The only shitty thing now was that many people couldn’t play actual instruments any longer, resorting to playing in the Proxima Galaxy rather than physically learning how to make music.
What a world…
I received notification that the food was being delivered via drone, and quickly fired off a message to Iris telling her to grab it once she reached her studio apartment.
I set the table, picking two plates with cats on them, and arranged two pairs of knives and forks as well. Not really sure how the arrangement should look, I simply placed the silverware on the right side of the plates.
Iris had watermelon water in the fridge, and I heard her door click open just as I began pouring out two glasses.
“I love calzones,” she said, the delivery box in her hands, the smell of melted cheese and pepperoni instantly meeting my nostrils.
“I’ve got new clothes coming too. Did you see that box out there?”
“Yep,” she said, showing me the thin box underneath the repurposed pizza box they’d used for the calzones.
“I just thought it’d be better than going home. We’ve got this tournament coming up.”
“Aware,” she said, looking at me over the rims of her glasses. “So, what’s the surprise?”
“That is the surprise,” I told her. “It’s about something I learned while we were training.”
“Well?”
I was on the verge of telling her but stopped myself.
“I’m waiting...” she said, placing the first calzone on one of the plates I’d gotten out.
“You know what? This surprise will be even cooler if you see it in person in EverLife.”
“Come on, Chase.”
“Nope.” I cut into my calzone and took my first bite. “It’ll be soooo much cooler to see it in person.”
“Come on, tell me.”
“No way,” I said. “Just trust me on this.”
We ate, I got my new clothes and changed into them, and we moved immediately to the Proxima Galaxy.
“Don’t tell her,” I instructed Aya and Lady C. as soon as our forms took shape. The two Huntresses had been training with Magnus, Spew Gorge and Fujin when our avatars formed. Mirror the phantom kangaroo was watching as well, a skeptical look on her face.
“About the instrument stuff?” Aya asked as she lowered her huge blade.
She’d been sparring with Magnus, who was shirtless, his skin bleached white with a collection of stitched up scars across his chest and back.
“Instrument stuff? Did you get new instruments?” Iris asked.
“Nope, just…” I pointed over to the weapons rack. “Just stand over there and watch.”
Iris moved over to the rack and I got into position.
“Who wants to go first?” I asked the two Huntresses. “And no time magic, Lady C., I’m aware that can take me down.”
“Ooo, someone wants to show off.” The Thulean brought her sword to the ready. “I’ll take the bait, but only because I like Iris.”
“Fick me, I’m not messing with the music stuff,” Spew Gorge said as he excused himself.
My bass guitar appeared in my hands, and I was too excited to look over at Iris and see her response as she put the pieces together.
Aya attacked, hurling herself forward with her ghost limbs, and I cut her down with a blast of soundwaves from my bass guitar.
Lady C. tried next, her lightning arcing toward me only to be struck out of the air by muffle-picked triplet.
I’d found out earlier that the pick was helpful for fast attacks that need precision, and had since started alternating between finger playing and picking.
“Care to join us?” I called over to Iris, as another note knocked Lady C. off her feet.
“Holy shit, Chase!” Her ukulele appeared in her hands and she stepped forward, a wicked grin cutting across her face. “Who wants to come at me first?” she asked the two Huntresses.
Aya and Lady C. exchanged glances.
They both charged at her simultaneously, and pulling her arm back like she was Elvis about to hit a chord, Iris let loose several quick blasts of musical energy, each of which cut a path in the field as they tore down the Huntresses.
“Aye!” the Thulean said as she barely righted herself.
Baring her fangs, she pulled her arm back and let loose three throwing knives. She followed this up by launching her body into the air using her ghost limbs, flipping, and attempting to come down with her blade in a perfect arc.
But Iris was having none of that.
She swiftly hit the throwing knives out of the air with a blast from her ukulele; to finish Aya off, she now strummed the same chord, her hand moving up and down rapidly as a shield of energy formed around her.
Aya hit the energy bubble, and exploded backwards.
Lady C. zapped Iris' energy bubble with electricity, but the bubble remained intact, and Lady C. suddenly lowered her blades, her arms wobbling at her sides as Iris hummed and played a beautiful melody.
Singing works for her.
I clapped my hands together. “Whooo!” I shouted as Mirror sidled up next to me, the near-translucent kangaroo watching the fight with skepticism on her face.
“Ha! Let me try to comprehend this: you two are bards now?”
“Not bards per se – well, I guess you could call us that.”
The phantom kangaroo slowly rolled her eyes.
“Well, at least you are better than the last person that owned me.”
“I don't really own you,” I told her. “You’re free to go if you want.”
“Please, spare me the bullshit. You captured me, I'm yours, I'm practically throwing myself at you here, but you're probably not into kangaroos, and who would blame you? Their pouches are fun, but their asses are too big. And what’s with these arms? Lady C. is much more beautiful than a kangaroo. Did I mention my pouch?” She had to bend over a little bit to get her hand in her pouch and flap it.
“Your pouch is fine,” I said, distracted by the action playing out before me.
“And what about my huge ass? Oh, there's people that would be into this, all of this, but you? You're practically a twig with glasses who plays a guitar. I would crush you under my right foot.”
“Good to know, Altsoba.”
Mirror quickly morphed into her dark-skinned base form, the skin-walker that had been our second catch. “What gave it away?”
“You figure it out,” I told her as I turned back to the action.
In the end, the two Huntresses were able to best Iris, but it took strategy and Lady C.’s newfound chromatic magic.
We were all a bit exhausted, which was kind of bad considering we had a tournament to get too. Luckily, just about the time the fight was ending, Sun Wukong came out of the mythcrea quarters in an apron, a big pot of bubbling liquid in his hands.
“What a fight!” the Monkey King said as he set the liquid on the ground.
He turned his hand palm up; bowls appeared out of thin air, stacking upwards as new bowls were added.
Sun Wukong fished in the front of his robes with his other hand until he found a black ladle, which he used to scoop the boiling red liquid into the bowls.
“Come, drink some,” he told all of us. “It will rejuvenate you and bring you luck in the battles that lie ahead.”
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Aya, Lady C., Iris, and I took shape in a locker room that doubled as a skybox.
The tournament was set to begin.
I quickly ran to the window to see where we were, only to find that there were thousands of people below us in the stands that surrounded a large field.
Lightning crackled all around us, and when I looked down, I realized that we were also standing on a clear, glass-like substance, and that everyone below me was also standing on the same substance.
“We’re in the air,” I said after I ran to the window on the far right, and saw the Proxima borealis crashing against an invisible barrier that surrounded the st
adium, waves of green and neon grape splashing up against bits of emerald and midnight blue.
“It's beautiful,” Iris said as she joined me. “It just makes me wonder what the qualifying tournaments for the other kingdoms look like.”
“Who knows? And really, when all this is said and done, we have got to get to some of the other kingdoms. I keep promising myself that we’ll start exploring, but there's just so much to do between here and New York.”
“There's always something, isn't there?”
We turned back to the Huntresses to find them both looking at a scroll that had appeared in the air. As soon as I locked eyes on the scroll, it read the tournament rules aloud.
“Welcome to the Lume Kingdom qualifying tournament. You will face off against other Alphas that are within one level of your current level. There will be five matches, and a match consists of one Alpha, two Hunters, and one mythcrea of your choosing. There will be a coin toss before each match, and the loser of the coin toss must choose their mythcrea before the other party chooses, giving the winning party a slight advantage. Alpha Duos are only allowed one Alpha per match, chosen before you spawn in the battlefield. Finally, your health, and the health of your Hunters and mythcrea, will be replenished at the completion of each battle.”
“Do you want to go first?” I asked Iris as soon as the booming voice stopped.
“No, you go first, and I'll go second. I'd like to see how it plays out a little bit before I go, if you don't mind.”
“Fine by me.”
Lady C. ran over and pinched me on the cheek.
“Hey!”
“I'm sorry, I know I'm being a doting Huntress, I'm just so excited to finally battle with you – on our side, I mean. I know we kicked your ass plenty of times before. Isn't that right, Lady Aya?”
Aya approached me, her hips slinking and making her armor rattle. She wore the armor that she'd worn in Sagelock’s Tournament. Lady C. also wore the armor she’d worn then, but had changed a few of the pieces out for things that she’d bought in the city center.
Speaking of armor, I now wore one of Magnus’ spare breastplates over a pair of jeans, which seemed somehow appropriate for my current state of affairs. Iris was in some extra armor that Aya and Lady C. had cobbled together. She looked cute and intimidating, her eyes framed by her trademark glasses. I was stoked to see her in action now that she’d gotten used to using her musical attack abilities; I had a feeling she would be a force to be reckoned with.
A ball of lightning appeared in the middle of the room, quickly forming a face with bushy eyebrows and a serious broom of a mustache.
“Ahem,” the bolt of lightning said. “The tournament will begin shortly.” He sneezed. “Phew! Damn allergies have been giving me heck for a week now.”
An electric arm formed from his ball of lightning body and he wiped his nose.
“There, that’s better. Now, where were we? Oh yes, the tournament. You are familiar with the rules?”
“Definitely,” I told him.
“Good,” he said, clearing his throat. “I won’t have to go over them then. It’s been a long day; I know you don’t care about that, but I’ve been zipping around greeting participants for the last three hours. Your group is one of the last to arrive, by the way, so it’s clear that punctuality isn’t one of your strong points. But I digress. The tournament. Who’s going first?”
“I am,” I told him.
I caught Iris smiling at me, looking from me to the mustached ball of lightning with a comical look on her face.
I couldn’t help but laugh.
“Is something funny?” the lightning ball asked, raising one of his bushy, electrified eyebrows at me.
“Nope.”
“Okay, then, Alpha Chase Knowles, your first battle will begin shortly,” he said, clearly aware that Iris and I were chuckling about something. “You’ve got three minutes.”
“One question,” I said to the cranky ball of lightning.
“Yes?”
“Since we’re an Alpha Duo…”
“Yes, I’m aware of what you are.”
“Where will she be while I’m fighting?”
“The sidelines, but whoever is on the sidelines won’t be able to participate.”
“Got it, and we’ll just communicate the same way as a normal tournament?”
He rolled his eyes. “That’s two questions, and yes, the same way. If you see something, shout about it to your party, but others can hear you. You can also huddle over there if you want. Ahhhh-choo!”
His sneeze knocked him back into the window. “Allergies!” he said as he fizzled out of existence.
There wasn’t much prep we could do aside from equipping our gear. My acoustic bass appeared on my body and I turned my reverb up, figuring my opening attack would take them off guard before I switched to precision strikes using a different setting and possibly a pick.
I liked what the phaser setting did; I planned to crank that up a bit and add some distortion, which, as I’d already tested, allowed me to shoot the equivalent of laser beams out of my bass head.
“Let’s do this,” I said, and as if this affirmation had triggered the start of the fight, our bodies disappeared and reformed in the center of the battlefield, the crowd roaring in approval all around us.
Before us was a giant coin, easily the size of a kiddie pool. I could see an icon of a single lightning bolt on one side of the coin.
Iris was on the sidelines, and so we could better share intel, I moved toward her, so I’d be within earshot.
Our opponents were across from us, a female Alpha with short hair and an axe slung over her shoulder. She was at Level Four, and her two Hunters were at Levels Thirteen and Eight.
Their handles flashed over their heads and faded:
[Rogue Spellsword, Level 8]
[Tritanian Knight, Level 13)
A small lightning bolt icon appeared over her head, the same icon that was on the giant coin in the center of the battlefield.
Aya scoffed. “The Tritanian Knight is mine. I’ve bested one of Empress Thun’s knights in white satin before. They are fast, but they are only able to fight in a particular way.”
“Oh yeah, what’s that?” I called over to her.
“Like a board. You’ll see.”
I nearly jumped out of my Vans when a bolt of lightning hit the center of the field, flipping the giant coin in the air. It landed, two lightning bolts clearly visible on its top side. We’d won the coin toss; the opposing team would be the first to select their mythcrea.
The coin faded away as an enormous, three tusked elephant dropped in its place.
The beast trumpeted, and as it did so, the crowd stood, cheering it on.
The elephant was black with yellow paint had been applied to its face. It lifted one foot, and stomped, trumpeting again.
[War Elephant, Level 9]
My list of mythcrea appeared before me and I selected Rambi, our mythological rhinoceros. His bulky form took shape next to me, and he snorted when he saw the war elephant.
Am I to take this creature on? he thought to me.
“That's right,” I told him as I brought my bass guitar to the ready. I started finger-picking some notes, just warming up as a timer above us counted off.
“Five…”
“Four…”
“Three…”
“Two…”
“One…”
~~“BEGIN FIGHT!”~~
The voice rang out from all corners of the floating stadium, shaking the ground, its bass vibrating my very core. But rather than simply notice it, or cringe at it, or let it happen, I decided to use this to my advantage.
As everything around me shook, I closed my eyes and moved with the vibrations of the announcer’s deep voice, one hand already reaching toward the neck of my bass, the other one seconds away from playing an open E.
I mentally increased the volume and dropped the lowest string to D, a colorful scale flashing on my pane o
f vision as I twisted the tuning peg.
The fight kicked off and I struck my note, a bassy, incredibly deep open D wrapped in distortion, which rushed through the battlefield and knocked the war elephant to the side, also smashing into the female Alpha.
The soundwave didn't stop there. My attack kept moving until it hit the side of the stadium, the crowd going wild as the bleachers shook.
The distraction giving her an advantage, Aya advanced on the Tritanian warrior, their swords clanking together.
She cursed in Thulean as she lifted her body up and over him, spinning into another attack that he just barely blocked.
The knight was at a much lower level than her, really no match, and this became more evident as she took two swipes at him, a left swing, a right swing, the knight clearly scared out of his metal underwear.
Lady C. was having a hell of a time dodging attacks from the rogue spellsword, who kept trying to hit her with bolts of green energy.
The cloaked fantasy spellmaster thought he had finally gained an advantage when he cast a circle of fire around her. He reached for his sword and froze, his hand still wrapped around the hilt.
Lady C. used one of her blades tipped with ice to calm the flames, stepped over them, and as she spun both swords at her side, she made her way over to the rogue, taking her sweet time. As she approached him, she cocked her head to the side and gave him a soft smile.
Stepping onto her front foot, the Metican warrior spun with her arms wide.
What the hell kind of move was that? I thought as I played some muffled notes on my bass, which shook the ground enough that the approaching Alpha lost her footing.
I was just about to ready my next attack when Rambi and the war elephant, who had been circling each other to see who would go first, collided.
Their horns locked, and there wasn't much they could do except try to kick at each other and try to pry free from the other’s grasp.
Rambi's legs were shorter than the war elephant’s. So I figured I'd give him a little advantage.
My bass now aimed at the war elephant, I did a running scale that created a whirlwind of blistering sonic booms, each slapping into the side of the beast.
I felt like a goddamn rockstar with that move.
Monster Hunt NYC 2 Page 20
