Lina ignored her. She walked to a corner where a loose brick jutted out from the wall and pushed it in. A soft click echoed in the room. Then, she moved to a rusted valve on an old pipe and turned it a quarter-turn to the left. A hiss of compressed air. Finally, she walked back to the lantern.

"What are you doing?" Selena asked, completely baffled.

"Playing the classics," Lina said with a mysterious smile. She pulled the lantern again. This time, there wasn't a scraping sound. Instead, a soft, melodic chime filled the air, and a section of the floor beneath a pile of dusty crates slid away, revealing a hidden compartment bathed in a golden, shimmering light.

Nestled on a bed of black velvet was a single item: the hilt of a longsword, forged from a sleek, matte-black alloy. As Lina reached down and picked it up, a blade of pure, shimmering plasma ignited from the hilt with a low, hungry hum.

Selena's jaw dropped. "No way… That's… that's the Plasma Excalibur. How did you know?"

Lina gave the sword a practice swing, the fiery blade leaving a searing trail in the air. A slow, confident grin spread across her face. "Old habits die hard," she said.

Just as her words faded, a klaxon blared in their ears, and a red, shimmering wall appeared on their HUDs, miles away but approaching fast. "Warning," a calm, synthesized voice announced. "Corrosive data storm forming. Collapse imminent. Move to the safe zone."

"Okay, the storm's moving away from us," Selena said, quickly checking the map. "But we're on the edge. We need to move deeper in." She pinged a new location, a central plaza a few blocks away.

Selena tried to stay positive, to force a commander's confidence she didn't feel. "What do you think, Alyna?"

Alyna, who had been a million miles away, snapped back to the present. "Yeah," she said, her voice flat. "We should move."

The forced cheer in Selena's voice was a fragile thing, and it cracked. "Then let's go, people," she said, the words lacking their earlier energy. "I want a Victory Royale." As they walked, she kept glancing at Alyna's heavily armored avatar, at the way it moved with a weary, joyless purpose. It hurt to see her like this.

Lina heard the false bravado in Selena's voice, but she understood the sentiment underneath. She fell into step beside Alyna. "It's okay if you don't want to do this," she said warmly, her voice a quiet comfort in Alyna's ear.

Alyna shook her head, taking a deep, steadying breath. "No, it's… it's okay," she said, forcing a conviction she didn't feel. "I can do this."

They moved through the rain-slicked streets, a strange, silent tension now settled over the group. As they approached the designated plaza, the sharp crack of gunfire echoed between the buildings. Alyna's tactical overlay lit up. "Contact!" she called out, her voice regaining a spark of its professional focus. "Two squads, directly ahead, fighting in the container yard." Since leaving the house, she had been running detection sweeps every few meters, and the program had just painted a chaotic picture of the battle.

Peeking over a low wall, they saw it: a frantic firefight in a large, open space littered with rusted shipping containers. Six players were locked in a desperate battle, laser fire and plasma bolts crisscrossing the yard.

Selena's eyes lit up with a predatory gleam. "They're distracted," she whispered, her voice a low, excited hiss. "This is perfect. We can clean up whoever's left."

"No way," Alyna countered immediately. "Their cover is way too good. If we push now, we'll get shredded in the crossfire. We have to wait."

"Wait for what? For them to heal up and reset?" Selena shot back, her impatience winning. "No way. I'm going. Easy kills."

Before Alyna or Lina could stop her, she vaulted over the wall and sprinted toward the flank of the firefight, her SMG spitting rounds. Her gambit was immediately punished. One of the players, a sniper she hadn't seen perched atop a stack of containers, swiveled and fired a single, piercing shot. Selena's blank mannequin avatar crumpled to the ground. "Crap! Sniper!" she yelled, her voice a mix of shock and frustration.

With their flank exposed, the remaining players of the victorious squad—a trio of professionals in matching chrome armor—immediately turned their attention to Alyna and Lina's position. They weren't weakened; they were a well-oiled machine, and they began an aggressive, coordinated push, flushing them from cover with perfectly thrown grenades.

Alyna returned fire, but her aim was shaky, her movements sluggish in her heavy, emotional armor. A plasma bolt caught her in the chest, and her world dissolved into a screen of static. From their spectator view, they watched as the three chrome-clad players converged on Lina's lone position.

"GG," Selena grumbled as she watched from above as a ghost, the trio rushing to Lina to finish her off.

And then it happened. Lina, who had been a quiet shadow, exploded into motion like a force of nature. From their overhead view, Selena and Alyna watched as the three chrome-clad pros advanced, their movements tight and coordinated. They moved like a pack of wolves, confident in their victory. They didn't see the default avatar in the gray jumpsuit as a threat. They saw her as the last, easy kill.

It was the last mistake they would ever make.

Lina didn't retreat. She didn't hide. She met them head-on. The first player opened fire, a stream of bright red tracers cutting through the rain. Lina's avatar swayed, a fluid, impossible movement, and the Plasma Excalibur came alive in her hand. The fiery blade was a blur, a shield of pure energy that hissed and popped as it vaporized every incoming round.

The player stopped firing, his avatar frozen for a fraction of a second in pure disbelief. In that heartbeat, Lina closed the distance. She slid under his panicked follow-up burst, the plasma blade carving a deep, molten trench in the wet pavement, and came up inside his guard. The sword moved in a silent, perfect arc, and the chrome-plated avatar dissolved into a shower of golden pixels without a sound.

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The remaining two players didn't panic. Their professional coordination held. One immediately began laying down a blistering field of suppressive fire, forcing Lina to dive behind a shipping container. The plasma bolts from his rifle slammed into the metal, sending up showers of sparks and forcing her to stay pinned. The third player, silent and methodical, began a wide, flanking maneuver, moving from cover to cover, his own rifle raised, ready to catch her in a deadly crossfire.

From the spectator view, Selena held her breath. "He's flanking! Lina, he's on your right!"

Lina didn't respond. Pinned down, she took a grenade from her belt.

The flanker was getting closer, his footsteps splashing in the digital puddles. The suppressive fire was relentless, chewing through the health of her cover. She had seconds.

Just as the flanker prepared to pop out from behind a container for the kill shot, Lina acted. She dropped the grenade at her own feet and, in the same motion, sprinted around the other side of her cover, directly into the line of fire of the first player. The Plasma Excalibur flared to life, deflecting the incoming rounds. The flanker, hearing the grenade drop, instinctively took cover, expecting a blast. It was the opening she needed. The first player, shocked by her sudden, suicidal-looking charge, faltered for a half-second. Lina's Excalibur flashed once, a clean, silent strike. A second avatar dissolved.

But she wasn't unscathed. Several rounds had gotten through, and a bright red "CRITICAL DAMAGE" warning flashed on her HUD. The last player emerged from cover, his rifle already raised. Lina, her health bar a sliver of red, met his charge. It was a blur of motion—the fiery arc of her blade against the cold precision of his gunfire. He scored another hit, and her avatar stumbled, but she pushed through, her final swing a desperate and perfectly executed lunge. And then, silence.

The entire enemy team was eliminated.

Selena and Alyna were speechless.

Lina stood for a moment in the rain, the only sound her avatar's heavy, digitized breathing. She looted a medkit from one of the fallen players' boxes and ducked behind a crate to heal. A moment later, her HUD pinged with the gold coins looted from the squad. She checked her map and saw a small, green cross icon a few streets to the east. "What's this cross?" she asked, her voice calm in the team channel.

Her question seemed to snap Alyna and Selena back to reality. "That's a Revival Fountain," Alyna's voice crackled in her ear. "Toss some gold coins in, and it should bring us back. You need to get there."

Lina did as she was told, rushing through the slick, neon-drenched streets. A few minutes later, she stood before a massive fountain in a small, hidden courtyard. In its center, a cyberpunk angel stood on a pillar, its metal wings outstretched, its body entwined with thick data-cables that pulsed with a soft, green light. The water in the basin below glowed with the same eerie, neon luminescence.

Lina took a handful of the looted coins and tossed them into the glowing water. They didn't splash; they dissolved on contact, a cold, shimmering film spreading across the surface of the fountain like a liquid portal. A moment later, two figures burst from the glowing water, gasping for digital air—first Selena, then Alyna. They found a safe, quiet alley to regroup.

"What," Selena began, her voice a baffled squeak, "the hell was that?"

Lina laughed, a sound of pure, unadulterated joy that seemed to light up their comms channel. "Sorry," she said, not sounding sorry at all. "My fingers were getting itchy." She explained that years ago, before she got sick, she and James had been semi-pro players in the old VR arenas. "Back then," she continued, a nostalgic, dangerous glint in her eye, "the servers were a mess. Cheaters and hackers in every lobby. You had two choices: become a hacker yourself and admit defeat, or get so good that you could beat a cheater at their own game." A slow, confident grin spread across her face. "I chose the latter. You girls should have seen the old haptic arenas. Full-body feedback. You could feel the bullets. Now THAT was a game. This... this is like a walk in the park."

Selena and Alyna looked at each other, then back at Lina's simple avatar, a newfound sense of awe and respect dawning on their faces. There was a beat of stunned silence on the comms. Then, Alyna let out a soft, genuine laugh, the first one of the day. Selena just shook her head in disbelief before a slow, excited grin spread across her face. 'Alright, Captain,' she said. 'Where are we dropping?'

The match was a blur of controlled, efficient violence. Under Lina's calm, strategic command, they moved like a well-oiled machine. Selena's aggressive instincts were tempered by Lina's guidance, turning her from a reckless berserker into a deadly flanker. Alyna, excelled in her support role, her netstrider's mind predicting enemy movements and calling out threats before they even appeared. And at the center of it all was Lina, a quiet, unstoppable force, the Plasma Excalibur a blur of fiery death.

Squad after squad fell before them. The corrosive data storm closed in, shrinking the world, forcing the remaining players into a final, desperate confrontation. A quick check of the player count sent a jolt of adrenaline through Selena and Alyna.

"Guys, six players left," Selena said, her voice tight with focus as she glanced at the map. "That means it's just us and one other team." Her gaze moved to the massive, ruined castle up ahead, where the final circle of the storm was closing. "And I bet I know who it is."

"Most likely," Alyna agreed, her voice grim. "HexFire only plays with pros or clients he's boosting. One of his teammates is definitely a pro. The other… I don't recognize his skin. Could be the client."

Lina stopped so suddenly they almost bumped into her. She turned, a small, reassuring smile on her face as she placed a hand on each of their shoulders. "Don't worry about winning or losing," she said, before her expression became deadly serious. "Just don't make me fight them three-on-one. Got it?"

Selena and Alyna nodded quickly. "Didn't know you were so competitive," Selena remarked.

Lina just shrugged, her smile returning as she gazed up at the structure that now dominated their view. The castle was a monstrous silhouette against the bruised purple sky, a brutalist fortress of synth-steel and crumbling stone. Rain slicked its dark, imposing walls, and the neon glow of the city reflected in the hundreds of arrow-slit windows that pocked its surface like malevolent, watching eyes. A single, massive gate, reinforced with rusted plasteel, was their only obvious way in.

"Okay, Captain," Selena whispered, her earlier bravado replaced by a focused tension. "How do we do this?"

"Quietly," Lina responded. They moved, not towards the gate, but along the crumbling outer wall, using the deep shadows and piles of digital debris as cover. They slipped through a breach in the ancient stone, entering the castle grounds. The air inside the walls was still and heavy. Alyna's HUD flickered. "I've got something," she whispered, her voice a ghost in their comms. "A tracking program. Low-level, but active. Just disabled it. They're here. Close."

They nodded and moved ahead, slipping into the cavernous great hall of the ruined cathedral. Its vaulted stone ceiling was cracked open to the perpetually night-dark sky, allowing the neon-lit rain to fall in shimmering sheets, pooling on the cracked marble floor. Huge, haphazard stacks of plasteel crates reached toward the shattered roof, creating a chaotic, multi-leveled maze of cover. It was a death trap for a sniper, but a paradise for close-quarters combat. Perfect.

They took up a defensive position behind a stack of crates near the ruined altar and waited. Their gaze moved to the broken roof as a crimson comet streaked down from the sky.

"Crap," Selena typed into the team chat, not wanting to make a sound. "They got a supply drop."

A massive boom followed as the drop pod slammed into the center of the hall, obliterating a section of the marble floor. Across the hall, Lina saw them emerge from behind cover—HexFire and his two partners, one in the skin of a lizard-ninja with tiny pink wings, the other a walking crayon. They approached the drop, which looked like a huge steel coffin. Lina signaled her team not to shoot; the coffin was in their way. It was better to wait for the right moment before they revealed their location.

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