The Fall (Chapter 15, 12/22/2011)

[Xaeris]

The press conference was a good idea. It's things like that that lend verisimilitude to the game's world. Nosy press will always be nosy, no matter when and where they are, after all.

[McLaughlin]

Okay, this took way longer than I meant it to. I got swamped with work and family shenanigans, and had barely any time to write. Really sorry about the wait.


Chapter 12: Man on Fire

“I was beginning to wonder if you'd fallen in.”

“Huh?”

Given that the last time Roderick saw Noble was only five minutes ago, when he asked him to stand guard over Remi and Eli, he shouldn't be surprised to see that Noble is still there when he returns.

“And why is it that every time you disappear from my sight you return bloodier than before?”

“Oh,” Roderick looks at his blood-caked sleeve while he thinks. “Nose bleed,” is what he decides on. It's close enough to the truth that he doesn't feel too bad about lying.

“Hey, can you hang out here for a bit?” Roderick asks. “I need to run a couple errands and I'd feel awful if they woke up alone.”

“I don't mind,” Noble shrugs. “If you see Ben though, tell him to send me a mail. I need to talk to him.”

“Will do. Thanks.”

==========

Susan's day had started ordinary enough. As was tradition in the Bentley household, she was roused at 4AM sharp by a peck on the forehead from her husband as he prepared to leave. He was a Guardian, and if you ever met her, that would be one of the first things she'd tell you. She was tremendously proud of that. Proud of her husband, really. It struck her as very romantic; fighting against who knows what, all in her name.

Susan was accustomed to the bizarre. She was a nurse on the Guardian's Colony. You'd be surprised by some of the... creative ways people injure themselves on a giant space station. She once admitted an elderly gentleman who had managed to get a torque wrench jammed- well, nevermind.

Today, Susan's daily dose of the absurd is delivered by a rather dashing young man as he passes through the reception area, although she doesn't yet know it. After all, “I heard some strange noises coming from room 404,” was hardly uncommon. It was a hospital full of ridiculous injuries and horny residents. Still, she took his concern to heart. She also made a mental note to mention her very single daughter, should she happen across him again.

At Susan's brisk pace, it only takes her a few minutes to reach the room in question. She had other things to do, and on the way she convinced herself that whatever that strapping young man heard was probably the sounds of some immoral pair getting their nookie on in a vacant room.

What she discovers, however, as she twists the handle and creeks the door open, is easily the strangest thing she had seen all week, perhaps even all month, and her apathy gives way to concern almost immediately.

In the center of the room is a solitary beast. Not standing, sitting, or otherwise connected to the floor in some way, but hanging from from a beam hidden above the ceiling tiles. Someone had bound his hands behind his back and strung him up by his ankles with bed sheets. Unconscious and swaying gently like a pendulum, he vaguely reminds Susan of an oversized piñata. His nose is quite spectacularly broken, and dripping blood down, or rather, up, his face and pooling on the carpet beneath him. While she searches frantically for something she can use to cut the ersatz rope, Susan spies a note taped to the midsection of the hapless beast. The handwriting is atrocious, but with some effort she's able to make out the message.

“To whoever stumbles across me; I kill Guardians for money. Just thought you should know. Do what you will.”

This revelation seriously sours Susan's mood. Her care meter plummets to zero in a matter of seconds, leaving her angry and slightly disgusted with herself for intending to help him at all. She pastes the note back on him and, before leaving and locking the door behind her, delivers a swift toe-kick to his face, starting the geyser of blood anew.

“Darn. No candy.”

==========

The shuttle ride to Moatoob was an unusual trip for Roderick. It was only the second time he'd taken a PPT shuttle by himself, but those two experiences were polar opposites. The first time, he found himself on an overcrowded flight full of refugees fleeing Parum to the supposed safety of the Guardians Colony. Now he finds himself on a deserted shuffle flying to what some would call the slums of Gurhal. The alone time affords him a chance to think through recent events, and ultimately convince himself that he has to follow through with his plan, as ridiculous as it is. He refused to make the same mistake twice. He also finds himself especially spurred on by the thought of Remi, laying helplessly in a hospital bed. That image pushes aside the inane babbling of the shuttle pilot as he details popular tourist stops and other significant landmarks, and occupies Roderick's attention for the duration of the flight.

Roderick knew a little about Moatoob. Mostly glimpses he'd catch on the news whenever something happened. Nearly all the rogue activity and piracy was based out of Moatoob. He'd seen pictures of the rocky mountain ranges and the barren deserts. He'd been told how the buildings stretched down towards the planet's core instead of reaching up to touch the sky, but nothing he'd ever seen or heard about Moatoob prepared him for the unholy heat.

Despite being able to see the last rays of sunlight sinking below the jagged horizon, and being only a few steps off the shuttle, Roderick has already sent his coat into storage and rolled up his sleeves. As he wipes beads of sweat from his forehead, Roderick begins scanning Il Cabo for his next destination. Spying no obvious hints, he sets off in the direction of a group of people nearby. As Roderick approaches, however, the crowd disperses, splintering off in all directions except towards him. This phenomenon repeats itself several times, with Roderick's level of confusion rising with each occurrence, until he spots an elderly gentleman struggling with two large paper bags.

“Need any help with those?” Roderick asks as he wraps his arm around one of the bags, lifting it gently by the bottom and relieving the beast of his burden.

The old man sighs. “I suppose I do.”

They walk together in silence, with Roderick a half-step behind. It's not a long walk from where they met to what Roderick assumed was the beast's house; a door and two windows were carved into the rock underneath an overhanging cliff. Roderick stands in the entryway and waits patiently as the beast disappears into his home. When he returns, Roderick smiles warmly as he hands off the bag and begins to leave.

“Hey,” the beast calls from behind him, “aren't you going to ask me for directions?”

“Hm?”

“I don't think you could look any more lost if you tried, son.”

“Ah,” Roderick says sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head. “I'm looking for a bar called the Onyx.”

“You know what that place is?” the beast asks, looking over Roderick from head to toe, before finally settling on his eyes.

“Yes sir.”

They exchange steely gazes for a moment before the beast answers, “if you take a left back that way, it's the last building before the edge of the canyon.”

“Thanks.”

It didn't take long for Roderick to cross Il Cabo. Most of the city was built right into the Granigs mountain range, and what hadn't been dug into the rock was spread sparsely across the rest of the plateau. Every step Roderick took left a cloud of dust hanging in the air and a small piece of his confidence on the ground. As he came closer and closer to the lone building at the edge of the canyon, he grew less and less sure himself, again conflicted about whether or not what he was doing was right, or even sane. All that doubt finally overcomes him as he stands in front of the door to the shanty known as the Onyx.

Crudely built, the exterior of the bar looked as though it had been ignored for decades. The patio was decrepit and empty, the windows were too dirty to see through, and the occasional white paint chip flaking off the side paneling served as the only indication that the entire structure was ever any colour other than “deadwood gray.” It reminded Roderick of an old western saloon, minus the swinging door.

Roderick takes one look over the whole place before stepping backwards off the stoop, deciding that what he had planned was foolish, acting so brazenly on little more than a hunch. With every intention of leaving without a word, Roderick turns on his heel and prepares to head back to the G-flyer base. That is, until he overhears someone from inside the bar.

“I can't believe they actually gave up. The looks on those bitches' faces were priceless!”

Somewhere on the other side of Moatoob, a sand twister can be blamed on how quickly Roderick spins around and storms towards the door. With no pause for further consideration, he throws the door wide open and steps into a grimy room full of burly men.

“Which one of you did it?”

“Whoa there little buddy. What are you talking about?” one of the men in the back of the room asks.

“You have ten seconds to tell me which one of you did it and who hired you,” Roderick growls.

“Look kid, I think you've got the wrong place,” a second man says, this time to the right of Roderick, “maybe you should leave before this misunderstanding gets ugly.”

“Six, five...” Roderick counts under his breath.

“Nah, let him stay!” the first man laughs.

“Three, two...”

“Here!” he cackles drunkenly as he lobs a bottle at Roderick, “Have a beer. It's on me!”

Roderick snatches the bottle by the neck out of midair as he silently mouths “one,” and tomahawks it back at the beast, beaning him right off the forehead and knocking him backwards out of his chair.

“The hard way it is.”

==========

Initializing...

Unexpected shutdown, beginning diagnostic...

Diagnostic complete. Recalibrating...

Loading operating system...

Loading device drivers...

Loading operator profile...

…

Loading complete. Powering on...

Alert. HYPIST-02 unresponsive. Retry? Y/N...

N... Disable HYPIST-02? Y/N...

Y... HYPIST-02 disabled. Recommend immediate repair.

“Hey, you're finally awake.”

“Remi!”

As Remi rights herself in her bed, she feels the bear-like embrace of Eli. Noble is seated near the door to the room, staring off into nothing. “What are you reading?”

“I'm scanning every news outlet and security camera I can gain access to. Eli told me what happened. Are you all right?”

“The hydraulic piston simulating my left calf has malfunctioned. Estimated decrease in range of motion is 15%, estimated reduction in stability is 25%.”

“Every camera?” Eli asks, fishing around the rack beneath her bed for a shirt to replace the terribly unfashionable hospital gown she finds herself in. “Isn't that... hard for you?”

“I had to tap into the power grid to keep myself online,” Noble admits, pointing to the small cable connecting the back of his heel to a socket in the wall. He absolutely hated having to root himself in place like that. He always felt so immobile and useless. “But never mind that. You need to get that leg fixed, Remi.”

“I will take care of it, but I refuse to do anything else until I am properly equipped. Where are my parts?”

Noble chuckles nervously. “Eh heh.... About that... your outer shell was pretty mangled. It's being repaired now, but it probably won't be usable until tomorrow...”

The stare Remi levels at Noble pierces right through the holographic display covering his retinas and continues into the depths of his animatronic soul.

“So you'll be uncovered for a little while yet,” he bravely finishes. “It's probably for the best. All that extra weight would strain your leg.”

Knowing just how much Remi loathes being without her hardened exterior, Eli struggles mightily to keep from giggling. “We're almost the same size. I have some jeans and tops you can borrow,” she says.

Remi sighs dejectedly. “Where is Roderick?”

==========

Back at the Onyx, Roderick has managed to dispatch most of its occupants, leaving just three thugs to deal with. Soaked in sweat, he retreats between two rows of tables, forcing the gang to spread out in an attempt to corner him.

Through the course of the fight he'd heard several people refer to the beast now charging him as “Lyle”, and "boss", so Roderick planned to deliver a crushing blow to the kingpin and demoralize the underlings. That crushing blow was to come in the form of a vicious head kick. As the bottom of Roderick's shin connects with the side of Lyle's head it does indeed stop the charge, but that's all it manages to do. Roderick finds himself in the awkward position of having his right leg held in place atop his enemy's shoulder, by his enemy.

“That kinda tickled,” Lyle taunts.

As Roderick struggles to free his leg, the second thug moves in for his attack, in almost identical fashion to Lyle. Roderick attempts to stop him in a similar manner, with an elbow to the side of the head, but with only one leg to generate force with, it ends in much the same way, this time with his arm pinned to the beast's shoulder.

”Now we've got you!”

That yell comes as the final member of the Onyx gang rushes towards Roderick with the jagged end of a chair leg. Unable to break the hold on his arm or leg, Roderick uses the table behind him as a springboard, pushing off and spinning like meat on a rotisserie. His leg cuts an arc through the air and connects with the top of the beast's skull, driving his face hard into the floor. The force of the spin allows Roderick to rip his arm free, and right himself while simultaneously kicking the second beast in the face. Now standing on the aforementioned table, Roderick has the leverage he needs to hook his foot around Lyle's neck and whip him around into the wall.

“Tell me who hired you,” Roderick says, standing over the collapsed form of Lyle.

“I have nothing to say to you.”

Roderick looks up into the air and sighs as he shakes his head. With one hand, he grabs Lyle by the collar of his vest and begins walking out of the bar, past a dozen or so beasts too unconscious or crippled to offer any resistance. He drags Lyle all the way out to the precipice of the plateau, where he uses both arms to hold the beast over the edge of the canyon.

“You have five seconds,” Roderick says flatly.

“You wouldn't,” Lyle says indignantly.

Roderick loosens his grip on Lyle's vest ever so slightly while continuing to count down. “Four.”

Having never grasped the finer points of levitation, Lyle realizes, as he stares into Roderick's cold green eyes, that he's put himself in quite a precarious position. “I don't know!” he panics.

“Three.”

“I don't know his name!”

“Two.”

“I can't tell you!”

“One.”

“All right, all right!” Lyle weeps, “Just put me down. Please!”

==========

“Oh crap.”

“What have you found?” Remi asks, pausing her own search for information to turn in her bed and face Noble.

“Hang on, I'll display it on the flat screen.”

As the last syllable rolls off Noble's synthetic lips, the monitor mounted to the wall hums to life. Displayed upon it is an aerial view of a fairly rundown town. Of particular interest is the lone building surrounded by flashing yellow lights. A beast lays unconscious near the door, while a young human sits coolly on the patio as more beasts in matching blue uniforms close in all around him. The whole scene is lit primarily by the spotlight of the G-flyer capturing the footage, giving it a much more dramatic look than is really necessary.

“Is that... the pup?” Eli asks, squinting at the screen.

“He is on Moatoob, in Il Cabo,” Remi confirms.

Nobles refocuses his attention on his retinal display. “This article says he took on the Onyx in their own bar.”

“What? Why would he do that!?” Eli jumps from her bed and frantically begins to dress herself properly.

“He went crazy when he saw you both. He's probably out for vengeance,” Noble guesses. “The better question is, how did he figure out it was the Onyx who attacked you?”

“That's not what I meant,” Eli says, scrambling to pull her flaxo pants up around her waist, showing no concern for the view she's offering potential passersby, “why would he do it on Moatoob?”

Unsure of what he's missing, Noble takes a stab at the answer. “Because that's where they're based?”

“Moatoob considers it a capitol offense to attack its inhabitants, rogue or otherwise,” Remi explains. Showing some modesty, unlike Eli, she turns her back to the window looking into the hallway as she pulls a simple light red button-down shirt over her head. She then rolls the sleeves up to just below her elbows.

“And you know how they try criminals on Moatoob, don't you?” Eli adds, sighing as she holds a blanket up to make an impromptu curtain for Remi as she fits herself into a pair of black jeans.

“Oh crap,” Noble exclaims as he slaps his own forehead.

“Yeah. They're gonna make him fight the Gauntlet.”

[McLaughlin]

Okay, sorry this took so long. I'll try to be a bit faster with updates from here on.


Chapter 13: Come at me, bro.

“Where are you going?”

Eli looks at Noble as if he'd just asked her what color the sky was. “To save the pup!”

“You have been away from home too long, Eliza,” Remi says. “You forget that Moatoob does not have an extradition treaty with any foreign governing body. We cannot interfere with his trial.”

With the wind sufficiently sucked out of her sails, Eli's shoulders slump and her head bows. “Right.”

“However, if some outside force were to interfere, we would have cause to intervene,” Remi says.

“The coliseum is on the outskirts of Dagora right? There's an A-photon reactor hidden in the mines near there...” Noble muses.

“You want to create a SEED fall? Did you download a virus?”

“Hey, you're the one going crazy over this kid. I'm just trying to help.”

“Because after Kent, we swore we'd never lose another recruit, and I, at least, meant it,” Eli says before sighing heavily. “It's the only option we have, I guess. But it's a last resort.”

“It will not matter if we do not depart soon. His trial is being expedited, “Remi warns.

“Great,” Eli says sarcastically. “The first time I'll be home in years, and I look like hell.”

==========

“So you're the human, huh?”

For Roderick, the majority of the last few hours has been spent in a cave-like jail cell, with a dozen or so hooligans, miscreants and ne'er-do-wells, one of which is attempting to start a dialogue with him. Roderick ignores him, choosing instead to continue staring through the thin steel bars walling him in.

“I imagined you'd be bigger,” the beast says, obscuring Roderick's as he walks around to his other side.

When no response comes, the beast begins to get frustrated. “Hey, show some respect.”

“You better get talkative quick, kid, or you'll be leaving this cell in a bag,” the beast threatens, grabbing a handful of Roderick's shirt to pull him in close. At this point most of the other occupants of the jail cell have taken an interest in the scene playing out, and formed a fleshy semicircle surrounding Roderick and the nameless beast.

“His fate is not for you to decide, Chet. Not yet.” a voice booms from down the corridor. The group turns collectively as a behemoth of a man walks towards them, fumbling with a ring of keys.

“You know the drill,” he says, unlocking the cell and sliding part of the wall sideways, “any funny business and you get your sentence doubled.” He then points to Roderick, “the human comes first.”

The one referred to as Chet reluctantly releases his grip on Roderick's shirt, pushing him backwards as gently as possible. Unintimidated, Roderick, brushes shoulders with him as he walks by.

“I'll see you later, buddy!” Chet shouts excitedly.

Roderick follows the guard quietly as he's lead through a series of corridors. After a few minutes of silence pass, the beast attempts to make small talk.

“Are you familiar with the rules of the Gauntlet?” he asks, looking back over his shoulder at Roderick.

“I know enough.”

“Oh? It's not often you find a human versed in Moatoobian customs.”

“It isn't often you find such a patient beast,” Roderick retorts, with more snark than he had intended.

“Fair point,” the beast chuckles, evidently unfazed. They fall silent again for a time, until they exit the cavern and Roderick finds himself in the shadow of what he could only describe as a colossal wall, wrapping around behind itself, with a comparatively tiny opening just ahead of them.

“That's... larger than I thought it would be,” Roderick thinks aloud.

“A testament to Moatoobian engineering,” the beast agrees. “Head on through the gate.”

Before Roderick takes a step, the beast adds, “Chet never fights fair.”

“Why would you-”

“The Onyx killed my brother,” he interrupts. “We're not all barbarians.”

After trading nods of mutual respect, Roderick sets off for the coliseum.

The justice system on Moatoob was one derived from trial by combat, and given the origins of the planet's inhabitants, it comes as no surprise. The basic premise was a ladder-style tournament, with the last man or woman standing claiming claiming a pardon for their crime as their prize.

The whole spectacle was staged in a roman-style coliseum. A monstrously large, circular building with an open roof. Seats lined every inch of the outer ring, and filled to capacity on any given night, as it was on this particular evening.

The combat arena itself is huge, dotted with massive stalagmites and pillars of stone jutting up from the dirt floor. As Roderick emerges from the tunnel, he's blinded by spotlights illuminating the building. If he'd squinted in the right direction, he might have seen Remi and Eli sitting behind him, up in the stands.

Instead, he looks forward once his eyes adjust to the bright lights to size up his first opponent. Outside of a few hours ago in his cell, Roderick had never seen the man standing opposite him before. Like most beasts, he was built sturdy, and like most beasts on Moatoob, his default expression seemed to be a scowl. At the sound of some sort of horn, he wastes no time advancing on Roderick. Even at a full sprint, it takes nearly twenty seconds to close the distance between them.

“I will leave this communications channel open. The code word will be 'black rain'. If you hear that phrase, activate the A-photon reactor.”

“Roger that,” Noble's voice crackles over the comm, “don't do anything foolish.”

Eli sits silently, staring at Remi with a half-raised eyebrow.

“What is it?”

“You were so close to looking normal. You really couldn't do anything with your antennas?”

“I can no more obscure my antennas than you can your own ears,” Remi huffs.

“Yeah, sure, whatever,” Eli says with a dismissive wave, turning to watch the battle. “This is a good chance to see where he's at, at least. Can you record this for me?”

Down on the battleground, the unnamed beast is nearing Roderick. In the last ten feet or so, he launches himself into a flying kick. Once he's close enough, Roderick grabs him by the ankle, bends and twists beneath his airborne body, and throws him over his shoulder, using his own momentum against him. A disturbing crack accompanies his head-first impact with the ground, and blood begins to seep into the earth as he lays motionless. Shortly after, another horn blares, signifying the end of the match.

Eli is somewhat taken aback by the display of force. “That was unexpectedly... brutal.”

“By necessity,” Remi reminds her. “In any case, he is not dead; merely incapacitated.”

“I know. But still...”

Roderick's next two rounds proceed in much the same way as the first. Despite his opponents successively growing in size, their brains seemed to remain two sizes too small, and neither posed any real threat. With each victory, he wins over more of the massive crowd, until the entire coliseum roars as he's trotted out to face his next challenge.

“That guy looks familiar...” Eli says to herself.

The “guy” she's referring to is the one Roderick knows as Chet. The largest opponent yet, he completely eclipses Roderick as they meet in the middle of the arena.

“I told you I'd be seeing you soon. Let's see if you're still a tough little shit now!” he yells, charging across the fifteen or so metres between them.

Chet takes to the offensive first with a straight punch aimed at Roderick's head, looking to knock his block clean off. Roderick leans to his side to avoid it and throws a kick towards Chet's own cranium. Unfortunately, that kick never connects. Chet blocks it with his free arm, easily. Grabbing hold of his leg, Chet spins in a circle, whipping Roderick around before tossing him twenty feet away into a nearby stalagmite. Mid-flight, Roderick pulls himself into a ball to stabilize his spin, and then plants both feet on the rocky hazard, coiling against it like a compressed spring. He finishes his acrobatic display by pushing off into a dive roll, ending on his feet a few metres away from Chet.

“That's some koltova-shit,” Chet says, visibly annoyed.

“Ugh, he's way too passive,” Eli moans. “He can't evade people forever.”

Putting that theory to the test, Chet moves forward again. He tosses out a quick jab, which Roderick blocks, and follows it up immediately with a heavy left hook. Roderick leans backwards to avoid a certain knockout and retaliates with two quick punches to the ribs and an uppercut that connects flush with Chet's jaw. To Roderick's surprise, he recovers quickly enough to jam a knee into his stomach.

“I knew I recognized him from somewhere!” Eli exclaims while watching as Roderick sidesteps a kick from Chet. “He's one of the rogues in Ben's old gang.”

Remi pulls herself away from the battle below to ask Eli, “what?”

“Yeah, Chet... something. He was in the Iron Sand with Ben. When the Guardians recruited him, he asked Chet to join too, but Chet refused.”

“Black rain.”

Now it's Eli's turn to ask, “what?”

Down below, Roderick ducks beneath a looping right from Chet, popping back up to deliver a couple more body shots. As he begins rotating for a spinning kick, Roderick catches a glimmer of something out of the corner of his eye, and abandons his attack just in time to avoid being eviscerated by the unfriendly-looking knife Chet is now wielding.

Chet lurches forward, swinging wildly at Roderick with the jagged blade in his hand. Roderick bobs and weaves around each attack, until Chet lunges straight at him. In stead of moving away, Roderick adjusts his stance to brace himself and reaches out with his right hand, catching the blade between his index and middle fingers. He then clamps down on Chet's hand to keep him from pulling the knife free, and throws all his weight forward, palming Chet's face in his left hand and driving him head first into the dirt.

“Nnngh,” is all Chet manages to whimper while he writhes around on the floor clutching the back of his head. As two guards enter the arena to retrieve him, the sound of a horn echoes across the entire coliseum, and the crowd rises to its feet in applause, signifying Roderick's victory.

“All that flash is gonna backfire on him eventually,” Eli sighs, folding her arms across her chest.

“And now!” a voice booms over what Roderick assumes is some sort of PA ystem. “The man you've all been waiting to see!”

The applause from the crowd seems to double in volume as the announcer pauses for suspense, and again once they spy the silhouette of someone walking through the tunnel towards the arena. The crowd continues to roar as he steps out into the open.

“Well, this is incredibly convenient,” he says as he walks towards Roderick.

“The Champion of the Gauntlet, Benjamin Clarke!”

[Xaeris]

Ah, I was thinking you might have given up on this. Good, good, let the writing run through you.

[XTenguX]

Stayed up all night reading it. completely worth it,its very good. keep it up.

[McLaughlin]

Thanks for the comments, fellas. Wonder if anyone's a B.o.B fan.

Chapter 14: Beast Mode

“What the hell is he doing here!?”

Remi reaches out and grabs Eli by the arm to keep her from entering the fray. “We both know the answer to that question.”

“Let me go, Remi! He'll kill him!”

“Who was it who once told me to 'have some faith'?”

Down on the arena floor, Ben walks casually towards Roderick while the crowd settles in for what they hope will be a good show. When only a few meters separate them, Ben stops and pulls his weapon from storage space. The large axe he's now leaning on would be threatening regardless of who was wielding it, but in Ben's hands, Roderick can almost see the murderous aura it radiates. The shaft is simple, long, and black, but the semicircular head's jagged teeth looked like they could tear through anything.

“You picked the wrong day for your little adventure,” he says.

“Did I?”

Ben's face contorts itself into some sort of confused scowl. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“Your being here all but confirms your hand in all of this.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“You were working with the Illuminus to capture me,” Roderick says flatly.

Ben remains silent, but the look of shock on his face is the only confirmation Roderick needs.

“There was no way that Remi and Eli being humiliated that way was a coincidence. I don't know if Able did it on purpose, but either way, I knew he was connected somehow. The attack on the colony was orchestrated to steal me away, right?”

Ben continues to bite his tongue.

“Seems I'm on the right track, so just let me know if I go wrong anywhere. You convinced the president to send Remi and Eli to Moatoob, knowing it was a trap. But if I was able to best the Onyx on my own, how in Gurhal did they manage to beat Remi and Eli?” Roderick's glare intensifies, “trust me when I say I can recognize the pain of loss when I see it. They've already lost one trainee, and your thugs probably threatened them with my life if they didn't cooperate. They probably told them that whoever was with me on the Colony was a spy, and that whoever it was would kill me unless they surrendered.”

Roderick pauses for a moment to take a deep breath. “And when they did, you beat them. Savagely.”

Ben sighs. “They were supposed to kill them.”

“Yes, and trying to finish the job inside the hospital was both incredibly bold and incredibly stupid. Up until that point I didn't know if you were the spy, or Noble was. You both saved me from that woman, and to be honest, I couldn't really picture you working for a group like the Illuminus. From there, it was simple detective work to trace the gang back here.”

“All that stupid woman had to do was grab you and go,” Ben grumbles.

“Why would you work with a group focused on human supremacy?”

“What do I care as long as they hold up their end of the bargain? In exchange for my help, they give me Moatoob. I will secure the future of beasts by any means necessary.”

“By any means? You tried to have your own sister killed!”

“And?” Ben says nonchalantly.

“She's your sister!” Roderick shouts back angrily.

“So her life is more valuable than the lives of every other beast in Gurhal?”

“That's not what I-” Roderick starts.

“If a few lives can save hundreds of millions, that's a price we should all be willing to pay. But enough of this,” Ben says, picking his axe up off the ground, “you've just as valuable dead or alive.”

Ben surges forward, dragging the head of his Ank Zagza through the dirt and kicking up a trail of dust in his wake. As the axe comes sailing in from his left, Roderick manages to avoid its teeth and block the shaft with both forearms, but the force of the swing on its own is enough to slide him back several feet.

“You really think you can win using a fighting style pioneered by my people? And with no weapon?” Ben laughs. “Do you know how many times I've sparred against my sister? You aren't half as skilled as she is.”

[tab]“I never could tell when he was complimenting me,” Eli says. Remi stares blankly at her for a moment before refocusing her internal parabolic microphone on Roderick and Ben.

Ben advances again, taking another wide cut at Roderick. This time, Roderick ducks beneath the arc, popping back up to step into a punch, but it never connects. Not in the conventional sense, anyway. His best Captain Falcon impression comes to an abrupt stop nearly half a foot away from Ben's body before being repelled violently in a flash of green light. As Roderick climbs back to his feet, a cluster of translucent green hexagons can be seen fading away from the center of Ben's chest.

Ben looks down as the last of his hexes disappear from view, and then back at Roderick. “Good luck with that.”

[i]Of course he has a line shield[i]. Roderick scolds himself, trying to remember the crash course he'd taken in training. He's forced to think on his feet though, as the onslaught from Ben resumes.

This same pattern repeats itself over and over, with Ben attacking relentlessly and Roderick narrowly avoiding becoming the most difficult jigsaw puzzle ever, while every counterattack meets with the same repulsion, sending him flying backwards, until he knocks himself into a stalagmite.

Ben sees this as an opportunity and drops the head of his axe to the ground before beginning to spin like a top. Holding his weapon on a subtle slant, he begins moving forward, his ank zagza leaving a mangled trail of neon purple light behind it. The speed of anga grudda catches Roderick by surprise, and all he can do is brace himself as Ben crashes into him. Fortunately for him, Ben strikes the stalagmite first, obliterating it and ending his photon art in the process. Roderick makes use of the sea of dust Ben kicked up to disappear, leaving Ben alone to fume.

“So this is what you do, huh!?” he screams, looking in every direction for signs of movement, “you run away! No wonder your family- ugh!”

Ben's taunt is cut off by a large beam of searing green light that punches through the dust, heading straight toward him. He only just manages to get his axe in front of himself, using it to effectively cut the beam in half, splitting it off to either side of him. The force of the attack is enough to completely clear the veil of dust covering the field, revealing Roderick's location.

Despite only a handful of meters separating them, neither man looks ready to continue. Roderick is doubled over, sucking in wind while keeping himself upright by using his knees for support. Ben is holding himself up with his axe, which now has several large cracks crawling across the photon cage, and several of the hexes covering his chest are crumbling away and fading into nothingness.

“Was that what I think it was?” Eli asks.

“It was remarkably similar to a novice-level Bogga Zubba, yes,” Remi confirms.

“Well how the heck did he do that?”

“Maya has a theory, but it will have to wait. Prepare to intervene.”

Ben is the first to recover, no longer needing the help of his ank zagza to stand. After looking it over, he tosses his weapon away, and equips a pair of vicious-looking knuckles. Twin photon cages mirror each other as they protrude from the sides and extend out nearly a foot from Ben's fists, creating a two-pronged design for each hand. With his Gudda Hon in hand, Ben advances towards Roderick.

“I don't know... what that was,” he wheezes, “but I'm not giving you the chance to do it again.”

The coliseum is silent as Ben stalks towards Roderick. Silent, that is, until Ben is only a few feet away from his prey, when someone in the crowd shouts, “come on!” Ben turns to look into the crowd, and Roderick takes that opportunity to strike.

Roderick throws his shoulder into Ben, pushing him back and cracking more of the hexes that attempt to shield him. Ben swings wildly as he stumbles backwards, but Roderick avoids the flailing and delivers another combination to his midsection. This time, instead of being repelled, each punch is accompanied by the sound of shattering glass, as if someone were striking him with fluorescent bulbs. Every blow obliterates another cluster of hexes, and Roderick continues to press until, finally, a knee connects with Ben's stomach, and not his line shield.

Ben coughs as the air is forced from his lungs, but retaliates all the same. Roderick holds his hand up instinctively to catch the punch, forgetting that his assailant is not barehanded. When the two prongs of Ben's Gudda Hon come sailing in, humming maniacally as they slice through the air, and touch the skin on Roderick's hand, they do not run him through, or even break the skin. The moment the tip of the cage makes contact with his hand, it begins to disintegrate, as if the entire thing had been made of ash.

Ben watches with a mixture of bewilderment and rage as the remnants of his weapon float across the battlefield with the breeze, creating a mist of shimmering yellow specks of light. Ben tosses his remaining weapon away in disgust and glowers at Roderick while he catches his breath.

“This is wrong!” Roderick shouts between haggard breaths. “We should be working together!”

“So the other races can continue to oppress us? I don't think so,” Ben says.

“The only oppression I see here is self inflicted.”

“Are you blind?” Ben says bitterly, “You must see how the other races treat us!”

“And I've seen how beasts treat the other races too,” Roderick counters, watching as the remaining gudda hon that Ben tossed away fades back into storage space, “and how the other races treat humans, and how they treat newmans.”

“Exactly! If the other races won't help us, we'll protect ourselves!”

Roderick shakes his head. “At some point, someone needs to be the bigger person and break this vicious cycle.”

“You say that like it's no big deal,” Ben scoffs.

“It's not supposed to be easy, but morals only matter when they're difficult to stand by. You've chosen the coward's way out, with no guarantee the Illuminus will honor their end of the bargain.”

Ben snarls, and his face contorts itself in rage. “We'll see who the coward is.”

Ben's body begins to radiate light, indicating to Roderick that he should back up a few paces. Slowly, Ben's skin pigment begins to change from its normally tanned colour to a peculiar shade of red. His muscles begin to bulge; subtly at first, but in a matter of moments he's easily gained nearly three feet in height and most of his muscles appear to be trying not to rip themselves from his skeleton. Probably the smallest of all his physical changes, but the one that clues Roderick in, is the change in Ben's eyes. His normally circular pupils have morphed into feral-like vertical slits. Covered in crimson hair and leathery red skin, Ben towers over Roderick like a lion might dwarf a house cat.

At the same time as Ben's nanoblast is beginning, what Roderick would describe as black snow begins falling from the sky. Scattered flakes at first, but it quickly becomes a pitch black blizzard. As suddenly as it began, the storm dissipates, leaving a blanket of the strange substance covering the field. As the black photons begin converging in the middle of the coliseum, Roderick realizes what's actually happening. The same type of creature from the laboratory in Tarcus – albeit several times larger – now stands before him, blotting out what little ambient light the moon had been providing.

Faced with an enraged beast and a colossal monster, he sighs heavily. “Would it be asking too much for them to just attack each other?”

[McLaughlin]

Exams are done and my average doesn't suck. Huzzah!

Chapter 15: A Test of Wills

Where would the fun in that be?

The crowd howled collectively when Ben nanoblasted, but when the giant Seed-form reaches eye level with the outer ring of spectators, panic sets in. Roderick watches from below as people trample one another in an attempt to reach the single exit on the far side of the arena.

“Hey!” Roderick calls to Ben, “we need to stop that thing!”

Ben offers no verbal response. Instead, he lurches forward in a way that Roderick imagined a dump truck might lurch forward off the starting line in a drag race. Thankfully, his drastic increase in size was accompanied with a drastic reduction in agility. Relative to the dance of death Roderick had been doing moments prior, evading Ben's incoming swing was child's play.

Dodging the punch was is thing, but avoiding the aftermath is entirely another. While he manages to keep himself from becoming a flesh-colored paste by hopping backwards, the force of the swing creates a rush of air strong enough to catch Roderick in midair and toss him backwards several feet. Even after he touches the ground, Roderick slides another few feet, and then has to shield his face from the incoming sandstorm.

When the sting of the sand begins to fade, Roderick opens his eyes slowly and discovers that the battlefield is once again completely obscured by dust. With visibility near zero, Roderick attempts to listen for signs of Ben's position, but the pandemonium over the Seed-form prevents him from gleaning anything useful.

Not good, Roderick thinks to himself, looking around frantically, I bet he can track my scent through this mess.

Right on cue, Ben emerges from the fog like a spectre, leaping head first at him with his ridiculously large arms raised high in the air. Roderick retreats backwards and melds into the dust before Ben comes crashing down, cratering the ground his fists collide with. He immediately takes off, disappearing back behind the veil of sand. This game of cat and mouse continues for a few more rounds, until Roderick stumbles into the Seed-form.

This could work...

Up until that point, the giant delsaban had been content to stay where it had been spawned, looking around curiously as if bewildered by its own existence. When it felt something brush up against its leg, it paid it no mind, assuming whatever insignificant creature it had been was going about its daily business. When a red monster nearly the size of itself bursts through the strange brown air and clobbers it hard enough to lift it off its feet though, the delsaban takes exception.

The protest comes by way of a wail. How exactly that screech was produced, Roderick could never figure out, but it was loud enough to shake the debris laying on the ground, strong enough to instantly blow away the dust cloud for a second time, and shrill enough to stun every person within earshot. Once the delsaban is satisfied that everyone is aware that it is very annoyed, it raises a bladed appendage in front of itself. The space around the tip of the blade dims, creating a small translucent sphere of purple. Initially no larger than a ball bearing, it rapidly grows in size until it nearly eclipses its creator. With no warning, the giant megid is let loose, sailing straight towards Ben.

To Roderick's horror, Ben simply sidesteps the megid, choosing instead to take another run at him, and allowing the glowing purple ball of death to race right past him towards the overcrowded exit. Realizing only that this is an undesirable trajectory, Roderick sprints full speed right towards Ben. The instant before they meet, he drops down and slides right underneath the red hulk, popping up behind him and continuing to speed towards the megid. After catching up to it, he plants himself in front of the orb and does the only thing he can think of; he throws his arms up and tries to push the megid backwards.

It was a strange thing to watch; a person trying to stop death itself with his bare hands. Being so near something so, evil, made Roderick's skin crawl. It made his knees weak and his stomach sick, his arms heavy and his heart race. Knowing he was all that stood between certain doom for thousands of people, Roderick pushes with all the strength he can manage, stretching out and digging the balls of his feet into the dirt. Roderick's perseverance eventually pays off, and the megid slows to a crawl, finally coming to a complete stop some fifty meters from the coliseum exit.

The delsaban decides that it accomplished what it set out to do and returns to a relaxed stance, but Ben isn't finished. With all Roderick's attention focused on stopping the megid, a perfect opportunity presents itself. Working his way up to a full sprint, he charges forward with the intent of being the Mac Truck to Roderick's egg. In his peripheral vision, Roderick spots Ben rushing towards him. He shuts his eyes, winces in advance, and prepares for the worst.

But it never comes. A blast of frigid air rushes past Roderick, and when he opens his eyes, he's met with a forest of ice. In the distance he can see a gigantic formation dwarfing the rest of the area. Upon closer inspection, he realizes that crystal is Ben, completely frozen and trapped inside the ice.

“What the...?”

“Pup! Get away from that thing!” At the sound of “pup”, Roderick cranks his neck around to watch Eli and Remi race over to him.

“I can't,” Roderick says after they get close enough to speak without having to yell over the crowd.

“What do you mean 'you can't'? Do you even know what that thing is?”

“Not... exactly,” he admits. “Is it normal to feel ...sick, around a technic?”

“What?” Eli says incredulously. “You shouldn't even be touching it! How are you doing that anyway?”

“I... put my hands on it?”

“We can discuss this later,” Remi says sternly, keeping her eyes on the delsaban still wandering aimlessly around the field. “Roderick, stay close to us.”

After a moment of inflection, Roderick whispers, “I can't.”

“If you are injured, we will carry-”

Roderick shakes his head. “That's not what I meant. I won't be like Ben. I won't sacrifice all those people for my own sake. If that's how the Guardians do things, then I want no part of it.”

Remi and Eli look to one another, and Eli shrugs. “He's got a point.”

At that point, the sound of cracking ice pulls everyone's attention back to the beast-cicle known as Ben. From where they're standing, the cracks crawling across the entire formation are clear as day, and shortly after, Ben finally breaks free, surrounded by the same bright light that enveloped him when he nanoblasted. After it fades, Ben is left standing as if nothing had happened, fully clothed and wearing an expression that very clearly portrayed “raving mad.”

“I'll handle him,” Eli says, grabbing the sleeve of her flaxo jacket and sliding it up her arm. The tribal tattoo branded on her bicep glows dimly, but Remi quickly grabs her and yanks the sleeve back down.

“We have enough problems on our hands, we do not need to add another,” she says.

Eli sighs. “Fine, I'll take the delsaban.”

Before they set off to their respective battles, Remi turns her head to address Roderick. “If you intend to defy orders, it would be wise to ensure you succeed.” With that, she marches off towards Ben, and Eli marches towards the delsaban. Invigorated by the sight of them, Roderick redoubles his efforts to hold the megid at bay.

=====

As Eli stalks towards her target, she arms herself with her huge cutter, dragging it behind her the same way a toddler would pull a wagon. After deciding on her plan of attack, she stops a few dozen feet away, behind the monster and out of sight.

“Can't say I like the idea of you trying to kill our pup,” she says, gripping the hilt of her sword.

Eli lifts her weapon off the ground with as much effort as someone might put into plucking a feather up off the ground. She throws herself into a clockwise spin, completing a full rotation and firing a curved blast of photon energy at the delsaban. She then quickly reverses and immediately launches another blast. Finally, she reverses her spin one last time, completing three full rotations before unleashing the last part of her photon art. The first swing causes the delsaban to turn and face Eli, looking as if it had just been bitten by a mosquito. The second staggers it, forcing the creature a few steps backwards. The final shock wave creates a gale-force wind that slams into the monster, lifting it off its feet and throwing it across the arena like a rag doll, where it comes to rest firmly embedded in the opposite wall.

Eli sprints across the field towards her dazed enemy, letting her sword skip along the ground behind her. When she thinks she's close enough, Eli comes to an abrupt stop, putting all her momentum into side-arming her weapon, sending it spinning like a buzz-saw blade straight towards the delsaban. Colliding with the creature does nothing to slow the huge cutter's rotation, digging into its flesh and grinding away until it passes right through, separating the delsban at its waist. After the medium-sized explosion that follows when the sword connects with the wall, the delsaban also explodes, into a cloud of tiny black spheres that sink into the ground and disappear.

“Mental note,” Eli says to herself, walking over and inspecting the remains of her huge cutter, “only use Chikki with swords I don't like.”

Holding what's left of her sword, she looks thoughtfully towards the wall of ice that separates her from Remi. “It's probably better this way...”

=====

Ben decides to begin his battle by ignoring his opponent completely, making a bee-line for Roderick. Unfortunately for him, ignoring Remi does not make her any less real, and she intercepts him with another barta.

After he breaks his leg free from the centre of a particularly large icicle, he arms himself with a spear and turns to face Remi. Four ice blue prongs arranged symmetrically around the central point that dwarfs them give Ben's weapon a regal appearance, and standing it on its end, Ben almost looks like some sort of royal spearman. But Remi knows better.

“I will give you one opportunity to surrender peacefully. Do not waste it,” she says, replacing her tesbra with her rikauteri.

Ben replies by rushing forward, taking a long sweep at Remi with his mugunruk. Remi skips backwards and fires a salvo of crimson arrows at him while taking stock of his range. Ben avoids becoming a live pincushion by spinning his mugunruk like a wheel, or fast enough to create the illusion of one at least, to shield himself from harm. After the last of the arrows bounces harmlessly off the shaft, both Remi and Ben begin circling.

They pace around each other for a while. Every so often, Ben feints an attack, or Remi fires a warning shot in his direction. Eventually they wind up in the same positions they started in.

“Enough of this!” Ben screams. He moves to charge forward but is immediately intercepted by a formation of rocks that leap up from the earth to snap at him. Ben reflexively drops his mugunruk to defend himself from what bears striking resemblance to an exceptionally large cobra as the nosdiga attempts to swallow him whole. While he struggles, another nosdiga emerges from behind Ben and lunges towards him.

Acutely aware that he's about to become lunch for something with no stomach, Ben stomps down on the end of the shaft of his discarded mugunruk. The rubble it landed on serves as a fulcrum, and the head of the spear springs skyward, impaling the nosdiga approaching from behind. While his weapon cartwheels into the air, Ben grabs the remaining cobra by its jaws and literally rips it in half. As the technic crumbles away in his hands, Ben snatches his mugunruk out of midair and throws it like a javelin, causing the incoming foie to explode as it sails right through uninhibited. Remi prepares to bat the spear away, but it vanishes before reaching her, only to reappear in the hands of Ben as he flies through the smokescreen from above.

Having no time to avoid the incoming anga jabroga, Remi orders the small robotic kitten she'd hidden high above the battlefield to cast a gidiga beneath her feet. While the ground rumbles and cracks around her, she abandons her bow for a simple double saber. Two plain blades protrude from either end of the lengthy hilt, and altogether appear as though someone had simply welded two basic sabers together and called it a day. As Ben's mugunruk collides with Remi's crea doubles, the weakened ground cushions the impact, and Remi's double saber winds up jammed within the smaller prongs of Ben's spear.

“Clever girl,” Ben says, “but if you think you can beat me in melee combat...”

Sparks fly and the air crackles as they push their weapons against each other, but slowly, Remi loses ground to Ben. After several tense moments of Ben gaining the advantage, the sound of something cracking is accompanied by a devilish grin as Ben watches Remi fall to one knee, holding off his mugunruk with her double saber held over her head.

“Shame on you for postponing critical maintenance like that!” he cackles.

Remi knew what had happened, even before her left pant leg became drenched in hydraulic fluid. The piston in her calf gave out under the strain of Ben's attack. Internal alarms began blaring the moment his spear connected with her double saber, but even as Ben continues to press down, like a child squishing a toy in their father's vice grip, Remi refuses to yield.

Deciding that her first priority should be putting distance between herself and Ben, Remi calls her shato down from its perch. Many of the invisible hexes covering her chest begin to glow with a blinding white light, before detonating simultaneously. The explosion knocks them both in opposite directions, putting several dozen feet between them.

In the few moments it takes Remi to recover from regrants, Ben has already sprinted across a quarter of the distance between them. Her plan was to slow his advance with a string of ramegids and trap him in another pillar of ice, but before Remi can even re-equip her tesbra, Ben's neck snaps sideways, and the rest of his body promptly follows. Before he realizes what's happening, a barrage of bullets sail in from the left, each blue orb knocking him further off balance, and with no line shield to soften the blows, Ben quickly finds himself encased in ice, and in a very uncomfortable position. Noble marks the end of his assault by firing a solid beam of blue photons at Ben. The beam hits him dead on, shattering the layer of ice keeping him in place only to refreeze it all into an even thicker mass.

While Ben struggles to free himself, Noble saunters up to Remi. “Are you okay?” he asks, looking her over for any obvious injury.

“My left leg is nonfunctional. Estimated mobility, fifteen percent,” she answers nonchalantly.

“I told you to get that fixed.”

“Yes, well, hindsight is twenty twenty.” Noble watches the preceding three seconds over exactly fourteen times, looking for any verification at all that Remi had blushed. “How do we proceed in regards to Benjamin?”

“We arrest him and bring him back to the colony,” Noble says, walking off towards Ben.

“He will not come willingly, and we are ill equipped to restrain him,” Remi protests.

Noble ignores Remi's warning and marches angrily towards a frozen Ben, who's fighting useless to free himself from his chilly prison. Noble stares at Ben for a moment, and then, without warning, throws a punch that shatters the ice where it lands, striking Ben in the jaw. Immediately, Ben's body falls limp, and after confirming that he is indeed unconscious, Noble hoists him out of the ice by the waist and walks back to Remi, where he drops Ben in disgust.

“All right, where are Eli and Roderick. We need to get out of here.”

“I'm right here,” Eli says, tapping Noble on the should as she walks up behind him. With the same finger, she points, “the pup is over there. Hey... does that megid look smaller to you, Remi?”

Indeed, while the others were fighting, Roderick had been waging his own battle; a battle one could say he was winning, in that through all the commotion he managed not to give up any more ground to the house-sized megid. That same house-sized megid is now, as Eli points out, closer to the size of a large truck. Roderick himself is looking a little worse for wear, however; with his elbows locked and his arms extended, his head hangs down below his shoulders as he pants heavily.

“How did you manage to shrink it down like that?” Eli asks as the group approaches him.

“What do you... mean?” Roderick wheezes. “It doesn't feel... any smaller to me.”

“Its size has decreased by approximately fifty percent,” Remi says.

Before anyone else can speak, the megid begins to shudder. A second later, it simply pops, like a water balloon, leaving no trace it was ever there to begin with. With the object he was pushing on no longer there, Roderick falls forward, landing on his hands and knees and gasping for air.

The party runs up to meet him. Since Remi is dragging her bum leg and Noble is carrying Ben under one arm, Eli arrives first to ask, “are you okay?”

“I... think so,” Roderick says. It takes a few moments, but he rises to his feet on his own. After a few more deep breaths, he's able to ask “are you guys all right?”

“Nothing to worry about,” Noble assures him. “Are you sure you're fine? We should really get out of here.”

“'Fine' might be pushing it,” Roderick jokes. He joins the group and throws Remi's arm over his shoulder to help her. He offers a friendly “what happened to you?” look, which Remi responds to with a glare that very clearly says "don't ask." Two steps later, Roderick is face down in the dirt, out like a light.

Before Eli can freak out, Remi reassures her. “He is still breathing. He collapsed from exhaustion. Noble, if you would be so kind.”

“How did I get stuck with all the bodies?”

[Xaeris]

Chikki with swords is a good combination. A little surprised I never thought of it myself, actually. All around, good fight.

I'm having a little trouble with the idea of Ben as a villain. The Illuminus is agreeing to give him Moatoob in exchange for his cooperation. I get that. Though, maybe not now, I think you should devote a little story time to how he expected that to work, because a lawless planet like Moatoob is pretty big for one person to hold.