up. Also, her timer to the ground no longer matched the one for the end of the match.
Shots suddenly came at her, ripping holes in her chute, but it didn't seem to change her falling speed. So that was how the rules worked here. Well, she could handle that. Instead of using forward and back, Rhaven tried turning, thrilled to see her chute spiral, swinging her out. That made scoping in and "flying" at the same time harder, but she had this.
Rhaven shot every time she saw another player. Most ended up as kills, and the spam at the corner of her screen began to scroll wildly. It wasn't just her kills being listed, though. Evidently, the rest of the players had finally figured out how to work in this new world, and things were starting to get exciting. She shot. She healed when someone shot at her, and she moved through the cloud of parachuting players like a drunk fish in the sea. The reactions weren't quick, and a wrong move could mean her death, yet this was actually fun!
Then, "Fuck!" Kate hissed, pushing her keyboard back. "I'm out. Kill some for me, Ice?"
"On it," he promised.
"Watch the rockets," Knock warned.
Above, Rhaven could hear them going off, but she was at the bottom of the pack. The problem was that her own chute blocked her line of sight, making it that much harder. She needed to move enough to slow her descent and get back up there!
Weaving, swinging her character around, she slowed, gauging by the difference between her time to the ground and the time for the match. It didn't take long before other players caught up and guns began blazing. Rhaven tagged Bunny83, feeling almost bad about it, but when she turned again, she saw a name she recognized.
This was Psyc, and he swung in toward her. She didn't shoot. Instead, she matched his spin as well as she could, and they made some kind of vortex of bullets. A glance showed her outfit leader grinning, and Rhaven knew her face matched. Right up until she saw M1sEr.
"Bastard," she breathed, focusing on him.
The man immediately turned, swinging out on his chute, but she led her shot. The hit markers weren't consistent like she was used to, but she knew she was tearing him down. The problem was that the idiot had a rocket launcher aimed right at her!
"Move!" she said, raising her voice in the hopes that Psyc would hear it through his headphones. Then she dove.
The rocket hit just above her chute, but now M1sEr had the advantage. He could still see her, but all she could see was her parachute. In desperation, Rhaven swung out, spiraled in the opposite direction, and tried everything she could to get higher, but it wasn't working. The ground was coming up too fast.
Then she saw the asshole's name fly by in the kill spam:
M1sEr < PSYCHOCUT
The man was down, and she was still alive, thanks to Psyc. Rhaven knew that would be the talk of the chat lobby, but she also didn't care. He'd just helped her out. Now her job was to help him again. It only took a second to find his character, then she began focusing her fire on anyone close by. One guy dropped, then another, but the number at the top of the screen was blinking red. Thirty seconds.
She made another kill, spun out again to find more, and watched as the timer hit twenty seconds to go. Beneath her, someone landed and began spraying the sky with bullets. She only knew because the hit markers were coming from beneath her. Rhaven jigged. She turned, trying to zig and zag in midair, but it only helped so much. These shots were wild.
Then she hit the ground. Her chute dropped, dissolving from view, and the timer said eight seconds. Rhaven didn't care. She just looked for the idiot who'd shot her. There, a few dozen yards away, some unknown player was looking straight up, spraying bullets and praying for a kill. She scoped in, seeing the timer hit five. Tapped off the first headshot at four seconds to go. The second hit at three seconds. Rhaven clicked on a med pack and looked up just as the timer ran out.
What she saw was amazing. Hundreds of 1940s style parachutes filled the sky. Dead bodies hung from some. Flashes of gunfire showed that others were still going, but the clock hit zero, freezing them all in