Chapter 5
“Okay. Ready for round two?” Vesta asked.
“Yup,” I said, staring across the sands at Cora’s avatar.
“Players, fight!” Tessa called and I started forward.
Cora had the same gravity trap set, but I could tell that there was a second one that wouldn’t trigger until the first one did. I had been thinking long and hard about her gravity stuff.
“Gravitas,” I said and threw my own little trinket.
The clay ball arced over the space between us until the awesome power of her trap caught it in an inexorable pull, yanking it straight down into the center of the sand.
My amplifier activated and fed power to the first gravity bomb and subsequently triggered the second gravity bomb.
The result was way, way more than Cora had anticipated.
I hopped backward as the sands in front of me compacted to the density of granite, all the tiny spaces between grains collapsed into stone, dropping the level of the playing field and pulling Cora right off her feet.
Caught in her own trap, she squirmed and struggled against the pull, her movements shifting from mildly surprised motions to frantic, frustrated, and even a bit panicked, flailing and twisting.
It would be too much to ask for that the universe would grant me such an easy victory, plus, truth be told, I didn’t want it. Only a vicious, hand-to-hand struggle would give me the satisfaction I craved.
The amplifier not only increased the strength of both traps but sped up their magical exhaustion and Cora’s plummet to the surface of the newly formed stone slowed and stopped just as her avatar’s yellow and red feet hit the edge.
I ran and jumped as she righted herself, landing directly in front of her as she regained her feet.
“Hi,” I said. “Ready to rumble?”
“I can’t tell if you’re being a wiseass or just mentally deficient,” she said, adopting a combat stance. “Nice paint. A shame to mess it up,” she added, referring to my mottled green exterior that was painted in the natural camouflage pattern of a Mackdragon.
Then she attacked.
A straight center kick that seemed to explode from nowhere. Blindingly fast. I stepped to the side and let it go by.
She dropped the forward foot and stepped into a roundhouse with her other foot, this kick even faster.
I blocked it with my right arm. Her leg bent around my arm, her metal shin bone cut almost all the way through. Her recovery was awesome, dropping her almost severed leg to the ground and instantly increasing her weight and density just as my own roundhouse hit her wounded leg.
The leg severed completely and she fell onto the stump with heavy force but managed to lift her arm up to block my repeat roundhouse that was aimed at her rib cage.
My shin cut all the way through her forearm and chipped a big piece of adobe-like clay from her torso.
Stunned by the loss of her arm, she failed completely to react to my overhand knife hand strike to her avatar’s head.
The densely packed clay around her skull shattered and fell, leaving an odd metal skull that was chopped almost in half.
That’s right… I gave her a good old-fashioned karate chop, and it split her skull.
I was winding up for a follow-through when Tessa yelled “Break!” Seeing as how I knew she was going to make that call, it was easy to stop my second strike and back away.
“Fight goes to Blackmore,” Tessa said with just a hint of surprise.
“What? I can still fight,” Cora said, her avatar attempting to turn to look at the ref. Her leg stump slipped on the hard rock and she fell over, her half-armed attempt to catch herself failing badly.
“Can you now? Gonna bite his head off there, Black Knight?” Tessa asked with a snort. “Match.”
I came back to my body in time to see Cora lift her own actual head and stare at me in disbelief. “How the fuck did you do that?”
“Nope, that’s a team secret,” Vesta said, waving a hand which caused my avatar to fly through the air and into the security of our team area. My girlfriend turned to me with a huge smile. “It actually worked.”
“Hah. It was bound to work. Even your dad thought it was a good idea,” I said.
“He said he thought it might work. He didn’t actually say good idea.”
“But it worked,” I said.
“It did. We can use it with all our avatars.”
“Use what? Some kind of illegal spell?” Cora asked.
“Tessa, is Craig’s avatar legal?” Vesta asked while holding her older near cousin’s gaze.
“Yeah. I don’t know what you did to it, but it passes all the qualifier spells,” Tessa said, head tilted as she studied my avatar where it floated in front of Vesta.
“You used your intent,” Cora said.
“I always use it. The game officials said it wasn’t active magic but passive,” I said.
Other kids were coming down from the stands to look at Cora’s avatar and try to figure out mine. One of the kids was a graduate level witch who was brimming with excitement.
“I know what you did,” she said, almost bouncing up and down.
“Keep your mouth shut, Kiley,” Vesta said.
“And we’ll share the data with you,” I added, keeping my voice as quiet as I could and still have her hear me over the chatter of excited students.
Then I felt a cold, intense curiosity and turned to stare into the dark eyes of a pretty co-ed who scared the living shit right out of me. Kiley took one look at her and fled.
“Miss Westing,” I said carefully.
“So formal, Craig,” Katrina Westing said. “Vesta, you gotta take your hand out of his backside and let him relax a little.”
“Always going for the shock value, Kat?” Cora asked.
“Little Demidova. What happened?” Katrina asked.
“I don’t know. I’d say cheating but Vesta doesn’t tend to go for that and Tessa is actually pretty good at catching that shit.”
“I heard that,” Tessa said from several yards away.
“It was a compliment, Tess,” Cora said, but the older ref pointed two fingers at her own eyes and then toward Cora.
“What brings the Queen’s Dark Knight to our happy little campus?” Vesta asked Katrina.
“I wanted to run a few drills in Jenks’ fancy simulator.
I had just finished up when I overheard some kids talking about this little late-night challenge.
I saw the video of the first matchup, so I didn’t expect too much.
That was a… surprise. I would expect underhanded tactics but not unhanded ones. ”
“Not funny, Kat,” Cora said.
“Kinda funny,” I said.
“Hah, Vesta’s boy toy gets it,” Katrina said, her eyes locked on me. All through the little back-and-forth exchange, her hard, almost suspicious curiosity didn’t waver.
“What’s your interest in Craig?” Vesta asked, head tilted. She’d been picking up stuff from me lately, bits and pieces of whatever strong intent I had been reading. I was pretty sure she had just done more of the same
“He’s one hell of a mystery, Veems,” Katrina said. “A real puzzle.”
“Maybe I’m the kind of puzzle that should be left all put together,” I suggested.
“What’s crawled up your butt, Kat?” Vesta asked, glaring at the vampire.
“See, you absolutely can get edgy, Veems,” Katrina said, smirking at Vesta before turning her cold gaze back on me. She was silent for a second, then turned and looked around us. It was just her, Vesta, Cora, and me. The rest of Cora’s admirers were hanging way back, glancing uneasily at Katrina.
“You want to know why I’ve got a stick in my craw?” Katrina suddenly asked Vesta. “It’s because I tried running a simulation based on just one of his so-called culls.”
“And?” Cora asked.
Katrina still stared at me. After a second, she shifted her gaze to the Demidova daughter.
“I couldn’t match it. Actually, I was way off. Fucking simulator birds killed me. That made me think it was fake. Omega did not agree. He put me through several other scenarios, both actual and purely fictional that you’ve already handled. I couldn’t match those either.”
I had the good sense to keep my mouth shut, but Cora was clearly harboring no such concerns.
“How is that possible? You have vampire speed and senses? He’s witch stock but still physically human.
I mean, he has this foresight-based intent thing and a weird aiming protocol, but he couldn’t begin to match your speed. ”
“It’s magic,” Vesta said. “The same way vampires have magic and weres have magic.”
“That’s a bullshit answer,” Katrina said, her tone calm despite the words. “Too pat. Why has no one else done something like this? Why Craig?”
“Um, I don’t know,” I said, watching her intent carefully.
Her eyes widened and she suddenly smiled.
“You little shit!” she said. “You’re waiting for me to attack. Like you have a chance if I do.”
“Ah, actually, Kat, that would be a bad idea,” Cora said. “Because he does… he would.”
“Ah, the Apport protocol,” Katrina said.
“You’re right; he might at that. Don’t worry, Craig.
I’m not thinking of bleeding you… you’re much too interesting for that, plus your girlfriend would probably get her panties in a twist if I did anything.
I would be interested in anything you could add though. ”
“I got nothing. I’ve kinda bared my soul as it were already,” I said. “My adoptive sister thinks I’m a moron for telling everyone everything I already have.”
“Yeah, you might want to avoid negotiating as a career choice,” Katrina said. “Well, I do love a good puzzle. You understand, right, Vesta?”
“Yeah, Kat, I do,” Vesta said. “Now, some of us have finals in the morning.”
The scary vampire waved a hand dismissively and then moved off toward the door.
“She’s not wrong, you know?” Cora said, looking from me to Vesta and back again. “This is far outside the norm.”
“Says the girl who commands gravity,” I said, then danced aside before she could lock my boots to the ground.
“Like that shit right there,” Cora said, then turned and rejoined her crew.
Vesta waved a hand and a wall of silence descended around us. “It freaking worked,” she said with a grin.
“Titanium skeleton spelled for speed, tungsten carbide edges spelled for sharpness lining all the limbs and rhinocodium mud mixed in with the standard clay,” I said.
“We’ll make one for each team member and see how long we can keep them secret,” she said. “You know, Blackmore, you’ve got a devious mind.”
“Devious or deviant?” I asked with a leer.
“Hmm, both?” she asked brightly.