"I suppose introductions are in order." Korbin said, cutting through the awkward silence suspended in the air. The lady with a glowing hand stepped forward, her hand half raised above her ducked head.
"I'm Elarra, it's nice to meet you. Are you Tom?" She asked in response. I raised my blade high in the air.
"Nope, that'll be me, E." I said, smirking at my temporary teammates.
"Ugh, I can't already tell your attitude's going to make this loss that much more painful." The Second Lady said, lifting her curved blade and pointing it at me.
"…was that supposed to be an insult uh…Vexa?" I replied, pulling up the notification update of our teams.
"It's an observation, you may interpret that as you wish." Vexa shot back, in the most passive aggressive confirmation I'd heard in quite a while.
"This is no time for bickering, especially given the circumstances." The thick coated beast of a man interjected, effortlessly lifting his massive maw and resting the head against Vexa's chest. She scoffed before quickly pushing it off her.
"You must be Roen, then. I'm Korbin, it's nice to meet you." Korbin said, being the first to step onto the other squads platform with his hand extended for a formal greeting. Roen glared at the gesture untrustingly, tightening his grip on his maw.
"Congratulations, your faction members have shuffled successfully. You will remain with your current team composition until defeat, to which all defeated Attackers and Defenders will be randomly reshuffled until no contestants remain. 30 seconds until your first battle commences." The system's soothing, effeminate voice echoed over the infinite sky our platforms hovered within.
"Like it or not, I'm not keen on losing, and neither is my fidgety friend here. You're stuck with us." Korbin said, pushing his hand closer to Roen. He shook his head, returning Korbin's aggressive eye contact.
"You obviously don't know who else is taking part in this objective, but I admire your self assurance, truly." Elarra interjected solemnly through a raised brow. I walked beside Korbin, both backing him up and frankly, because I don't care who's here.
"Neither do you. No offense to you three, but we've already seen the best this place had to offer in our first Quarterly objective." I said, recalling the battle between the Tournament Finalist factions. The one I, and Elysium walked away victorious from.
"I assure you, you haven't." Roen replied in a deadpan. His eyes fell to the ground before I could get a read on whether he wanted to fight over that or not, as if ashamed in his certainty.
"Times too short for a pissing contest, Tom." Korbin said sternly but quietly. I took a step back, allowing him to take over the socializing from here.
"We've got like 10 seconds before we're forced to work together or die. I need to know if you three will be reliable, even remotely useful, or grovel without your precious Queen present. Decide now, so I know where we stand." Korbin said. Elarra sighed before speaking up.
"We'll fight to our last breath as we've been instructed. But, if we run into our Queen, we're all doo-" her words were cut off by the familiar deconstruction of my entire body signaling I was being teleported. In an instant, I found myself surrounded by massive empty colosseum ruins in the distance, stretching seemingly endlessly around the land. The ground floor, however, was covered in tall grass and grazing beasts and insects all living in harmony.
Dozens of lakes surrounded Korbin and I, creating an isthmus leading to a rainforest roughly 100 yards out. A storm ravaged the forest, lightning crackling as thunder echoed across the sky. Yet, the storm never breached the border between the two biomes. The darkness that hovered over the towering trees reminded me faintly of the forest, and I began wondering if my red door would beckon me here as well.
"Welp, guess we'll have to assume they'll lose pretty fast. Let's get a feel for what exactly we're defending here." Korbin urgently exclaimed, his boots scraping across the grass bringing me back to the task at hand.
"Right, what's the plan?" I asked him over my shoulder.
*ding*
Planet: Colosseum T-4023
Era: N/A
God: N/A
Lives: 1
Objective: Defend the pylon with your life.
I closed the invasive notification immediately upon reading the objective, spinning around to find Korbin with his hand already resting on the jagged white crystal that sat snug between the metallic clamps of a fancy spiraling stand. His eyes closed, as orange mana channeled along his arm and into the pylon crystal. Within minutes, four 10 foot walls covered in cannons and flamethrowers erected all around us, aggressively building over and covering half of each surrounding lake in the process.
Suddenly, a thick black smoke covered the inside of our pop-up settlement, with several orange flashes popping like fireworks within. The smoke cleared, revealing dozens of hooded figures wearing cracked porcelain masks contorted in differing emotions shuffling toward Korbin.
"Woah, did you just fucking buy reinforcements?" I asked, pushing between the long coated weirdos all frantically begging for Korbin's 'expert opinion'.
"Yup, give me a sec." He said, raising his index finger up to me and turning toward the crowd.
"Each of your talents shall receive the fullest of my attention in due time! Save your voices for those who dare challenge your rhythm, for I merely seek to indulge in your fiery ambition. Will you share your sonnets of destruction with those who seek to drown your song in discordant defeat?" Korbin asked, his enthusiasm matching that of a team captain before a big game. The cloaked weirdos, however, merely bowed their heads in unison, their hands hidden under their baggy cloaks sleeves. Then, they began humming a low, throaty, uncanny harmony before shuffling out of our pop-up settlement. A subtle orange hue glowed off of the crowd of strangers, only growing brighter as they scattered across our beautiful biome.
"Tom, we need to talk." Korbin said, apparently having made his way over as I watched the group of assumed cultists shuffle out of our settlement. He wore an oddly solemn glare, like he was looking at a sick animal or something.
"You're damn right, did you just buy a cult for our defense?!" I asked, confused at the use of resources. Korbin grinned, as my asking was some devious plan coming to fruition in real time.
"No, I bought a choir."
"…why?" I asked, after trying to give the idea a chance.
"Don't worry about it. They'll handle themselves just fine." He quickly dismissed, physically waving the idea off.
"Okay, whatever you say. So what did you want to talk about?" I said, scratching my lower back with my blade.
"I think it's pretty obvious, you're actively scratching the topic." Korbin replied, his eyelids dropping with his tone.
"Ah…yeah, I can see why. If you're worried, just know I lear-"
"You survived. That's it. Whatever you think you took away from the hell you endured, don't harp on it too hard. Not here, not while we're fighting for the future of our people, Tom." He interrupted, sounding almost upset at the mention of the lessons the colony provided.
"How can I not? You have no idea what I learned, what I sacrificed for that knowledge." I shot back angrily.
"You sound like another idiot I know, he's also responsible for more suffering than good because of it." Korbin replied through narrowed eyes.
"The colony taught me exactly why we're here. For our colony, our people's pursuit of warmth hinges on us. Why discourage it?" I asked, feeling the full offense on behalf of every rat that threw itself upon a bed of flames for me.
"Because you tried to fucking KILL LONNI?!" Korbin yelled back, pointing in my face with fire in his eyes. A look I'd seen countless times by now, but never pointed at me. I froze, feeling an icy cold tickling up my spine.
"I…you're right I…I failed the colony. I jeopardized his warmth, and didn't even know it. How, how could I forget?" I asked, looking down at my hands. Flashes of sharp claws, blood, and flames filled my vision, as I felt myself fading from consciousness.
Cold…I'm so c-
*SMACK*
"Fucking. OW?!" I said, rubbing my cheek I could already feel swelling.
"You're welcome. It's obvious you're not fully back from that 'place' yet and…I get it, truly. And I don't blame you." Korbin said in an unsettlingly reassuring tone. I grimaced, making sure to physically display my disapproval.
"But, that also means we're moving together until you can prove yourself stable." He continued, his tone shifting far more serious, a borderline sharp tone I'm more used to.
"…alright. I guess that's fair." I relented after giving it some thought. I mean…I think I almost just passed out so, maybe he's got a point about me not being 'back' all the way yet. Korbin sighed, strolling toward our pylon crystal.
"Now, I've got a lot of prep to do, in case those three dorks are as fucked out there as they say they are. While I do…tell me about it. Anything you want to share, I mean." Korbin said, placing his hand on the crystal yet somehow maintaining eye contact. I sighed, realizing I'm probably going to be psychoanalyzed until the other team's attackers show up.
"Alright, if you're going to understand the value of true warmth in the slightest, I guess we'll have to start at the beginning…"
——————————————————————
"So, are we going to talk about how insanely calculating that woman was?" Lonni asked, as I scrolled through the options of troops we'd be allowed during our attack.
"Her lieutenant referred to her as a Queen, and he was definitely no slouch himself based on levels alone. Considering her armor had sleet shimmering off of it, I think it's safe to assume 'cold' is her thing." I replied, debating whether we'd prefer more cavalry troops over archers. Each unit had different costs, with a maximum of 10,000 quarterly points allowed to be spent. There's no way in hell I'm spending that much on a single round, but these troops were relatively cheap, going for 300 per dozen.
"Still, it was like she was reading us the entire time." Lonni continued, scanning the desert sands we found ourselves in. At our backs, a molten wasteland biome transitioned across a physical border of mana that drained my health pool incredibly fast on contact.
"You hangout with Korbin every day, I thought you'd be used to that by now?" I replied, deciding a heavy cavalry unit distribution would ensure a quicker approach to whatever squad we had ahead of us.
"Korbin's always poking and prodding for information, and more often than not he'll find it. But her? It felt like she was certain of every observation, without even having to make me angry first." Lonni replied, rubbing the top of his head. I sighed, confirming my purchase. A thick grey fog rolled over the area, blips of blue energy popping in the fog.
"Oh shit, we're being attacked!" Lonni yelled, gripping his shield and stepping in front of me. I chuckled, pushing down his shield.
"No Lonni, that was me. It's okay." I said through a laugh. Lonni smiled in return after a beat.
"Oh, haha. Okay, cool. B-no, I don't want to skim past that Queen lady." Lonni replied affirmatively. Blue flashes filled the fog around us as I considered the admittedly intimidating woman.
"Yeah, I know what you mean. I'm surprised we haven't run into her before, she was the same level as Tom." I replied, recalling my initial Identify upon spotting her and her grizzled, grey bearded, wiry eyed lieutenant. The man looked at us like we'd just burned his settlement down and came back to discuss it at all times, even when his Queen revered our words. What bugged me the most wasn't her power level or her clearly unhinged body guard, though. It's how nothing appeared to affect her, whether she sounded amused or disdained.
"So, you are the faction standing between my own and first place in the Quarterlies. I suppose our forced allegiance is the system's way of preserving its favored factions. How strange." The queen replied, after Lonni hastily revealed we were ranked first so far. Though, we landed second in Escaping Fate, meaning our top spot was probably by mere margins now. Her words and levels however, implied both she was the faction on our tail, and actively pursuing our spot.
"That's the thing! How haven't we run into her before, if the first objective was supposed to be every finalist from that Qualifying Tournament's factions if they were the best of us?" Lonni asked. I considered it a moment while the fog faded, leaving behind dozens of troops surrounding us.
"Oh damn, didn't realize you were getting us some friends." Lonni said, stumbling back in shock.
"Can't exactly rely on that straggler the system dropped on us to fill in for Derrick." I replied, chuckling recalling his comically prideful nature.
"Don't be rude, Cass. I kind of like the guy, he's got heart." Lonni replied, pleadingly. I smiled at the beautiful irony in that statement.
"I know, I'm not saying he's a bad guy. I just don't trust him to carry the role Derrick would've, that's all." I reassured, placing a hand on his massive shoulder.
"I can't imagine asking anyone without any teammates left to do that, Cass." Lonni replied.
"We kind of have to, if we have any hope of winning. Otherwise me and you have a lot of slack to pick up." I reluctantly corrected, knowing how cruel that may sound. But it's true, especially since, in theory, we might have to face off against Korbin and Tom now.
"Just give him a chance, that's all I ask." Lonni asked, his sad eyes jabbing at my better judgement. Sand kicked down from the dune we rested at, both Lonni and I grasping our weapons in search of the culprit. Atop the short sand dune proudly stood our stand-in for Derrick, his shiny silver armor beaming the hot sun rays directly into my eye.
"Our opponents dug in a couple miles from here, it looks like their pylon tunnels underground. They look formidable, but our victory is inevitable so long as we will it to be." He proclaimed, his sword slung over his shoulder.
"You found them? You never said you were scouting, were you spotted?!" I asked, wondering if he just led our opponents to us before I could even make a plan.
"No…well yes. But I escaped their eyeline before circling back here ,do not worry my friend." He replied, not an ounce of doubt in his voice. I sighed, annoyed at his assurance.
"Right, of course you did." I said, turning to instruct our band of archers, giant foot soldiers, and Manticore cavalrymen who were half man half Tiger. They were the cheapest, and yielded 0 affinity buffs across the board, something I figured we wouldn't need given enough prep time. A luxury we may be afforded anymore.
"That's great news, means we won't have to travel far for our attack. Excellent work, uh…I'm so sorry, it's been a long day. What did you say your name was again?" Lonni asked our willful idiot, who slipped back onto his ass sliding down the sand, nearly crashing into our small pylon stand. The crystal looked incredibly brittle, and felt like it was crumbling in my palms upon purchasing our troops.
"No need to apologize, these Quarterlies have not been kind to any of us, my friend-" he said, scuttling to his feet and shaking the sand from his loud, clunky armor.
-"My name is Kota, a Warrior of Will. And it is an honor to fight alongside honorable soldiers of the famous Elysium."