1 An Unlikely Situation

A worried look appears on your face as you ran down the field and dig into a new position. You realized you were the only person still alive on your team. It was true moments like these that made you love paintball, to the point where you have put years of hard work and effort, as well as a significant portion of your wallet simply for the game. You quickly thought up a strategy in your head, it was a 1v5 situation with three enemies covering you from where you are, one had dug into a low lying set of bunkers on the left side of the field, and two others to your right using some triangular inflatables as cover. 'Hmm' you thought to yourself as a flurry of paintballs whizzed past your bunker.

'I just need to stay behind cover until I can get the player suppressing me from the snake. They have good strats, not gonna lie' you take a few snapshots with your CS2 paintball marker as you let your fingers go wild on the double-length trigger . You hear your hopper whining as you slam back into your bunker, the only thing saving you from a whole pod of paint being dumped on you. "AW FUCK" you yell as you feel something smack into your arm 'probably a hit.' You thought until you check your arm to realize you got a lucky bounce, and the ball didn't explode. You take another few shots at the snake position and get a happy feeling in your chest as you hear a "HIT" come out from it. "DAMMIT DUDE GOOD SHOT" the dead player yells.

'Okay, this is either gonna or really cool, or really painful' you say in your head as you visualize a plan. You take a deep breath and launch yourself from the bunker, practically flying to the snake barricade as some paintballs get near misses, sounding like an angry swarm of bees. You spray nearly a whole hopper of paint at a guy sitting in the back and then dump a new pod in and chuck the empty pod behind you. You decide to rush the two guys in the Doritos and get a lucky flank on one and bunker the other. 'I could actually win this' you think to yourself as you slide into a new position. You spray and pray that you get a hit on the back bunkers, where your last two enemies were cowering behind. Normally, you wouldn't care if you win or lose a match, but this was different, as this is a special tournament with thousands watching, and prize money on the line.

Now, paintball is actually decently popular and you and your group of friends had pretty much introduced it to everyone, including your rival clique. You were the popular kids who were funny and actually decent people, while the other group that were all assholes got by on their athleticism alone giving them an advantage when it comes to popular sports, granting them, even more, when it comes to the social ladder. Paintball is no different as they scrambled to form an official team to rival yours getting the general populous of the school interested. This created a small fan base for each team, that naturally despised the other. You could feel your teammates watching you from outside the field as your heart beat faster. You build up courage and run and slide to where you think one of your opponents is, adrenaline running through you as you raise your marker and hit one, only to get out as your head painfully snaps back from a well placed shot to the forehead.

"Ughhh" you groaned as you were pulled up by the player who got you out. " Good play my dude," he said through his mask. "But not good enough....." 'yeah yeah yeah' you thought.... it didn't matter, your coach was gonna have your head for this fuckup. Not to mention the small fanbase you had would be horribly disappointed. You thought of your friend Erica as you limped off the field. You weren't sure about her, but she made you feel some type of way. You had asked her out in your freshman year in college and had gotten a no obviously. You moved on and dated other people, but recently those feelings had started to creep back into your mind. You tried to silence them, but your attempts were futile, which made it really hard to study engineering, which is what you worked so hard and paid so much for. Yeah, high school was a mess you thought, but hey now you're in College in San Francisco so hey that's pretty cool. Anyway, we're getting sidetracked, you push back the net and walk off the field to your friend Sean (pronounced Shawn if you didn't know) patting you on the back saying " good try Y/N you got closer than I would've." Sean didn't perform well under pressure, you learned that the hard way when you convinced him to ask a girl out, only to see him a nervous wreck when he finally got the balls to. On the other hand, your other teammate Michelle was pounding a can of Red Bull. " y'know that stuffs gonna kill you" you remarked.

" listen fam, I'm here for a good time not a long time"

"Fair enough"

You started to pack up, it was the last game of the day. " Ugh" you suddenly groaned you realized you had a field trip next week so you couldn't play paintball.

TIMESKIP

@ school b4 the buses for the field trip leave

"Ok guys the buses are late so we got half an hour to kill" you disappointingly say to your friends. Your trip group consisted of your usual squad, Erica, Sean, Gavin, Jake, Sarah, Michelle, Saul, & Mikey. You guys didn't have much to do so you started blasting YBN Nahmir and Ugly God. Sean always found these weird obscure songs that were absolute fire, like "Fuck Ugly God" or "Rubbin off the Paint." Unfortunately, our jam was cut short by Hunter, one of the bitchy football players telling us to " TURN THAT TRASH OFF" even though it was coming from someone who played Russ and Trippie Redd... In retaliation, you yell at him to screw off. That wasn't the best course of action. He stood up. "Shit...." you muttered to yourself "Care to repeat that y/n?" He asked menacingly. " Sure, someone with your IQ probably can't understand things the first time so I completely understand." You shot back. Now sure this comeback was total fire but didn't get the best response "ooooooooh" was all your friends had to say to back you up. You stood up to match him, coming short by an inch. Instead of insulting you back like a civilized person, he growled and put you in a tight yet sloppy headlock. What was sloppy about it? Well, his feet were in front of yours, giving you a counterattack. You jetted your knee into the back of his, causing him to lose his balance and you put your weight on him and brought your elbow down hard on his stomach. "HEY" you heard someone yell as you scrambled off of him. " Now I'm gonna get it," you said mentally as a teacher walked over. " DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW VIOLENT THAT WAS!?" She screeched in your ear "HE COULD'VE BEEN SERIOUSLY HURT! GO TO THE OFFICE NOW!" "M'am I was simply acting in self-defense"

TIMESKIP TO THE OFFICE BROUGHT TO YOU BY CHIBI Y/N BEATING UP THE KID

You stared at the wall with a blank face and mind as the teacher filled the principal in. He asks " Did he start it, or did he finish it?" Your eyes widened. You knew shit was serious when he said that, but last time he did he had your side, you hoped this would end up the same way. "well from the looks of it he finished it." Was all the teacher said with a meager expression. "Well then, he's free to go" a grin grew on your face as you thought to yourself "hell yeah." The bus blasted its horn and slammed its brakes making an agonizingly high squeaking sound.

TIMESKIP 20 MINUTES

"Ughhh this bus ride is taking forever and I've got no cellular here," Sean said in a sluggish tone.

"Do some homework" You advised.

"Easy for you to say, you can livestream yourself doing homework and make money" he shot back.

"Yeah that's fair" you gave up.

About what he said, you had started a YouTube channel In high school but it hadn't started up until last year and it's been growing ever since, and so have the donations. You could get away with streaming literally anything to your 300k fans, including just doing homework, and they would straight up give you answers. Aside from irl videos and streams you mostly make paintball and gaming videos, as well as an occasional song (rap or guitar depending on the video) Aside from that, life was pretty good, but it was about to turn from decent to FUBAR(fucked up beyond all recognition) you looked out the window of the noisy bus, trying to clear your head, only to get met with a sight like no other. You see some chemtrails in the sky not thinking much of it until you trace them to what was making them. "HOOOOOOLLLLLLLYYYYY SSSSHHHHHHIIIIIIIT WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!" You said a little too loud. " What?" Sean questioned, then was silenced by the sight of it. It was huge, almost like an aircraft carrier, but like five times bigger. It snatched your attention, looking like something straight out of 2500. (Current year:2020, so like a little bit futuristic, but nothing too fancy)

It was somehow hovering super high, dwarfing the height of the commercial planes. It like had some kind of runway at the top and a metric shitload of some kind of cannons. It would have been cool but you scanned it with your eyes and didn't see a single US marking. You elbowed your friend "Sean, is it just me or does that thing not have any friendly markings" " yeah I noticed that too, that's kinda sus" you looked out of the window once more, as the traffic came to halt on the Golden Gate Bridge, and you noted that the bus was nearly halfway across it. You got a nervous feeling in your stomach as multiple dropship esk planes are ejected from the bottom of the bigger ship, only now did you notice it said "retribution" on the side

A/N anyone who played the infinite warfare campaign will know what I'm talking about and what this ship looks like

"Wait... where are they going?" You questioned no one in particular. They elegantly flew towards the Golden Gate Bridge, which you were currently on.

A/N anyone who has played the bridge mission on advanced warfare knows what tf bouta go down

Your anxiety hit you with a two by four as you see small things that look like rockets escape from under each craft. " WAIT GET DOW-" you try to warn everyone, but to no avail, as you see the cars in front of you get engulfed in flames. The reaction from your friends and the explosions that followed nearly burst your eardrums. The engines of a craft completed that process as they hovered closely over the bridge and opened up doors on the side to reveal rows of armed men. Or troops. You couldn't even tell through their advanced high tech armor and gear. Despite the new adrenaline running through your veins, you are too focused on the soldiers rappelling down the dropships to observe the stray rocket accelerating towards your bus. It was too late when you noticed it and your half-assed warning of "MISSLE! GET BEHIND SOMETHING!!" Didn't work either as no one heard you over the gunfire and the sound of engines. You flinched hard as the rocket impacted the front of the bus, knocking it on its side and ripping it in half like it was a tissue, and as you were thrown in the air,

everything went black.

TIMESKIP

(You get knocked out for a few minutes from the explosion)

Fire

Fire was all you could see

Everywhere

Cars, Trucks, bikes, even people.

Nothing could escape the flames.

Whether it be the rockets, the panicking cars crashing into one another, or the terrorists executing you themselves, death was imminent. Your vision slowly cleared to reveal your very own hellscape. You barely had the energy to move, much less get up. You slowly raised your head to see an expanse of overturned and blown up, blackened cars and swarms of those troops. Your friends, where were they? You asked yourself, worried. Your question was answered as you heard a gravelly cough coming from your left. "Saul?" You managed to cough out. " y/n....." was all he gave as a reply. You groaned as you try to unscramble your head and stand up, despite complaining muscles. You leaned against a car and coughed up blood, it felt like you had drunk kerosene and swallowed a match. "Y/n... help...." Saul coughed again. Only now did you realize the position he was in. He was pinned between a car and some debris with only his upper body exposed. "Oh, shit..." you thought out loud. You took another look around and your adrenaline took over. Going over to him and looking at the debris, it didn't look good, it was heavy and there was traces of blood in many places. Bending your knees you place your hands on the underside of the metal and lift up. It didn't move. You get under it. "Okay, Saul I'mma need you to push up ok?" "Okay..." he rasped. "3...2...1...GO!"

"AUGHHHH" you yelled as you lifted the metal up. You propped your head against it and flipped it off of him. You tried to take a breath but were overwhelmed by what you saw. There was some metal sticking out from the debris that had impaled him "oh god...." you paled at the fact that you could see the ground through him. "Shit shit shit," you said, shaking. You applied pressure to the wound and took off his hoodie and tried to wrap his stomach. He had a sudden coughing fit, each wheeze drawing more blood. "HELP!" You called out.

"SOMEONE! ANYONE!" But your cries came to no avail. His breathing became staggered and heavy. "augh..... I had a good run" he said solemnly. "Don't say that I'm gonna get you out of here.... wherever here is." "Tell my parents I miss them..."

"Please..."

you became desperate. He was one of your best friends and you weren't gonna lose him that fast.

But it was too late.

He died in your arms.

You could see the light in his eyes disappear and you could feel the warmth leave his body.

Your eye twitched

You wanted to cry

You wanted to scream

You wanted to avenge him

But you couldn't.

Because of one thing.

The cold rifle barrel suddenly being pressed against the back of your head.

"Freeze"