"Incredible move! Very nice!" Captain Vulcan applauded. His bombastic reaction kicked off a louder uproar. One of Marathon's best killed, in a single counterstrike, quickly blew up on streams and the internet.
"Tch, he's with the good Lord now," Asterion commented. He saw a warlock casting some eldritch shit at them, and zoomed towards him with a tackle.
"You've got to be kidding me..." Sonia's eyes widened, and she took her helmet off. Her perversion for Asterion disappeared the moment Gamer did Shade dirty. She, as well as all the remaining players, cast their eyes up to Gamer's holographic poster in the sky. After the slew of lower tier players he took out, and now with Shade defeated, Gamer's score jumped to 992,040.
The menacing aura around Gamer as he posed with the magnum gave everybody pause.
"What's wrong, guys?" Gamer grinned as he twirled the firearm on his index finger. "It's not like I have a universal infinite ammo cheat code up my sleeve..."
ദ്ദി(˵ •̀ ᴗ - ˵ ) ✧ Samira sent, and a little notification popped up in the corner of Gamer's screen that said 'Infinite Ammo Activated'.
A few players, foolhardy indeed, didn't allow Shade's death to deter them. They shot arrows, magic, and insults at the cheater. Gamer shot them all down, and scored more headshots. Thanks to Samira's hack, he never had to reload. Gamer drew first blood on the nearest players.
A squad of military soldiers encroached. They moved like coffee-addicted monkeys – they interspersed jumps and slides into their movement. The erratic movements helped, since Gamer couldn't get a good shot in. They equipped assault rifles and shotguns. Minnie did her thing and shielded Gamer, who took cover behind her shell. She tucked in. The red shell withstood the impact of the bullet barrage. Gamer relinquished his flare flower from his inventory.
"I wonder if..." Gamer speculated, but didn't give much time to it. He consumed the power up and shortly thereafter entered his fire form. The flames extended to the Desert Eagle; fire licked across its barrel and a small fire bullet icon appeared next to the sights. Gamer's eyes lit up more than the flare flower provided, "Oh ho ho! Yes, it does!"
Gamer rose up out of cover and fired the magnum at the squad. The bullets that grazed set the military men ablaze. They panicked and ran about. It gave Gamer a better shot to finish the job. The remaining squad found cover by rocks, and made it impossible to hit them.
Gamer sat back down behind Minnie for cover. He glanced over and saw Asterion going toe-to-toe with two whacky, flailing armed robots. His hands were full. Minnie saved him from wanton bullets and magic. Her body was full.
"Samira, I need a wallhack, please," Gamer asked his sister.
"Pfft, that's not what it's called, but I catch ya! Ready when you are!" Samira used her abilities. A strange surge overcame Gamer's body. He tilted sideways in his sitting position, but instead of hitting the sand, his upper body clipped through. He hung upside down, his lower body still contacting the ground, and peered into the grand abyss beneath the Chanterelle map. The underside of the terrain did not have proper texturing. It was see-through, and allowed Gamer to spot many of the players. His vantage point gave him a clear shot at the military men's booties. He fired the flaming magnum and pegged all of them, and allowed the flames to finish them off. He spun back up, his torso clipping through the map floor again.
"Somebody call an ambulance, because we're killing it!" Gamer barked.
"Hell yeah!" Samira cheered, while Gamer thanked her.
The group's teamwork, Shade's defeat, and Gamer and Samira's cheats broke the camel's back. Players began to log out. Most were not willing to risk losing their high score or be embarrassed like Shade. The numbers diminished in seconds.
Talis chimed in for Sonia, "Shade is pissed! He's going ballistic at HQ. They're trying to calm him down, but lots of people clipped the moment and are posting it all over socials |╭ರ_•́| He's a living dumpster fire. Thank your stars you work from home."
"This will be an embarrassment for all of Marathon. Genius move, Shade, you baka," Sonia facepalmed. Their caution proved warranted, but she found Gamer's difficulty level enticing. Not only did he use cheats, but the dude had that dog in him. She asked Talis, "Could you check his profile from before he was put in eternal gamenation? I want to know what his previous high score was, and what skills he possessed."
Talis went to work, but couldn't bring up previous information, "Damn, I can't view a majority of his profile. They delete most of it after the sentence. They really do wipe a person off the face of the planet..."
"Anything useful they didn't delete?"
"Let's see...I can view his bio. Wait, this can't be right. This says he achieved sixty-nine life achievements, was over nine thousand years old, and has a Master's degree in Trollonomics..." Talis sounded perplexed.
Before he could continue, a second text box appeared and teased, "No peeking! ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)"
"What the...?!" Talis freaked out. Samira summoned a gif of a big, honkin' hammer slamming down and interposed it over Talis's avatar. Samira disconnected Sonia's navigator.
Sonia became aghast. She knew a hack when she saw one, but Samira ᕙ( •̀ ᗜ •́ )ᕗ and then her text box left. Sonia tried to reconnect with Talis, and found out her chat glitched out. The chat feed reversed and went a hundred miles per hour.
"He's got somebody hacking for him," Sonia checked around. A few players were equally confused. Some had their character customization messed with, others were involuntarily dropping items left and right. The moment to act became more narrow. The window to defeat Gamer started to close. Sonia pulled out an item from her inventory; a brilliantly cut emerald gem about the size of a baseball.
The number of players dropped to just eleven. Sonia, Captain Vulcan, Master Chaffe, the five Vtubers, Asterion, and a couple more less-followed players remained. With the numbers dwindled and participation halted, the sky holograph disappeared along with the OoB dome. The raid was officially cancelled.
"Ha...ha...uh..." Nathaniel's announcer voice shifted to uncertainty. It was time for an intermission, "Um, we'll be right back!"