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"I like your shuttle, Uncle Lu. Is this a local specialty design?" Max asked, admiring the elegant thirty-meter-long private spacecraft through the viewport on the docks while the pilot got it ready to depart.
"Indeed it is. The design was originally supposed to be a stealth insertion ship for special forces, but after the alliance with Kepler, it was redesigned to be a low signature transport for VIPs. With the hybrid propulsion system, it is also a very capable terrestrial aircraft. The government has a hundred on order, but they won't be ready for a few more years." The scientist explained before going into more detail on the propulsion systems that linked anti gravity technology with an experimental faster-than-light slipstream drive.
While the three of them were deep in the midst of discussing the potential uses of slipstream technology the shuttle has been prepared and the two bodyguards that were supposed to accompany Uncle Lu were impatiently waiting.
Finally, one cleared his throat and spoke. "Sir, the ship is ready if you would like to continue this conversation on board."
When the group didn't change topics and only moved to take seats on the shuttle the bodyguards both knew this was going to feel like a very long day.
Thirty-two minutes later when they landed in the capital the trio was still discussing the merits of the slipstream drive versus the Alcubierre Warp Drives more commonly in use within the Kepler Fleet.
The conversation had slowed down though, as everyone took the time to admire the natural beauty of the planet from above and the incredibly high-tech city in the clouds.
The entire ten million citizen population of the Capital lived in an elevated city made up of tubes and globe-shaped biodomes, the neighborhood habitats as Uncle Lu called them. A thousand years ago, a movement swept the planet that insisted humans should limit their interaction with the natural world, mostly in the name of animal rights.
A dozen megacities were built of materials that were believed to never corrode or degrade, and the Comor population moved into the sky and the outlying planets, which had no native animals.
The movement faded centuries ago, but the decision was made to keep the surface of the home planet as a resort world.
"Our first stop will be the Comor historical museum. I know it's a bit bland, but every first-time visitor to the one very really should get a chance to see it. We've got a fine collection of exhibits on every intelligent alien species we have come across, along with historical artifacts."
As Uncle Lu described the Museum, large doors on the top of a habitat dome opened, allowing their shuttle to enter and land. The shuttle hangar spayed them down with what Max suspected was liquid nitrogen, cooling the shuttle exterior to safe levels before the red lights by their parking pace turned green and they were allowed to exit.
The hangar had the same Steampunk theme as the Station did, but more industrial and less elegant, this clearly wasn't a commercial airport.
"The museum is a bit of a trip from here, but the theoretical research lab is in this building and I left my car here." Uncle Lu explained.
That made sense to Max. He didn't look like the sort of person who would demand a government vehicle meet them somewhere or the sort of person who would regularly take public transport.
"The Museum is below the level of cloud cover so it can see the ground every day. We will exit the building over to our right and head down."
The hovercar he led them to was a limousine with harsh angles, mixing the feeling of an armored car with modern art, painted in neutral white, blending in with the dozens of luxury cabs they passed on their way down.
Anti-gravity vehicles were everywhere in the city, due to the wildly varying elevations of the various habitats and the space between structures, making an intricate three-dimensional network of traffic passing between regions of the city at breakneck speeds.
"We should buy some hoverboards. It will likely make getting around the tournament venue tomorrow easier, and we will want them for sure during our vacation afterward." Nico suggested.
Max hadn't thought of it, he can run faster than any hoverboard, but being able to just float along would be nice.
"Most areas in the commercial districts have a vertical lane for flying pedestrian traffic. A local board will properly limit speed when you are in restricted areas. The flying lanes near the venue are pretty busy though, but so is the ground, since it is a shopping and entertainment dome." Uncle Lu explained.
"They will still be nice to have for the next few months while we are off. There's a lot of the planet to see, and it's easier to see from the air." Max agreed with Nico's plan.
He had a skateboard as a kid, but a hoverboard was way out of his budget. Max briefly wondered if it would be able to do tricks the way his old board did, with his new physique he should be able to pull off some impressive stunts.
He might be a little overdressed for it though. Not as much as Nico, but common sense and Nico weren't exactly friends, so she might actually go hoverboarding in a kimono.
"There is a competition board shop by the museum, can we stop in there first?" Nico asked, doing her best imitation of red mechanical puppy eyes for Uncle Lu, which somehow worked on the Mecha-obsessed scientist.
"We can do that, and then walk over. Maybe it will help us blend in and distract the paparazzi." Uncle Lu agreed.
"Are they a problem here?" Max asked, wondering if he had misjudged the man's fame.
Uncle Lu shrugged. "Normally, no. But all three of us together after you just made the news could bring them out. You know how they can get about foreign news stories."
The street in front of the shop was quiet except for a few local youths with band patches all over their leather jackets smoking some local herb. They all had highly modified hoverboards, so Max knew Nico had found the right place for them.
"What's good, Army?" The lone technician working in the shop asked as they walked in, addressing Max first.
"Extended combat leave. You got anything here worth riding?" Max asked and the man nodded, the high spikes of his hairstyle bobbing with the motion.
"If you have the credits, I've got the gear to outrun a Sheriff's bike." The man's confidence was inspiring and Max began looking at the assorted parts while Nico started pulling items from the shelf.
"I will need a longboard and a bigger output gravity plate than you have on the shelves here," Nico told him with a frown.
"What are you trying to do? Acrobatics with a Cyborg?"
Nico let her hand shift back to a more armored look and the clerk stared at her in shock.
?[0)??? "Didn't see that coming. I've got some pre-made competitive Enduro Boards in the back if you've got the credits. Better than anything you will find or build from the shelves."
"Don't worry about the cost, I'll put it on the research division's tab." Uncle Lu cut in, not knowing that the unit had recovered a huge amount of valuable data and materials on Belmont even before the rewards they had gotten for the recovered Planetary Governor and the engagement against Cygnus. Successful Crusader Pilots were never short on money unless they had very bad habits.
"We will make it up to you, Uncle Lu." Nico bowed, not wanting to be impolite by turning him down. His family ruled the planet, surely a few hoverboards wouldn't be beyond his daily spending allowance.
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"You can leave the boards in the car and we will head to the museum on foot." Uncle Lu suggested, calling for the limousine driver to grab their new hoverboards and then wait near the museum for them to come back out.
There were a number of shops along the strip between the shop and the museum, all catering to either tourists or the working citizens that lived in the area, so a short walk was the normal tourist thing to do if they were headed to the museum.
The city layout was strange to Max, since the street map signs were all three-dimensional, showing the elevators and traffic exits that led between layers of the dome.
The skies above him were all holographic since they were on an inside layer, but the dome was designed to send light from the perimeter through the entire level, reducing the need for additional lighting and giving the city a more natural feeling.
It felt like the densest of megacities and a nature preserve at the same time, with the way they planted trees and shrubs along the sidewalks. It was beautiful, but everything about it still felt somehow wrong to Max.
The feeling was a lot like Nico's fake smile. The feeling that Comor was trying too hard to make the synthetic feel organic.
The tourists around him didn't seem to have noticed though, so Max wondered if he was being overly sensitive about his surroundings, too attuned to danger to appreciate the little things.
"This block gives me the creeps," Nico whispered and Uncle Lu nodded in agreement.
"Me too, but not many would notice it. All the plants are modified for better growth in the dome environment, and they don't feel right." The scientist explained.
The museum was right in front of them now, and they joined the queue to enter, tapping their wrist devices to check in.
For the soldiers and the scientist, this was perfectly natural, they did it at every building and secure area when they were on duty, but many of the civilians were having issues with the concept of a visitor log, including a pink-haired couple who were shouting at the automated gate, trying to get the staff to let them in without identification.
That clearly wasn't going to happen, and they were holding up an entire file of visitors, but today that was someone else's problem, so Max just smiled at their idiocy and kept walking.
The first exhibit they reached was a complex history of humans on Comor. The colonists who had settled here sent their ship away and made up an ancestral tale to tell their children, wanting to make a clean break from the old Solaris System and all the high technology they thought was taking over their lives.
They had kept many of the technological comforts though, and in under a thousand years the high-tech society their ancestors had tried to eliminate had made a full comeback and they were preparing to terraform the other planets in the system.
However, they didn't have a full history and believed the story of the settlers that they had always been here. In their minds, this was the first step for humanity into space and the initial expansion of the species.
The cultural shock when they first met with an Independent Trader who had picked up their activity and wanted to add them to his trade route was therefore society-altering.
Not only did they learn that they weren't alone, they learned that their entire history was false. The system spent a century undergoing an unstable cultural revolution, ending in the movement that reshaped society into the elevated cities and resorts for foreign visitors that it is to this day.
The most interesting part to Max was the history of cultures they had interacted with over the centuries. Many of them had been single planet cultures of nonhuman species that were now extinct, having fallen to the violent nature of the galaxy's other inhabitants.
Max noticed Nico smiling at one particular entry, a violent and semi-sentient species that could traverse space in biological ships made of excreted resin, propelled by an Innate Talent of the species for creating a low-level Warp Field. They were not from this galaxy and had traveled here fleeing from something terrible in their home galaxy.
They weren't in the top tier of invasive threats with the Insectoid Klem who inhabited the Northwestern regions of the galaxy, or the living metal Scourge, they were more on par with invasive pests.
They had been eliminated by coincidence, the region they were passing through was at war and both sides thought they were weapons made by the enemy.
"They're almost cute, in a hairless cat sort of way," Max said, looking at the hologram.
"They weren't airways hairless, they used to be very fluffy," Nico answered. There was a brief image in her mind of a cat-like species with powerful mandible pincers blinking in and out of reality as they moved around a forest.
The sight triggered something in Max's memory, he once had one as a pet, and he remembered petting one of the fluffy creatures. That was a new memory, but he still couldn't recall exactly where they, or he came from.
The last portions of his past life's memory seemed to have taken severe damage during the transition, but most of them no longer held much importance to Max. This was his life now, and it was a good one. There was no need to dwell on the past.
"Along here you'll see the recovered species wing of the museum. These are all species native to Comor that were saved from extinction and now roam wild on the planet. Rest assured, all the large predators have tracking collars and are kept away from tourist areas." Uncle Lu informed them proudly, leading Max and Nico away from the sentient species and into the local fauna wing.
Most of the animals on Comor were of six-legged designs. For some, the third set of limbs was a pair of wings, but it was rare to see an animal with only two sets of limbs in this section of the museum.
There also didn't appear to be any reptiles, but Max was holding out hope for the later parts of the indigenous animals' portion of the museum. After all, no planet full of six-legged animals would be complete without that iconic mythical creature, the Dragon.
Max had never heard of them in this lifetime, but he had memories of the giant flying creatures in his past life, so they must exist somewhere.
Max was in for a disappointment though, the planet had very few egg-laying species and no reptiles at all, though the wide variety of other flying creatures made up for most of the lack.
They even had a flying canine and a four-armed minotaur, though the data said that it was no smarter than common livestock, outclassed in the intellect department by almost all primates.
"Maybe we need to take a wilderness tour. I want to pet the flying puppy." Nico whispered, making everyone around her laugh.
"You know those holograms are true to scale, right? It's got a wingspan of over ten meters and it eats meat. I don't think they'll be easy to find." Max pointed out, but Nico only shrugged, unconcerned with the prospect of a large animal trying to eat her.
Next was the greenhouse, showcasing many of the unique and interesting forms of plant life in Comor, and then the human culture exhibit. By the time they finished the loop both Max and Uncle Lu were ready to sit down for lunch and relax. The museum had to be larger than the academy, Max decided, and they had visited every inch of it.
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"Since we spent a little longer than intended at the Museum, how about we head to the hotel that is hosting the tournament after lunch and get you both checked in? You don't have to do it until tomorrow morning, but I'm sure you'll want to relax as much as possible with twelve very intensive hours of gaming ahead of you tomorrow and a sweet prize on the line.
You won't regret winning, the resort for the winners is even more luxurious than the Comor Royal resort on Comor Station. They have anything and everything you might need or want since they're situated between both the ocean and the mountains with a huge network of trails to reach the resort's private amenities." Uncle Lu explained, calling for the driver to come to pick them up.
He had a restaurant in mind, and it wasn't just for Max. The menu at their destination also contained a collection of nutrition concentrates suitable for Cyborgs so that even Nico could gain something useful from the meal to go with the flavors.
Lu was also a fan of Cyborg nutrition supplements. Not because he was converted, but because the high levels of easily processed nutrients allowed him to live on caffeine and cigarettes for days at a time while he was immersed in his work, without suffering nutritional side effects. He had repeatedly suggested various supplements to the Kepler Fleet as an addition to the standard Pilot rations, allowing the Pilots to function for longer periods of time with the same storage space allotment of meals, but the Fleet was concerned about long-term side effects and kept turning him down.
The restaurant didn't look like anything fancy from the outside, but it was a favorite with the researchers from the Mecha laboratories for their weekly dinner meetings. The Greeter of course recognized Uncle Lu as the Director and a regular customer, bringing the group immediately to a booth in the back corner where they could discuss whatever they wished without disturbing the other guests.
Though they were quite nerdy, the scientists were quite vocal and not at all shy about their favorite topics, so the restaurant had long since gotten used to their lively conversations.
"Will the rest of the department be joining you today, or is this a personal meeting?" The hostess asked as they chose their seats.
"Purely for the pleasure of your menu today. I'll start with the usual, then bring the daily special, plus another bottle and the Cyborg nutrition sampler tray." Uncle Lu informed her, not waiting for the server to come from behind the bar.
"Yes, of course." She nodded, noticing that Nico wasn't entirely organic.
That was one of their house specialties though, making the inorganic visitors feel welcomed here on Cygnus. Everything on the planet relied on tourism at this point, so anything that they could do to improve the planet's reputation, and that of their own business was a win for them. The alliance with Kepler gave them a huge influx of new visitors that didn't have any preconceived notions about the planet, and their reviews would shape the first impressions of hundreds of billions more.
The server came out a few seconds later with two bottles of some sort of local wine, as well as a tray of small sealed bottles, each with a picture of a fruit or food item on them.
"These are a house-developed nutrition shot for our biomechanical guests. As you can see they are in a variety of flavors and are rated as the highest quality nutritional supplements by the Kepler Central Government." The server told them proudly, then went back to check on her other guests.
The food came out only a few minutes later, and the three of them spent nearly two hours chatting about local video games. Nico and Max were fishing for hints, while Uncle Lu was happy just to get to talk about his hobby of game development. Not even all the Mecha designers were gamers.
"Next up is to check into the tournament venue. The competitors will be in the onsite hotel, to prevent the chance of outside interference from delaying them, and to ensure that no blackmail is being applied. It's not as luxurious as some, but it's right in the arena venue where you all will be competing." Uncle Lu explained.
There was a guarded room by the lobby of the hotel clearly marked as the check-in spot for competitors, so both Max and Nico said their goodbyes to Uncle Lu and made an arrangement to see him again the day after the tournament. Win or lose, the old man had a lot of things he still wanted to show them both about the planet.
He also wanted them to see his work, but that would have to wait until they were off duty. He hadn't gotten official confirmation of his duty transfer request yet, but he had faith that the Central Command would come through for him, given their recent breakthroughs.
"First up, Keres Max. Gamer Tag of "SlumDogRaider". Height, 185cm, Weight, 120kg. Body Fat index, 4 percent. Impressive, even for a Pilot. Now, we just need to have our attendant check your system bonuses so that the Audience can see the difference if any that they make in tomorrow's competition." The inspector announced.
Max was a bit uncomfortable with random strangers seeing his bonuses, but surely they wouldn't show too much to the public. That would cause the Army to force them to shut down before the game even started.
"You look concerned. All that the audience will get to see is the total points bonus. The rest of the data has been requested by the Kepler Army itself for its own internal analysis. Every competitor today, except two locals, has an active system at B Rank or higher, though you two are the only ones that volunteered for service." The way the inspector described it made Max laugh. Volunteered isn't quite the way he would describe the recruitment process on Kepler Terminus or most of the worlds in the Kepler Empire.
Keres Max
[Compatibility Determined] Rank A
[Primary Attribute] STR 2.5x modifier
[Secondary Bonuses] DEX 2x, SPD 2x
[STR] 3+120%
[DEX] 3+70%
[SPD] 3+70%
[Innate Talent] Mind Reading
[Additional Function Unit Optimization]
[Additional Function Multi Point Targeting]
[Additional Function Split Fire]
[Additional Function Perception 1]
"That's Um, well, I don't know what to say. What sort of evolution did you go through that increased all your base stats by a point? I've heard of powerful Alpha Ranked Pilots before, but that is insane." The administrator that had the talent for reading others' System Status gasped when he read Max's data.
"That my friend is a military secret. But I can tell you that it does come in exceptionally useful in everyday life." Max informed him, working hard to keep a straight face. He couldn't very well tell them that he had somehow forgotten the entire event now, could he? He woke up and was at two points, but after the next day's training when he checked again they were all at three.
Max knew for certain that something had happened while he and Nico had been on the Kepler 142 Space Station, but he had no idea what it was.
"Next up is the Lady Tarith Nico, Gamer Tag "Blood Goddess". Height 150cm, weight 180kg. No, that can't be right. Oh, sorry miss, it didn't say on the sheet that you had undergone such extensive augmentation. Now, let's see what the system has to say."
Tarith Nico
[Compatibility Determined] Rank A
[Primary Attribute] No Longer Valid. Status Growth Reliant on Functions
[Secondary Attribute] Increased Growth Rate
[STR] 3+88%
[DEX] 2+46%
[SPD]2+90%
[Innate Talent] Technology Manipulation
[Additional Function Rapid Repair]
[Additional Function Mecha Modification 5]
[Additional Function Drone Controller 1]
"That's an incredible stat line, considering your conversion. State of the art technology for sure. My condolences on your loss though, it has to be hard knowing that you won't be able to increase your stats anymore." The administrator told her, real sympathy in his voice.
"I still have some hope. My [Mecha Modificaion] Function is capable of modifying my body now, so it gives me little bonuses whenever it gets the chance." Nico shrugged, having already accepted her fate.
"Mecha Modification level 5. Isn't that the Maximum rank that you can achieve for a progressive skill? I've never seen anyone with a Function level above 3." The inspector pointed out.
"I'm not sure if it's the Maximum, but it's pretty quick now, at least when I have the materials to work on my own body." Nico agreed.
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With the check-in finished, the Inspector handed them both a key card for their rooms. "The arena hotel was designed for team sports and families, but the army managed to book you both rooms with only one roommate. They had originally asked that you be placed together, but the moral values of the Comor public would eat us alive if we put a Civilian couple in a mixed-gender room, so we had to split you up. There were no more rooms available, the whole arena is booked full of contestants."
"No worries, meeting new people is good. Even though the Army doesn't separate the sexes, I'm sure that most planets still do it that way with their civilians." Nico answered with her creepy fake smile.
"All contestants have been given identity cards with just their gamer tag on them, so feel free to address each other that way. Blood Goddess, you are in a room with LilyPotta, and SlumDogRaider is with Lord PockiPock."
Max shook his head at all the overly dramatic names. He had thought that they would at least be using proper names outside the game, but it seemed that for the immersion, and for the sake of their privacy from intruding fans, they would all be using their handles all the time tomorrow.
"You two are the last ones to check in, so please, feel free to peruse the amenities of the hotel after you are settled into your rooms."
They didn't have much, Uncle Lu had kept their hoverboards in the car to return to them tomorrow, and they didn't bring any clothes. They would both have to buy at least one change for the tournament tomorrow unless they were going to go like this.
Max knew full well that the gaming tournaments were as much a cosplay event as anything else, and everyone dressed up, so a simple shirt and jeans wouldn't do. It would only serve to turn the fans against him and make the Army look bad.
There was a custom clothing shop here in the arena though, that did costumes and fan items for events, so that was where they headed first.
"Nico, can you tell me what the other guys have picked for costumes? I want something good, but one that isn't taken by anyone else." Max whispered as they walked.
That wasn't going to be easy. There are hundreds of contestants and hundreds of costumes. Even if the computers had some information on them, it would be nearly impossible to find out about them all.
"Don't worry, I've got you. I put an online order for the shop already, once I realized we forgot to get costumes. They had a pretty good listing of what the others had picked out, so I'm pretty sure nobody will have your costume." Nico nodded.
The moment they walked in, the staff was right there to greet them. "Oh, wonderful, you're both here. Let's get you test fit. You're much more buff than we expected, so the shirt might not fit. Though maybe that's a good thing in your case?"
Max was ushered into the back where he was handed an outfit somewhat similar to the one he already had on, but tighter. There were no buttons at the top of the shirt, the faux leather pants stretched tightly to emphasize and exaggerate his every asset, and nylon sleeves with fake tattoos finished the look.
Nico had dressed him as Captain Harkness, a swashbuckling, time-traveling Mecha Pilot and sex symbol of the Kepler television networks. The show was government produced, so every planet knew it, and in the outfit that was more suited to a stripper than a military officer, Max really did look a lot like the actor, even without wearing a wig.
"Darling are you sure you're not his illegitimate love child? The resemblance is uncanny." The clerk gushed, fanning himself with his hand.
"No Comment," Max answered, doing his best imitation of the famous actor and making the staff of the shop giggle.
Nico came out a few minutes later in a short, frilly, black, and gray Goth Loli dress with rose-patterned stockings and Vampire Fangs in her mouth. The character was Rosetta, the female antagonist from an adult-only age-restricted anime series that began to air during their travel to the Comor system last week. There were two episodes out now, but with the character's small stature and the risque costume, it was unlikely to have been chosen by any of the other gamers.
Nico had also confirmed the outfits of all the other female gamers, and the petite males as well, making sure that she wouldn't accidentally duplicate anyone. For a man, that would be embarrassing, for her, it would be rage-inducing.
"Perfect. Where did you find the fangs though? Those don't look like the ones we keep in stock." The clerk asked, ringing up their purchase.
"Augmented teeth, I can adjust their shape." Nico clarified, turning the short fangs that gently nibbled her lower lip into full-length Vampire fangs.
The Vampires were an actual species, though they didn't share a border with the Kepler Empire, being much further east in the Galaxy, while Kepler occupied a large swath of the South Central region. They weren't undead and didn't burn in the sun, but they did have hollow fangs and preferred to drain their meals of blood before eating. Combined with the silvery white color of their natural pigmentation, they looked enough like the old Human legend to make many people believe that they had visited human worlds at some point in the distant past.
The two quickly changed back into their more normal clothes and split apart to head to their rooms on opposite sides of the hotel.
Max knocked and entered his hotel room, finding his roommate in the middle of a live stream.
"Hi guys, it's me, Lord PockiPock. Don't forget to subscribe for updates, and smash that Like button." The gamer was practically shouting at his camera setup while fluffing the hair of the outlandish rainbow wig he was wearing for today's show.
He had stuff absolutely everywhere. On both beds, on the floor, on the walls, filling the bathtub, and even outside on the balcony. Max didn't even own the amount of stuff that this guy brought with him for a one-day tournament.
Max decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and simply rested his back against the door, knowing that the stream was going to be a half-hour long and that it would do him no good to interrupt now and drag it out even further with his presence.
While Max suffered the clutter and an overly energetic streamer as a roommate, Nico had also found her room. She didn't enter though, since her augmented hearing could pick up what was going on inside. It seemed that her roommate had invited a local Flect dealer over to get high and 'assist' her during her OnlyLewd stream.
This was the gamer who Nico was originally most concerned about duplicating her costume, but lately, LillyPotta had been on a forced-feeding fetish kick and had put on over a hundred kilos, making the character a poor match. Nico went to the lounge on her floor, finding that there were others there escaping from their roommates already, and picked a seat.
"Which one did you get?" a man in his late twenties asked, watching something on a data tablet and eating popcorn.
"LillyPotta," Nico informed him in a dry tone and the man chuckled.
"Yeah, I don't think we need to worry about that one. I saw the contraband alarm go off when she brought that guy to her room. I think the cops were waiting for you to arrive to see if you were in on it." The man informed her.
His nametag read "Steve Polychronopolous" which made Nico smile at the reference. It was good to see that some people hadn't forgotten the classics.
"Blood Goddess? Nice, I thought you retired from gaming. They don't let fakes use existing names here, so you can be sure that if you see a famous tag, it's authentic." Steve assured her just as the sound of rushing boots thumped down the hallway.
"Hands on your heads." The officer orders as the sound of a splintering door echoes through the hallway and orders are barked.
Nico simply complied, waiting to watch the show. Incoherent female shouting comes from the destroyed room as over a dozen officers enter, and then the sound of gunfire starts. It ends abruptly a few seconds later, and the officers drag a large naked man out, gun still gripped in his hand even in death.
"We need a Medic, ASAP." The officers in the room call and more police rush in with bags in their hands.
If they're calling for a medic, whoever is in there is most likely going to survive. Treating most gunshots that weren't instantly fatal is a simple matter these days with Kepler medical technology.
"I need you both to identify yourselves." The officer with his gun trained on Nico and the man beside her declared, motioning with his gun for them to bring it up on their wrist devices.
The other gamers in the lounge looked freaked out, kneeling with their hands on their heads, but the police weren't paying much attention to them, having had the floor under surveillance since the alarm was set off.
"I'm Stephen Pembrooke, Sir. Assistant art curator at the KSP 108 Modern Art Academy." The man says nervously, bringing up his credentials.
"You're clear." The officer confirms, letting him close the hologram.
"And you?" He points the gun at Nico's smiling face as he asks.
"Major Tarith Nico, Pilot of the Crusader Class Tarith's Rage and Executive Officer of the Stalwart Special Tactics Unit attached to the 43rd Armored Regiment from Kepler 111," Nico answered using the sultry and gentle voice setting on her audio processor.
"Holy crap, you really are her. You're a Fething Legend." Steve exclaimed, getting to his feet in an attempt to shake her hand before being forced back to his knees by the police.
"You're Clear. My apologies Major, it's just protocol, you understand." The officer told Nico with a polite nod, much more courteous than he was with the others in the room.
"Of course." Nico nodded, and the others in the room looked a little awestruck at having an actual Crusader Class Mecha pilot in their midst at a Gaming tournament, and not as a judge.
The streamer known as LillyPotta was alive and annoyingly loud as she was dragged away by the police on charges of drug possession, consorting with a felon, and assaulting an officer. But that left Nico with a totaled hotel room in a completely full hotel.
"Looks like I'm sleeping in the lounge." Nico sighed, starting a new video on the holographic player while the other contestants stared at her in shock. She wouldn't be the only one sleeping here tonight. Going by the number of people here, the personal habits of famous gamers weren't always even up to the standard of 'tolerable' by their peers.
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Max's roommate proved to be somewhat tolerable, once the stream was over. The mess in the room was apparently part of his "aesthetic" and he cleaned it all up in a few minutes once the stream was over, politely introducing himself and then going to bed so he was ready for the morning's early start.
Refreshed and ready to face the day, Max started hearing rumors the moment he entered the hotel restaurant. The word in the hotel was that the Blood Goddess had her roommate executed last night because she didn't want to share a room with her. While Max wouldn't put that past his best friend, he was pretty sure it was an exaggeration at the very least.
"No, she was in the lobby with us watching a movie while her roommate was streaming. Then the cops came bursting through and pointed guns at us all and dragged her away. She's not dead, she's in prison." Another contestant tried to clarify the situation, but most of the crowd was taking it as a rumor as well.
Max could see in her thoughts what had happened, and the second woman was telling the truth, so he relaxed, getting a good meal in before returning to his room to change and get ready for the event.
The tight costume fit him better than he was willing to admit, and Max was attracting entirely too much attention as he walked through the halls toward the venue.
"Captain Harkness, can we get a photo?" A bunch of spectators with cameras called, using the name of the character he was playing.
Max stopped and gave them a series of poses, which drew even more people over. All over the arena, the same thing was happening, as the contestants did publicity shoots before the tournament. A few refused and were soundly denounced by the crowd for not playing the part, but most of them were having a lot of fun with it.
Max was about to move again, getting closer to the stage and the next group of photographers when he felt a tongue on his neck and small hands on his shoulders.
"Oh em gee. I can die happy now, seeing that." One of the men in the crowd gushed, and Max realized that it was Nico posing with him the instant before he was going to toss whoever it was across the room.
Nico was definitely having fun today, hanging off Max in all sorts of suggestive poses and playing up her Character's Erotic Vampire persona.
They separated again after a few minutes, taking separate photos again, and Max knew that somehow today was going to come back to haunt him. He could only imagine what Ari would say about seeing him in skin-tight pants and having his neck licked by Nico, whose dress showed off her panties every time it moved more than a little.
Nico was flitting from gamer to gamer, taunting and teasing them as she went, making much better progress towards the stage than Max was. Looking through her thoughts, he realized what the trick was, and found a female gamer in the crowd to pose with, moving him past a crowd of onlookers with cameras without insulting anyone.
The character he was playing was a flirty hunk, so Max did his best imitation, making the crowd laugh and cheer.
Soon enough, he had made it to the stage where the group photo would be taken and escaped the mob. There were only about a dozen of the hundreds of competitors here so far, so he had a while to wait, posing for a few more photos until the organizers called for the others to hurry to the stage for the group photos.
"Welcome everyone to the Comor Game Development Agency's newest product launch. As you're well aware it will take the form of a blind tournament. Every competitor here has been verified, and none are aware of what today's game will be. The Agency developers have been particularly cautious not to allow any leaks of this project, just for this moment.
We introduce you all to Predatory Instinct, our pride, and joy. It is a Fully Immersive Virtual Reality Fantasy Game with no NPC or quest content. All gains in the game are made through player versus player combat. On every successful kill, you will gain a percentage of your opponent's battle power and points, which can be used to buy items to upgrade your character. The more difficult the kill, the greater the reward.
Every player will start with the option to take a selection of equipment with them, making the start of the game easier at the cost of decreased rewards for kills, due to their higher power level. But it might pay off in the long run to get that head start, right Gamers? The strategy is all yours, and only yours."
The room devolved into insane screaming and cheering after the announcement, and the photos were taken before the players were led to a group of Comor's most advanced new VR Pods.
Max saw that he had a collection of options. Warrior, cleric, knight, squire, princess, rogue, mage, witch, sorcerer, barbarian, street rat, and an entire second page of options. Each had its own bonuses and progression paths with different skills and class-specific equipable items. They also all had different starting skills, except Street Rat, which didn't have one at all, nor would it ever gain any. It was the pure hardcore mode, with no ability to have heavy armor, magic, or advanced weapons. It wasn't even a proper rogue, as it didn't get any stealth skills.
Given that VR games are usually best when you play based on your own skills, and Max had increased mental processing speed, he decided to go with the mage class. The faster you could mentally recite the spell chant, the faster the ability would activate. That gave Max a great advantage over others and should offset the lack of heavy armor in the late game while giving him an edge in the beginning.
With his selection made, and his character set to a nondescript avatar, he was ready to begin the tournament. There was a timer counting down at the top of his vision, showing that the game would begin in 5 minutes and run for twelve straight hours, with the accumulated power at the end being the deciding factor of the top ten players who would get the resort vacation package.
Max used his Innate Talent to check the decisions of the players near him in the pods, finding a fairly wide variety of tactics. Then he found Nico. She had picked Street Rat and had declined absolutely every optional bonus she could purchase. She only bought a crappy poisoned dagger from the starting store. She would get the most possible points per kill, but that assumed she was actually able to kill anyone with low bonus stats and no gear. Knowing her, it was going to be a bloodbath in the starting zone.
She wasn't trying to be subtle either. She had made her character look like a street urchin version of her cosplay, complete with the fangs and tattered black dress. Max could only imagine the response the crowd was having to the characters that everyone had picked, some of them were truly flamboyant, suiting the personalities of the players building them, while others were signature looks, or deliberately bland, like Max's own avatar.
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The moment the game started, Max found himself randomly spawned on a roof, looking down over an open city square. It looked like everyone had started in the same general area, and he could see at least a quarter of the competitors from where he was standing.
A sense of danger came from behind him and Max twisted to the side, kicking the legs out from under his attacker and then breaking their neck, a standard Kep Maga attack combination taught in every military academy, but it caught his opponent off guard.
[First Kill of the match goes to SlumDogRaider]
The announcement startled everyone, making them think he spawned behind someone and ambushed them the moment they spawned in.
[Kill by Blood Goddess]
[Kill by Blood Goddess]
[Kill by Blood Goddess]
As Max suspected, Nico and her knife were on a rampage in the starting zone, so he hopped down from the roof and cast his Magic Arrow into the head of another player. His Targeting abilities activated the moment he started casting the spell, making it incredibly easy to get a critical hit on the other players while he recited the spell as fast as he could.
[Kill by SlumDogRaider]
[Kill by SlumDogRaider]
[Kill by Lord PockiPock]
[Kill by SlumDogRaider]
Things were looking up for Max now, and he was racking up the points in a hurry, gaining a head start on the others that would soon let him buy a more powerful spell.
But there were no targets other than players, and they had scattered now, realizing the danger of the starting formation.
In the auditorium, each seat had the option to pick an individual player's feed to follow, along with the Kill Cam and highlight reel that played on smaller screens. Those who paid the extra for the booth seats had virtual reality headsets for themselves, getting to watch from the same perspective as the players, or adding many additional screens so they didn't miss any of their favorite players' actions.
Thirty seconds after being killed, the first batch of assassinated players respawned at random somewhere near the starting zone, cursing their bad luck and noting with some relief that the game wouldn't bring you below your starting values and that you didn't lose gear when you died.
Currently, Max and Nico were the main topics of interest for the spectators in the arena. Max's rapid casting abilities were beyond anything that the observers could understand. When most of the casting classes wanted to use a spell they activated the tooltip and then spoke the complex keyword. Max was the only one that had realized so far that the only had to accurately pronounce it in his thoughts and not actually speak it out loud.
Nico was simply being Nico. Right at the beginning of the match, she had slit the throats of two players who were still trying to get the hang of their character controls and then got caught by a Knight. She dodged his sword swing, but he kicked her knife away into the corner of the room. In retaliation, Nico jumped on him and bit his throat out using the Vampire fangs that she gave her character. The blood effect on the players faded after a few seconds, but that kill played half a dozen times on the highlight reel so far.
It was a bit of knowledge that a lot of players would have loved to have. There was no introduction, so they had to learn to use the skills of their character on their own unless they wanted to just flail around with their weapons doing base damage. They didn't know that you didn't need to use a weapon, or that all the base damages were realistic, so at the start of the match, before everyone was powered up, you could just beat your opponents to death and not use skills at all.
The lack of knowledge was the big selling point of the tournament, and the reason so many players had come from other planets to give the game a try before it was publicly available.
Max had also learned about unarmed combat, having snapped a neck, and he was quickly modifying his plans for the match. Magic would be needed for the twelve-hour-long match, no doubt, but a backup weapon would be essential. Others wouldn't expect the mage to stab them, and the players' nameplates weren't visible to each other. Unless you recognized the character they picked or they identified themselves, who you were fighting was a mystery.
Max made his way through the woods carefully, using all the stealth techniques he had mastered to survive as a Special Tactics unit commander. In the first clearing he came to, there was a perfect opportunity for him. Five players were injured and fighting it out, throwing spells at each other with grand shouts.
There was a relatively straight branch about two meters long with a forked end laying on the ground and Max grabbed it, seeing a notification that it was a plain branch and the damage output. Then he tore a little cloth off his robe, thankful that items could be damaged in such a way, and tied a large rock to the end, using the fork in the branch to stabilize it. The Narsians loved the two-handed hammer for a very good reason, it inflicted an incredible amount of damage.
Max started to swing the weapon as he ran, gaining momentum while simultaneously casting magic arrows as fast as he could into the sorceress furthest away on his right. The witch closest to him turned just in time to catch a large rock to the face, creating a gruesome death scene that made the other players pause.
So far, they had killed each other with spells, they hadn't expected the bludgeoning deaths to be so realistic.
That was Max's win. His magic arrows took down two more injured spell casters, while the rock on his hammer took the last.
[Kill by SlumDogRaider]x5
[Bonus Points]
Max checked his points and found that he now had enough points to either upgrade Magic Arrow twice or to purchase fireball which would do area damage. Right now, few players had teamed up, so area damage was a low priority. He noticed that he could also increase his own stats, and improving his mana to allow more consecutive spell casts was tempting, but being able to single-hit kill low-powered players at full health was a better benefit, so the points went to Magic Arrow.
[Massacre by Blood Goddess] flashed across every player's interface and in the highlight reel of the arena, making everyone switch screens to watch the replay.
As a hundred thousand live viewers watched in awe, Nico snuck up on a house where a group of players was discussing an alliance to build their powers. Then she quietly barricaded all the doors and used a purchased torch and oil to burn the building to the ground with all ten of them trapped inside.
The burning building was a beacon to other players who wanted the advantage of killing a more powerful but injured player and getting a cut of their score. But Nico wasn't injured, she was hiding high up in the trees.
That was the best place to get points, so Max also headed towards the burning building, careful not to be noticed as he advanced. The description of the scoring system said that it gave higher rewards to more difficult and innovative kills, so he could definitely get some points near the fire if he tried.
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Max had almost made it to the fire when the sound of a cracking branch startled him from behind. He instinctively dodged to the side and rolled away, narrowly avoiding the ax of a berserker who was rapidly chopping at him, hitting only trees as Max dodged.
This player still hadn't worked out a proper combat style without using his skills, it was likely that he had never held a weapon in real life. In most games that wouldn't matter, all your actions were skills-based and automatic. In this one, they were only a supplement to your own skills. It occurred to Max that this was likely deliberate, an attempt to build up the combat skills of young players and soldiers that were going to be the primary customer base.
If you learned to emulate the skills inside the game while outside of it, you would inevitably become a more effective warrior for the Kepler Empire. That was something that couldn't be done in a typical game, where muscle memory wasn't necessary to complete the skills in a series.
He was beginning to get the hang of it though, and the few spells that Max managed to get off weren't doing nearly as much damage as expected. The berserker class must be magic resistant, Max decided, moving to recover the improvised hammer he dropped.
Just as he got up though, a blade cut across his shoulder, throwing him back to the ground as the second ax came down at his head.
'I wonder what the respawn animation is like?' Max thought, but the blow never came.
A black streak came racing down out of the trees and the berserker's head snapped forward, then his body crumpled and the head was pulled free of his shoulders as a small form in a tattered black lolita dress danced on his back.
There were shrieks of horror nearby and Max realized that their fight had been about to be interfered with.
Nico jumped off the berserker with a wink in Max's direction and raced off toward the screams. She had used most of her points to increase her speed, not her damage, and instead relied on novel and improvised ways to take out opponents.
Max recovered his weapon and headed in her direction in case she needed help, finding that the scream was a trick and she was outnumbered five on one by warrior classes. But the Street Rat class was incredibly agile and they were having a hard time catching her.
She also didn't fight fair, using her shorter height to go for more 'critical' targets and cripple her opponents while she avoided the others.
After she killed a knight class, she squatted above him and wiggled, the classic 'Teabagging' taunt, that brought rage to the player's eyes before he respawned and vanished. Max's laughter brought the attention of the others to him and they realized they were in trouble, the Street Rat had distracted them too long and now others had come to take advantage of the fight.
Against opponents that weren't berserkers, Max's improved Magic Arrow combined with his targeting skills was a deadly combination, taking out enemies one after another while Nico kept them distracted and off balance.
"Has anyone ever told you that you're truly evil?" Max asked as she threw her poisoned dagger into the back of the last fighter and gently cradled his body, lowering him to the ground as his avatar died, paralyzed.
"Once or twice. Do you think it was enough to make them rush right back here so we can farm them without taking the spawn camping reduction to points?" Nico asked hopefully.
"Probably, the guy you teabagged looked pretty upset." Max agreed.
"Perfect, come this way, I found a good spot for you to hide and ambush anyone who comes our way." She instructed.
"Wait, how did you know it was me? Your character is pretty distinctive, but mine was meant to be neutral." Max asked.
"I saw you fighting the big berserker and knew right away, it's in your technique. If you didn't recognize me you would have known it was me after only a few seconds I'm sure."
She has a point, there really is no way he could have mistaken her fighting style for anyone else.
Nico led him to a small rock pillar left from a broken statue, overlooking open grassland, with a border of trees at the foot of the hill. If he lay down flat on it, nobody would know he was up here. In the distance was the starting area, but they were looking at it from a different angle than the one he first left it from.
The plan was that Nico would head to the starting area and taunt targets out, while Max could help finish them and kill anyone who tried to sneak up on her. For now, it was working very well, she had lured a dozen people out who wanted to get the last blow on one of the current point leaders. This early in the fight the differences were small, but later in the game, your player would get a Halo and Wings to show their increased power level, both a warning and a target for the enemy.
The visual effects helped even the playing field and would prevent things like he was doing now as they got closer to the end of the game.
One of the players was definitely one that Nico had taunted because he was going wild trying to attack her as she backed up into Max's casting range and laughed. The game area was large, but not enough that you wouldn't be able to find enemies, even if you tried to hide you would quickly be found. On the first day you might hide for a long time, but after the game was released the various maps would quickly be memorized by the hardcore gamers.
The moment they were in range, Max prepared to put spells into the back of the heads of the ones who had circled Nico and were facing away from him.
He let the first one loose and Nico made a sudden turn, pulling his target to the ground with her. The spell flew wide and hit the enraged fighter in the face, causing him to respawn instantly. Nico finished the caster that she had taken to the ground and used the body's last few seconds to shield her from a barrage of incoming spells.
The slower ones to cast still hit her, but none hit anywhere critical, and her avatar survived to run into the woods and hide, while Max picked them off from above.
In the judge's box in the arena, the developers sighed at this development. "Letting the two Majors work together was a mistake. The average gamer doesn't stand a chance, even at the same power level."
"They will adapt and gain more useful skills soon. The Street Rat is the hard mode character, she will start falling behind unless she can find more people to work with her." Another said confidently, but Uncle Lu shook his head to disagree.
"Even without skill activations, she won't have a problem with them if she keeps increasing her character's stats like that. You forget that they're both Alpha Ranked, this standard movement rate is practically a crawl to them. She's over three times faster in real life. Without training, I'm not sure that the warriors will have a chance. The mages will have to use area magic to take her out so she doesn't dodge."
"But with her partner there to take out the more powerful mages, they won't be able to attack her." The developer nodded as he realized the strategy they were using. The Gamers were sure to find a workaround for it in an hour or two, but for now, it was unassailable.
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They weren't the only ones with the idea, just the best at it. Many other pairs had formed, and some full fighting parties, with tanks, casters, and a healer. Since they didn't know the way the game's scaling was balanced yet, letting rotating members get the last hit for the points seemed to be a good way to get everyone powered up.
Many of them had forgotten that the announcer told them that the game rewarded innovation and difficulty more highly, so the gains they were getting by just taking the last hit on a disabled opponent weren't nearly as high as they would get in a hard fight. The two-person teams were doing better since the fights were more even, but the solo players were getting quite a bit when they could overcome a pair.
Nico and Max working together were making up for the lack of bonus in the pure volume of kills. Every few seconds, one name or the other would light up the screen after they abandoned the edge of the forest to go hunting.
They had just taken down a group of five when suddenly Max felt an incredible pain in his back and realized that he had taken a fatal wound from a distance without noticing. He whistled to let Nico know he was in trouble, and suddenly a blade was flying at his face.
[You have been killed by Blood Goddess]
Of course, she wouldn't let anyone else get the points for his kill.
The developers burst into laughter at this tactic. There were no teams, so there was no friendly fire damage mitigation, you had to trust your allies if you were going to work together.
Thirty seconds later when he respawned, Max saw Nico in the distance, running towards the starting zone. He jogged over to her and rejoined the battle as the reduced points debuff to make it worthless to spawn kill slowly wore off. Fifteen seconds after a respawn was the protection you got. You still took full damage, but the enemy would only get one single point from killing you, instead of hundreds or thousands.
At the two-hour mark, both Max and Nico had halos above their head, showing how far ahead of the others they were. Max had mastered Magic Arrow, the fastest and easiest spell to cast in the game. He had also learned an Arcane Blast area damage spell that was fairly quick to cast.
Nico had finally given in and upgraded her dagger to a sword that did a large amount of cold damage on hit with a chance to freeze. Neither of them had bought any armor, focusing on their damage output instead. With the advantages gained by more rapid killing, the armor was a waste of points.
Most of the players had realized that fairly quickly, and the developers were making notes for a day zero balancing patch to make the armor more worth taking. The only ones who really went into defense were the barbarians and Clerics, who both had magic damage reduction skills.
By the sixth hour, players were getting exhausted, and Max cleared a group out of a cave where they were waiting to ambush others. It was too obvious of a spot, it had been used many times before.
"Let's take a break and get some rest. Mental exhaustion in a twelve-hour game is going to get a lot of players." Max suggested.
"Good thinking. I'll cover the door, you hide behind the wall for now." Nico agreed, curling up in a back corner where her filthy, formerly black rags would let her blend in with the wall of the cave.
For over an hour, they rested. Not quite asleep, but recovering the mental fortitude to go again.
It also gave others the chance to catch up, and the Halos for mid-level power started to appear all over the battlefield.
"Let's see how many of those Halos we can take away," Max whispered, checking the leaderboard and seeing that their advantage was almost gone after an hour in the cave.
When they started hunting again, the arena suddenly got very lively again. Like the players, the spectators had also been intensely excited for hours on end and had started to wear out.
One after another, Max and Nico wiped out the players with Halos until faint wings started to form on their backs, and they realized they were the prime targets for everyone on the battlefield. Even if it was ten on one, they were so far ahead of the lowest ranked players that a single kill of them would move the lucky player over halfway up the ranks and give them access to all the skills they had been craving but couldn't get the points to access.
With the two of them dominating first and second places, the real battle was taking place between third and fifth place. It was a delicate balance, both to eliminate powerful enemies and gain enough points to get upgrades to their power, and to avoid the top two so they didn't get massacred.
The audience didn't know the background of any of the competitors, so their assumption was that these were simply the most elite among the gamers and they were working together to suppress the competition. While that wasn't entirely wrong, they both had a distinct advantage in the form of advanced combat training on their side that allowed them to fight effectively without using skills.
The people who looked down on the Street Rat class at the start were starting to warm up to it as more than a gimmick. If you didn't have the ability to buy skills, you could pump up your stats instead and rely on more skilled movement and combat abilities to overcome the enemies. Max's rate of casting was beyond most of their comprehension though, even though they could clearly see the spell text progression pop up as he cast.
It did give hope to a few fast-rapping streamers that they could find a niche in this game with the casting classes, using their unique skill to cast spells faster than their opponents. The Data Network linked entire sectors of the galaxy together, but only within a Solar System would the latency be low enough to actually play games like this, meaning that they wouldn't have to regularly face such monsters as they were seeing today. They could play against locals and stream it with a good chance of success.
The one-hour remaining alarm sounded and the ranks were all but decided. Those at the top had gotten so far from those at the bottom that even their best attack abilities would do very little to harm the leaders. There were still a few more fighting to get into the top ten, but both Max and Nico had emerged as the undisputed victors, and even if they simply stopped for the last hour, nobody could overcome them.
So, that is almost exactly what they did. They sat down on a bench in the spawning area and gave strategy tips to the lower-ranked players who wished to hear them. Most didn't, since they were all professionals, but a few admired the techniques that the two had come up with, and some wished to edit their skills for the last push to rank up and look better on the final scoreboard.
Not everyone made it to the end though. Some players had been so thoroughly crushed that the death penalty had taken them back to their zero power starting point, and they had simply retired early and left the arena without any fanfare.
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With ten minutes left in the competition, two players came over to see the leaders, but not to chat. Both had managed to earn faint wings on their backs, but neither could challenge Max or Nico for the top spots, no matter how lucky they got in the last few minutes.
The two were Lord PockiPock and Callsign Flood, two of the top streamers, and coincidentally, just out of the running for the top 5 positions. One last death wouldn't push them out of the top ten though, and they had a plan to end their stream on a high note.
"I, Lord PockiPock am here to challenge the Blood Goddess to a Duel. I will redeem my name and my honor here today." The first one began, making Max snicker.
If he recalled correctly, the other soldiers were saying that the last time they dueled in a game she beat him 197-0 and made him rage quit the game entirely, moving his stream to a newly released first-person shooter.
"SlumDogRaider, I challenge you to a duel." Callsign Flood said more simply, and the four combatants spread out, making room for them to fight.
Both of the streamers had taken the Paladin class, combining offensive holy magic with good defense and swords. In a stand-up fight that theoretically put Max at a disadvantage, but he had long since given his avatar a powerful staff that could take sword strikes without being damaged.
"The staff is too boring, try this instead," Nico called, throwing Max a small black item.
It was an extendable baton that he could channel his spells through, like a stun baton that many police forces used, but with Arcane Magic. This was much more suitable to his spell casting than fighting with a long staff would be.
Max flicked his wrist, extending the baton while his light blue butterfly wings flickered in the breeze. His opponent wasn't one for waiting though, he was a warrior class, and being at range put him at the disadvantage.
Plus, his ratings had been dipping over the last quarter and he needed something to draw in more viewers. An epic Paladin on Mage duel would be just the thing to get him situated as one of the top streamers in the new game.
He quickly activated [Blade Flurry], a Paladin skill designed to break through the defenses of a Mage-type class, but Max was ready for the basic opener, parrying all the strikes with his baton. Max moved closer, driving his shoulder into the armored chest of his opponent and knocking him back, then followed it up with a [Arcane Barrage] sending a wave of small magical balls at the Paladin.
Callsign Flood rolled to the side, dodging most of the attack and the crowd scattered, realizing a bit too late that they had gotten too close to the fight. Max sent a few more spells out before the Paladin activated a charge skill and rushed into him with a flying leap.
Max dodged the sword and grabbed Callsign Flood's right wrist, throwing him over the shoulder with assistance from his baton. But he forgot that the deadly little stick was charged with [Arcane Blast]. When it made contact between his opponent's legs to help flip him over Max's shoulder, Callsign Flood made a noise that no man's vocal cords were intended to make. Even the audio processor of the game didn't seem to know how to deal with it, and the voice didn't come out in the deep and gruff tone that he had assigned to his avatar.
The moment he hit the ground, Max followed up with a strike of the baton to his other head, knocking him out cold and sending him to respawn.
Satisfied with his victory, Max turned to see how the other duel was going, only to find that Nico had Lord PockiPock in an armbar, and was currently attempting to drown him in a mud puddle.
"Go ahead say it again. I dare you, call me short stuff one more time." She complained as she pushed his face further into the mud and the crowd laughed.
"Isn't this what happened last time as well?" Max asked a spectator, after reading a few minds near him.
"This is exactly what happened last time, almost word for word, but last time there was no mud puddle and all she could do was spawn camp him." The player agreed.
[One Minute remaining. Players will be ejected after the next death.]
The game's announcement made Nico sigh and release her opponent, but she didn't let him get up, she just moved on to kicking him while he curled up and tried to defend himself. Her health was under half, so he must have put up a pretty solid fight before she took him down, but things didn't end well for him.
There was no self-harm mechanism in the game, so he was at her mercy until the timer went off, unless he gave up his spot and exited the game early, forfeiting the match. The others were just starting to feel sorry for him when Nico relented and helped him to his feet, one second before the end of the match when they all were returned to the game lobby to log out.
"I would say that was a shocking twist there at the end, but as all the viewers who watch the streams already know, that was exactly what we should have expected to happen." The announcer is saying as Max logs out, seeing the replay of Nico smashing her opponent's face in the mud on the large screen above them.
"Now that we're done, I will remind you all, that this is not the only way to play. Other than timed deathmatch, there are points battles, zombie horde mode, and even single-player battles against pre-recorded combatants. At no cost, you can record your finest performances in the system registry and players from all over the Galaxy can challenge a reproduction of yourself at that point, with monthly prizes being awarded to the top recordings." The announcer declares, making the crowd roar in joy.
After twelve long hours, they were mostly as exhausted as the players, except for an intelligent few who snuck in a nap during the dull hours between the 6th and 9th hour of gameplay.
"We will now ask that all the players come up to the stage for the official announcement of your final rankings, and a replay of today's highlights with interviews from our most entertaining contestants."
Hundreds of weary players trudged up to the stage, their bodies were well rested from laying asleep in the VR pods, but their minds were totally worn out from half a day of gaming. After a moment to recover though, they began putting their public personas back on to match either their online persona or the character that they had chosen to cosplay for the event.
The game launch was a live-streamed show, as well as a contest. For those in the entertainment industry, appearance was everything, and having their fans see them not at their best was hard on their public image, which in turn meant hard on their income.
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"We will begin with the prize for the most entertaining fight of the match. I know, I know, you all want to get to the winners, but first, we must shine a light on everyone else who performed admirably today.
The three nominated fights, by a vote of the audience's replay viewing habits, are Julius versus Ming, Ragnarocker versus BussayyyBoi, and Blood Goddess Versus Lord PockiPock. It was a shock to see a last-minute fight make the list, but you now have a final chance to vote for the winner." The announcer declared, bringing the fights up on the big screen above the stage, as well as everyone's individual screens.
The first one was an evenly matched duel between competent rogues, and very interesting for Max to watch, but unfortunately, the contestants didn't get to vote on this category. The second was a marvel of incompetence, with two completely inept warriors who hadn't activated any skills comically flailing at each other, while the final match was the humiliation of Lord PockiPock.
Unlike what Max had suspected, it was not a close fight. He had precast an incredibly powerful Fire spell and roasted nearly half of Nico's life away in an instant, then insulted her a few times before she got ahold of him and beat him near to death before dragging him to a mud puddle and attempting to drown him.
The timer counted down from thirty seconds and the crowd decision was in. Ragnarocker and BussayyyBoi had won the most entertaining fight of the night.
With how the fight actually went, it was a dubious honor, but the crowd loved it.
"Next up will be the fan choice for the favorite individual kill." The announcer declared, and dozens of popular kills filled the screens of the audience's monitors.
"We have our top 5, now begin the second round of voting." The announcer man called in a fake happy voice, while the contestants stared at the screens, some laughing some glaring. One of the options was Max killing Callsign Flood, another was Nico killing Nekkbreaka, the berserker whose head she tore off when she first met up with Max. But the top kill went to comedy value, the same as the best fight did.
PrincessAria, a famously beautiful streamer had jumped off a cliff to avoid certain death, not wanting her opponent to get her points. But she landed on the top of a witch's staff, impaling her chest and giving the points to a player that never even saw her coming. The look on her face, both in the game and when she won was enough to have half the contestants roaring in laughter.
"With the major categories finished, we have one final category left. This one is a split category, for best and worst sportsmanship. Both the audience and the contestants will have a chance to vote on this one since they will have had very different experiences."
Max thought long and hard, coming up with one player who went out of his way to duel to 50 percent with others at the start, so they could learn to use their skills and another who harassed the female players until they hounded him right out of the game.
The players' votes were all over the map, but the groper came up second on their list of worst sportsmanship. The top vote? Blood Goddess. Taunting them to their deaths enraged well over half the players into voting her for their most despised opponent.
Best sportsmanship as voted by the players, went to Callsign Flood, who had helped a lot of players out and even gave away his out-of-date weapons, not realizing that he could trade them back to the shop for credits.
That went a long way to helping his online reputation, and his decision to full-time stream the new game.
From the audience side, the groper won worst sportsmanship in a landslide, while Max's efforts to train the lower ranked players put him narrowly over Callsign Flood's early efforts to gear them up.
"And now for the rankings, and the winners of today's top prize, the resort vacation for two to Comor's top all-inclusive resort. In tenth place, we have Ming, who has earned the Narrow Victory trophy, as the final winner of our top prize." The announcer made his way through the victors, stopping to say a little something about each of them, and plugging the streams of those who gamed professionally, which was everyone except the fifth place Loqueisha, who wasn't a Gamer, but an adult entertainer.
Her online site got much more attention from the audience than the others for some unknown reason though.
"And now for our runner-up, SlumDogRaider. Though he tied for the lead in points, his one solitary death put him in second place on the leaderboard. He is not an online persona, in fact, we know very little about him that isn't classified. But put your hands together for the player who came in only a single kill from ultimate victory." The mystery got the crowd charged up and Max waved at the crowd happily, watching as they realized from his appearance that he was a soldier and had likely altered his previous online handle for the tournament due to security reasons.
"And our winner, the one and only Blood Goddess, who suddenly went offline two years ago, but made a huge comeback today. Do you have anything to say to your loyal fans? Any word of a return?" The announcer asked.
"While I won't be making a return to the gaming circuit in the immediate future, I can assure you all that my future endeavors will still make your live streams, even if you don't realize that it is me. It has been a pleasure to be here today, and experience this wonderful new virtual reality game. If I had to suggest one thing though, whoever set the taste profiles for players has no taste buds." The audience cheered and stomped on the ground until the arena shook in celebration of her win, while the developers laughed themselves to tears at the thought that someone actually bit enough players that they could do a taste test sample of them.
But this was why open betas were more valuable than the ultra-secretive development model that this game used, they brought in players that thought of things that a single group wouldn't have ever tried. Since there was an option to make your player have fangs, they should have foreseen it, but very little thought was put into the taste of objects in the game.
It was just another item to add to the emergency last-minute updates to be completed before the game officially launched that weekend. They had done well though, the list was short, and the confidence that they could get it all done on time and not need to rush out a patch only days after release to fix known errors was high.
As they made plans to update the game, the announcer gathered the top ten winners to give interviews and do an infomercial for the resort that they would be staying at. They would be doing ongoing videos with the winners during their stay, as part of the tournament conditions to advertise the resort. Most wanted to do them in their streaming persona, but Nico and Max had other ideas. Once they arrived at the resort, they would be soldiers on leave again, and both thought it would be good for troop morale all over the Empire to see that they had been able to compete here and win during their standard leave.
War drained every aspect of body and soul, so seeing the light of hope for a fantastic vacation would motivate the troops.
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Every winner had the option to bring a plus one with them on vacation if they wished. The rooms had a king-sized bed, and the resort was willing to cover the extra ten people as part of the prize they had provided.
Most of the winners had plans to immediately begin a fan lottery, to bring someone who could be here within the next three days along on their vacation of a lifetime. That's how long they had before they had to go to the resort. It wasn't much, but for most of them, it wouldn't be an issue. There was one exception, the tenth place player, Ming, had brought her mom with her to Comor, not expecting to win. Her mom was also a regular feature on her stream, after walking into the room where she was streaming early in her career to call her for dinner and becoming an instant hit.
"Who should we bring? Maybe put it up as a prize for the unit?" Max asked Nico, not sure what they should do with the two extra places.
"Well, it's the top luxury resort on the planet, I'm not sure that any of them could actually behave well enough to not get kicked out the first day." Nico laughed.
"You have a point." Max agreed, right before his wrist device started going insane. The stream that they thought was aired live was actually on a thirteen-hour time delay, and it had just started airing on the Station and the Abraham Kepler.
Nobody expected their response for a long time now, since nobody else knew that the stream wasn't live, but they were sending out congratulations and messages of goodwill already.
"Since they don't know that we won yet, why don't we play a game with them? They clearly recognized us during the fashion show, so let's have them bet on the final outcome, and the closest to top score can have the extra spots?" Nico suggested.
That was an excellent idea. They had won two rooms, and giving one to the unit would give Max a good excuse to share a room with Nico for the week-long stay at the resort. Pure Genius.
Nico sent out the message as a Unit wide alert, making it flash on everyone's wrist devices.
[The member of the Special Tactics Unit who guesses closest to your Commanding Officer's final score will receive a special prize after the tournament. Don't forget to place your bet, we will give you until five minutes after the match starts, and the prize will make it worth your time.]
That way she didn't violate the nondisclosure clauses of their contract, and they could give away the prize without upsetting anyone or being accused of favoritism.
They were about ten minutes into the stream now, so the soldiers had been given a vague idea of the way the game was scored, but were still watching the fashion show entry and had not yet seen the first few kills to have a proper idea of what the kill rate would be during the match.
Once the game started, the bets started rolling in steadily. Both to Nico's inbox and written in a group chat so that nobody could try to falsify or send multiple bets. So far none of them were even close to how things had actually gone for Max, they were greatly underestimating his virtual reality gaming powers, and the effect of his efforts working with Nico later.
But they also only got to see the highlight reel. That was the only version that was publicly broadcast all over the Empire. To get the other views you had to watch one of the streamer's feeds or manage to get one of the incredibly fast-selling tickets to watch the event live in the arena.
Five minutes into the actual battle, the last bets were placed and it only took Max and Nico a few minutes to see who was the winner. Captain Catan was only off by a few percentage points from Max's final score.
"Should we tell him a little bit in advance, or wait until they are celebrating after the broadcast?" Max asked, double-checking the bids.
"They will have more fun if we don't tell them who won right away. Let them cheer all night and we can tell them in the morning." Nico suggested, looking down at her device again.
"Uncle Lu is outside the building when we're done with the interviews. He has a place arranged for us until the vacation starts if you don't want to stay in the arena hotel."
"Thank the Emperor for him. I was not looking forward to going back to that room for longer than it takes to gather my clothes." Max sighed, then turned to the staff member who was ready to bring them to their post-event interviews.
"We don't need anything too personal. Just a little about your experience with the game, a quick promo spot for the company, and that should be it." The employee informed them, leading them to separate rooms where there were different interviewers ready, and a holographic background of the game set to base the interview on, without having to edit the background later.
They weren't joking, the whole process was completed in fifteen minutes, even with the retakes that Nico needed after they realized her face couldn't properly do emotional expressions. They had been hoping for her to play the cute loli character and give a cutesy interview, but Nico proved entirely incapable of it, so they ended up going with the scary and emotionless Vampire that she was cosplaying.
On Max's side, they had spent more time getting him to pose than speak. "Appealing to the segment of the audience that is drawn in by handsome characters," they said.
"If you have a ride waiting, we won't hold you any longer. But we would like to verify that your transport is secure, you know how obsessive fans can get about famous figures." The security officer that led them to the hotel to grab their clothes informed them.
"I don't think that will be an issue. Lu Chen, of the Chen family, is waiting outside for us." Max informed him.
"The great scientist of the Chen family? How did you manage to befriend such a reclusive celebrity?" The guard asked, startled.
"We ran into him at the engagement announcement between the Chen family and the Cygnus Royal family." Max shrugged and the big man just shook his head.
"Famous people really do live in a different world." He muttered, making Nico laugh.
"I suppose that phrase is a bit too true, isn't it? Since you're actually from other worlds." The guard said, realizing the double meaning behind his phrasing.
"Comor still has its own celebrities though. Two of the top ten are local streamers, so the Comor celebrity contingent wasn't locked out of the podium." Nico pointed out.
They quickly gathered their things and changed into casual wear, then waved goodbye to the few people they recognized here, and headed for the street, accompanied by the event security. Even while changed back into casual clothes they were still pretty recognizable though, and a lot of spectators were waiting outside to greet them.
"Sign some autographs and shake some hands, pet some puppies, kiss some babies, you know the routine," Max whispered to Nico, greeting the crowd and moving forward to sign a bunch of event memorabilia with a silver paint pen provided by the nearby event staff.
It was only thirty meters to the street where the car was waiting, but it took them almost an hour to deal with the closest portion of the spectators and finish enough autographs that they could leave without upsetting too many people.
"Thank you all for coming. We have signed posters from the winners for everyone who wants one. Only 5 credits with proof of event entry." The staffers called out, bringing out tables full of posters hastily printed with the winners' images and the game's official logo on them.
That was enough to let Max and Nico escape into the Limo, where Uncle Lu was smirking at all the attention they were getting.
"You're just getting more and more famous. It's like you're destined to end up in the spotlight no matter where you go." The old scientist laughed, then motioned for his driver to leave, headed for his own villa in the city.
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Precisely what he meant by them becoming famous became apparent the moment that they made it to Uncle Lu's condo and were greeted by his housekeepers, who both stared at Max and Nico in awe.
"Welcome Majors, would you like your luggage brought to your rooms?" The closest housekeeper asked, bowing deeply.
That seemed a little overboard for a couple of visiting soldiers. They hadn't gotten that response anywhere else on the planet. They had met plenty of domestic staff at hotels as well as customer service representatives at various public facilities and hadn't seen anything like this reception.
"It's easier if we show you instead of telling you." Uncle Lu explained, leading them into the living room to sit down and watch the news channel that was incessantly scrolling through random local stories.
Only a few minutes later, it came back to the story of the day.
[Breaking News, Planet Sigmund was heroically rescued from an attack by the brutal alien species known as the Narsians. The heroes of the Noctem Mechanized Regiment, spearheaded by the Phalanx Class Mecha, Carpe Noctem, and the Stalwart Special Tactics Force managed to overwhelm and isolate the invading aliens in time for reinforcements from across the Empire to rally and sweep the surviving aliens from the surface of the agricultural planet.]
It was accompanied by a series of short videos of the Special Tactics force in battle, focusing on a drone-filmed scene of Tarith's Rage while the artillery from Carpe Noctem rained down around it and the Narsians charged Nico in the clearing of the final city battle, then it cut to scenes of Max leading troops from the local academy, making Stalwart look extra majestic next to their partially trained abilities and a final full force barrage from Stalwart as the infantry from the Special Tactics force raced past him and Max eliminated the Narsians that were chasing them.
He had to admit, that it was masterfully edited to make them look heroic and minimize the focus on the rest of the unit. But that didn't explain the fuss from the staff here. Video feeds of Pilots in action were a weekly thing in the Kepler Empire, and the system made more than a few of them handsome young adults. On a normal day, they would only rate a bit of idolization from Mecha fans and a heavy dose of respect from the rest of the citizenry.
[Comor Gazette special investigators have identified the Heroes from the rescue of planet Sigmund as the champions of the local Predatory Instinct pre-release Gaming Tournament. That's right, these mighty heroes of the Empire are currently on leave right here on beautiful Comor.]
That was followed by a short scene of the two of them waving to fans and signing autographs in their casual wear as they left the tournament venue. Then it cut to the scenes from the grand entry of the players, where they were in cosplay, and showing off for the crowd, posing and trying to look good for the photos.
Both characters that they played were sex symbols and suggestively dressed, playing up the appeal, and the media was eating it up. Max could only imagine what the comments sections of the social media feeds would look like by now if this was being leaked all over the Empire by the propaganda department.
"So dreamy." The younger one of the ladies sighed, watching the news, causing the other to clear her throat.
"He's standing right behind you." The other one whispered, not quite low enough that Max couldn't hear her, making the housekeeper blush.
"I'm sorry sir. I didn't mean it like that, I mean, the character, yes, the character you were playing is dreamy." She stumbled over her words and Max couldn't resist the smirk, that spread over his face as hers turned redder and redder.
"I do hope I'm not a disappointment in the flesh," Max told her, copying the character's husky voice.
"Oh my." She stammered and then ran out of the room while the rest of the occupants laughed at how easily flustered she was.
"I see what you meant. With that playing on repeat, everyone on the planet is about to recognize our faces. But if they're starting the heroic propaganda this early into our vacation, either we are going to get called back early, or they have something much bigger planned for the future." Nico pointed out.
"I took the liberty to check the status of Abraham Kepler today. It has been moved to the far end of the pier for maintenance and refit with a minimum departure time listed as two months from arrival. Unless they're moving you to another ship, you should have time.
I likely shouldn't tell you this, but the Comor Mecha Development department, my department, has also requested your continued presence for advanced testing, thanks to the piloting skills data files that were recovered after the battles on Sigmund. If they approve it you could be here for a while." Uncle Lu whispered so that the staff didn't hear him giving out confidential information and speculation on military assets.
"Well, that could change everything. Hopefully, this is just a single shot of propaganda and it will blow over in a few days before we are headed to the resort. I hope you don't mind if we hang out with you for a while. The plans of visiting the floating city seem like they might be a poor idea for the next few days." Max told Uncle Lu with a wry smile on his face.
All his childhood, he had looked up to famous Pilots as heroes, but it wasn't until exactly this moment that he realized just how much annoyance fame could cause.
"It would be a pleasure to have you stay a few days. The game committee will be by tomorrow as well, since the news broke about you they want an extra interview and I've got a generic themed video set in the house designed to look like a hotel conference room. I hold home interviews in there so that my location can't be identified." Uncle Lu agreed easily.
Two guests were no problem for him, and these two were entertaining even without being more famous than he was. It was an interesting experience for him as well, to not be the target of paparazzi while in a group, and he intended to enjoy it as long as he could.
"Sir and Madam, your personal belongings, as well as your hoverboards, are now in your rooms. If you require assistance, please just ask any staff member and we will be happy to assist you with anything you need." The older lady in the silver uniform blouse and black skirt reported with a deep bow.
"Are there more staff here, or just the two of you?" Max asked, wondering if the other one was over her embarrassment yet.
"Yes sir, the cook, as well as the groundskeeper, are currently on the premises, though the groundskeeper is off duty in two hours and will be headed home.
"What can I say, I don't like doing stuff, and I'm almost always at the lab." Uncle Lu shrugged at the look Max spared him over the excessive number of staff for a house with only one person actually living in it.