“There has got to be someone else on this ship with more experience?”
“Your data isn’t the best on the ship, true, but I know raw numbers don't determine real combat. I also know you had no intention of participating tomorrow, because you had to register on the first day. So you make a perfect choice for me as a replacement.”
Vernon had seen the tournament but never read any further past the title in the brochure. He really didn’t care what the prize was, because he already had everything he wanted at that point.
“You are right with that, this is my honeymoon after all. The last thing that I wanted to do was get into a fight, or tournament, or anything for that matter without my wife. I wanted to spend time with her, and not do something that reminded me of the last four years I spent without her.”
“That is not my concern, so let me tell you my predicament. There is a one million credit payout to the winner, and the house always has to have the upper hand. So I need to aggressively recruit a replacement within a limited pool. Now then, I need a champion. Which will be you. If you win, Mr. Douglas, I will even treat you like any other contestant and give you the payout that was meant for the former champion.”
Vernon thinks to himself, if he was being treated like any other contestant, he wouldn’t even be in the stupid tournament, or coerced into it for that matter. “Alright, I’ll bite. How much?”
“A quarter of a million credits.”
Vernon and Marie’s lips both part, trying to grasp at words to say. Vernon looks to Marie, and they match gazes, and he sends a message to her.
That’s a lot of money.
Yes it is, but I don’t like where it will come from.
It will be from winning the tournament, like a paycheck for a job. I say why not.
I’m not sure about this Vernon, it doesn’t feel right. We should just be on our honeymoon and that’s it.
I understand, but if we don't he might have video of us talking to a dragon, which we don't need passed around. If we can avoid that, plus make a few bucks, why not?
Marie scrunches her face, folding her arms across her chest.
You had better make this up to me, you hear me Douglas.
Vernon nods, loud and clear.
“Now that your private conversation is over, what did you decide?” Maldone asks.
“You got yourself a replacement.”
26
“I still don’t think it was that bad of an idea, rich boy gets off our tail, and I only have to participate in this thing for, what, four rounds tops. Sounds good to me.” Vernon says defensively, right outside of their door.
“But he’s bad news, and that’s what you aren’t understanding.” Marie huffs, rolling her eyes. Taking her index finger and jabbing it into Vernon’s chest.
“He is used to getting what he wants, and will do so by whatever means necessary. My father and mother would fight constantly before he would come over to the house.”
“He just wants me to participate in this tournament. Small price to pay to keep the dragon thing a secret. I don’t want that hanging over my head. Plus what is so bad about doing this, if I win. We get a quarter of a million credits, and that is some good living money.”
“He’ll just use it against you, say that it was a favor, and pull you into something else. I don’t want that, but I don’t want the dragon stuff either.”
“See, let’s just see where this goes. If–or as you think, when–he tries something else, I can decline that one. You know, when we aren’t stuck in the middle of an ocean, turning down the request of the guy that owns the boat.”
Marie glares at him, and he raises both of his hands into the air.
“Hey now, truce.”
She lets out a heavy sigh, “Fine, but I won’t forget this. If you ruin our honeymoon over this, just remember you have to live with me, and I won't forget this.”
She narrows her eyes, focusing intently on Vernon’s face. He can feel the heat gathering on the surface of his skin, and isn’t quite sure if it was her look, or if she was really warming the side of his face with her energy.
“Alright I hear you. Now please turn off the lasers, you wouldn’t want to hurt this pretty face of mine now would you.”
Marie turns quickly to walk into their room, “Hmpf,” and shuts the door in Vernon’s face.
He realizes that it might have been better to have the dragon stuff exposed, than having Marie angry at him. Like she said, he does have to live with her. Shrugging his shoulders, he swipes his HaLO across the reader and follows her into the room.
As they awoke the ship had already sailed about a third of the way back to port. Vernon again had left the curtains open, and reluctantly rises out of bed to close them. He catches a glimpse of the rising sun mixed within the clouds–light billowing through them like God himself was saying good morning–and decides to open the door to allow in the ocean breeze. The sounds of the waves crashing up against the ship fills the room. Marie sprawls out across the bed not wanting to get up just yet, pulling the blankets over her head, no matter how uncomfortable the bed might be. Vernon looks at her, and shakes his head with a smile. He remembered that the bed had been ok on the first night, but each night after it had been harder, and increasingly more uncomfortable as the week progressed. They even had ordered extra padding for it, but nothing seemed to help.
Walking out on to the patio, Vernon sits in one of the two lawn chairs next to the small table that’s there. He takes a deep breath in, closing his eyes. He lets it out slowly as he opens them to gaze out across the open ocean, with the rising sun breaking through the clouds. The warmth feels good against his skin, and leans his head back for a moment letting the world melt away. Leaving only the heat from the sun, and the noise of the waves.
Marie feels around in the bed to find it suspiciously empty. She pulls the covers down from over her head, and winces as the pain of the light burns her. She cracks one eye open to look around the room, shielding the rest of her face from the light with one hand. She sees he is no longer there in bed, and drags herself out of it to look for him. The sound of the waves crashing against the side of the ship make her focus toward the open door to the patio. She finds him slumped into the chair as relaxed as he can be, snoring loud enough to wake the dead. She walks over and sits in his lap, laying her head on his shoulder. Time passes quickly as an alarm starts to go off on Vernon’s HaLO. He lets out a snort, smacking his lips, as an eye cracks open. A smile warms his face, and he wraps his arms around Marie, holding her tight. He knows they need to get moving quickly this morning, because the tournament, but he can steal a few moments before he has to wake her.
Marie’s face scrunches up into a frown, “Do you really have to do this?”
“Yes. I am starting to feel like I should have just dealt with the whole dragon thing instead, but I already agreed to the whole thing. I have to keep my word.”
“But we were going to go around the ship today.”
“I know, and we still will, it’s only taking a couple of hours away from our time together. We didn’t really have much planned today, so at least it wasn’t on one of the other days.”
“I guess. I still don’t like this, but if you have to, you better win mister.”
“I did have four years of combat training that I just finished, I think I should be fine. That and something Maldone said, the house always has to have better odds, or something. I mean this ship is filled with mostly the upper crust of the Astrum society, which I would believe to not be that versed in battle. I think he picked me because I would win against that. Hopefully.”
“Be careful ok.”
“It’s just a virtual tournament, there’s no need to worry.”
They head down into the ships lower levels to find the Dive Bar filled with people waiting to take a shot at a million credits. Vernon looks around the room, trying to see if there is anyone that might give him trouble. He knew he had been through some tough fights, and since
the avatar was based on his own personal data, he was feeling confident. A group of men in the back of the room eye him and Marie as they walk in. Each are taller than most of the other passengers aboard, along with scruffy exteriors. They didn’t look like the rest of the passengers, from clothing to the way they looked around the room, they carried themselves differently. Vernon knew those three were going to give him trouble. As he finished scanning the crowd, there were no automated warnings for anyone within view, which gave him some relief. Although he doesn't quite know how it works just yet.
“Mr. Douglas, so nice to see you here, and early. I am glad to see that my intel on you isn’t inaccurate.” Says Maldone.
Vernon fights back the urge to say something in response, opting for diplomacy instead, since he was still on his boat. “Mr. Maldone, nice to see you too. I’m glad to see that money can still buy just about anything.”
“Now, now, there isn’t any need for that. Just focus it all on winning, and get paid a fair sum for your work, Mr. Douglas.”
Vernon rubs at the bridge of his nose, “Yea, alright. Just tell me what I am supposed to do.”
“Excellent. Follow me.”
Maldone leads them through the crowd into a roped off area with a single dive chair. The larger of the two companions open the rope allowing everyone to enter. Vernon sits down in the chair, and starts to get himself ready. Marie grabs his hand and squeezes it tightly.
“Be careful.”
Vernon smiles and nods. “Always.”
He turns on the dive equipment, and is pulled into a coliseum. He is standing on a small pillar next to a stage, where Maldone is seated upon a large white throne. He waits there as more and more people being to appear, and fill the coliseum.
Maldone looks over to Vernon and asks, “Are you ready?”
“I am, but aren’t I just going to wait here till they finish their matches?”
“You may want to watch, you may be a Paladin, but that doesn’t mean you’re at the top of the food chain.”
Vernon begins to get a sinking feeling that he just signed up for something he doesn’t want to be a part of. Maldone gives a speech welcoming all of the participants, and goes over the rules of the battles. The avatars are loaded with real life limitations as recorded by everyone’s HaLO’s, and when it can no longer move, you are out. He introduces Vernon as the winner of the first high school MMA Tournament, and recently commissioned Paladin. This gets a few responses from the audience, good and bad.
Most of the first few rounds Vernon watches, are over in an instant. Rich passengers who believed they could hold their own in a fight. He kept an eye out for the three men he had seen, and each made short work of their fights. Vernon was able to follow them, but the poor souls they went up against didn’t have a chance to even know the fight had started. They each used the same maneuver which downed their opponent in one hit. It was a simple enough attack, but it was fast. When it connected, it released a high amount of energy quickly. Vernon had seen that kind of attack before, when training with Rajini. Vernon really didn’t like the idea that he was about to face someone with spells like that in their arsenal, but there was no backing out now.
Vernon finally caught their names, but it wasn’t any help, they were all John. He decided that nicknames would suit them better, since the three Johns were of differing heights. Big John, John, and Little John. The Johns each made it into the semi-finals with ease. Vernon wasn’t quite sure if it was luck that didn’t pair them together, or something else. Beyond that there was one other passenger to make it through, and Vernon didn’t really watch any of her fights, because he was too busy watching the Johns. She wasn’t much taller than five foot six, and didn’t look like much of anything for a fight. She was blonde, with brown eyes, and he didn’t see anything behind them like he had with the Johns. Her figure was pleasant, but nothing notable, it was like her whole persona was to be as average as possible. With her in the finals now, he pulls up the roster, and sees her name listed as Amber.
Maldone gets up from his throne, and congratulates the Johns and Amber for making it to the finals.
“Now that we are in the Finals, there is one last thing I need to go over. This is the champion of this coliseum, and with that comes perks. He will choose which of the combatants he will face. At any point that he falls, the victor will then become the champion and will have to face the other contestants till only one is left.” He then walks over to Vernon and says to only him, “Good luck Mr. Douglas, I hope my faith in your abilities are not misplaced.”
Vernon rolls his eyes, “I would think you already took that into consideration before strong arming me into this.”
He then thinks to himself, here goes nothing.
27
He chooses Little John first, since this was all virtual, he would be returned to peak condition after each fight he won–so it didn’t matter what order he went in. Plus out of all of the Johns, his technique with the opening spell they had all used was the slowest.
Vernon takes a step off his pedestal, and walks into place for the match to start. Each previous match the landscaped morphed its topography to some new location. This time it stayed it’s sandy sweltering self. This instantly dashes his hopes of finding quick cover. He starts to form images in his mind of a barrier of ice, as the countdown appears within in vision. Three, as he gathers up energy the smile across Little John’s face grows. Two, Vernon forces the energy into his runes, and Little John’s smile vanishes. One, Vernon realizes his spell needs the energy from the other person to work.
Standing there, Little John tensed up. He focused his eyes on Vernon and didn’t move. It was hard to tell if he was even breathing. Vernon takes a step forward, and Little John takes a step backward. Sweat starts to form across his forehead, and Vernon just smiles and shakes his head back and forth.
“Really?” Vernon says to himself. “I figured there would be more to you than the one trick. To think, that all because I’m a rune user, you can’t use your spell against me, just makes me sad.”
This was the first time that Vernon had seen someone use a spell that increased its energy off of the victims before it released. It’s a cleaver use, but that is about all. Since Vernon only uses runes, due to a rare genetic condition, he can’t form spells without the help of a focus. Each focus has to be inscribed with symbols allowing him to fill it with magic. Once the magic is in the rune, it can only be released as the spell that corresponds to the rune.
Vernon took careful steps forward, because he may have figured out the Johns spell, but that doesn’t mean they are helpless. Little John kept taking steps backward till his back hit the sidewall of the coliseum floor. His head swivels quickly to look behind him, and then back to look at Vernon. Panic fills the features of his face, and Vernon lets out a sigh.
He stands within reach of him, and asks, “Do you have anything else other than that spell you can’t use on me?”
Little John’s eyes dart back and forth, looking frantically for something. He never meets eyes with Vernon’s, just bows his head and says, “No.”
“Alright I will get this over quick.” Vernon inhales slowly, and draws back his right arm for a punch. “You can forfeit at any time.”
“No I can’t.” Little John looks up meeting Vernon in the eyes for the first time.
There is fire behind his gaze, as if this is what he wants. Vernon puts everything behind his punch that he can, not wanting to torture him. His fist connects with Little John’s face, pushing it into and past the three foot concrete wall of the coliseum. There is a collective inhalation of the crowd, waiting to see if Little John survived.
Congratulations, appears in Vernon’s vision with little fireworks to either side, with the crowds cheers following shortly after. Vernon turns and waves to everyone with a smile, walking away from the vanishing body, as the wall flashes back into place.
The fight with John was slightly more interesting to Vernon, because he at least fought
back. Little John seemed to have no other real talent other than the spell he used to get there. John on the other hand, had some martial training mixed in with his spells that he knew. Vernon still didn’t have any trouble with him though. His training within the Paladin academy prepared him for battles where he wouldn’t be able to use magic, and had to only use physical strength. This was something that he excelled at more than others. Vernon was able to move around on the field without John being able to track his movements. John would punch through an area that Vernon was in only to connect with an afterimage of him. Big John, and Amber look on from beside the white throne with Maldone, watching the battle intently.
With John out of the way, Vernon looks at the two remaining contestants. Amber raises her chin, and stares cold daggers at him. Big John looked uninterested, as he had the whole time he was in waiting. Vernon shrugs his shoulders and chooses Big John.
His eyes fixate on Vernon. His stare is filled will murderous intent, and Vernon believes he has the skills to do so. Vernon tries to gauge his reactions, but there is nothing to go off of. He decides to make sure this is quick, and puts some extra effort into his movements. He closes the distance between himself and Big John in the blink of an eye. Big John locks eyes with Vernon’s and smiles as Vernon throws himself into his attack. Big John catches the punch in his hand, redirecting it, throwing Vernon off balance. He counters by thrusting his elbow down into Vernon’s side. Vernon takes a chance that he doesn’t have his spell at the ready, and pours magic into activating the runes in his boots. The engraved carvings glow a faint green light, pouring out unseen wind, pushing him clear of the attack.
Big John’s elbow slams into the ground, forcing a small crater to appear. Vernon watches the dust settle as he walks out from the newly formed crater, and is thankful he didn’t get hit. That kind of hit would have been able to do him in, losing the match and more than likely owing Maldone another favor. That is something he can’t afford. He makes up his mind to just use everything that he knows, and not pull any punches with this one. He draws magic into himself, and Big John reaches out his hand. Vernon’s eyes go wide, and he isn’t able to push it into his runes before Big John sends out his spell. An explosion happens all around Vernon, where he’s the center of the blast.
Cypher Theorem Series Box Set: Books 1-3, The Zero Class, Shadow Moon, Dragon Fire: A Science Fiction Fantasy Page 35
