Chapter 44
“Hello Eris! Sorry for the interruption to your regularly scheduled programming, but we are hijacking the fabtastical airwaves to allow you all the the privilege to listen in on the tournament, brought to you by the amazing Galben!” The little radio above the sleep trio blared, waking them up.
“What the fuck is this crap?” Scamp grumbled, pulling a pillow over her head as she pushed herself into Mallogory’s side.
“Just some whimsical bullshit, ignore it,” Mallogory replied as she rolled over and pulled her wife fully into herself.
“Round one will begin here shortly! And it will be covered by yours truly, Flavio! The grooviest and smoothest guy on the airwaves!”
“Turn it off,” Scamp groaned in annoyance.
“We can’t, I tried when it was playing that stupid talk show yesterday,” Spark said from his bed.
“Great, guess we’re listening to some stupid tournament,” Scamp muttered, adjusting herself so she could block out as much of the radio as possible.
ooo000<^>000ooo
“My expectations were low and I’m still completely devastated by this,” I said as I stood before the buffet table, shoulders deflated.
“My, I expected a feast provided by the great Galben to be a bit more… more?” Vanilla commented as she stood by my side, one eyebrow raised.
“This shit not poppin at all,” Floria grumbled in disappointment.
Domitor just stared at the buffet, looking indifferent, “this still beats what my father would provide to me.”
What lay before us, on a massive and long buffet table, was a single bowl of cereal. As in just one normal sized bowl, for all sixty four contestants and the spectators.
“This Galben is an asshole bitch,” I hissed as I stared at the cereal, which appeared to be a bit soggy as well.
My stomach growled loudly. Followed by Domitor’s and Floria’s stomachs.
“When was the last time you three ate?” Vanilla asked with a frown.
“What, this morning?” I asked, looking at my two companions.
“Yeah, but that was hours ago. We’ve been in like, two fights since then,” Floria said as she reached over and tipped the bowl over.
“Plus we had to fly up here,” Domitor added, glaring at Floria. “Well two of us did at least.”
She gave him an innocent look as she put her hands in her pockets.
Vanilla just chuckled a bit as she walked over to a lone table, pulling out random ingredients from her Vacuole and placing them on the table.
“What are you doing?” I asked curiously as I stepped over to her, watching her carefully arrange the items before herself.
“Stand back and I shall show you,” she said with a stern look on her face.
I narrowed my eyes at her but listened as I took a few steps back, crossing my arms.
We all watched as she rubbed her hands together, seeming to be concentrating as she stared down at the assortment of ingredients. Then with a clap of her hands she slapped them down on the table, causing all of the ingredients to be sucked into each other. They morphed around in front of her as they slowly formed into different kinds of baked goods.
“What the fuck did I just witness?” I asked aloud as I stared wide eyed at the food that the Halwen had just made, somehow.
“It’s the stupid Calehurst Thorn,” Floria answered as she frowned. “They all have the same Alchemy Thorn, and all are fucking bakers.”
“That’s actually really cool,” Domitor complimented as Vanilla turned around and waved a hand over the food.
“Feel free to help yourselves,” she said with a dull expression on her face.
Domitor and I started to walk forward, but Floria stopped us by grabbing our tails.
“What’s the catch, Cakehurst?” She asked coldly, glaring at the other woman as she stood there with her hands behind her back.
Vanilla’s mouth set in a hard line, “there is no catch, street rat. I’m attempting to be charitable.”
“Charitable?” She asked with a roll of her eyes. “Do we look like charity cases to you?”
I sniffed the air, the food seeming to beckon for me, “consider me a charity case, because that shit smells amazing!”
We broke away from Floria as we rushed over to the table, looking it all over.
“Cakehurst’s never do anything to just be nice, it’s not in their nature,” Floria growled as she walked up, keeping her eyes locked on Vanilla’s goggles.
The Halwen didn’t respond, just stared back with an expression that was hard to read.
“Thank you, Vanilla,” Domitor said as he gave her a genuine smile, “this was incredibly nice of you to do for us.”
This seemed to catch her off guard as she eyed him suspiciously.
“Yeah, guess you can’t be that bad,” I added as I piled a few food items in front of myself.
My own complement seemed to confuse her further as she stood there, hands still behind her back.
“Really? She provides you two with food and now you’re all over her?” Floria asked, clearly annoyed.
“What can I say?” I chuckled, finishing up my little food pile. “I’m a slut for good food.”
Domitor rolled his eyes at me, “that’s a bit crude.”
Flori sighed loudly as she stepped up and picked at the food, making her own little pile. “Lucky I’m hungry.”
Vanilla took her place at the table, taking only a few items for herself as she watched us.
Domitor was the first of us to try the food, taking a decent bite of a fancy sandwich. His eyes went wide as he sat there chewing.
“So?” I asked expectantly, wanting to see his reaction before I committed to eating any of the food.
Tears began to roll down his face as he took another bite, “this…” he finished the food in his mouth and just stared at the sandwich in his hooves. “This is the most amazing thing I’ve ever eaten…”
This caused Vanilla’s face to contort into a look of shocked surprise, “truly?”
“Truly, yeah,” he replied, taking another bite as he cried a bit.
“Pussy,” I muttered as I raised my mask and lifted up a little wrapped sandwich, “it can’t be that good.”
I took a bite. Then another. Then I just ate the entire thing in one bite.
“How did you do this?!” I asked, turning to face her. “This is the best thing that’s ever been in my mouth!”
She didn’t answer me as she stared at me dumbfounded.
“What?” I asked as I lifted another piece of food and began to eat it.
Floria had started eating hers as well, but she was doing her best to hide her reaction to it from the rest of us.
“You’re…” Vanilla began, lowering her goggles to reveal very confused pink eyes, “a woman?”
I blinked at her a few times, slowly realizing I’d raised my mask to reveal my face and had also lost the voice changing effect. “Eh, yeah.”
She stood there, looking way more shocked than I thought she would be. “That’s a… interesting revelation.”
“Don’t dwell on it,” I replied as I went back to eating, not wanting to answer any kind of questions regarding the subject.
“But why pretend to be a male?” She asked the obvious question.
“Trauma and shit, so drop it,” I grunted back, causing the other two to look awkward as they avoided looking at either of us.
My answer caused her to frown as she gave a nod, “very well then. Consider the topic dropped.”
I gave a grunt in response as I resumed eating my amazingly delicious food.
She picked at her own food as she ate, seeming to be conflicted.
Sighing loudly, I raise my hand and give her a thumbs up, “for real though, thanks for the food.”
A little smile tugged at the corner of her mouth as she looked at me, “you are very welcome, Shane.”
Giving a nod I started to eat again, but added after a moment. “My real name is Shayla by the way. Just don’t use it right now, ‘Kay?”
This brought a bright smile to her face as she stood back and gave me a bow, “it is a pleasure to know your real name, Mr. Beltosh.”
“Stop that!” I hissed at her as I looked around at the people milling about. “Don’t draw so much attention towards it!”
“I apologize for that,” she said with a beaming smile as she returned to her place at the table, going back to eating while staring at me.
“And don’t stare at me, it’s weird,” I said as I pulled my hood around a bit, blocking her out of my view.
I saw Domitor and Floria exchange a look, snickering to each other. “What the fuck you two giggling about over there?!”
“Nothing at all,” Domitor replied, still grinning.
“Yep, nothing at all,” Floria said, looking all innocent again.
I glared at them, but didn’t push it as I went back to eating.
As we were about to finish, I heard the sound of a loudspeaker blaring to life.
“Alrighty then! Are you all ready for round one?!” came the excited voice of Flavio, booming throughout the room we were in. “Excellsauce! I will announce the names of the two who will be fighting and all you have to do is enter into the arena!”
Quest accepted: ‘Rank S+: Win Tournament!’
“Looks like we’re finally starting,” I said as I put my mask back on.
“You got this,” Domitor said as he gave me a nod.
“Yeah I know I got this, you fucking retard,” I snapped back, causing him to roll his eyes.
“You are a very rude and brash individual, Shane,” Vanilla commented with a smile on her face.
“You got that right,” I laughed back, standing up and flexing my muscles. “You get to be that way when you’re top dog.”
“At least you know you’re a bitch,” Domitor muttered, causing my head to snap to him.
“You got something to say, sub boy?” I asked, putting my hands on the table and leaning over to him.
“I actually do,” he said as he stood up, squaring up with me.
“Shane Beltosh! You are the lucky numba one to start today's events! Come on out!” came the voice of Flavio.
“Oh you are one lucky fucking bitch, Domitor,” I growled as I shoved the table into him and spun around, walking for the doors that led to the arena.
As I walked towards the doors, Rosemary appeared next to me, smiling brightly.
‘What are you smiling about?’ I thought to her, raising an eyebrow.
“Wanna use this tournament as a way to get stronger?” she asked in an overly excited voice.
‘I guess?’
She jumped with joy at this, “Okay! I’m going to issue you some challenges based on who you’re fighting, and you have to stick to them! This is the way Loric got stronger in the beginning!”
‘Great, looking forward to it…’
ooo000<^>000ooo
“Here we go, folks! Round one of this great tournament is about to begin! We have our first two challengers! First up, the eptobicly amazing FazGo BelTow!” the radio basically screamed from above the three annoyed occupants of the train cabin.
“I’m about to just go walk around the train to get away from this guy's annoying voice,” Scamp said as she pushed herself up, rubbing her face.
“Oh, if you go to the food car, bring back something for me,” Mallogory exclaimed, bring her little gaming device up to her face as it blared to life.
“You got it, love,” Scamp chuckled as she jumped up and stretched her wings out.
“Oh and me too,” Spark asked, still wrapped up in his blankets.
“You have legs, Spark, come with me,” she replied with a smirk.
He frowned at her but sighed as he started to get up.
“And FazGo’s opponent is the man dressed in the most stylist armor I’ve seen today: Shane Beltosh!”
“Whoa wait, a Beltosh?” Scamp said as she came to a stop in the door, looking back at her wife. “You know them?”
“Nope, I do not know of a Shane Beltosh in the family,” she replied, seeming very interested in the radio now. “He must have been born after I left.”
“Oh cool, you two have a family member in this tournament,” Spark chuckled as he sat back down, wanting to listen to the radio as well.
“Now I’m down to listen to this crap,” Scamp said as she walked back into the room and sat down on the bed next to her wife.
“And we begin! The bell rings and the two are approaching each other!”
ooo000<^>000ooo
I stepped out into the arena, smirking as I saw my opponent walking to his position as well. Oh this will be super easy.
As I neared my starting position I saw that he was a simple Halwen male with basic clothing on and a large hammer held in his hands.
He didn’t come off as much of a threat. So this’ll be a cake walk.
“Okay, for this guy you can only use your Ego itself,” Rosemary said proudly. “Meaning, you’re going to have to create your first ability, right here right now.”
“What?!” I exclaimed out loud, eyes going wide.
“I suggest you finally spend all those skill points you’ve been hoarding,” she said as Flavio introduced the two of us above.
Grumbling, I opened my menu and rolled my eyes. I hate doing this. I had thirty seven points, so I can spread them out a bit for once.
Since I have to use my Ego to win this, I might as well focus on that a bit.
It didn’t take me long to spend my points, and once I was done, I hit done, smiling as I felt my body improve ever so slightly.
“Good,” Rosemary said as she looked them over with me. “Now, to create an ability, you’ll just have to have a basic idea of what you want to do, then use your Ego to create it. You don’t have any Excess Ego, so you can’t increase its power beyond how powerful your own Soul is.”
“My Soul is pretty fucking powerful,” I said smugly, stretching my arms a bit.
“Not really, but you still got this!” she laughed, fading away.
A bell rang out, signaling the start of the round.
“How are you doing, sir?” the Halwen named FazGo yelled out as he began to walk towards me.
“You know,” I yelled back as I strolled towards him, “ready to wipe the floor with you so I can get back to my friends.”
“So smack talking?” he chuckled as we neared each other. “Okay, I can do that too.”
He fizzled out of view, completely disappearing. This confused me as I stopped, looking around for him.
But suddenly I felt a massive pressure bearing down on me, causing me to jump back as the ground I’d just been standing on exploded as something slammed into it.
“Fuckers invisible or something,” I muttered out loud, realizing I could see his footsteps in the dirt as he rushed towards me. If I could use my fist or sword, this would be over already. A simple dash in and boom, match over.
Dodging a few more of his invisible attacks, I frowned, realizing I didn’t know the first place to start to create my own ability.
“What kind of attack would you like to do?” Rosemary asked as she strolled next to me as I dodged and weaved around FazGo’s invisible hammer, which I could just barely make out as it flew towards me.
Well there’s only one attack that comes to mind, one that makes me smirk.
“Come on, Rosemary, you gotta ask?” I said aloud, causing FazGo to stop attacking for a moment.
“What was that?” he asked as he became visible.
“Not talking to you, dumbass. Your name Rosemary?” I snapped back, causing him to look at me in absolute confusion.
“You want to do that?” she asked, laughing a bit as she looked away from me.
“Yes, now show me,” I replied as I stared at the confused man before me.
“Okay… I’m going to go back to attacking now…” he said as he shimmered away again, slowly resuming his attacks against me.
“Alright then, so this is simple,” Rosemary said as she followed after me as I went back to dodging. “Just focus your Soul into your hands.”
“How the fuck do I do that?!” I yelled, since that made zero sense to me.
“Okay, I’ll dumb it down,” she laughed, holding her hands out. “Just imagine your energy traveling from your heart to your hands. As in, really imagine it. In time you’ll be able to do this automatically.”
Flavio was narrating everything that was happening in a super fast voice as he seemed to be enjoying himself.
“Still doesn’t make sense!” I yelled, a hammer swing actually clipping a part of my armor.
“Just try it.”
I rolled my eyes and dropped to the ground, using my tail to reach out and grab FazGo’s leg, yanking it towards me. The man yelped as he fell to the ground, becoming visible.
Now that he wasn’t on my ass anymore I jumped back a few times and placed both of my hands together by my side as I leaned down. I tried to imagine my energy flowing through my body and into my hands. And honestly nothing was happening.
“You have to think of it coming from your heart and pumping through your arms. If it helps, think of it as heat moving through you,” Rosemary offered as she stood over FazGo as he slowly got up, seeming a bit dazed from hitting his head on the ground. I literally could beat this guy in one punch! This is so stupid!
Focus, Shayla.
I took a deep breath and began to think of a warm feeling passing from my heart and down both my arms, and slowly, I began to actually feel a bit of heat flowing from my chest and into my arms.
Shit, that’s kinda cool.
Keeping it up I began to feel a lot of heat around my palms as they stayed above each other. A small cyan light began to form as I kept pushing energy into my palms.
“Oh you gotta be fucking kidding me!” I exclaimed with a wide smile.
“Is this your Thorn?” FazGo asked as he began to run towards me, fading away as he neared me.
“Nope!” I laughed as the glow got brighter and brighter. I dashed back as he swung for me, keeping up the process of pushing energy through my body.
The heat between my hands got more and more intense as the flashing cyan light got brighter, seeming to crackle with power.
“Oh man, I don’t envy you at all!” I laughed as I jumped backwards again.
“All you’re doing is running and talking to yourself! Just throw an attack or something!” he yelled, seeming very annoyed with me.
“Sure can do, pal!” I exclaimed as I suddenly dashed forward, catching his invisible self off guard as I threw both hands forward, right into his chest. “Get lost fuckboy!”
He began to say something but a beam of cyan energy flew from my outstretched hands and completely engulfed his body. It wasn’t as powerful as I’d like, but by God it was fucking amazing!
I swear I heard him start to scream just to be cut off by the beam as it increased in power and width.
“By Galby’s massive hamtony! What is this attack?! Folks, I have no words to describe this! It is simply gaptastical! A blue, no cyan colored beam has engulfed the entirety of FazGo! He is GONE!”
Hearing Flavio losing his shit above me caused me to feel super proud of myself as I finally pulled my hands back, ending the attack.
“Good job, Shane!” Rosemary exclaimed proudly. “On your first attempt! Amazing!”
Looking around I found FazGo laying on the ground pretty far from me. I sprinted over, feeling a bit of dread that I may have gone too far. But to my great relief I found the poor idiot still alive and breathing, but definitely out of the fight as he was missing a lot of his body and limbs, his green blood all over himself.
“Ew, shit bro, I’m sorry,” I said with a grimace, feeling a bit sick at the sight of what I’d done to him.
“It’s all good,” he groaned out. “I’ll just… have to regenerate…”
“FazGo can no longer continue! Our first winner is Shane Beltosh!” Flavio roared above me as a fake and unseen crowd went wild with cheers.
I awkwardly waved to the few real people in the stands and began to walk for the exit back to the standby area. As I walked that way I saw the other three in the stands, looking a bit stunned.
This caused me to chuckle as I continued on my way, enjoying the cheers, even if they weren’t from real people.
ooo000<^>000ooo
“FazGo can no longer continue! Our first winner is Shane Beltosh!” the radio blared at an increased volume.
“Huh, this Shane guy is pretty impressive,” Scamp said as she laid half on the bed and half off, her head dangling upside down.
“Didn’t that sound like Ego though? With the cyan beam he described?” Spark asked, looking like he’d really been into the fight as he was standing up in his chair.
“It did,” Mallogory agreed. “If it was an Ego and not a Thorn, then this Shane Beltosh probably did what I did and left Eris, only to return for whatever reason.”
“Ego or Thorn, this guy is okay in my books,” Scamp chuckled, pulling herself up and jumping to the floor. “Now, let’s go get that food, Spark.”
“But what about the other matches?” he asked as the radio began to announce the next fight.
“Meh,” Scamp said as she shrugged her shoulders and walked for the door. “I’m only interested in the Shane fights, since he’s probably family.”
“Same here,” Mallogory said, alreadying back in her video game.
Spark frowned, but then shrugged, realizing he really didn’t care about the fight that was starting on the radio. He jumped down and followed after Scamp as they left the cabin and headed down the aisle of the train car.
ooo000<^>000ooo
“Shane, what was that?!” Floria asked as I entered the standby area where they were already waiting.
“My Ego, duh,” I replied, laughing loudly as they continued to stare at me dumbfounded.
“I thought your Ego was just a video game knock off that let you power up slowly?” Domitor asked, scratching his head in confusion.
“You would think that, wouldn’t you Domifuck, wouldn’t you,” I said with a smirk as I came to a stop before them.
“You mean, that was not in fact a Thorn ability?” Vanilla asked with a surprised look on her face.
“Nope, something completely different,” I chuckled, flexing a bit to show off.
She looked between me and Domitor, a conflicted look on her face. “I’m going to need a bit of an explanation, if you will.”
“Nah, too much for me to want to even try it,” I said, walking past them and heading for the table we had been at earlier. It was going to be a while before the next round, so I wanted to take a little cat nap.
“I’ll tell you,” Domitor said from behind me, being a goody two-shoes as usual. “It’s a bit complicated, but I’ll explain what an Ego is.”
“Thank you, Domitor, at least one of you are kind and understanding,” she said in a tone that pissed me and Floria off, as she let out a growl as she followed after me.
“I hate her,” she said as she walked past me and sat down at the table, laying her head down with a groan.
I just shrugged, as I didn’t exactly hate her, but I didn’t like her either.
Once I was at the table I plopped down and leaned back in the chair, crossing my arms as I got comfortable, wanting to at least get some kind of sleep.
Domitor was already engrossed in explaining everything to Vanilla and answering her stupid questions.
Little asshole out here trying to get on everyone’s good side. Prick.