However, the impact sent Apollo staggering backwards. The ball ricocheted off him and flew awkwardly into the goal.
The Academy team had scored their sixty points.
Chapter XXI
“They’ve done it!” Loki said at the top of his lungs. “The Divine Protector Academy has won the first annual God Games! They managed to overcome impossible odds and legendary deities. I simply cannot believe it!” The crowd cheered for the students, who allowed themselves to drink in their victory.
Set shouted to be heard above the din. “No! This is outrageous! They can’t have won! They must have cheated somehow.”
Wagging a chastising finger at him, Loki replied, “They followed the rules exactly.”
“No!” Set roared. “This is injustice!”
Loki turned his attention back to the winning team. “Now then, are you ready to learn the location of the Flawless Few?”
“More than ready,” Ev said.
“Splendid! Marvelous! All you have to do now is direct your attention to the ceiling.”
They did so, and the ceiling abruptly shimmered and disappeared, replaced by the Dokiu sky. By now, dusk had set in, and a few faint stars could be seen amongst the orange glow.
Daryn said, “I don’t get it. Where’s Zero Grade’s base.”
Loki pointed upward and said, “There. What do you see?”
They shrugged. “The sky,” Ev said.
“Very good, but what’s in the sky? What has just appeared?”
And that was when they knew. Aside from a few stars, there was only one thing in the sky.
“The moon,” Maya said softly.
“Son of a bitch,” Daryn said.
“That’s why we could never find them. They weren’t on Narska at all,” a stunned Ev said. Up above, the white celestial body shone with brilliance. Despite countless meteor impacts over the years, it was a thing of absolute beauty.
“Damn you!” Set roared. “The location of Olympus has been a closely guarded secret for millennia! You’ll pay for revealing it.” He lunged forward, planting his fist in Loki’s mask.
But there was no effect. Loki held up a wagging finger. “Tsk, tsk. We expected to see sore losers here today, so we took the liberty of setting up the God Dampener beforehand. You’re all powerless now. And since you’ve decided to be poor guests, I think we’ll just remove you from our presence.” He snapped his fingers, and the ceiling reappeared. A panel slid open overhead, and a blinding white light shot down, engulfing the Zero Grade team. They had a fraction of a second to cry out before being reduced to ashes.
Ev knew he should say something, to declare his outrage over this wanton slaughter. But honestly, he was sorry more of Zero Grade wouldn’t die today. They deserved it, each and every one of them.
Loki bent down and picked up a tiny metal object from the ashes. “Marvelous! A listening device. They came prepared. Now Zero Grade knows they lost the God Games.”
Daryn, ignoring the device, whispered in Ev’s ear, “That’s less we have to worry about, but what are we going to do about Captain Crazy over there?”
“We stop them,” Ev replied.
“Look around you. There isn’t an empty seat in this place. There must be thousands of enemies—who have us surrounded, by the way—and we’re worn out from the God Games.”
He had a point. A very good one, in fact. “We’ll… think of something.”
“Daryn’s right,” Maya said. “We just barely managed to beat five gods. We can’t take on an entire ship of them as exhausted as we are. We should leave and deal with them later, when we’ve got the entire Academy backing us up.”
She made a lot of sense. Still… “We have to stop them while we’re inside the ship. If we attack from the outside later on, they’ll just blow us away with their cannons.”
“I hear you, mate. Don’t think they’ll be inviting us back in any time soon. We may never have a better chance than this.”
CiCi shook her head vigorously. “They have the God Dampener. If we try to fight them now, we’ll just get vaporized like Set’s team. Face it, guys, we need to leave. Now.”
“I…” Ev was now faced with an impossible choice. Should he leave Carnaval to run free, or risk getting his friends killed? Dammit, what would the professors do?
As the seconds ticked by, his friends looked to him to make a decision. He wasn’t sure how or when, but it seemed he had become the team’s de facto leader. You’ve got to make a decision now, Ev. Run or fight? Run or fight? Which is it? THINK!
Without warning, the entire complex shook from the force of an unknown impact. Everyone was thrown off their feet. Overhead, the lights flickered violently, creating a strobe effect, and the deck tilted.
But it was the audience that showed the most dramatic consequences of the sudden power failure. Before Ev’s eyes, they suddenly blinked out of existence. “What the hell?”
They quickly got back to their feet. “What happened to the crowd?” Maya asked over the groaning of the ship. Within moments, it managed to right itself, and the lights came back on.
Ev suddenly realized exactly what had happened. “They were never there. The audience was fake.”
Daryn stared at him, dumbfounded. “What, you mean like holograms or something?”
“Yeah. During the God Games, I couldn’t help but think their reactions were always the same length and intensity. They were pre-programmed. There was never anyone in the stands.”
CiCi said, “But, then, the majority of the crew…”
“Probably died a long time ago,” Ev said.
“But they can’t all be holograms,” Maya said. “Those guys are still here.” She pointed to where Loki and a handful of his compatriots were standing.
Ev approached them. “Most of your friends died when you got warped to Gehenna at the end of the previous universe, didn’t they?”
Loki shrugged as if he couldn’t care less. “Who can say? I seem to recall instances of explosive decompression, failing stasis pods and limited food. It is certainly possible there wasn’t enough to keep everyone alive. Oh, and a bloody battle for remaining resources can’t be ruled out, either.”
“And the animals up above?” CiCi said. “Are they holograms as well?”
“Well, if there wasn’t enough food for the crew, there certainly wouldn’t have been enough for animals,” Loki said.
Maya said somberly, “I actually feel sorry for them.”
“Never mind that,” Ev said. “I now count five of them instead of an entire army. We can take them down here and now.”
Loki laughed at the mere suggestion. “Hilarious! Side-splitting! You actually think you exhausted students can defeat us? Remember, we still hold an overwhelming advantage here. For instance…” He snapped his fingers. However, the result was a lethargic whine. He snapped them again, but this time didn’t get any response. “Ragnarok!”
A soothing female voice responded, “Yes, Commander Loki.”
“Activate the God Dampener on all non-crew members.”
“God Dampener is offline. Severe damage to systems from an unknown external force.”
“What external force?” Loki asked.
“It appears to be a previously unknown weapon. I am not registering any enemies in the area.”
“Blast! Drat! Well, then, activate all internal defenses and deploy them against all non-crew members.”
“Internal defenses are insufficient to harm the non-registered entities presently on board. Sufficient weaponry was used to line the race course and is not available in here.”
Loki gave a frustrated groan and then sighed. “Very well. It seems we’ll have to deal with you five ourselves until the ship can repair itself.”
“Good luck with that,” a skeptical Jaysin said.
Ev agreed. “We just beat five veteran gods. We can take you.”
“Not so fast!” Loki said. “Vidar, show them your mime power.”
The god in the b
lack leotard and white face paint stepped forward. Without uttering a word, he began acting as if he was trapped inside an invisible box. This went on for a full minute before Ev got bored with the display.
“Screw this, it’s time to—”
He took a step and suddenly banged his head against something. He reached out and touched a wall he couldn’t see. He backed up, but hit another wall. Feeling around, he realized he was trapped inside an invisible box.
“What’s going on?” Maya said. “I’m stuck inside… I don’t know!”
It was then Ev realized each of them was trapped inside their own boxes. He began frantically pounding on his unseen prison, but it might as well have been made of haradium for all the good it did him. There was no way out.
“Not feeling so confident now, are we?” Loki said, clearly pleased with himself.
“Let us out of here!” Daryn said.
“Oh, we will,” Loki said. “As soon as we have our defenses repaired. Until then, you can stay inside those boxes.”
Ev continued to pummel the invisible walls, but even with his gauntlets, it was futile; they weren’t going anywhere. Dammit! We were so close to ending this threat.
“What do we do?” CiCi said, panic creeping into her voice.
Maya replied, “Calm down.”
“I can’t calm down! I’m claustrophobic, Maya! I have to get out of here!” She began frantically moving about her box, searching desperately for a way out.
“CiCi!” Maya said. “You have to avoid thinking about it. Focus on the sound of my voice. Can you do that?”
“I—I don’t know!”
“Look at me! Concentrate on me and me alone. There is no box, there is only me. Focus!”
CiCi stared at her. She repeated, “There is no box. There is only you. I think… I think it’s working.” Her breathing visibly slowed, and Ev could tell she wasn’t as panicked.
Maya said, “All right, then. We have to approach this logically. Loki called this ‘mime power’. That implies it has to do with mimicry. That guy pretended he was trapped inside a box, and then we became trapped for real.”
“What are you thinking?” Ev said.
“I’m thinking, maybe mimicry is the key to getting us out of here. Let’s play along. Everyone, pretend there’s a door in front of you and open it.”
“Absurd! Ridiculous! That is most certainly not the way to escape. There is no escape, I assure you,” a nervous Loki said.
This sounded insane, but what the hell. Ev visualized a door and then reached out to grab the non-existent knob. He turned it slowly and pushed outward.
He took a step forward. Nothing stopped him this time. Maya and the others did the same, and Ev breathed a sigh of relief. They had escaped and could now bring the fight to Loki and his merry band of lunatics.
“Damn! Curses! We underestimated you. But don’t think you’ve won just because you got out of a simple trap. No, now you face the full might of Carnaval!”
Ev balled his hand into a resolute fist. “Bring it on! We’re not backing down.”
“Frigga!” Loki said. “Show these fools the power of a Norse god.”
A black-masked woman with long locks of flowing red hair, skimpily dressed in leather, pulled out a whip and snapped it at Ev. He didn’t expect much…
…but boy was he surprised.
The whip hit him with explosive force, hurling him backwards into the wall. He made a second rubble heap next to the one Dionysus had left.
* * *
“Ev!” Maya yelled. Ev was down and possibly even unconscious; the rest of them might be on their own.
Seeing no other choice, Maya conjured her bow and took aim at Frigga. She let fly several arrows, but the strange woman swatted them out of the air. Frigga responded by snapping her whip at Maya, but the student had already seen what that thing was capable of and wasted no time leaping backwards. The whip hit the floor, splintering it.
“Horus! Get them!” Loki commanded. A man with the head of a bird, not unlike Ra, but with actual wings, flew forward with incredible speed. He slashed at Maya with his wings, and she had to duck, sacrificing numerous strands of hair to avoid being decapitated.
Horus swung at her again with his other wing, forcing her to block with her bow. The weapon proved no match for his razor-sharp feathers, however, and was quickly sliced in two. Maya fell backwards to avoid suffering the same fate.
Horus was on top of her now. “For Carnaval!” he cried as he brought a wing down to cleave her in two. But at the last moment, there was a thud and his head snapped forward. He then fell forward onto Maya. A big hammer had clocked him from behind, and Daryn stood there. He rolled Horus off of her and then offered her his hand which she wasted no time taking. Daryn helped her up, and they stood ready to face the rest of Loki’s forces.
Loki quickly turned his attention to a hulking masked figure that carried a large black truncheon with a thick head. Like the others, the bruiser was dressed in bright colors and festive garb, but he looked in no mood to party. “Get them, Gurzil!”
Gurzil nodded and began stomping forward, his every step a violent echo. Maya gulped; she didn’t know how on Narska they were going to stop this one.
Out of the corner of her eye, Daryn stepped forward past her. “Leave this one to me.”
“Uh… OK. Good luck, Daryn.”
He smiled. “Heh. I think that’s the first time you’ve ever cheered me on.”
“Right,” she said. “Sorry. About everything.”
“You don’t need to apologize anymore. I forgive you, Maya.” Those words warmed her heart, and she felt her confidence returning.
Daryn and Gurzil collided, their oversized weapons locked in fierce combat. Despite being outmatched in terms of size, Daryn was holding his own against the brute.
Maya didn’t have time to observe the spectacular clash because Frigga resumed her attack. Her whip began striking so fast it seemed there were half a dozen of them, and it was all she and CiCi could do to avoid getting blasted back like Ev. In fact, as far as she knew, he hadn’t even recovered yet.
Suddenly, Jaysin was in front of them, striking the ground with his staff. The whip flew upwards and away from them. Frigga grunted in annoyance at the interference. “In a hurry to die, are we? Patience, patience, my sweet fools. Or is it punishment you crave? If so, you’ve come to the right place.”
“This bitch is seriously crazy,” Maya said.
“Enough,” Frigga said. “I’m the only one here qualified to dispense abuse. Now, you’ve all been bad boys, so come here for your punishment.”
Maya stared at her. “But I’m not—”
Jaysin said, “Maya, forget it. There’s no reasoning with these jackos. Let’s just take them down and be done with it.”
“Fine.” She conjured another bow and again took aim at Frigga.
CiCi had her chakrams ready. “The three of us should be enough to take her down.”
“Focus on offense, you two. I’ll deflect her whip with my staff.”
“Got it,” Maya said.
“Not so fast, you naughty boys,” Frigga said. She stroked her whip lovingly, and before their eyes a dozen more whips grew out of it, until it resembled a mythical multi-headed serpent. “Now, let me show you what my baby can really do.”
Frigga snapped her new multi-whip, and all thirteen heads began attacking independently. Jaysin used his staff to try and fight them off, but there were too many of them. Within a few moments, the students were struck and flew backwards. Jaysin managed to catch CiCi, but both of them still went flying.
But while Jaysin hit the wall, someone caught Maya. She looked up at her knight in shining gauntlets. “Ev!”
“Sorry about that,” he said. “I kinda got knocked out there for a minute.” He surveyed the complex. “I see Daryn’s fighting that ugly cuck socker. Looks like he’s doing pretty well despite being half that guy’s size.”
Jaysin’s voice called out behind th
em, “Wish we could say the same. Thanks for catching me, by the way.”
Ev replied, “Relax. You’re a big boy; you can handle yourself. Besides, you recovered a lot faster than I me.”
Jaysin walked gingerly over to them. “That whip packs a punch, and I can’t fight it off now that it’s all grown up.”
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