ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-EIGHT: Better Watch Out

    128*******       From the very beginning, there was something ugly about it Alden’s team was missing a core piece. They were worried, nervous, and not sure what they were supposed to be doing now that all of their plans had been upset. And the personalities of their opponents added an additional element of tension that hadn’t been present in any of the previous matches. The members of Team Vandy/Marsha who had been grim from their earlier losses suddenly felt like they had a chance. Maricel’s absence put a couple of them in a much more optimistic mood. They were excited by the fact that they wouldn’t be going up against one of the class’s most powerful students after all, and they were too self-absorbed to hide it. Jerkasses, thought Alden, surfacing in the water tank and gulping in a few breaths before he grabbed a third float and plunged downward again. Vandy had been upset about Maricel, of course. They were on their way to being friends if they weren’t there already. But Marsha… Alden gritted his teeth and kicked furiously toward the bottom of the tank, shoving the float ahead of him. Even if Maricel hadn’t gone missing, even if he and his team members weren’t all a little anxious for her, he still thought they would have struggled in this race more than they’d originally expected. There’s something brutal about these guys, and the fact that they have no clear plan of their own fucks up all of our attempts to make plans that counter them. Case in point: the game was around halfway through, and Alden was currently doing Jeffy’s job. That hadn’t even been on their radar as a backup backup scheme. Things had been weird like this the whole race, starting from the second the other team hit the gym. It was more like they were forcing their way down the course instead of running it, trying to keep up with Marsha, who was so hellbent on getting first attack that she practically carried the class’s one and only Vocal Brute to the finish line and tossed him over it. Alden’s team hadn’t been lagging too far behind despite everything. They’d decided to send Astrid and Njeri over the line first to give themselves some attack options, and Alden had just finished putting the two of them, along with Jeffy and Reinhard, up on top of the wall when the other team’s bell rang to announce that Marsha had earned them the right to attack. “Okay,” Haoyu had said. At that time, he and Lexi had taken a position on the floor at that end of the weights with the intention of forcing incoming enemies to confront them rather than running through toward the people on the wall. “Let’s be wary. The smart thing for them to do would be wait until they had two attacks available so that they could…or not. Here she comes!” Marsha had run straight at the two of them, thrown her weapon into the air high over their heads before she reached them and used her reverse recall to fly up toward it, gaining enough altitude that Writher only managed to sever an aglet from one of her shoelaces as she passed. She and the polearm—in spear form—hit the floor on their side of the course hard enough that she had to be at least slightly injured. But you wouldn’t have known it from the way she sprang up again and dashed for the wall, where Alden was standing at the base. Even if he had been fully rested and holding a large shield, he wouldn’t have been foolish enough to think he could take an S-rank Meister’s strike dead-on. He didn’t want to lose the use of his skill for the rest of the game, so he opted for death. Or he opted for what would have been his death if Marsha was a player who cared about winning more than her own personal agenda. Alden dropped preservation on his paracord, and flung a temper sphere at her as she approached. Because why not try everything? Then he dove under the tip of the spear and at her knees as she reached him. His first thought was, I can’t believe I managed to grab her before she stabbed me. His second was, Oh God. It’s like I’ve grabbed a bear. Marsha didn’t even stumble. She just plowed right through him and over him, which didn’t count as an attack on her part since he was the one who’d thrown himself in front of the freight train and she’d made no move at all to injure him. Alden rolled across the floor, gasping, and looked up to see Marsha scaling the wall with another toss of her spear. Reinhard shot her twice, going for injuries rather than kills because an injured Marsha was way better for them. She had one dead arm and one half-functional one when she leaped past him and into their tank. To attack Jeffy. In the water. She probably could’ve taken out Astrid and Njeri, who were also in the tank right then, with one swing. She could’ve taken out Reinhard or Alden as she passed. Instead, she took a ton of injuries, let a very confused Jeffy drag her down to the bottom of the tank, and then attacked him after she was on the verge of drowning. For what was basically a murder-suicide that managed not to violate any rules. Killing yourself was a no-go, but being reckless in your pursuit of a target wasn’t. Jeffy was upset in the immediate aftermath, but it really wasn’t his fault. None of them had given him advice on what to do if an enemy came into the tank with him, and the last thing he’d heard Reinhard shout through comms was ‘I’ll make sure not to kill her.’ So he’d wavered, not sure what the right thing was. That skill of Marsha’s that released an invisible strike had speared him in the chest. “That was insane,” Astrid said after it was over. “If she had to take out an S, why didn’t she go for Lucille first?” Lucille was on the ground at the frozen fire obstacle, guarding Everly. She was a much, much easier target than Jeffy. Reinhard was angry with himself. “I should’ve shot her lethally. I could have. We just agreed to go for injuries, and I thought arrows to the shoulders would be plenty—” “It’s fine,” said Haoyu. “Shake it off, everybody. Especially you, Jeffy. That was basically a wasted attack for them since Marsha’s going back to start, too. Look how annoyed Vandy is.” Vandy did look very displeased. She was sitting up on her team’s monkey bar obstacle, brow furrowed and talking fast. “Don’t worry so much,” Marsha responded on her way out of the gym. Her voice was loud enough to carry. “Their team only has one S-rank with Maricel gone.” At the time, Alden wondered, rather naively, if she’d misspoken. But no. The next several minutes had shed light on the matter. Marsha, who seemed to have an interest in taking down other S’s that bordered on obsession, didn’t want to bother with Lucille. On her next attack, she took on Jeffy again, before he could make it back to the water. That time he was ready, sort of, and managed to grab hold of her and chant something as he “died.” “What the hell was that?” she’d asked when the spell did absolutely nothing obvious. “What spell impression did you take?” “That’s not going to work on her,” Reinhard had said with a groan. “With her skill…why didn’t he just punch her?” He was struggling a bit with the fact that he couldn’t successfully attack over there himself. High winds were such a good counter to arrows that it wasn’t worth wasting a shot, and he would be confining himself to defensive shooting. Their next best attacker would have been Maricel. In her absence, they were going with an unusual combination. When they’d earned their first two attacks, Lexi crossed over to the enemy course with Everly. His job was to use his one attack to protect her from whoever tried to interfere with her while she cast her slick ice patch over the ramp that led up to the area where the tonne and half-tonne weights had to be dropped. It was Everly’s most powerful spell, and the ice it created was a bit more arcane than the sort humans regularly pulled out of a freezer. She’d used it a few times versus Instructor Klein, and the stuff was a menace. There was no running across it, only sliding, and it resisted melting and destruction. The other team would have to cajole Marsha into using her weapon to break it up if they wanted to get weights up the ramp again. The hastily-developed plan went well enough. Everly got the ice down and got away. Lexi got killed but managed to wrap Writher around Mehdi’s arm and fling him skyward first. Everything was going well enough if Alden compared their team’s progress to the other’s. The race was just chaotic, difficult, and increasingly bitter. As he headed down into the depths of the tank with yet another float, the world went quiet except for the sound of Astrid and Haoyu encouraging everyone through comms. They were doing their best to counter the negativity and confusion with good attitudes and constant callouts about what was going on…which couldn’t be that easy to keep track of since Vandy had, at long last, gotten fed up with Marsha. After that last risky assault on Jeffy had carried the polearm-wielding Meister right past juicier targets once again, Vandy had started trying to direct the team without any further regard for her most zealous teammate’s attacks. Instead of letting Marsha run in a third time, she’d taken her own shot and blown Reinhard right off the top of the wall with a powerful burst of air. He’d survived the long fall with such a heavy movement restriction that Haoyu had had to come carry him to the finish line. Vandy deciding not to let Marsha have her way by working around her seemed to have blown any last remaining crumb of team cohesion apart. It was a free-for-all over there, with some of the group thrusting toward the finish line with almost zero help and others waiting for the sound of the bell to claim the next attack. “They’re losing,” Haoyu called. “I know it’s stressful right now, but just remember that the way they’re playing is going to make them lose even if it is making our own strategies…kind of useless.” He’d pushed Reinhard over the line a while ago, and now he was heading to pick up Everly and move her through the course. With Vandy having proven herself willing to attack, they had to take her into consideration as well now. The higher, more precarious positions like the rope climb, the bars, and the top of the wall could become death traps. Haoyu had a spell impression that made him less likely to be knocked off his feet by blows. He seemed a little sheepish about it because it was a much weaker version of talents his parents had. But it was strong enough to help him resist Vandy’s wind, so he’d be making sure Everly didn’t get taken down on her way to the finish. “Lucille, are you good?” Astrid called. “You’re sure you’re fine to move the weights one more time for Jeffy to come through when he’s done running track?” “Yes,” she said softly. Under the water, his feet hooked under one trap to keep himself submerged while his fingers flicked open the catch of another, Alden winced. Even that single word reply sounded downtrodden. Lucille had launched herself into Marsha’s path to protect Jeffy from that last assault. She’d made it there in time with an explosively powerful leap, but then her tackle and the toss that sent Marsha back toward her own course had been…rather gentle. Especially for an S-rank grabbing and throwing another S-rank. Gentle enough that Marsha had managed to complete her swing and kill Jeffy for the second time. Gentle enough that Winston Heelfeather had seen it and suddenly decided he could get in on the offensive action, too. His team’s Object Shaper was over there on their course quietly turning all of the miscellaneous objects he’d brought into very sharp miscellaneous objects. He’d done the same on their last run. He seemed to want to attack people with them, but he never got around to actually doing it so maybe it was just his way of staying out of his more aggressive teammates’ paths. When their bell rang for the fourth time, Winston had snatched up a wind chime that had been turned into something more like a razor sharp sickle. He’d ordered up a speed zone from Max, run at Lucille, dove dramatically across the floor, and sliced her calf. Now she was moving the weights with a bum leg, she sounded like she was near tears, and Winston was watching her like a hawk, clearly hoping he’d get another shot. “Vandy’s sending Max back out to the track again,” Astrid reported. “He’s jogging that way.” “This is so stupid,” Lexi spat. “It’s like trying to figure out what a bunch of over-energized toddlers are going to do with their superpowers next.” Max was doing what he’d sworn he would do and following instructions. Everyone’s instructions. And because his team had nothing like organization since Vandy’s break with Marsha, people were countermanding each other all the time. Vandy would send Max out to the track to lay down a trap; obviously she thought that her team should’ve been using him that way from the start. Then Marsha would catch on and order him back because she didn’t want him to take one of her attack slots. Or Winston would call him back to lay down another speed zone in front of him, ostensibly so that he could attack faster or run back and forth through the fire. Alden was sure it was really so that he could run as fast as Finlay while he put on a cool expression for the camera. As a result, Max was spending half his time running back and forth uselessly and the other half casting spells that benefited one or two people for very specific tasks. Someone had had the bright idea of telling him to lay down a bunch of the float zones under the monkey bars, so that nobody would die if they fell off. So that spell impression was now completely gone if Alden’s count was right, and there was no benefit unless somebody on their team spontaneously lost grip strength on their way across that one obstacle. Now Haoyu was asking Jeffy if he wanted to use his land moves on Max, since they were both about to pass by each other outside and Max was unlikely to escape from an S-rank who gave chase. As long as it doesn’t take him too long, Alden thought. Even though he was much, much slower than the Aqua Brute, he was still working steadily here to keep the obstacle cleared so that they could send Everly through without waiting for Jeffy to trap all the floats. I was not supposed to have to swim this much. There was no permutation of the plan that called for me being the team’s swimmer. He gasped in some more air and went back to it. Everyone was doing their best around all the madness. He was proud of his teammates for not getting too flustered with the state of things. He kept going through it all in his head. It was more important to keep a mental image of their positions in mind when he was down here where he had no way to see them. I’m in here doing my job and staying safe from attack unless Marsha decides she’d like to spearfish for a B-rank. Astrid, Njeri, and Reinhard are over the finish line. Lucille is still pushing through the weights for us; she’s the best for it even if she is limping. Jeffy’ll be back in the gym in a minute. Haoyu and Everly will make it to me right ahead of him, and I’ll pull them all up. Haoyu had helped himself to Reinhard’s bow and used it to shoot arrows into this side of the wall above the tank so that Alden could climb back up to the top when it was time. Reinhard had been officially unconscious and therefore unable to complain aloud without getting in trouble, but they’d gotten some indecipherable mental texts from him that probably meant something like, “How dare you play with my bow, you swine?!” He didn’t mind people touching the arrows, but he was a little precious about the bow. The current plan, which was the dozenth they’d had in as many minutes, was for the final six team members to head over the finish line in two groups. First would be Everly and Lexi. Then Haoyu, Alden, Lucille, and Jeffy wouldn’t cross until they were all together. The four of them should be able to tackle every obstacle on the course, even if one of them was knocked out by an assault and had to be carried. They weren’t even going to bother trying another attack after Everly and Lexi were over the line. They were just going to run for it and get this mess over with. “I got Max!” Jeffy said excitedly. “I grabbed him and did the spell. Do you think he minded?” “I think Max has given up on minding things for the day, Jeffy,” said Astrid. “Now hurry back here! Alden is doing your job at ten percent speed.” Not long after that, Alden got word that it was showtime for him and he pulled himself out of the tank. He heard an all-too-familiar soft sploosh sound behind him as he climbed the few wobbly arrows up to the top. One of the floats had come free of its trap and would have to be put back. Breathing hard, he made it to the top of the wall. Lying flat on his belly so that any surprise attacks from Vandy would be less likely to knock him off, hair dripping in his eyes, he looked over the edge to see Haoyu, Lexi, Everly and Jeffy below him. “Hi there,” he said. “Your skill’s okay, isn’t it?” Haoyu asked. “Should we go up all together to save you from having to use it for longer?” All together was, debatably, riskier this late in the game, with attacks more likely to come in as the other team gained more finishers of their own. Alden getting knocked off the wall while he was lifting the four of them could result in kills and crippling injuries for half the team at once. “I’m fine. Let’s do it two at a time to be on the safe side.” “Lucille,” Astrid called from where she watched at the end of the course. “Be sure to shout if you see Vandy making shaping gestures.” Now that everyone was through the weights for what they hoped would be the last time, the injured Brute was bringing up the rear and serving as their watcher. She was up near the ceiling, clinging to the platform at the end of the bars, her strength ensuring a good grip that would keep Vandy from trying an assault on her. As soon as Lexi and Everly were over the finish line, she’d slide down the steep diagonal beam to join the final four in this section of the course. Alden would pull her up. And then we can wrap this up. He tied a large loop into the end of a length of cord and lowered it, preserving just before he reached the floor almost fifty feet below him. He pulled Everly and Jeffy up. She gave him a tired smile. “I’m ready for this one to be over with,” she said, then she splashed down into the tank with the Aqua Brute. Alden pulled Lexi and Haoyu up, feeling anxious the whole way. But they made it to the top, too. Lexi dove into the water. While Jeffy dragged him and Everly toward the bottom, Haoyu crouched beside Alden, recast his spell impression, and grabbed the back of Alden’s gymsuit in a firm grip. “I call this my anti-wind move,” he said quietly, eyes shifting from Vandy to Lucille and back. “I appreciate it. Death by falling is no fun.” “Sorry you had to swim the whole race.”...