We were marched to a circular platform, watching a circle open above us and we alighted onto its crisp and soil-covered surface. The dust smelled like pinyon, I realized, and I wondered if the AI was repurposing some stuff instead of making it all from scratch. The platform creaked, quaked, then got its feet underneath it and pushed upwards, groaning us into the daylight.

We rose into the arena under the electronic blare of trumpets that followed into a creepy low tone overlaying the long and drawn out blare of a single strum of an electric guitar.

“Welcome to the big show!” it rasped. 

The battlefield was as we’d seen it. We came in at a spot where there were two wooden barriers that we could use for full cover for as long as the material lasted against whatever our opponents would throw at it. The garbage bags were all over the place and I expected they were there more as a distraction since I couldn’t imagine many arms in this place failing to pierce them. Still I’d keep them in mind for some possible tricks. Especially if it turned out that someone was playing with fire. 

There were ditches next to the barriers that I could throw guys into. But I still didn’t have a good grasp of what weapons I might be facing. I decided I’d call it all out on the spot when the battle started.

“Blunt, Dragon, you guys go prone behind those barriers when we go live. See how that wood holds up, then fire from whatever position gives you the most cover. We’re looking to keep ourselves alive. No taking unnecessary risks.

“The rest of you be ready to act on command. I’m not sure what the hell to do with you all yet.”

I saw that there was a square floating platform over the middle of the area, small rockets burning blue to keep it elevated and steady. That was something the screen hadn’t shown us. But it didn’t look like it would matter much, because upon it was one man in a white hooded robe that extended head to toe, his face encased in a crystal mask. 

At all four corners of the platform stood a single woman, waifish with exposed toned limbs extended out from leather battle dresses colored black and deep purple. Their heads were totally exposed, as were their legs up to their upper thighs. Each one of them was a young and tough-looking Asian woman. They stood facing their quarter of the roaring crowds, their arms extending upward into the sky.

Was this going to be a battle? Or had I just walked into the meeting of a cult?

A sudden onslaught of heavy metal blasted over us all and I saw that about half of the audience, an uncountable horde, were standing up out of their seats with their arms raised upwards as well. The blast of music faded in a metallic squeal.

“Entering the arena now, some unknown assholes with balls of steel. Tough-looking, battle-grizzled, and labeled top-grade by our very own battle strategist, ranked A for this match up, let’s HEAR THEIR NAME!”

The woman on the platform lowered one arm and used the other to ball and shake their fists at the sky. “Hear their name! Hear their name!” they screamed at their sections. One of them made a sudden attempt to kick another one off of the platform, but her leg was deflected with the amazingly swift swing of the other’s arm, and shoved back.

The crowd cheered.

“And Himari takes an early swipe at Yui, who deftly blocks the attack. Tsk tsk, you’ve only got two more of those left before half-time, Himari.”

There was a widespread chuckling among the audience, and I felt more and more lost.

When were we going to fight? What was this “hear their name” bullcrap? And what the hell were those battle cheerleaders doing up there?

I judged the distance between platform and crowd and detected pure breakage. Those ladies were fighting to the death by the most ridiculous rules I could imagine. 

“You wanna hear my name, dicks?” I shouted, as loud as I could. My griefer battle squad jostled a bit behind and to my flanks, anxious to start moving. The crowd silenced, an expectant awe that told me that I was either doing the right thing, or being such an ignorant freak that I’d triggered the lot of them.

Boo hoo if it was the latter. I was ready to bust some heads. This all felt like a way to settle down our adrenaline and make us less prepared for the coming fight. And I wasn’t going to let that happen.

“We’re Bandit Troop and we’re here to drop mobs and take names. So you either bring those cheerleaders down here to fight us, or get those B team cowards to stop hiding in the bathroom and come out and play.”

The silence was broken by a single clap, then scattered joining in, before it built to a full crescendo. I felt proud for a moment until my system-enhanced intelligence churned my gears enough to realize that the AI was copying the old movie trope.

All I’d actually done was succeed in some system check.

Great.

Still it seemed to work. The robed figure grunted his amplified voice, said something that sounded like, “Hite!” and then a circle opened in the ground across from us, and the second team rose into view. 

I have to say, I either didn’t see them in the ready room, or these dudes changed before they came up. There were six of them, just like us, and these dudes were decked out in the gray uniforms of the German SS, but with sparkling fields glowing from the insignia on their collars.

I gritted my teeth and widened my stance as if I were again the center in my old highschool football team. After hearing about it all in history class and seeing enough of it in the movies I always wondered what it would be like to crush some Nazis.

Now I was going to have my chance.

“In this corner,” rasped the voice of the masked man, “rising up like a phoenix from the ashes of allied defeat, come the three-time champions, Hitler’s Homies!”

I winced. Sure, alliteration sounded cool, but why not something more on target like Rommel’s Riflemen, Hitler’s Hellions, or even The Sieg Heil Storm! Whatever. They were going to die so it didn’t matter all that much, but the style and pizzazz of it all could have looked so much better on their graves.

The men stared at us, their eyes icy-blue. I checked my men, they were staring back. Good. Didn’t want anyone getting second thoughts here. We needed to level and this was the fastest place to do it.

One thing troubled me, though. The announcer dude had just said that they were the three-time champions. Was I wrong in the labeling system?

“Untermensch! Ve vill destroy you,” their leader uttered, his voice magnified to fill the stadium. “Ve shall kill you, and then take your skulls, yes? American swine.”

I shook my head. It was so over-the-top that it felt silly.

“You’ll take my skull from my cold dead hands,” I heard myself say, then cursed. Those words had been forced from my mouth and was almost definitely the result of some bad roll in the system. Before, in the lobby when I’d talked to the residents, the human players had been immune to such things.

Was the system taking over aspects of our free will?

Not on my watch. I tried to launch myself forward, but felt my body tensed and constrained. Above me, the robed guy started talking again.

“Former American soldiers versus the elite of the 3rd Reich. Who shall prevail?”

“Skip!” I yelled, hoping that this damn game would have to listen. It didn’t.

“The Italians of the Western Alliance, Hitler called them. But in their own time they arose to become the most powerful military in the world. The best soldiers of their times, set to battle to the death. Who shall prevail?”

I tapped my foot, bored. “Just get on with it.”

“Let the battle begin!” the robed figure announced. Suddenly, we were released, able to move as we wished.

“Turtle, Phil, hit those ditches. GhostFace, lay covering fire. I move, you cover.”

Everybody dodged and weaved to their positions. GhostFace dropped to one knee and started firing his M-08 into the mass of Germans. They had equipped their own weapons, a collection of plastic-looking rifles that made me reevaluate team-ranking.

Again.

More-so when an orange-red glob of intense heat blasted apart one of the wooden barriers.

They tried spreading as well, but I saw that the instantaneous reactions of my own men had had their effect. The blazing rounds of GhostFace’s machine gun had them keeping their heads low, one of them obviously bleeding and stumbling.

“Setze die Void-Schilde ein!” their commander yelled. A moment later, the sparkling field deployed by their insignia was replaced by a murky-gray cloud.

I didn’t care, whatever it was. I’d just landed into one of their ditches ahead of any of their men. Something that one of the Nazis found out a moment to late as he dived into it . . . and right into the muzzle of my plasma blaster.

I blasted him, a series of automatic critical notifications rising in my feed. I just kept blasting, the man ragdolling back the the far-end of the ditch and then dying. Another gray uniform dropped down a moment later, though, blasting me hard in the side with his plasma rifle. I felt it burn hard and was surprised to see the energy fade into a lighter burnt groove in my side. 

Duh. Hit points. Less a function of damage and more a function of telling people how exhausted you were, really. 

He fired again and my Cybernetic Enhancement kicked in. I did a Michael Joerdan-esque jump and pirouette, avoiding the next three blasts before kicking the bastard in his forehead. He fell backward and I quickly sent my blaster to my inventory before grabbing the man's rifle. He resisted, fighting to take it back.

“Fick dich Scheißkopf,” the man screamed in my face. “Sieg an allen Fronten!”

I noticed there was saliva foaming from the corners of his mouth. Screw this Nazi. I kneed him in the nuts as hard as I could, and wasn’t surprised when I saw a wave of criticals rise in my feed as well as the man’s debuffs. In Tremendous Pain. Demasculated. Discouraged. There were a litany of them. And I knew dude was basically a robot but wow did I feel a bit bad when I saw the screw up of his face.

But he let go of his weapon and slumped. I blasted him several times and he died.

In the sudden silence that followed, I felt very uneasy. Where were the reports of plasma and gunpowder fire? I rolled up my messenger and saw a stream of freaked out messages.

THAT BLACK CLOUD IS STOPPING ALL OF OUR ROUNDS. PLEASE ADVISE.

NO SHOTS PENETRATING. NEED INSTRUCTIONS. OVER.

HELL, SIR, ANSWER US!

There was a bunch of back and forth between them, still going on, so I knew they were still in position and still alive. But the silence of the Germans confused me and made me nervous. They had what sounded like immunity to ballistic fire on with those black cloud shields of theirs, and yet they were just charging and attacked.

I thought about the dead bodies in front of me. Had I scared them off? And how the hell had I shot through these shields.

The plasma rifle pulsed in my hands, a thrum that coursed the weapon every several seconds, and I knew my answer. I sent a message.

DON’T CALL ME SIR, I WORK FOR A LIVING. THOSE CLOUD SHIELDS ARE PHYSICAL ONLY. AND DEFINITELY NOT MELEE. BE PREPARED TO ENGAGE HAND-TO-HAND IF YOU SEE ONE OF THOSE ASSHOLES APPROACH.

I’M GOING TO HEAD BACK THERE AND GIVE THE FIRST ONE OF YOU BASTARDS I SEE A PLASMA RIFLE. IT PENETRATES. MAYBE ALL ENERGY DOES. IN FACT, I’M STARTING TO THINK THAT THE ELECTRICITY CLOUDS WE SAW BEFORE WERE SHIELDS AGAINST ENERGY WEAPONS AND WE LUCKED OUT BY BEING SO LOW-TECH.

There was a long pause.

ROGER THAT. KRAUT SHOWS UP, KICK HIM IN THE BALLS. OTHERWISE, GO ENERGY.

I thought about relating what I’d done to the last Nazi but decided against it. It would make a great story for another time.