Kaji Warriors: Shifting Strength

by Kelly A Nix

  “You’re on offense,” she says to Marqee. “Make sure Debil and Seva never reach the goal.”

  “What’s the goal?” Marqee asks. He scans the maze while swatting at the nosy camera that circles his head.

  “The goal for this round is for each team’s runners to reach the center of the maze,” Skiska says. A golden light flickers from an energy platform above the pond. “Careful though, there are going to be a lot of traps and surprises along the way.”

  “Yep,” Frack says, “and you’ll have to watch out for other runners, too. Keep in mind, only one runner from each team has to reach the goal to advance the entire pack. If both runners are incapacitated, the strategists can jump in to run the maze, but they have to start from the beginning. And that won’t be any fun. I can promise you that.”

  “Runners won’t get any points for taking down other runners, but there aren’t any penalties for it, either.”

  “The same goes for strategists versus strategists,” Frack says. He wags his finger at the audience, and Skiska smiles at him.

  “Yes, but strategists can earn ten points each time they take down a competing runner. Don’t forget that your main focus is to get your team to the goal.”

  “Strategists will use the visors provided to control the maze walls, traps, and other exciting functions. Help your teammates progress, detain your opponents, or take down the competition altogether. It’s your choice. Either way, forty packs will compete in this round, but only the first thirty to reach the goal will progress to the next round.”

  “Well, that should wrap up the rules for this round. I think it’s time to see what these younglings can do,” Skiska says. The two giant heads in the sky dissipate, and Atae glances at Sloan while Beast fidgets in her sienna haze.

  The maze of energy walls and ceilings shifts from a translucent haze to silver metal, and Atae loses sight of Jeqi. Beast churns and emits an orange pulse from her swirling ball.

  We’re fine, Atae says. We can do this.

  Atae and Sloan survey their new environment and glance at each other. The empty metal hall that offers only one path to follow, so Atae nods and sprints forward.

  “Wait,” Sloan says. Then, he sighs and follows after her. Darting down the hall, Atae frowns when Beast blares an orange warning to stop, but the hybrid doesn’t comply. A wall materializes in front of her, and she slams into it.

  “I bet that hurt,” Sloan says. Atae glares at him as she rubs her forehead. Beast snickers from within a green-yellow swirl, and Atae sucks her teeth in annoyance. When Sloan swivels back toward the direction they came, another wall bursts into life to block him, and he sighs. A camera that’s stuck on the other side of the wall slips right through the energy field unhindered, much to Atae’s disappointment.

  Great, the cameras have free rein.

  “We’re boxed in. We can’t go anywhere,” Sloan says.

  “Really? I hadn’t noticed.”

  Another energy field slides across the bottom of the maze just above the dirt floor. This time, Atae reacts to Beast’s orange warning and jumps, so as not to trip over it. Sloan manages to avoid the same debacle as the cube completes its construction.

  “Now what?”

  As if to answer Sloan’s question, the entire cube lurches to the side, and it reminds Atae of the navigation room in the royal prison. There isn’t a viewing screen inside this box, so she has no idea if they are moving closer or farther away from their goal. When they come to a sudden stop, Atae topples forward into Sloan, and he stabilizes them against the wall. Beast’s yellow-orange excitement swirls with whips of crimson, and Atae cringes before pushing away from her ally.

  The wall ahead slides open to reveal a new route with a tall ceiling and several obstacles blocking the path. Several tiles levitate above the ground and shift from one side to another, acting as steps to a dozen ropes hanging from the ceiling. Atae notices that the dangling cords work as swings to the next obstacle, but they vary in size and shape. Beyond the rope-jungle, a section of the wall mimics the rock face of a mountain. The ‘mountain face’ sits at the top of the wall and continues around a blind corner.

  “Are we supposed to complete the obstacles?” Atae asks. “Why don’t we just walk around them?”

  Sloan frowns, wondering the same thing. Before he can form a response, the wall to his left slides open to reveal two runners. The two hybrids rush past Sloan and Atae toward the obstacle course. Atae grabs the closest one and slams him into the wall, pinning him with her forearm against his neck.

  “Go, I’ll catch up,” she says to Sloan over her shoulder. He hesitates, balking at the order, then follows the second runner. Another orange flash from Beast warns Atae to focus on her enemy, but only serves to distract her further. The runner lands a powerful strike that knocks the wind from her lungs. The larger hybrid breaks Atae’s loosened grip and slams his knee into her chin. He stands over her as she scrambles back and struggles to clear her vision after the jarring hit. Beast rages within Atae to attack and destroy this weakling, and Atae has to rein in her counterpart’s attempts to call upon their blades.

  When his partner screams in agony at the opening of the obstacle course, the runner glances back to investigate. Atae uses the opportunity to kick out his knee and follow up with an uppercut to his exposed neck. Choking from the damage to his throat, he falls back onto his injured knee and topples over. Sloan appears at the runner’s side and grabs him by the hair. He drags the injured youngling toward the obstacle course with an eager smile.

  “Hey, what are you doing? He’s mine,” Atae says. She rushes after Sloan until he stops several steps from the edge of the path and glances at Atae with a mischievous bounce of his eyebrows.

  “Watch this.”

  Sloan tosses the runner on to the floor next to his unconscious partner just below the floating tiles. Upon touching the energy floor, the hybrid screams in agony as blue electricity climbs up his body from the floor. He convulses for a moment before falling unconscious, and the power stops flowing. Both Atae and Beast watch, slack-jawed. Then the blue-haired hybrid grins at Sloan.

  “Cool.”

  “Right?” Sloan nods then points toward the tile steps. “Okay, we’ve got to go.”

  Without another word, both younglings scramble toward the obstacle course with their cameras in tow. Sloan, a few steps ahead of Atae, reaches the tile steps first and leaps forward. Knowing his ally is close behind, Sloan moves on to the next energy tile as soon as his foot touches the first. But in the same instant his foot comes into contact with the initial levitating step, an inner mechanism triggers, and a cascade of small spikes erupt from the tile. Luckily, Sloan’s fast pace protects him from the unexpected trap. He leaps from one tile to the next before any of the triggered spikes can harm him. Atae, on the other hand, is not so lucky.

  Atae notices the crippling spikes just as she leaps from the floor, thanks to a warning from Beast. An instant before her foot reaches the energy tile, she twists her body to the right, aiming for the smooth, thin side of the step. Atae throws herself away from the offending spikes and toward the next awaiting step. Realizing she doesn’t have enough momentum to land on the next tile, Atae flings out her arms to catch herself. Her desperate fingers reach the stone just as Sloan leaves it behind. She grasps the smooth step with one hand and clings to it as most of her other hand slides off from the momentum of her fall. As the last of her fingers start to slide free, spikes erupt from the top of the energy tile.

  Atae screams while an energy spike impales one finger, and others sprout harmlessly around her remaining digits. The barb acts as an anchor and prevents Atae from slipping any further. Hanging from the tile, Atae watches Sloan dive for the ropes in the next obstacle and falter as the cord he clings to gives out. Atae can’t help the sudden rush of concern but sighs in relief when Sloan saves himself by grabbing another rope in reach. Sloan swivels back to his ally, and Atae waves him away with her free hand. She urges Sloan to go on as s
he swats at the floating camera to get out of her way. He hesitates for a moment but then continues toward the mountain wall. Another runner appears behind a sliding wall and leaps into the rope-jungle. The purebred female dangles from her cord with one hand and activates her hilt with the other. She swings it toward Sloan and his ropes.

  Trusting Sloan to fend for himself, Atae weaves the fingers of her free hand in between the spikes so that both hands grip the tile. Then, she swings her legs back and forth until she gathers enough momentum to flip herself up and over. Atae summersaults on to the top of the tile, sacrificing one foot to the spikes in exchange for one chance at a stable launchpad. She stifles a cry of pain as several small spikes impale her left foot through her thin footwear. She forgets about the pain when an energy blast from a ranged hilt sears the tip of her ear off.

  “Ow!”

  She glares over her shoulder at a hybrid runner that sprints toward the tiles after Atae.

  Where was my warning, Beast?

  I didn’t see him, Beast admits. But I’ll kill him for you.

  Atae huffs in annoyance and leaps from her designated launch pad to the next tile. Instead of landing on the protruding spikes, she pushes off from the thin, smooth sides of each step. She moves fast and pushes hard enough to keep her momentum going until she reaches the rope-jungle. Atae leaps from the last tile, throwing both hands out, and snatches the closest rope with her injured hand. The rope tugs at her damaged flesh as Atae holds tight against her weight. The force of her jump swings Atae into the other dangling ropes, but too many are missing thanks to Sloan and the other purebred. None that remain are in reach.

  Left with little choice, Atae releases the rope at the height of her swing, falling toward the hard ground below. The angle of her fall pushes her out enough that she manages to grasp another rope. Atae sighs in relief and pauses to assess her next move. She frowns at the brush of green-yellow amusement from Beast, then she snickers at the yelp of pain from the runner behind her landing on the spiked tiles. She also notes the unconscious female runner on the floor, presumably where Sloan knocked her down.

  Ignoring the pain in her injured limbs, Atae climbs the rope to the optimal height to swing herself in the direction of the next obstacle. After jumping from one cord to another, catching herself when one gives out under her weight, Atae finally reaches the mountain face obstacle. She swings to the damaged wall, and finding nothing to land on, Atae slams into the hard rock. She scrambles to find a footing and slips downward, scraping against jagged edges until her un-injured hand snags a solid ledge. Atae dangles until her feet find notches in the rockface. She’s impressed that the energy wall feels so much like a mountain face.

  Sloan cries out in pain, and Beast roars with a deep blue wave of concern. Clenching the rockface with her body, Atae glances up to find Sloan almost to the top of the wall. His camera zips around him as he clings to the jagged rocks further down the path and past the corner. What Atae can’t see is Sloan’s outreached hand. It’s close to the top ledge and impaled on an energy blade.

  “Move, Sloan,” Atae says.

  “I can’t! My hand is stuck.”

  Sloan growls down to Atae, not bothering to hide his pain. Atae leans over, as much as her unstable footing will allow, and spies the knife spearing Sloan’s hand to the wall. Cringing at her ally’s predicament, Atae leans back just in time to avoid an energy blade that impales the stone to the right of her head. Atae flinches away from the knife, causing some unstable rock to give way, and she scrambles to keep from falling. Beast floods Atae’s mind with golden panic, and she struggles to concentrate through the haze of adrenaline.

  Atae flails out for the knife embedded in the wall and finds it to be a stable handhold. Dangling, once again, by one arm, Atae scans the area for the source of the energy blades and sees several more shooting from the opposite wall. A score of knives erupt and slam into the mountain face in an eerily straight line leading to Sloan, but none of them strike him or Atae. She smiles when she recognizes Jeqi’s handy work.

  Look, Jeqi is watching out for us, Atae says. I need you to stay calm, Beast. You’re making this too hard.

  This is hard for you. Not for me.

  Still dangling by one hand from the hilt of the energy blade, Atae takes a deep breath then grabs her wrist with her free hand and shoves both feet against the wall. She pulls with her arms and pushes with her legs, jumping up across the wall to a nearby blade. Atae repeats the process until she is even with Sloan against the wall.

  “Are you okay?” She asks.

  “Do I look okay?” Sloan struggles not to lose his footing because they both know that if he slips, the blade will not hold him. Instead, it will slice through his remaining hand, and he will fall.

  “There is a blade next to your right foot. Step on it. Use it as footing,” Atae says.

  Sloan nudges his foot around until he finds it. Stepping onto the protruding blade, he gasps as he relieves the pressure from the blade slicing through his hand.

  “So, are you going to pull that thing out or what?” Atae says. She surveys the area for any newcomers, and Beast silently assures her that no one will sneak up on her. “If any more blades are triggered, we are sitting ducks.”

  “Why did they stop?” Sloan asks. Meanwhile, Beast warns of an incoming runner just before she slams into the mountain face. Atae grabs her hilt, ready to defend Sloan from the incoming runner, but an energy blade slices through the air and lands next to the runner’s head. Startled, the runner loses her grip and plummets to the floor.

  “I think Jeqi is using them to help us out.” Atae chuckles at the electrified noises below. For once, she agrees with the mist of green pride emanating from Beast.

  “Then, why did she shoot me?” Sloan snarls, and Atae shrugs.

  “I don’t know. Maybe she has to fight the other strategists for control of the traps. All the more reason why we should move on. Can you pull it out?”

  “If I could, I would have already. The blade is not coming out.”

  “Well, the blade can stay as long as it wants. It’s your hand that has to move on. Since the handle is thicker than the blade, you can’t pull it through. So that leaves two options.”

  “I’m not giving up, Atae.”

  “Then, that leaves one option.”

  “I know!”

  Sloan shakes his head with a furious expression, then sucks in a deep breath. He glares and clenches his jaw.

  “I loathe you.”

  Then, Sloan steps off one knife to dangle from the other. He only hangs for a few moments, but the pain of the blade slicing his hand in half lasts forever for Sloan, and he screams out in agony. Atae can only watch and cringe as her ally suffers a devastating injury then falls. Sloan drops a few feet before he grasps a blade protruding from the wall with his intact hand, and his camera rushes to catch up with his sudden elevation change.

  Chapter 32

  “Are you okay?” Atae says. She stares down at Sloan and swats at her annoying camera.

  “Quit asking me that.”

  Atae laughs at him before evaluating the short path forward then around a left corner. The mountain face lasts a few more steps then fades into a smooth metal wall. The corner obstacle is a large ‘tree branch’ erupting from the wall at the same height as the mountain face. The problem is getting to the tree branch.

  “Follow my lead,” Atae says. She jumps to the blade that Sloan had used for footing and uses the energy blades as steppingstones, then she leaps from the mountain wall to the corner obstacle. The giant tree trunk erupting from the perpendicular wall is low enough that Atae lands on it with both feet. Expecting the force of her jump to propel her across the rough bark, Atae gasps when her feet stick like glue to the bark. Instead of skidding to a stop, the momentum forces her body forward, and her feet stay put, effectively pushing Atae headfirst off the tree trunk. At least it would have if her shins didn’t stick to the bark as she fell. Once again, Atae finds herself dangli
ng in the air. This time, she’s upside down, facing the direction from which she came. As the blood rushes to her head, Atae spots Sloan jumping for the trunk after her.

  “Don’t land on the tree!”

  Sloan twists in midair away from the branch and throws his uninjured hand out to Atae. She snags him, and the momentum of his jump swings them toward the wall behind Atae. Sloan runs up the ‘metal’ surface and jumps backward onto the tree trunk, pulling the hybrid along with him. Sloan rips Atae up from her knees, ignoring her cries of pain. While most of Atae escapes the sticky tree bark, her skin stays behind, leaving gaping wounds on her shins.

  “Ow! How is it that you can rip the skin from my shins but can’t manage to pull a stupid knife from a wall?”

  “What, you think I lied? That I wanted this?” Sloan holds up his gnarled and bloody extremity, and Atae cringes. His hand is sliced in half from the center of his palm until the split between his second and third fingers.

  “Eww, get that thing away from me,” Atae says. She stretches to see what awaits them around the corner, ignoring the sensation of sap seeping into the puncture wounds on her left foot. Several bars hang from a sloping ceiling that leads to a standard-sized hall. One unconscious purebred lies under the bars, marking the end of the obstacle. Several runners jump from outside a sliding door, just past the bars, onto the dirt floor without incident. The runners push past each other and away from the obstacle course. Sloan points with his good hand, cradling the injured one against his chest.

  “Looks like the dirt is safe to walk on. I guess that’s the direction we need to go,” he says.

  “So far, every obstacle has had some unexpected trap. The tile spikes, the snapping ropes, the wall with no ledges, and now a tree branch with sticky sap. What do you think is going on with those bars?”

  “Who knows. Maybe they’re just holograms, and we’ll plummet to our deaths. Either way, we can’t jump with this black sap sticking to us.”