Team Reforged: Vegas, Baby
Copyright© 2026 by FozzieBare
Chapter 12: Running on Fumes
Everyone started to file out of the hall. A tournament official caught them. “You might as well stay in the seats. You’re going to be on the main stage again. The crowd and streams love you. We’re going to ride it as long as possible. Rest, I know it’s difficult, but you’ll be facing the Miraclemakers. You have home-team status. I assume you want the same side?”
Adrian nodded.
He turned to his team.
“Okay. Thirty minutes quiet. Listen to music. Meditate if you can. Try to divert some of that adrenaline into long-term energy storage. I’m going to sound like a broken record, but man, I’m proud of you. No matter what happens, what we’ve done here? It’s absolutely amazing. We need to go one more time. We can rest then. I’ll tell you what, though. If it helps, think of how wonderful that hotel bed is going to feel. Especially if we go all the way to Finals Day.”
He thought.
“Then again, it could be one of those iron maiden torture devices and it’d look like the softest feather bed in the world.”
Kevin stared.
“Adrian, you’re babbling a bit. You okay?”
Adrian nodded.
“Running on fumes, Kev, but I’m still here.”
Kevin nodded. He made a request of a tournament official, who took off like a shot. Everyone tried to rest. There was a weak cheer when the official returned a couple minutes later with a fresh case of sports drinks.
Adrian sighed, sipping it. He was tired enough that he didn’t want to drink it too fast. He’d go from an adrenaline crash to dropping a large amount of sugar and carbohydrates on a stomach that was already on the verge of rebelling. He needed to slowly rebuild the energy bank as best as he could in the limited time available.
After an indeterminate amount of time, Kevin shook his shoulder. “Thirty minutes, boss man.”
Adrian looked up. “Thanks. Got any words of wisdom for this next fight?”
Kevin sighed. “I’ve used up most of my supply, Adrian. I’m exhausted too, and I haven’t done anything.”
Adrian shook his head. “Not true. We’d be in much worse shape if not for you. Tex would be in so much pain from his hand cramps that he couldn’t continue, and we need him. We need everyone at this point. That includes you. Not as a pilot, but as a person.”
Kevin sighed. “You really are tired if you’re that maudlin. But I do have a winning strategy for the next round.”
Adrian cocked an eyebrow. “That being?”
Kevin grinned. “The winning strategy? Kill their WarMACs. Don’t let your WarMAC get killed.”
Adrian chuckled. “You make it sound easy.”
Kevin gave him a thumbs up. “It is. But in war, even in wargames, even the easiest things are difficult.”
Adrian laughed.
Then he started thinking.
“You’re right, though. This doesn’t call for tactics. This doesn’t call for doing difficult things. It just calls for doing the simple things a little better than the enemy.”
When the tournament officials gave them the fifteen-minute warning, Adrian finished his drink and reminded everyone that now was the time to use the facilities if they needed to.
As the announcers started hyping up the crowd to get them ready for the Elimination Semi-Final, he called everyone together.
“Okay. This round is not going to be about strategy. Instead, just play your game. Play your best, but don’t try to reach for something superhuman. Stay within yourselves. Do what you do best. Cover each other. Make the rotations. Talk. Play the game. We’re not going to beat them because we’re fresher than them, or because we’re better than them. We’re going to beat them if we do the small things better. Everyone thinks the biggest stages are where the best plays are made. Not today. Not when we’re on our fourth match of the night. We’re going to make the good plays. The plays we should make. The plays we can make. And if it helps you focus, I’ll remind you that this is the team with the loudmouth who promised to take care of us because we’re the ‘new meat.’ I don’t think that was very nice of him. You guys agree?”
That got a cheer. People were telling their tired bodies to get up one more time. And that little bit helped. Every little bit helped.
“We’re not the new meat any more. We don’t fear anyone. Even a trash talker who hasn’t fired a shot in anger for over a year.”
Cass grinned.
“You remembered.”
Adrian chuckled.
“Hard to forget.”
Amy caught everyone’s eye.
“I’m not going to make you yell, because that’s energy better saved for shooting them. But you know who we are. We’re Re. Forged.”
The team murmured with force. “RE! FORGED!”
It was time to go into battle one more time.
It started as well as could be expected. Amy took her usual position as the lead-off duelist and won the first duel pretty handily. She refused to get into a damage trade. She wanted to fight aggressively, not defensively, but she didn’t overextend. She was playing exactly the way Adrian had suggested: her style, without letting the moment become too big or reaching for a play that existed only in fantasy. She carried that approach into the second duel. By the time Furiosa finally went down, the second Miraclemakers WarMAC was throwing off more sparks than a Fourth of July firework.
Great start, Ames. Not a 1v2, but call it, like, a 1v1.95. If that makes sense.
Henry came charging out. The Miraclemakers WarMAC didn’t give up on the fight, but it only took two salvos from Henry to finish the job. The virtual paint on Henry’s WarMAC wasn’t even badly scuffed, while the Miraclemakers were already on their third pilot.
Their third pilot knew they were behind but treated the situation the wrong way. He tried charging in to reverse it by force of will. At this point in the night, that was not the best plan. Henry simply denied the pilot clean looks, making sure he was ready and facing the enemy head-on before the attack could fully develop.
Good, Henry. No free shots here. Keep it professional. Time and damage are on our side. Look at that, too. He knows he’s winning, and he’s actually dragging the Miraclemakers pilot toward a repair pylon while always keeping himself between the enemy WarMAC and it.
Henry wasn’t spotless anymore. There were splotches of orange on his WarMAC, but his opponent took too long on one attack run, and Henry made him pay for it. He held his fire until the opponent had turned away, then maneuvered for a side shot. It wasn’t an instant-kill salvo, but it did more than enough damage to put him fully in control of the fight. The crowd tried to give Reforged energy with their chants, even though the pilots inside the booth couldn’t hear them. Soon enough, the enemy WarMAC crumpled under one last salvo, and Reforged’s advantage kept growing.
Adrian watched, while sipping a fresh sports drink.
They’re exhausted. Just as much as we are. But they’re trying to fight harder, not smarter. It’s like pushing the gas pedal down harder when the fuel gauge is hovering over E and the red warning light came on five miles ago.
Henry even had time to hit the repair pylon himself while waiting for the fourth pilot to make his way across the map. The enemy was charging in, but Henry wasn’t in any hurry to meet him. He had switched tactics. He was now content to trade damage. He still had three more pilots behind him, while the opponent had only one left in reserve. He had obviously done the math and wanted to lock in at least a couple of points if possible.
Deep into this part of the Duel Round, Henry looked like he was about to go down, but the enemy knew that if he let Henry get too far away, he’d lose some of the advantage he’d gained. He piled in aggressively, and Henry landed a lucky shot that left a charred, smoking hole around the enemy WarMAC’s hip actuator. The pilot somehow kept it upright, but it could no longer turn quickly, and Henry wasn’t going to let that advantage slip. He used his suddenly superior speed and turning radius to finish what he had started.
The crowd roared, and fans started chanting “1v3.” Amy had set up the first pilot to be easily destroyed, but the next two kills were all Henry. So yes, in the scorebooks it went down as 1v3, but Henry would be the first to admit that the first of those kills should have been credited to Amy. He was just the cleanup crew.
The fifth pilot came out, and Adrian kept one eye on the match, and one eye on the Miraclemakers bench.
Holy shit. They look defeated already. They’re on the verge of giving up at least three points in the Duel Round, but that can be made up. Look at them, though. They’re acting like the match is already over. I would say we’ve beaten them mentally, but we’re just the delivery service. It’s the schedule that’s beaten them. We just helped.
With this big an advantage, even Henry going down after about ninety seconds wasn’t enough to keep the crowd from singing a new chant. They had taken the Olé chant and simply inserted Henry’s name. Apparently his gamer tag, “CattyWompMAC,” didn’t fit the song particularly well.
Reuben had been subbed in for Tex because of his hand cramps. Adrian had wanted to limit Tex’s gameplay to the absolute minimum, and Tex had agreed. Reuben was an able substitute, and he made sure the Duel Round ended then and there.
The crowd switched back to the “RE! FORGED!” chant, as Reforged had earned three points for the Duel Round.
I think in baseball, they call it a crooked number. I love it. But don’t think we’ve won yet. Still a ton of points left to get. If I’m still capable of basic math, there’s up to twelve left to get. So three is big. But the match is nowhere near over.
In between rounds, he noticed Amy call Elias over and spend a couple minutes in discussion with him.
When she came back to sit next to Adrian, she grinned at Adrian’s raised eyebrow.
“I told Elias that it’s going to feel unnatural for him, but I wanted him closer to the battle than he normally likes to be.”
Adrian thought a second about that. His brain was tired, but he figured out Amy’s reasoning.
“You want them to try to headhunt Elias.”
“Yup! Told him to keep his crew ready to squash any headhunter attacks. They’re trying risky plays to get back into the match. It’s almost a guarantee they’ll try a headhunter play.”
“I’m with you on that. They’re just trying hero play after hero play. It’s not like the Blades, who were doubling down on stupid. It’s like doubling down on sixteen when the dealer has an ace and won’t tell you if he has blackjack.”
Amy cocked an eyebrow.
“It’s what I came up with, Amy. We’re in Vegas. I know it’s a reach.”
“I actually kinda get it. With this tournament schedule, they’re throwing their money around at the blackjack table, hoping to double their bet and get back to even. They forget that eventually, the House always wins.”
“You’re tired, too, aren’t you?”
“Yes. But I’ve got youth on my side, you just have guile and strategy.”
“Even if we miss out on Finals Day, we are NOT hitting the tables.”
“Nope. You guys will be lucky to see me outside my hotel room.”
Elias had led his team into the booth, and they stopped talking.
Just as Amy had predicted, less than a minute into the round the Miraclemakers sent two WarMACs past Reforged, trying to get Elias and create a command vacuum. Elias had seen it coming, and Reforged ended up diving on the people who thought they were diving on him. The clearest sign of the fatigue both teams were fighting was that it took the Miraclemakers several seconds to realize their headhunter attack had turned into a counter-ambush. That was time they did not have, and they paid for it. When both attackers went down under sustained fire, the remaining Miraclemakers pilots seemed to give up on the round. They kept fighting, but they knew victory was beyond their reach, and increasingly it looked as if the match might soon follow.
Adrian pulled himself up to his feet slowly, stretching out tired muscles.
He didn’t give another speech. He didn’t need to.
He just waited until the headsets were on and spoke softly.
“They’re going to try something. This is one of the times where it’s better to react than to act aggressively. When they do act? Punish the action. That’s all. No big strategy. Just let them dig the hole, then push the dirt over them.”
To Adrian’s tired amazement, however, they didn’t even try a high-risk play. That didn’t mean they didn’t try hard, but doubt had crept into their mindset, and it almost felt as if they had their own personal rain cloud floating over them.
That made things easier. Adrian didn’t have to call out tactics. He just had to play the game, something he once joked that he could do in his sleep. He wasn’t quite asleep yet. He was operating almost on autopilot, but Reforged had the momentum, and that gave them the advantage. When the first Miraclemakers pilot went down, there were a couple of seconds when their teammates just stood there, not even going through the motions. It was as if they knew in their hearts that their tournament run was almost over and they could rest soon. They resumed fighting, but it was mechanical by then. Reforged completed a clean sweep of both 4v4 rounds without losing a single WarMAC. They led 7-0 at halftime, and despite two rounds remaining, it was already match point. They only needed to win one.
And then, the final proof that even though the match was technically not over, the other team was beginning to believe it was. One of them whispered something to a tournament official, who came over to Reforged’s side of the stage. He called Adrian over.
“They wanted to know if you guys wanted to cut halftime down to the bare minimum. We’d play the ads, but then immediately resume play rather than do the full break. It’s your choice.”
Adrian looked at Amy, Elias and Kevin. All three of them nodded. He then turned back to the tournament official.
“We’re willing. And ... tell them thanks from us, okay?”
The tournament official murmured something into his earpiece.
The announcement went over the loudspeaker that the teams had agreed to shorten the halftime break. There was a cheer for that. Adrian didn’t quite know if they were cheering “Yay, more action” or “Can we get this match over soon? We’re tired, too. Our voices hurt.”
Just four minutes later, the teams were filing into the booth for what would most likely be the last round of the match.
Reuben called out. “Any ideas on what they’re going to do, Adrian? They must have a plan.”
Adrian thought a moment and then replied. “I think they’re just going to come straight at us. One big fight. If they win, they get to try again. But they’re not going to waste time doing things that don’t directly decide the round.”
Amy nodded.
“You guys want an incentive? They gave us a better chance to rest a bit longer before the Qualifier if we win this round. We still have to earn it.”
That got a tired murmur out of the team.
As expected, the Miraclemakers eschewed a fancy strategy and piled into battle the second engagement became possible. Most 6v6 rounds turned into a coordinated series of tactical maneuvers. This quickly degenerated into six separate 1v1 fights. Teams normally avoided that approach except in desperate situations because of the snowball effect. Once one side lost a pilot, one of those fights became two-on-one, then three-on-one, and the imbalance spread right down the line. Whoever scored the first kill would likely win the round.
Twenty seconds in, Amy scored that first kill. Not on purpose, exactly. A tri-band laser shot using all three barrels punched into and through a Miraclemakers cockpit. It didn’t leave much of anything above the shoulders.
The entire Miraclemakers team froze. A couple of them even turned toward Furiosa as their teammate crumpled to the ground.
Adrian found that amusing in his tired state. It was as if they had all turned toward Amy and said, “REALLY? You pull THAT off? This whole thing sucks.”
Amy wasn’t going to apologize for it. She immediately started firing on the nearest available target, and the round resumed. But the snowball had started rolling down the mountain, and it was only going to pick up speed and size.
Finally, it was over.
The digital screens showed “REFORGED WINS 10-0.”
But Reforged’s pilots felt more like survivors than winners.
Their prize for surviving?
One more match.
This time, win or lose, this was their last match of the evening.
The two teams filed on stage and quietly shook hands.
Then the Miraclemakers got to leave the stage and go back to their hotel rooms.
Reforged started looking for a quiet place to steal as many moments of rest as possible.
They didn’t go far. They found a semi-quiet corner, and everyone collapsed against the nearest flat surface. Some found a chair. Some simply stretched out on the hard floor because they needed to be off their feet.
Adrian looked at Amy. She was tired, but she was fighting the fatigue. They had just seen what a team looked like after going over the fatigue cliff.
“Well, we made it this far. I have no idea what to do now. We have about ninety minutes, but that’s about a quarter of what I think we need if we’re going to play anywhere near our best.”
Amy stretched.
“Yep. We don’t even know who we play. The winners get more breaks earlier in the day, but we’ll be facing a team that lost the Winners Bracket Qualifier. That’s about the only thing we have going for us.”
“I think we play the loser of Overpower and the Interstellar Warriors.”
“Great. Two of the biggest name squads and largest squad sizes, as well.”
“They’ll probably rotate a whole bunch in their match.”
“Why? You’d think they want the day to be over and win.”
“Yeah, but remember, they know they have two chances to qualify. Finals Day is a straight knockout. They can lose once, beat us, and it doesn’t matter tomorrow.”
“So?”
“So, they play some of their fresher players in the Winner’s Qualifier. They win? Great. They lose? Their best players had multiple hours off to rest and get ready for us.”
“God. I almost want to tell Kelto, ‘Thanks, but I’m going to go find a bed. Play without us.’”
“Yeah, I understand that, but no. We got this far, and I’m not going to stop just because my eyelids feel like they’re dragging on the ground.”
“Yep. We gotta lead the team though before we can rest ourselves.”
“Yeah. Any suggestions?”
“Yup.”
Amy raised her voice.
“Okay, team. This is now a quiet zone. No talking. No loud music. Just do your best to recover. I’ll set an alarm for about thirty minutes before we’re supposed to go on stage, and we’ll do a walk around or something to get the blood moving. But anyone who makes a ruckus near me is going to be walking back to the hotel when this night is over.”
Her voice softened.
“We’re really here. We made it. Everyone thought we’d be happy with one win. We have three. We just need one more to get to Finals Day. Isn’t that a trip? Our first tournament, and we’re this close to Finals Day. Technically, we’ve already guaranteed at least a sixth-place finish. No resting on our laurels though. Just resting right now.”
The team all murmured various agreements, and most people either closed their eyes where they reclined, or slipped on a pair of headphones.
Amy nudged Adrian.
“Look at Cass. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she’s already asleep.”
“I envy her.”
“Alright. Quiet time. I have a pair of headphones, and some yacht rock playlist.”
“Amy Williamson listens to Yacht Rock?”
“Amy Williamson listens to Yacht Rock when she wants to rest. And I want to rest.”
“I envy you too.”
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