Gods of the Game #3, Chapter 10

His isolation couldn’t last.

Virgil ended his silent stint with a team channel message that had special override privileges so that even Charoen saw it despite his mute.

Everyone, hello hello. It’s time for a lovely meet and greet. The roster is now complete, and it’s time to get to know the people you’re going to live and die beside. Training complex in thirty minutes, if you please.

Charoen was already in the complex, having been half-way through a hunt-and-seek session with Catori amongst the red dolmens of Mars. He slowed, stopped, then ended the simulation.

Catori did the same, appearing off to the side of the field where she’d been hiding behind now banished rock formations.

They both removed their helms. She had that speculative, wry look that indicated she was trying to get a read on him and expecting trouble.

“Had to happen,” she said at last, tucking her helmet under her arm and shaking out her sweaty hair. “You know it.”

“I guess I do.” Doesn’t mean I have to like it. “Thirty minutes. I’m going to shower.”

He took a luxuriously long shower, blasting himself with scalding water, and did his best not to think of what was to come. His heart was pounding, and his chest felt tight. Clearly his body wasn’t eager for the encounter either.

He dressed in a Brutal Deluxe bodysuit and exited the locker room to find the rest of the team filtering in.

Most were familiar faces. Pallid Langley and honey-warm Aadhya, the team’s old hellseherins. Charoen recalled something about Langley being a clone of a mad scientist whose orbital base was an object of mystery and endless speculation. Aadhya… she was the scion of a massively wealthy trading house, wasn’t she?

Next entered Samira, and for some reason the sight of the powerful schloss brought a pang of pain to Charoen’s chest. She’d undergone the Kuiper Process, he recalled, an elite reworking of her physiology that put her on par with the most advanced Echoes. Her hair was bound into a messy fishtail braid, her copper skin ruddy with health, her musculature sufficient to end any questions as to her ability to guard the könig.

The old opferns entered as a group. Clovinn and Lars, the lanky Danish man glancing again and again at where Charoen stood, but unable to make eye contact. Short Harper, her blonde hair in twin braids, frame compact, looking as fresh and hale as if she’d just stepped off her family farm. Fireball, with her riot of livid orange hair reaching down to the small of her back, as elegant and graceful as a gazelle. And then his sister, morose, expression locked down, her caramel hair hidden under her olive green bandana. She looked different, had changed since his memories; older, somehow, her features hardened.

And then the new players. New recruits that were meant to make them competitive in the Premiere League: a schloss and four opferns.

Charoen tried not to stare.

Each was as different as they were striking.

Finally Virgil arrived with Sindre, Carmine, and a handful of support staff and trainers. Virgil looked much recovered for his week away; his skin was healthy again, his eyes no longer sunken, his movements more assured despite his tremulous limp. He looked a new man.

“Welcome, everybody!” Virgil’s voice was brassy with confidence. “Here we are, Brutal Deluxe ready to accomplish the impossible once again. It can’t be done, I’ve been told, you can’t assemble a Premiere-ready team mere weeks before your first game. Madness! You’ll be crushed and torn apart. Well.” He beamed. “We’ve heard that kind of language before, haven’t we? Each step of the way. Yet here we are, against all the odds, victorious, ever rising, and ready to show the Premiere League what we’ve shown all our old foes: that you underestimate Brutal Deluxe at your peril.”

It was the kind of speech that was meant to elicit grins. But the old players had heard it all before, while the new recruits were clearly veterans who’d need more than a brief and inspiring speech to break out into smiles.

“First things first! Let’s begin with introductions. Some of you have seen the others around the camp, but this is the first time we’ve all been in the one place. You all know me, Virgil, your könig. This is, as I’ve explained, my vanity project; while I suffer from a debilitating brain disease that makes me woefully inadequate as Premiere-ranked könig, you must accommodate my ludicrous fantasy and accept me as I am.”

Some nods here and there.

“Next in importance, Jessie Saetang, daughter of the infamous Charn Chai, an A-ranked player of rare talent and skill who has more than claimed the position of mörderin as her own.”

Jessie’s gaze flicked around the team, but she made no move to wave, smile, or otherwise acknowledge the introduction.

A-ranked? She’d been training hard. And had yet to look at Charoen even once.

“Next we have my shield wall, my doughty protectors, our schlosses. Samira is on the verge of making S-rank, and I’m confident will do so, soon. She’s the first player I recruited to the team, and the backbone of all our efforts.”

Samira raised one hand, lips pursed.

“And our other schloss is a new arrival. He goes by ‘Hammer’, and is S-ranked. The veteran of fifteen years of Premiere-league play, he’ll bring a wealth of experience and steadiness to our team. Hammer, it’s great to have you with us.”

Hammer looked like a monster out of a horror movie. As big as Samira and twice as muscled, his skin was marbled and pale with scar tissue. Bald, his ears reduced to twisted plugs, his face was so badly weathered and battered that it resembled more of a worn baseball catcher’s mitt than anything else. His pale blue eyes were barely visible under his sloping, craggy brows, and his nose was reduced almost to a flattened snout. He smiled widely and gave a cheerful wave, however, and in doing so revealed a mouth full of broken teeth.

Damn.

“You all know and love our A-ranked hellseherins, whose job it will be to keep as far away from me as possible to as to empower our schloss’s shields. Langley, Aadhya, thank you for being here.”

Both hellseherins nodded with grave courtesy and refinement.

“Then we have our jägers. Catori you all know. She just recently broke into the A-ranks, and has been a source of fiery focus and enthusiasm since we began. Our latest jäger, however, may look familiar, but is a wholly new recruit: Charoen’s Echo has already demonstrated a truly incredible affinity for jäger, and is fulfilling the dreams of his dead self in a way that just warms the heart.”

Jessie’s jaw clenched. Everyone stared curiously at him, and Charoen felt sweat prickle his brow, his gut churn with acid.

“Hello, I’m an Echo, too,” said Hammer, his words almost child-like. “Go, Echoes!”

Charoen scrutinized him again, but remained silent.

“Finally, our old opferns, whose job it will be to throw themselves valiantly into the fray. All who managed to reach A-rank over the break have remained: Lars, Harper, Clovinn, and Fireball. The new opferns are all S-rank, however, and bring all the Quantum-ranked abilities and experience we could hope for.”

The four new opferns stood to one side.

“First let me introduce Marex.” Virgil gestured to a young man whose face was spider-webbed with deep and disturbing scars. It looked like his head must have exploded outward, only to be reconstituted like puzzle pieces. His thick black hair hung about his shoulders, and he held himself with casual disdain.

“Then we have Old Bufford, as he likes to be called, and everyone, let me just say it’s an honor to have a living legend on our team.”

Old Bufford was a squat, powerfully built man in his late forties or early fifties, his brown hair pulled into a ponytail and growing down his cheeks in thick lambchops. He wore a thick mustache under his broken nose, and his skin was tanned and permanently furrowed by age, weather, and his perpetual squint. He raised a hand and gave a polite wave.

“Then we have Mickey, an old standby and dab hand at the power halberd.” Mickey was also weathered and older, his shock of red hair standing on end as if he’d just stuck a knife in an outlet, his pale, lean face scarred and hard as if he’d seen more than most folks could imagine.

“And finally, a true catch for Brutal Deluxe, a veritable honor, I’m thrilled to announce that the Platinum Sun’s mörderin has accepted my invitation to act as one of our opferns. Let’s have a warm hand for Silence, the blood-soaked legend out of Canada!”

The remaining opfern was somehow even more striking in appearance than Hammer. Slender, svelte, with her long black hair pulled into a simple ponytail, she commanded the eye due to her intense tattoos. Her hands and neck up to her jawline were tattooed jet black, with unmarked natural stripes curling around the base of her neck and down over her clavicles. A black line was painted across her cheek bones and bridge of her nose, along with an esoteric geometric symbol over her brow that descended from her hairline. But it was her milk white lines that made her appear alien, and the way she held herself with complete and utter self-possession.

“Now, Silence won’t boast about it, but her gamma has been clocked at the astounding level of 137 hz. Incredible.” Virgil beamed at her. Nobody had clapped, Charoen realized. “For reasons of her own Silence is inclined to play as an opfern, and has asked that her motivation not be questioned. Which makes sense, doesn’t it, with her name being Silence!?!” Virgil grinned wolfishly around the team, as if expecting everyone to break out into laughter.

Only Hammer guffawed, and seemed completely immune to piercing stare Silence directed at him with her milky white eyes.

“Well then! Here we are. Brutal Deluxe. In less than two weeks we are slated to play the Platinum Suns, which, as you can imagine, is going to be a game rife with all kinds of tension, but fret not: every Premiere game is an intense affair. For the remaining twelve days we’re going to train together, drill together, and start forging that unique esprit de corps that will see us take on the Suns with sublime confidence and skill. Let’s begin now! Sindre, the floor is yours.”

Virgil hobbled to one side.

Sindre stepped forward, expression grim. “You’re all well past needing to be babied. What we need to focus on is learning how to work together. Some of you may have issues with other members of the team. If that’s the case, bring your concerns to Virgil or myself. If you don’t like our answers, you’ll have to decide whether your objections are strong enough to warrant your quitting. I sincerely hope we can reconcile any differences and move forward.”

Charoen felt several stares leveled at him.

“That being said,” continued Sindre, we’re going to start today with a regular Premiere-ranked game to set the baseline and our expectations. Your foes will be a mix of S- and A-ranked players, and I’m going to set the pain threshold on your suits at 45%.”

Some surprised mutters met this statement.

“Yep, that’s right. Getting hit and going down is going to hurt. Moving forward, we’re going to keep 45% as our baseline for all training in the VMU, and occasionally going higher. Like I said, there’s no babying to be done here. I don’t like it any more than you do, but we’ve twelve days till we play a veteran Premiere League team. We’re going to be pushing everybody to their limit, and in that crucible of intensity, forging a new team from the ashes of the old. Dr. Bierhals has crafted a tailored care plan for each of you, and your diet, rest, and rehab will be tended to 24/7 by his team. When you’re not under his care, you’ll be under mine, and ladies and gentlemen, we’re going to make these next twelve days count. So. Suit up. It’s time to see what you can do.”

“Oh good,” said Hammer, clapping his hands as he fell in with everybody else. “I like playing games.”

Charoen walked alone. He was aware of Jessie as one might be a smoldering coal, but did his best not to glance her way.

Clovinn and Lars fell in beside him as they all walked over to the VMU suits.

“How are you holding up, Charoen?” asked Clovinn, trying to keep her voice light. “Been a while.”

“Fine.” For a second he tried to imagine how he might answer her question honestly: how he might phrase his nihilistic and delayed-suicide approach to the next few months, the bouts of sheer joy and dark depressions, the single-minded pursuit of violent excellence and sense that he was less than a person, a fragment, a shard, of a man he could never hope to be once more.

Fine, felt like the easiest out.

“Good to hear! Right Lars?”

The Dane nodded with too much enthusiasm. “Absolutely. This is all… I mean, who can understand this? In their bones? So much has changed. Is changing. All we can do is keep our heads above water for as long as we can.”

 “And then drown!” laughed Clovinn. “Drowning is always an option. Or getting your head split open by an S-ranked schloss.”

Lars shook his head, expression turning bitter.

“You don’t think we have a chance?” asked Charoen, only mildly curious.

Lars snorted. “None.” He glanced about to make sure nobody was particularly close and lowered his voice. “Twelve days? That’s not madness, that’s just impossible. We would need six months to learn to play together. To earn each other’s respect.”

Clovinn tongued the inside of her cheek and nodded. “Yeah. The money’s real good right now, though, so what the hell? As long as the medical drones can patch us back together and we don’t get actually killed, I’m up for the ride. But that could just be my ignorance talking.”

Old Bufford had drawn closer as they all angled in on the VMU suits, and offered Clovinn and a weary smile. “I almost offered some unsolicited advice. Heh. The older I get, the more the urge trips me up.”

Clovinn’s brows rose. “If you’ve got advice, we’re all ears.”

The older, squat man ran a hand over his toffee-brown hair. “Don’t make enemies. You want to survive Premiere-ranked games? Don’t give other players a reason to see you dead.”

Clovinn shared a worried glance with Lars. “Luckily I’m eminently likeable.”

“Heh.” Old Bufford stopped before suit #11. “Don’t be too likeable. Some people hate nice people. If you can, just shoot for low key and neutral. It’s how I’ve lasted this long, at any rate.”

“Low key and neutral.” Clovinn made a face. “That doesn’t sound like any fun.”

“But this ain’t about fun,” smiled Old Bufford, taking down his suit. “Unless you’re the most dangerous asshole out on the field, it’s about making sure the drones aren’t trying to reconnect your head to your shoulders when the game’s over.”

“Great,” muttered Lars.

Everyone suited up.

His helm sealed with its now-familiar hiss. His visor revealed the bland, blue pitch with feature or obstacles. The empty stands arose around them, and the sky was a solid, starless black. Everybody was gathered in a rough circle around Virgil, who appeared last.

“All right, everybody. This is just a friendly low-key trial game to see how we do. Yes, the pain threshold is set at 45%, and yes, we have less than two weeks till our first game, but relax! That’s nothing to worry about. Let’s just go out there and have fun, shall we?”

Charoen didn’t believe Virgil for a second.

Sindre’s voice piped in. You’re going to be facing a standard mixed team of A- and S-ranked players. No surprises. Let’s go with a classic Icelandic Attack on the left flank. Opferns, form the flying ‘V’. Silence, you’re our lead opfern, so I’ll let you arrange that formation over the opfern channel. The könig and schlosses will follow right behind, while the jägers will cover the point from above. Langley, Aadhya, you do your thing and ensure you don’t get caught. Clear?

“Clear,” said Virgil. “All right, game begins in a minute. Who’s excited? Show of hands if you’re excited.”

Only Hammer joined Virgil in raising his hand.

“All right, Hammer!” Virgil leaned over to bump his knuckles against the schloss’s massive paw. “Get your game faces on, it’s almost time. We’ll start with a feigned Royal Opening.”

The opferns formed a staggered skirmishing line across the front of their end zone. The könig and his schlosses moved to the center. The hellseherins split up, one to each far end of the wing, and Charoen knew his and Catori’s place were on either side of the schlosses, halfway down and just behind the opferns.

It was time.

He willed his turbine boots to active, and rose smoothly into the air. His lightning lance trailed sparks as he moved out to the right where he hovered some ten yards above the field.

Only Jessie remained out of play, waiting for four opferns to enter the enemy end zone.

This being a Premiere-ranked game, the field was three hundred yards’ across, and in the distance the enemy team appeared arrayed in black. They also moved into the Royal Opening, their movements relaxed, confident, and predatory.

Charoen was amused to find himself nervous all over again. Not at the prospect of facing AI foes—he’d been fighting them for over ten days now—but at how his performance would be received by his own team.

A large counter appeared in the air above the midline. Ten seconds. Nine.

At the buzzer, everyone would hurl themselves toward the left flank and charge forward.

Six. Five.

The enemy would either rush forward, maintaining the Royal, or adopt a new formation of their own.

Three.

Two.

One.

The buzzer blared, and the whole team sprang into motion.

Their team was hobbled by Virgil’s uncertain gait, but the opferns moved with a purpose, bunching up with Silence in the lead, a radical departure since it had always been Fireball’s show.

Catori zoomed off toward the left.

The hellseherins scattered.

Charoen felt his pulse like a thick, turgid flood of fire. He glanced across at the enemy team.

They were moving into a Reverse Icelandic, gathering on their right so as to meet their main force head-on. It was going to be a brutal fight in the center of the field.

Excitement, bloodlust—something got the better of him. Instead of following Catori, he fell forward into a near horizontal plane and accelerated as fast as he could down the center of the field.

The enemy hellseherins were flying high and wide, and one disappeared as they engaged Invisibility.

Speed. The field unfurled beneath him as he streamed up and around to hunt down the second hellseherin, who saw him coming from hundreds of yards away and reversed direction, fleeing back into the upper left corner where the bulk of their force could give them protection.

Charoen grinned, tapped Speed. The turf blurred, the enemy team came rushing up to meet him, and he flew out wide, angling as the last so that he slid sidelong through the air like a car whose tires had lost traction. At the last moment he urged his boots to fire and he came in low and hot, closing in on the enemy bulk who’d just gained awareness of his change in targets.

Charoen engaged Blink. The world shimmered with metallic colors, swirled and shrank, and then he burst out, having covered a good ten yards in a second, only to tap it again.

Again the world shrank, swirled, disappeared.

When he emerged, it was as if he were spat out by the wormhole. The enemy opfern flank was right before him.

Charoen hit Berserker.

Everything went mad. His thoughts grew streamlined, instinctual, even as Centered sought to prevent the greatest fluctuations.

The enemy recoiled, turned away from the charging wave of Brutal Deluxe opferns, but it was too late.

Shock. Conductive. All of it enhanced by Berserker. His lightning belched out like a light show from hell, bolts as thick as his arm flashing across the distance to bleach the world of color and play over the enemy opferns.

Who screamed.

Who arched their backs, spasmed, and collapsed.

Not all of them. Those with Grounding or other resilience based abilities weathered the first attack though it left them reeling.

The enemy könig was screaming, but Speed still had Charoen in its grip, Berserker owned his mind, and he flew into the ranks of opferns like a meteor.

Collided with the first, lifted the man right of the ground and right into the second. The blow registered like a dull concussive blast far away, the pain negligible even through it felt like something had broken. They slammed into a third opfern, passing over the bodies of the fallen, and with a scream Charoen tumbled free, boots flinging him up into the air, head over heels, his lance whipping around.

Instinct more than training, intuition more than experience caused him to stabilize at the right moment and unleash a second blast of lightning. The world flared white as a thundercrack rent the air, and a second storm of lethally charged electricity danced over the opferns once more, causing more screams, armor to burst, melt, turn into molten slag, eyeballs to burst, bones to break under the strain of their spasming muscles, and the last of them collapsed to the ground even as Charoen tumbled away.

Only for lightning to lance down and envelop him in turn, a jäger’s assault catching him mid-spin. Charoen screamed as his visor flared red with warning signs, but he ignored the pain and engaged a hop.

His pack rumbled to life, and the world and its agony disappeared. He appeared a second later above the jäger, who’d whipped around in an effort to track him. Down Charoen flew, Speed giving him wings, and caught the jäger by the hopper pack. With his Strength of A8 enhanced by Berserker, he wrenched the jäger around and flew him headfirst into the turf, tearing a furrow six yards long and which grew ever deeper till it terminated in the enemy jäger who was buried head first into the loam.

Speed gave out.

Charoen climbed out of the trench, gasping for breath, his whole body radiating pain and heat from the burns, and saw a schloss charging at him, moving way too fast for it not to be some ability-enhanced power like Ramming, his hammer raised on high.

Charoen grinned, fell back, and dug the butt of his lance into the grass. Aimed it just right, and with Conductivity doubling his range, unleashed a sheet of plasma.

Shock and Berserker added far more punch to the assault than the schloss could have planned for, but still the huge enemy player came pounding on even as electricity played over their schloss plate, causing it to rupture and blister.

Speed was still offline. He felt slow and weak without it. Nobody else was close enough to help. For a second old opfern instincts bid him go toe-to-toe with the schloss, but then his training kicked in and he flung himself back into the air, boots elevating his retreat up and away—but not soon enough.

The hammer caught him in the knee and swung him around in a complete 360 degrees as the world spun and he lost control and was flung by his boots back into the turf.

Anybody else would have lost their gamma. But Centering kept him just on top of his brain waves, so that he was able to roll over, still buffered from the damage and pain by Berserker.

The schloss came in to finish the job, but then sagged abruptly to one side as an invisible force tugged him away. With a grimace Charoen reached for where his lance had fallen, but a shadowed shape flitted forward and leaped, her power halberd glowing brilliantly for the briefest second as she flew past the schloss, its huge blade passing clear through the schloss plate as if it wasn’t there, through the body encased within the armor, then clear out the other side.

The second her halberd hit she disappeared, a miniature jäger jump, so appear on the schloss’s far side in a crouch, halberd pointed at where the second schloss stood before the enemy könig.

Charoen fought to clasp his lance. To drag it closer to him. His gamma was oscillating ever more wildly, but if he could just reach it…

A boot stomped down on his hand as another opfern ran over him, her vermillion tail of hair a banner in the wind. The stomp was strong enough to crack his gauntlet, but then she was gone, rushing to engage the schloss.

Fireball…?

Charoen tried to blink away the pain, but his visor was showing far too much damage to his body, and the image abruptly went blank.

Maximum damage accumulated.