“That’s right,” Iris said. “Now for the makeup of those battles. The test round is just Hunters and Mythcrea, no Alphas. Five on five, so our two Huntresses and whichever mythcrea we choose.”
“Cool,” I said.
“That’s right, we will be very cool in this round,” Aya agreed.
“Okay, so after the test round is the first round, which will be four on four, both of us and the Huntresses versus another Kingdom’s Alphas and Hunters. So a close-knit team.”
“Got it,” I told her. “Makes sense.”
“And here’s where it gets tricky: the third round is out of our control. A mythcrea is randomly selected from our group and pitted against another random mythcrea from our opponent’s group. We have no control there.”
“Okay then, let’s just hope they randomly select someone useful…”
“Yes, hopefully. The final round will be you and me versus two other alphas. That’s it. So three rounds and a test round, four rounds in total.”
“Let’s do it,” I told her, coming forward and locking hands with her. “Should we go to the tournament now?”
“That’s another thing, they want us to get dressed up like before. I’m just going to wear a dress, but I figured you would want to wear the suit that you wore at that one tournament. But make it playful.”
“I’m sure something can be arranged,” I told her.
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
I ended up changing in Lady C.’s cabin, even though I could have just snapped my fingers and the clothing would have appeared on my body.
I was going to wear the same thing I’d worn the first time we had a tournament, but Lady C. made some last-minute adjustments.
“I don’t know…” I started to tell her.
“It’ll be cute, trust me.”
She had a look on her face that I interpreted as concern, so I went with it, asking what was wrong.
At first, she said it was nothing, but then, as she adjusted my tie, which she had actually tied around my neck, rather than hooked around my shirt, she finally told me.
“You still haven’t told Iris about us, about my body…”
“It really hasn’t come up,” I started to tell her. “But I do see what you’re saying. And you are right, I haven’t told her. I guess I just…”
“What? You don’t want her to judge us?”
“Iris and I have sort of had something in the past, but I don’t believe we will have anything else in the future. I don’t know.”
“You prefer a real woman over me?” she asked, her voice growing thin.
“No, that sort of thing doesn’t matter to me. I prefer you. Which was why I got you that body, so I can exist here in your world with you, and you can exist in my world with me.”
“But why do you like me? You’ve just met me…”
“I like you, because you are you,” I told her honestly. “You just make me smile when I see you, and I feel like I could hang out with you forever and never get bored. And even if we’ve just met, I spend all my time with you now. And it’s great. There’s nothing I would change about that.”
“Well, I just wish you had said something to her… That’s all.”
“You know, it wasn’t supposed to be a big thing, but I’m starting to realize that by not telling her, it has sort of become a thing. Dammit. This was definitely not what I intended. Let’s get through the tournament, see how we do, and take it from there. Since there are only four rounds, it shouldn’t take too long. There’s plenty of time to talk after that. And you and I, we can go somewhere romantic later tonight.”
“Back to your apartment?”
“I said somewhere romantic, not depressing.”
Lady C. came over to me and placed both arms on my shoulders, moving in to kiss me. “Let’s go win a tournament then,” she finally said.
We stepped out of her cabin to find Iris with her ukulele in her hands, running through a few scales, a warm-up she often played. She was in a dark green dress and her Converse, cute as always. Her instrument faded away as soon as she saw us.
“Whose idea was the tie?” she asked, smirking.
“Not mine,” I said, nodding toward the Metican Warrior.
“Is it okay?” asked Lady C. “I thought it would be interesting to tie his tie around his neck, rather than the collar of his shirt.”
“It is a bit unorthodox,” Aya said as she approached, in purple armor, hat on her head. “But it looks like something a musician would wear. So, I approve.”
“Are we riding there?” I asked Iris.
“No, they sent us this token.”
She flipped a platinum coin into the air. As soon as it landed a portal formed, Arabic-looking characters circling around it, energy fizzling along its perimeter.
“Shall we?” Iris asked.
Aya stepped into the portal, instantly disappearing. The rest of us did the same, our forms materializing inside a red room lined with plush red sofas.
“The others don’t get to come with us?” I asked Iris.
“Different tournaments, different rules,” she said. “I believe we will just select them, and go from there. Speaking of which, before they come to greet us, we will need to choose three mythcrea for this first match. If you don’t mind, I already have some suggestions.”
“By all means,” I told her as my bass appeared in my hands.
I began doing a little slapping, just loosening up my fingers before I hit a couple of power chords. All the musical information was on my pane of vision, allowing me to see everything from a bell curve that shaped the tone, to an equalizer.
“Fujin, Magnus and Brigantia,” she said.
“Have you tested the new mythcrea yet?”
“Actually, I have, when you were doing whatever it was you were doing in New York earlier…”
Aya snickered as Lady C.’s cheeks turned red.
“And she’s good?” I asked, plowing ahead.
“Definitely,” Iris said.
A frog wearing armor took shape in front of us. While he looked a little ridiculous, he also seemed somewhat distinguished, like he was no ordinary mythcrea.
“Ahem,” he said when he noticed I’d been staring at him for too long. “Eyes up here, my boy. I don’t take kindly to men who have frog fetishes,” he said in a funny British accent.
“Frog fetishes?”
Lady C. clapped me on the back. “I learn something new about you every day,” she said with a grin.
“Now, you are the Alphas and the Huntresses from Kingdom Lume, are you not?”
“That we are,” Iris said.
“Of course you are, you couldn’t have come here had you not been the chosen party. I am guessing that you’ve already been over the rules of the tournament.”
“We have,” she assured him.
“And your companion here too? You can’t trust a frog-loving twat.”
“Hey, man,” I started to say. “I wasn’t checking you out.”
“I know, I know,” he said with a long laugh that turned into a ribbit. “I just had to say something to keep it light.” He winked at Aya.
“Calling me a frog-loving twat is keeping it light?”
“Where I’m from, yes!”
“Enough banter, frog man, when does the tournament start? And why can’t we see any of the people on the actual tournament grounds?” Aya asked, an annoyed look on her face.
“Ah, yes, a Thulean, a beautiful one at that. Sometimes I wonder how Thuleans navigate real life situations without using brute force, or threats of violence. So scandalous! But I digress. The tournament should begin…”
He opened up the front of his jacket and pulled out an hourglass attached to a necklace. “I have to figure out which way it’s supposed to go,” he said as he winked his big eyeball at Iris. “Kidding, it can only go one way.”
“And we will be on the sidelines, right?” Iris asked. “I didn’t see that in the rules that were distributed.”
�
��Most assuredly, my darling. And to answer the gorgeous Thulean’s question, you will see the size of the grand crowd once you are out there. And my what a crowd! The stadium is not far from the Steeple, and even Ray Steampunk himself has decided to make an appearance. His airship floats over the northern quadrant of the stadium as we speak. If you win, you may even get to meet him.” He snapped his big lips shut, and bowed to us. “Good luck!”
A poof of light followed by a cloud of black smoke signaled that the frog man was gone.
“The next time he insults you, just give the word,” Aya told me. “Can we be disqualified for killing the tournament volunteers?” she asked Iris.
“Let’s try not to kill him and just focus on the task at hand,” I said. “Winning.”
Aya drew her sword. “Aye, aye, aye! Finally, some words I can get behind. Chase?”
“Yes?”
“Do not screw this up,” she said, offering me a cute snarl.
“He won’t screw it up,” Lady C. said. “We’re going to win this thing.”
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
I wasn’t ready for the size of the crowd.
I’d been in several of these tournaments now, but I’d never seen so many avatars packed into a place. Not only that, but the rafters attached to the tops of the stadium were also full, the top of the Steeple, the Steeple that I owned, cast a red light onto everything.
The stadium was divided into sections, and it was clear as day which section was ours once I saw the flags with the lightning bolts on them, as well as the random bolts appearing in the sky above the fans. Other kingdoms were equally distinguishable, such as the flames burning from lamps all around Ignis, and the pillars of water around Kingdom River.
Others were less distinguishable. After all, how did one go about representing healing, the Sana Kingdom? Or Psy, the power and kingdom dedicated to telepathic and psychological spells?
The next thing that caught my attention was Ray Steampunk’s airship, a glorious vessel covered in brass, pipes jutting off its bottom and a steamstack on top, a white cloud from all the steam it was releasing. I couldn’t tell if he was in the stadium or not, it was way too busy for that, and the lights had started to dim, but I did catch a skybox behind us that seemed like an optimal place to watch the battles.
Iris and I stood on the sidelines now, my counterpart’s glasses lighting up as she went through instructions provided by the tournament committee.
Aya and Lady C. materialized, the Lume crowd roaring in approval.
The Thulean ignored their cheers as she drew her blade, bringing it to the ready. Lady C., on the other hand, couldn’t help but wave at everyone, offering them a cute bow before drawing both her blades, twirling them, and crossing them in front of her body.
A fire ignited on the other side of the battlefield, letting us know that we would fight Kingdom Ignis in the test round. We had to win this one too; it would give us advantage going forward.
The first two forms to take shape were the Ignis Alphas, a pair of twin sisters (or at least, twin avatars), with flaming hair tied off in pigtails. One wore a suspender skirt and high-heeled Converse; the other was in a dress, the bottom of which was burning blue. Their Hunters took shape and Iris identified them before I could.
“Succubus, level eleven,” she said, nodding to a scantily clad dark-skinned woman with red eyes, midnight blue hair and little wings.
“Those wings seem useless.”
She snorted. “They probably aren’t. The next one is a Drachma Killer, level fourteen.”
“Drachma Killer?” I asked, staring at the man curiously. He wore a tunic, his long hair was braided with tiny skulls, and red tattoos ran down his cheekbones. The man already had his blade drawn, a jagged Persian sword with a red scarf tied to its hilt.
“A group of PKers from the 2060s,” she explained. “They did some pretty wicked stuff in Unigaea, Lady C.’s world. And some stuff in Tritania in the 2070s.”
“I know what world she’s from.”
Iris nodded. “Basically, the rules of Unigaea were if you died, you died. That was it. You had to start over again with a new avatar. The Drachma Killers made vast sums of wealth by raiding villages that other players made, killing everyone and taking all the riches.”
“So basically, assholes.”
“Heh, that’s one way to put it.”
Lady C. locked eyes with the Drachma Killer, spun her swords once and pointed both blades at him. I knew in that instant that we weren’t going to be able to stop her from going after the guy once this started.
“Looks like Lady C. has claimed her kill,” Iris said as our mythcrea appeared one after the other: Fujin, Magnus and Brigantia.
Our Ignis opponents’ mythcrea also took shape, the first to form being something between a bear and a wolf. Focusing on the snarling beast, which was easily the size of a pony, confirmed this:
[Wolfbear, level 7]
“Magnus, Succubus!” Iris commanded before the next mythcrea could take shape.
Our long-haired mythcrea nodded, and if I wasn’t mistaken, I sensed a bit of melancholy radiating from him. His dark eyes now on his opponent, Magnus lifted his blade, a snarl appearing on his face.
The next Ignis mythcrea to appear took me off guard.
“A teenage girl in a superhero outfit?” I asked as the girl’s form solidified. She had long, stringy brown hair, and her uniform was dark blue with pink highlights.
Iris’ nose twitched as she fired off GoogleFace searches. By the time she responded, the information had already flashed across my pane of vision.
[Tulip, Level 10]
“Tulip?” I asked Iris. “What kind of mythcrea is that?”
“It’s a character from a book called Mutants in the Making by Gideon Caldwell. Heard of it?”
“Can’t say that I have.”
“Published like sixty years ago. The writer claimed that the government was engineering super soldiers, and Tulip was one of them. He called them his Cherry Blossom Girls, stupid name, right?”
“Kind of.”
“No one knows if it is true or not, and people have debated that the videos of several of these superpowered events were doctored, that Gideon was a terrorist. That sort of thing.”
“Sounds interesting. So she’s just a teenage girl then?”
“Something like that…” Iris said as the teen mythcrea showed us her palm.
She pinched the web of her hand and a transformation took place, her arms and legs bulging, muscles spasming, bone tearing out of her flesh as her jaw distended, teeth popping out of her gums. By the end of her transformation, she was an utterly terrible creature, twice the size of the teen it had spawned from, seething, snorting, ready to slaughter.
“Fuck,” I said under my breath. “Aya?”
Iris nodded. “Aya, take Tulip!”
“A monster girl?” Aya shrugged. “It will be my pleasure to run my blade through her!”
The last Ignis mythcrea materialized, this one a towering minotaur with sharp horns and a ring through its nostrils. It snorted, kicked one leg back, and got into position.
[Minotaur, Level 9]
“Brigantia, take the bearwolf; Fujin, the minotaur!” Iris called out.
A timepiece appeared in the sky above the battle, a gilded number with an elaborate design around the central clockface, which flashed a single number.
Three…
Two…
One…
Chapter Eight: Tournament!
An air horn sounded, startling me. And even if our mythcrea were about to launch into battle, that didn’t stop Iris from giggling at the fact that I’d nearly jumped out of my suit and tie.
Lady C. moved faster than I’d ever seen her move before, her two swords spinning like the blades of a blender as she met the Drachma Killer. The man feinted his first strike, and Lady C. jumped back to avoid it, which he used as an advantage to spin forward, coming at her with a smaller blade that he’d concealed.
Brigantia, our newest mythcrea, already had a full plate in dealing with the bearwolf, which had already charged and lunged at the Greek-statue-like woman several times. Still, at Iris’ command, she cast her hand in Lady C.’s direction, a healing mist falling onto the Metican warrior as she parried another swipe from the Drachma Killer.
The wound on her arm healed up instantly, just as Lady C. again met the Killer’s big blade with her two swords. She had her eyes on his concealed weapon now, and as he tried to come in for another sneak attack, she managed to knee him in the groin and slice his arm off.
“Fuck yeah!” I shouted. The crowd roared in approval, aside from Kingdom Ignis, who booed and stomped their feet, fireballs igniting from the stands but staying contained.
My attention fell to Aya, who was dodging swipes from the monster girl known as Tulip. I wasn’t too worried about this fight; it was clear Aya had the upper hand when it came to control, that she was merely toying with the beast.
“Finish it, Aya!” Iris shouted.
“Do it!” I added. There was no sense in toying with the enemies, especially with other, equally killer opponents duking it out.
Aya, cocky as ever, sidestepped another swipe and swung her blade wide. But Tulip’s tough hide protected the monster from Aya’s blade, her attack bouncing off Tulip’s shoulder and causing Aya to lose her balance.
She managed to catch herself just in time, fury spreading across her face as the Thulean grew angrier. Aya charged Tulip, her blade connecting with the monster’s sharp claws, none of her hits able to land.
“She will need help,” I told Iris.
“Yep,” Iris nodded. “Lady C. can help once she finishes the Drachma Killer.”
It was true; the PKer was on his last leg, or maybe last arm, as he tried to fend Lady C. off.
It was clear that she’d land a blow soon, so my focus jumped from my favorite Huntress, one whose real-world body was currently in the same room as me back in New York—something I’d have to deal with later—to Fujin taking on the minotaur.
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