Chapter 30

  Eesa and I met at the end of the practice field in a circle of bright light that flicked on once our names were called. The Nova girl arrived just after me along with one of her weird doppelganger siblings who carried a bundle of equipment in a bulging canvas bag at his side. Once the two got to the edge of the light, however, Eesa took the bag from her pack mule and shooed him away before stepping fully into the spotlight.

  Her demeanor immediately changed once she was alone. She went from stoney and razor sharp to coldly beautiful in the span of less than a second, her big eyes full of vulnerability, her modest dress suddenly accentuating her curves just so, her pale skin almost luminescent under the harsh spotlight. I felt myself wanting to protect her or rescue her, take her somewhere safe and warm, somewhere we didn’t have to fight at all.

  Woah.

  It was magic, whatever she was doing. I was convinced of that much. Maybe if I hadn’t discovered her ploy earlier or if she hadn’t tried to kill me the day we met, I might have been taken in, but as we stood, I could sense the way Eesa was pulling on my train of thought, not quite enough to derail it but a noticeable influence all the same. It wasn’t outright mind control, thank Constance. More like a bundle of indefinable suggestions, promises being made to my lizard brain that words could never do justice, fascinating and wonderful things that might happen if I were to just… give in, go with it.

  The problem for her was that I’d been bamboozled by far better mind mojo in the past, and, though Trix’s ancestral illusion magic was a different flavor, it was, at least, in the same food group.

  With my mental barriers up and a good dose of suspicion, I could see the ploy for what it was. It was all so performative, fake and empty. Not her beauty. That was real in a scary sort of asylum romance sort of way. The facile part was how she carried herself, all the little looks she shot my way, her deliberate softness and vulnerability. She must have been leaning on whatever Ability or Skill this was pretty heavily, because, despite all these things I noticed, it was still sort of working.

  I held in a sigh. I would have to put up with this all the way up until the fight, wouldn’t I? That sucked.

  A thought occurred to me. Was I doing something like this to people when I activated Gray Man? Hidden Strength?

  Poker face, Ryan.

  I kept my eyes forward as Eesa brushed up against my shoulder and leaned in close.

  “I just want you to know,” she whispered. “I’m glad it’s you. I know it sounds strange, but you seem like a good enough person. I was afraid I’d have to fight my brother. He’s- Well, I just don’t want to fight him.”

  “Uh- Me too,” was all I could come up with, so wrapped up in contemplating just how scary mind altering Skills worked. Did people have to constantly resist the urge to forget me? To underestimate me? I really hoped not.

  “You’re afraid to fight my brother too?” The Nova girl leaned forward until it would have been rude for me not to meet her eyes. The cut of her dress was a little less modest than I’d thought. Or was that the magic talking?

  Constance, give me the strength, I’m so in over my head.

  I shrugged. “No. I mean, I’m glad it’s you too. I’ve gotta get you back for that whole setting me on fire thing, right?” I replied with what I hoped was a self-effacing grin.

  She seemed to take the statement at face value. “Sorry about that. I get carried away sometimes when family is involved. Well, no matter what happens, I hope we can be friends after this,” she replied, reaching out and touching my shoulder, smiling sweetly all the while. I’m sure for someone else that move would have been absolutely thrilling.

  That was too much. Too soon. “I’m *ahem* I’ll hold you to that.” I cleared my throat to cover an involuntary laugh. I didn’t know exactly what her play was, but this was becoming a little farcical. I went into mana sight once more and gave my body and mind a full check, just in case. Then I put my mana to use, once more, as a wire brush.

  Nothing magical materialized, however, in my body or in my feed.

  An unassuming young man, not much older than the two of us and wearing black Academy embroidered robes stepped into the light with us. Eesa jumped slightly at his appearance, as if she’d not seen him there in the dark and inched closer to me like she expected me to reach out and hold her.

  I chose to use that hand to wave at the proctor.

  “Alright, you two. In five minutes we’re going to walk through the corridor here and go to the arena. I want an honorable duel. Armor, weapons, Abilities, Skills are all in play. Lethal damage, all the way to the end. Before your match begins, you’ll feel a healer put a life support spell on you that will save you from lethal damage if your HP hits zero. Don’t resist, or you will be disqualified. It’s for your safety. If you down your opponent and aren’t sure if you’ve put them at zero, you can call for a judgement. If you keep attacking after your opponent is at zero, that’s a disqualification. Which of you wants to issue the challenge?”

  “I will,” Eesa said brightly, reaching into the folds of her dress and producing a big, golden coin, ovular in general shape with lots of sharp, triangular rays shooting out of its center. It sparkled brilliantly in the light, some kind of metal I didn’t have an affinity for, I was sure. Once again, I was thankful for having Spatial Storage. That coin, if you could even call it that anymore, looked like it would be a pain in the ass to carry around in your back pocket.

  Eesa held the coin out for me to take.

  Eesa Trivalia Nova (Level 15 Enchantress) has challenged you.

  Stakes: Monetary

  Do you accept? Y/N

  I chose ‘Yes.’

  Challenge begins in 5 seconds.

  Begin.

  The proctor looked satisfied. “Very good. You’re dueling now but no hostile Abilities or Skills until you get on the arena floor. Understood?”

  We both nodded in understanding.

  “Prepare yourselves however you need. Armor, weapons, status effects. Anything but consumables.”

  “Wait. Does that mean potions are a thing? Tell me they’re a thing” I blurted out. That was exciting. Did that mean there was an alchemy skill or something I could acquire too? That would be a blast to tinker with, not that I was a chemist or anything in my previous life. It just sounded cool. I could possibly have a laboratory in my supervillain lair complete with bubbling concoctions and those little twisty tubes that dripped into glass flasks.

  The guy looked at me with a mixture of pity and annoyance, and I could see Eesa’s shoulders shuddering as she giggled at my expense.

  “Never mind,” I muttered sheepishly. I’d find out later, maybe from an Exotic that didn’t mind dumb questions.

  “You have four minutes. Prepare yourselves,” the young man repeated.

  In one fluid motion, Eesa turned her back to me and bent down to rifle through her duffel bag, her dress already on the floor.

  I could feel whatever magic System Skill bullshit she was using flex inside me… hard.

  It’s just like Trix. It’s just like Trix. You’re detached. You’re an observer here. Your mind is yours. That was a calculated move. You know that. This girl is about to try and kill you, and when she does, she won’t be nearly so…

  I coughed and averted my eyes, ultimately deciding to turn my back to her. My blush reflex was back with a vengeance too. I heard the guy in the robes clear his throat uncomfortably as well. His eyes were fixed on the middle distance, straight ahead with no deviation whatsoever. Apparently, he was supposed to watch us get ready, so he wasn’t in a position to look away entirely.

  Constance save you, buddy.

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  Then, I got down to it and busied myself with summoning. I had no time more to waste.

  Gauntlets, leggings, cuirass, pauldrons, battery packs, connector pins, buffers, servos, safeties…

  All of it appeared before me in quick succession, strobing flashes of light stacked on top of another. I’d practiced this process and knew the order by heart. I checked my munitions, my magazines, my smart cards. All of it appeared to be in order.

  I slipped the pieces on, feeling them lock into place once on my body, the Triggers in the plates retracting and locking one by one, the pulse of mana as the connections were Shape-welded together automatically, the joints interlocking and fusing until the armor was no longer all of its disparate pieces but a precisely calibrated and harmonious whole.

  The helmet of my suit came down and clicked into place, the Automated sealing clamps grabbing hold of the neck joint and welding themselves tight. The power pack hissed as the Volatility rods slid slowly into the Collector array and locked in. Mana trickled through the idle circuits until it reached full activation, ratcheting connections down, flexing joints, sliding the smart cards into their respective casings. The strategic holes in my clothes kept my skin in contact with the parts that needed my input, which was a disappointing amount in actuality. I would have loved for this whole thing to be a fully Automated process, but I’d only had so much time.

  Once most of the preliminary actions were done, I topped myself with a handful of mendau, crushing it with a gauntleted fist. The orange sparks of fiery goodness spiraled down into the aperture in my prosthetic, which I’d left exposed for just this purpose.

  Status gained: Engine. [8 MP/min for 30 min.]

  There was a sharp intake of breath somewhere behind me as the final seal clamped down under the breastplate, and I pulsed mana into my right gauntlet, prompting it to feed power into the tertiary systems. Air started to flow through the armor, the heatsinks whirring to life and giving the interior a bit of white noise.

  Finally done, I turned around to see what the fuss was about. I felt clumsy, not because the armor wasn’t responsive. It reacted to my every move as if I was doing it myself, no lag time between input and motion. My Variable Speed construct programs took their jobs very seriously. That was their one and only purpose. The thing was, the perfect reflexive motion was a problem in itself. I was clumsy because everything seemed off. My perspective had changed, not so much that I didn’t feel like me, but just enough that everything felt like it was out of whack. My brain couldn’t stop screaming that I should be slow, be weighed down, straining under all this weight, crushed and stumbling over myself to keep standing.

  The System also couldn’t figure out if I was standing or climbing, which didn’t help. When I was moving, the System seemed to think I was climbing, and it liked to activate and deactivate Anchor accordingly. I really needed to fix that. Luckily, I hadn’t eaten anything in a while. I hadn’t designed an emergency vomit function in the helmet yet…

  I finally had the wherewithal to look down at the blonde enchantress, who’d changed into a black and red, skin tight jumpsuit much like her brothers’, a handful of wicked looking hook type weapons hanging from her belt and over her shoulders. Her hair was done up in a bun with sharp metal spikes sticking out from inside as well. Eesa’s face, though, was a priceless mix of shock and dismay as she craned her neck to look up at me. Whatever Skill she’d been trying to use on me, she wasn’t using anymore.

  “What?” My voice rang hollowly inside the helmet. “Is there something on my face?”

  —-----------------------------

  We were escorted out to the arena shortly thereafter. I was still checking connections and summoning essential parts into the ammo/battery housing as we crossed the threshold from the corridor to a truly massive arena. I’d seen it in the holos before, but they’d never really zoomed out to show us exactly how big the place was. You could have monster rover demolition derbies in here and have room for a circus in the meantime.

  Domed, dark but for harsh spotlights shining overhead, rimmed by high walls that encircled the dueling area, beyond which were row after row of bleachers for spectators, though the deep shadows beyond the walls were too thick for me to see how many spectators there were, it was much more functional than I’d seen from the lower decks.

  To my surprise, the arena wasn’t entirely flat. Where we were, yes, it was a flat plane that led from our corridor to the center of the floor, but to my right there was an artificial hill where a handful of uneven pillars stood. There was a pit with metal bars that crisscrossed and tangled with one another at the bottom like giant thorny vines, and in the distance, I even saw a little cluster of honest to Constance buildings or, at least, universally gray facsimiles of buildings, like someone had airlifted a corner of some tiny town into the arena.

  Overhead, hovering below what I assumed was the center of the dome was a live holo recreation of the two of us, Eesa and myself. The perspective spun around us and zoomed in on particular parts of our bodies or our gear. The enchantress’ mouth was in a tight line, her features absolutely stiff, tense and dangerous. Gone was the flirtatious, sickly, sweetness of before our match. She was all business now. Whether that be because we were about to fight or she wasn’t feeling quite as confident anymore, I didn’t bother to discern.

  On the holo, the hulking monstrosity that walked beside Eesa took short, deliberate steps so as not to leave the smaller girl behind.

  My suit of armor was, charitably, not exactly pleasing to the eye, at least for a mechanic such as myself. Though Mo’s suit had inspired some of the design choices, I would have been ashamed to stack it up against hers in the engineering department. I’d not had time for elegance and style in my frantic sprint to put it all together, and that fact came through in the presentation. It was the picture of function over form, lots of straight edges, blocky and overbuilt in various places where I had to armor vital systems or shore up a structural flaw, its composition a mishmash of alloys that I’d chosen for durability and ease of use over other concerns.

  What it lacked in panache, though, it made up for in presence.

  7.4 feet tall, two and a quarter feet wide at the shoulders and hips, the suit of armor was a thing to behold. I’d gone with a utilitarian design, harkening back to medieval plate from old Earth, but where they had to scale things down to keep the weight from getting out of control, I scaled it way, way up. My armor was thick, tanklike, overproportioned in the chest and thighs as well as the forearms. The torso was a steel trapezoid, divided into halves by a crease line that would deflect straight shots, while the stomach was composed of multiple interlocking plates that let me bend almost at 90 degrees. On the armor’s rear side was a bulky backpack type attachment with multiple sliding hatches, circular ports, and two massive heat sinks that jutted out of the top like fins.

  The spotlight led us toward the center of the arena. Our guide had told us to stay in the light and stop when it stopped, so we walked to the tune of cheers from the bleachers. There were at least enough people out there for their voices to blend together into one indistinct roar, but I had little experience with such numbers other than creatures from beyond that wanted me dead.

  The spotlight stopped once it had fallen on a table with four people sitting behind: Dean Yisu, Thadeus Marshal, and two other men I didn’t know. They wore somber, dutiful expressions, with the exception of Thadeus Marshal, who only had eyes for me, and if looks could kill, I’d be a smoking ruin. I allowed myself a little, self-congratulatory grin at his expense, though it was unlikely he could see my face unless he had some sort of Detect ability.

  Dean Yisu spoke over the crowd, her voice amplified by the sound system overhead.

  “Eesa Nova of the Nova Family, Ryan Kotes of the Colonial Authority, you are to fight until one of you can fight no more. Have you made your preparations?”

  “Yes,” Eesa replied. I had a hard time hearing her over all the cheers. Sound was weird inside my helmet. I made a note to try and fix that.

  “Very much so, despite everything,” I replied as well, turning until there could be no question that I was saying it to Thadeus Marshal. The vein on his forehead pulsed pleasingly. His nostrils flared.

  The Dean raised an eyebrow, the rest of her exuding a no-nonsense vibe, and the air around her started to distort like heat rising from igneous rock.

  I got the message.

  “Yes, Dean,” I said, bowing slightly in contrition. My armor hissed as the plates on my torso rearranged themselves to allow for the maneuver.

  Thadeus chose that moment to give voice to his concerns. “Are we really going to allow this, Dean Yisu?” He asked in obvious outrage.

  The Dean turned toward him, quizzical. “You have an objection, Mr. Marshal?”

  “Yes! Look at him. This is obviously not in the spirit of the competition.”

  “Your objection is noted,” Yisu declared. “And overruled.”

  “On what grounds?” the professor gawped.

  Yisu’s imperious gaze never wavered.

  “This tournament is with full weapons and armor, Mr. Marshal. Some students arrive with loot from previous exploits or even heirlooms from their Family vaults and entire builds taking advantage of such items. I believe we set up these rules before the first fight even took place, and you had no objections then.”

  “B- But this! He’s wearing an entire hauler frame, for goodness sake!” Death’s Touch stammered. “There are heirlooms, and then there’s this. Surely, this touches on the consumables rule, at the very least.”

  My body suddenly felt a bit too restricted inside my armor, my throat and chest constricting uncomfortably. I hadn’t thought of that, that my fighting style might be in violation of some kind of rule. They’d said weapons, and I’d assumed… Hell, most of my equipment was “consumable” in that I didn’t mind if it was turned to scrap. I’d always just thought of it as a setback or an opportunity to iterate on the design. Surely ammo wasn’t considered a consumable as well?

  Someone else came to my defense, however.

  One of the people on Dean Yisu’s left, a bald man with long sideburns and visible tattoos on his shovel sized hands spoke up. “You’ve fought a lot of Chosen, Thadeus. You made your career doing it. Tell me, would such a set of armor have stopped Death’s Touch?”

  The vein in Thadeus’ forehead throbbed as he seemed to war with his own sense of pride. His hands flexed, and he looked like he wanted to come over the table and rip me out of my armor himself. However, he decided speaking was in his best interest for now.

  “Not even for a second,” Death’s Touch ground out between clenched teeth. “But these are students, not professional fighters.”

  “I have heard your concerns, Mr. Marshal, and I sympathize. However, given what I knew about these Chosens’ classes, my judgement remains the same. You may voice further objections after the match,” the Dean ruled before turning back to Eesa and me.

  “Ready yourselves, students.”

  The spotlight that had illuminated us all a moment before, winked out, plunging Eesa and me into darkness. Detect Iron told me her pulse was going a mile a minute as she took up a ready position, her hooked blades leaving their sheaths and rearing back in preparation for a strike, one blade held high and behind, one down by her thigh.

  For my part, I rolled my shoulders and neck, flexed my fingers and listened to the reassuring sound of magical servos doing precisely as they were programmed to do.

  The spotlight came back on with renewed strength, burning bright while a deep, resonant voice boomed overhead:

  “Fight!”