The Manticore Ascension: A Short Story in the Arena Mode Universe (3 page)

“You dare to lecture me on the way thing are and are not done in Iceland in 2072? This is the year of – ”

“What year did you just say it was?” I interrupted.

“Pardon me?” King Lehmann asked, although it wasn’t with any inflection that would lend itself to politeness.

“You just said it was the year 2072. When I fought in Arena Mode it was 20
41
. That was thirty years ago.”

My words silenced the room. I waited for what felt like a lifetime while the King glared at me, but not with a sense of anger for my outburst – it was as if he was searching for a memory. And then suddenly a realization sparked in his eyes.

“You!” The King shouted, leaping back to his feet. The cards fell from his fingers, fluttering to the floor. “Arena Mode, 2041. You’re Brynja, the girl who died in the first ten minutes. But somehow you’re here ...” He brought his hand to his chin, once again scratching at the place where a beard would have been located. “But this is vexing. How can you be here if you’re dead?”

It was a question I was asking myself as I replayed the events of the day in my head: being electrocuted by Winston Ramsley, the British swordfighting champion, fading away while Mox cradled me in his arms, and everything else that came before. But that all happened towards the
end
of Arena Mode, not the beginning. We’d battled our way through countless obstacles and had kicked a significant amount of ass before I’d been eliminated. “I think
you’re
remembering this wrong, buttercup. Who do you think killed Sergei Taktarov?” I lifted my handcuffs and pointed to myself with both thumbs, raising my eyebrows.

“Killed him?” Drake sneered, shaking his head. “Wench, I don’t know where you came from or what game you’re playing, but it’s becoming clear that you’re suffering from amnesia...that, or you’re clinically insane.”

“Brynja,” Dawson said, not much louder than a whisper, “Taktarov
won
the first ever Arena Mode. And he’s still alive.”

The footage they projected into the air wasn’t a forgery or a clever fabrication. And if it was, it was the best I’d ever seen. It was a video of me, at Arena Mode, time stamped 2041. But somehow it wasn’t me, because what they were showing never actually happened.

It was the morning of the competition: twelve superhumans and one powerless-but-brilliant comic book fanatic with a tumor eating away at his brain – all competing for a ten billion dollar prize. Like every other competitor I leapt from an aircraft, skydiving into the dense Manhattan core, managing to avoid becoming penthouse pizza on the way down. I landed safely in an alley, not yet fully corporeal. That was the easy part.

Part of my power (or curse, as I usually thought of it) leaves me at the mercy of whoever is observing me. I’m a perception: not really birthed into existence until someone observes me. Until then I’m a cluster of atoms, somehow maintaining my thoughts and memories, but not able to manifest a human form. It’s a complete pain in the ass, to say the least. My height, hair color, and even my wardrobe are at the whim of whoever happens to see me first, so the first time I look in the mirror after I take shape can be quite a surprise.

All of that stuff – the skydiving, the alley, the cheerful sunny morning –
actually
happened. I can remember it like a crystal–clear digital playback running through my head. It was, in a sense, just a few hours ago. The next part is where things get a little screwy.

When I landed, the video version of me was immediately confronted by Fudō Myōō: a competitor concealed beneath a hulking, nine–foot robotic suit. The towering silver behemoth dwarfed me, but I stood my ground. Hard to be intimidated when you can pass through solid objects. What was it going to do to me? So imagine my surprise when I saw it lunge towards ‘me’, faster than I thought a machine the size of an SUV could possibly move...and we
collided?
The video showed the other me careen into the alley’s wall hard enough crack the brick where my skull made impact. I crumpled to the pavement in a twisted heap before fading away, leaving no trace behind that I’d ever existed. I had just witnessed my own death.

But it
wasn’t
me. That was a different me in a different time and place – and now I, the
real
me, was here in a future that didn’t make sense, imprisoned by a kingdom that had no right to exist. And somehow Sergei Taktarov, the most dangerous superhuman on the planet, was alive and well.

My head began to spin. “Being electrocuted...it sent me through time? No...it’s not just that. I didn’t die...why am I dead in your version? Why is that Russian lunatic still alive? We killed him. Mox and I. But I’m dead and he’s not and everything is fudged to hell and back...” I grunted, trying to pry my wrists free of the glowing cuffs, stomping my feet when my stupid attempt failed. “And will someone
please
just turn off the fudging machine that stops me from swearing!”

“I will do no such thing,” King Lehmann stated. “But this
is
vexing...you were there, thirty years ago in New York. And now you’re here...and haven’t aged a day.”

“And she looks pretty spry for a corpse,” Dawson added with a tiny grin, drawing an icy glare from his older brother.

“This is a trick,” Drake shouted accusingly. “Don’t believe a word this wench says, father. She rendered our kingdom defenceless and now she’s trying to talk her way out of being executed. Finish her before she causes any more damage.”

“We don’t even know where she came from or what her intentions are,” Dawson said. “Heck, we don’t even know what’s going on outside of Iceland – no one is allowed to enter, and no one ever leaves!”

“And
that’s
what keeps us safe,” the King reminded him with a gentle wag of his finger. It was as if he was addressing a young child, not a teenage boy. “Our isolation has kept us alive; a million people, thriving for more than a generation.”

“Maybe she has information,” the young knight pleaded, ascending the stairs towards his father. “Let’s see what we can learn from her before we do something we can’t take back.”

“My young boy,” the King said absently, patting his son on the back. “I know all I need to know. Whether she traveled through time or not, she remains a superhuman – plain and simple. What else is there to discuss?”

“We’re wasting time,” Drake interrupted.

“Shields or not,” the King declared, “...our kingdom endures. There is no force so powerful that we can’t fight it off.” And as he continued to expound the virtues of House Lehmann and the strength of its impregnable defences, a flash of light filled the throne room. It was blinding; a blast of pure sunshine that heated our skin, and with it came a woman wrapped in fire.

“They’re here,” Drake cried. He ripped the sword from his hip and charged, but was a second too late.

The tidal wave of flame had already engulfed him.

When the flaming woman appeared and unleashed her fiery blast, time seemed to slow.

It might have been an adrenaline dump from the panic setting in, or the fact that I’d just seen someone teleport for the first time, but suddenly I was hyper–aware of my surroundings: Dawson froze at my side, eyes shrink–wrapped in terror; King Lehmann lunged to protect his youngest son, shielding him from the blast as they crashed to the floor; the two black knights sprinted towards the exit, screaming as they retreated; and Drake bravely raced towards the intruder, but was overtaken by the swirling vortex of fire.

And then time seemed to catch up with me as I regained my bearings. The flames subsided, leaving behind a dense grey fog that hung in the air. As it dissipated I held my breath, preparing for the worst. I was certain that the charred remains of the young knight would be piled on the floor; nothing more than a blackened suit of armor filled with an unrecognizable husk.

I was wrong.

Drake stood his ground, sword extended, with a helmet fastened securely in place. A transparent dome encircled his face, seemingly unaffected by the blistering heat. I assumed it had materialized with a voice command, much as the blade of his sword had before I was taken into custody.

The flaming woman clapped her hands and pulled them apart, producing a four–foot sword of her own; orange and glowing, sputtering a flurry of crackling embers. Drops of liquid fell from the blade’s tip, sizzling as they splashed onto the floor.

Drake’s upper lip remained stiff, but his eyes widened at the sight. The armor suit was able to withstand her initial heat wave, that much had been established. but something told me that he’d be flambéd with just a single stroke of this menacing new weapon.

The woman rushed forward with a two-handed grip, chopping downward. Drake side–stepped the attack and the blade embedded in the floor, melting the tile into a puddle of lava. She lunged and swung again, forcing Drake to parry. His metallic sword met hers with a clank, denting its blade.

Their swords clashed again and Drake was left holding his hilt; the stump where his blade used to be hissed and oozed, melting onto his gauntlet.

I crawled to the King, where he was still shielding Dawson from the initial heat wave. I shook my bright yellow handcuffs in his face. “Take these off,” I begged. “I can help.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” he scoffed. “My son is the most valiant knight in the realm.”

“He’s going to be the most barbecued
corpse
in the fudging realm if you don’t let me out of these things,” I shouted.

King Lehmann grabbed a fistful of my shirt, pulling me until the tips of our noses smooshed together. “Listen here, wench – ”

And that’s when Dawson reached out and pressed his thumb into the cuffs, silently popping them off my wrists.

The king glared at his son, face reddening. “Dawson? How
dare
you defy me!”

“You can punish me if we get out of this alive,” the kid replied breathlessly.

I leaped to my feet, massaging my wrists. Dawson stood and snatched the hilt from his belt, pressing it into my palm. I tightened my grip and held it up, not sure what to do with the handle of a sword that didn’t have a blade. “Hey Sir Gallahad, can you make this an actual weapon?”

“Death Dealer,” he shouted, causing the handle to vibrate. I clutched it with both hands and a shimmering ebony blade appeared from nowhere, sheathed in tines of blue energy.

I turned and sprinted towards the battle. Drake had been slashed several times; his armor’s pristine silver hue was now blackened and scarred, exposing the burnt flesh on his shoulder and ribcage. He continued to backpedal as he evaded attacks, but the flaming woman was relentless.

She saw me approach and pivoted, circling her blade towards me. She slashed and hacked, and with each attempt her flaming sword passed through me as if I were a ghost.

“Traitor,” she hissed. “You’re one  of
us
...and you bend the knee to these Neanderthals?”

“Lady, I don’t bend the knee to
any
guy unless he takes me out to dinner first.”

She swung her sword again and again, teeth grinding, possibly waiting for my ability to falter. It was useless. She was only exhausting herself, hacking blindly at an apparition. When she finally slowed her attack, just for a heartbeat, I became corporeal once again and thrust forward with my dark blade. It impaled her.

She reached down and touched the sword as she teetered, swaying as her flames extinguished. Her eyes rolled to whites and she collapsed.

“Medics,” the King shouted, into the back of his hand, though I didn’t see any type of com. Whatever he spoke into, it triggered the chamber’s far doors to slide open, and a pair of women burst into the throne room with a hovering metal gurney. They tended to the fallen superhuman, extracting Dawson’s black sword from her abdomen.

“What was
that?”
Dawson asked.

The King shook his head in disgust, walking down the stairs towards the fallen assailant. “I don’t know, but whatever she is, make sure she recovers. I want her interrogation to begin as soon as possible.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” the medics replied as they rushed the woman out of the room.

I had a hard time believing that someone could survive a blade piercing their stomach and have it burst from their spine. “I just gutted her. Unless you have a Ouija board I don’t think you’ll be asking her too many questions.”

“Our medical practitioners are exceptional,” The King assured me. “And our interrogation team? Doubly so. She’ll be talking by nightfall – I guarantee it.”

“That was amazing!” Dawson shouted, rushing to my side. “You were kicking apples out there!”

“Dawson,” the King reprimanded. “Watch your language. And if you think un–cuffing my prisoner will go unpunished just because she saved us, you are sadly mistaken, young man.”

Drake peeled off the remains of his sizzling armor, letting his damaged breastplate and gauntlets clang to the floor. “Thank you,” he muttered, offering me a small nod. “For a wench with strange hair and offensive clothing, you are not as awful a person as I initially thought you were.”

“You could’ve stopped at ‘thank you’,” I replied. “But I’ll take it.”

The King turned towards me and grinned; a bright, genuine smile that creased his eyes. “Young lady, I owe you a debt of gratitude. You saved my son and protected House Lehmann from this foreign invader.” He extended a hand, and I shook it firmly.

“But,” he added, tightening his powerful grip around my palm, “it doesn’t mean that I trust you.” He reached into his pocket with his other hand and produced a small iron ring, jamming it down over my thumb.

“What the – ” were the only words I had time to produce.

Tiny barbs from the inside of the ring pierced my thumb, and my nerve endings caught fire beneath my skin. The sensation spread through my body like I’d downed a pint of acid, searing my digit from the inside out.

I collapsed, unable to control my screaming.