by L Cross
I’d been too busy with my one-sided monologue about Morgan, that I hadn’t noticed Wyn sidling up to me. His lean, athletic build was made for stealth. "How was the rest of your day after Weapons. Get to see the Merlin?“
My stomach fluttered at the fact that Wyn remembered a tiny detail like that. I shrugged to cover up how I felt. "No big deal. I had a meeting with the Merlin where she basically said, ‘stay-alive-I-can’t-stay-gotta-go’ before she teleported away from me. Ate my body weight in pizza. Washed it down with the blood of my enemies. The usual."
Wyn smiled. “I think we might have been the reason for the Merlin’s distraction. Roark, our weapons master and unofficial Head Warden came back from the field sooner than planned. Which I guess it’s good so you recruits can get a proper class sooner than expected. Get you on that rank.”
I rolled my eyes. “Rank. That sounds so extra. Is it really that necessary?”
“It's good to see not everyone is obsessed with their rank and score."
Damn, it took all my willpower not to step in just a little bit closer to him. Wyn was magnetic with that soft voice and warm hazel eyes.
I had to work not to lean in and inhale whatever spicy scent lingered around him.
Giving myself a mental shake, I tried reaching for anything resembling intelligent conversation. "What is with these ranks, anyway? Why are they so important?"
Wyn smiled in thought, and I pretended not to feel my heart racing in my chest. "It’s not the rank really, but what the rank represents."
"Okay, I'll bite. What does the rank represent?"
His eyes twinkled. "If I told you, it would level the playing ground."
"Why you little—"
I had a few choice insults for the man, except Hanami huffed her way back to us.
She shoved a laser gun at me. "Look alive, Tu tu. Gotta get those kills in." She eyeballed Wyn. "Watch your back." Hanami pulled me along beside her.
When we were away from the rest of the group, I asked her, "I thought we were all on the same team? It'll be fun just killing people."
"Yeah, it'll be fun. As long as we get more kills as them. That'll be fun." Hanami locked and loaded her laser tag gun as seriously as any dedicated soldier in the battlefield.
I found Kat and linked arms with her. "Who the hell is she, and what did she do with our sweet roommate?"
Kat laughed. "This is our sweet roommate…when she's pissed and out for blood." She clapped me on the shoulder. "Let's do this."
The “Get Ready!” light blinked again, the pace increasing until it turned red and steady. The gates pushed in with a pneumatic hiss, and Hanami pushed through with the rest of the team on her heels.
The girls started out ahead. As much as we were on the same team, it was clear that Hanami would have been perfectly content carrying our numbers. She shot at anything that moved, even if they were potential civilians.
She was out for blood and easily taking it out on the digital masses.
I did pretty decently myself.
At a couple of times, the laser fight got me dangerously close to the guys, but I always had an excuse to break apart from them and get back to Kat.
I refused to be one of those girls that sold her friends out for a hot body and a nice smile.
Sisters before misters, and all that.
Not that it mattered much now that the game was in play. Amid loud noises and overbearing techno music, we forgot about the guys and just had fun. Even I followed in Hanami’s footsteps, merrily killing round after round of enemies.
Nothing like a little target practice to get the aggression out of your system.
Soon, the only enemy left to find was the boss. We all were trying to find it in the looping maze, but many have been tagged out.
I scoped the big screen that hung above our maze and listed the names of the players that had been tagged out. Of the names on the board, I only recognized Dara.
Dara was one of the first to go. But I wondered how seriously she had played since she had gotten pretty cozy with one of the new guys that showed up. Conveniently, he had also been tagged out early. Neither of them cared about winning as much as they were trying to get under each other’s shirts.
The rest of the guys I lost track of soon after, since they branched off toward another path in this maze.
The fog machine was working overtime. I couldn’t see Kat who had been ahead by just a few feet. Now she was nowhere in sight. She wasn't listed on the board so she was still in play somewhere.
I was surprised to see that Santiago was still fine, too, wherever she was. She had disappeared soon after we piled into our maze.
"Tu, on my six," Hanami roared out.
I scrambled ahead, wondering where she’d come from. "Dude you're not even a Merlin yet and already telling me what to do," I teased.
"Best get used to it," she said before jumping into another fray.
Her bloodthirsty zeal was contagious, and I found myself laughing maniacally at all the enemies that died at my hand until we were the last two standing.
We saluted each other with our blazing laser guns. A panel slid open, revealing the path toward the castle in the middle of the maze. That was the way to finally get to the boss.
“Let’s kill the boss and win!”
“And pizza!” I added, which became our battlecry.
As we were shouting “Pizza!” a streak of blond tumbled toward us from out of another secret panel that hadn’t been there a moment ago.
It was Lance, confused as if he didn’t know how he got there. "Lance?"
Confusion easily gave way to a triumphant smile. “Finally!” He lifted his gun toward Hanami. I reacted on instinct and pushed her out of the way. I still caught a glancing blow.
My vest lit up, sending percussive sensations around my rib cage indicating a hit. It wasn't fatal enough to tag me out, but it was still a hit. "Dude what the fuck?"
Hanami didn't pause. She’d turned as soon as I’d pushed her and tagged Lance out—along with Wyn and Morgan who had also stumbled out of the secret panel—in a barrage of laser light show.
"I knew you'd cheat. Once a cheater, always a cheater." Hanami was almost rabid as she hurled insults at them.
Damn, I didn't need to be a Merlin or a fortune-reading Fae to know what that might be referring to.
Okay.
Well, while they were distracted with their drama, there was still a boss to kill. Hanami would understand.
"Where do you think you're going?" Morgan sneered at me.
"I don't think dead people can speak," I said. I shot him, tagged him out again just for kicks. And though he was supposed to be dead anyway, the vest still thumped against his chest.
"You bitch."
I saluted him and ran after Hanami toward the last round. I nearly bowled over Santiago as I ran out of there. She looked dazed and a little lost, like a baby deer blinking into bright headlights. "Hey Santiago! Good to see you! Did you see Hanami?” Up ahead, Hanami’s pink ponytails swished behind her. “Come on, let’s catch up and win." I tapped her laser gun with mine in a kind of toast.
"Yes, let's win."
Her voice sounded weird, but I didn’t think anything of it. Not until I rushed past her toward the castle and she tagged me out.
My vest thumped against me. It didn't hurt but damn it was still a shock. "What the—?" Then, Santiago went to the boss level room with a savage grin. I saw my name added to the board, and I could do nothing else but stand there in shock.
Damn, these people were intense.
"Dude, you dead, too?" Kat said from behind me.
"Yeah, Santiago hit me! Clearly, she's got some unresolved anger issues toward me or something." So much for building bridges and making friends.
"Don't worry, I got her," Kat called out.
Before Kat was able to run up to the castle, a blood-curdling scream sounded from the inside.
And then, a large creature with curling horns drove through the w
all. It huffed through its nose. Red-veins in his eyes, large muscles, goat body and bat wings.
It swung its head in our direction, its gaze heavy and piercing. Then, it spread its wings savagely into the air and let out a bellowing cry, hellfire erupting around it.
6
Another Day Another Demon
I should have been scared. But the first thought that came to mind was that we hadn’t learned about this kind of creature yet.
Snap out of it. This isn’t a fucking class.
“Do you see Santiago?” I yelled at Kat.
She shook her head, eyes locked on the creature in front of her. “Maybe she dodged it?”
Man I hoped so. Being cut down by a demon-like thing wouldn’t be my first choice to die. Not like I’d want to die at all.
Hanami hopscotched behind one rock to the other in poofs of smoke. That was a handy spell to have. She signaled for us to be quiet and hide around the debris.
I was still concerned that I couldn’t find Santiago. Bitch or no, I didn’t want to know that she’d been hurt by this thing or worse. Killed.
Hanami scurried up beside me. “The guys went around the other side of it.”
“Do you know what it is?” I asked.
“It’s supposed to look like a demon general, buuuuut it’s not vibing like one.”
The fact that Hanami was so chill about a bellowing demon in front of us made me feel better. “Like, is it fake? A weird hologram for this laser tag game?”
“I doubt this would be part of the game’s repertoire, that’s for sure,” Kat said. “As for thinking if it’s a real thing or not.” She seesawed her head as if it could go either way.
Hanami interjected. “Oh, that thing is definitely a real something. But it’s not a demon general.”
I trusted that Hanami would know more but the shaggy beast with glowing red eyes triggered all the scary vibes in my body. “I know you’re in an advanced-advanced program and all, but how can you be sure?” I asked.
“For one: we’re alive.”
Well, that was comforting.
“If it were a true demon general, its entrance into our world would take out, like, a city block to cover the amount of human sacrifices needed to balance that kind of magical outlay. For two: Aside from being ridiculously loud, it’s not done any significant damage. It’s just standing there.”
Huh. I dared myself to peek at it again, and without the overwhelming fear riding me, I saw that it was indeed just standing there.
Seething.
Almost like it was waiting for something.
Better yet...that it was looking for something. Or, someone.
“For all I’ve read, no demon of real power is gonna just be standing around here doing nothing,” Hanami insisted.
“Shapeshifter?” Kat suggested.
Hanami nodded. “That feels more like it.” She seemed unsure, though, which wasn’t really like her. Everything she did was always overflowing with confidence. “Odd. I’ve never had any problems seeing through glamour for shapeshifting, though.” She shook her head, her pink ponytails swishing along her body.
“What are we gonna do?” I wondered more to myself than to anyone in particular. I couldn’t help but feel like the innocent bystander rather than a recruit with traces of magical power.
Not for the first time did I wonder why I’d even been recruited to The Sword of Avalon Academy. For all the magic I supposedly inherited, I didn’t feel particularly powerful or learned.
Kat and Hanami already knew so much despite it only being the start of their second year here. How in the hell was I ever going to get to their level?
“I already contacted the mages and they’re sending some knights our way just in case. They might have told us to standby and protect any of the non-magical community,” Hanami shrugged. Unspoken was the idea that she had already considered that course of action as a given, and moved on to creating her own plans.
“But we’re gonna formulate our own plan to stop this thing?” I finished what she had left unspoken.
“Why not? Imagine the lift in our ranks,” she said.
“Oh for crying out loud, when we get back to our room, you’re gonna have to explain what the hell these rankings are and why I should care about them.”
Before Hanami could say anything, her face twisted in mottled rage. “Those mother fuckers!”
I followed her line of sight and saw shadows flickering opposite the light show. The silhouettes looked like the burly outlines of some of the guys, and I was guessing that what they were doing now was not part of Hanami’s plan.
“Don’t they understand that I’m the Merlin around here?” With a huff she poofed away again.
Kat and I shared a look. “Okay, does that mean we just stay here?” I asked.
Kat rolled her eyes. “Your guess is as good as mine.” Something shifted, and one of the fake walls from the obstacle course started tilting.
We scrambled to get out of the way, ducking behind the fake building where the final boss would have been. Through the window, I thought I saw movement inside. “Is that Santiago?” I asked. The shadowy figure darted forward, right toward the demon. In the flashes of light from the laser tag, I saw Santiago’s face, pale and stricken with fear.
What was she doing?
Kat and I looked at each other before running after her. We got to her just as she shouted something. A flash from the end of her finger lit up the space. The guys shone in sharp relief from the shadows, Hanami, too, arms thrown up to cover her eyes.
All of them seemed to be in the blast zone of either the demon’s claws, the blinding spell, or the falling wall.
Everything seemed to freeze in a horrifying stillness.
In the span of one breath, time rushed in again. The blast of the spell lifted the demon off its hooves, its claws merely glancing off of Hanami. It slammed into the falling wall with a crack that sent it crumbling in the opposite direction from the other knights, who were pushed back by the force of that spell.
Carefully, we crawled over the debris to where Hanami sat nursing her arm.
“Dara? Where’s Dara?” I called out. She was great with healing, or at least making others feel better. “Hanami, you okay?” I asked her. Her eyes were disbelieving and glassy, as if she was in shock.
“I’m okay. Just a little blinded, but I’ll be fine.”
I didn’t like the way she stared into nothing, eyes blinking and empty. I touched her shoulders. “Just stay here.”
Kat had already joined Santiago who checked on the fallen creature that was disintegrating in a charred mess.
I repeated my command to stay, and Hanami listened to me without a word. Thankfully a weepy Dara had arrived to sit with her and start the process of healing the stunned would-be Merlin.
I went over to the knights to see what they had to say. “What the hell happened?” I asked.
The obstacle course was already rife with pulsating lights, noises, and an overactive fog machine. I hadn’t noticed the growing mists until mages strolled through them, and circled around us.
Eyes blazing and fierce, a compact woman whose cloak swirled around her in a shimmering white cloud demanded our attention. “That’s exactly what we would like to know as well,” the Merlin said.
7
Rank-N-File
"Well that could have been worse."
"Yeah, but it should have been better," I said dropping onto the sofa of our shared living space.
Our suite was divided in half, with Kat and Dara sharing one side of the suite with a bathroom between them, and Hanami and I, the other side. I kind of got the better end of the deal since Hanami was hardly here thanks to her advanced studies. The academic school year had yet to start, and she was already on campus all day. She’d face plant long after I’d turn in for the night and would leave before any of us did.
And here I thought that kind of thing wouldn't happen until at least mid-term or final exams.
&n
bsp; "Well, at least Dara got something out of this ordeal," I said.
Kat snickered, rolling her eyes as she pulled open the freezer door. "Yeah, well the girl's able to find the good in any situation."
I smiled to myself.
Dara had found herself a little snuggle hottie. She was tagged out early and ended up spending more time making out with the guy than actual playing. But hey it all worked out, because when the shit hit the fan, they were the ones that called out to the mages and the Merlin.
I was trying to finger comb the ceiling plaster out of my hair. Hopefully, all this dust wouldn’t form into concrete when I try to wash it out later. Maybe, Hanami could share her hair spells with me, too. "What was that guy's name anyway?"
Half of Kat’s body disappeared into the refrigerator. "I dunno, Gunther maybe? Something like that...oh score! Leftovers!"
"Praise Jesus," I declared, and hopped up to the kitchen area to see what was there to scavenge. "Damn, leftover Chinese and some frozen fries. Light 'em up!"
Thanks to the botched laser tag and the subsequent questioning by the Merlin, we didn't get to hit up a restaurant like we’d planned for pizza and half-priced appetizers. All thoughts of the bet burnt up along with the demon.
The mages were still looking for it, the last we’d heard.
The bet might have been long forgotten, but facing down a demon in a possible life or death situation kinda worked up an appetite. At least for me. Not that it would take much to get me to hunt for food.
Between bites of greasy leftovers and fried food, Kat and I talked about the laser tag fray, and threw down our own theories of what happened, including who was standing where and when.
"I wonder what the guys told the Merlin," I said. "You think they threw us under the bus?"
"With what? Conjuring up a demon?” Kat waved her hand at the notion. “They need to thank us for trying to save lives, is what they ought to be doing. First of all, we were the ones who were there first to see the demon thing. Second, it's not like we planned anything to happen. Third, those guys would be stupid to try to pin any collateral damage on anyone or anything other than a freak coincidence."
