Chrono crouches, swings his magically magnified mystic mallet and at the top of its arc propels himself skyward. He hangs in the sky for just a moment, tucks and rolls so his hammer points directly at the top of the Big, Bad Reaper’s pointy little head, and rides it down with the force and velocity of the de-orbiting space junk that vaporized Beaumont, Texas in 2033.
“Hammer pile drive?” I ask, as his flashy maneuver wipes out 75% of Mr. Hello Kitty Hands’ life bar.
Veenure says, “I think that move is called Hammer Time.”
Chrono appears next to me again with what a much more vulgar person than I might have occasion to call a shit-eating grin. “I didn’t kill him, but I got pretty close.”
“I’ll finish this.” Veenure presses her palms together as if in prayer. Her Thulean tattoos pulsate and change color as an enormous transparent orb forms above her head. A liquid the color of antifreeze fills the orb, and she free-throws it like it’s the tie-breaker for the Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy. It bursts in a toxic cloud of zombie-green vapor, and our little Reaper pal dissolves like a moistened Wicked Witch.
“Acid Orb,” she says before I can ask.
“Not bad,” I say as the battle trumpet proclaims our victory. “Not bad at all.”
~*~
The crowd seems to be jeering less. They’re still throwing stuff onto the field, but at least they’re not throwing sharp things any longer. Images of the Knights of Non Compos Mentis flash on the Doritos XXXL Jumbotron. Once the video pans to me I give the crowd the bird; this doesn’t go over as well as I would have hoped.
“I got dibs on the big sword,” I say as I approach the fallen weapons.
Rocket: It’s called a Bustermarm!
I arrive at the blade and crouch down to better admire the elaborate inlay on the hilt. It shrinks as soon as I lift it.
“Hey, I thought this thing was supposed to get big.”
Rocket: It only gets big in a battle.
Me: What if I rub it the right way?
Rocket: Let me research that.
Me: Aw, c’mon – I was sure you’d get that one!
I add the Bustermarm to my inventory list, item 579. Aiden lifts the scissor blade. Shaped like a pair of seamstress’ shears, the hilt of the blade is formed where the two eye rings meet. Morning Assassin opens the blade, makes snippy-snippy with it, snaps it shut.
I grimace and cup my groin. “Yowza! You could be the new Cybernoir Bris King with that!”
He rolls his eyes and shakes his head.
I turn to the other three, who are walking towards us. “Two weapons left,” I call out.
Veenure says, “I want the stapler hands.”
She picks up one of the weapons, examines it. Logic need not apply – imagine a Freddy Krueger glove with staplers. She slips her hand it, curls her fingers as she contemplates a career as a lethal executive assistant.
Chrono scoops up the cat-faced gloves. “I’ll take them, unless you want them.” He tells Sophia.
“I haven’t engaged in physical combat since I was level five,” she says, her much-too-refined nose in the air. “I don’t see this changing all of the sudden.”
“Your loss, my gain,” he says as he tries one of the gloves on.
“What’s so great about these gloves anyway?” I ask.
“They come with a spell called Super Fisting, which can tear low level enemies apart from the inside out. They also deliver an electric jolt with each punch,” Veenure says. “Enough to stun your enemy.”
I’m just about to comment on the name of the spell when Sophia stops me. “It looks like our next opponents have arrived.”
“Wait, don’t we get a break?”
“Only after the first match,” she says. “Again, this is in the rules I sent you. Everyone gets a break to regain their HPs after the first match, after that, no such luck. You’ll get rests in the solo rounds though, but we have to make it there first!”
I catch the feed on the big screen; five eyeless creatures with mouths like the muzzle of a mountain howitzer float their way toward us. They are tan, each about the size of a grizzly. I count eight legs on each of them, but I could be off. I’m more distracted by the way they move, like airborne manatees.
Frances Euphoria: Tardigrades.
Me: Hey! You’re on Comms!
Frances Euphoria: Yes, with Rocket.
Me: Okay, I’ll keep the convo PC.
Rocket: Player Character?
Me: Something like that.
Frances: I’m leaving soon, but I wanted to see how you guys were doing in the tournament.
Me: Not bad. Squashed some Reapers too.
Rocket: FYI – Tardigrades are water-dwelling, segmented micro-animals. They have eight legs, each with four to eight claws, and can live pretty much anywhere on earth. Scientists classify them as extremophile and they’re commonly referred to as water bears.
“Tardigrades,” I tell our team, “a bunch of extremophiles if you ask me.”
Rocket: You sound smart!
Me: Do I smell sarcasm?
Rocket: You do!
~*~
Tardigrades are a sunovabitch. They simply dodge our first round of attacks by twisting out of the way, not unlike manatees playing a half-hearted game of slap ass. Their turn comes and it ends – they don’t do anything at all.
“Why aren’t they attacking us?” I ask as I scroll through my list.
“They’re saving power,” says Sophia.
“For what?”
“I’ve never fought them before; I’ve only heard about them. We need to do some serious damage this turn.”
“I know just the thing!” I equip item 217, Prince’s purple guitar, the one shaped like his iconic unpronounceable symbol.
Again, Sophia gives me the look. “Are you going to serenade them to death?”
“Watch and learn, young Skywalker, watch and learn.” I turn the sharp end of the guitar at them and hit a simple E-A-B7 chord progression. Gallons upon gallons of sticky white liquid coats the Tardigrades. The crowd boos us.
Rocket: That looks like–
Me: Mind out of the gutter, Peanut Gallery. It’s called Super Plasmic Long-lasting Optimal Organic Glue Extract.
Rocket: That acronym!
Frances Euphoria: I should probably ask why you blasted the Tardigrades with … um … ”
Me: Let’s keep it PG-13, there are kids present.
Rocket: I’m only a few years younger than Frances!
Veenure says, “That might be the grossest-looking attack I’ve ever seen.”
“Everyone, listen, disregard the fact that it looks like baby-making juice, it’s not. It’s called Super Plasmic Long-lasting Optimized Organic Glue Extract. Let’s keep things professional here. They won’t be able to move as easily, problem solved.”
Sophia bows her head in disappointment. “How can the same man that calls semen baby-making juice turn around and ask us to act professional?”
“Just attack the water bears for crying out loud! They’re stuck now!”
The Tardigrades move left and right, trying to free themselves from the sticky goo. Aiden attacks first, casting a spell called Trumper-tantrum. His face turns spray tan orange, he sprouts a cheap-ass looking nylon toupee, and he whirls into a Tasmanian Devil style tornado. He sweeps across all five of the Tardigrades; they grow larger and their life bars increase by 15%.
“Oh, this is double-plus ungood!”
Sophia shouts, “Cast all the protection spells you have! All of them! We aren’t going to get through this round!”
In the air she goes, twittering her jazz hands and covering us with magic fairy glitter.
“Thanks,” I tell her, “All I need is a stripper pole and do-me shoes and I’ll feel just like an exotic dancer!”
“It’s a protection spell called Glam Rocks; it will make you better at dodging their next attack.”
Veenure does a little jig, stamps her feet and snaps her fingers. A trans
lucent half-sphere forms around our party. “Let’s see them get through this,” she says, but her expression belies her confident statement.
Last up is Chrono, who uses his hammers to hack out a trench in front of us.
Rocket: Before you ask – that gives you added dodging ability.
Me: I wasn’t going to ask.
Frances Euphoria: Sure you weren’t.
The Tardigrades’ turn. The one furthest to the right comes forward, breaks through the shield, and swallows Chrono like a fat kid slamming a Marshmallow Peep down his neck.
“Seriously!” I cry, as the next one comes forward and does the same thing to Veenure. My inventory finger twitches to no avail – the turn-based battle system has me by the huevos and there’s no chance for me to equip something that could actually take one of these eight-legged bastards out.
“Well, so much for that,” Sophia says, just before she’s swallowed.
Aiden tries to fight back but it’s useless – he’s swallowed too.
The final Tardigrade advances towards me. Its mouth swells and swells until it’s as wide as my body. I don’t even touch the sides as it engulfs me. My screen flashes black and I die.
Chapter Seventeen
We respawn in the locker room.
“What the hell just happened?” I ask.
“We lost.”
“Yeah, thanks Veenure, I figured that much.”
“Now we have to wait for the next match to present itself, then we go back out.” She sits on the bench and takes her hat off.
I glance to Aiden, who has already made his way over to the door to get in a ready position just in case. Christ, Morning Assassin never sleeps, but then again he doesn’t sleep.
“Well, is it bad?”
“It’s not good,” says Sophia. “If we lose our next match, we’re out of the solo round. The tournament allows for one loss in either the group rounds or the solo round. Only one, though, which means you’ll have to win all four solo fights.”
“Great,” I say. “All to meet the giant king, huh?”
Sophia puffs her cheeks out and releases a loud sigh. “Speaking of which, the team selects the person for the solo round – you – and if you win, you’ll be the one asking King Coromon for a wish. Don’t ask for something stupid like unlimited ice cream.”
“I can eat enormous amounts of ice cream, although pancakes are more my style.”
Frances Euphoria: Don’t wish for pancakes!
Sophia continues, “The tournament is actually happening all at the same time in the same arena. The enemies that we’ve faced are generated randomly from the groups that have signed up.”
“And we encountered Reapers?” I ask. “That seems odd.”
“It does,” she says, “but it is all random and as I said, happening at the same time. This moves the tournament process along rather quickly.”
“Wait a minute – if this is a giant tournament, why haven’t we faced any giants?”
“There are definitely groups of giants in the tournament,” says Chrono, “you can look at the lineup if you want proof. We just haven’t randomly faced them yet.”
“Well damn, I got something in mind for them if we do.”
Everything in my viewing pane pixilates.
“We’re up,” says Aiden, but by the time this message registers with me, we’re standing again on the battle field surrounded by a jeering crowd while the Doritos XXXL Jumbotron advertises Dunkin King’s newest lo-cal glazed donut soylent- tofu burger, asserting that it’s yummilicious.
~*~
“They’re ghosts?” I ask as a group of five ectoplasmic ghouls float over to us. I count two cleric looking ones, although one may be a mage – I’ll leave identifying who’s what to Rocket. There’s a short brawler type who would make a great Reaper if only he had a skull mask. To his right is a buxom female in V-neck armor, which, again, reminds me of how little real world laws apply in this world. If Zedic were here and Tritania was just a bit closer to real life, he could sink an arrow into her heart at the snap of a finger. The final guy is part mage, part armored up Bruno. All are equally translucent-ish, yet tangible enough for me to make out their details.
Rocket: Genius! They’re all cursed!
Me: Cursed?
Sophia: They were all cursed to exist as ghosts – it happens, especially if you fight the sea witches in Eastern Polynya. Most PCs get it cured immediately, but a few of the smarter ones use it to their advantage.
“We’re first,” says Sophia. “Who wants up?”
“Oh! Oh! OH! Me, me, me, ME! I got the perfect thing; it may affect my life bar, so Chrono, cover me.”
“You got it, Steamboy,” the big man calls back.
“Damn,” I say, giddy with excitement. “I’ve been looking for the right chance to use this stuff for years now! Years, I tell you!” My inventory list comes up and I select item 39, my genuine, authentic, unlicensed nuclear accelerator. The proton pack materializes on my back, and I unsheath and grip the neutrona wand; the containment trap and footswitch appear at my feet.
“What the hell is that?” asks Veenure.
“Vintage positron collider, man-portable, one each.”
“How does colliding vintage positrons help us? And man-portable is sexist.”
“Jeez, give the political correctness a rest, would ya, people? And did you guys grow up in a pop-culture vacuum? Just stand back and prepare to revel in my awesomeness.”
I glance over at Sophia with a grin. “Which one of these Casper farts is the strongest?”
She lifts a single finger to her temple. “The cleric on the right – she’s level 75!”
The proton stream leaps out and snares the floating white witch like a lasso made of red lightning. She writhes and struggles, thrashes and flails; I sincerely hope that young Mr. Rocket got screen shots of this – the look of sheer, unadulterated horror and astonishment plastered across her mug is priceless! I reel her in, stomp the footswitch, and the trap sucks her in and slams shut.
BOOYAH! Who Ya Gonna Call? Sure, I take a major hit in my life bar, a good 40% penalty, but that’s fine by me.
Sophia’s face is a rictus of horror. “What’s that horrible sound?”
“She’s screaming inside the Slimer trap.”
“You asshole!” One of her teammates shouts.
“Now, now fellas, let’s keep it clean,” I call over to them. “This is an all ages audience.”
The audience may or may not be on my side – it’s kind of hard to tell with all the booing.
“You’re all dead!” The mage brawler bellows. “I will eat your liver, drink your blood, and piss in your skull!”
“We’ll see about that,” says Aiden. He spins, tossing a series of throwing stars at the Mage Brawler. All but one misses, taking his life bar down a whopping 2%.
“Ranged attacks have even a smaller chance of connecting,” says Veenure,” but I have a spell that will really piss them off.”
A tesseract forms at her fingertips. She twists into the air, pulls both arms back and the 4-D construct flies forward and sweeps over the Mage Brawler. He drops to his feet and the color returns to his body.
“Remove Curse,” Veenure says, “that should make him easier to hit next time.”
“Hell, yes!” I say.
“Prewtakha schlo,” Sophia says in Thulean.
“You’re all dead!” screams the armored female warrior. “Dead! Dead! Dead!”
Chrono steps up, flexes, poses, crouches down, and then returns to the lineup.
“Charging,” he calls over to me.
“Got it. I’ll figure this game out some day.
Sophia is the last to go. She hits the air and her other-worldly Robe of Illusion billows and swirls and extends ethereal tentacles that engulf the ghost cleric, spasm and contract and squash her down to nothingness – poof, gone, game over.
“You’re going to need to teach me that move,” I tell her as she settles next to me.
/> “You have about forty more levels and a class change before you can do that,” she snaps.
~*~
Our opponents have three team members left, a Mage Brawler, a little ghosty brawler, and Lady Death in armored glad rags. With the two clerics murdalized, the Knights ain’t doing too shabby. At least we’ve neutralized their magic faction, but that doesn’t seem to stop them from casting spells. The little brawler turns to their female warrior and beats his hands against his chest.
“What’s with the King Kong act?” I ask.
Sophia: He’s casting a spell on her that doubles his teammates’ attack power for this round.
Frances Euphoria: Be careful!
The brawler with the Napoleon complex returns to the lineup, panting with anger. The wraithlike Brienne of Tarth wannabe spins counterclockwise, and a ring of rotating tetraskelions swirl around her waist in formation like a vintage hula hoop. She suddenly stops, and the tetraskelions fly off her one after another. I brace for impact but the spinning blades hack into Veenure and chop her into cat food.
Critical hit!
Rocket: Shit!
“Dammit,” I say, as I watch the twitching mound of Veenure pâté disappear. “Dammit!”
The Rumpleminze chick reappears on her side, laughs and points.
“My turn to level the playing field,” growls the Mage Brawler, the only one not translucent thanks to Veenure’s de-ghosting spell. He flexes his fingers and an enormous ice sword forms in his hand. An icy fog billows off the blade as he runs forward and jabs it into Aiden’s chest.
“Damn!”
I watch helplessly as the wound turns blue, spreading outward in tiny veins until Aiden’s entire body is frozen. The Mage Brawler twists the hilt as he pulls his blade out; Aiden shatters and falls to the ground like a discarded extra-super-huge, assassin-flavored sno-cone.
Rocket: Crap! They got Aiden!
Frances Euphoria: You guys have to win this!
Me: Thank you, Captain Obvious!
Sophia says, “Our turn. We need to finish them this round. I’ll cast Tentacles of Torment again – that’ll eliminate one.”
The Feedback Loop (Books 4-6): Sci-fi LitRPG Series (The Feedback Loop Box Set Book 2) Page 17
