The Grand Battle S2G1! [Round Six: Eddelin City]

Originally posted on MSPA by Schazer.

---

So

this is a location artificially populated by my grandmasters hands with facsimiles of existing battlers

Well, existing isn't quite right. Zeke died, remember?

It was my assumption from your explanations that zeke like yourself was dead to begin with

If you want to argue semantics, fine. He got eliminated, nitpicker.

Very well

So

this is a location artificially populated with facsimiles of battlers extant and eliminated

and all battles have had a similar one

According to Zeke. I only remember up to the first round of my battle, though.

There one moment

here the next, then

Pretty much.

That would mean this locale's diversity is purely for my benefit

The chainsaw grumbled away in a manner one more mechanthropomorphically inclined would consider pensive. Xadrez just sensed Brooklyn holding her tongue, but didn't particularly care either way whether she spat it out or not.

You're not one of those villainous types, are you?

What

I mean… I suppose I couldn't care much either way. If I'm dead for good in a few hours, anyway. I mean, I dunno. Maybe it was fallacious of me to assume you'd be on my side just because you're a ghost like me. Is that ghost-racist? Is that a thing you can be? Maybe it's just discrimination…

Really

how much does it truly concern you

I have no current intention of harming you and I suppose such a courtesy extends to your spectral compatriots

though and this is with the assumption that you have some leadership amongst these ghosts

why them

if my own battle is anything to go by the corporeal are favoured

Why do I only hang out with ghosts? Now who's being ghost-racist?

Xadrez sighed. I was not aware anysoul was being

ghost racist

in the first place

Look, I'm not exactly spoilt for choice here. The non-humans can see right through my chassis to the human within, so they don't want me, and the humans are – if you'll excuse my language – utter. Fucking. Zealots.

The tactician glanced uneasily toward his hand. A tableau of rubble in the corner of his eye was reminiscent of calculations carved in the walls of a floating city. Beneath the beige, the burn of Xadrez' fingers wrapped round the screaming knife's handle was settling to a dull ache that reached up his wrist.

The Ovoid did not react.

explain

Like the whole human supremacy thing wasn't stupid enough, they do decree that the poor old Zachs can't join their holy crusade just because he's where he is thanks to a Grandmaster's meddling! Mad. The lot of-

You're a contestant?

Despite the iron mask obscuring his lower face, Zeke's voice carried clearly. The suitably desolate gust scouring the crossroads failed to tug at the man's jacket. He leapt lightly off the burnt-out shell of a car, and strode toward the duo.

Xadrez nodded, trying to gauge where he and the new spirit stood in terms of necessary respect.

Your opponents?

Xadrez listed them.

And defeated?

Xadrez listed those too. Zeke just nodded, his emotionless face somehow scraping together a questioning look to Brooklyn. She shrugged.

Nope. We've been keeping tabs on all the awakened battlers since you showed up, too. Nobody like them.

Zeke just nodded. Again. What are your plans, ghost?

Xadrez would've bristled at that, but he'd met a lot of souls, and could recognise one still pretty heavily in denial. There was the whole scale of veterancy that the tactician instinctively stuck by, too. I intend to hunt down the Observer

and seek out in this multiverse my mistress

kidnapped like


myself

Xadrez didn't often lose his train of thought – on the other hand, most metaphorical cattle weren't big enough to phase his metaphorical cowcatcher. In the middle distance, a plume of smoke rose, with the wail of a siren. The last war of Battleopolis might've already started. The assembled dead glanced as one to the noise, before Xadrez waved a dagger at Brooklyn.

Have you seen her

Some kind of ghost meandering round, calling herself "Xadrez' mistress"? Nope.

Do not be flippant with me

she goes by Scout-

-that's a cute name!

Xadrez fought back the urge to stab the chainsaw. He did whatever ghosts do in polite ghost company that equates to an exasperated sigh.

then again

were she here you would already know of her presence

Xadrez' tone was accusing. Did you not say replicates of all of the Grand Battles were present here

I don't know! Look, in case you forgot, this replicate did have a life – existence, whatever – that she was enjoying without kowtowing to some uppity Ouija board, you hear me? I haven't exactly been awaiting your arrival as laid down in the holy soulful scriptures, so if you think I'm gonna raise my blowtorch and roar "hail Xadrez" you've got another think coming.

Xadrez tried to interrupt, but the chainsaw hacked up a plume of smoke and spun its blade angrily. Zeke just kind of stared into the middle distance in a way even the tactician was starting to find disturbing.

Kill me if you want to try, buddy. I might've just said I had a life before you showed up but you know what, I couldn't give two shits, got it? I play by my own rules. If this is the end of the world I'll spend it destroying or making your existence miserable or a damn sight shorter, and I don't care what plans you've got.

I have no intention or desire to be your self-styled foe, spirit

It's Doctor Taylor, or Brooklyn if you bother to ask me out for coffee first.

My apologies

doctor taylor

may we agree to peaceably go our separate destructive ways

had you a score to settle with any particular denizens of this place I can at least assure my non-interference there

my only current desire is to establish whether or not my mistress is here

Fine. I've got the rockets and the swiftly-rotating piece of sharp metal anyway, I don't have to put up with your crap. Zeke, the world is ending, isn't it?

Zeke nodded, rotating his shoulders a bit as a pair of blades snapped into place on his gauntlets. He finally looked Xadrez in the eye, while letting Brooklyn weld the knives into place with her blowtorch.

Can you tell one human from the next?

with an effort

Then leave the human men to me.

Is your final noble deed in this dimension to murder presumably lesser men indiscriminately

No. I have a score to settle.

Zeke's got some dude, but me? Pretty much, yeah. At least, the anthropomaniacs. Oh man, that's a great word. Definitely going to scream that in their faces when I plough through them. Oh, yeah. If you meet anyone in the no-man's land, tell them NeW BaTTLeOpoLis is going under. They deserve to know.

Brooklyn saluted smartly to her dead-eyed oracle with her blowtorch, before snapping it back under her chassis and roaring off up the street, with only a let's go! in farewell. The ninja returned from a mental sojourn of his vendetta-fantasies, and looked into Xadrez in a way that made the tactician very uncomfortable.

Tell me about your mistress.

Xadrez told him. Zeke pierced him with his apathetic gaze all the while, limbering up only when the chessmaster was done.

Xadrez waited. Zeke stood, and made some kind of highly conservative motion with his head between a nod and a shake.

You don't want to find her.

Without another word, the vengeful spirit sprinted off, chasing the plume of Brooklyn's smoke. The beige rippled around Xadrez, like a pennant snagged on its flagpole by a vagrant switching wind. The knife felt like it was drifting; the spirit clamped his hand around it, somewhat doubting the pain would subside enough that he could later release it.

Xadrez gave it a long-suffering look, before floating off in the direction it dragged him.