Fell Champions

“That’s going to be a problem,” Il-Su said.

He stared at the arrow planted firmly in the dirt at his feet. It had sprouted there quite suddenly, like some kind of fast-growing plant the second he’d rounded the last pillar to get to the main arena. No others had followed as he’d retreated, pushing Pegacorn and Slider back as he had. 

There were only a few minutes left on Holt’s timer. Normally it wouldn’t be a problem for Il-Su. He could stealth his way in and avoid the camping archer, whoever they were, and then deal with the problem from there. It was something of a specialty of his.

But Holt wanted this to be a team event. And that meant the whole team would have to be in the arena before the timer ended. 

“Is it just one archer?” Pegacorn asked from cover.

“I only saw the one. But that doesn’t mean there are others with slower reaction times. Or really shitty aim.”

Pegacorn swore, and both Slider and Brock looked nervous. The both of them were among the crowd of players that hadn’t invested in Tenacity. A single well-placed arrow might be enough to not only break their shields, but also kill them. 

“We go in,” Il-Su said firmly. “We go in, and then immediately scatter. The archer will probably aim for me.”

“That’s it? That’s your plan?” Pegacorn scoffed. “Everyone runs in a different direction and hopes that you draw aggro?”

Il-Su grunted and didn’t elaborate further. No point in arguing. He wasn’t the best at convincing people to do anything, even sensible courses of action, and her mind was already made up about him. That was more in Mayumi’s wheelhouse. Or even Sami. She had a way of making people do things they didn’t want to do.

He took one step forward and Brock grabbed his arm. “You don’t need to do this.”

Il-Su was about to retort that he wasn’t abandoning them when he saw the look in Brock’s eyes. Not fear for himself. Concern for Il-Su.

Well, that was annoying. 

Brock thought Il-Su was sacrificing himself. That he wasn’t just choosing the meta best suited for survival. 

Il-Su was tempted to roll his eyes, but suppressed the urge. The fact that someone thought him capable of it felt kind of good, though. Warm. He remembered what it was like dimly. To have someone believe in him, and not just condescend to him and tell him what he was doing wrong. 

Il-Su’s eyes flicked upwards. That stupid timer was nearly up.

“Does anyone have any better ideas?” he asked.

“Yes,” Pegacorn said. “I use my Pact ability to strike the arrows down. But after that, I’m tapped out. I didn’t invest too heavily in Will, and my power is kind of a resource whore. It’s a one-and-done. Won’t be able to use it again after that.”

“We shouldn’t need it,” Il-Su countered. “Most of the people in the arena right now suck at these kinds of games, or allocated their stats poorly. I’m pretty sure the two of us can disable whoever’s out there and let Slider and Brock play cleanup for their kills. You should hold it in reserve, just in case the shit hits the fan somehow.”

Pegacorn made a frustrated noise. 

“What?”

“Nothing. I just hate that I agree with your assessment. You’re only half as stupid as you seem.”

They arrayed themselves in a formation with pegacorn taking point, her massive club held at the ready. Il-Su was directly behind. It was probably smarter for him to take up the read as the more experienced player, but he wasn’t good at playing vanguard. Or looking out for people other than himself. A fact Sami had loved to remind him of at every opportunity.

Il-Su glanced up at the timer. They were down to seconds. Apparently Pegacorn noticed as well, because she shouted, “Move!”

And then she was charging.

Pegacorn wasn’t really built for power. She wasn’t tall or thick, and while she had muscle, she was still very feminine. She was like one of those gym girlies Mayumi would constantly gush about and follow on Instant Graham, sleek and fit, but more for appearance than for mass. But despite all that, when Pegacorn began to move, it made Il-Su think of a train. Fast, heavy, unstoppable.

She angled her body like a linebacker, shoulder forward, head down, and her club angled back and low, and she heaved herself towards the enemy faster than she had any right moving, her feet striking the ground hard enough to displace the sand and fracture the stone beneath. 

Il-Su fell in line behind her, reminded of his times with Pledge, pulling similar maneuvers with Everett. He wanted to laugh, or at least smile, as he chased after her, reading daggers to throw. He stayed in her shadow, using her for cover, but kept his sightline open for incoming threats.

An arrow shot at them, but it was clumsy and off-course. A second followed, and this one flew true. Too bad Il-Su was a better shot.

The arrow should’ve taken Pegacorn in the torso somewhere. Instead, it was knocked off course by one of Il-Su’s throwing daggers, a throw even difficult for him. He made it look effortless. 

He didn’t focus on any one thing, trying to keep as much of the battlefield in his awareness as he could. He could see what waited ahead. Eight players, two of them archers. Neither bows looked well made, and one of the two was having difficulty loosing arrows straight. He wasn’t just unskilled, he was a complete amateur, and definitely panic firing. But the other, a blonde guy with fucking elf ears was doing his best Legolas impression and taking his time on his shots.

Il-Su had to take down another two arrows from him as they moved forward. He was running out of knives quickly. 

“There!” Pegacorn barked. 

It took Il-Su a second to see what she was referring to, but as he did, it was a lifeline. The two teams were beginning to cluster in a group, but they acted like they were pressed against an invisible wall. One they couldn’t cross. Or wouldn’t.

There, uncovered by the sand at their feet, was a shining, golden line. A border, marking a safe zone. And conspicuously, the two archers were outside of the border, off to the sides.

“Veer!” Il-Su said, an idea hitting him.

But Pegacorn was evidently on the same wavelength as him. That defensive line looked scary, but they were inside the safe zone. The archers weren’t. That implied you needed to be outside of it to do actual violence.

Which meant those archers were fair game. If one of them died before the clock finished, it meant one team would only be three. And Holt had very specifically said any team without four would be disqualified in a permanent fashion.

Pegacorn barrelled right for the archer who couldn’t shoot worth shit. Il-Su, Slider, and Brock all followed her charge. Apparently, the poor archer’s team realized their mistake, and tried to run for their ally.

And in so doing, turned their backs to the other team they stood with.

There was a quick scuffle that lasted only a few seconds. Violence wasn’t allowed in the safe zone, but grappling apparently was.

The archer took one last shot, panic in his eyes. He apparently thought he had time to get away with it before retreating.

Il-Su lined up a knife on him, but Pegacorn beat him to it. She yelled something, and suddenly the images of black cats that had been burned into her club began to move. They yawned, stretched, and came awake.

And as one, they pounced, leaping from the club and making the switch from two-dimensional charcoal doodles to three-dimensional cats, landing on the sand and displacing it as they did. All of them took off in a sprint. Each if the cats looked to be made of ash and charcoal that had been smudged into form, and all of them were no bigger than a mouse. But there were a lot of them. 

They leapt as one at the archer, tiny claws raking as they landed. His Tenacity lasted a second. After that, the screaming began.

Their claws weren’t long. But they dug deep anyway. It took only moments, but when it was done, there was nothing human recognizable aside from the general shape of a twitching body. He was a mass of flayed flesh, pieces of him everywhere. His eyes had been eaten out of his skull. And around him, tiny charcoal cats played with one another or bathed themselves. 

Worst of all, the archer was still making broken sounds of whimpered pain.

Slider made some exclamation of excitement. Brock noisily threw up. Il-Su nearly joined him. Instead, he grabbed the front of his shirt and hauled as hard as he could. 

The two teams had stopped fighting after the archer had been eviscerated, and they looked unsure of what to do next. 

Pegacorn broke into the safe zone, the rest of the team trailing after her past the golden line. She grimly hefted her club, and brought it down on the archer, but as it was about to connect, everything shifted. The archer disappeared. And reality blurred.

Il-Su found himself in a smaller circled off area of Middle, standing alongside his team. The other two teams were in their own separate circles, separated off from everyone. The archer who had just been a ruined tribute of agony was now standing, unwounded, unstained by his own blood. He was torn between bewildered sounds of joy and sobbing at the memory of what he’d just endured.

“And that’s time!” came Holt’s voice from above. “Three teams made it to the end. Everyone will have their bodies, Will, and Tenacity restored. The remaining four players who failed to find each other in time and make it to Middle will… well, it won’t end well for them.”

There were startled noises from the crowd in the arena, and too late Il-Su realized there were five new people in the arena with them. He didn’t know any of them, but he recognized one woman from a description Fitzkim and a few others had given him. Castille, the woman who was apparently Holt’s flunky who dealt with clan matters.

She, along with the other four, saluted to the floating island above. One man, with slicked back green hair and an outfit that was all denim and metal spikes, did a very sloppy job of his salute. Il-Su wasn’t sure, but he thought that the salute might’ve been done with just his middle finger. 

“Go,” Holt’s voice echoed out. “Find the remaining four, and purge them from the game.”

And then the five turned as one and headed into the maze of stone pillars. 

Holt continued as if he didn’t just sign the death warrants of four more players, “And now we get to the main event! Wow, feels like a long wait. And I bet it won’t be nearly as rewarding as we all hope. Now, to explain the rules!”

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