Re: The Grand Battle S2G1! [Round Four: New Battleopolis!]
04-07-2012, 01:11 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by Lord Paradise.
The First Bank of Battleopolis, in the days before everything went to shit, had prided itself on its vault. On top of the fact that it perpetually contained enough money to stimulate the nation’s economy out of a mid-sized succession, this vault had a reputation for being extremely secure, even among bank vaults. The walls were so thick and so impenetrable that, as a point of fact, at one point only four people in the world had actually known which of them contained the door.
One would need rather more than six walls, of course, to stop the Ovoid from strolling right in and making a deposit. Jen was in the dark, rendering her unable to see what her typewriter was saying. The otherwise complete blackness drew attention to the spots of green that were growing at the periphery of her vision. That was not good.
Jen needed to get back inside her dreams. She laid down on the cold, hard floor and tried to work through the pain and get to sleep. She was just dozing off when somebody opened up an almost-imperceptible door and flicked a lightswitch.
Jeremy slammed the door behind him and slumped in the corner for a minute, fighting off tears, before he noticed the teenaged girl sitting up on the floor. ”Whoa, uh,” he started uncertainly, ”Sorry, I thought I was alone here.”
”You’re not,” answered Jen. “There’s me, and Etiyr, and the tree in my brain that I think is killing me.”
Jeremy walked over to Jen and put an arm around her shoulder. ”Bad day, I take it?”
”I haven’t been recognizing days as a concept for—I don’t know—days, I guess.”
”Yeah, I know the feeling. If it helps, I just got punched in the face by a space marine and then had all my psychological repression and self-delusion ripped away by, um, someone I never saw the face of because I was staring at her tits because I treat women as sex objects and now I’m just trying to overcompensate for that by feigning sympathy for your problems.” Jeremy put his hands back in his pockets and shuffled a couple steps away from Jen. ”So, you know, the bad day thing’s going around. I’m Jeremy.”
Jen sighed. “Okay. I’m Jen. How’d you get in here?”
”Well, once the barrier between my conscious mind and all my horrible secret insecurities got ripped out, it manifested physically as a door, so I retreated behind it, like I always do. And I have a thing I do with doors. I can take you anywhere in the city, if you want, but I can’t get outside.”
Jen considered this. “I got put here because the Ovoid didn’t want me making trouble, or dying, both of which would mess up whatever it’s planning. But if I stay here long enough, I think I’ll die anyway. I might need to get my wyrm back to fix my brain, but she’s probably dead.”
Jeremy perked up a bit at this. ”Hey, when you say it’ll mess things up when you die, does that mean this is your battle? You’re the real deal?”
”Uh-huh. Bask in my presence and all that. What was your battle like? Did it suck?”
”Yeah. It was the first time in a long time anyone was able to limit where I could go and what I could do. It was like having parents, and it brought all my childhood resentment to the surface—but never mind that. Yeah, look, the game is rigged, and if there’s a version of me who can ever get out of that, I don’t think I’m it. Things could be different for you, though. I don’t know. Maybe.”
Jen laughed a bit. “Inspiring.”
Jeremy smiled weakly. ”I’m not great at this,” he said. ”Which never bothered me since I’ve never had an effect on another person’s life that wasn’t shallow and transitory. Shit. Do we have time for a quick stop on the way? I need to apologize to Phil and those boobs.”
Jen nodded absently. She was looking at Etiyr, but the words he was typing weren’t making sense, which probably wasn’t a great sign. Assuming offhand that the typewriter wouldn’t want to be left alone in the bank vault, she picked him up and allowed Jeremy to lead her to the door. On the other side of the door was Holly, fully clothed, alone, and crying.
“Ugh,” groaned Jen absently.
”Oh, come on,” shouted the elf. ”I tell you to leave and you come back with her?”
”I just wanted to say sorry,” droned Jeremy dreamily. ”And to ask if you maybe wanted to go on an adventure to find a worm with us. So do you two know each other?”
* * * * *
”It’s happening again.”
”What is?”
Fanthalion and Nancy had barely stumbled out of the broken remains of the former nonhuman camp before Tor’s knees buckled, reeling from biological necessities. “This body needs to periodically explode, which it can handle, but I can’t. Wyrm bodies are durable, but not fireproof. Stand back.”
Nancy hurriedly backed up a few steps as Fantha began to sizzle. There was a flash of light and flame and a smell like something cooking and Nancy turned her eyes away. When she dared to peek, Tor’s body was already reshaping itself. This iteration of Fantha was a bit more pallid pink, her red hair reshaped into a bobcut, her face expressionless. The wyrm poked a hole through this new body’s shoulder and drooped over its chest sorrowfully. It was alternatingly charred and melted. “I can’t handle another one of those,” came a slurred voice from Tor’s mouth. “My connection to this body is fading. Tor runs on something that isn’t quite genetics, it’s hard to process, and I can’t figure out how to stop him from combusting.”
”You’ll be fine,” offered Nancy uncertainly. ]”You’ll work it out and get fixed up.”
”No. I need to get out of here and find a new host body.”
”Okay, then, we’ll find you one. Will any old body do? Lord knows there’ve been enough corpses lying around the city. I’ve... seen some of them.”
The wyrm turned its head towards Nancy, while Tor’s chin swung lazily from side to side. “Nancy... no.” She reached her hand out, and Nancy recoiled.
”Fanthalion,” wheezed Nancy, backing away slowly in her heels, ”I can’t let you do that. You know I can’t.”
”It’ll be nice and easy,” Fantha promised, stumbling towards Nancy. “You’ll still be you. I’ll just be you, too. I promise. You’ll like it. I can make you like it.”
Nancy turned and ran.
Fantha reached into her bank of genetic possibilities. Her most recent acquisitions floated to the surface: she grabbed the tentacles of TinTen and the serpentine body of Tengeri, and tried to extend herself as fast as possible to catch up with the nimble secretary. The effect was not graceful, but one of the tentacles caught Nancy’s ankle and tripped her up.
”Stop this,” cried Nancy. ”You’re not thinking straight, and I’m not going to follow you anymore, you understand?”
Fantha, lying on the ground, was having a difficult time pulling herself together. She attempted to default to the mermaid cop, but before she could merge her tentacles into a tail she could already feeling the Telpori-Han combustible bodily fluids surging through her system again. She shut down all of Tor except his vocal chords and called to Nancy, who was still trying to crawl away. “Nancy, I think Tor’s immune system knows I’m here now. I’m going to die. Help me.”
Nancy rose to her feet and stoof over Fantha and said, ”No.”
”Just carry me. I promise not to bite.”
”No.”
Fantha would have screamed, but was worried that the stress would push this body over the edge, so she continued in a barely audible monotone. ”You fucking bitch. Do you understand what’s at stake here. I am a comprehensive archive of genetic sequences of life throughout the multiverse. That makes me one of the most important sources of knowledge ever to exist right now. You have no right to let me die out of fear for your own worthless life.”
”I don’t care.” Nancy walked away.
About ten seconds later, the life went out of Tor’s eyes for good. Being careful not to upset anything, Fanthalion inched her worm-form out of his spinal column and onto the street, and began to crawl, pebbles and bits of pavement digging into her burnt body as she moved. She didn’t have many senses without a host body to be her eyes, but could feel something growing underground. Something large. She turned in that direction and prayed she wouldn’t die too soon.
* * * * *
Kath hadn’t changed much in the who-knows-how-long since he’d last seen her the previous round. She was carrying a whip now, but it fit in her hand so naturally Xadrez barely noticed she hadn’t had it before. She had traded out her dental-floss belt and scabbard for a more refined leather green number that clearly cut her otherwise-nude form into two halves. She looked tired everywhere but in the abysses of her eyes, which glowed with a metaphorical bioluminescence that showed no signs of dimming. The tarctician made the obvious point:
You should not have come here
”Aye, well,” said the maid. ”Generals being in short supply in the Green Sea, I figured I’d chance a reunion.”
Xadrez studied the woman’s face, and found that a concentrated enough dosage of hate can be just as unreasonable as the coldest impassivity.
The throne isn’t coming easy, he hazarded.
Had you any troops for me to command you would have deigned to bring some contingent along with you
I would hazard that this is a mission of spite
Or at least that carrying your predecessor’s head around on a spike is your idea of propaganda
Xadrez did not pretend not to be aware of Kath’s manipulating reality around them through the Ovoid, but also did not deign to acknowledge it. Three-dimensional space resolved itself into a rapidly-growing tree canopy some three stories above a fascinating but seemingly pointless battle. The chessmaster analyzed the festivities in the back of his bulbous head, but kept his mind on the threat of hand. Kath relinquished the last tendril of green-tinged beige with a snap of her whip, and stomped on the bark, compelling the branch to begin warping around her. ”Quite the talker, Xadrez. Eager to cast all those big joyless thoughts upon the tides. You should quit that, it’s unseemly.” The wood molded itself into a passably opulent throne, upon which Kath seated herself, absentmindedly folding her legs into a tail. ”Diplomacy’s never been my kick, and the cult of Tull have proven resistant to change. I’m bringing the whole of my resources to bear and you are one of those resources.”
Over the rightful queen’s shoulder Xadrez saw Arkal arrive on the scene. He looked well-protected and capable of taking care of himself, and the tactician was unsure whether his death at this juncture would prove fortuitous or disastrous. Thoughts of Jen reminded him that sarcasm was an option here. I’m glad you could make it out
How was your flight
”I drew an ovoid in the sand and spilled a human’s blood on it,” replied Kath nonchalantly. ”Those people’s idea of magic can’t be summed nor sensed, which is something I plan on fixing once I’m in power, but you should know that the shapely tan one melts like sugar to anyone with a wand and two runes to knock together. Of course, the only enchantress worth a fling in your entourage is the soon-departed mammal girl.”
Xadrez saw no need to hide his anger at the arrogance of Jen’s ostensible replacement, even lacking the capacity to act on it in the slightest. You
You truly do need the handholding of one more experienced if you failed to curb the urge to harm the girl
Jen is
Jen is my resource as I am yours and deprived as I am of my usual weapon she may be my only tool for interacting with the world
What did you do to her
”I haven’t called on her yet,” yawned Kath, directing the growing branch to turn around and give her a better view of the battlefield. ”But what I hear, she’s looking a bit green of late. Nothing I couldn’t cure if motivated.”
A ransom then
Either I lose Jen or I do your bidding to save her and in so doing lose my agency in using her
With both of these options equally unsettling I am tempted into the choice of petulant rebellion
Kath laughed. “And if you fail to curb the urge to let the pirateling die only to maintain the last gasp of your conception of free will, maybe it’s you who need my guiding hand. You know, we’re not so unalike.”
Xadrez’ instinct was to clutch his dagger tightly, building his rage into potential energy for destructive release, but lacking that, had to resort to the embarrassing physicality of making a fist.
A notion he said
Which seems often to come up in conversation with those I detest the most
* * * * *
Konka Rar was bothered.
The lich didn’t appreciate the idea of being created by anything other than himself, and had a clear sense that he had been hacked together by some primal and amateurish magic at some point in the past five seconds. He could see why. Things here—wherever here was—a city, one he remembered as though from a dream—things here were clearly not going well for anyone. Distantly, a mermaid on top of a four-story-tall tree was lecturing a ghost about something or other. Nearby, a man shot another in the face and then was eaten by a dragon. Immediately to his left, a dinosaur in a silly hat was bowing to him. Several people here seemed to be dressed in a mockery of him. This was an immediate concern. Konka Rar strolled over to the shortest and most ridiculous of the imposters and stripped off his robe with a flick of his staff, which amused him and helped him focus a bit.
”Hello, Konka Rar!” called an unnaturally cheery woman who materialized nearby. ”Welcome to New Battleopolis! The entity I represent is so glad to see you!”
Konka Rar harumphed and turned to face this new development. “Charmed, I’m sure,” he droned. “And what entity is this?”
”The Amalgam is one of only four true contestants in this battle,” explained the woman, ”And its power grows each passing moment as it tests the limits of its ability to draw upon three-space. When it either escapes the entire ordeal or chooses to kill one of the lesser companions and begin the next round, it will be in a prime decision to ensure that one particular ally be established of ruler of the city in its absence.”
”I see,” replied Konka Rar, aware of the various factions taking a break from their combat to survey this conversation.
”Alternatively, we could absorb you into our being and take you on to the next round, one more worthy of conquest. In either case, we would first require a simple favor from you.”
Konka was unimpressed. This entity would have made a show of the supposed power it possessed, unless it was lying about something. And if its power was as great as it claimed, it shouldn’t need a favor from one such as he. One of the imposters—a fairly convincing one--was pushing his way through the crowd. “Perhaps a private conversation,” he offered, “Would be more prudent at this—“
”Who is this latest pretender to the throne?” demanded the hooded figure, his voice betraying a fundamental and deep-rooted lack of intelligence.
Konka groaned. “I’m Konka Rar,” he explained. “Do you deny it?”
The imposter raised his arm to his chin, revealing a slight amount of unkempt stubble. He was just a boy. ”Perhaps,” he admitted, ”You are another Konka Rar from a distant future, having traveled back in time to aid me in my holy mission of conquest. If you can offer proof of your identity, I would gladly accept you as an ally.” Konka had hated two, maybe three people this much in his long life, and the other life before that. ”If you are truly Konka Rar, demonstrate your mastery over TIME ITSELF for the benefit of the crowd.”
Konka shrugged. “Time itself, is it? Very well. I shall use my world-renowned temporal powers to predict the future. Does anyone have a pen and paper?”
”I do, hang on one second,” claimed a woman from the crowd, pulling a notepad out of her handbag with one hand while cradling an infant in the another.
“Thank you,” grunted Konka, taking the paper and scribbling a short sentence on it. He then folded the paper up and handed it to the woman’s son. “Hold onto this for me, boy.”
”Sure I will,” said the youth, ”But I don’t believe you’re the real real Konka Rar. He only comes down to Battleopolis on Christmas Eve, I heard.”
”Never let what you believe get in the way of what you think, boy. Let alone what you’ve heard.” Konka whirled around and cast a spell that enguled the imposter’s torso completely in ice. “There.”
”Wait!” shouted the imposter as Konka ripped off his hood. ”If you kill me you must take the arm for yourself. There must always be a time traveler!”
”Must there?” Konka rolled his good eye. “If someone as spectacularly incompetent as you ever held the position and the multiverse is still here, I’m sure it can’t be all that necessary. I prefer my own arm.” The cyborg graciously produced a flame that melted the ice off of the imposter, along with his skin. “Boy! Unfold that paper and read what I wrote.”
”Okay,” said the boy, reading off the paper. ”It saaaaaaays... ‘In ten seconds, this man will be dead and ruh... ruh...”
“It says, ‘revealed,’ Ethan,” pointed out the mother.
”Dead and revealed for an... imp—im-poster. An imposter!”
”Smart lad,” said Konka. “And behold! My vision of the future has come to pass. The gifts of time itself astound even me sometimes.”
”Well done,” said another freakishly happy human, ripping the corpse’s on off. ”We’ll take this artifact. One day, it may prove useful.”
Arkal disentangled himself from a struggle with one of Reinhardt’s knights and ran over to where this scene was developing. Things were chaotic here. Reinhardt’s humans seemed to be gaining ground, but the battle lines were becoming blurred. Too many of the warriors were taking advantage of the battle to settle old scores, or just lost in the mindless slaughter. The real threats were the tree and the Ovoid, and the arrival of this new Konka Rar might offer an opportunity for a ceasefire.
The blacksmith backhanded the Ovoid fragment across the face and faced the conqueror. “So you’re Konka Rar, are you?” he growled. “If you’re the figure of legend you’re worked up to be, you can put a stop to the fighting here.”
”Do not listen to this man,” said the fragment. ”He has been falsely influenced by a deranged radioactive rock, and now works against his own species.”
”I’ll listen to whosoever I please, thank you very much,” grunted Konka Rar. ”You look wise, in a self-impaired sort of way,” he said to Arkal. ”What’s your take on all this foolishness?”
Arkal kicked the fragment in the face. “This man is an envoy of an entity called the Ovoid, who is working with a very, very powerful and evil man named the Hand of Silver in order to eliminate—“
”—All non-human life in the multiverse?” Konka Rar sighed. ”I’m familiar with the man.” He pointed his staff at the fragment. ”Is it true what he says?”
The fragment brushed itself off and rose to its feet, smiling at Arkal. ”My companion Arkal possesses only a fraction of the information at hand. The Hand of Silver has a key part to play in our designs, but the true threat is a mongrel fish-woman from a place outside of humanity who uses powerful manipulative magic to influence the Amalgam. If a similarly powerful magician—and it intended to recruit you for this purpose—were to counteract that effect, it could bring down the full weight of its power and elevate you to a glory above any other.”
Konka Rar sneered. ”So, we have an otherwise all-powerful entity that’s stuck in hiding until I go out and run its errands for it. We have the do-gooder who’s willing to give me the run of things if I take care of the Hand of Silver for him. I would venture to say that my own battle—I suppose I should say previous self’s battle—wasn’t quite so pathetic.”
”Hey,” came the voice of Jen, stumbling across the park with Holly and a man Arkal didn’t recognize supporting her. ”I’m not pathetic. I’m just sick, is all. How’s it hanging, Arkal?”
”I’ve had better days, Jen,” intoned Arkal, taking the girl from Holly. “How are you, lass?”
”Dying. Fast. Really don’t like this elf. Have you seen my wyrm?”
The First Bank of Battleopolis, in the days before everything went to shit, had prided itself on its vault. On top of the fact that it perpetually contained enough money to stimulate the nation’s economy out of a mid-sized succession, this vault had a reputation for being extremely secure, even among bank vaults. The walls were so thick and so impenetrable that, as a point of fact, at one point only four people in the world had actually known which of them contained the door.
One would need rather more than six walls, of course, to stop the Ovoid from strolling right in and making a deposit. Jen was in the dark, rendering her unable to see what her typewriter was saying. The otherwise complete blackness drew attention to the spots of green that were growing at the periphery of her vision. That was not good.
Jen needed to get back inside her dreams. She laid down on the cold, hard floor and tried to work through the pain and get to sleep. She was just dozing off when somebody opened up an almost-imperceptible door and flicked a lightswitch.
Jeremy slammed the door behind him and slumped in the corner for a minute, fighting off tears, before he noticed the teenaged girl sitting up on the floor. ”Whoa, uh,” he started uncertainly, ”Sorry, I thought I was alone here.”
”You’re not,” answered Jen. “There’s me, and Etiyr, and the tree in my brain that I think is killing me.”
Jeremy walked over to Jen and put an arm around her shoulder. ”Bad day, I take it?”
”I haven’t been recognizing days as a concept for—I don’t know—days, I guess.”
”Yeah, I know the feeling. If it helps, I just got punched in the face by a space marine and then had all my psychological repression and self-delusion ripped away by, um, someone I never saw the face of because I was staring at her tits because I treat women as sex objects and now I’m just trying to overcompensate for that by feigning sympathy for your problems.” Jeremy put his hands back in his pockets and shuffled a couple steps away from Jen. ”So, you know, the bad day thing’s going around. I’m Jeremy.”
Jen sighed. “Okay. I’m Jen. How’d you get in here?”
”Well, once the barrier between my conscious mind and all my horrible secret insecurities got ripped out, it manifested physically as a door, so I retreated behind it, like I always do. And I have a thing I do with doors. I can take you anywhere in the city, if you want, but I can’t get outside.”
Jen considered this. “I got put here because the Ovoid didn’t want me making trouble, or dying, both of which would mess up whatever it’s planning. But if I stay here long enough, I think I’ll die anyway. I might need to get my wyrm back to fix my brain, but she’s probably dead.”
Jeremy perked up a bit at this. ”Hey, when you say it’ll mess things up when you die, does that mean this is your battle? You’re the real deal?”
”Uh-huh. Bask in my presence and all that. What was your battle like? Did it suck?”
”Yeah. It was the first time in a long time anyone was able to limit where I could go and what I could do. It was like having parents, and it brought all my childhood resentment to the surface—but never mind that. Yeah, look, the game is rigged, and if there’s a version of me who can ever get out of that, I don’t think I’m it. Things could be different for you, though. I don’t know. Maybe.”
Jen laughed a bit. “Inspiring.”
Jeremy smiled weakly. ”I’m not great at this,” he said. ”Which never bothered me since I’ve never had an effect on another person’s life that wasn’t shallow and transitory. Shit. Do we have time for a quick stop on the way? I need to apologize to Phil and those boobs.”
Jen nodded absently. She was looking at Etiyr, but the words he was typing weren’t making sense, which probably wasn’t a great sign. Assuming offhand that the typewriter wouldn’t want to be left alone in the bank vault, she picked him up and allowed Jeremy to lead her to the door. On the other side of the door was Holly, fully clothed, alone, and crying.
“Ugh,” groaned Jen absently.
”Oh, come on,” shouted the elf. ”I tell you to leave and you come back with her?”
”I just wanted to say sorry,” droned Jeremy dreamily. ”And to ask if you maybe wanted to go on an adventure to find a worm with us. So do you two know each other?”
* * * * *
”It’s happening again.”
”What is?”
Fanthalion and Nancy had barely stumbled out of the broken remains of the former nonhuman camp before Tor’s knees buckled, reeling from biological necessities. “This body needs to periodically explode, which it can handle, but I can’t. Wyrm bodies are durable, but not fireproof. Stand back.”
Nancy hurriedly backed up a few steps as Fantha began to sizzle. There was a flash of light and flame and a smell like something cooking and Nancy turned her eyes away. When she dared to peek, Tor’s body was already reshaping itself. This iteration of Fantha was a bit more pallid pink, her red hair reshaped into a bobcut, her face expressionless. The wyrm poked a hole through this new body’s shoulder and drooped over its chest sorrowfully. It was alternatingly charred and melted. “I can’t handle another one of those,” came a slurred voice from Tor’s mouth. “My connection to this body is fading. Tor runs on something that isn’t quite genetics, it’s hard to process, and I can’t figure out how to stop him from combusting.”
”You’ll be fine,” offered Nancy uncertainly. ]”You’ll work it out and get fixed up.”
”No. I need to get out of here and find a new host body.”
”Okay, then, we’ll find you one. Will any old body do? Lord knows there’ve been enough corpses lying around the city. I’ve... seen some of them.”
The wyrm turned its head towards Nancy, while Tor’s chin swung lazily from side to side. “Nancy... no.” She reached her hand out, and Nancy recoiled.
”Fanthalion,” wheezed Nancy, backing away slowly in her heels, ”I can’t let you do that. You know I can’t.”
”It’ll be nice and easy,” Fantha promised, stumbling towards Nancy. “You’ll still be you. I’ll just be you, too. I promise. You’ll like it. I can make you like it.”
Nancy turned and ran.
Fantha reached into her bank of genetic possibilities. Her most recent acquisitions floated to the surface: she grabbed the tentacles of TinTen and the serpentine body of Tengeri, and tried to extend herself as fast as possible to catch up with the nimble secretary. The effect was not graceful, but one of the tentacles caught Nancy’s ankle and tripped her up.
”Stop this,” cried Nancy. ”You’re not thinking straight, and I’m not going to follow you anymore, you understand?”
Fantha, lying on the ground, was having a difficult time pulling herself together. She attempted to default to the mermaid cop, but before she could merge her tentacles into a tail she could already feeling the Telpori-Han combustible bodily fluids surging through her system again. She shut down all of Tor except his vocal chords and called to Nancy, who was still trying to crawl away. “Nancy, I think Tor’s immune system knows I’m here now. I’m going to die. Help me.”
Nancy rose to her feet and stoof over Fantha and said, ”No.”
”Just carry me. I promise not to bite.”
”No.”
Fantha would have screamed, but was worried that the stress would push this body over the edge, so she continued in a barely audible monotone. ”You fucking bitch. Do you understand what’s at stake here. I am a comprehensive archive of genetic sequences of life throughout the multiverse. That makes me one of the most important sources of knowledge ever to exist right now. You have no right to let me die out of fear for your own worthless life.”
”I don’t care.” Nancy walked away.
About ten seconds later, the life went out of Tor’s eyes for good. Being careful not to upset anything, Fanthalion inched her worm-form out of his spinal column and onto the street, and began to crawl, pebbles and bits of pavement digging into her burnt body as she moved. She didn’t have many senses without a host body to be her eyes, but could feel something growing underground. Something large. She turned in that direction and prayed she wouldn’t die too soon.
* * * * *
Kath hadn’t changed much in the who-knows-how-long since he’d last seen her the previous round. She was carrying a whip now, but it fit in her hand so naturally Xadrez barely noticed she hadn’t had it before. She had traded out her dental-floss belt and scabbard for a more refined leather green number that clearly cut her otherwise-nude form into two halves. She looked tired everywhere but in the abysses of her eyes, which glowed with a metaphorical bioluminescence that showed no signs of dimming. The tarctician made the obvious point:
You should not have come here
”Aye, well,” said the maid. ”Generals being in short supply in the Green Sea, I figured I’d chance a reunion.”
Xadrez studied the woman’s face, and found that a concentrated enough dosage of hate can be just as unreasonable as the coldest impassivity.
The throne isn’t coming easy, he hazarded.
Had you any troops for me to command you would have deigned to bring some contingent along with you
I would hazard that this is a mission of spite
Or at least that carrying your predecessor’s head around on a spike is your idea of propaganda
Xadrez did not pretend not to be aware of Kath’s manipulating reality around them through the Ovoid, but also did not deign to acknowledge it. Three-dimensional space resolved itself into a rapidly-growing tree canopy some three stories above a fascinating but seemingly pointless battle. The chessmaster analyzed the festivities in the back of his bulbous head, but kept his mind on the threat of hand. Kath relinquished the last tendril of green-tinged beige with a snap of her whip, and stomped on the bark, compelling the branch to begin warping around her. ”Quite the talker, Xadrez. Eager to cast all those big joyless thoughts upon the tides. You should quit that, it’s unseemly.” The wood molded itself into a passably opulent throne, upon which Kath seated herself, absentmindedly folding her legs into a tail. ”Diplomacy’s never been my kick, and the cult of Tull have proven resistant to change. I’m bringing the whole of my resources to bear and you are one of those resources.”
Over the rightful queen’s shoulder Xadrez saw Arkal arrive on the scene. He looked well-protected and capable of taking care of himself, and the tactician was unsure whether his death at this juncture would prove fortuitous or disastrous. Thoughts of Jen reminded him that sarcasm was an option here. I’m glad you could make it out
How was your flight
”I drew an ovoid in the sand and spilled a human’s blood on it,” replied Kath nonchalantly. ”Those people’s idea of magic can’t be summed nor sensed, which is something I plan on fixing once I’m in power, but you should know that the shapely tan one melts like sugar to anyone with a wand and two runes to knock together. Of course, the only enchantress worth a fling in your entourage is the soon-departed mammal girl.”
Xadrez saw no need to hide his anger at the arrogance of Jen’s ostensible replacement, even lacking the capacity to act on it in the slightest. You
You truly do need the handholding of one more experienced if you failed to curb the urge to harm the girl
Jen is
Jen is my resource as I am yours and deprived as I am of my usual weapon she may be my only tool for interacting with the world
What did you do to her
”I haven’t called on her yet,” yawned Kath, directing the growing branch to turn around and give her a better view of the battlefield. ”But what I hear, she’s looking a bit green of late. Nothing I couldn’t cure if motivated.”
A ransom then
Either I lose Jen or I do your bidding to save her and in so doing lose my agency in using her
With both of these options equally unsettling I am tempted into the choice of petulant rebellion
Kath laughed. “And if you fail to curb the urge to let the pirateling die only to maintain the last gasp of your conception of free will, maybe it’s you who need my guiding hand. You know, we’re not so unalike.”
Xadrez’ instinct was to clutch his dagger tightly, building his rage into potential energy for destructive release, but lacking that, had to resort to the embarrassing physicality of making a fist.
A notion he said
Which seems often to come up in conversation with those I detest the most
* * * * *
Konka Rar was bothered.
The lich didn’t appreciate the idea of being created by anything other than himself, and had a clear sense that he had been hacked together by some primal and amateurish magic at some point in the past five seconds. He could see why. Things here—wherever here was—a city, one he remembered as though from a dream—things here were clearly not going well for anyone. Distantly, a mermaid on top of a four-story-tall tree was lecturing a ghost about something or other. Nearby, a man shot another in the face and then was eaten by a dragon. Immediately to his left, a dinosaur in a silly hat was bowing to him. Several people here seemed to be dressed in a mockery of him. This was an immediate concern. Konka Rar strolled over to the shortest and most ridiculous of the imposters and stripped off his robe with a flick of his staff, which amused him and helped him focus a bit.
”Hello, Konka Rar!” called an unnaturally cheery woman who materialized nearby. ”Welcome to New Battleopolis! The entity I represent is so glad to see you!”
Konka Rar harumphed and turned to face this new development. “Charmed, I’m sure,” he droned. “And what entity is this?”
”The Amalgam is one of only four true contestants in this battle,” explained the woman, ”And its power grows each passing moment as it tests the limits of its ability to draw upon three-space. When it either escapes the entire ordeal or chooses to kill one of the lesser companions and begin the next round, it will be in a prime decision to ensure that one particular ally be established of ruler of the city in its absence.”
”I see,” replied Konka Rar, aware of the various factions taking a break from their combat to survey this conversation.
”Alternatively, we could absorb you into our being and take you on to the next round, one more worthy of conquest. In either case, we would first require a simple favor from you.”
Konka was unimpressed. This entity would have made a show of the supposed power it possessed, unless it was lying about something. And if its power was as great as it claimed, it shouldn’t need a favor from one such as he. One of the imposters—a fairly convincing one--was pushing his way through the crowd. “Perhaps a private conversation,” he offered, “Would be more prudent at this—“
”Who is this latest pretender to the throne?” demanded the hooded figure, his voice betraying a fundamental and deep-rooted lack of intelligence.
Konka groaned. “I’m Konka Rar,” he explained. “Do you deny it?”
The imposter raised his arm to his chin, revealing a slight amount of unkempt stubble. He was just a boy. ”Perhaps,” he admitted, ”You are another Konka Rar from a distant future, having traveled back in time to aid me in my holy mission of conquest. If you can offer proof of your identity, I would gladly accept you as an ally.” Konka had hated two, maybe three people this much in his long life, and the other life before that. ”If you are truly Konka Rar, demonstrate your mastery over TIME ITSELF for the benefit of the crowd.”
Konka shrugged. “Time itself, is it? Very well. I shall use my world-renowned temporal powers to predict the future. Does anyone have a pen and paper?”
”I do, hang on one second,” claimed a woman from the crowd, pulling a notepad out of her handbag with one hand while cradling an infant in the another.
“Thank you,” grunted Konka, taking the paper and scribbling a short sentence on it. He then folded the paper up and handed it to the woman’s son. “Hold onto this for me, boy.”
”Sure I will,” said the youth, ”But I don’t believe you’re the real real Konka Rar. He only comes down to Battleopolis on Christmas Eve, I heard.”
”Never let what you believe get in the way of what you think, boy. Let alone what you’ve heard.” Konka whirled around and cast a spell that enguled the imposter’s torso completely in ice. “There.”
”Wait!” shouted the imposter as Konka ripped off his hood. ”If you kill me you must take the arm for yourself. There must always be a time traveler!”
”Must there?” Konka rolled his good eye. “If someone as spectacularly incompetent as you ever held the position and the multiverse is still here, I’m sure it can’t be all that necessary. I prefer my own arm.” The cyborg graciously produced a flame that melted the ice off of the imposter, along with his skin. “Boy! Unfold that paper and read what I wrote.”
”Okay,” said the boy, reading off the paper. ”It saaaaaaays... ‘In ten seconds, this man will be dead and ruh... ruh...”
“It says, ‘revealed,’ Ethan,” pointed out the mother.
”Dead and revealed for an... imp—im-poster. An imposter!”
”Smart lad,” said Konka. “And behold! My vision of the future has come to pass. The gifts of time itself astound even me sometimes.”
”Well done,” said another freakishly happy human, ripping the corpse’s on off. ”We’ll take this artifact. One day, it may prove useful.”
Arkal disentangled himself from a struggle with one of Reinhardt’s knights and ran over to where this scene was developing. Things were chaotic here. Reinhardt’s humans seemed to be gaining ground, but the battle lines were becoming blurred. Too many of the warriors were taking advantage of the battle to settle old scores, or just lost in the mindless slaughter. The real threats were the tree and the Ovoid, and the arrival of this new Konka Rar might offer an opportunity for a ceasefire.
The blacksmith backhanded the Ovoid fragment across the face and faced the conqueror. “So you’re Konka Rar, are you?” he growled. “If you’re the figure of legend you’re worked up to be, you can put a stop to the fighting here.”
”Do not listen to this man,” said the fragment. ”He has been falsely influenced by a deranged radioactive rock, and now works against his own species.”
”I’ll listen to whosoever I please, thank you very much,” grunted Konka Rar. ”You look wise, in a self-impaired sort of way,” he said to Arkal. ”What’s your take on all this foolishness?”
Arkal kicked the fragment in the face. “This man is an envoy of an entity called the Ovoid, who is working with a very, very powerful and evil man named the Hand of Silver in order to eliminate—“
”—All non-human life in the multiverse?” Konka Rar sighed. ”I’m familiar with the man.” He pointed his staff at the fragment. ”Is it true what he says?”
The fragment brushed itself off and rose to its feet, smiling at Arkal. ”My companion Arkal possesses only a fraction of the information at hand. The Hand of Silver has a key part to play in our designs, but the true threat is a mongrel fish-woman from a place outside of humanity who uses powerful manipulative magic to influence the Amalgam. If a similarly powerful magician—and it intended to recruit you for this purpose—were to counteract that effect, it could bring down the full weight of its power and elevate you to a glory above any other.”
Konka Rar sneered. ”So, we have an otherwise all-powerful entity that’s stuck in hiding until I go out and run its errands for it. We have the do-gooder who’s willing to give me the run of things if I take care of the Hand of Silver for him. I would venture to say that my own battle—I suppose I should say previous self’s battle—wasn’t quite so pathetic.”
”Hey,” came the voice of Jen, stumbling across the park with Holly and a man Arkal didn’t recognize supporting her. ”I’m not pathetic. I’m just sick, is all. How’s it hanging, Arkal?”
”I’ve had better days, Jen,” intoned Arkal, taking the girl from Holly. “How are you, lass?”
”Dying. Fast. Really don’t like this elf. Have you seen my wyrm?”