What happened after her death was all the more nightmarish. That disgusting old man Rosenthal also sacrificed his reward to save Scyth. And Destiny herself fell afoul of Quetzal and Hellfish’s furious raids, which Meister’s people had joined like a pack of jackals. Karma, her mother would have said, and she’d be right.
It wasn’t blue blood that made Destiny’s parents category-B citizens. Her father was one of those peacekeeper generals whose efforts were appreciated even by the losers after the war was done. His actions had saved the lives of millions. Later he created a company that grew into a global giant. Her mother founded a charitable fund to help orphaned children, of which there were a great many after the war, and thousands remained grateful to her to this day.
In a word, it was breeding, and there was no getting around it. People in a gene pool polished over centuries will always find a way in life, and Destiny only confirmed the rule. And now a misfit by the name of Alex Sheppard stood in her path, and she seemed unable to remove the obstacle!
The music thundered, the spotlights crossed again on the gamesmaster. Destiny raised her head, felt the reporters’ attention, straightened her back, put on a mask of detachment and smoothed her platinum hair. A girl like her had no right to look unattractive, even when everything inside her boiled over in fury.
“Your attention, contestants! The viewers have made their choice!” Octius annoyed her with his absurd artificial pauses, apparently intended to be intriguing. “In their opinion, the worst player of the day was… silver ranger Destiny!”
And that was the last straw for a camel already overloaded with shame and frustration. Destiny bit her forefinger — a habit from childhood that her elite tutors had never managed to train out of her. Remembering herself, she lowered her hand and smiled widely. Looking at Marcus, she spread her arms:
“Nonsense!”
Jansson couldn’t hear her, but the point was clear without words — the viewers’ decision was absolutely illogical and unjust. The day ended with a triumph for Destiny after all! Even if she did have to ally with Marcus…”
“It’s crap, Des!” Loran said with exaggerated pep. “You’ll survive tomorrow with the debuff, it doesn’t matter!”
In the meantime, Octius expounded from the stage:
“We can only guess at what the viewers’ choice is based on. By all appearances, the reason is that Destiny Windsor made a range of mistakes and failed to send Scyth home, thereby failing to meet expectations of her…”
“The hell with this,” she said sharply, rising and walking away from the table. “I don’t want to listen to any more of this nonsense. I’m going to my room.”
“What about the interviews?” Bella asked, looking perplexed. Destiny never missed the chance to be at the center of attention. “What difference does it make, Des? The important thing is getting the viewers’ attention! And you got even more of it today than Sheppard! You said it yourself, there’s no such thing as bad press!”
“Remember, Des, your contract obliges you to…” Ezekiel began, but Destiny interrupted him:
“I’ll do a stream, that’ll be enough! I’ll answer questions from the viewers.”
The contestants’ streams were monitored by the organizers of the Games, to ensure that any communication with the outside world didn’t give the contestant an in-game advantage.
“Hmm, that will work,” Ezekiel nodded. “Considering almost all the subscribers are your fans, I doubt you’ll hear anything unpleasant there.”
Leaving her friends at the table, Destiny walked to the exit from the hall. There her assistant showered her with platitudes, but she brushed them off and headed for the elevators. Wearing a fake smile and slipping past the journalists, who felt no strong urge to follow her, the girl reached her room.
“Gray, I’m resting. Do-not-disturb mode! Sleep mode!”
The AI she had called Gray darkened the windows, dimmed the light to the minimum and sent a standard message to her helpers’ comms in her name: “Don’t bother me, I’m resting.” She had five people in her retinue: a stylist, a PR consultant, a makeup artist, a dietologist and a personal trainer. She didn’t want to see any of them, although May, the PR girl, was bursting to talk to her to ‘discuss a communication strategy in light of recent events.’
Destiny began her stream in the half-darkness and answered questions from fans for half an hour, pretending as if everything was fine, that the viewers’ choice hadn’t upset her at all, that… Well, plenty else. All those envious losers that dreamed of living her life for just one day supported their favorite and swore that tomorrow they’d bury ‘that upstart Scyth’ with downvotes. Together they were a force to be reckoned with — her two hundred million subscribers could furnish anyone with a comfortable life through their donations, but not Destiny. Her bar for a comfortable life was somewhere in the clouds.
“Don’t despair, dear Des! We all love you so much!” a fangirl connected to the stream prattled on. “When Scyth attacked you, I couldn’t even watch, I had to turn away!”
Destiny smiled warmly:
“Thank you, sweetie! Your support means so much to me!”
When she was finished, she threw her comm away in disgust, dove beneath a blanket and shut her eyes. She didn’t want to sleep, but she didn’t want to do anything else either. Most of all she just wanted to hide away from everyone and somehow survive tomorrow. Who knew what debuff she would get? She hoped it wasn’t as bad as the ones Scyth had gotten. Most of all, Destiny feared winding up in an awkward situation and turning into a laughing stock. Exactly that had happened today, and tomorrow could be worse, given how much stronger Scyth had become.
The promise she had given to Marcus deepened her bad mood. That gorilla had been drooling over her since opening day, clumsily offering his help in the Games. Destiny had just wrinkled her nose in disgust and ignored his unsavory compliments, but Marcus was persistent. There were all kinds of rumors about the man, whose name was associated with the United Cartel, but for the world at large, Marcus was first of all an orc bruiser and vice-champion of the Arena.
On the second day of the Games, Bella learned from Jansson’s friends that he was simply obsessed with the idea of getting Destiny into bed and ‘breaking in that well-bred mare.’ Apparently the village boy turned social demigod had a particular fetish for Windsor royal blood. Jansson had plenty of ordinary girls, a group which, for Destiny, included film stars, top models and all the other aspirational social climbers.
The workings of Marcus’s depraved heart and mind didn’t interest her. A silver ranger by class, in the Games she saw herself as an arrowhead aimed at a singularly important target. Yes, she dreamed of victory in the Games, but she knew it was unlikely — she was the wrong class for it. But the rest of her life depended on whether she would be in the top 10% of the contestants.
Ever since her birth, Destiny’s parents hoped that even if their daughter didn’t follow in their footsteps, then she would at least occupy a worthy position in society, enjoying the privileges of high citizenship not by right of birth, but through her own services. And they had given her an incredible start, investing in both gene therapy and the best teachers for their only daughter. Until she went to Cambridge, everyone called her Alissa. Once she broke free of her parents, the first thing the girl did was start to introduce herself as Destiny. She liked this third name and the meaning it held. Destiny… One whose presence changes the fate of everyone she meets. It was poetic.
That was when Destiny began to sample the temptations of a life independent from her parents. She had nothing to strive for, because she already had everything she needed and then some. She was, after all, the sole heir to her father’s gigantic corporation. And when you have all you need, the only way not to lose your lust for life is to constantly try out new things. She changed sexual partners like gloves, went wild at lunar resorts, dove in search of lost treasure on the ocean floor, tried every extreme sport she could, anything that got her hea
rt pumping and kept her from getting bored.
By her twenty-third year, the girl had sampled all she could on the planet Earth and its satellite. Only Dis remained. Other virtual worlds, most of them small and for specific tastes — nightmarish, erotic, extreme, — she had already explored. She had considered Dis the opiate of the masses.
Then she had an affair with Richard, son of Joshua and Vivian Gallagher, founders of the Children of Kratos. The boy got her into Disgardium.
She broke up with Richard a year later, but couldn’t say goodbye to Dis. The game gave her purpose, inspired passion within her. Destiny delved only deeper into the fantasy world. Her father tolerated his daughter’s new hobby at first, but each year his view of it darkened further. Things reached a head when she missed Christmas. That was unheard of — to miss a holiday, a time when the family should be together!
“You will quit that game,” her father had declared in a tone that brooked no argument, after bursting into her room and pulling off her blanket. “You have a great future, you will be the head of my company, and you must start learning now! Alissa!”
She had spent the whole night in her capsule and had been sound asleep, although it was two o’clock in the afternoon. Yawning, the girl wrapped herself up in her sheet and answered:
“I’m Destiny. And I won’t quit Disgardium, father.”
“Yes, you will!” He clenched his jaw and went on dryly: “I spoke to the Gallaghers last week. You can’t even achieve anything in that game on your own! All your successes there are thanks to the Children of Kratos! How am I to look people in the eye? My only daughter, talentless and useless to society! Come to your senses!”
“The clan has nothing to do with my victory in the rangers’ tournament! I won that all on my own!”
“Oh, yes, of course. Just like those trinkets of yours,” he said, nodding at the several palladium bracelets on his daughter’s arm. “You picked them out and paid for them too, didn’t you? Was it hard for you?”
“Sarcasm doesn’t suit you, father,” Destiny answered tiredly. “You’re lagging behind in life. You’re backward. The army and the war calcified your mind. You just want to dump the corporation on me so you can retire. Your whole life was army, then business. I! Don’t! Want! That! I want to live my own life, not your lectures!”
“Is that so?” Her father seemed calmly, but there was steel in his voice. “Fine. You can forget about the corporation. You won’t be the heir, all your inheritance will go to charity!”
“I don’t care!”
“You’re thirty, Alissa,” he sighed. “Live as you wish.”
“Hallelujah!”
“And live off what you wish. You can forget about any money from me and your mother. As of today, you pay all your bills yourself!”
“Ooh, I’m so scared! I’ll get everything I need in Disgardium on my own!”
“I can only wish you every success, Alissa. But I very much doubt that you’ll achieve anything at all. I’m going to have a chat with Joshua. I think he will support my disciplinary measures and refuse to help you with the clan. The Children of Kratos have no need for cretins like you.”
“No! You can’t do that!”
“I can and I will.”
“That’s low!”
“You know what? Prove to me that you’re worth something. Even if it is in Disgardium, and I’ll keep paying your bills and I won’t talk to Mr. Gallagher.”
“And how do I prove that?” Destiny seized the offer like a drowning girl clutching at a straw. “You know nothing about Dis…”
“I do know something, as it happens. You’re entering the Demonic Games next year. Your father’s brain isn’t as calcified as you think. Your mom and I will be rooting for you. If you win, then you’ll have proven yourself to us.”
“It’s impossible! I have the wrong class to win!”
“At least get into the top… let’s say 10%. The Games usually have around four hundred contestants… Let’s say the top 40 will be enough for me.”
She could have gotten by without her parents’ money — with her army of fans, easily! But Destiny realized that they were her fans while she was rich and living a lifestyle none of them had ever dreamed of. As soon as her father made good on his threat, many of her fans would turn into haters overnight…
She spent the next several months after that conversation training for the Demonic Games, and when she learned that Scyth was entering the Games, she knew — she had to kill that cheater, throw him out of the Games with her own two hands! That would make her a hero in the eyes of the masses! Society would celebrate her service, and her father would have no choice but to accept it!
She was the first to arrive at Snowstorm Lakes, and she started to act right away, working on every contestant that flew in and trying to convince them that Scyth had to be punished. Nobody took much convincing; most were already prejudiced against him, to put it mildly.
But despite every effort, they had failed to kill him for five days now. Scyth’s only death was when he fell into the Pitfall.
Yesterday, when she heard a trio of gankers had cornered the kid in the woods, she knew: now was her chance. His debuff wasn’t yet known, but judging by the first days, the devs would have given the Threat some nasty penalties. This really was her chance.
In the morning, Destiny learned that Quetzal and Hellfish, not to mention Meister’s raid of crafters, would be protecting Scyth. So she went to see Marcus.
“Not interested,” he chuckled, wincing. “I already lost a bunch of time, I don’t wanna waste another day. My raid is off to conquer the Pitfall.”
“It’ll only take half an hour at the most, Marcus. We go, kill Scyth and everyone else, and we’re done. What do you want?”
Jansson named his price, and Destiny blushed deep red. Yuck! That creep! How dare he?! Money was one thing, Destiny had plenty in reserve, but this..? All the same, her desire to achieve her goal and surprise her father won out:
“Fine. But I get to be the one to finish off Scyth..!”
A knock at the door distracted her from the memory. The AI reported in a muted voice:
“You have a guest, Miss Windsor. Contestant Marcus Jansson. Select option: open, report your absence, suggest returning at another time…
She wished she could hide, pretend to be asleep, wished the ground would swallow her up; she knew why he was here. But sooner or later, she would have to face him. The problem wasn’t going anywhere. Desperately not wanting to, Destiny made herself rise from the bed, rushed to the mirror and examined herself.
“Open,” she ordered Gray, then looked at the ceiling: “Stop streaming! Reason: intimate meeting!”
“Confirming. Stream stopped, nothing recording,” the AI operator reported. “Paused by: Destiny Windsor.”
The door opened. Marcus swaggered in with a bottle of whiskey, grinned and nodded at the bed.
“Already warming up the bed, eh?” he said, sitting back in an armchair and patting his knee. “Come here, beautiful, no reason to put off the fun.”
His mere presence defiled the luxury armchair. Jansson smiled and Destiny’s stomach turned: his teeth were crooked, and all different sizes! Gods, couldn’t he have fixed himself up? He had the money! Although he’d still be gross even then: he was uncouth, rude, but the worst part was his puffy eyes. Destiny physically felt his gaze crawling over her. The first thought to come to her was how lucky she was that Scyth was still in the Games! Now she had a reason not to fulfill her promise.
Raising her head, she looked at Jansson with disgust and spoke:
“The deal was that I would kill Scyth, and he’s still alive. So I have every right to dispense with my obligations.”
Jansson didn’t jump up, didn’t throw the armchair at her, just widened his piggy eyes, worked his square jaw.
“I don’t get it… You’re refusing?”
In the depths of her soul, Destiny knew she was wrong, but the price was just too high.
“I’m not refusing,” she said coldly. “Scyth is alive. You’ll get yours when he’s dead.”
“No way!” Marcus snapped. “The deal was that my raid would help you, and I did everything I promised! You missed your chance to kill the kid yourself, and twice at that! Come on now, babe, time to pay the piper.” He patted his lap again, inviting her to sit down like some street walker. “And save your cheap excuses for someone else. I’m not dumb enough to swallow that crap! I came to help you, my people lost levels, we wasted the day instead of farming in the Pitfall, so be a good girl and make it up to me… What are you waiting for?”
Destiny’s heart beat like a drum. She looked at Jansson’s set jaw, at the white knuckles of his clenched fists, felt the strength that might turn to anger at any moment. It would take him only a little effort to snap her neck, and she had paused the stream. She imagined she smelled of fear like a deer before a lion, but she had to keep a grip on herself.
The Demonic Games (Disgardium Book #7): LitRPG Series Page 34
