Breach World Championship 2081 Part 4: Dam

It's. Technically. May. So I win. Ish. Finals fucked me and this one took forever. But it's summer now, so we should be good. If you think this entry was worth the wait, please consider becoming a patron. There are numerous benefits, including deleted content, information from my personal notes, and the right to have me critique your story, or write one for you according to your specifications.

            Ryan scanned the theater to see who else had been eliminated.  All four members of Ours is the Glory were still there.  Sad Cake Binge Gaming was still there, except for the Lyfe Jay had killed earlier.  Phoenix was missing its Clypeus.  All of We Rise as One and Dying Gravity were gone.

            Ryan thought about going back into virtual reality to watch the rest of the match, but there was something the lobby had that virtual reality didn’t: food.  Ryan had left his plate of pastries on the table down there, and he needed to get back down to them before anything happened to them.  He couldn’t let those go to waste.  He left the theater and headed for the lobby.  As he walked, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and pulled up a stream of the Battle Royale match.

            Breach-bot’s technology allowed a more cinematic streaming experience than you could get from any other game.  Ryan held his phone’s microphone up to his mouth.  “What’s going on with Unbroken,” he asked.  He held his phone up as he walked downstairs.  The screen showed him a beautiful view of the fight.  Breach-bot was framing the shot for him.  Breach-bot piloted the camera anytime anyone streamed Breach.  He was a talented little director and showed every viewer a different version of the broadcast, depending on what he expected them to like.

            Even though it had been a few minutes, he chose to start Ryan’s playback at the moment he had died.  Breach-bot’s frame showed silhouettes of the remaining members of Unbroken, in stark shadow from the bright light of the fireball that had claimed Ryan and Joss’s lives.

//////////

            Like everything Jayden saw through Dash’s eyes, the explosion happened in slow motion.  First, thin streaks of fire shot like bottle rockets over the wall Avaggdon had made.  A cloud of dark gray smoke billowed up after them.  A fraction of a second later, the cloud ignited into a fireball.

            “Fuck,” Sophia said, slowly.  Not really.  Really Jayden was hearing her more quickly.  Dash’s perception of time was different from everyone else’s.  To everyone else, he was fast, but to him, it was everyone else who was slow.  Every second felt like ten to him, allowing him to run, dodge, shoot and think faster than anyone else could ever hope to.  Sophia’s voice was deep, and she seemed to take ten seconds to say that single word, yet Jayden had no trouble understanding her, and so long as he was in Dash’s body, it was easy to match the speed of her speech himself, ensuring that he’d sound natural to her.

            “We need to retreat,” Jayden said.

            Before turning to run away, Mitch tossed a bomb at the wall.  It fell at the wall’s foot.  Mitch held onto the detonator as he ran.  In the likely event that Reigning Fire lowered the wall to pursue them, they’d get a nasty surprise.  Hopefully, Mitch’s three remaining bombs would be enough to destroy the dam.

            Sophia gave herself a speed boost.  She was the slowest of the three, even after having her speed increased.  The other two had to slow down to avoid leaving her behind.  Jayden looked over his shoulder.  Ichaboth had flown over the wall and was chasing them.  Behind them, the wall lowered.  Ichaboth blocked Jayden’s view of the other two members of Reigning Fire, but when Mitch detonated his bomb, their monstrous slow-motion shrieks proved it had managed to harm them.  The shockwave even damaged Ichaboth as it impacted him, blowing him forward.  Jayden could capitalize on that.  He pulled out his mini-flamethrower and ran up to Ichaboth.

            As he approached, Ichaboth reshaped itself to try to envelop him, yet it did so with a listlessness that made it easy to avoid.  Jayden fired his flamethrower into the monster and dashed away from it before it could retaliate.

            He ran with his team for several seconds, then dashed back to the Ichaboth, and shot it again.  The monster retreated.  Jayden could have pursued it, but it would have made it back to its team before Jayden could kill it.  The monster ran back to his teammates.  Huel-drark wasn’t among them.  He probably hadn’t split off from the rest of the team as part of some stratagem, so there was a good chance Reigning Fire was down a teammate.  Had Ryan managed to take Joss down with him?  If that turned out to be the case, Jayden needed to buy Ryan a drink or something for managing that.  Once you were down a teammate, you weren’t likely to win a Battle Royale match.

            Of course, that applied to them too, but if they could destroy the dam, that wouldn’t matter.

            Unbroken ran until they were sure Reigning Fire wasn’t following them, and then stopped.  “So that was a bust,” Sophia said.  “Where do we go from here?”

            “Not much has changed,” Jayden said.  “If anything, stealth has gotten easier for us.  We’re headed for the dam.  Hopefully we can get to the top of it without Ryan.”

            “I’m not sure we should be headed toward an obvious landmark,” Mitch said.  “Other teams may have had this same idea.”

            “All the more reason not to waste any time getting there,” Jayden said.  “We can’t let another team destroy the dam before us.”

//////////

            “Not much has changed,” Jay said.  “If anything, stealth has gotten easier for us.”  That statement made Ryan realize that knowing they were safe was enough, and there was no need to continue watching.  He turned off his stream as he entered the ballroom.  A dozen television screens scattered around the room, each with a group gathered in front of it, showed footage of the match.  Before doing anything else, Ryan walked over to the couches where his team had had their strategy discussion.  His pastries were still there.  He grabbed them and shoved one into his mouth.

            Each of the twelve TV screens had a smaller screen above it that indicated which version of the stream that screen showed.  Breach-bot normally made a custom stream for every viewer.  Most of the time, someone would watch a stream on their own phone or computer.  When that happened, Breach-bot would use the information on those devices to figure out what content would most interest them, and how they would most enjoy having it shown to them.  At a party like this, though, people wanted to watch the game together, which meant they had to be looking at the same stream.  Because there needed to be multiple screens regardless, having different version of the stream on each TV was a compromise.  Each stream was set up to conform to a different set of tastes.  There was one set up for fans of each of the remaining teams.  Epidemic’s was in the corner.  Three middle-aged couples watched that screen intently, along with a handful of other fans.  Unbroken’s screen was next to it.  It had a few fans in front of it.  One of them was cosplaying as Dash.  No doubt it would be a pleasant surprise for them if Ryan were to stop by.  Ryan started to go over there, but he stopped in the middle of the room.  He should go get some punch first.

            Sad Cake Binge Gaming had a large crowd in front of their screen, though they were paying less attention to the stream than they were to the eliminated Lyfe, who was mingling with his fans.  Pheonix’s screen had a lot of people in front of it, including two members of We Rise as One.  The screens for Ours is the Glory and Reigning Fire were on opposite sides of the hall.  Ryan was pretty sure Ours is the Glory’s screen was a bit bigger than the others, and Reigning Fire’s was a bit smaller.  Luciana Turner, the CEO of Thunderware, and her husband, were watching the Ours is the Glory stream.

            The other streams were organized around interests other than specific teams.  Two screens were dedicated to the General stream, the one Breach-bot constructed to be viewed by default, without making any assumptions about the viewer.  Another pair of screens was dedicated to the Cinematic stream.  This one was like the General stream, except in Cinematic, Breach-bot was instructed to sacrifice realism for entertainment.  He could alter the lighting in an area, speed up and slow down the action, and alter the order of events, all with the aim of making the stream more entertaining.  He would also replace the player’s in-game chat with dialog fitting the personas of the characters they were playing.  Many people found the existence of Cinematic mode abhorrent, but the crowds in front of those two screens testified to the stream’s popularity.

            For those who couldn’t stand the thought that what they were watching was anything less than the pure, unaltered truthful light of truthfulness, Realistic used non-cinematic filmmaking, wider, blander shots, no color alteration, and minimal cutting.  Only one screen showed this version.  Three people were watching it.

            Ryan headed toward the less crowded of the two Cinematic screens, punch and pastries in hand.  There were two couches in front of this screen, both full.  In front of that, there were some beanbags.  Ryan plopped down onto one of those.

            On the stream, the three remaining members of Phoenix were fighting Epidemic.  Ryan bit a pastry open and squeezed its chocolate filling into his mouth.  The screen showed a close-up of Phoenix’s team captain, playing as Tharthan Azotum, a twelve-foot muscular tank of a humanoid who wore intricate white armor and wielded a glowing white Warhammer large enough that even he had to hold it two-handed.  His teammate, a Canticum, sang behind him, empowering him with her magic song.  Tharthan charged at Epidemic’s Mog’Inub, his hammer in the air.  Behind him, his other teammate, Terraemotus, who could manipulate the ground like Avaggdon could, stomped, causing the ground below Tharthan to shoot upward and launch him into the air.  He flew forward pulling his hammer back for a strike.  He landed on Mog’Inub and slammed his hammer into one of her countless eyes.  He dropped to his knees and grabbed the now-blinded eye’s lower lid.  He was right to do so.  Mog’Inub began to shake, and rock from side to side, trying to force its foe off its body, but the monster was less mobile than he was strong, and he maintained his grip.  Terraemotus tried to summon forth spikes of earth to pierce the monster, but Epidemic’s Avaggdon was plugged into the ground, and held it in place.  Ichaboth rushed toward Tharthan and settled on top of him.  Breach-bot cut to a tight shot of Tarthan’s face, smirking.  He pulled out a cleansing light and crushed it.  The explosion of light summoned shrieks from both Gray Fungi, causing Ichaboth to shrink to a fraction of its former size, and making Mog’Inub fall limp.  In a panic, Ichaboth expanded, which, because he was a cloud caused him to rocket upward.

            The camera shifted between Terraemotus and Avaggdon as they abandoned their psychic battle over the ground.  Aveb-heth, Epidemic’s support character, fled into the woods.  Terraemotus summoned a wall to stop Aveb-heth from escaping, while Tharthan Azotum charged Avaggdon as it slowly waddled away.  He smashed his hammer into the monster.  A huge chunk of the soft creature’s flesh was ripped away.  Canticum, while continuing to sing, charged at Aveb-heth and grabbed her by the neck.  The monster squealed and kicked as Canticum spun around and tossed her into the wall.  Tharthan took another swipe at Avaggdon, but the monster jumped out of the way, only to be impaled by an unexpected spike from Terraemotus.  The spike pinned it in place, and before Avaggdon could plant itself to remove it, Tharthan smashed it to pieces.

            Tharthan dashed over to the wall, where Aveb-heth had just stood up.  She ran to the left, but Tharthan caught up to her in a single stride and grabbed her, throwing her against the wall.  He leapt forward and smashed her head in.  It splattered, spraying the area with infectious fungal juices.  Terraemotus lowered his wall, and Phoenix looked around for Ichaboth.  He was nowhere to be seen.

            Breach-bot cut to Ours is the Glory.  They were in a cabin.  Max’s Ocillo stood in front of a brown leather couch.  Armigeri stood beside him.  Their Terraemotus was behind the couch, connected to the ground via a hole he’d torn in the flooring.  Nullum was outside, visible through a large window that reminded Ryan of the glass walls of Max’s mansion.  On the floor, a Terran Navy Admiral, was tied up and gagged with dark blue, glowing rope.  Was that the Admiral from the mission briefing?  The cabin was wrecked from a fight.  The remains all four members of Dying Gravity were scattered around the room.  That team’s Lyfe was impaled on Max’s sword.

            Max was speaking.  Perhaps he was really talking about something else, but dialogue Breach-bot assigned him for the purposes of Cinematic mode revealed that Ours is the Glory had been sent to capture the same man Ryan’s team had been sent to kill.  It seemed they had actually bothered to do so.  They intended to take their prisoner to a rallying point near the dam, where they expected an Iron Star ship to be ready to pick him up.

            Outside, Nullum snorted like a bull and looked around.  The rest of Ours is the Glory abandoned their conversation and looked out the window at him.  Something startled Nullum, and he leapt backward, his long, reptilian tail crashing into the window and shattering it.  He was staring at something in the distance, but the others couldn’t see what.  Max walked toward him.  “Easy, boy,” he said, holding out his hand.  Armigeri left the cabin through the front door.  Nullum screeched and bucked backward.  “Eas—” Max began.  Nullum turned around and jumped into the cabin through the broken window.  Max dodged to his left, toward the front door, and Terraemotus dodged to the right, toward the back of the cabin.  The camera panned to reveal the cause of this disturbance.  In the distance, Spukee’s maggot-infested raven.  Nullum stampeded through the room and crashed through the opposite wall, blowing a massive hole into it.  As he ran into the distance, the building creaked, and before Max and Terraemotus could stand, the building fell on top of them, not killing them, but trapping them under the rubble.  Outside, as Armigeri ran away from the raven, Sord appeared behind him and stabbed him in the neck.  This broke the fear debuff, but right as Armigeri turned around to retaliate, a hole opened underneath him and he fell in.  Sord flew off, and Spukee flew into the hole.  Spukee wasn’t normally worth much in combat, but if he was alone with a single victim, out of sight of everyone else, he received a buff that made him much more powerful.

            A circular wall of earth shot up from the ground around the buried Terraemotus and flew outward, forcing the rubble away from him.  This worked, until a wall of force appeared in the path of one part of the wall of earth reflecting it and the rubble it was carrying.  The rock and rubble hurdled toward the still-buried Terraemotus, striking the creature, damaging it heavily, and launching it into the air.

            Spukee’s fear effect lost its grip on Nullum, and the beast turned around and charged toward the rubble of the fallen cabin.  When it reached it, it lit it on fire.  That wouldn’t harm Max, because members of the Legion of the Iron Star were immune to fire, but it might help clear the rubble.  The beast then turned its attention skyward, in search of a Pickcei to assault with its fire breath.

            Terraemotus lumbered to its feet and also headed toward the rubble.  There was a close-up shot of Max struggling beneath it, and then another close-up on a small section of the rubble moving to betray his location.  Terraemotus summoned a pillar from the ground at that spot.  Max was lifted into the air, along with the small portion of the rubble that happened to be right on top of him.  Some of that fell away, but he was still trapped under what remained.  Sord appeared near the pillar, on the opposite side from Nullum.  Terraemotus made a spike shoot out at Sord from the pillar, but the creature ducked below it.  Nullum charged the other side of the pillar, managing to knock some rubble off the pile.  Sord darted out of the way of that too.  Nullum stepped back a few paces, preparing another charge.  Spukee emerged from Armigeri’s hole, cackling and holding the creature’s helmet.  He flew toward Nullum.

            “Nullum, close your eyes!” Terraemotus shouted.  Both Nullum and Terraemotus did so.  Spukee summoned another raven, but neither of them saw it and it faded away after a few seconds.  While Terraemotus’ vision was obscured, Sord teleported away from the pillar and appeared above him, then stabbed him through the top of his head.  By the speed of his reaction, that must have been what Terraemotus was expecting.  He reached up, grabbed Sord, and broke the Pickcei over his knee.  The fairy went limp.  Terraemotus tossed his remains aside.

            With one final heave, Max forced the last of the debris off himself.  He stood and looked around, drawing his sword.  He saw Nullum below him.  “Hold on, boy,” he said.  He jumped onto the beast, settling in his saddle and riding away from the rubble.  He rode his steed around the clearing, keeping his eyes skyward.  He hadn’t found anything by the time Terraemotus made it back to where they’d been.

            “Brother, I think they have escaped,” Terraemotus said.

            “I don’t want to give up yet,” Max said.  He searched the clearing for a few minutes more, before letting out a cry of frustration.  He rode Nullum back over to Terraemotus, and conceded the fact that the Pickceiz were, indeed, gone, then lamented that their mission to capture the Admiral had been thwarted.  He had, of course, not survived the collapse of the building he was in.  They had a fresh conversation about what to do.  The subject of the dam came up.  Apparently, Unbroken hadn’t been the only ones to speculate that it could be destroyed.  “It would be an impressive thing to accomplish,” Terraemotus said.

            “Reason enough by itself to do it,” Max said.  He dismounted Nullum and allowed Terraemotus to mount him.  Having the slower Terraemotus ride Nullum would allow them to make better time.

            The camera cut to the fleeing Cloun and Spukee.  They were both badly hurt.  They’d lost their Lyfe during their encounter with We Rise as One and Unbroken, and so neither of them had healed since that first match.  They knew they wouldn’t be around much longer.  Their conversation was about how to go out on a suitably amusing note.

            “We haven’t done anything to the Gray Fungi, yet,” Spukee said.  “They’re easy to find, what with the trail of mushrooms they leave everywhere.”

            “Yeah, and they’re pretty powerful,” Cloun said.  “It’d be awesome to take them down a peg.”

            “Definitely.  Let’s do it.”

//////////

            Unbroken was now close enough to the dam that it seemed to loom over them.  Jayden couldn’t see any way of making ingress, but it was the dead of night now, and the dam was still far away.  Besides, there had to be some way in.  Near the top of the dam, evenly spaced from end to end, were artificial waterfalls flowing down the dam’s surface and into a pond at the base of the structure.  There was a one in a million chance those waterfalls were just decorative, but far more likely, their passage through the dam was being used for hydroelectric power.  If the machinery to do that was in the dam, there would have to be a way inside so it could be maintained.  Considering the waterfalls were near the top of the dam, that way in probably was as well, meaning that what they were really looking for was an elevator.  Accordingly, Jayden was leading his team to the far east side of the dam, which he calculated was the most likely place for such an elevator to be.  The west side would have been equally valid but was farther away.

            Jayden smelled something.  He stopped walking.  Crap.  “Spores!” he said.  The rest of the team stopped as well.  An Ichaboth emerged from the trees to their right and flew toward Unbroken.  They activated their masks.  Jayden pulled out his flamethrower and ran toward the monster.

            “Has Reigning Fire been following us this whole time?” Sophia asked.  It would be a strange thing for them to do.  Jayden blasted the monster with his flamethrower as soon as he reached it, then dodged back to avoid a counterattack.

            “That doesn’t sound right,” Jayden said.  “Maybe this is the other Ichaboth?”

            “Epidemic’s?” Sophia said.  “Their Mog’Inub isn’t around.”

            “Maybe it was killed.”  It would make sense for Ichaboth to be the only Gray Fungus to escape a lost battle.

            This Ichaboth didn’t retreat from Jayden’s hit and run tactic like the other one had.  On the contrary, it was barreling toward the rest of Unbroken.  Mitch tossed a red disk onto the ground and it unfolded into a flame-throwing turret.  He used his jetpack to jump onto a nearby tree.  Sophia stayed near the turret, and Jayden retreated to her side.  No other Gray Fungi seemed forthcoming, so grouping together to tempt the Ichaboth into braving the turret’s damage was worthwhile.  It wouldn’t have any way of knowing about their masks, so it probably thought it would have a significant chance of infecting them and gaining itself a crop of new allies.  The turret fired on the Ichaboth as it enveloped them.  The creature’s shriek was horrible, and it was hard for Jayden to suppress the instinct to cover his ears.  They weren’t taking hit-point damage, so the monster must have been trying to infect them.  Sophia tossed a damage-boosting buff at Jayden, who turned on his flamethrower and ran outside the Ichaboth.  He fired on it, his flames glowing blue with the power of Sophia’s magic.  Ichaboth shifted to envelop him.  Jayden ran laps around the monster, just barely avoiding its edge.  The whole time, the flame-throwing turret ate it from the inside. 

            It was shrinking.  Soon, it realized that possibly infecting Sophia wasn’t worth taking more damage from the turret and it flew toward Mitch.

            Mitch flew away from the monster, boosting himself toward another tree with his jetpack.  Ichaboth followed him and enveloped him.  Mitch launched himself up to a higher branch, but he was followed and re-enveloped.  The Ichaboth’s maneuverability surpassed his.  Jayden dashed toward the two.  Sophia followed but couldn’t keep up with them.  Jayden reached Mitch and Ichaboth in seconds.

            Moving fast enough that his presence might not be noticed before he could get a hit off, he ran to the tree Mitch was flying toward.  He didn’t climb as fast as he ran, but he still reached the branch before Mitch did.  Mitch landed next to him, and Jayden shot at the approaching Ichaboth.  The creature screeched and recoiled.  He leapt after the creature and blasted it as he fell to the ground.  Mitch followed him down.  Sophia caught up to them and threw a speed buff at Mitch.  She missed.

            Ichaboth swerved downward, enveloping Sophia.  Jayden dashed over and blasted it.  The monster was small enough now that he couldn’t hit it without harming Sophia, but that was an acceptable loss.  The creature didn’t flee.  There wasn’t much of it left to flee.  As it shrunk, it moved upward to envelop Sophia’s head.  Jayden blasted her in the face to get at it, causing her to reel backward and fall on her back.  “Fuck!” she shouted.  The creature wasn’t even able to follow her down before the last puff of it was incinerated.

            Sophia took deep breaths.  She stood up.  “One percent,” she said.

            “Fuck,” Jayden said.

            Sophia took a deep breath.  “It’s alright.  Potion.”  She used her anti-infection potion and was restored to normal.  For now.  If they encountered Reigning Fire again later, her not having that potion would hurt them a lot.  Hopefully, though, their plan with the dam would work, and that wouldn’t be an issue.  Sophia got everyone healed up, and they resumed their march.

//////////

            The remainder of Sad Cake Binge Gaming had an easy time locating Reigning Fire.  The fungi left a gray scar in their wake.  Finding them was as simple as flying high into the air and looking around for that scar.  They found it at once.  Actually, they found two such scars, but one ended with a dead Mog’Inub, so they knew they wanted the other one.  The Mog’Inubless scar outlined a straight-forward path from a spot near the center of the valley to a spot near the dam.  The Pickceiz flew to the end near the dam, and there Reigning Fire was.  Xig’zah hopped from tree to tree, Avaggdon lumbered along the ground, and Ichaboth flew above them, keeping an eye on their surroundings.

            “Where the hell is Huel-drark?” Spukee asked.

            “He must have gotten offed,” Cloun said.

            “That sucks.”

            “Maybe it doesn’t suck that much.  Without his cannon, Ichaboth is the only one who can hurt us while we’re up here.”

            “Dude, we’re like, super injured.  We’ll die to a second of Ichaboth exposure.”
            “Oh, right.  Crap.  Who do you think offed him?”

            “Doesn’t matter now.  Could have been anyone.  The better question is: How do we prank these clowns?”  All three of the remaining characters had trivial ways of escaping a pit, and none of them could shoot projectiles, so Cloun’s reflective wall would be useless.

            “That’s a hard one,” Cloun said.  “I think your raven is the only thing they’ll be vulnerable to.  Maybe we can set up some kind of hazard to scare them into?”

            “That could work.  I’m not sure how we would set one up, though.  Maybe there’s something hazardous around here we could take advantage of?  Like that pit with the tentacles?”

            Cloun nodded.  “Yeah, like the pit.  Maybe we’ll even be able to find it again.  Split up and search?”

            “Sure.  Meet back at this exact spot.”

            They explored the area.  There was a pond back toward the center of the valley, which Reigning Fire had already passed.  In not-quite the same direction, there was a hill with a small cave in it.  Breach-bot showed Spukee exploring the cave.  He saw something inside, and Breach-bot cut to a close-up of his face, lit up with glee.  He rushed back to their appointed meeting place.  Cloun showed up a few minutes later.  The camera cut to a wider shot as Spukee explained what he’d found in the cave, then cut back to the tighter shot as Cloun sprung up higher into the air, chuckling joyfully.  The two agreed that they’d found their hazard.  Cloun zipped back over to the cave while Spukee zipped down toward Reigning Fire, deliberately attracting Ichaboth’s notice as he flew through the tree line.  The creature fell for it.  it followed Spukee below the tree-line, joining both of its allies, ensuring all three of them could see the raven Spukee summoned.  They did.  They fled from it, directly toward the cave.

            Their vastly different speeds forced them to split up.  Xig’zah sped through the forest, effortlessly hopping from tree to tree.  Ichaboth lagged behind him.  As the cloud moved, he expanded and rocketed into the air.  Avaggdon waddled far behind the two of them.  It was only seconds before the Xig’zah was twice as far from the raven as he was.  Several seconds later, the spider was in sight of the cave.  Cloun, who was sitting on a nearby tree, waved at Xig’zah as it passed.  Xig’zah was just outside the mouth of the cave when the raven’s effect wore off.  The spider turned around and charged toward Cloun.  The Pickcei darted into the air and pulled an air-horn out of his jacket.  HONK!  Xig’zah probably realized something was going on, but he didn’t abandon his pursuit of Cloun.

            The ground shook.  Out of the cave charged a monster with dark green fur.  The thing looked like a giant green bear, with dagger-long claws and snaggled teeth.  It rushed at Xig’zah as Cloun flew into the air to join Spukee, laughing.

            Ichaboth condensed and rushed toward Xig’zah.  Both of them, in turn, rushed toward Avaggdon, who lumbered toward the rest of his team.  As soon as they were close enough, Avaggdon plugged into the ground and raised a wall of earth between them and the monster.  The animal bashed into the wall.  It didn’t even shake.  The beast tried again, and again, but it couldn’t break the wall. 

            Had it been a little smarter, it might have thought to go around the wall.  Given how thick the wall was, it probably wouldn’t have to go far.  Avaggdon and Terraemotus could only displace a certain volume of earth.  Once it became clear that the monster wasn’t coming for them, Reigning Fire allowed themselves to catch their breaths.

            “Rats,” Spukee said.  “Is there any way of salvaging this one?”

            “I’m not sure.  Not without getting rid of that wall.  Should we lead the critter somewhere else?”

            “Where?  I don’t think any of the other teams are close enough for that.”

            “Rats.”

            Avaggdon spun, and two sharp, thin stone pillars shot up from the ground.  Cloun, who had been facing Reigning Fire and so had seen Avaggdon spin, dodged to the left.  Spukee was impaled.  He went limp.  Cloun dashed away.  “Crap! Crap! Crap! Crap! Crap! Crap! Crap! Crap!”  Ichaboth flew upward and barreled toward Cloun.  Spikes were shooting up all around the fairy.  One shot up just to his left.  Another right behind him.  Another rose directly in front of him, and he crashed into it.  Ichaboth was on him by the time he pulled himself away from the pillar, and it only took a second of exposure to the monster’s damaging vapors to end him.

            The camera followed his drained husk as it fell.  It landed in a tree, startling a flock of birds.  There was a fit of booing from the crowd in front of Sad Cake Binge Gaming’s screen as it switched to displaying the general broadcast.  Ryan ate his last pastry as the camera panned back to Reigning Fire and began to follow them as they moved through the forest, on their way to the dam.

//////////

            Unbroken reached the dam before anyone else.  There was an elevator upward, just as Jayden had hoped.  The mechanism was simple: a platform attached to a metal pole.  The platform was at the top, barely visible in the distance, when they arrived.  The mechanism to summon it had been disabled, perhaps by evacuating civilians, but it was a simple matter for Mitch to hack the device and re-enable it.  In the distance, the platform descended.  “And we’re sure there is going to be a way to burst it open?” Mitch asked.

            “Not completely,” Jayden said, “but even if Breach-bot didn’t build a way in deliberately, some well-placed explosives might manage it.  If we make any hole at all, the valley floods, and most of the other players die.”

            “Everyone who can’t fly,” Sophia said.  “That just leaves Pickceiz and Ichaboths.”

            Barring the ones he’d encountered, Jayden had no way of knowing which players were left and which ones had been eliminated, but presuming it was only flyers who had survived, the only remaining threats would be Sad Cake Binge Gaming, who’d lost their healer, Reigning Fire’s Ichaboth, who wasn’t much of a threat on his own, and Dying Gravity.

            The platform reached the bottom of the valley.  Unbroken stepped onto it, and Mitch activated it again.  It rose.  Jayden looked out over the misty, moonlit forest.  Not too far from the dam were the remains of a collapsed wooden structure.  Had there been a battle around there, or had that been that way when Breach-bot created the map?  If the former was true, at least one other team was close to the dam.  A bit further, Mog’Inub’s L-shaped body was lying on its side in a clearing.

            Jayden caught some motion in the corner of his eye.  He looked down.  In the moonlight, he could just see something like a patch of mist moving toward the dam.  Was it an Ichaboth, or just a random patch of haze?  He pointed it out to the others.  “Is that Ichaboth?”

            “It’s hard to tell,” Sophia said.

            They watched it for half a minute, but still weren’t sure what it was.  “If it is Ichaboth,” Jayden said, “we’ll just have to work fast once we’re up there.  Once we find the entrance, I’ll go in alone and search for a place to plant the bomb.  You guys stay outside and keep watch.  Call if you need me.”  He turned to Mitch.  “Once I find a place to plant the bombs, I’ll come back out and lead you right to it.  Once the bomb is planted, we’ll run to the valley wall.”

            By the time they reached the top of the dam, they could no longer make out the suspicious patch of mist.  They found an entrance hatch right away, and Jayden climbed inside.

            Normally, splitting up was a terrible idea, but Dash would be able to get back to his teammates in no time if they alerted him.  That same speed allowed him to survey the dam’s interior quickly.  He already had a likely weakness in mind.  He went straight to the mouth of the nearest artificial waterfall.  There, he found a facility filled with hydroelectric generators collecting power from the passing water.  They were large, impressive machines, rusty like Zap’s plating.  “I found a generator room by the nearest waterfall,” Jayden said.  He darted around the room, looking either for something that would amplify an explosion, or an obvious structural vulnerability.  He found neither.

            But there would be one below.  The generator was in this room, but the water itself flowed through pipes underneath it.  If the explosives could be placed in such a way that a pipe would burst, the water would escape into the rest of the dam, and the dam would probably fail.

            There had been a ladder outside the generator room.  As Jayden had hoped, it led him to a round, bulging wall.  Jayden put his ear up to it.  Water was flowing on the other side.  “Mitch, come down here,” Jayden said.  He did.  Mitch had three bombs left.  He planted all of them, setting them up so that he could detonate them remotely.

            “Guys, hurry up,” Sophia said.  “Ichaboth is at the bottom of the dam.”

            “We’ve got the bombs planted,” Jayden said.  “We’re coming right up.”  By the time they were up, the elevator platform was moving down.  Should they destroy it?  They should have done it earlier.  If they did so now, it would doubtless alert Reigning Fire to their presence.  Maybe that wasn’t a problem, though.  Ichaboth was the only one who could get up here without it, and he couldn’t take all three of them on at once.  “Mitch, toss a grenade on the elevator.”  He walked up to the edge where the dam overlooked it, and gently tossed a frag grenade onto it.  The grenade clattered as it fell onto the elevator.  The explosion tore the platform off of the rail it had been clinging to and sent it plummeting to the valley floor.  Unbroken walked off the dam and onto the cliff that overlooked the valley.  They wanted to get as far away as they could.  If water rushed through the gap where the dam was now, it could erode the land nearby.  Ichaboth emerged over the edge of the cliff but retreated as soon as it saw them.

            Once they had been running for several minutes, Jayden gave the order to blow the dam.  Mitch pressed the little green button on his detonator.  A fireball burst out from the dam, ripping a hole in it.  Water gushed through that hole like it was emerging from a faucet.  As it did, the force of the flowing water ripped the hole open wider, allowing more water to flow into the valley.

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Breach World Championship 2081 Part 2: Broken

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            Ryan spent the flight to New York on his phone.  Airplane design had advanced since the days of his ancestors, who would have had to deal with annoying interruptions in their ability to access the internet.  Ryan did not face the same inconvenience but felt like he was wasting that privilege.  He’d much rather watch a fucking movie, but he hadn’t been following the professional Breach season, and if he showed up to New York not knowing precisely who his opponents were, Jay would either be mad, or, worse, begin an exhaustive explanation of each and every one of them.  So here he was, about to spend two hours looking up information on professional Breach teams, wading through a lot of information he already knew from being a professional player to get to the parts Jay might quiz him about.

            Reigning Fire had won last year and was the favorite to win this year.  They played the Gray Fungus faction, which, in the lore, was an infectious hive-mind which had invaded the Milky Way through an interdimensional portal.  They now traveled the galaxy assimilating all life they encountered.  It was their evil that inspired the Terran Naval Marines to the extremes which sparked Red Arachnia to rebel against them.

            Unrelatedly, their Captain, Joss Turner, was the son of Thunderware’s CEO.

            Reigning Fire was an old team, and one Ryan already knew a good deal about.  Joss played as Huel-drark, an eight-foot monster whose right arm was a laser cannon.  He fought alongside an Avaggdon which was a spiky mushroom barnacle with the power to manipulate the terrain around it, a Xig’zah which was a spindly ball of arm-knives that set explosive traps, and an Ichaboth which was an amorphous cloud of fungal spores.  There was a link to some footage of them in action.  It was them picking on an enemy they’d isolated.  Ichaboth descended on the area, buffing the three of them with beneficent spores while they passed their poor foe back and forth like a rag-doll.

            Oh, by the way, they were probably cheaters.  At least, that’s what Maximillian Turner, who they’d fought against in last year’s final match had accused them of.  The footage of their battle, where Joss unexpectedly pulled out the perfect counter to one of Max’s items, had been torn apart and scrutinized by the internet.  No one had found a smoking gun, nor had anyone, including Joss, been able to explain why he happened to make such an odd item choice at the start of the match.  He claimed he was following a hunch.  Others thought it more likely that he’d used malicious software to smuggle in one or more “generic items,” which he could turn into whatever he needed when he discovered he needed it.  Breach-bot had detected nothing to indicate cheating at the time, but it wouldn’t be the first time the bot had been fooled.  One of only a handful, but not the first.  The fact that Joss was the CEO’s son made it seem just a teensy bit more likely for him to get away with this sort of thing

            But then again Maximillian, his accuser, was the CEO’s son too, so maybe that cancelled out.  He was the Captain of Ours is the Glory, who’d gone undefeated last year until their possibly illegitimate loss in the finals.  They played as the Legion of the Iron Star, who had invaded the galaxy through yet another interdimensional portal, one which led to a universe so old that all that remained within it were black holes and stars which had turned to spheres of iron over the course of a trillion trillion years.  Their society had long ago advanced past having needs of their own, so they dedicated their existence to traveling from dimension to dimension, distributing helpful technologies, destroying evil empires and rescuing galaxies from pernicious races like the Gray Fungus.

            Ours is the Glory had an odd team loadout.  Max played Occilo who was the second-biggest member of Iron Star, but had the biggest sword.  They also had a Terraemotus, who was a big magic user.  That was orthodox enough.  The other team members, though, were a Nullum, which was a strange bull-like thing on which other members, in this case Max, could ride, and an Armigeri, another support character, who would enhance Occilo’s fighting power.  It’s odd to have multiple support characters when you only have one real fighter.  Most teams had either three fighters and one support or two fighters, one support, and one utility character.  Then again, Nullum was a fighter in his own regard.  Mount or not, he did have the ability to breathe fire.

            Probably the third most discussed team was Pheonix.  They played Iron Star too, with a more orthodox team setup.  The notable thing about them, in the eyes of the public, was that they were assembled from a cancer support group.  Some friends who met at the group started gaming, and then entered a tournament, and things evolved from there.  They went up against Ours is the Glory and lost, but Max stayed in touch with them, and wound up using family money to pay for their treatments.  Intricate medical testing had since confirmed that they were cancer-free.  Their Captain could be seen praising Max to high heaven in interviews.  One piece written by an oncologist claimed all four of them would have been very unlikely to survive without the high-quality treatment they received, though a disclaimer at the bottom made it clear that this was native advertising.

            The last team that attracted a lot of public discussion was Sad Cake Binge Gaming, who Ryan and most others knew, first and foremost, as a group of comedy streamers.  They played the Pickciez, the creatures who emerged from the third and final inter-dimensional portal in the game’s universe.  The Pickciez were a comic relief faction conducive to the kind of performance Sad Cake Binge Gaming normally engaged in.  The fact that they could go out of their way to prank their enemies in matchmaking and still consistently win attested to their skill.  Of course, when it came time for tournament play, they got more serious, hence why they were also the current European Regional Champions.

            The rest of the teams were less notable.  We Rise as One played as the Terran Naval Marines and had the worst win record of any team in the championship despite marketing themselves on the fact that three of them were real soldiers.  Of course, having the worst win record of the eight teams in the world championship still meant having one of the ten best win records worldwide.  About twice as good as Ryan’s team had back when he was on it.  Dying Gravity were the South African regional champions.  They played the Pickciez and had a reputation for unconventional and inventive strategies.  Epidemic played Gray Fungus and had been the world champions of Breach’s junior league last year.  This was their first season in the senior league, and they were doing better than anyone had expected of them.

            Last, and probably also least, was Ryan’s team, the ironically named Unbroken.  They played Red Arachnia, and according to most of the coverage Ryan saw, consisted of Jayden Reece, a Dash, Sophia Jones, a Boost, Mitch Atkins, a Spark, and Lisa Dodson, a Zap.  There was only one article on the car crash, posted a few hours ago.  It ended by saying that “what this tragedy means for Unbroken’s championship bid is also unknown at this time.” ‘Also’ because the article had just explained that no one knew if Lisa would ever wake up from her coma.

//////////

            Ryan’s plane would be landing soon.  Jayden looked through his phone.  Prior to such an important event, he spent almost all his time researching, mostly combing through footage of the enemy teams at work.  He wanted to know their style, how they’d react to his choices, and how he could best react to theirs.  None of the teams in this tournament were new to him.  Most of them, he’d played before.  He’d lost matches against Reigning Fire, Ours is the Glory and Sad Cake Binge Gaming earlier this season.  The others he’d faced at some point in the past, except Epidemic.  He’d never looked into them that much until now but had been making up for that in the last few days.  Their style was polished, but with vestiges of what you might expect from a group of children.  They had a bias toward flashier tactics and over-relied on infection and other debuffs to prevent their enemies from countering bold moves.

            An announcer told Jayden that Ryan’s flight had landed.  A few minutes later, people spilled from the appropriate terminal, Ryan among them.  Jayden had started to forget what it was that drew him to Ryan, back when he felt drawn to him, but the sight of him was enough to remind him.  Ryan was tall, lean and tan-skinned, with adorable curly brown hair.  His eyes were green, and always alert, as if afraid to miss something important.  Jayden wished Mitch and Ryan weren’t the sort of men you had to choose between.  Ryan was a lot of fun.

            Jayden stood, and Ryan saw him.  They walked to each other.  “Hey,” Jayden said, waving, trying to sound cheerful.

            “Hey,” Ryan said, not bothering to sound anything but bored.

            “You said you wanted to go straight to the hospital?”

            “I’m glad you remembered.”

            Jayden was already working hard to hold in his irritation at Ryan.  At least he had the decency to hold it in.  “Alright.”  Jay had already ordered an auto to arrive a few minutes after Ryan was due to land, so by the time they got to the parking lot, it was waiting to pick them up.

//////////

            It suited Ryan that he didn’t speak with Jay on the way to the hospital.  Ryan just listened to music and looked out at the city while Jay watched endless footage of either Epidemic or Reigning Fire matches, staring at the phone with intensity that should have summoned lasers from his eyes to melt it.  Ryan tried to recall what he’d seen in Jay, years ago.  Where it concerned literal sight, that was an easy question.  Jay was diligent about his health and had the muscles to prove it.  But Ryan had met plenty of men with delicious muscles and none of them had kept his attention for long.  Jay had been so nice at first, so quick to quip back and forth with him, so interested in everything that caught his interest.  He’d been a furnace of passion, but now he seemed to have frozen over.

            Ryan was dwelling on Jay too much.  Just because he was right there didn’t mean there was any need to think about him.  Was this what Jay wanted?  Did he take pleasure in Ryan’s annoyance with him?  No, that couldn’t be.  He’d want Ryan in tip-top psychological shape for the competition tomorrow.  Maybe Ryan should have shared that goal.  Maybe he should have taken this seriously.  This was the championship, after all.  Didn’t the prospect of being the champion have at least some appeal?

            Eh, not really.  Ryan was looking forward to playing with Sophia again, though, and he had missed some of the trappings of tournament events.  Audiences were fun, even when they were against you.  Unbroken had a few fans.  This must be terribly exciting for them.  An old favorite was stepping up to stand in for his fallen comrade.  It would be a shame to disappoint them.

            Outside the window, it was just starting to get dark, and some of the city’s lights had come on.  In the distance, there was a giant arch, tall and skinny and sticking up over the skyline.  The lights covering it were blue at the peak, green near the middle, and faded toward red as they disappeared behind the closer buildings.

            They passed a giant Christmas display.  The tree was something spectacular: big enough to rival the city’s smaller skyscrapers.  On its tip, an eight-pointed golden star.  The tree was covered trunk to tip with bands of lights that shifted hues gradually and independently of one another.  Occasionally, two adjacent band’s colors would happen to match for an instant, and they would merge into a single band of color twice as thick as the others.

            Ryan changed songs.  Jay was still watching footage.  It was Epidemic.  There was a Mog’Inub onscreen, and Reigning Fire didn’t have one of those.

            The auto arrived at the hospital.  Ryan and Jay got out and hurried toward the entrance.  It was freezing.

//////////

            The hospital lobby was gargantuan and ornate, dominated by a central fountain where water trickled over a twelve-foot formation of sharp black rocks.  Jay knew the way to Lisa’s room from having visited her once before.  He led Ryan to the elevator, which they rode to the sixth floor.

            Lisa’s room wasn’t far once they got off the elevator.  It was whiter than white, and brightly lit.  On the far side of the room, a large square window overlooked the city.  Ryan could see the same Christmas tree they’d passed on the way here.

            Lisa was on a metallic bed.  An apparatus of six robotic arms hung above her, ready to respond to any sudden medical needs with swiftness and skill no human surgeon could have ever achieved.  Behind her bed, an apparatus of monitors beeped and buzzed.

            Lisa herself was clothed in casts.  A thick white brace held her neck in place, and a larger brace which reminded Ryan of a strait jacket seemed to be doing the same for her spine.  Purple casts covered her limbs from base to tip.  A bandage covered the right side of her face.  A bruise ringed her left eye.

            “Her spinal cord is severed in two places,” Jay said.  “They don’t know if they’ll be able to fix it.”

            Ryan approached the bed, not acknowledging him.

            “I’ll step outside, if you’d like,” Jay said, in an unusual moment of consideration.

            “I would.  Thank you,” Ryan said.  Jay left.

            It’d been Lisa that first learned what Mitch and Jay were doing.  With the benefit of hindsight, the signs were obvious.  Mitch was spending a lot of time around the team, and Jay was spending a lot of time alone with Mitch.  The possibility of what turned out to be true had occurred to Ryan, but Lisa had found it more difficult than Ryan had to suppress her suspicions.  After Mitch and Jay had been behaving suspiciously for a few months, she did some investigation.  Once she was convinced there could be no innocent explanation, she decided to confront Jay to hear his side of things.

            “I won’t deny it,” Jay had later admitted to saying.  “You know how things have been between me and Ryan.  Do you honestly think he’d even be that upset?”

            “Then why don’t you tell him?” Lisa asked.

            “I will, after the tournament,” Jay said, meaning that year’s U. S. regional championship qualifier.

            “Is that really what’s important to you?”

            “I thought it was important to all of us,” Jay said.  “Do you really think it’s a good idea to break up with him right now?  If Christmas or Valentine’s day were coming up, I’d wait until after those events to break up with him.  This is definitely more important than that.”

            Lisa pretended to be convinced by that line of reasoning but relayed the situation to Ryan later that day.  Ryan’s confrontation with Jay wasn’t as calm as Lisa’s had been and led to him leaving the team.  The others had been on his side.  If he had asked them to kick Jay off, they would have, but at that point, he’d already started having doubts about whether competitive Breach was something he really enjoyed.  Part of him welcomed the excuse to leave behind the stress, the scheduling, the intense practicing, and Jay’s constant nagging.

            Ryan decided it was better that he forfeit his spot to Mitch than to usurp Jay as team captain.

            Lisa approached him later, offering to give up her spot to Mitch instead, or leave along with him in protest, but Ryan told her not to do either of those things unless she really wanted to.  It seemed she didn’t.  Maybe she didn’t want to abandon Jay and Sophia.  In either case, their team was shuffled around to allow Mitch on, and the resulting version of Unbroken was creamed in the qualifier.  Ryan believed it was due to the switch, and that he would have won it for them if he’d been there.  He did have to admit, though, that this new team had found their stride since he left.  Never had his version of Unbroken made it to the World Championship.  Maybe Ryan was in over his head.

            Ryan reached out to hold Lisa’s casted hand.

            A loud buzz made him jump.  “Do not touch this patient,” said a speaker above the surgeon-bot.  “She has sustained injuries throughout her skeleton and moving any part of her body could exacerbate those injuries or cause internal bleeding.”

            “Sorry,” Ryan said.

//////////

            It was somehow already six before Ryan decided to leave the hospital.  He and Jay took another auto to the hotel.  All of the tournament’s competitors were given free boarding, and it was simple enough for Ryan to move into the hotel room that had been reserved for Lisa.  It was twice the size of a bedroom, with a queen-sized bed against one wall, a forty-inch flat-screen against the other, a mini-bar in one corner and a trio of chairs around a table in the other.  Ryan plopped his bags on one side of the bed and lay down.  He took out his phone.

            According to the internet, the party he was about to attend had been a thing for the past four years.  It was held at the Turner mansion.  It wouldn’t just be the competitors there.  There would be several members of Breach’s development team, some other VIPs from around the industry, executives from all of the companies sponsoring the tournament, a handful of players who came close to making it into the tournament, some fans who won a sweepstakes, and some fans rich enough to donate large sums to this year’s charity.  (“Habitat for Humanity,” who had been hard at work for decades trying to deal with the countless people who’d been displaced from coastal cities all around the world due to rising sea levels.)

            The party was Maximillian Turner’s idea.  He held the first one the first year he qualified for the championship.  Max was apparently no stranger to parties.  There was a detailed article about Max and his near-weekly gatherings on a website for rich New Yorkers.  At least for the sorts of people reading this site, it wasn’t hard to get oneself invited.  Charitable contributions were often solicited from guests.  Breach related imagery wasn’t uncommon, but the article assured its readers that the mansion was exquisite, and the parties not so unsophisticated that only a young adult could enjoy them.

            The article did a good job of maintaining the balance between seeming like a real rich person and seeming like a human being with a soul, but this might have been a front.  There were debates in the comments about whether it was okay that Max’s family had only been rich for a single generation.  You see, Max’s father had come from a family so lowly that it could almost be considered upper middle class.  The man had only became extremely wealthy when Thunderware found unexpected success in virtual reality gaming.  This apparently caused Max’s parties, and everything else about his public behavior, to be far less sophisticated and upright.  Also Max wasn’t white, but that had nothing to do with these people’s objections.

            Ryan didn’t even really want to go to the party, except it would be his earliest chance to see Sophia.  Also, there was a tradition where the eight teams that had qualified for the tournament entered a battle-royale match.  Ryan wasn’t going to make his team miss out on that just because these sorts of social events bored him.

            Ryan decided he was bored of the internet and switched to watching television, but after just ten minutes of some old Christmas special it was already time to go.  Ryan changed into some less casual clothes, used the bathroom, and went outside.  He met up with Jay in the hallway, and they left for the mansion.

//////////

            To Ryan’s Shock, Jay put down his phone to speak.  “When we get to the mansion,” he said, “they’ll want invitations.”  He seemed to think this would be news to Ryan.  “Max knows about our situation, so we should be fine, but you might have to wait outside for a minute if there’s a misunderstanding with whoever is checking them at the door.”

            “You’re on a first name basis with him?” Ryan asked.

            “Yeah,” Jay said.  “I’ve hung out with him some at events.  I think he’d been trying to make nice with me for some reason.”

            “Weird.”

            “He is, kind of, yeah.”

            Upon seeing the mansion, it was immediately clear to Ryan why the CEO’s son held so many parties.  He had to do something to keep all that space from going to waste.  Three people lived in this mansion, yet it was three stories tall and twice as wide.  Its outer walls looked like they were made entirely of glass, held in place by a grid of steel window frames.  One could see the interior of every room in the front of the mansion.  One room appeared to be a dining room, with a long brown table and giant gold chandelier.  Another might have been a library, though there were so many shelves that some of them must have been holding something else.  No one could read that much.  There was a giant fountain outside.  It was shut off for the winter but decorated with Christmas lights.  Lights also covered the mansion itself, framing each of its giant windows and circling its roof.  The lights were brightly colored, red, green, blue, deep yellow and white, and they were all constantly fading and relighting themselves in different colors.

            Ryan and Jay’s auto made it two car-lengths in to a massive horse-shoe before the other cars present forced it to stop.  Jay got out of the car, and Ryan followed him.  Any other time of the year, during an event like this, there might have been a crowd on the lawn, but no one wanted to be outside in this cold, Ryan least of all, so he went straight up to the door and knocked.  A well-dressed butler was camped by the door to answer it.  He recognized Jay’s face, and so didn’t feel the need to ask for their invitations.

            The walls of the entryway were painted blue.  The floor was tiled with marble, marred with blue veins.  A curly staircase with a golden handrail led to a brown door.  On the ground, a scarlet rug led to a gold double-door twice the size of the mansion’s entrance.  These doors were held open, and behind them was a ballroom.  There were more brown doors to the right and left.  There were couches in each corner of the room.  People Ryan didn’t recognize, but who were the right age to be developers or businessmen, mingled on some of them.

            Ryan walked across the carpet.  The doors were flanked by statues: one of Breach’s most iconic character, James of the Terran Naval Marines, and one of the character Max happened to main, Occilo.

            The glass windows on the far end of the ballroom revealed that it was as deep as the whole rest of the house.  A few dozen people mingled and danced to 40s techno beats matching the style of Breach’s soundtrack.  Ryan scanned the room and saw Sophia.  She was speaking to someone next to a table on which food had been laid out.  Ryan walked toward her.  Jay went off on his own, probably toward Mitch, but Ryan didn’t care.

            “Hey!” Sophia said when she noticed Ryan.

            “Hey,” Ryan said.  The person she’d been talking to turned around.  It was, in fact, Maximilian Turner.  He stepped back allowing the two to greet one another with a brief hug.

            “Sorry to interrupt,” Ryan said.  Turner was in a light blue shirt and dark blue jacket and pants.  His face was smooth and flawless, his eyes soft blue and gentle, his mouth curved in an eternal smile.

            “Oh, no, it’s fine,” he said.  He extended his hand, which Ryan shook.  “I’m Max Turner.”

            “I recognized you,” Ryan said.  “I’m Ryan Jonson.”

            “Nice to meet you, Ryan,” Max said.”  So, you’re Unbroken’s new Zap?  Sophie says you’re pretty good.”  He gestured toward Sophia.

            “Well I’m definitely not going to go and deny that,” Ryan said.

            “Ha ha.  Well, it’s nice to meet you, and thanks for coming at the last minute.  It would have sucked for your team to have to step out because of what happened.”

            “Well that’s for sure,” Ryan said.

            “Ooh, Sorry,” Max said.  “I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”

            “No, no, it’s fine.  You’re fine.”

            “Max and I had just been talking about the ’79 regionals,” Sophia said.

            “Yeah,” Max said.  “You guys did really well there.”

            “Think so?” Ryan asked.

            “Of course.  I mean, sure, I could have done better, but you got third place.  That’s pretty impressive.”

            “You know, it’s not nice to tell people you’re better than them.”

            “Right, sorry about that!”

            “Don’t worry.  I’ll have my revenge once we start playing.”

            “Ha ha.  I’m going to hold you to that.  You’ll get a good chance in an hour when the match starts.  It’ll be fun no matter how it goes.”

            “Yeah.  It will.”  Ryan would need to consider hitting on this man later.

            “You four really did have a great dynamic, though,” Max said.  “Some of the best teamwork I’ve ever seen.”

            “Thanks.”

            “There’s no need to thank me for telling the truth.  Anyways, you two must have a lot to talk about.  I think I should let you two catch up.  There are still some people who are going to arrive, and I should greet them.”

            “No problem,” Sophia said.

            “Yeah, do what you need to do,” Ryan said.  “I hope we bump into each other later.”

            “Me too.  Oh, and a word of advice.  My brother isn’t as friendly as I am.  If you see him, don’t introduce yourself.  And if you do, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

            “Uh, okay,” Ryan said.

            “Maybe you’ll see what I mean,” Max said, and he walked off.

            Sophia picked up a bit of bread from the table next to them.  “So, what the hell have you been up to for a year and a half?”

            “Not much.  Basically just gaming.”

            “I’m surprised you’ve not found yourself another team.  It’s not like there aren’t a million teams that would kill for a competent Zap.”

            “Eh, maybe someday.”  Ryan scooped a ladel-full of punch into a paper cup.  “No offense, but I haven’t been missing competitive play much.”

            “I’m sorry to hear that.  I hope Jay didn’t strongarm you—”

            “No, no, it’s fine.  I’m happy to be here under the circumstances, and I’m psyched to play with you again.  It’s just not my favorite playing environment.”  Ryan took a sip of his punch.  It was good; pinkish orange and pretty darn sour.  It didn’t taste or smell alcoholic.  “How did Mitch react to learning that I was coming?” Ryan asked.

            Sophia had to think about that.  “He understood.  He’d definitely rather have you come than forfeit the tournament.”

            “He wasn’t happy about it though?”

            “Don’t worry about it.  Jayden gave him the chance to say no and he didn’t take it.  I won’t let him get away with going back on that.”

            “Oh, I can take care of that myself if the situation calls for it.  I’m curious, though.  What would you do?”

            “I dunno.  I’ve never had to answer that question before.  I get along with them fine.  It’s you the two of them annoy.”

            “Heh.”  How someone could possibly stand Mitch, Ryan didn’t understand.  The same would be true for Jay, if Ryan hadn’t dated him for so long.  “By the way, how is it you guys managed to get yourselves into the championship?  I leave and all of the sudden you’re championship material?  I have to admit, I’m a little wounded.”

            “I’m sure we’d have done it last year if you’d still been on the team.”

            “Thanks for saying so.”  The two continued catching up for quite a while, until another team entered the ballroom.

//////////

            Mitch was in the corner, on a couch, dutifully studying, bobbing his head to the ambient music.  Jayden walked over and sat next to him, wrapping an arm around him.

            “Hey,” Mitch said.

            “Hey,” Jayden said.  “Anything to share?”

            “Not that you probably don’t know,” Mitch said.  “I’ve mostly been looking into Reigning Fire.  Their item selection patterns are pretty wonky.”

            “That much I know,” Jayden said.  The weak teams warranted some study, but at the end of the day you probably wouldn’t face them, so they didn’t warrant the bulk of your attention.  Reigning Fire were the ones to obsess over.  The only way you wouldn’t face them eventually was if they lost to someone else, and the odds of that were low.  The odds of them losing to Unbroken were low too, but that didn’t bear thinking about.  If Unbroken was going to win the championship, they were probably going to have to beat Reigning Fire.  “If you’ve got them down, though, I’ll do Ours is the Glory.”

            “Sounds good.”  Ryan would be shocked to hear it, but Jayden did get bored watching hours of footage and pouring over game data.  Jayden just had the ability to power through it with this little thing called dedication.

            Jayden searched for and pulled up some footage of Ours is the Glory playing against Unbroken earlier this year.  Ours is the Glory had an odd battle dynamic.  Everyone else was dedicated to supporting Max’s Occilo.  He rode the Nullum.  The Armigiri existed mostly to buff him.  Terraemotus put a lot of work into aiding him as well, and forcing enemies to fight him alone.  All three of those players weren’t people Max had known before he started competitive play.  They were hired by Max’s father.  That didn’t mean Max was some upstart whose daddy had bought him a team.  A team that made it into the world championship multiple times in a row had to have four good players.  Still, Jayden wished his dad were rich enough to buy him the best teammates in the world.

            Jayden studied Max’s movements in the piece of footage he was watching.  Max was massive as Occilo, and he moved with power, riding his Nullum toward Zap, played by Lisa.  His sword glowed with Armigeri’s magic as he slammed it into her chest.  Sparks flew.  Being impaled by the sword locked Lisa in place.  Nullum hit her with a breath of blue-white fire.  Her rusty armor plating melted, bits of them dripping onto the horned beast, but doing him no harm.  Max wrenched his sword out of her and rode off to the right.  Lisa’s body fell forward.  Jayden studied the clip for over ten minutes but couldn’t find any flaw with the technique.  He scooted toward Mitch, who reciprocated, and rested his head against Jayden’s shoulder.

            Across the ballroom, another team entered.

//////////

            Ryan turned to see who was entering.  He recognized the first person to enter: Joss Turner, Captain of Reigning Fire.  As much as Max probably wouldn’t want to hear it, they looked a lot alike: both olive-skinned with puffy ridged cheeks.  Joss, though, had a wiry beard, redder than his head-hair.  He was wearing a shirt and jeans.  The rest of his team entered behind him, only one of them dressed up.

            “Should I go introduce myself to him?” Ryan asked.

            “Like Max told you not to?” Sophia asked.

            “Right, exactly,” Ryan said.  “I’m really curious.”  Reigning Fire split up.  One member headed toward the stage to dance.  Two others walked over to the couches where Jay and Mitch were.  These were championship players.  Some of the best in the league and the most dedicated.

            Maybe Jay would leave Mitch for one of them.

            “Have you met Reigning Fire before?” Ryan asked Sophia.  Ryan was pretty sure Unbroken had played them once back when he was on it, but he didn’t remember interacting with them himself.  They weren’t quite as big of a team a few years ago.

            “We’ve played against them,” Sophia said.  “I’ve not had any extended conversations with them or anything.”

            “Do you think he’s as bad as his brother let on?”

            “Probably.”

            Joss was walking over to them.  Toward the punch, Ryan realized.  He gave Ryan a look that told him he’d noticed Ryan’s staring.  That was rude of Ryan.  Still, the look sort of sealed the deal.  “I’m going in,” Ryan said.

            “I’ll be here to cheer you on,” Sophia said.

            Ryan waited for Joss to arrive at the punch bowl.  Once Joss was in front of the bowl, Ryan walked up to and stood behind him, as if waiting in line to refill his glass, which was long-empty.  “Hi,” Ryan said.

            “Hi,” Joss said.  He scooped punch into his cup, and, without moving out of the way, pulled a flask out of his coat and poured its contents in.

            “I’m Ryan,” Ryan said.  “You’re Joss Turner?”

            “Yes.”  He moved over, and got a plate, which he began to fill with artificial meat.

            “It’s nice to meet you,” Ryan said.

            “Nice to meet you,” Joss said, focused on his task.  Ryan got his own punch.

            “Can I borrow some of what’s in the flask?” Ryan said.

            “If only I had enough to share.”

            “Yikes.  I’m here if you want to talk about it.”

            “Believe me, there’s nothing you could say.  Now please leave me alone.”

            “Sorry,” Ryan said.

            “I didn’t ask you to apologize.  I asked you to go away.”

            “Sorry,” Ryan said again.

            “And what was it I just said?”

            “Alright, alright, I’m going.”

            “You say that.”

            Ryan took his full punch glass back over to Sophia.

            “Looks like that went well,” she said.

            “We’re best friends now,” Ryan said.

            “Cool beans.  Anything worth sharing?”

            “He has more foresight than me.  He brought a flask to mix into his punch.”

            “I’m wounded.  Are you saying you’re not enjoying yourself?”

            “Oh no.  I am.  For now.  While I’ve not seen Mitch.”

            “It’d be as simple as looking right over there.”  She gestured toward the two of them, half snuggling, half studying on the couch.

            “Bleck,” Ryan said.

            “Fair enough.  I can’t blame Joss for needing some help getting through this, though.  There must be a lot of baggage between he and his brother after the accusations.”
            “I was reading about that on the way here.  You’ve been more hooked into things than I have.  Do you think he did it?”

            “There’s not really any evidence.  The whole point of having an AI govern the game is that it allows the rules to be a bit adaptable and the game still be fair.  Max had a second Purifying Light in that match because Breach-bot allowed him to, and Joss knew that that kind of thing could happen, so he prepared for it.”

            “I guess.  I can’t help but see him as the cheating type, though.”

            “I’m sure he is.  People who play fair don’t become world champions.”

            “What does that say about us?”

            “That we’ll get third place, like we did at regionals.  At least that’s as high as I’m letting my hopes get.”

            “Wise.  And now I feel sorry for Jay and Mitch.”

            “Softie.”

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