Within a round, silver virtual pod system was a young boy. He had silver-white hair and even though he looked young, he had large, bulging muscles as if he was a grown man.
He wasn't too muscular where it looked like it would slow him down, and still possessed quite an athletic appearance.
His body was totally still, but his mind was running wild. This boy was within the Vault, the most popular virtual game amongst humanity.
He was stood in an endless realm of grey, with a wooden dummy stood ahead of him. The boy, in this virtual game, had the exact physical body that he did in real life but was clad in a sleek, glowing exosuit.
It was primarily a dark, matte black colour but also had glowing white areas across its design.
He zoomed straight toward the dummy, landing two powerful punches to its chest before leaping up and kicking the dummy's wooden head right off with a spinning kick.
Once he landed, a small notification panel appeared beside him, and he smiled upon seeing it.
[phoenixfury9091: Bro, let's run up the limited time mode they have going right now, have you seen it?]
The silver-haired boy smiled and looked surprised upon seeing this text.
This limited time mode was experimenting with larger player modes and this special LTM was named 'Total War'. It was 100v100 and focused on players using a large number of support bots to aid in battle.
It really tried to simulate battle conflict, and was one of the most popular limited time modes ever presented within the vault
[TheManLazarro: Don't worry I'm definitely getting on. Have you got Ezkiel in your party?]
[phoenixfury9091: Yes, man let's go. Get some support bots before if you don't have one, you're gonna need one.]
Upon hearing this statement from his friend, he opened the virtual ExoTech Marketplace inside his endless dojo. The panel projections spawned out of thin air, and he intensely searched through them to find his next support bot.
Only a select number of autonomous bots were allowed per team, 15. Many people didn't choose to use these items, though, since they were so expensive. Even in their virtual forms, they weren't at all cheap.
This boy, Lazarro, started to look at sensory equipment.
He was thinking of getting some equipment that could get a wide range of the area around him, but wasn't looking to spend too much. He was a student within a B-Rank Institute, and was from a rather esteemed family of exosuit warriors, .
He had a fair allowance from his parents, that allowed him to indulge every now and again for things like this. However, he had a few dollars saved up because he was sure that once the next limited time mode was out, he'd be prepared.
"What is this? It's a little bad but it's so unbelievably cheap!" He thought, looking at the panel ahead of him.
The drone displayed ahead of him was none other than the Vulture XR-1 Aero. He studied the drone a little more and liked its idea of agility.
It had poor armour but for its price, it had exceptional agility.
"Alright, if its only 370 dollars I'll just get 3 of them for the event."
[Item Bought!]
[Item Bought!]
[Item Bought!]
****
Upon buying these 3 drones, blue particles collected around him. They eventually formed 3 hollow projections that then fabricated into the drones that he had produced.
"Let's dominate."
[Party Invite from phoenixfury9091!]
[Accept?]
"Yes."
[Invite Accepted!]
As he did this, he was transported from out this realm and then entered a lobby, with three platforms. A perfect model of his body within his exosuit formed above one of the circular platforms, and the other two were occupied by his friends.
"You spent all of your dollars on those hollow-looking drones?" A large teenager stated.
His exosuit was bulky, and was clearly meant for power. Other exosuits were sleeker and tight to the skin, which meant to give its wearer elite agility and immense speed. As for the clunkier, bulkier suits, they maximised the power output of the user to grant them monstrous strength.
The boy had a young-looking face, but already had a significant amount of facial hair. His hair was a dark ginger colour, and the other fighter beside him was phoenixfury9091. His name was Preston, and he had dark brown hair with a slimmer physique.
He possessed a small autonomous bot that only went up to slightly above his hips. However, it was bulky and resembled a gorilla in physique. It had a light grey metallic shell, and Ezekiel had a remote explosive device as his support bot.
This was a drone loaded with shells of explosive material, meant to be covertly dropped in enemy territory and cause significant damage.
"Let's get to work guys!" He said, cracking his knuckles.
A panel appeared in front of them, showing that matchmaking had commenced for the limited time mode.
In seconds, the people had been put into a 100-player team, with people all over their star system and even neighbouring star systems also.
Matchmaking with people from further away in this game was much harder, and so the game didn't allow such for limited time modes like these.
Matching up with people a large distance across the galaxy from you was only a possibility if you were a very high-ranked player.
Skill-based matchmaking was used in the ordinary, recurring modes of the Vault. To make sure matches could be found for rare, skilled players, the lobbies had to be filled with people playing further from each other.
The fighters were transported to a large 100-player forest battleground. It was a large forest, that looked relatively full and untouched, but they spawned near their own military base.
It was two stations, which consisted of two main buildings, with smaller surrounding outposts where they conducted operations from.
"Yes." Preston whispered, upon seeing his autonomous bot still by his side.
There were certainly going to be more than 15 people trying to bring autonomous bots into this mode, and so certain bots had to be cut during the matchmaking process. It was random and the players only knew by looking around them upon loading in the map.
Preston had looked around, seeing his gorilla-like support bot still by his side.
They were in the base to the right, when looking in the direction of the opposite team's base, and surrounded by people of various shapes and sizes. From the way people talked, they could also tell that the people matched with them lived very far away from them.
Due to the expansion of humanity, it was common for an entire planet to have a similar accent. The world was very connected and with new infrastructure, you could cross an entire planet in mere minutes.
You could have a house in one continent, then use transportation to work on a totally different one.
"Alright, the sensors should move out their drones so we can scout out their own bases." A young man said.
He had blonde hair with clear, pale skin. He was tall, standing at 6'5, but some of those around him started laughing from his statement.
"Shut up, you're not a general."
"I do what I want, thanks very much."
Many of the exosuit warriors weren't very moved by his attempt to lead the group, and many players just went their own way to conduct themselves as they saw fit.
"I'll send my drones out." Lazarro said, breaking the awkward silence of the remaining warriors that huddled together at the base.
There was a large countdown in the sky, that was now on 15. The fighters had 15 seconds before the beginning of their match up, and Lazarro had his sensory drones hovering around his body.
Preston, his slimmer friend, was ready for combat and his personal autonomous bot clearly was too. It beat its chest like a gorilla would, before slamming its knuckles back into the coarse ground.
*BEEP*
A loud alarm-like noise sounded across the entire forest, and the units began to advance.
There was a loud, almost deafening noise of intense strides from people rushing forward with as much force as possible.
Some warriors, instead of running ahead, remained back to manage their bases. With each base was a large number of supplies, such as mana cores, and ammunition for weapons like crossbows.
Alongside these supplies were large artillery rifles, that shot various ammunition. Some were simple large bullets, while others were explosives meant to tear into the durable armour of exosuits.
The exosuit warrior focused a lot on melee combat, as this was eventually seen as one of the best ways to break through the armour and defences of the technology. Heated blades, large brass knuckles and massive gauntlets were all commonplace items for exosuits.
Lazarro's friends, Preston and Ezekiel, were keen on getting in on some action and rushed ahead. Preston's personal bot stayed close by his side, while Ezekiel's took to the skies with numerous other drones.
"Let's see how this goes." Lazarro said to himself, lifting his drones into the sky with just the lifting of his right arm.