Word to the wise. If you ever come to the Valorant universe. Do not pick the Clove's Ultimate. And if you do. Make sure that Clove does not find out that you have her ultimate.
Apparently, she was a lonely soul. Which basically means that I am her new favorite pet project now. Especially since I can accompany her in her 'trips' to the great beyond. I was just figuring out the dread that the protagonist of Edge of Tomorrow felt when the heroine shot him every day. She hadn't done anything crazy like blowing my brains out yet. At least not after that first time in Brimstone's office. But still, I felt nervous all the time.
My training had been ramped up to 11. Since they wanted me in the field fast. Hand-to-hand was down to an hour a day. I found myself fighting battles against bots and Clove with almost real-life ammunition. The good thing was that the bullets were made of rubber.
The bad thing was also that the bullets were made of rubber.
They hurt like hell.
Clove did not believe in an ordered, systematic training regimen. Her method of teaching swimming was to throw you into the water and let you flail about until you figured it out. It was definitely effective. I was faster, stronger, and more adept in my new body.
A buzzer jolted me from my thoughts as a new match started. I had a singular purpose. Get to the circle on the other side of the training ground. And stay in it for 3 seconds.
I walked forward really slowly. Making sure my sneakers lived up to their namesake. I had the gun aimed straight ahead, and my breathing was deep but quiet. I did not move straight. I chose to move to the right wall. At least I'll have one side covered.
THUMP, I swerved with the sound and opened fire on a cute little doll that squeaked "MAAMAAAAA!" as it fell off the box.
There was another sound from the left side of that box - of a gun firing.
I braced myself for the pain as I tried to rotate because I knew it was already too late.
MAAMAAAA!
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After showering, I sat down for a game of Chess with Cypher.
It had become his obsession now to beat me. I usually started on my own and told my Extra Brain to warn me if I made any blunders that could make me lose. It usually devolved into me following its commands by the end. But I did feel smarter.
"How was practice?"
"Same old same old. With me getting beaten up."
"Not yet at instinct, huh?"
"Yeah. not yet."
The training without any rules or guidance was supposed to help me develop a 'Primal Killer Instinct'
All radiants who fought had it. We didn't talk anymore. Cypher was actually quite taciturn. Which fits his hacker spy background. But he was the one guy whom I had actually started considering as a sort of friend.
That's when suddenly Jett came in. "Mirror, Let's Roll."
What? Why? And roll to where? Didn't she usually use that when going out for missions?
Apparently, I was going on a mission.
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This was not how I imagined this.
I had expected a lot of things for my first mission, but sitting around near the gunship while a bunch of VAs discussed idol groups wasn't it. A team comprising Jett, Cypher, Yoru, and Chamber was led out by Viper.
I did not know the mission. I did not know any details. I did not know if it was the standard spike or something else. All I knew was that I was here as a living Med-kit because Sage was off somewhere else.
This was my first time seeing the famous CEO and the repentant Scientist. Viper had been crisp and no-nonsense, while I hadn't even recognized Chamber. The guy was wearing a full three-piece suit for God's Sake. I took him for a Director or something until he pulled out that Tour de Force Sniper Rifle.
As we waited. I started to listen to the VA stories. VA347 never told me anything. And I didn't have many interactions. Before it was VA347. Now it was mostly Clove. I had felt that the information flow in the Protocol was quite fragmented. Which made sense since it was a semi-covert organization. The world knew of its existence and purpose. It just didn't know how or what it did exactly. Kind of like the CIA. Everyone knows they are spies. Nobody knows how they do it or what they are doing now.
In fact, the Radiants themselves were an accepted minority in the population now. It's just that their powers differed in scale, style, and strength. Most of them were either taken up by the military or Hollywood. Or Dreamland, as they called it here.
There was a whole genre of idol groups with cute, radiant powers like floating or creating light. Of course, they weren't strong enough for combat use. But they existed. The VAs were talking about a group called WhitePink. Trust me. I asked him about the name twice. He took out his phone and showed me a video of 4 girls making small glowing white and pink balls of light that fluttered around as they sang. It was all warm and fuzzy and oey goey.
The VA behind me received a command, and his face changed. "Mirror, Cypher's down. We need to go!"
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The scene at the base camp made me realize just how Powerful the Radiants truly were. I wasn't good enough now. I could barely charge 1 healing orb in 10 days. Sage could pump out 1 a day and still had energy for other things. Once I filled my ability slots. The first thing I am doing is collecting enough juice to upgrade my Core.
It took 5000 Shards to upgrade Core Rank. Same for the shield. Where the hell was I supposed to find it all?
Sorry. I went off track. The realization came to me when I saw the bodies as we tried to get to Cypher as the Radio my VA had was switched on. There hadn't been any hostile VPs. But roughly 50 hostile VAs. They had hit 2 places simultaneously. The result was 50 dead vs 1 injured.
A VP could tank bullets. A Human couldn't.