Former Champion (Vanderbrook Champions Book 5)

by Edmund Hughes

  “Maybe not overnight,” admitted Fantasy. “But it isn’t impossible. The world has already been knocked out of its old habits. What becomes of it while it’s built back up… is all a matter of choice.”

  The illusion faded. Malcolm looked over at Fantasy and blinked in surprise. She’d stripped off her dress and was slowly sliding into the bath across from him. His eyes were drawn to the large nipples of her breasts, which were still mostly hidden by her long blonde hair.

  “What are you –”

  “Shh…” said Fantasy. “Don’t say anything.”

  Malcolm glanced down, catching sight of his own reflection in the water. Or rather, catching sight of the face of the boy Fantasy had loved, overlain onto his own features through her illusion.

  “Fantasy,” he said. “Not cool. I’m not interested in playing your games.”

  Her cheeks reddened, and for a moment, Malcolm thought she was going to relent. Instead, she slid in closer to him within the tub, pushing her finger flat against his lips and closing her eyes. She looked like she was ashamed of herself, but clearly had no intention of stopping.

  She could do worse things with her illusions, I guess.

  He felt his lower half rousing to her proximity. Malcolm didn’t stop Fantasy as she lowered herself onto him and slowly began to move. It meant something else to her, something beyond simple pleasure. Something beyond Malcolm. He was just a stand-in for feelings destined for someone else.

  But somehow, he found that he didn’t care. He was clean and fed for the first time in months. He was safe, and among the closest thing he had anymore to friends. And most importantly, he had a clue that could lead him to Rose.

  He thought of Rose, and let himself imagine that it was her slowly riding him in the hot, wet tub. Fantasy caught his eye, and seemed to read his thoughts. She raised an eyebrow, asking him if he wanted her to use her illusions to complete the deception. It took all the willpower Malcolm had to keep from nodding.

  Fantasy continued, using him for her pleasure and caring little for Malcolm’s own release. She let out tiny, sad moans, as though the sensation still reminded her of her forgotten, lost love. Malcolm let his hands run over her breasts, approaching the encounter with his desire balanced by passive acceptance.

  Her movements were sensual and deliberate. Malcolm came before she did, letting out a somewhat embarrassed grunt as he released. Fantasy didn’t care. She didn’t even notice. She kept riding him, her movements prolonging his hardness, until she let out her own cry of ecstasy and shuddered atop his lap.

  CHAPTER 10

  Neither of them said anything more to each other, though Fantasy spent another few minutes helping Malcolm wash up. She handed him a towel when he climbed out of the bath, and then once he’d dried off, fresh clothing.

  Malcolm pulled on a t-shirt and jeans, only noticing that Fantasy had also brought him a pair of boots once he’d finished donning his socks. He thanked her for them and followed her back into Underworld’s main chamber.

  “You should get some rest,” said Fantasy. “It might be a while before Shield Maiden gets back.”

  He slept in the same room that had once been appropriated for him and Rose, during his first, less than willing visit. It was surprisingly easy for him to get some sleep, and he wasn’t sure how long it had been, or whether it was day and night when a knock came at the door.

  “Are you ready?” asked Shield Maiden.

  “Sure,” said Malcolm.

  I’ve been ready since I first heard the rumor in the trading square.

  Shield Maiden led him through the main room and down a smaller hallway that Malcolm hadn’t noticed before. At the end of it was a large door with heavy metal cross for a handle, which she struggled to pull open. Malcolm assisted her, and found himself staring into the dank, dark sewer tunnels, which crisscrossed like catacombs.

  Parked directly outside the door was a motorcycle and two helmets. Shield Maiden walked over to it and climbed on without saying anything, acting as though she didn’t even notice the overpowering smell of human refuse and mildew. Malcolm wondered just how it was that the odor didn’t leak through into Underworld.

  “Well,” said Shield Maiden. “Get on.”

  Malcolm frowned. He was not an overly masculine man, but there was something about getting on the back of a motorcycle behind a woman that gave him an instant of pause. He shook it off, seeing no reason why it should matter which of them was in front.

  The first thing he did after putting on his helmet and swinging his leg over the side of the bike was grab Shield Maiden’s breasts. By accident, of course. He was taller than she was, and it was too dark for him to see where he was placing his hands. She stiffened slightly, but was merciful, and didn’t say anything as he found the correct place for them around her waist.

  She started the bike and took off down the dark tunnel at a speed that, in Malcolm’s opinion, bordered on suicidal. Each time she turned around a corner, braking and leaning to counterbalance, he saw a vision of himself falling off and bouncing off a wall or into the waste.

  Malcolm couldn’t decide whether it was a step up from being shield bubbled in and out of the spryte’s base. It was more exciting, sure, and there was still no way that he’d be able to remember all the twists and turns to make it back on his own.

  I think it really comes down to a strong innate desire to not die.

  The ride lasted twenty minutes, but felt as though it lasted twenty hours. A light appeared, quite literally, at the end of the tunnel as they neared their destination. Shield Maiden slowed down as they approached, carefully steering the motorcycle through a hole that had been cut in the metal grate which blocked off one of the sewer’s exits.

  The sun was bright enough to make Malcolm’s eyes hurt and wash out colors. He blinked several times in quick succession as Shield Maiden steered the bike up a ramp, through what looked like a small sewage treatment facility outside of town, and then onto the road.

  “Where are we going?” Malcolm shouted, or tried to. The bike was too loud, and their helmets too bulky for the question to reach audibility.

  He contended himself by hanging on to her waist and watching the road, trying to get his own bearings. They were headed east, into one of the more upscale Vanderbrook neighborhoods. Beyond that lay a tourist destination that was, or had been a popular area for hiking and camping.

  Remarkably, the roads had stayed in good shape after the collapse. Less people driving meant less wear and tear, which meant less potholes for Shield Maiden to hit and scare the hell out of him with. She drove fast, and though there were no speed traps waiting for them, Malcolm couldn’t help but consider the wisdom of it.

  How quickly could she slap a shield bubble over each of us in the event of a crash?

  They traveled for about an hour without seeing another human being. It was highway riding, straight across flat ground, and Malcolm would have found it boring if not for the wind and constant vibrations.

  Slowly, something came into view in the distance. At first it just looked like a car crash that had been left abandoned, stretching across both lengths of the road. As Malcolm and Shield Maiden drew closer, it became clear that the cars and trucks blocking their path had been moved into place deliberately.

  Shield Maiden slowed the bike. Malcolm squeezed his tired arms around her waist, desperately wishing that there was more he could do to warn her that it was a trap. From behind the truck stepped three men, two of them wielding clubs, one of them with a rifle.

  The one with the rifle gestured for them to get off the bike. Shield Maiden seemed to comply, turning off the engine and pulling loose her helmet to let her strange, multicolored spryte hair spill into view.

  Malcolm had forgotten the way most people reacted to encountering sprytes and demons. The men’s faces went white. The one holding the rifle began trembling visibly, the barrel of his rifle jumping back and forth between Shield Maiden and Malcolm.

  “We just wa
nt any supplies you have!” shouted the gunman. “We don’t want any trouble. You can leave once we… once we take your stuff.”

  “Are you fucking crazy, Earl?” hissed one of his friends. “Just let them go by. It’s too risky.”

  “No,” said the gunman, forcing resolve into his voice. “This is our road. They have to pay up, like everyone –”

  Whatever the man had been about to say was cut short by the appearance of Shield Maiden’s bubble around him. Her face was detached and expressionless as she waved it into the air. The bubble rose up, flying several hundred feet in the air before disappearing as swiftly as it had come into existence.

  The gunman screamed as he fell. His friends watched on in for several stunned, disbelieving seconds. He died instantly on impact, and his body bounced a few feet back into the air before settling into a bloody, undignified pile. The stock broke off his rifle when it hit, which disappointed Malcolm a little, who’d been considering looting it for himself.

  “The two of you seem more sensible,” Shield Maiden said, addressing the remaining bandits. “Will you allow us to go on our way?”

  CHAPTER 11

  They rode for several more hours, right up until the sun began to set. When Shield Maiden slowed the bike to a stop for the day, she seemed to be considering the area they were in carefully, as though they were close to their destination.

  “Are you going to tell me when we get there?” asked Malcolm.

  She shrugged. “I don’t know exactly where ‘there’ is. Rose was last seen in this general area, but it was days ago. She could be waiting just down the road, or a hundred miles in another direction.”

  Malcolm frowned. He glanced across the relatively flat plains. There were a couple of farms in the distance, all of them abandoned and overgrown with weeds. The sun was an orange torch on the horizon, but there wasn’t anything else nearby that grabbed his attention.

  “So… what?” he asked. “We look until we start to run out of gas, and then turn back?”

  Shield Maiden smiled sadly and gave a slow nod.

  “You can give up if you want,” she said. “You do have that choice.”

  “Never.” Malcolm swallowed his doubts, knowing that she was right.

  The motorcycle’s saddlebags were loaded with supplies for the night. Malcolm set about collecting loose boards from an abandoned farm to start a fire, while Shield Maiden set up a pop-tent.

  They only had travel rations for dinner, but it was still better than what Malcolm had grown used to over months of scraping by in his Vanderbrook hovel. He managed to get his tinder bundle to catch spark, and slowly fed the fire as the last rays of sunlight disappeared over the horizon.

  “You love her,” said Shield Maiden. “Don’t you?”

  Malcolm smiled. Shield Maiden was not one for small talk. She always jumped straight to the point.

  “I do,” he said. “And I have to find her. Even if it takes years.”

  “It’s not easy to lose someone you love,” said Shield Maiden. “Especially when the world is in chaos.”

  Malcolm chewed his lower lip, deciding how to approach the fact that had been hanging in the air over them. He’d killed Rain Dancer, the man Shield Maiden had loved. He didn’t know what to say, but he knew he had to say something.

  “I’m sorry,” he finally managed. “About… Rain Dancer. I’m sorry that things happened the way that they did.”

  Shield Maiden’s eyes locked onto his. Her face was so strange looking, pretty, but totally foreign in both color and pattern. But her eyes… they spoke to him as anyone’s would. He saw the pain, the loss… and the acceptance.

  “How else could things have played out?” she asked, after a long while. “I cared for Rain Dancer. But I knew him as he was, not as he wanted to be or could have been. He was ambitious. He held grudges. And he… well, he was who he was.”

  Malcolm didn’t say anything. Even though he’d been the one to bring the conversation in the direction of Rain Dancer, he now felt like the silence belonged to Shield Maiden.

  “I cared for him… so much,” she whispered. “In some ways, it was like experiencing first love over again. I don’t have many memories left from the time before I became a spryte, so each touch, each kiss… every date. It was all new to me.”

  Malcolm wanted to ask her for more details, but knew it would have the opposite effect. He stayed silent.

  “He took me to an amusement park once.” Shield Maiden brushed her hair out of her face and smiled. “In the middle of the night, when there was nobody there. The rides were all shut off, but that wasn’t an obstacle to him. He took my hand, and asked me which one I wanted to try, and then he used his powers to bring it to life, and we had it all to ourselves”

  Her smile faded.

  “I think that was what he wanted, in the end,” she said. “Not peace, not really. He wanted to have a part of the world just for himself, to share with those he cared about.” Shield Maiden cleared her throat. “When the security guards showed up to the amusement park… he killed them.”

  She said no more.

  That’s probably as good of a place for a story to end as any.

  The two of them sat watching the fire, both thinking their own thoughts. A sound in the distance drew Malcolm’s attention. He looked up, frowning as he scanned the landscape around them.

  They were far enough out from Vanderbrook and Halter City and the light pollution for the night sky to provide the only illumination. The view made what Malcolm was looking at all the more unusual. A splotch of unnatural darkness was growing wider on the horizon, approaching them at high speed.

  “Rose!” Malcolm stood up and took a step forward. Shield Maiden seized him by the shirt and pulled him back.

  “Stay near the fire!” she hissed. “Stay in the light!”

  The hairs on Malcolm’s neck stood up, even as his heart pounded with anticipation. The darkness resolved into the shape of a figure, one that slowly moved toward the edge of the fire’s reach.

  It was the first time Malcolm had seen Rose since they’d fallen into Multi’s trap months earlier. Her skin was pale purple, lacking the healthy color he remembered. Her hair was tangled, long, and unkempt.

  She’d lost weight, and it was most apparent in the gauntness of her face and sharpness of her cheek bones. Her clothes were ragged, shredded almost to the point of being lewd. Shadows moved about her arms and legs, sliding along her body like tribal tattoos come to life.

  “Rose…” Malcolm said. He lifted his hand and extended it toward her. “It’s me. I’m here.”

  Her eyes were dark pits, but they seemed to blaze as they met his. Shield Maiden pulled back on his shoulder and let out a cry as Rose’s shadow tendrils shot forward, coming within a hair of slicing into Malcolm’s chest.

  He almost tripped backward into the fire, rolling to the side at the last instant. Rose seemed to hover over the ground, rather than walking, as she approached them. Shield Maiden roughly pulled Malcolm further away from her. She lifted a hand, preparing to encase Rose in a shield bubble, more for their protection than for hers.

  Rose let out a scream that sounded more animal than human and swiped at Shield Maiden with a shadow. The blow struck the spryte in the chest with the force of a club swung by a giant. Shield Maiden flew a dozen or so feet in the air and landed in a crumpled pile.

  “Rose!” cried Malcolm. “Stop! It’s me and Shield Maiden! You know us!”

  She did know us, once upon a time. Does she not remember?

  Shadows shot forward, wrapping around Malcolm’s arms and legs and lifting him into the air. His stomach twisted in panic. Even back when he’d had his wind manipulation, Malcolm had been outmatched by Rose in terms of pure power.

  “Rose!” He screamed as he felt her begin to pull, stretching his limbs like a curious child might torture a spider. “No!”

  She hesitated, holding him where he was for a moment. Slowly, Rose drew him in closer, until she held Malcolm
no more than a foot away from her.

  “It’s me…” he managed. “Malcolm.”

  There was no sign of recognition in her eyes.

  “Your little pet champion,” he said, feeling his heart ache for the time when she’d used those words.

  Rose furrowed her brow and blinked. Her shoulders relaxed, and she lowered Malcolm to the ground.

  “You… Do you know who I am?” she asked.

  “Rose,” said Malcolm. “Rosalina. You’re a spryte, and a friend of mine.”

  “Do you… know Brenden?” she asked.

  The question struck Malcolm like a punch to the gut. Brenden had been her former fiancé, and the two of them had shared a life together up until the day that Rose had become a spryte.

  “No,” said Malcolm. “It’s me. Malcolm. Your… friend.”

  Rose slowly shook her head, her eyes showing no recognition.

  She remembers Brenden… But not me?

  It was a petty thing to take offense at, but Malcolm felt it taking grip of his heart and mind, regardless. He’d only known Rose for a couple of months. He was just a fling compared to what she’d shared with Brenden and her young daughter.

  “My head hurts…” said Rose. “Why… where am I? What’s going on?”

  “You’re having an episode.” Shield Maiden had recovered and made her way over to Rose. “Do you remember me, Rose? I’m a spryte, like you. And a friend.”

  Rose frowned, but there was more awareness for Shield Maiden in her expression than there had been for Malcolm.

  “I just… want to lie down,” said Rose.

  “Exactly,” said Shield Maiden. “I’ll bring you to a place where you can lie down. A safe place, one that you used to call home.”

  “Rose…” Malcolm felt selfish, but he was desperate for something, anything. “Do you remember Wind Runner? Do you remember fighting with him, and occasionally against him?”

  He was smiling, though it was the opposite of how he felt on the inside. Rose glanced back over at him and shook her head.