mocked him.
Behind him, ShadowWolf sat with his back against the couch, arms on his knees, staring at nothing. VortexX had one earbud in, playing music too soft to hear, but loud enough to keep reality at arm's length.
No one spoke.
Until PhantomRift did.
"They're going to hunt us tomorrow."
The others didn't react.
"They're not scared of us anymore," he continued, his voice flat, factual. "We're free points. And they're right."
VortexX exhaled sharply, not quite a laugh. "Glad you finally figured it out."
PhantomRift turned, his face different now — not defeated, but stripped of all pretense. The weight of representing India, of proving they belonged, of carrying everyone's hopes — it was gone.
All that was left was spite.
"Then let's be dangerous points."
ShadowWolf's brow lifted slightly.
"They want to farm us?" PhantomRift's voice sharpened. "Fine. We drop into them. Every game. No running. No safe rotations. We clash — first circle, every time."
VortexX sat forward. "You want to die faster?"
"No," PhantomRift's smile was thin, almost predatory. "I want to drag them down with us."
He stepped closer to the table, resting both palms against its surface. "They took our fear and turned it into their strategy. They expect us to run. To hesitate."
He tapped the table once.
"What happens if we don't?"
For the first time in two days, VortexX actually smiled.
"You're insane."
"Finally caught up," PhantomRift said. "So, you in?"
ShadowWolf stretched his legs, fingers interlocking behind his head. "No more playing for survival?"
"No more playing for anyone but us," PhantomRift said. "We go down swinging — or we don't go down at all."
"Damn right," VortexX muttered.
No grand speeches. No handshakes.
Just three exhausted players, done with fear — and ready to burn the whole map down.
August 13, 2010
10:00 AM IST
Wankhede Stadium — Match 1, Day 4
The pre-match lobby flickered to life, 400 players standing inside the airship bay, weapons cycling through idle animations. PhantomRift stood still, his squad beside him, no longer shifting nervously — just still.
"Where are they dropping?" RJ Menon's voice carried across the global broadcast.
Pulse's reply was slower, careful. "They… they're heading straight for Tengu's Wrath drop zone."
RJ blinked. "Wait—what?"
"Central Nexus," Pulse said, stunned. "They're not avoiding anyone. They're going straight at the number three team in the world."
The stadium stirred.
This wasn't fear.
This was something else.
First Blood
Ashura Syndicate landed dead center of Emberfall Ridge's Nexus, ten seconds ahead of Tengu's Wrath. They didn't hesitate — no looting passes, no scouting rotations. Straight into weapons, straight into position.
Shirokaze touched down on the outer platform, already drawing his sniper.
A bullet from PhantomRift's M4A7 slammed into his chest before his boots fully touched the ground.
"TENGU'S WRATH LOSES SHIROKAZE IN UNDER FIFTEEN SECONDS!" RJ's voice cracked with disbelief.
ShadowWolf snapped a frag into the western hallway, cutting off two more players' escape routes. VortexX vaulted the barricade, double-tapping both with a clean burst.
"TENGU'S WRATH IS ELIMINATED!" Pulse shouted. "WHAT IS THIS?"
The crowd erupted — shock, disbelief, the first spike of hope in two days.
Ashura Syndicate didn't stop.
Predator Becomes Prey
"Northern Lights landing north ridge!" RJ's voice was breathless. "They think they're catching a weakened Ashura—"
"THEY'RE NOT WEAK!" Pulse shouted as PhantomRift's squad moved like knives through cloth, pushing uphill into the American squad's rotation, cutting off escape routes with surgical precision.
FoxHound's face flickered on screen, his usual cocky grin replaced by wide-eyed panic as VortexX dropped him with a clean headshot.
"NORTHERN LIGHTS IS GONE!" RJ screamed. "WHAT IS HAPPENING?!"
The Indian crowd, silent for so long, erupted.
9 Squads — One Rage
It wasn't strategy.
It was violence with intent.
Ashura Syndicate didn't rotate. They didn't play for position. They hunted — anything that moved near the Nexus was cut down without hesitation.
Garuda Legion — wiped.
Obsidian Blossoms — wiped.
La Tormenta Negra — ambushed mid-rotation and massacred in a canyon bottleneck.
By the time the final circle collapsed, Ashura Syndicate stood alone — surrounded by the corpses of nine squads, including every team that had farmed them on Day 3.
"THEY DID IT!" RJ's voice broke with emotion. "ASHURA SYNDICATE — FIRST PLACE WITH NINE SQUAD WIPES!"
"Unbelievable," Pulse said softly, almost reverently. "That's 90 kill points — plus the 40-point win bonus."
"130 points in one match," RJ whispered. "They're back."
The stadium was shaking — not with relief, but with something hungrier, sharper.
This wasn't a comeback.
This was revenge.
Final Standings (Post-Match 1, Day 4)
Rank Team Points
1 Northern Lights (USA) 675
2 Crimson Dragoons (South Korea) 654
3 Tengu's Wrath (Japan) 641
… … …
18 Ashura Syndicate (India) 481
From 40th to 18th in a single match.
And they weren't done.
The stadium hadn't fully settled after the first match. There was a frantic, unstable energy running through the stands — the kind that only follows a miracle no one believed possible. Ashura Syndicate, dead last when the day began, was suddenly back. Not limping. Not surviving. Hunting.
It wasn't the polite applause of hopeful fans anymore. It was something sharper, hungrier. The taste of blood. They wanted more.
Inside the Ashura player pods, the mood was something no analyst, no commentator could ever capture. There was no celebration, no cheers, no chest-thumping hype. Only silence, sharpened by adrenaline. PhantomRift sat in the center pod, his fingers loose against the controls, his headset pushed slightly back, letting the hum of the crowd filter in. His eyes never left the drop map.
Northern Lights was in the lobby. Already marked. Already known.
He didn't need to ask if the others were ready. They knew. This wasn't strategy anymore — it was instinct, something primal, more personal than any trophy could ever be.
The airship doors opened, and Ashura Syndicate jumped — not toward safety, not toward ideal loot zones, but straight into Glacier Ruins, the same landing ground FoxHound's squad had used every single match. They weren't just contesting it. They were invading it.
RJ Menon's voice cracked across the stadium speakers, half-stunned, half-thrilled. "Ashura Syndicate dropping directly into Northern Lights' territory. No hesitation — they're making it personal."
Pulse's response came slower, like even his brain was still catching up. "They're not trying to outplay them. They're trying to send a message."
The airship roared overhead, fading into the clouds, and Ashura Syndicate hit the snow-covered ruins first — all four players landing close, tight, overlapping their movements. No scouting, no cautious spread. Just the pure speed of four players who knew exactly what they were there to do.
FoxHound touched down seven seconds later, right where he always did — on the southern colonnade overlooking the main courtyard. His sniper was already out, scope adjusting, calibrating for wind and distance.
The grenade arced through the air, spinning lazily in the sunlight, its shadow crossing his boots before his brain fully registered it. It hit the snow beside him, the blast sending his body sideways into the ice before his scope even lined up.
RJ's shout hit the speakers before the kill notification even popped. "FoxHound down! PhantomRift took him out in under twenty seconds!"
It wasn't just the first kill. It was the first crack in the myth. Northern Lights had been untouchable for three days. Now their captain was a body in the snow.
The Indian crowd erupted — a sound that was more roar than cheer, less celebration than release. It had been two days of silence, two days of swallowing disappointment and shame. Now, they were awake again.
Northern Lights scattered, but there was nowhere to run. VortexX moved like a man possessed, vaulting the low wall and cutting down Liberty before the American player could even complete a reload. ShadowWolf swept wide, circling the northern pillar, catching NightShade mid-heal, shotgun blast lifting his body off the ground before it crumpled in the snow.
The killfeed lit up, and the noise inside Wankhede hit a new frequency — something wild, chaotic, tribal.
PhantomRift was the one who found the last player, cornered inside a collapsed archway. He could've ended it with a burst. Instead, he stepped inside, switching to melee. The knife drove in clean, throat to spine, the final kill notification appearing so casually on-screen it almost felt obscene.
"Northern Lights eliminated," RJ's voice cracked, somewhere between awe and disbelief. "Fortieth place."
The camera cut to FoxHound's player cam, capturing his stunned, disbelieving expression. No excuses, no explanations — just the dull weight of realizing the prey had become the predator.
In the Crimson Dragoons team room, RyuHan leaned slightly forward, his expression unusually serious. His coach's arms were folded tight across his chest, eyes on the same feed.
"They're not afraid anymore," the coach said quietly.
RyuHan's fingers tapped the table once. "They're making a list."
The rest of the match was a blur of motion and violence. Ashura Syndicate didn't play for position or safety. They didn't care about perfect rotations or ideal final circles. They hunted. Every red blip on the map was a target, every squad just another thing in their way.
Thai Shadows fell first, their rotation ambushed in a canyon pass they thought was clear. Andean Warlords followed, caught trying to slip through the southeast corridor. FrostLynx never made it out of the second circle, burned down in a brutal four-on-four clash Ashura took without blinking.
By the time the final circle closed, there was no one left but them.
RJ's voice cracked again, but this time there was nothing but pride in it. "That's back-to-back wins for Ashura Syndicate. From the bottom of the standings to the top ten — they're not just back, they're rewriting the script."
The numbers didn't matter. The fans didn't care about the math.
What mattered was the message — the one every other team in the tournament just received loud and clear.
The hunt was over.
The hunters were home.
In the VIP skybox, Aditya Pratap stood, both hands pressed against the glass, eyes wide and bright. Rabin Halder stood beside him, mouth slightly open, caught somewhere between shock and something that felt a lot like reverence.
Ishita didn't smile, but the tension in her shoulders finally loosened. She knew what had happened. Ashura Syndicate had finally realized they had nothing left to prove.
That was when they became dangerous.
Back in Jadavpur, Aritra stood on his balcony, Dakhuria Lake glittering in the distance, its surface broken only by the occasional ripple. Lumen hovered silently beside him, its holographic display showing the updated probability graph.
The number was climbing fast.
Aritra's fingers drummed lightly against the rail, his expression unreadable.
"Now," he said softly, "let's see if they break the world."
Lumen made no response.
The machine was already calculating.
The air inside Wankhede had thickened, the atmosphere no longer celebratory or tense — it had crossed into something heavier, something primal. There was no more doubt, no hopeful suspense. This wasn't a story waiting for its ending.
This was the ending writing itself.
For the first time since the tournament began, the cameras no longer searched for global stars in the crowd, or cut away to celebrity interviews. Every lens, every angle, every breath was focused on Ashura Syndicate's player pods, as though the entire weight of the stadium had leaned forward, waiting to see if India's fallen champions would seal the impossible.
Inside the pod, PhantomRift sat in the center, his fingers resting lightly on the controls, eyes half-lidded, shoulders loose. The tremor was gone. The weight was gone. All that was left was the work — and the work had become a hunt.
"Where's RyuHan?" PhantomRift asked softly.
ShadowWolf, already in sync, glanced at the pre-match map, spotting the familiar marker. "Northeast ridge. Same drop zone."
PhantomRift's smile was small, faint, but sharp. "We're going there."
No one questioned it. Not after today.
The doors opened, and they fell.
---
The drop into Emberfall Ridge was as smooth as breathing — they hit the ground close, tighter than they'd ever played before, moving in unison like four fingers from the same fist. There was no pause for loot or positioning, no debate over angles. They already knew who was waiting.
Crimson Dragoons had been watching too.
RyuHan stood at the peak of the ridge, his sniper already braced, scanning the volcanic flats below. He had expected them — had wanted them. The new Ashura Syndicate wasn't a surprise anymore. They were a threat, and threats needed to be eliminated early.
His scope flicked, catching movement.
Too late.
The first grenade came from VortexX, tumbling over the ledge, landing between two of Crimson's players just as they repositioned. The blast staggered them back into open ground, leaving them exposed for exactly two seconds — just long enough for PhantomRift to take both heads clean off.
"Two down!" RJ Menon's voice cracked across the stadium. "Ashura hits first — they're pushing straight into Crimson Dragoons' position!"
The Indian crowd surged forward, voices rising into a fevered pitch, disbelief and exhilaration woven together into a single wild roar.
RyuHan called the fallback, shifting his two remaining teammates into layered cover, using the ridge terrain to stagger Ashura's advance. It should've worked — against anyone else.
But Ashura Syndicate wasn't playing smart anymore.
They were playing close.
VortexX went high, scaling the jagged rock wall, cutting off the retreat path RyuHan had planned. ShadowWolf pushed low, working the lava trench, forcing Crimson's support player to either expose his head or drown in molten earth.
The crossfire was too fast, too clean, too much.
PhantomRift took the final shot himself — a burst through the neck, RyuHan's health bar disappearing in an instant.
"CRIMSON DRAGOONS ELIMINATED!" Pulse shouted, his voice barely carrying over the stadium's explosion of noise. "Ashura Syndicate just wiped the number two team in the world — and they're not even stopping!"
But there was no cheering in the Ashura pods. No fist pumps, no celebrations.
They weren't done.
---
Tengu's Wrath had heard the fight, the distant echo of overlapping gunfire. They didn't wait for the circle. They pushed.
Shirokaze led the charge, moving fast and low through the basalt fields, his sniper slung across his back — this wasn't a long-range fight. This was up close, personal, the way he hated it. But it didn't matter.
PhantomRift saw them coming first.
"No breaks," PhantomRift said.
VortexX's laugh was low and savage. "Good."
The final fight was chaos made flesh — two squads tangled across jagged volcanic rock, lava fissures splitting the field beneath their feet, forcing constant movement. There was no cover. No high ground. Just four against four, breath close enough to feel.
Shirokaze took the first shot — a flick headshot that clipped VortexX's shoulder, sending him sliding toward the molten edge. But PhantomRift's smoke was already dropping, cutting off visibility, turning the battlefield into blind, desperate shapes.
PhantomRift didn't need sight.
He knew the rhythm now — the timing of panic, the hesitation between reload and reposition. His burst found Shirokaze through the smoke, sending the Japanese sniper crumpling against a stone outcrop.
ShadowWolf looped wide, catching the flank, tearing through Tengu's support player with a point-blank shotgun blast that sent ash and blood into the air.
The last two Tengu players held for seven more seconds — and then they were gone.
"TENGU'S WRATH ELIMINATED!" RJ screamed, voice breaking with the sheer force of it. "Ashura Syndicate — they've done it again! Three straight match wins! India's team is unstoppable!"
The stadium was shaking. Not cheering, not applauding. Roaring. The kind of roar that comes from two days of humiliation, two days of bottled frustration, all released at once in a storm of sound and pride.
Inside his pod, PhantomRift exhaled once, hands loose, the controller resting in his lap. He didn't smile. There was no relief. Just proof — that the ones they hunted could hunt back.
---
The scoreboard flickered across the stadium screen, updating in real time as match points were calculated.
First place — Ashura Syndicate.
From dead last to first, in a single day.
Not by luck.
Not by miracle.
By force.
---
Final Standings — End of Day 4
1. Ashura Syndicate (India) — 781 points
2. Northern Lights (USA) — 675 points
3. Crimson Dragoons (South Korea) — 654 points
4. Tengu's Wrath (Japan) — 641 points
5. La Tormenta Negra (Brazil) — 610 points
6. Imperium's Fangs (Europe) — 598 points
7. Desert Vultures (UAE) — 583 points
8. Seoul Revenants (South Korea) — 574 points
9. Thai Shadows (Thailand) — 563 points
10. Garuda Legion (India) — 549 points
---
In the VIP skybox, Aditya Pratap was standing now, hands clenched into fists, eyes gleaming with something between pride and disbelief. Rabin Halder was frozen, his phone halfway to his ear, forgotten.
Ishita stood at the glass, watching the crowd's roar ripple through the stands like a living wave. She didn't smile.
She was too busy calculating.
They were first.
But there were still two days left.
---