VR WARS Volume II - Coalition Army

IN THE CAPITAL

An emergency meeting was arranged shortly after the UAT had made it through the preliminary phase.

The reason for this: the absence of any viable plans if the three universities made it through. Of course, in the overall strategy, the addition of a little more than seven hundred students barely made any difference in the numbers; nevertheless, it was still a welcoming sight considering the enormous disadvantages they faced against the other coalitions.

Out of the eighty-plus universities registered in the competition, only half of those remained to represent the sixteen qualified countries. Among those sitting at the top were the superpowers of Germania, Frankia, England, Romania, and the Kingdom of Poland, varying from the maxed aloud number of fifteen thousand students to ten thousand.

Below these stood the middle group and the countries most ravaged by the economic crisis. Holding an average of six thousand to nine thousand students stood the Iberian Federation (mostly former Spain), Sardegna Republic (Italy), Greece, Duchy of Bavaria (Austria), Hungary, Helvetic Confederation (Switzerland), Croatia, Sweden, Denmark, and placing last, Portugal.

While fairing worst out of everyone was the proud Czech Republic, with only one university qualifying managing five thousand students, given the competition’s statistics, their odds were the lowest of the bunch.

On the side of Portugal, with the entry of both Lisbon and Coimbra's universities, the country could muster a six-thousand strong coalition. Adding the seven hundred and twenty newly arrived reinforcements from the UAT under Angelo, they now posed as a strong adversary to be recon with, especially with the presence of an AWP user in the mix.

However, the news that followed their latest victory wasn’t received with much enthusiasm by everyone in the UAT.

According to the experts, the old and tiny island's power grid didn’t meet the required energy output to sustain a stable connection in this second stage of the competition. Some even said that the fact it has held at all during all the matches so far, considering the circumstances, was nothing short of a miracle. Hence, the higher-up's decision to transfer all the students and the equipment needed to Lisbon to avoid any chances of a sudden power failure that could compromise their chances of winning.

This news came as a somewhat unsettling idea to the UAT students, who had no other choice after being stared at by the cold truth, but to compromise on the relocation.

Lisbon, April 8th

UL’s campus dorms

Whispers echoed along every corridor, every staircase, every room, and building, bringing the rumor about the newcomers that had just arrived in force to fruition. This pragmatic change occurred so suddenly; it caught everyone enrolled in the UL’s by surprise.

The sound of his footsteps hitting the sparkling white tiled floor could be heard all along the hall, demonstrating how infuriated the man was as he walked past several groups of anxious students conspicuously speaking about the UAT’s sudden transfer. To ascertain these rumors’ nature, the cool-headed man made his way to the briefing room where the representatives of these “invaders” were said to be waiting.

Bad news travels fast…The man kept up his fast rhythm to avoid any potential pursuers attempting to slow him down. But not fast enough to reach the Supreme-Commander! He wanted to shout his lungs out for being kept out of the loop in this affair. Although the UL’s central administration had already done most of the logistical matters, the fact remained that they were allocating an extra seven hundred and something mouths to feed. And with his institution already running well-above excess capacity, how could they cope with the extra strain on their minimal resources when they were already running out of space to accommodate their own?

After winning all their battles in the qualifiers and guaranteeing their spot on the next stage of the VR Wars, the unquestionable truth of it all was the lack of enough PXF units to go around.

At any given moment of any particular semester, the University of Lisbon or UL enrolled tens of thousands of students. But, only about three thousand of these so-called revolutionary virtual reality interfaces had been provided. So, it was no wonder why the general outrage consolidated around the Azorean contingent that had just parachuted into their backyards with bags in their hands, especially when there were Lisbon students who could have benefited from the extra sets for themselves, enhancing the UL’s strength to its true level.

“Two lousy wins and one wretched defeat,” he almost burst out, clearly a sign that his rage was about to reach its peak. “They even had a rebellion, for Christ's sake! What am I supposed to do with these ruffians?!”

Although the man did his best to call himself down, fearing that there might be potential eavesdroppers lurking amidst the shadows, someone sensed his anxiety from afar.

“Pedro! Oi, wait up,” the distressed voice of one of his colleagues only instigated him to pick up his pace. “Ah, c’mon! I came all the way from Coimbra. You can at least slow–Wait…so you’ve heard about the UAT, huh?”

“Yes! Where do you think I’m headed right now, Commander-in-chief Rui?!”

“To think those mongrels would actually set foot in this place…This is unprecedented!” The man said, gasping for air after finally catching up to his superior.

Without understanding himself, Pedro remained silent. Uneasiness was taking over him. He was well aware of his weakness in dealing with the unknown. That was why he spent hours and hours developing the perfect strategies and contingency plans for every scenario that might develop, and that was how Lisbon made it through the qualifiers. But, if the enemy somehow made an unpredictable move, entirely outside his expectations, he knew everything would fall apart. And right now, the person responsible for such an unforeseen scenario had just arrived to contest him for command possibly.

Not on my watch!

The bright skies unexpectedly took a turn for the worse, bringing shade and a sudden rain along with it. The once bright hallway now descended into darkness as if foretelling the presence of something foul beyond the tall door that guarded the way ahead.

This exceptionally crafted oak door, doubling the size of the pair facing it, was carefully decorated with flower ornaments. It was undoubtedly beautiful and stunningly old. Despite its looks of sturdiness, the door oddly broke in two, opening in half to the sides with a simple push.

In the room, embracing the darkness, a handful of people awaited.

Visible to their eyes were the familiar faces of their respective principals and other staff from both universities as well as the not-so familiar faces of the UAT’s representatives, five to be exact.

“…You’re late.” Someone stated, but both Pedro and Rui couldn’t make out who the owner’s voice was, aside from the fact that it came from a man, and the latter sounded cold. Finding out whether it was annoyance or scorn, at this moment, was a mystery beyond them. Whichever it might have been, they choose to ignore it by quietly sitting at the table.

Echoes of thunder oscillated outside. And even with the lights glowing strongly in the center of the room, the darkness that fell on the UT’s camping grounds was so intense that it enveloped the outer edges of the conference room.

“I was only notified of this…issue a few minutes ago,” Pedro began by explaining the reason for his tardiness to his superior when he noticed an empty chair next to a giant bearded man that looked way too old to be a student. “Are we still waiting for–”

“The UAT’s officers are all accounted for Supreme-Commander,” spoke the same voice as before, but even more ominous this time.

Viewing with a close eye each UAT member present at that table, Pedro quickly concluded that mysterious person's identity. “Hm, why are you gracing us from afar? Oh, fellow commander.”

At the very same moment, his identity was revealed, lightning bolts fell from the sky to light up the outer edges of the dark corners that omitted the mysterious man known to everyone in the nation as the ‘Angel of Death.’ And while his eyes remained hidden by perpetuating darkness, Angelo’s most distinctive feature was evidently noticeable to everyone there: his wicked grim.