“Don’t worry,” she said as she examined her scraped elbow. “I’m tougher than I look.”
Iris and I locked eyes for a moment; I was the first to look away when my attention turned back to the battle happening between the Huntresses and the mythcrea.
Somewhere, at the back of my mind, I wondered how it was that we kept running into monkey men.
First Sun Wukong, and now this guy, who was much shorter than Sun, and wore light blue robes, or possibly a kimono.
The Huntresses had already engaged him, and were trying to bat him out of the air when Iris finally got her bearings.
Her eyes flashed as she researched the Satori on GoogleFace. “Damn, so that’s a Satori. It’s a kind of supernatural monster who can read people’s minds and affect their thoughts. Japanese. I think that's what it did back there. It affected all of our thoughts.”
“I see,” I told her as Aya turned toward us, the look on her face suddenly one of grief.
Not this again, I thought, remembering that something similar had happened to Lady C. yesterday evening.
Lady C., who had just taken a swing at the Satori, saw that her companion was down and steeled herself, focusing even harder on getting a hit in.
The Thulean warrior began speaking in her native tongue, sobbing uncontrollably as she crawled toward us.
“You handle Satori, I’ll deal with Aya!”
“Got it,” Iris said, her hand charging.
I dropped down to Aya and try to talk some sense into her.
“You are hallucinating, you are hallucinating,” I told her as I took off her hat, and started fanning her with it.
“Mintakh moorakhcha bluto! Bluto! Kunoh nakh nakh!”
“I don't know what you're saying, but it's okay, Aya, it's okay,” I told her as I scooped her into my arms.
I sat with my back against the shelves, Aya sobbing uncontrollably in my arms, her face wet, her greenish cheeks red, her body heaving up and down as she continued to speak in her native tongue.
I felt one of her ghost limbs land on my shoulder, and move toward my neck.
“Just relax,” I told her as her talons tightened around my throat.
But she wasn't trying to kill me, she was trying to hold on, trying to keep herself steady.
She looked up at me, still babbling in Thulean.
“Lavakh. Lavakh! Bluto harmakh chakh… harmakh chakh...”
Lady C. and Iris ran past us, still chasing the Satori.
I was surprised to see that it was Iris who was able to finally get the creature down, enabling Lady C. to keep it at bay with her shimmering swords.
It was incredible, really, as soon as the monkey man leapt from one of the shelves, Iris grabbed the nearest thing she could find, which happened to be a baseball bat, and swung it at the mythcrea.
It didn't connect, but it did force the creature off balance, right into Lady C.’s trap.
Her swords crossed like scissors, and now on either side of the monkey's head, Lady C. gave Iris the signal, and within seconds, Iris had captured the mythcrea, sending it straight to our Dojo.
“Fuck yes,” I whispered, my breath returning to me.
“I don’t know what the hell you two are doing here, but you need to leave, now,” a store manager said. Apparently, he’d been standing there for the last minute or so, clearly seeing Iris use the bat.
“Sorry!” Iris hid the bat behind her back, thought otherwise, and returned it to its rightful place.
“Just filming a TwitchTubeRed video,” I told him as I pointed at my eyes.
“Sure, you are,” the store manager growled. “We got a cop at the front, and if you two ain’t outta here in the next thirty seconds, I’ll be calling him over.”
“Got it.”
It wasn’t easy, but I managed to stand with Aya in my arms, who by now had stopped sobbing.
“My hat, it’s my lucky hat,” she said, stifling a sniff. Without a word, Lady C. stooped over to retrieve it.
Even after we got outside, and I placed her on her feet, the Thulean refused to comment on what happened.
“Here’s your hat,” Lady C. told her, breaking the silence that had spread between all of us.
It lifted into the air and the Thulean quickly tightened it around her skull, the brim much lower this time to hide her puffy eyes.
Chapter Four: Familiar Grounds
“Anyone want to talk about what just happened?” I asked after we reached the subway. “By the way, we've got to ride the train to Central Park, so if you guys want me to send you back to the Dojo, I can, otherwise you'll need to behave on the train.”
“You act like we are little girls,” Aya said, the brim of her hat still low over her eyes.
“You know that's not true; I just want you guys to feel safe.”
“We can go back to the Dojo,” Lady C. said. “I will keep an eye on…” She nodded her head toward the Thulean.
“I don’t need anyone to keep an eye on me. I'm very capable of watching myself. Or... you know what I mean.” She stopped, and a man passed right through her.
“Bye,” I told them. “Relax, the scheduled Brawl is in one hour in Central Park. Plenty of time to relax in your cabins.”
“Byeeeeee,” Lady C. said, pouting as her form disappeared.
As Iris and I entered the station, we recapped what had happened at the park and at WalMacy’s, which transitioned into Iris’ preliminary research on fusing mythcrea.
“There’s actually subreddit dedicated to fusing,” Iris said as the C Train skidded to a halt. The C Train was in need of repair, hell, all the trains in New York were in need of repair, but there was some charm to it, and as we got on, shuffling past a couple with a baby stroller, I felt strangely at home.
The train was empty, but this was usual for a Sunday morning. There was even a busker on the train, a guy probably heading to a corner gig somewhere in the more touristy destinations of the city.
That’d be a hard life, I thought, being a busker. It was already hard enough just to be a musician, but to go around just playing for free with the hope that someone would toss you a buck…
Well, I supposed that wasn't very different than being a regular musician.
“The Reddit is helpful,” Iris was saying, “but it doesn't have a breakdown of what you'll get mythcrea to mythcrea. Just some suggestions that other people have based on some of the fusing that they've done.”
“Nice. It’s going to be a hard choice, to fuse or to stash so we can level up.”
“There are also some videos that people took. Apparently, you can get rare mythcrea only available by fusing, which has something to do with the monster’s stats and their class and subclass. As I said, there are a few preconceived configurations that Proxima developers put in, but it does have a lot to do with chance.”
“Anything about combining Terra with Psy?” I asked, recalling the two main classes of the creatures we had just captured.
The train slowed down and the door opened. People rushed inside almost immediately.
A woman in a trench coat who had stuck her Chihuahua into the front opening; a man with a hipster beard and a unicycle under his arm; a fat guy in a plaid tie and a kilt; a young yuppie couple in duck boots straight out of Connecticut; a Muslim woman in a cheetah-print hijab; an older black man in a red ball cap and sunglasses – the New York subway continued to be one of the most diverse places on earth.
Iris shook her head. “I mean, there are a few things about combining Terra and Psy, mostly that it can generate something of the Fumus class, but most of the combinations people have tried are more deliberate, like combining fire and wind – Ignis and Ventus – that sort of thing, or doubling up by combining Glacio and River.”
“So, ice and water?”
“Yep. Interesting stuff. We’ll really have to experiment with this.”
“And EverLife. I can’t believe we haven’t explored.”
She shrugged. “We’ve been a bit busy.�
��
“Definitely. There’s plenty of time.”
As the train ride continued, I started thinking about last night with Lady C. What an experience. Her body, the way she moved while she was on top of me, the innocence in it all, the way it quickly turned when she got the hang of it.
I think that was the most interesting part for me (aside from the fact that I was having sex with a digital entity, a smoking-hot digital entity that was beyond the girl of my dreams). There was a change during the middle of it where she went from nervous to confident, as if she had finally made her capture, and was feasting on the remains.
I smirked at this thought; it was a little stupid, but it was what I felt at the time. A great experience, really, and I didn't know where this would go in the future, or how others would react – others like Iris – but that remained to be seen. Aya clearly knew, and she didn't much care, but Iris?
I glanced at her.
“What?”
“Nothing, just thinking.”
We arrived at the station and as soon as we were off, the Huntresses rejoined us.
Aya was her old self again, no sign of the trauma she had experienced back at the WalMacy’s. She was confident, poised, and her hat was back to its normal height, revealing her orange eyes.
“May I speak to you, Chase?” she said, letting Iris and Lady C. walk ahead.
“What’s up?”
She glared at me for a moment, long enough for the other two to pass. “Do not think for a moment that I need to be pampered like a baby dragon.”
I started to laugh but thought otherwise when I noticed just how serious her expression was. “Again with the dragon reference.”
“I do not need you holding me in your arms because I do not find you particularly manly, especially with your glasses and messy hair. You are not strong,” she said, poking her finger into my chest. “Yet…”
What is going on here? I thought as her glare softened.
“Yet, I like you, and I appreciate you holding me and comforting me. It was nice.” Her hand flattened on my chest, directly over my heart. “I see that your heart rate increases when I touch you. Very interesting.”
“So, are you mad at me, happy I was there, or looking to become my primary care physician?”
She shrugged, but didn’t remove her hand from my chest. I felt her ghost limb brush against my cheek. “I am neutral about you, but I like that you comforted me. It was nice, but don’t think it will become commonplace, that you can just hold me in your arms whenever you’d like. Do you hear me?”
“Sure, Aya, I understand, loud and clear.”
She let go of me and I caught up with the others, with no idea what to make of the Thulean’s threats and advances.
We neared the station’s exit and I saw the strange bookseller that we'd first met the last time we came to Central Park. At the time, I had been quite broke and wasn't able to buy Lady C. a book, but now…
“Can I shop for just a moment?” she asked. “Do we have time?”
“Definitely, take a look and see if there's anything that you think would benefit you,” I told her.
The seller, an older man with a long mustache and a secret library’s worth of mystery behind his eyes, actually had a book that cost over a hundred thousand.
But luckily for our back account, Lady C. found a book that cost a thousand Proxima dollars.
The History of Mortem and Chrono Magic was an older book with yellowed pages and a missing cover.
“It is a bargain,” the old bookseller assured her. “You’ve never read a book quite like this.”
“And it’s about necrotic and time-based magic?” Iris asked as Lady C. looked it over.
“It’s about much more than that,” the bookseller said. “I stand by the books I sell. If you aren’t enlightened after reading them …then you should read them again!” He laughed until his laugh turned into a throaty wheeze.
“Chase?” The Metican warrior asked.
“Let’s do it.”
My bank account flashed and faded away.
Proxima Dollars: $9,750
Spent: $61,500
Loan: 0
Lady C. read for the entirety of the walk over to the park, New Yorkers passing through her body as she studied the text.
My god, she was adorable.
With the book open, and her nose buried in it, she had no concern for the outside world, not that she really needed it considering she couldn’t exactly run into someone.
As we reached the entrance to the park, our walk now shaded by beautiful trees, I opened the Brawl app and saw that we were supposed to meet the other Alpha in the mall.
We had to be careful, because there would be a lot of people in the mall. But there was also a lot of open space, which would be perfect for a showdown.
We got there about fifteen minutes early, and while we waited, Aya and Lady C. walked around our area, checking for locations which they could use to hide, or utilize to their advantage.
It was a good idea, and it made me think that we should start coming a little bit earlier to these brawls, just to get a sense of our surroundings.
While Aya and Lady C. snooped around, Iris took center stage. I wanted her to lead the Brawl; I knew it would be an unfair advantage for two Alphas to be instructing the fighting party.
“You'll know them when you see them,” I told her. “And it's a single mythcrea Brawl, so do you have someone in mind that you'd like to use?”
Iris considered this for a moment. “Actually, I'd like to use my new capture, Spew Gorge.”
I recalled the goblin and his painfully scratchy voice. I didn’t know how useful he would be, but Iris always had pretty solid intuition, and his smog attacks were pretty cool. “Sounds like a plan.”
Eventually, an Indian man with a thin mustache wearing a bright polo shirt walked over to us. He stood about forty feet away, also surveilling the area.
Iris waved; the Brawl was on.
Aya and Lady C. immediately got into place.
Spew Gorge appeared, the short goblin going for the dagger sheathed at his belt. He wore chainmail armor now and gauntlets made of leather with metal accents.
I turned my attention to the opposing Alpha’s Hunters.
[Ballistics Mage, Level 8]
The Ballistics Mage’s weapon of choice was apparently the slingshot. She was slender, her face covered by a hood, and several pouches were fixed by straps to her body. Her slingshot was made of gold, and there was a silvery aura to it.
[Reaper, Level 7]
I was a bit surprised by this one.
The Reaper was a male, stacked with muscles upon muscles. He wore black armor that accented his form, even down to the hardened nipples on his chest plate. A skull mask was on his head, his eyes glowing red behind it. The Reaper didn't have any weapons.
“Reaper, Level Seven; Ballistics Mage, Level Eight,” I relayed to Iris.
“Got it.”
I opened the Brawl add-on and quickly placed a nine thousand PD bet. “You have to win now,” I told Iris. “I just bet all of our money.”
“Just like that, huh?”
“I am sort of an all-or-nothing guy when it comes to these fights.”
“We will not lose, Chase,” Aya said with a growl.
The other Alpha offered us a twitchy smile as his mythcrea appeared.
A twenty-foot-tall man took shape with dozens and dozens of arms, each with some type of weapon, and even more bizarrely, his body was covered in heads.
[Briareus, Level 10]
“What is it?” Iris asked over her shoulder.
“Um…” I ran a quick search to find that Briareus was one of the Hecatoncheires in Greek mythology, the son of Uranus and Gaia. He had one hundred arms and fifty heads, all of which I swiftly explained to Iris. “Also, that word, um, Heca-ton-cheires? I think I said that right. It means a hundred hands. It’s a fucking giant with a ton of heads and hands.”
“I’ve got the fi
ckin’ giant,” Spew Gorge said as he shook his arms out. He steeled himself, grunted, and loosened his shoulders some.
Aya nodded. “Konoshlo duka duchaka,” she said without looking at him.
“I’m fickin’ ready,” he told her. “And the only one dying today is that giant ficker.”
“Aya, take the Reaper,” Iris said. “Lady C., the Ballistics Mage.”
I felt the heat from the ballistic mage’s first attack, the explosion sending a big fireball into the air.
Iris got out of the way just in time, as did the others. The ground shaking as he picked up his pace, the giant ran toward the front of the battle ready to clobber anyone within arm’s reach.
Fwwhack!
The giant faceplanted right there in the middle of the battlefield, Aya springboarding over him, and Lady C. running to his right, both blades drawn.
“Fick yeah!” Spew Gorge called out.
The goblin had used a crossbow with a rope on its pointy end to set a trap for the giant. And by the time the giant got back to his feet, Spew Gorge was already on his back, fighting off the hands and trying to stab the heads all over his body, smoky explosions sending up sulfuric clouds that made the giant choke.
It was hard for the giant to catch Spew Gorge because of his size, even though his hundred arms were all swinging at the same time.
A searing blast of energy cut through the grass and tore into the limbs of a tree.
I knew that this didn't actually happen, but it was what it looked like, and I responded in a way that anyone would respond if they saw this.
I ducked, my hands on my head, as I looked around frantically to find out where the blast had come from.
The Reaper.
His arm had morphed into a large cannon, neon green veins pulsating up his shoulder as the weapon transformed into an enormous, scythe-like blade.
Propelled forward by her ghost limbs, Aya met the man’s organic blade with her buster sword.
The shockwave of their weapons connecting sent both of them backwards, Aya the first to get back on her feet again.
Crouching now, she charged toward the Reaper, flourished her giant fucking blade, and bailed to the right, narrowly avoiding a full-frontal attack by the Reaper.
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