Chapter 76: Meeting GameGo Gamers
Gray and the rest of the Steel Wolves bought mechs and gear for Paul, Stacia, Xyra, and Caleb. They ended up spending 15,400 merits leaving their team with a meager 505 merits combined. The Whisper Mk 01 ended up being cheap enough compared to the Blitz Mk 01 that they could get two of them right now instead of one Blitz Mk 01. The expensive piece of equipment was the special compressed alloy armor shield that the Hoplite got as an extra as well.
Cupid Mk 01 – 1800 merits
Hoplite Mk 01 – 2200 merits
Hoplite Compressed Alloy Shield – 3000 merits
Hoplite Spear with Grenade Launcher Accessory – 1000 merits
Whisper Mk 01 x 2 – 6000 merits
Whisper Jammer Accessory x 2 – 1400 merits
Total: 15,400 merits
Gray looked at the total bill, he felt depressed with only 505 merits left for the team and thought "I know they say that you have to spend money to make money, but it still hurts…"
Exploiting player created missions, they were able to get only 350 merits a day currently. After today's first round of exploiting, Gray, Stacia, Geoff, Yurika, and Caleb each received a notification that they had ranked up to Corporal finally. Since Paul and Xyra hadn't completed as much matchmaking as the other 5 members of the Steel Wolves, they were still at Private 1st Class.
"Sweet, wonder what kind of privileges we get!" Geoff said excitedly.
"Probably access to more mechs and weapons and increased rewards for matchmaking and missions now from what we've seen already." Gray said.
When they exploited the player created missions for the 2nd time today, they noticed that as Corporals they could now assign a mission for 20 merits each instead of just 10 merits. After this round of exploiting, Xyra and Paul both became Corporals as well.
Gray took a peek at his rank window and saw that Private 1st Class required 1000 merits to reach and Corporal took 1500 more merits. "It looks like it will now take us 3000 more merits to reach Sergeant, I hope it doesn't grow exponentially" Gray muttered.
"Yes, we need at least one more data point to accurately determine the formula for the amount of merits required for each rank. Unfortunately this also assumes that it is following a formula instead of being set values." Caleb said analytically
"Basically we just need more merits no matter what, right?" Paul asked.
Gray nodded and said "Yes, so let's get to matchmaking! I want a new mech too!"
As everyone walked over to the simulator pods, Gray received a private message from Yurika and thought to himself "She's right next to me, why not just speak to me instead of sending a message?"
Gray curiously opened the message and did his best to hold back his surprise to avoid alerting the others. Gray read the message again to himself just to make sure he didn't misread it: "Gray, get my mech next and we'll have another training session together, but without mechs."
Gray glanced at Yurika and she smiled and winked at him. His morals were being tested right now and he really REALLY wanted to take her up on that, but then he remembered the beating she gave him last time in a mech and thought it might be better not to. On the other hand, they wouldn't be in mechs and her physical strength was much less than his, maybe he could take her.
The proverbial angel on Gray's shoulder was saying "Do what's best for the team", but the proverbial devil countered from his other shoulder saying "There is no 'I' in 'team', but there is a 'me'", then the angel kicked the devil off of his shoulder and said "Do what's best, maybe she's testing you on that!" Gray had to agree, plus the way his moral angel vaulted over his head and ninja kicked the devil was amazing.
Gray replied to her message saying "As much as I would truly enjoy that, I'm not the only one on the team so I need to prioritize the team over just you and myself."
Yurika read the reply and then smiled and nodded at Gray again and sent him another message "Good to hear that! You are still fit to be our leader!"
Gray almost smacked his own face when she admitted that it was a test of sorts. He wasn't sure if Yurika was just messing with him now or if she was just that conniving.
Suddenly Gray got another message, but this time it was from Stacia. "Gray, can we please spare some merits so I can accessorize my Cupid Mk 01? I can cook for you sometime if you agree!"
Gray looked at the proverbial devil and angel on his shoulders and saw that they were actually discussing something this time. Both the proverbial angel and devil stood up and the angel proclaimed "We have reached an agreement that you should take up this offer!"
Gray replied to Stacia with "Maybe, let's see how much we make in matchmaking first as Corporals."
Instead of pouting like Yurika does when she doesn't get her way, Stacia just looks down as if she was embarrassed for even asking. Gray felt bad since she looked sad and sent her another message. "How about you make a dish all of us can share and we'll ask everyone else then if they mind sparing the merits in return."
Stacia read Gray's second reply and her face smiled brightly and she nodded excitedly.
Gray smiled back at her and sent her another message "I'll bring it up after we get done for today, getting everyone hungry will help your case I think" which made Stacia giggle slightly.
The team reached the simulators and hopped into some open pods and did a quick 8 vs 8 matchup. They noticed that this other team had slightly better weapons than them, but they still had the original starter mechs so Gray and his team were easily able to out maneuver them and win a very short match. Gray checked the rewards and noticed that the rank bonus had increased by 4 times the amount as before, so they ended up getting 80 merits each. Base value of 5 for a win, x2 for Silver rank, x8 for Corporal rank. Even if they lost, they'd still get 16 merits at least!
"I hypothesize that the matchmaking reward increase being higher than the mission reward increase is due to the military wanting to emphasize combat training over missions at this stage." Caleb analyzed for everyone, even though nobody asked his opinion.
"Makes sense to me. Let's do a 16 vs 16 match now to see how we can go up against a mid-sized group while being teamed up with others. Any complaints?" Gray asked everyone else, but nobody replied.
"Ok, let's get going!"
Gray selected 16 vs 16 this time from the options and selected "Match" to search for a battle. After a few seconds they were matched up with a team.
"GameGo Gamers? Never heard of them." Gray thought to himself then had an epiphany "Wait! Could it be Spoon and Carly and some other employees from GameGo?"
Gray and the other members of the Steel Wolves were sent to the pregame lobby for one minute to coordinate with the other team and Gray was surprised when he saw Carly with 8 other players from GameGo Gamers.
"Carly! I'm surprised see you here!" Gray shouted over to Carly.
"Gray! You son of a baby hamster! How've ya been?" Carly came up and clapped Gray on the back hard, which would've probably knocked Gray down had this not been in a virtual environment.
"I'm doing fine! Everyone on your team from GameGo I imagine?"
"Yep! Even Spoon!"
"I don't see him here though."
"I'm right here Gray, how did you not see me?!?" A guy that slightly resembled Spoon said as he stepped forward. He was just a little taller, thinner, more toned, pimple free, no glasses, straight hair instead of curly, and his teeth were fixed so he wasn't speaking with a lisp.
"Spoon?!? I can hardly recognize you!"
"I'm still just as good looking as ever, right?"
Carly rolled her eyes then stamped on his foot causing Spoon to reflexively hold his foot and then jump around while holding it up like he was in extreme pain only to realize that he felt no pain in this virtual environment and embarrassingly put his foot back down while the other GameGo employees shook their heads.
"Err… of course you are, just didn't recognize you… without the hair… the pimples… or the crooked teeth…" Gray said with a hint of mockery.
"Screw off, this is what I would look like in real life!"
"He's full of crap Gray, don't listen to him, but how do I look?" Carly said coquettishly.
Carly still looked the same as before, short, cute, a little stocky, and a pair of huge… ribbons that she tied up in her hair this time. Gray thought something was different and realized that her voice was actually quieter now which seemed odd to Gray since Carly normally could be heard from kilometers away.
"You look umm… great! You seem quieter than usual though!"
"Yeah, the other guys said I needed to keep my voice down because it was waking them up while they were diving into this game, so I've been trying to tone it down some."
Yurika elbowed Gray in the back when she noticed him getting friendly with Carly and whispered "Care to introduce us a** hole?"
"Oh sorry! Carly, Spoon, this is my team, the Steel Wolves!" Gray said as he introduced each player on his team one at a time. When he got around to Yurika last, Gray started to say "And this is Yurika, you two will get along well, she is our weapons expert and…"
After that last 'and' Yurika butted in and interrupted Gray and said loudly "and I'm Gray's wife!" while she clinging tightly to Gray, much to Gray's surprise.
Carly noticed Gray's surprised expression and decided to play along and said "Good for both of you! Luckily I'm his mistress!" then Carly hugged Gray from the other side.
Gray had Yurika squeezing him on his left, Carly squeezing him on his right and they were both glaring at each other not willing to back down leaving the rest of both of their teams feeling embarrassed for them.
Caleb finally said impatiently "Not to interrupt your little ménage à trois, but the match starts in 8 seconds…"
Gray started to cry on the inside. "Why me…"
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
LordSputnik
LordSputnik Have a lot of extra hours at my day job so I apologize for the delay. Next chapter will be an actual battle, I promise! A battle of mechs, or Carly and Yurika, or maybe both, either way it should be fun!
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