by Logan Jacobs
“You are not in Kansas anymore, Marc,” I whispered under my breath.
“Shhh,” Artemis hissed with a wave of her hand without even looking at me.
I did as I was told and looked back up at Tyche. I couldn’t ignore the fact that he had a charisma that cascaded from him in almost visible waves that washed over the rows of beings in attendance and allowed him to hold them in his hand like prodigal children. I just didn’t seem to be one of them. A little voice in my head suggested that maybe I should just pretend to be, and I listened.
“For centuries champions like yourselves, or some of you are still indeed here, have battled and spilled blood so that the megaverse may be a more peaceful place,” Tyche exulted while he continued to walk slowly around the stage. The only other creature in the galaxy I’d ever seen with a more effortless command of a crowd had been Freddie Mercury, but Tyche was close. “Your valor, perseverance, and ingenuity have made the Forge of Heroes the saving grace of countless worlds across an infinity of galaxies. You should beam with dignity.”
When he said “dignity” he stopped and was almost completely motionless as it seemed like he looked every single person in the auditorium in the eyes. Tyche then began to clap and nod his head like a proud teacher whose students had surpassed his greatest expectations. The room began to clap with him until the thunder of applause was almost deafening. After a long moment, he stopped clapping and held his hands up for quiet. The room obeyed.
I shuddered from the sudden flash of images that went through my mind from an old black and white newsreel we’d watched in eighth-grade world history class of a failed German artist. With a shake of my head, I shook the images loose and tried to concentrate on the here and now. Maybe my brain was making connections that weren’t there. The watchdog that patrolled my subconscious slunk back to his den reluctantly with a growl of warning. I hoped I wouldn’t regret pushing him away.
“Yes, you should all rejoice in that which you have achieved from Bronze all the way up to Platinum Tiers,” Tyche began again. He clasped his hands behind his back as he started to circle the stage once more. My stomach dropped a bit as I felt that the other shoe was about to hit everyone on the head. “But, that achievement has been tarnished ever so slightly.”
The room as a whole took a sudden breath. Heads bowed as if they knew there were about to be chastised.
“I speak of Alliances,” Tyche nodded as if he were one of us, one who risked life and limb almost daily. “A commendable creation. The Aetherons were joyous when the first Alliances formed so long ago as they were born of cooperation and camaraderie. Traits that our benevolent lords admire. These glorious pursuits were at the core of why they created the Forge of Heroes, to begin with. But, as with everything in the games, what once started as something good, has become corrupted by avarice. Alliances have become a creature of their own, operating almost independently of the Aetherons to aggregate power in the hands of the strong few unfairly while many of the weaker struggle. This has brought great sorrow to the Aetherons.”
The auditorium was deathly silent. Guilt and shame seeped from pores like remorseful sweat, greasy and rank. Tyche closed his eyes and nodded as if he understood the regret, a parent who now must lovingly, but regretfully, discipline their children.
“But fear not,” Tyche assured, “in their great wisdom, the Aetheron Osuzti have discerned how to once again level the scales. To restore fairness to the games that have brought peace and prosperity with a new rule and new game mode to support the rule. First, I shall unveil the game mode and then I will explain the rule that supports it.”
Everyone in the place moved to the edge of their seats in anticipation including myself. While I may not have been enchanted by Tyche’s presence like just about everyone else in the room, including my own teammates, who, I hated to admit, I’d kind of forgotten about, I sure as hell was interested in what the new mode and rules were going to be.
“Protect - Assault is what the new game mode will be called,” Tyche explained proudly as if he was the one who had come up with it. “One alliance will be assigned to protect an object, for example, let us say a vault full of valuables. While the other alliance’s job will be to assault that object or take it away from the first alliance. This game mode will be non lethal. All weapons and environmental dangers will be modified to stun rather than kill.”
A murmur of surprise spread across the room in an almost visible wave.
“Yes, yes,” Tyche chuckled, “the Aetherons knew you all would find excitement in that. The reason for this is that the assailing alliance shall have the time it takes them to destroy or take away the vault of valuables recorded. Then, the alliances will exchange roles. The protectors shall become the assailants and vice versa. Once again, the time shall be recorded and whichever alliance has the best total time in the bout shall be the victor.”
“Huh,” I said quietly. “That doesn’t seem so bad.”
“The losing alliance shall be disbanded, and its members never allowed to join forces again for as long as they are in the Forge of Heroes,” Tyche announced with a self-satisfied smirk. The other shoe fell like an anvil on the heads of everyone in the auditorium which had once again fallen as still as a dying breath.
“Okay,” I said despite myself. “I now officially hate assemblies.”
“Yes,” Artemis agreed with a stricken look on her face. “They imbibe a large satchel of penises.”
Chapter Four
“Bullshit! Bullshit! Bullshit!” Nova exclaimed angrily. “I am so cross I could face a Rasputin Fire Drake with nothing but my bare hands!
Nova paced near the weapons rack off to the side of the gym but still fairly close to the Command Center, which is where the rest of us sat around the conference table. We were all more than a bit shell-shocked from the recent revelation and rule change to the Crucible. Nova was the only one, however, that I was afraid might start breaking things.
“Sugar, none of us are dancing for joy here,” Aurora said. Her normal sexy drawl was muted and subdued. “But I think the rest of us are all afraid you’re going to start tearing things apart.”
“I just might!” Nova yelled. We all just looked at her. I watched as the anger finally crested and flowed from her body with a big deep sigh. “I’m sorry everyone. Knights of Paladin are trained to keep their emotions in check on and off the battlefield. It was one of the few knightly skills I did not completely master.”
“Shit, Nova,” I reassured her, “you don’t need to apologize to us. This sucks.”
“Rotten eggs,” PoLarr finished. “Which sounds disgusting and is highly à propos.”
“I just,” Artemis stammered. She took the news particularly hard. “I don’t know what this feeling is. I want to cry, break things, and lie in bed while shoveling giant spoonfuls of ice cream into my face hole.”
“Oh,” I waved my hand, “that’s a healthy portion of a little something humans call disappointment with a soupçon of depression. Bon appetite.”
“I have said it before and I will say it again,” Artemis said with a flash of fire behind her eyes, “feelings can go mate with themselves right in the anal canal.”
I wanted to correct her, but the earnestness with which she said ‘anal canal’ made me burst out in uncontrollable laughter. Which, was apparently infections because soon we were all laughing.
“What?” Artemis said, annoyed. “That’s not funny.”
“Sugar, I think you meant to say feelings can go fuck themselves in the ass,” Aurora drawled out between giggles.
“Oh!” Artemis exclaimed with a blush. “Yeah, that’s funny. Because I don’t even know how that is anatomically possible.”
“Whatever you do, don’t Google it,” I added as my own giggles subsided. “Thanks, Artie. We clearly needed to put an end to the pity party we were all throwing.”
“Agreed,” Grizz affirmed as his form materialized at the head of the table. “I caught the gist of what was going on a
nd while this is an unexpected twist, the one constant in the Crucible of Carnage is the unexpected. The worst that can happen this time in the arena is that the alliance would be disbanded.”
“Grizz, that would be horrible,” Aurora sighed. “I lost one family already, I certainly don’t want to lose another.”
“At least you would not lose your life,” Grizz pointed out. “Which is always a possibility every time you step into the arena.”
“Sure, Grizz,” I chimed in. “But, and I’m pretty sure everyone else feels the same, I don’t think I could face anyone at this table in combat, despite our recent training. I’d rather die.”
“Me too,” PoLarr spoke up.
“Same,” Aurora agreed.
“I will never raise a hand against one I care about ever again,” Nova said, the words flowing out of her mouth in a rush. “And I care about everyone here.”
“The thought of what you are talking about makes my stomach heave, and I want to throw up for some reason,” Artemis moaned and began to breathe faster and faster. “In fact, I literally can’t get the thought of losing you all out of my head. It’s like there is a movie in my brain that I can’t turn off. Am I malfunctioning?”
Artemis’ hands began to shake, and I could see a cold sweat pop out on her forehead. I moved over to her side as fast as I could and put my arm around her.
“No, you’re not malfunctioning,” I assured her. “I think you are having a panic attack, Artie.”
“I would like to punch the panic in the caryopsis,” Artie muttered.
Everyone looked at me to decipher that one, and I just shrugged ‘cause I had no clue.
“The harder you fight it, the worse it gets,” I told her as calmly as I could. “This guy I used to work with used to get them bad. If he tried to muscle his way through, he’d usually end up at the ER thinking he was having a heart attack.”
“Why do human bodies attack themselves?” Grizz asked.
“More like our brains, Grizz,” I answered. “Sometimes we can’t help it. Part of the human condition.”
“What would work then, Marc?” Artemis said in the smallest voice I’d ever heard come from her lips. It broke my heart. “Because I feel like I am going to die. That is how much the thought of losing you all hurts.”
“Um,” I muttered as my mind spun. I wasn’t a therapist and I had no idea how to help her at the moment. “Oh, do you guys have benzodiazepines in space?”
“I believe I have some in the med-bay,” Artemis answered.
“Okay, go and take half of one,” I urged.
“Hmm,” Artemis hummed as she thought about it. “Ah, yes, I see how that would subvert the short circuit in my fight-or-flight response right. Good idea.”
Artemis got up, wiped the tears from her face and walked over to the med-bay. A moment later she walked back visibly calmer.
“Thank you for the suggestion, Marc,” she said when she sat down. “I modified the chemical structure just a bit to enhance the calming effect while reducing the potential for abuse.”
“Good,” I said as I reached over and squeezed her hand.
“Okay,” Nova said as she plopped herself down in a chair at the table, “now that everyone has expressed how they feel about it, what are we going to do?”
“The same thing we always do,” I said simply. “Kick ass and take names.”
“Havak, for once, I wholeheartedly agree with you,” Grizz said and walked over to stand behind me. “Artemis, can you bring up where the team stands as far as skill upgrades?”
“On it,” Artie responded and walked over to her normal position in the Command Chair. She tapped a few keys and a display of the skill tree popped up on the monitor-wall. Little bubbles with our respective faces appeared next to skills that we already had. From there you could see where other skills and upgrades branched off or built upon one another. It was as overwhelming as usual. Sometimes these discussions could go on for hours. “Here we go. Oh, and it looks like to add more stakes to our already high-stakes afternoon, with the experience we should gain if, I mean when we win this next challenge we will move up to Gold Tier.”
“I love gold,” PoLarr said in an impression of Mike Meyers as Goldmember from Austin Powers 3. She stretched out the word “gold” into about four syllables. “Oh, god. My memory of that movie is that it was terrible. Why did I say that?”
“It worked,” I nodded in approval. “Look, they can’t all be gems.”
“Grizz, there are so many skills that would improve my ability as a warrior,” Nova said as she studied the screen. “But without knowing what the next match is actually going to entail, how can we decide?”
“Yeah,” PoLarr agreed, “we don’t want another improvised munitions before a firearm-less fight in a jungle.”
“One, I did end up accidentally blowing up a mummy with a hand grenade during that,” I said defensively. “Two… good point.”
“We should find out soon what the details of Protect - Assault mode will be,” Artemis said as she read the data feed on her computer. “It looks like everyone is going to be thrown into a double-blind drawing with skill-upgrade clamping if say a Gold Tier teams gets pitted against a Bronze level. Also, we will have three full days to prepare for each round.”
“That’s good,” I added. “Longer is always better.”
“You can say that again, sugar,” Aurora crooned after having been quiet for so long.
“You know I usually don’t have to, sugar,” I winked at her and gave her my best rakish smile. She licked her lips deliciously and was about to say something else when there was a loud trill from the Command Center that sounded like a phone. Artemis glanced down and looked up at me.
“Um, Marc, the President is calling,” she said a bit nervously.
“Really?” I asked. As far as I knew we weren’t scheduled for a call today or anytime soon. “Put it up on the screen.”
Artie hit a button, and the President of the United State’s face appeared three feet tall on the wall of our gym. He looked good. Mostly the same with his aggressive tan and signature hairdo, but because of the technological advances that my wins had earned for Earth, he looked like he did when he was thirty-five years old.
“Mr. President,” I started to say with a smile. I didn’t always agree with the guy, but I had to say, he had grown on me since that fateful Halloween just a few short months ago. Dare I say, he was a good friend. “To what do I owe the honor of the call, sir? Oh, and looking good by the way.”
“Thank you, thank you,” the POTUS said in his distinctive voice and nodded his head in agreement. “I am looking good. Great. Tremendous. The cellular regenerationing, regenerate, regenerationitude is fantastic. Really, really fantastic. Earth is now the best-looking planet in the Milky Way and beyond.”
“As you’ve said,” I smiled. Love or hate the guy, he was a character. “Has Earth gotten any new technology since my last few wins?”
“Marc, truly spectacular wins,” the POTUS said while gesticulating with his hands and smiling at weird moments. “It’s obvious you learned how to entertain from me. I can see it. Everyone sees it. Just a fact. Honey, what new gadgetnology did we get from Marc’s truly tremendous exceptional top-notch wins?”
The President’s daughter, who looked amazingly hot as always, ducked into frame and sat next to her father. She hadn’t been old by any stretch of the imagination but whatever the cellular regen tech Earth had been given had made her look like she did when she was twenty-five and her face practically glowed with youth. Her incredibly full, almost pouty lips glistened with maroon lipstick and her dirty-blonde hair was pulled into a loose ponytail. She had on an off-white power suit that hugged every curve of her body like a lover about to go to war. Her heavy breasts wanted to escape the confines of the fabric of her finely fitted jacket, and I really had to force my eyes to focus on her face.
“Hello, Marc,” she said in a strong, confident, voice with a whisper of sexual tension
. “Good to see you again. And may I say, you are looking very good these days. I mean, you always looked good, but, I can see the bulge of your… muscles under that form-fitting jumpsuit from here.”
“Thank you,” I said with a little laugh. The DOTUS and I had had this weird sexual chemistry since we met in an elevator deep in the depths of the Pentagon. There was just something in her that brought out the cocky rogue in me. “Kicking alien ass and making Earth a better place is a really great workout. Plus, my muscles always bulge a little more when I see you.”
The DOTUS actually blushed a little, which I knew was rare. On my side of the call, I almost heard the ladies roll their eyes so hard they nearly gave themselves neck cramps. But to their credit, they didn’t make it too obvious.
“I bet they do,” she shot back. The President’s daughter was a skilled flirtation fencer, and I certainly enjoyed trading blows with her. Heh, blows. “To answer your original question before we got… sidetracked, for your last win we got technology that allowed us to grow meat.”
“I’m sorry, did you say grow meat?” I asked, not sure if she was serious or if that was another very thinly veiled sexual innuendo. Aurora giggled next to me. Nova reached over and whacked her on the arm playfully to say “shh”.
“Yes, yes I did,” she replied with bedroom eyes. “Cows, pigs, chicken, and even fish are now no longer raised for human consumption. We can bio-grow steaks, pork chops, chicken wings, and barramundi filets like we do corn now. World hunger is a thing of the past. Also, greenhouse emissions…”
“If those truly existed, which they don’t,” the POTUS chimed in as he winked at Nova.
“Yes, daddy, if they existed,” the DOTUS said and patted him on the shoulder. “If they existed they have been reduced by nearly eighty percent.”