“THE GAMES WILL BE STARTING IN ONE MINUTE!” The speakers announced, giving a final curtain call to all the nervous souls inside Team Basilisk.
Most were nervous about what was to come, for the game that was very likely the start of their Supe careers but for one, there was something completely different to be nervous about. One, sweaty, messy hair teen whose best attempt at costume had him looking like he belonged on in the laundry mat.
“Again, I’m so sorry Mr V.” Bedsheet, aka, Shrapnel apologised, kowtowing.
Mr V has a nice ring to it. Luke thought, before banishing the thought.
“Man, it’s fine. I promise.” Luke tried to assure him. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“But I got you caught up in that stupid fiasco.” Shrapnel added, pressing the importance of his apology. “I can’t believe that idiot Darkspark thought it was a good idea to shock me when I was holding onto you. I’m made of metal, that’s like my whole thing!”
You and me both brother.
Luke had worried he might regret approaching the teenager when he’d spotted him in the waiting bay. After all the last time they ran into each other, it had been quite an awful experience for the cashier. But the chances of running into any Supe he had a history with were so low, Luke took it as a sign of fate.
So he’d weaved his way towards a very awkward-looking Shrapnel and reintroduced himself. At first, the teenager had been very confused about how they knew each other and why Luke had gone out of his way to approach him. Then he’d clarified who he was, reminding the kid of the whole incident with Darkspark.
From then on, Shrapnel had been almost too willing to hear him out and team up with him. A concerning amount of willingness had befuddled Luke right up until the teenager had started profusely apologising. It might’ve been comical if Luke couldn’t hear the sheer guilt in Shrapnel’s voice.
That just made it kind of sad.
“Trust me, we’re working together now. So no hard feeling.” Luke said a little forcefully, trying to get the teenager to stop. “Apologise by helping us win.”
“Yeah, okay.” Shrapnel said, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly. Luke couldn’t see his face through the new black visor he’d added to his get-up, but he liked to imagine Shrapnel was smiling. “That sounds good.”
“And if you’re still sorry after that, you're always welcome to help me kill Darkspark,” Luke added, laughing.
“What?” Shrapnel said, laughing nervously along with Luke.
So that’s a no.
“Just kidding.” Luke lied patting him on the shoulder.
It looked like the kid still needed work on his whole “being a villain” thing. He had the minor crime part down but the big-boy crimes like homicide, genocide and violating the Exodus Accords might still be a bit too much for him. He had the potential though, so Luke was sure he would get there.
Wait why I am thinking like I’m his senior? Shrapnel had been a villain longer than him, by at least a few weeks. From what he remembered the kid had been streaming to an audience of people on god knows what platform. He was also robbing people, admittedly in a half-assed kind of way, which was more than Luke had done on his own.
I did kidnap a guy and torture him. That still felt weird to think about. It was hard to believe that he’d actually done that and where his headspace had been while he was doing it. It almost didn’t feel like it was him but rather someone else. The someone he’d decided to become half-dead in that parking lot.
“Did someone say more pretzels?” Snapper said, as he returned from the snack table armed with goodies they wouldn’t have time to eat.
“Snapper, Shrapnel. Shrapnel, Snapper.” Luke introduced them both, pointing between them. He nabbed a pretzel from the older man, noticing a distinct lack of new teammates with him. “Could you not recruit anyone?”
Snapper didn’t reply, instead sheepishly holding up another pretzel. Luke got the memo. He scanned the waiting bay again, trying to get a feel for the average size of groups. What he found was disappointing. Because besides a few straggler groups like their own, it seemed everyone else had formed into one of the two bigger groups.
That could be a problem.
Three was an odd number but by the sounds of things that wouldn’t have enough time to get someone else. Hell, they’d barely have enough time to strategise.
He felt a poke on his shoulder.
“Question?” Shrapnel prompted.
“Shoot,” Luke said.
“You do have powers, right?”
“Why would you ask something like that?”
“Well, it’s just you didn’t really struggle when I…” Shrapnel paused, gulping. Seemed the guilt still was heavy in his throat. “...my point is I’m happy protecting you if you don’t and knowing would make that easier.”
“I have powers,” Luke grunted.
“Then why did you-”
“My Exodus was like two days ago.” Luke cut him off. “Now can we stop talking about this?”
“Sorry.” Shrapnel apologised.
He could appreciate that Shrapnel was concerned but this wasn’t something he wanted to talk about. It was as his sister would call it, one of his “grumbly areas” much like any conversation that involved his parents. A subject that pissed him off just thinking about.
But the kid was just curious. And he was being quite harsh. Also making it a lot harder for their team to work well together. Fostering a friendly workspace was one of the core pillars of evil.
“It’s fine,” Luke assured him, patting a dejected Shrapnel on the back. “Quick question, can you morph your head like you did your arms?”
“I should be able to but I can’t say I’ve tried much.” Shrapnel affirmed.
Battering ram secured. Luke thought, mentally keeping a note of that. Battering rams were always handy to have. Just as he was about to explain that to Shrapnel, he felt a weird itching on his wrist. When he looked, he found it stemmed from right where his Guardian Bracelet was. Glowing a soft gold and pulsing slightly.
That’s weird. The cashier thought before noticing that everyone else’s Guardian Bracelet was doing the same thing. It got even weirder when his whole body started to glow in the same soft gold.
“Is that supposed to happen?” Snapper asked, poking his Guardian Bracelet as if trying to turn off the glow.
“I Don’t-” Luke started before the whole world started spinning.
It felt like he was thrown into a blender as his body, skin, bones and organs all split apart. Glowing beams of light painted gold carved his being apart as the whole room was lit up like the sun. That same light blasted through the gates, carrying all of Luke with it in a split second, before reassembling him in a blinding flash.
Skin, bones limbs and organs all slid neatly back into place.
Luke wobbled, teetering left and right on the tiled floor he now stood on. His ears were ringing as he held his body with both his hands, feeling a desperate need to keep himself together. He felt like throwing up but resisted because he was scared he might spew out his organs.
Did I just die? I think I just died. That lights gotta be heaven right?
He felt someone shake him but his eyes weren’t adjudged to the light. Senses came back slowly, but first was hearing and boy did he hear it. All the countless roars and cheering booming through the Pit, all echoing down towards him as his eyes slowly started seeing again. The vague figure of Shrapnel kept grabbing his arms, along with Snapper.
Beyond them, the crowds of people, some he recognised from the waiting bay, were standing all around them. Beyond them was a stand, centred in the middle of the Pit, stretching up with a gilded announcer on top of it.
“Please tell me you guys felt that too,” Luke said amidst the ringing. He was probably shouting considering how hard it was to hear himself.
“Cesar teleported us.” Shrapnel explained, keeping an arm on Luke as he steadied himself. “It can make you feel a little sick, try to keep steady.”
That was a bit more than a little sick.
Luke brushed himself off, slowly coming back to himself as he stared hatefully at the Guardian Bracelet. He was starting to see why the clerk warned people not to take it off, because that teleporting sucked. It sucked a lot. Apparently it sucked a lot less for everyone else, considering how they weren’t swaying all over the place like him.
Is it because I’m a Taken?
It had to be that or System Seven.
The people screaming from the stands above them didn’t help with actually focusing. Amphitheater’s like the Pit weren’t known for being quiet, but with how big the whole colosseum was, the sound literally vibrated around them. Beyond the tiled centre of the Pit, Luke could see the outward sanded area shaking.
The only positive Luke could see was the space. At least he wasn’t damn near shoulder-to-shoulder with everyone on Team Basilisk.
“Welcome contestants!” The announcer called from up on his platform, addressing the crowd as much as he was them. “I’m sure you’re just as excited as all of us here for the games as we are, but before we play, let’s give an ovation to the people who make tonight possible”
Lights flashed and shined all around the Pit. Spotlights shone in the sky, bouncing off fog and prodigy-tech to showcase images from all around the arena. The images stopped for a moment on the close-up of a man, resting on a throne of gold with guards on either side of him. His face was as young and unblemished as his eyes were old and calculating, adorned in white silks with red accents around bronze armour that looked fit for a king.
He flashed a smile and waved to the audience, sending them roaring.
“That’s our emperor, graceful as always me. Now let’s move on to the star of tonight’s game.”
The lights blurred and reformed as the prodigy-tech moved on to show off a grim-looking woman teetering on the edge of the stands. If her dark hair and eyes weren’t a sign of what was to come, the gothic clothing and hanging silver skulls on her waistband were. That and that staff of bone she was leaning against.
When she noticed the cameras on her she death gripped her staff and gave a small wave to the crowd.
“Our darling pit master of the evening, Nyx. She’ll be providing our contestant's first batch of competition that I’m sure you’re all dying to meet.” The announcer's voice rumbled across the stadium. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
“She kind of reminds me of you, Shrapnel,” Snapper said, jeering the young man and getting a nervous laugh out of him.
“I think she likes black even more than I do.” Shrapnel admitted, staring at her just a little too long.
“If she isn’t a necromancer then I’d say she’s got a really misleading sense of costume design.” Luke guessed, causing both of his teammates to gulp as they looked back at the gates slowly churning open around them.
The lights in the sky blurred again and the prodigy-tech flashed, now showing a clear view of the announcer from above, standing on his platform and overshadowing all the contestants below. If Luke remembered correctly, his name was Vibe, a sound-based Supe he used his power to project his voice and happened to have the charisma required for show biz. When he wasn’t the announcer for the pit, he was in commercials and movies all over the Federation.
“And of course, there’s our brave contestants and me, your dashing host!” The announced said, bowing to the crowd. That got him a round of cheers. “Oh, you’re too kind, too kind.”
With a fringe of strawberry blonde hair and piercing blue eyes to go with his gilded three-piece announcer get-up, he was as much a heartthrob as he was a pr nightmare. Too many scandals to count, which might’ve been why he took this job in the first place.
The lights started to dim as the spotlight focused in on the Pit itself.
“Now, enough fluffing about and on to the game! Tonight we will be playing…” Vibe paused, making a dropping motion as walls of light fell from his platform, splitting the Pit into four sections before Luke’s very eyes. “Four Square. Well, it's a version of Four Square that will give you all a spectacle at the least. Now, no peeking contestants, this game you against us.”
An inky black painted the translucent walls moments later, cutting Luke and everyone else not in the stands vision of the other teams. The cashier wasn’t a fan of that, feeling much more cramped again now there was only a fourth of the space there had once been. Neither were some others on Team Basilisk, the bravest of which started banging on the inky black walls.
It was to no avail.
There was a strained cranking of chains behind them as the gates on the edges of the Pit opened fully. Luke could make out figures in those gates, but only in fragments. His mind was trying to digest the announcer’s words while his eyes kept track of the potential danger. With the walls up and the gates open, the cashier got the jist of what “you against us” meant.
For the first game, none of the teams would be fighting each other.
Which can only mean…
“Hey guys, we should get away from those gates,” Luke suggests, grabbing both Shrapnel and Snapper by the arm and dragging them away from the edge of the tile.
“The game is simple, our lovely pit master will unleash her plethora of undead for ten minutes into each ‘square’ for all our contestants to contend with.” Vibe shouted from above. Then he addressed those below him. “As for our contestants, the rules are even simpler. Survive! Now let’s get this game underway!”
More people started backing away from the tile edge as a bluish-black mist slowly started to leak out, travelling along the sand towards them. Luke snapped his head to the pitmaster/necromancer and yep, she was waving her staff around and her eyes had become the same glossy bluish-black as the mist. Exceedingly creepy but very much on brand for the type of Supe she was.
Luke felt lucky he’d started pulling back towards the inky black wall early considering how many bodies it put between his group and every other poor soul trapped with the oncoming horde. The countless creaking steps stamping in unison vibrated the sand now covered in mist. Flesh, bone and rot crawled their way out of the gates.
The smell of disinfectant too strong to ever hide the rot filled the air as one by one, skeletal bodies pulled themselves out of the gates. Some were more skeleton than others, most having at least some hanging flesh and all possessing that same bluish-black shimmer in their eyes. There was nothing behind those eyes besides hunger for life and it showed as they marched, crawled and scraped like dogs towards the life in front of them.
“We’re meant to fight those things?” Snapper asked, holding one of his knives for dear life as he pressed his back to the inky wall.
“How many is that?” Shrapnel added, shifting further and further away. His hands were slowly adopting that silvery metal as he morphed them.
Is that a nervous tick? Luke wondered as he took stock of how this whole thing would go. He gave up trying to count them after he realised they were just going to keep streaming out the gates, instead counting the people they had on Team Basilisk. There were maybe fifty of them in total to the at least a couple hundred undead.
“They outnumber us almost four to one,” Luke mumbled, unholstering his pistol. The shotgun in his coat was a last resort.
“Should we just rush them then? Pick a few off then retreat and pick off their numbers.” Shrapnel asked. He was damn near shivering with anxiety and combatting his fight or flight response in the face of something inhuman. In the teen’s case, he seemed to prefer to fight.
But that was a bad idea, so Luke shook his head and held him back.
“Something is off,” Luke warned his two group members, keeping a keen eye on the gates.
Watching them for that something that was itching his head. The fog in his mind was there again, the same way it had been when he was trying to figure out how to deal with Puck. That thing in his head that washed over his ideas and just gave him an answer. A solution. Only thing time it was more like a red light.
A warning sign in the distance. An alarm in his head that told him that something was off. That he wasn’t seeing the full picture.
The two biggest groups of Supes had pulled most of their members together while the rest were in disarray, taking a solid bit of territory in the middle and pushing most out of the way. They steered clear of the big robot dude and the werewolf demon who both put themselves closer to the wall, watching what was about to happen.
That meant that more than a couple of stragglers who hadn’t been quick on the uptake were now stuck in front of a veritable wall of people, facing the horde of undead crawling towards them. It didn’t take long for the skittish of the bunch to start slinging their powers around. First, it was a spear of energy chucked and lodged into the chest of the nearest skeleton, sending it flying backwards.
Then there was a slate of ice flung forward towards the next closest undead. A green wave of energy crashed into the next. Then a particular speedy middle-aged man who clearly was fed up with waiting zoomed into the fray. Small sparks of purple fire were left in his wake as sped towards the crowd at inhumane speed.
I might have jumped into the Pit a little early. Luke thought as he watched the man bulldoze through three undead in a row. Or at least, that's what he believed happened. His eyes could only follow the trail of flame, unable to keep up with the man responsible for it.
His action inspired some courage in the rest of the stragglers close to the gate, most beginning to use their powers in some way or another. Undead were levitated, blown up, punched, headbutted, cursed and destroyed as they came. Their sheer numbers weren’t so high yet that they could merely overwhelm the stragglers of Team Basilisk, who seemed to have found a rhythm working together.
It was to be expected, at least somewhat. Certain powers had tendencies to work better employed in certain ways and generally, if you knew how to use your power, you knew where you fit best. Considering the sheer number of people taking a head-on approach, it showed just how many Supes were physical types in one way or another.
Neutrals, as E.R.A.O called them. Powers that didn’t have any caveat to them, just raw ability in one physical domain or another. It could be healing, strength, speed, sight, constitution or any other bodily domain. So long as that was your sole power, you were Neutral.
And my god they’re effective. Luke thought, watching them go down there and give it to the undead. Granted, from a wider view they were definitely slowly getting overrun, but it was still impressive. Impressive enough that the two larger groups had started moving up, wanting to press the advantage.
“I feel like the kids right,” Snapper said, gaining confidence at the sight of Team Basilisk going to work. “We should at least help, right? Sitting back here is a bad look.”
“Still a bad idea,” Luke murmured, keeping a tight grip on his pistol. He had very limited experience with the thing and wasn’t exactly excited to find out how straight he shot. Despite how well things were going he still felt his hairs standing on edge.
“We’re winning.” Shrapnel disagreed, pointing a blade hand towards the fight. “If not because we want to help, then at least so the other don’t try to eliminate us afterwards. It’s better to be allies than competition.”
And it’s better to be pessimistic than naive. Luke thought, keeping it to himself.
“Would they actually try and eliminate us?” Snapper asked, almost as innocent as Shrapnel. “We’re on the same team.”
But only one person can win. Again, Luke kept that thought to himself.
“For starters, helping is not going to make anyone less likely to stab us in the back the second our one common enemy dies, so it actually benefits us for the undead to last longer,” Luke explained, having a much more realistic perspective on exactly how this game would play out once they got rid of the undead. “And secondly, I still have a really, really bad feeling about this.”
“Why?” Shrapnel and Snapper asked in unison, two peas in a pod decades apart.
“Because those rotten skelly’s are still crawling out of the gates, the goal of the game is to survive instead of win and at the rate we’re going, we might not even have a single person out on our team and that’s not good entertainment,” Luke explained, waiting for that big surprise to rear its head. “And this place was made to entertain.”
Plus there was still that nagging feeling in his head. The gut instinct was that something was amiss.
Nothing went wrong at first. The stragglers upfront, especially the Neutrals were making good progress slowly thinning out the horde. It was disgusting, deeply disturbing work but they were trudged through it. The two bigger groups were dispersed apart from each other now, the more intimidating members beginning to strike out on their own.
Everyone was looking to get a chance at the spotlight, noticing the prodigy-tech projection showing all the various angles of the Pit. Now was a good a time as any to get your first chance at stardom. None of them were worried about the holographic timer in the sky slowly ticking down.
Am I wrong? Luke wondered after they reached the seven-minute mark and nothing had gone wrong.
Was he just too pessimistic?
Or…
Are they biting at the bait. The bait of an easy chance to shine, mowing down an enemy that was nothing more than a worm on a hook.
A hook that was about to catch them.
It happened so fast.
The speedster manning the charge had zipped through the backline of undead, ready to deliver some fatal blows to the bony bastards too distracted by the barrage in front of them. Then there was a clicking. A clicking that sounded like bones scraping against each other. It gave the speedster maybe a second of warning before a burst of gold exploded from where he had once been.
Then no more warning.
And no more speedster.
A few caught on to the gold explosion his Guardian Bracelet going off and retreated for a moment. A moment that left some of the Neutrals on the back foot, no longer having the support of the more skittish Supes behind them. That was enough to get them surrounded. The horde of constant undead started swallowing person after.
That's when the screams started. The next golden flash came soon after. Then another and another, almost like a rhythm of death as the horde started to swallow people. The more screams came, the more people started to fall into disarray.
I’m regretting being right. Luke thought, watching the crowd of bodies topple onto the tiled floor of the Pit and start scrambling towards them.
A middle-aged woman broke through the horde, cuts, bruises and bite marks staining her red Supe outfit. Luke could barely make her out through the frenzy happening around him. But everyone saw clearly what happened next.
That clicking returned. That red Supe didn’t make it two steps before she exploded into golden light, skewed by a blade of bone almost the size of her body. The shadow of the creature behind it loomed, making it difficult for Luke to see exactly what that thing was. But he could make out enough.
A shelled exoskeleton, thin but robust, with a head and two sets of mandibles to match. A tail lurking behind it spiked like its spin and double-jointed bone feet along with large clawed hands.
Even dead and without any modicum of flesh, the shiny obsidian bone and its sheer size gave Luke enough to know exactly what that thing was.
School in the Federation could be a bit grim, like the world they lived in and made it part of the mandatory curriculum to teach students how to deal with the many unique dangers they would come across. But something in the world, no amount of schooling would help you survive. Three in particular, you were always warned of. The three that the teachers wouldn’t tell you about until you were old enough to grasp just how dangerous they could be.
The stars, The Silence and the…
“That’s a Swarm.” Someone hysterical shouted to the whole Pit. “They trapped us in here with a Swarm Hunter. Oh god, we’re all going to die!”
Chaos erupted.
The dead thing bolted into the two groups with reckless abandon, stabbing clawing and bulldozing everything and one in sight. The glow of activated Guardians Bracelets exploded in front of Luke as the horde of undead gained a vigour, streaming past a now destroyed wall of people.
Most petered off towards the nearest contestant in sight. Inevitably, some locked their misty bluish-black orbits on Luke and his merry band of-
“Incoming!” Shrapnel shouted, swinging his arms as they transformed into sharp metallic blades, which was admittedly very cool.
Luke raised his gun, finger on the trigger as rotten skelly's ran towards them, pushing down all the fear coursing through his body. Then he felt a pulse from his heart.
[New Quest unlocked]
[(Minor) Quest available]
[Pited to win:
Description: What better way to get your name out there then to throw yourself into a gladiator pit?
Robbery? Too easy.
Assault? Too light.
No Luke, you decided to just throw yourself into the depths… look just win the tournament.
Reward: 500EXP, a Skill and a moderate increase to Infamy
Punishment: Whatever Bloom ends up doing to you if you don’t honour your side of the bargain]
“Not a good time!” Luke shouted to the system, firing at the nearest undead as it tried to grab him with its gangly rotten hands.
And why the hell is the description so… sarcastic?