Fell Champions

Otter was the first out of their group to arrive, and the arena was steadily filling. It had once again changed configuration. It was round now, and sectioned off into pie slices for the crowd areas by large semi-transparent grey energy shields, blocking people from exploring outside of their portion of the stands. 

And above everyone and everything, an island of chiseled stone floated. There were screens on each side of it, but the displays were blank. That would be Holt’s new area, though the angle was bad, making her unable to see what was on top of it. He was developing a habit of changing his layout, of making it more grandiose and making himself stand out more and more. 

She flicked her hands out, the thrumming of her Fate Sense still going strong. She’d really been hoping that whatever it was whining about would’ve happened at the funeral, but no luck there. Something was still coming. Probably. Who knew with this useless ability. 

Otter sat down, prepared to wait, but it wasn’t long at all before Vex flickered into view, her face a mess of smeared lipstick – which she had not been wearing any of at the start of the day – followed by Everett, then Rua with Kir latched onto her, and finally Sami. 

“Someone took a wrong turn at Albaquerque,” Otter noted. “How’d Kir end up in the transport?”

“She was touching me,” Rua said. “Maybe that’s how?”

Kir’s normally unflappable exterior was most definitely flapped, her eyes scanning her surroundings, the hand not holding onto Rua now gripped onto the shortsword she’d brought to the funeral. 

“Where am I? What happened?”

“We got transported by Holt,” Otter said. “He does that. And he always picks the worst times. Isn’t that right, Vex?”

Vex blushed crimson and furiously wiped at the lipstick smearing her face.

“What’s this?” Rua said.

“Oh, our daughter’s just been getting busy, from the looks of it.”

If it was possible, Vex blushed harder. 

“No, I mean, ‘Vex.’”

“Oh, she changed her name. She’s Vex now, not Sunny. She went very edgelord. Very teenager of her.”

“I liked Sunny!” Rua said.

“As I recall, ‘Vex’ was your initial suggestion.”

“Well, I was wrong.” Rua leaned in and hugged Vex. “I’m still going to call you ‘Sunny.’”

“Hey, don’t deadname your kid.”

“It’s fine,” Vex said. “You can call me ‘Sunny,’ Mama, I like it when you call me that.”

Otter rolled her eyes. Go figure Rua would continue to be the favourite parent and get special privileges. 

“Can we stop talking about the Crib,” Kir said through gritted teeth, “and explain what just happened? Where are we? What’s going on?”

“How much did Il-Su tell you about us?” Sami asked.

Kir folded her arms. “That you’re all from a different world. That you are trapped in what he says is a ‘video game.’ That he believes this world isn’t real, despite all my attempts to show him the contrary.”

“Did he say who we were trapped by?”

“No. I didn’t think to ask, at the time. It was a lot to process. I had to order him to tell the truth, just to be sure he wasn’t fabricating tales. It would’ve been easier to deal with if he had been. I just would’ve executed him for that, on top of all his other crimes.”

“What other crimes?” Everett asked.

“He was murdering vagrants for their soul crystals. Also stealing a great deal, but that is a far lesser concern.”

Everett deflated a little, and sat down on one of the benches. His shoulders hunched and he shook his head in disbelief. Sami sat beside him, and put an arm around his shoulders.

“Well, long story short,” Otter said, “we come from a different world, under false pretenses that we were to play a simulated reality game. Except we’re not in a game, we were somehow transported to a different world, which I still have no idea how Holt accomplished that. And speaking of that asshat, he’s the one who invited us here, and then locked us all in and periodically summons us here when one of us dies so they can fight for the right to, uh, come back to life.”

“What?”

“Ugh, have Rua explain it to you later, it’s a lot, just suffice to say, Holt is making us all fight for his sick entertainment. Or something. I still have no idea what his motivations are. Dude is bipolar as a coked out Buddhist monk with an exhibitionist fetish.”

“A what?”

“You’re not so pretty that I am going to start explaining every reference I make. Learn to ignore them like Rua!”

“And me,” Sami muttered.

“Don’t worry, I get them,” Vex said.

“And that’s why you’ll always be my favourite child.”

“How many of you people are there?” Kir asked.

“There was a hundred,” Otter said. “Three died. And then I pulled two people into the ‘game.’ Rua and Vex. Still unsure how I did that. So we’re down to ninety-nine players.”

“Technically seventy-four,” Sami said. “There are twenty-five people waiting on their turn in the arena.”

Otter whistled. That was a pretty big number. Looked like Holt was going to get his pound of flesh, and then some. 

“Just… when Holt starts talking, keep quiet,” Otter said. “He hates being interrupted.”

“What gave you that impression?”

Otter spun at that voice, male and vastly irritating. Though today it wasn’t really as smarmy. More of a neutral tone. And filled with anger, barely contained.

Holt stood on a level of stands just above and behind them. Gone was the Greco-Roman toga, replaced instead by a three piece suit, with a tie, all black. His hair and beard were back to being immaculate, almost professional if not for that fucking man-bun. 

If it was the last thing she did, Otter was going to cut that fucking thing off him one day.

“Oh, hey, didn’t know you were there. Did you change your cologne? Because you don’t stink nearly as bad today.”

He strode down the steps until he was on the same level as them, ignoring Otter’s comment entirely. His eyes were only for Kir.

“You’re not on the list,” he said. “Who are you, and how are you here?”

Kir looked confused for a brief second, but somehow put together that she was in danger very quickly. Probably from how Sami stood and put her hand on her sword, and Rua moved to stand between the two of them. 

“I am Kirhaela Maravok.” She jerked her chin up at him, a subtle gesture of defiance.

He didn’t react to it well.

He shoved Rua to the side. And he didn’t do it gently. She went sailing up four levels in the stands, crashing into wooden benches and knocking them over. Sami didn’t hesitate. She drew and slashed with her sword in one motion. Holt caught the blade without even looking at it in his bare hand, and then bent it in half, before casually ripping it out of Sami’s grasp and tossing it aside. 

“Do not try me right now,” Holt said with cold fury. “I am not in the mood for it today. How are you here?”

Kir stood her ground. “I don’t know.”

Vex, making the sound of an angry animal, threw herself onto Holt’s back. She let out a screech of fury, the anger of a wounded, furious child with no self-control, raking at him with nails that couldn’t reach his flesh, blocked as they were by his shield.

Holt barely paid attention. He reached backwards, grabbed her by the back of the neck, and somehow pulled her off him in one sharp motion. And then he casually threw her at one of the shields.

Vex’s Tenacity shattered on impact. Most of the rest of her did, too. 

There was an angry noise, a scream of pain. It took Otter a moment to realize she was the one making it. She summoned a Thread, lashing it about Holt’s neck. He ripped it free with one sharp tug, pulling it asunder.

“Don’t try me right now,” he growled. “Your Fleshcrafter will be fine. Now… how is the Mikovian here?”

“I said I don’t know!” Kir shouted. 

Holt punched her. Or rather, at her. His fist stopped in midair an inch from her face. He frowned at it, and then dropped it.

“Gracewarden,” he said.

Kir nodded her head in assent. 

“It doesn’t protect you as much as you think. I can think of a few inventive ways to get around it. For example, I can teleport you into the middle of the ocean. Or a thousand feet above sea level. Or at the precipice of a volcano about to erupt. But I don’t have to do any of that. Because you’re going to tell me how you’re here, or I'll start tearing limbs off everyone else here with my bare hands until you do.”

Well, that sounded bad. Time for Otter to act.

“I used my Pact again,” Otter said.

“I don’t need to be a Lieseeker to know you’re not telling the truth,” Holt said. “I can see the Online list. She’s not on it. No new names have appeared since our agreement, which means you’ve actually agreed to your end of our bargain. So, I won’t start with you. I’ll start with…”

Everett hit Holt in a full on tackle. Holt’s feet slid back a few inches before stopping. He got his arms around Everett’s waist in a wrestler’s holt.

“I see we have a volunteer,” he said. 

“I don’t know!” Kir said. “I grabbed Rua when the teleport started! I got pulled in!”

Holt made no move to let Everett go. Otter summoned a Thread of the Scourge, lashing out around his legs. With her new upgrade on the skill, she willed the Thread to shrink. He merely shifted his legs, widening his stance, and the golden wire snapped, dissipating as it did. 

“Stop!” Otter said. “If you hurt him, I’ll do the one thing you don’t want!”

He turned to her, frowning. “And what do you think you can do that would bother me?”

“Easy. You start hurting me and mine because you have a mystery on your hands you can’t solve, I’ll just end myself. For some reason, you want us in this world. You want us growing stronger. Either on our own, or in conflict with each other. You’re practically encouraging cliques right now, war tribes, with how you’ve teleported us in.” She pointed to the black walls separating the various groups. “You’re not as clever as you think, and I’m one of your strongest right now. So, you let him go, or that’s it, game over, I remove myself from the game.”

She didn’t know if she was serious. Didn’t know if she could follow through. But for Everett, she could try. 

Holt grunted. “You’re not as strong as you think. Not these days. While you’ve been playing on the Islands, everyone else has been growing stronger. You’re not even in the top five right now. I’m not even sure you’re in the top ten. I don’t need you.”

Oof. That hurt her ego. But he might only be looking at her stats. He might not know that she’d managed to put together an Essence Spark. 

“It might be because of my bond with Rua,” Kir said.

Holt’s attention went back to her. “What?”

“I’m a Gracewarden. One of my abilities is that, if I defeat someone, they become… bonded to me, in a way. I assume this is the first time you’ve done one of these teleports since that happened. I’m connected to Rua now. She is marked as my vassal. That might be why I got pulled in.”

Holt paused, and the anger flickered and died on his face. No, not died. He was hiding it. But Otter could see it, still lingering in his eyes. He was furious. But not at them. Whomever he was angry with, she pitied. He had the look of a man bound for murder. 

He released Everett, who gave a small smile at Holt, before vanishing in a flicker of light. The large dragon man reappeared on the benches, smiling sheepishly.

“You didn’t need to offer to sacrifice yourself,” Everett said. “I was never in any danger.”

Otter felt like slapping herself on the forehead. Right. Everett had said he had illusion powers courtesy of his Pact now. She’d just assumed he’d thrown himself recklessly into danger because, well, it was exactly something he would do. 

Holt didn’t seem to notice, or care. He gestured to the side, his hand forming into a grasping gesture, and then suddenly a man was struggling in his clutch.

The man had dyed green hair, slicked back with an excessive amount of hair gel, and he was wearing what looked to be some kind of punk outfit from the 80s. A lot of denim, torn sleeves, and excessive wear on his clothes that had to be done for style’s sake. He struggled in Holt’s grip, kicking uselessly at the air.

Sami made a startled noise.

“Is what she's saying true?” Holt asked. “Could this be a result of a connection formed from her Pact?”

The strange man with stranger fashion choices man a choked noise. Holt sighed and then dropped him. He fell ass-first onto the ground.

“Yes,” he said, struggling for breath. He coughed a few times, forcibly clearing his throat. “They’re probably connected by their souls via the Flow. I think if I teleport one, they both go.”

“And why didn’t you think to warn me this might happen?”

“Sorry, boss. I, uh, didn’t think of it.”

“Sloppy. Exactly what I should’ve expected from you. I want a list of possible other security risks with your Pact that you might be exposing me to. I want it in writing, and on my desk, within the hour.”

The man smiled weakly.

“And if something occurs outside of that list,” Holt said, “I will rip off your cock, feed it to you, and let you bleed to death. And there will be nowhere you can teleport to that I won’t be able to find you.”

The man paled visibly, but then made a trembling salute, and vanished, like a streak of paint being smeared before disappearing entirely.

 “Fucking idiot,” Holt muttered. He looked at Otter’s assembled group, Rua stumbling down the stairs to rejoin them, and gave one of those false smiles of his. “Sit down, everyone. You’ll surely enjoy what is coming next.”

He disappeared as well. But not with the same paint effect that the stranger had. One moment he was there, the next, he blurred and was gone.

And Otter’s Fate Sense was still beating. Somehow, all the political bullshit of the funeral and Holt’s fury on them hadn’t been what was triggering it. Something else was still coming. Something bigger than both of them.

Rua dashed towards Vex’s broken body, and Otter moved to join her. But Sami caught her shoulder, stopping her in her tracks.

“Otter, there’s something you need to know,” she said.

“What? What now?” 

“That man,” Sami said. And she sounded guilty. Looked guilty. “The man with Holt just now. I know him.”

“What? How do you know one of Holt’s flunkies?”

“Because that was Johnny Fives,” she said. “That’s the man who killed you.”

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