The half-bull, half-man charged at Fujin, only to be brought down by an icy blast. A calm smile on his face, our mute mythcrea zipped around the creature riding a black cloud, appearing behind the minotaur and blasting him down with a bolt of lightning.
Fujin punched the minotaur in the throat, both of them rising off the ground before Fujin slammed him into the ground, killing the creature dead with his special move.
“Fujin, bearwolf!” I called out.
As soon as the minotaur was officially dead, a loud gong letting the crowd know that a death had occurred, Fujin made his way over to Brigantia, who continued to dodge the bearwolf’s attacks.
The succubus was losing against Magnus.
She kept trying to seduce him, and even if one of her spells had sort of taken shape, Magnus never wavered in his commitment to Ophelia. Iris watched, a softness behind her eyes as we both shared what she clearly thought about this interaction, that it was cute, that his devotion was sweet.
But then the succubus took hold. Magnus lowered his sword as she approached, her top starting to melt away, her breasts swaying.
She reached Magnus, and I started shouting for him to watch out as her tail lifted over her shoulder and eventually over his, growing in size, about to stab him in the back of the head.
And that’s when a blade bloomed from the small of her back. Magnus slowly drew his sword out, their faces inches away from each other, her forked tongue coming out of her mouth and lashing at him.
What a scene.
A gong sounded, letting everyone know that another mythcrea had died.
An even louder gong played right after that, and I looked left to see that Lady C. had used her blades to decapitate the Drachma Killer, and not true to her nature at all, she grabbed the guy’s head and lifted it to the crowd, eventually tossing it toward Ignis’ side of the arena.
Our Ignis Alphas were livid, the two twins jumping up and down, one trying to run at the field, prevented from reaching the Metican by an invisible barrier.
“Enough, Lady C.!” Iris shouted as Lady C. went to the head again, and stabbed her sword through it as if she were picking up an olive with a toothpick. A ferocity in her eyes I’d rarely seen, Lady C. brought her sword back and used it to fling the head at the invisible barrier separating the Ignis Alphas from the battlefield.
“Damn…” I said as more in the crowd started booing.
“Lady C., Tulip, now, that’s a goddamn order!” Iris cried, her eyes narrowed on the Metican warrior.
Lady C. nodded as she walked back over to the Drachma Killer’s body, which she used to clean her blade. From there, she brought both her weapons up, and started stalking Aya’s opponent.
A gong sounded and I looked right to see that our three mythcrea had taken out the bearwolf, the creature now on its side, offering its last breath.
“One left,” Iris said, “And we’ll talk to Lady C. about her actions afterward. The crowd has definitely turned on us.”
“Not quite,” I started to say, pointing to several of the kingdoms that were going buck wild in response to Lady C.’s actions, including our own.
“We need to be careful how we operate, though,” she said, as the three mythcrea and both Huntresses gathered around the increasingly overwhelmed monster girl known as Tulip. “We play gigs in some of these kingdoms. There can be repercussions.”
Aya tipped her hat at me, dodged a swipe from Tulip, and once she had room, the Thulean launched three blades into the beast’s chest. She used her ghost limbs to throw her up and over, landing behind Tulip and stabbing her buster sword through the monster’s body.
“Lonely Guy, huh?” I said, remembering the name Aya had come up with for that particular move.
The final gong sounded, letting the stadium know that Kingdom Lume had won the qualifying round. And before we could celebrate or even pump our fists in the air, we appeared back in our underground bunker of a locker room.
No mythcrea, just Iris, the Huntresses and me.
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Lady C. still held both blades at the ready. With a quick huff out, she tossed them up into the air, changed her grip so she could hold them upside down, and drove both of them into the floor.
“Ooo… I like this new side of you,” Aya said, already going for the red potion-punch in a crystal bowl at the front of the room. “If you behaved more like this in a fight, we would end our opponents’ lives much faster.”
“Quiet, Lady Aya,” she said, still seething. “I’m sorry,” she said, getting down on one knee and bowing in all of our directions. “I lost my temper back there; it was unbecoming of me.”
“It happens,” Iris said, going over to her and offering the Metican warrior a hand. “Why did you go so crazy, anyway?”
“I recognize that particular Drachma Killer, Lady Iris. He did things to the people, the women, of Metica that are unforgivable. My cousin included.”
“Well whatever he did, you got your revenge,” Aya said. “Who am I to judge someone for wanting revenge? I know, I know, I’ve lost my temper as well, so that’s why I am saying it like this: you got your revenge, now let’s move on.”
“The people were booing,” said Lady C., her head hung in shame.
Then let them boo,” I told her. “The only people I care about in this entire tournament are in this room. I don’t even care about Kingdom Lume. Just you three.”
“Ah, Chase is so sweet,” Aya said. “I can see why everyone likes him. But it isn’t sweet that wins battles. It is sour, nasty, and a little robust. All those ingredients are important in the next fight.”
“Impressive,” the fat frogman said as his form took shape. He now wore a black tuxedo with a rose pinned to his lapel. “I wasn’t expecting such a quick victory on your part. Especially against Kingdom Ignis. They generally make it to the last round, and now if they plan to do that, they will have to do so with a handicap. So congrats.”
“When does the next fight start?” I asked.
He pulled a watch from the pocket on the front of his tuxedo. “Not long from now. Get ready. Drink your potions, and prepare yourselves. Your next match will pit the four of you against Kingdom Sana’s best fighters. They are very good, I must tell you. They won the tournament last year.”
“And they will lose this year,” Aya said. “Pity. I am sure that they think that this will be an easy match, but alas, we will finish them off in under ten minutes.”
The frog chuckled. “I love a confident woman.”
“Unless you want to be a dead frog, your legs fried up and chewed on by an orclin, I suggest you stop winking at me.”
“I wasn’t winking,” the frog said with a stutter. “Look at the time! Good luck!”
And with that, he was gone.
“Drink some,” Aya told Lady C., offering her a glass of the red potion-punch. “It will calm your nerves.”
Lady C. took the goblet and threw it back, offering up a satisfied sigh once it was finished. It was at that point that our forms started to pixelate, Iris’ the first to go.
We appeared on the actual battlefield this time, parts of the crowd roaring in approval, other sections booing. I noticed the skybox to our left was still empty, meaning that Ray Steampunk still hadn’t taken his prime seating.
Cannons fired from what would be the end zones of the stadium, a splash of fired magic above us announcing that Kingdom Lume had arrived, the words cut in half by a giant bolt of lightning.
My bass guitar appeared in my hands, and I began slapping at the strings for a moment, just loosening up my fingers.
I played a few harmonics, musical information scaling across my HUD. I saw the tuner, the effects that I had already selected and the outline of a keyboard, which told me the note or chord I was playing.
The cannon sounded again, this time forming a white cloud opposite us, our opponents appearing.
The first thing to catch my attention was a troll, a big, green goliath with jagged teeth and
an underbite, stringy hair and a big club in his hand.
[Rowland Troll, Level 13]
“Say no more,” Aya told us, spinning her big blade. “The troll is mine.”
Not far from the troll was a giant hairy beast that looked like a yeti, with huge muscles and sharp claws.
[Samsquanch, Level 15]
“What the hell is a Samsquanch?” I asked Iris, even though I could have looked it up as well.
She was always faster than me.
“A mythological Nova Scotian creature made popular eighty years ago through a TV show called Trailer Park Boys, if that means anything to you.”
“It doesn’t.”
Iris snorted. “Well, you asked!”
The two alphas were also there, both at level five. One was an Asian guy in a clear dress with neon panties and a bra beneath. He held a staff with a skull on its tip. The other wore a New England Patriots jersey, with a picture of a Mandalorian warrior on the front. This guy had a football, which he tossed from hand-to-hand, a green trail of energy radiating off its tip.
The countdown began as all of us got in position.
Iris repeated the orders again. “Aya, troll; Lady C., alpha with the staff; Chase, samsquanch; I’ve got the football guy!”
“You gave me the yeti?”
“You’ve got this!”
The battle began. The hairy beast roared in my direction, bringing his big fists up and slamming them against the ground, sending an arc of kinetic energy toward my feet.
Just winging it, I plucked the strings of my bass, which created a bubble of sorts for me to hop onto, allowing me to narrowly miss the gorge that the samsquanch had just created.
Lady C. hopped the gorge as she advanced on the alpha with the staff, the man conjuring up some type of dark spell.
She was fast, but not fast enough to miss whatever he blasted at her. The Metican warrior was tossed sideways but turned it into an aerial at the last minute and landed on her feet. Her blades crossing, she slammed her blades together, chain lightning striking her weapons and connecting to all of our opponents.
This gave me the time I needed to point the body of my bass at the samsquanch and hit an open chord, which sent a spiraling wave of musical power at the monster, blowing it backward.
“Aye!” Aya shouted, meeting the Rowland troll head-on, her blade connecting with his big club.
She spit in his eyes, the troll bellowing with anger as Aya used her ghost limbs to flip herself over his towering form, spinning once she got behind him and swiping her blade against his muscled back.
He swung his arms wide. Aya barely got out of the way in time, righting herself, and launching at him again. I could tell she was gearing up for her special move called Body Splitter, but a stray blast from the alpha with the staff sent her flying into the invisible barrier between us and the stands.
Aya hit the barrier, her hat flying off her head as she slid to the ground.
But the Thulean warrior wasn’t done yet.
Blood now in her teeth, she licked her lips and tossed a pair of throwing knives at the approaching Rowland troll, managing to land one of them directly in his right eye.
The other alpha, the man with the football, brought his arm back and launched it at Iris, who barely managed to protect herself from his attack by strumming up a beautiful chord on her ukulele.
Like a boomerang, the football went back to the man, appearing in his hand again as he brought his arm back and launched it again, Iris protecting herself in the same way.
Slapping my strings, I sent several staccato blades of energy at the grounded samsquanch, which shot him back up into the air, a feat that turned out to be a disadvantage to me.
Seething with fury, his eyes bloodshot, his mouth filled with saliva, he ran at me, and even though I had brought a shield up by that point, using a chorus effects to replicate the protection I had created around myself, he still managed to punch through.
The trailer park yeti landed a giant swipe across my face that cut deep, my life bar flashing at the top of my viewing pane.
I hadn’t really paid attention to this life bar before, but now that it was half full, I knew I needed to be more careful.
With a quick gesture, I detached the strap on my bass guitar, driving its body forward as if it were a lance.
My bass connected with the samsquanch’s stomach, which sent the creature flying backward, bloodied, and much to my excitement, defeated.
A gong sounded, and I looked to see a hole in the samsquanch’s chest, smoke billowing off of it.
Fuck yes! I wanted to celebrate. Who wouldn’t want to celebrate after slaying such a large creature?
But I knew that the others needed my help, so my attention returned to the battlefield, where I saw Lady C. still not able to get a hit in on the alpha; Iris and the football player trading blows, both of them erecting shields before their strikes could hit; Aya stalking the troll, looking for her opening.
So that’s who I helped first.
While I knew that the alphas were using magic, I also knew that they would be overwhelmed if both Aya and I were able to join in the attack.
No, we needed the Rowland Troll gone.
“I’ll distract him; you go after him,” I called to Aya.
And for a moment, I could tell by her body language that she was going to reply with something snarky, possibly go the sarcastic route she normally took.
But I also saw the seriousness in her orange eyes, the Thulean absolutely despising losing any type of fight.
So she nodded, and to get the troll’s attention, I cranked my delay knob all the way up, hitting a few high notes that smacked him in the back of the head.
He turned to me, slapping his big club into his free hand, snarling as I turned up the volume, playing the highest note I could muster on my bass by bending the top string, kicking up to sustain.
Practically snorting smoke at this point, the troll gnashed his teeth together. With utter hatred and animosity on his face, he took a lumbering step forward, ready to swing his big club.
Aya used her ghost limbs to launch herself into the air, land with her knees on his shoulders, and drive the sword down through the top of his head. The blade punched out of his neck, blood squirting everywhere as she rode the Rowland troll to the ground.
Aya stood, wiped her bloodied blade on the troll’s side, and took a few steps away, returning seconds later to bring her buster sword down into his back, twisting the hilt and making sure he was dead, even though the gong had long since sounded.
“Thank you,” she said to me, breathing heavily. “Let me get my hat. Then we will finish this.”
“I’ll be here,” I said, looking to Lady C. and Iris, who were still engaging the two Alphas.
They knew that they were outnumbered, and were pulling out all the stops to try and take one of our members down. The guy with the magical football now wore a shoulder launcher, which fired football after football at Iris.
It was the stupidest thing I had ever seen, yet it was effective, and it was clear that if he kept this up, Iris would eventually make a mistake and slip up.
The magic caster, the one with the staff, had lifted a pillar out of the ground and now stood at the top of it, Lady C. not able to get to him.
She tried to stab her swords into the pillar and climb up, but every time she did, he would send her flying back to the ground with an avalanche of energy.
She was pretty battered and bruised too; I could tell by the way she was hobbling, by the blood at the corner of her mouth and the bruises already forming on the exposed parts of her body that she was nearly done for.
So I tried something. It was definitely off the top of my head, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to give it a shot.
Going back to the peaceful harmonics I was playing earlier, I played a few in Lady C.’s direction. Green energy spiraled around Lady C. as she…
Healed up.
“It worked,” I whispered to myself as
I switched gears, back to a slapping attack, playing a moving rift that tore the ground up. This brought the staff-wielding Alpha down, and added insult to injury by smacking him with a big hunk of rock.
His pillar collapsed; Lady C. advanced on him, spinning one of her blades as she jumped into the air and twisted, coming in for a scissor-like attack.
He responded with a high kick that took her off guard, the Metican warrior flipping sideways.
Realizing that going back and forth with her attacks was having little effect on the football guy, Iris changed her style up, this time going for a soft melody as Aya stepped before her, blocking the guy’s attacks with her blade.
Left swipe, right swipe, the Thulean warrior was able to stop all of his football attacks from hitting Iris. And she was sacrificing herself by doing so, each swipe causing blowback that was starting to matter. By the time Iris had conjured up what she was creating, Aya was barely standing, panting as she protected her Alpha.
And just as the final blast cut the Thulean warrior down, a gong letting us know that she was finished, Iris played one of the most beautiful sounds I had ever heard.
It was like a single note, with more notes building on top of it, an orchestra falling in line behind it, the note powerful enough that it brought the football Alpha down to his knees.
And even though I was going to Lady C.’s aid, I took the opening, cranking up the distortion on my bass and hitting a power chord that cut the guy in half.
The gong sounded. One left.
I tuned back into the crowd, the sound exactly like a stadium of a hundred thousand people was supposed to sound. Earth shattering, ground shaking, scary as hell, powerful beyond words.
But the match wasn’t over.
The staff Alpha had managed to kick one of Lady C.’s swords out of her hand, the Metican warrior now down to one sword.
I couldn’t recall if I had ever seen her fighting with one sword before, but seeing it now only gave me an even higher appreciation for just how skilled she was with a blade.
Everything about her movements was completely calculated, her eyes never leaving her opponent’s staff. Lady C. whirled, spinning at just the right moment, ducking, rolling, coming up again with her blade in the opposite hand, still stopping him from landing a hit.
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