Reunited paintfully: One on One

"One shot, one kill and that's the deal"

Throughout my stay in Canada, I've always wanted to try the local paintball service. Unfortunately, the cut-throat rental fees and the far distance of the paintball center prevented me from doing so. 8 months in Canada without paintball can be quite a challenge for a person like me. Every day, I crave for filling my friends up with paint ( and also pain) and leading my own "death squad" to victory. I usually suppress my lust for paintball with the help of related videos on YouTube. Fortunately for me, when I came back to Malaysia, I managed to hit a couple of rounds of paintball with my secondary schoolmates.

Just a couple of weeks ago, I returned to Malaysia for my summer holidays. Apart from seeing my old friends, I told myself that my return would spark the opportunity for me to play my favorite sport again. I went around recruiting friends to play paintball, unfortunately like always, rejection was always in the equation. As a result, I feared that my stay in Malaysia would not be as fun as I thought it would be. Just a couple of days ago, I met up with an old friend of mine from my primary and secondary school. Like me, he returned to Malaysia for his holidays. Our reunion unexpectedly resulted in my first paintball game since I was back.

After the usual short conversation regarding how's our studies abroad, I suggested that we paid a visit to the Subang paintball ranch. I was so tempted to play right there on the spot therefore, I suggested a short friendly match between me and my friend. My friend was reluctant initially seeing that he never played paintball before. At first he declined but after successfully persuading him that paintball is a safe game, he agreed to play. It was a one on one match.

Despite I had my first game against a rookie, I still felt nervous and scared the moment I took my starting position in the field. I guess it was due to my habit that often overestimate my opponents regardless of who they are. Few seconds before the field marshall started the game, I recalled the basics of paintball combat together with some SWAT and Special Forces CQB techniques.

The moment the marshall blew the whistle, I told myself this is it--- time to see whether I still got my touch. I ran to the nearest air bunker and took cover. At the same time, I peeked slightly and recon the area ahead of me to spot my opponent. Unlike the usual game that I often play which involved more people, this game was slightly difficult since it was harder to spot a single enemy hiding in a big field. After 10 seconds of recon, I failed to spot my enemy. I knew that it was a stupid idea to stay at the same place for too long, so I decided to advance to the bunker ahead of me. Seeing that stealth is an element for the game of the day, I crawled slowly and quietly instead of running to the bunker ahead of me. At the new bunker, I conducted another recon and to my luck, I successfully spotted my opponent. I aimed my gun at him, looked down the sights of my gun and took a deep breath before I pulled the trigger. As I laid my finger on the trigger, the gun projected a pellet traveling at 100 FPS towards my opponent. Unfortunately, the pellet missed its target. To make matter worst, I exposed my position and as for my lousy accuracy, I was punished with repeated incoming pellets from my opponent. No time to blame the barrel of the gun, I told myself instead I should be getting closer to my opponent, therefore I advance forward to the next bunker while keeping my gun pointing at my opponent. My opponent remained at the same bunker instead of moving, which was a common mistake for beginners. As I approached closer, I knew I could take the shot. My opponent this time was taking cover behind the bunker. As for me, I pointed my gun right at the spot where my opponent would pop out to return fire. The second he popped out, I pulled the trigger and my pellet found a new home in my enemy's forearm. Yeah! Got the bugger.

My opponent learned how to move a lot during the second round of our game. It was slightly difficult to get closer to him as he was constantly moving around. Like him, I had to move a lot too as he was constantly shooting me. Since I was low on ammo, I knew that conserving ammunition was the utmost importance to survive the battle. Instead of pinning my enemy down with repeated shot so that I can advance to the following bunker, I usually wait for him to take cover before advancing. Knowing that my enemy would evade and escape every time he hears me coming, I thought about using stealth. So this time I crawled around silently hoping to sneak up on him. As I got closer to him, my opponent ran to a new bunker. Initially I thought that he noticed me when he ran to a new bunker but the fact that he did not shoot at me while running convinced me that he didn't know where I was. Furthermore, with him looking around for me, I knew my stealth was not blown. As he moved again, I knew it was time to bring my enemy to a stand still. A pellet that was projected from my gun crashed into his left kidney and so it was the end of the second round. The second round clearly reminded me of an Animal Planet scene where the tiger ambushes the unnoticed deer.

The final round was the climax of our game. With more aggression, my opponent chased me around the field gun blazing on me. This time the hunter became hunted. For the first time during that game, I felt very scared. I knew I had to evade, escape and hide ( geez... talk about tasting your own medicine). I managed to get quite a distance from my opponent so I took the advantage to hide behind one of the bunker hoping that he will not find me. This round was a typical Metal Gear Solid scene where Solid Snake has to stay in the shadows and wait for the heat to disappear after being detected by enemy soldiers. I heard my opponent's foot steps--- he was getting closer. At that point, my adrenaline was pumping. This is it, I told myself---one shot, one kill and that's the deal. I popped out from my bunker and I pulled the trigger. The next thing I knew, my enemy's face mask was covered in paint. Head shot, I told myself and it was the end of the 3rd and final round.

I was fortunate enough to have a short game of paintball with my secondary schoolmates. With 3 victories in the row, I knew I still had my touch. I really felt proud for that moment and I told myself to do better in the next game. If only there was a next game...Wait a minute, with my ICPU friends and my other secondary schoolmates around, there will be.

To be continued