WAVE BREAKER

1. 0:00From above, it looks almost peaceful.
2. 0:04A scatter of rock and palm,
3. 0:07ringed by open ocean,
4. 0:09that its own inhabitants call simply Wave Breaker.
5. 0:15On the ground, this will prove far less true.
6. 0:19Along this stretch of coast, the losses mount quickly,
7. 0:23and this one is easily explained.
8. 0:26College Future, now patrolling the shoreline in an armed boat.
9. 0:31The running tally reads straight off the screen,
10. 0:35already tells its own story.
11. 0:38Two wins to three losses, and the losses are not finished yet.
12. 0:44A death screen freezes the moment.
13. 0:48Not one rival present, but two.
14. 0:52A new, slurry and College Future driving identical tanks in the same match on the same afternoon.
15. 1:01A coincidence the squad will spend the rest of the season doubting.
16. 1:07Coming off the waterside comes the warning and the footage agrees.
17. 1:13Ocean to the horizon, a fence between it and the flag.
18. 1:19And then I got one coming up the water side.
19. 1:23And then the verdict arrives plainly and without ceremony.
20. 1:30College Future has become his nemesis.
21. 1:34By his own count, this pair alone accounts for 14 of his deaths tonight.
22. 1:40The scoreboard is blunter still. 17 kills, 20 deaths.
23. 1:47Against them by his own admission. I was watching him. I was even with pandemic through the whole game until the last squad has by now
24. 1:55built a loadout for no other purpose than countering these two together as
25. 2:02Though they were one animal not two and once by his own account
26. 2:07He caught them both in the same tank and killed them both at once
27. 2:12Whether Sluggie and College Future and truly working together remains unproven.
28. 2:19The squad, for what it's worth, no longer believes in coincidence.

Machine transcript of the final mix: squad names corrected, profanity masked. Tap a line to play it.