23. I’m Sick of This Card Game #3
Everything became a twist of lights and muffled sound. I felt like my senses had been stretched like a spring that hurt even more when whatever was pulling me let go.
I stood on my side of the field. Swine’s Servant and Justified Swordsman were there for a moment until they disintegrated into a cloud of pixels that covered me like mist. Everything had overwhelmed me, but I could still see the scoreboard with our life totals.
My legends had joined me, increasing my life by a few points.
The same had happened to Ralia, who was now the giant ogre sha, covered in royal garb and armor to make him Heaven’s General Sha of the Journeymen.
I snorted a laugh, though humor was not a feeling I was in the mood to entertain. I held my staff with a rake’s head at the ready, crouched and prepared for an attack. None of this was of my own accord.
“How does it feel to be on the other side of our partnership for once?”
I didn’t know what to say to Zhu. I could move with some autonomy, but it did not ease the existential dread that I felt.
Not only was I outside of my body in a simulated test, I was now outside of my cognitive body and inside the being that was inside of me.
At least I had grown close to Zhu. I couldn’t imagine how Ralia felt inside the creature I too was growing to fear.
“Set your feelings aside. All shall resolve itself after this battle.”
How do you know?
Zhu could not answer me. I felt his thoughts.
I could only hear his voice in our prior symbiotic form, now it was a new level of oddity.
He might have understood me, but besides the basest of his feelings, I could not comprehend a single thing inside of him.
Glimpses of a long passed history full of wars and death flashed in our joint memories, but I could not put any sense to them.
CarNin rammed her head on the veil of light and let out a screaming bark.
A video cube appeared in the middle of the field.
Heaven’s General Sha of the Journeymen: Thirty-one.
Boarrior of the Journeymen: Thirty.
Chucarrier the Nihilist: Forty-two.
The veil dropped and CarNin charged.
Sha jumped and landed on a wave that carried him towards CarNin’s Chucarrier the Nihilist. He raised his bipronged staff and pointed it towards CarNin as she rushed him.
An orb of blue light shot out from the end of Sha’s staff and soared into CarNin’s open mouth.
The hellish hound gagged and vomited light-infused green ectoplasm onto Sha’s wave, stopping him where he was.
The ooze cleared and CarNin’ slammed her head into Sha before he could stand.
Each hit brought him down a life point on top of the damage done by the vomit.
I charged, jumping with cartoonish height, and stuck the prongs of my rake staff into CarNin’s flesh. I pulled myself up, but the decaying dog flesh peeled, letting me fall with a patch of skin clinging to me as my rake slid free.
CarNin’ continued to pound her head against Sha.
I stood back up, threw the patch of flesh off of me, and slashed the back of its right forepaw’s with my rake.
CarNin cried out and slammed her head into the ground next to Sha as she collapsed. She sat back, holding her wounded paw close to her chest, then swiped us across the field with her other forepaw like a sore loser clearing the chessboard.
The sweep tossed us off of the edge, but we reappeared in our starting positions a second later and suffered five points of damage for the fall.
Sha was already on top of his wave but flew towards me before returning to attack CarNin.
I stood my ground, hoping he or Ralia within him would have some solution to prevent our approaching demise. I couldn’t help but be disheartened by the scoreboard.
Heaven’s General Sha of the Journeymen: Fourteen.
Boarrior of the Journeymen: Nineteen.
Chucarrier the Nihilist: Thirty-six.
CarNin eyed us with a poisonous grin. She took slow steps towards us, gnashing her teeth as we locked eyes.
I looked at Sha, seeing if he and Ralia had any new solution. He rode towards me on his wave and stopped at my side with CarNin still approaching at a steady pace.
“The hound cannot endure much longer,” Sha said. There was no hint of Ralia’s spunk. He pointed to the scoreboard.
Chucarrier the Nihilist: Thirty-five.
“It lost a point without us dealing a wound,” Zhu noted.
Sha nodded. “The plagued fiend is not meant for glory.”
He reached out. I took his hand and stood atop the wave without sinking.
We soared towards the hound, then took a sharp right to avoid its bite just as it was coming down on us.
We weaved beneath it and around its legs, striking at the tendons in its legs without respective weapons.
Just before attacking the final leg, it kicked back, taking an awkward fall to knock us off of the wave and onto the edge of the arena.
Sha split his wave, giving half to me as he stood on the other. We remounted, having taken only two points of damage, and soared towards CarNin on opposite sides.
The waves crashed on CarNin’s head, smashing the sides together and breaking its jaws with the force of the light-infused wave.
I stood and stopped my wave in awe, looking at the creature as it decayed more each second. Flesh receded. Muscles atrophied. The cracks in the visible bones stretched like glass under pressure.
Sha stole the might from my wave and crashed into CarNin with twice the might, tossing the hound off of the edge.
He glanced at me before the hound returned to the plain. “Can you finish it?”
I checked the scoreboard.
Heaven’s General Sha of the Journeymen: Thirteen
Boarrior of the Journeymen: Eighteen.
Chucarrier the Nihilist: Fifteen.