Space Witch: A Paranormal Space Opera Adventure (Star Justice Book 2)

by Michael-Scott Earle

  My companions spoke a short distance away from me. They sounded angry as they argued amongst themselves. I couldn't understand them so I didn't bother devoting any energy to trying.

  I contemplated taking a pair of boots from one of the corpses before I realized the robe I wore wasn't very good for traveling. The soft, thin shroud was wet with mud, water, and blood. These dead men weren't wearing any travel gear, so their camp had to be within walking distance. One of the corpses had a pair of leather boots that I guessed would fit, so I sat on a nearby rock and tied them around my bare feet.

  While sitting, I noticed the trail through the jungle the soldiers had used to find us. I looked back at my companions and saw them involved in a passionate discussion. Nadea and Greykin were arguing. Paug had returned to them from his vomiting break, but his back was to me. They did not seem to be paying any attention to me or the trail, so I debated my next action. I needed Paug to learn this language, but I did not need to know any of the decisions the group would make in the next few minutes.

  I set off down the trail at a comfortable jog. The soldiers' campsite would be close by, and once I reached it I could acquire pants, socks, and maybe a horse. I could hear and smell Paug, so I didn't have any doubt I would find him again after I obtained some gear. As I ran, the energy of the sun, earth, and water invigorated me.

  I was not tired anymore.

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  Lion’s Quest: Undefeated

  Chapter 1

  I always cherished the silence before a death match. It was the time for me to dump my thoughts, seek memories of my previous matches, review my game plan, and think about my parents. I wasn’t really into all the New Age positive-thinking self-help bullshit, but the silent moments had always helped me with these high-stake duels.

  The clock on the wall dinged, and the doors to my locker room opened to the tsunami of my entourage. Seven men swarmed over me as if I were a magnet. Two were my trainers, two were my bodyguards, two were my best friends, and the last was my cornerman; Dini Hayes. He muscled his way to me first.

  “My man! Champ! Champ! How you feeling?” Dini’s weathered face wore a big smile when he asked the question.

  “You just saw me ten minutes ago.” I felt a smile come to my lips, and the man began to rub my shoulders.

  “I know, Champ, and I missed ya for ten minutes. Your muscles feel good. You’ve got power in them! Powaaah! Gonna take this fool out! No one beats the Champ! You hear me? No one!”

  “Thirty seconds!” one of the studio executives yelled at me from the doorway of the locker room. He was one of the corp suit types. Complete with slicked-back hair, a fake smile, dead eyes, and a suit that cost more than most people’s yearly rent.

  “You’ve got this, Leo.” My best friend, Garf rested his hands on my arm. “Gonna be easy mode.”

  “Pew, pew, QQ for the entire nation of Korea, bro. This guy’s going to commit seppuku after you curb stomp him.” Jax was my other best friend, and he laughed as he sat on the locker room bench next to me.

  “That’s Japan, bro.” Garf rolled his eyes at my other friend.

  “So? You’ll kick this guy’s ass so bad he’ll turn Japanese, and then he’ll commit suicide with a katana through his stomach.” Jax made an exaggerated motion with his arms across his stomach as if he was cleaving himself with an invisible sword, or he was rowing a canoe. His long blond hair swung around wildly with the motion.

  “Dude, that is so fucking wrong,” Garf put his hand over his face and sighed. “Koreans and Japanese are totally different, and you don’t commit seppuku with a katana, it is a long sword. You use a tanto.” Garf actually was Korean, or at least, his great grandparents migrated over in like the 1980’s or something. He was more American than anything else, but I knew enough about Asian cultures from playing their video games and watching their TV shows to understand that you didn’t get the two ethnicities mixed up.

  “Tanto? Isn’t that the guy with the Lone Ranger?” Jax asked with a bemused smile.

  “Ten seconds!” Mr. McPlasticCorpman yelled from the doors, and he opened them to reveal the long hallway leading to the stadium.

  The roar of the crowd sounded like the song of all the oceans amplified a hundred times.

  “Robe on!” Calic, my physical trainer, shouted as I rose from the bench.

  The thick, pure white, velvet shroud fell over my body, and Calic took his turn to pat me on the shoulders. He was quite possibly the most muscular black man on the planet, but I supposed that was expected since he was also one of the best muscle and movement coaches in the United States. He was a man of few words, though, and he said nothing else as the entourage walked out of the locker room and toward the stadium.

  The roar of the hungry crowd was even louder in the concrete tunnel, and a dozen cameramen sprinted toward me from the open area of the stadium.

  “Leeee Ohhhh!” The chanting filled my mind to euphoria.

  “Leeee Ohhhh!” I breathed in strength and felt my muscles flex as I walked.

  “Leeee Ohhhh!” The cameras were on my face now, but I walked through them, and the lenses parted like the Red Sea.

  “Leeee Ohhhh!” The stadium lights were turned off so that the crowd could get pumped for my arrival. As soon as I walked out of the locker room corridor, the air filled with explosive fireworks, laser light shows, and a deafening siren wail of electric guitar music.

  The crowded stadium went insane.

  I almost wished that I had worn earplugs. The sound was a few notches below deafening, and I struggled to keep from wincing. I’d dealt with much worse pain in my life, and I managed to keep my trademark smirk glued to my face.

  I raised my fists in the air, and the crowd’s intensity almost boiled over.

  “Leeee Ohhhh!”

  “Leeee Ohhhh!”

  I felt Dini tug on my robe, and I continued my walk of forty yards toward the center of the stadium. There was the digitally lit battle ring, and the two omni stations where my opponent and I would battle for dominance.

  The ravenous crowd reached out their arms in my direction, but the tunnel was too wide for anyone to touch me, and the sides of the path were lined with armed security dressed in riot gear. A few women somehow managed to scream my name over the din, and I saw some of them raise their shirts to show me their breasts. I was able to ignore them, however, and even a sprinkling of a dozen panties didn’t distract me from walking to the center of the stadium.

  Jin Eun Kyung was already in the battle ring, and he had an entourage of eight men and three women standing behind him. The championship officials were also there, and they gestured for me to stand in my spot, exactly two feet away from the Korean challenger.

  Hands pulled my robe off, and I felt a bunch of palms smack me on the back. I stood now only in my skintight Omni suit, and the crowd’s roar had subsided a bit so that the officials could begin.

  My eyes met Jin’s, and I studied the man. Perhaps ‘man’ wasn’t the correct word. He was little more than a kid. He was only nineteen years old and had apparently bragged to his nation that he would enjoy his first alcoholic beverage after he took my title. Even though he was young, his body was made of mahogany, and his Omni suit hugged his muscles as if it was painted on.

  The material of his suit was as white as the robe Dini had pulled away from my shoulders and had the Korean yin-yang flag symbol painted on his chest. My own suit was black, and I had the stars and stripes on my back.

  Jin was as old as I was when I first became world champion. />
  The announcer’s voice caught my attention. He had already introduced Jin, but the audience didn’t need much of a reminder. The Korean was something of a phenomenon and had come out of nowhere late last year. He’d flawlessly defeated every international opponent in the last year. Even Ivan Tsatsouline, who had been Russia’s champion, and my top rival, for the last three years.

  “In the red corner; standing at six feet and two inches, and weighing in at two hundred pounds even. Returning for his tenth world championship title, in his own hometown New York City! In the Bronx! The reigning World Champion of Astafar Unlimited! The One. The Only. The Master. The Victorious. The Undefeated. Leo, The Lion, Lennox!”

  Now I did wince as the crowd screamed my name. They had upgraded the old Yankee Stadium to fit in more people, and Astafar Unlimited had decided to hold the World Championships here, partially because of the new and improved stadium and partially because I had grown up in the Bronx, and they figured it would get more people to come to the event at a higher ticket price.

  They were correct. There must have been over a hundred thousand people in the stadium, and the seating area climbed the sky like a tidal wave of rainbow sparkling water. Earlier this year they had thought about renaming Yankee Stadium after me. No one really played baseball anymore, and the last memories of the sport were long forgotten. The New York mayor had asked me if I wanted the honor, but I had declined. My father had once spun me the tales of the old game. I didn’t feel as if I deserved to take the name from the city landmark.

  The announcer gestured to the line between Jin and me. We stepped up to it and shook hands. The man was a hothead, and I wasn’t surprised when he pushed his chest against mine.

  "Lions make their women hunt for them. Your career will be over in a few minutes,” he hissed as he pushed his nose against mine and glared into my eyes.

  I laughed.

  Maybe Jin had expected me to get mad or to throw an insult back at him, anything but my laughter. My smile threw him off, and one of the officials stepped between us and pushed our chests apart with his arms. The crowd loved the exchange, and I kept wondering if they could possibly scream any louder.

  “The battle is three rounds. Each round will have a small time assignment where the fighters will be allowed to pick their skills. Gentlemen, please take your places in your omni stations and prepare for battle!” The announcer raised his hands and elongated the word ‘battle’ so that it lasted half a minute.

  “He is going to pick the Arcane class,” Bantog said as my entourage huddled around me. He was a small Filipino man who was my fighting instructor. Bantog probably weighed one hundred and twenty pounds soaking wet, but the man was a master of practically every martial art on the planet, and I once saw him bend Calic around like he was forming a pretzel out of raw dough. I had hired him six years ago, and his knowledge of the Filipino weapon martial arts, along with the historical European martial arts, kendo, and fencing, had helped raise my professional game level to heights I’d never dreamed possible.

  “He might do Summoner, but I agree with Bantog,” Garf yelled over the screams of the crowd.

  “Doesn’t matter what he picks, Leo’s gonna smash him, but I’m picking DaggerDancer class,” Jax said with a smirk.

  “Champ!” one of the officials yelled and pointed to my omni station. I nodded at him and then entered the wire mesh of the machine.

  The techs attached the visor to my head first, and then pushed the audio buds against my ears. Then they tightened the movement brace against my stomach. They asked me to check the running pad, and I executed the required set of running, jumping, squatting, and strafing check patterns on the mobile platform under the omni station. The green lights flashed on my eyepiece after I finished the test, and the techs moved to attach the sensors to my triceps, forearms, and gloves. Then the techs asked me to test my upper body movements, and I complied with the standard test sequences of swings and blocking movements.

  “Skill selection starts in ten, nine, eight, seven,” the announcer began to yell, and the crowd counted with him. My visor tinted, splattered with white, turned to a string of flashing data terminals, and then the universe of Astafar Unlimited materialized around me.

  I was in the avatar selection screen, and I saw that the branding and background had been updated to show the World Championship games. My avatars floated in the sky like Shaolin monks that had achieved enlightenment, and I walked toward the one I almost always used. It was one of the Corina race themed ones. Half human and half cat looking. Mine, in particular, had a large mane coming off the back of his head and shoulder area.

  “Three, two, one! Let’s get ready to rumble!” The announcer shouted, and I could hear the crowd scream past the noise-cancellation technology of my ear pieces.

  I stood in a dusty stone room lit by only a dim lantern. A dozen different tables lined the sandstone walls. Each table bore the weapon sets of the various classes. I would have four choices for each off hand, four choices for my main hand, or I had three choices if I wanted to pick a two-handed weapon. Each piece of equipment had different effects on the various skills that I could use, and my avatar would be able to carry two unique sets of equipment.

  The selection timer appeared in the air. The lettering was a digital clock display, but the numbers burned with a detailed fire, and it began to count down from thirty seconds.

  I walked to the Defender-class table, and my body was suddenly wrapped in a gleaming suit of full plate armor. The Astafar Unlimited programmers had created special armor for my tenth world series, and there were etchings of lions all over the silver plates I now wore. The Defender wasn’t a class I had ever played in a World Championship, or that anyone had ever seen me play. In fact, it was known to be the worst class for one on one dueling. It did almost no damage, and only had a series of de-buffs, bleeds, and skills that served to soak up damage in dungeon crawls. I was known for playing a two-handed ax-wielding Zerker class, or a DaggerDancer, or even a Distorter.

  I grabbed an iron shield with my left hand, then a dagger with my right. The game accepted my selection and the weapons appeared on my hips. They were weightless of course, everything was virtual in the game, but I felt some satisfaction when I saw them on my body.

  I next reached for the two-handed maul. It was a massive looking weapon, and there were more lion designs on the side of the metal head. Most players of Astafar Unlimited would believe that the maul was the only useful way to play a Defender class since the weapon added the occasional armor breaking and stun chances to strikes, but they argued that it was too slow to swing for most duels.

  They were correct, but I picked the weapon regardless, and held my arm in front of me so that it looked like the virtual weapon’s massive weight rested on my armored shoulder.

  The clock was at twenty-four seconds.

  The tables crumbled into dust on the floor and a wooden display shelf sprung from the ground in front of me. Astafar Unlimited had over six hundred skills to choose from, but a player was only allowed to use eight ‘active’ skills, which could be triggered, along with two ‘passive’ skills, which were always working.

  Build crafting was a giant, complicated part of Astafar Unlimited and the developers were constantly tweaking skills to ensure that the gameplay stayed fresh. I had spent countless hours of my life analyzing, debating, and testing various skill combinations with the different classes. I was fortunate that Garf and Jax were both world class players, and they understood the skill combinations of these games better than I thought the game designers actually did.

  Eighteen seconds.

  I lifted my left hand to the wooden panel and gestured at the skills that hung suspended on the shelf. As I pointed at each one, they illuminated with either a white or blue glow. The white meant that they were base skills that any class had access to use. The blue meant that they were unique to the Defender class. I closed my fist as I pointed to the first one, and I saw it fill an icon slot at the bo
ttom of my visual space.

  Slot 1- Unleash the Red (Base) - The next attack will cause the target to bleed weapon damage x 1 for 30 seconds. (Dagger- Bleed lasts for 90 seconds and can stack 5 times) (Maul- Target has a 50% chance to be stunned for 3 seconds) - Skill has an 8 second cool down.

  Slot 2- Flick (Base) - Toss your weapon at the target causing 50% weapon damage. (Dagger - causes Bleeding) (Maul - Target has a 25% chance to be stunned for 3 seconds) - Skill has a 10-second cool down.

  Slot 3- Trip (Base) - Attack your target’s legs causing weapon damage x 0.5 and slowing them for 5 seconds. (Dagger - causes Bleeding) (Maul - Target has a 25% chance to be stunned for 3 seconds) - Skill has a 12 second cool down.

  Slot 4- Passive Aggressive (Defender) - If your next attack hits, your target’s damage is reduced by 40% for the next 10 seconds. (Dagger - causes Bleeding) (Maul - Target also attacks 10% slower for the next 10 seconds) - Skill has 14-second cool down.

  Slot 5- Shield of Justice (Defender) - for the next 5 seconds, all damage received is reflected onto the attacker. (Iron Shield- ends all movement debuffs on you) (Maul - skill not available) - Skill has 15-second cool down.

  Slot 6- Lawful Seizure (Defender) - Your next attack has a 90% chance of removing all of the target’s buffs. You will acquire these buffs for half of their remaining duration. (Dagger - transfer your debuffs to target) (Maul - you gain the buffs for their full duration)- Skill has a 10-second cool down.

  Slot 7 - Justice is Calling! (Defender) - Battle cry, all opponents within a 40-foot range are pulled toward you. (Iron Shield - ends all movement debuffs on you) (Dagger - Target receives 3 stacks of Bleed) (Maul - Target is stunned for 3 seconds) - Skill has 10-second cool down.