This Is Just the Basics
Pretty sure the body aches are real. Her voice is already gone and she keeps coughing. Right now she can barely even hear the team.
We were setting up the retake on A. I was only just leaving high mid for A Main. Nebula and Zzangdol had already pushed all the way to A Heaven.
Nebula decided it was better to force the retake with two than to wait on me, when nobody knew whether I could even clear main. They committed.
Four enemies left. If one of them was watching main, that left three on site—a two-on-three.
A Spectre's headshot only does 78, and the thing kicks so hard that at range it barely kills anything. Up close, though, it can still scrap with a rifle. Nebula and Zzangdol dropped off Heaven in the same instant and caught the Sova hiding in Under.
Then KAY/O traded them both before the kill had even settled.
[ENEMY] KAY/O SPECTRE 💀 [TEAM] Omen (Zzangdol)
Still, we'd stripped two guns. That alone made the round a success.
Ugh. Even for me, beating three rifles with a single Marshal was a tall order—worse when they were tucked all over the site and I was the one who had to walk in.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
The bomb's countdown kept shrinking. Killing all three and defusing was already impossible. My job was to take as many as I could and drop their rifles. I followed A Main toward site, slow.
Nebula and Zzangdol's killfeed put KAY/O and Fade firmly inside A. Omen had never appeared on it. That meant he was very likely hiding right here on A Main.
Last round had been their eco. My team had wiped them without me, so I'd never shown the enemy what I was holding. If I were their Omen, and I didn't know the gun coming at me, I wouldn't gamble on a close fight. I'd take the long duel, where the rifle has the edge.
So I did the obvious thing.
I deliberately took the wide lane through A Main and let my footsteps carry, baiting the Omen most likely sitting Wine.
And then—
Bang!
The Marshal cracked, bright and clean, and a wide hole opened in Omen's head.
Omen had heavy shields and 150 health, but a Marshal headshot deals 202. Heavy shields or not, that firepower sends someone home in a single shot. Landing the headshot is the hard part. That's all.
The rifle he'd dropped was right there. Jett's E, Tailwind, and her C, the smoke burst, would have been enough to grab it and run. In this spot, though, one more dropped enemy rifle was worth more than a rifle in my hands. This was a bonus round anyway. Rifles would be back next round no matter what.
And they would be watching A Main, precisely so they didn't hand me one. They'd already lost three rifles. They wouldn't want even one of those crossing over.
I was going to use that.
A low rush of air—Tailwind, live. I crept toward A site, where KAY/O and Fade were hiding.
They already knew where I was. A miserable spot for me. But if everyone sat still, the bomb would blow and kill us all, so the ones who had to come out were on the other team. If I died to the spike, all I dropped was a Marshal. They would lose the rifles they'd paid for.
Tick. Tick.
The mechanical beep came slower and slower. In the end, the one who lost patience and peeked first was KAY/O.
Maybe they'd burned every flash on the execute. He swung out body-first. Peeker's advantage meant he saw me before I saw him.
Ta-ta-tang!
Bang!
A white flare of movement.
That still didn't mean KAY/O won. Peeker's advantage only shines when both sides share the same reaction speed and the same skill. In a gap like this one, it means almost nothing.
The instant KAY/O died, I threw Tailwind backward and sealed myself in the C smoke, already watching for Fade coming to trade.
Ta-ta-ta-tang!
A vicious spray through the smoke. A blind bullet dropped me to 30—
Bang!
I stepped out of the smoke without rushing the thought and took her with a flick. A body shot this time, because I needed it fast and clean. A Marshal body shot deals 101. If they'd walked in on heavy shields, one body wouldn't have killed her—except Nebula had already briefed that Fade was down 78. That was why I chose it.
They were marveling. I didn't have time to enjoy it.
Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.
Two kills brought Tailwind back. I triggered it, sprinted for the nearest body—KAY/O's—snatched the rifle, and dashed.
The blast roared past behind me.
I cleared the radius by a breath. The round was lost, but they'd been made to drop five rifles, and one of them was coming home with me. An absurd amount of value.
Everyone was losing it over the play. Pleased with myself, I went for the line that had become law on my stream.
"Ah, damn it. Seriously. Not helping. Not helping at all."
The third round was the one we absolutely had to win. NPT took it—and paid by losing every rifle.
They had planted, though, and they'd won the round, so the plant bonus came with them. Light shields and rifles were buyable. Round four, the guns weren't far apart at all.
Bang!!
Then we started the Operator, and they had no answer. They just got rolled.
NPT's triple initiator is, on paper, the comp best built to hunt an Operator. But how far was that supposed to get against me—a former starter on KZ, the team that all but fathered the triple initiator?
Info skills boast absurd power, and sometimes that power is the flaw. When the other side already knows exactly where every skill will land, for instance. Then the skill can be turned around and used against you. Like just now, tucked in a pocket Sova's recon arrow never tags.
Their Jett saw an empty recon, decided nobody was there, and walked in relaxed. I was there. The kill was empty and clean.
The best comp in the game for finding an Operator, and I never gave them my position, because I knew every way those skills would be used. Stack that on Ascent, a map everyone calls defender-sided, and the first half closed at a crushing 11–1.
Already mentally gone from the string of losses, NPT showed nothing different in the second half. The first scrim ended 13–3.
A thoroughly overwhelming win.