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The Gamer Chapter 1795 – The not-so-Small Tournament Finale – Drugs, Justice, Examples [Fianna POV]
🕑 Added 2024-11-30 16:52:31 +0000 UTC
Fianna sucked on the straw. Fanta rushed up and filled her mouth with sweetness. She gulped it down, then did her best to keep the inevitable burp quiet. She succeeded. Years of training for being a sniper had taught her exactly how to stay quiet. That and she had some pride in her femininity.
‘It would taste better flat,’ she thought and gave the cup a shake. Ice clacked around inside. The chill from the beverage was an odd sensation. It felt more and less intense through her artificial hands.
The phone in her pocket buzzed.
Fianna checked the message. “It’s from my boyfriend,” she absent-mindedly told the man that was approaching her.
“Message received!” That was all he needed to hear to turn on his heels and leave her alone.
The former mercenary watched the man as he left. It wasn’t that he was ugly or otherwise uninteresting. Good build, good face, and a shirt with a weird game logo on it that betrayed a level of interesting quirkiness. Had Fianna been in a different situation, she would have considered at least striking up a conversation.
Alas, she had layers of reasons speaking against such an act. First and foremost, she was currently on a mission. The message on display was a simple question by a sock-puppet account piloted by the Gamer. ‘How is the mood in the crowd?’ it read.
The second reason was that Fianna currently wasn’t herself. Physically, that was. Utilizing mutagens, she had turned herself into the image of her Irish ancestry, red hair, freckles and all. In that form, she was sitting among the greater public in the arena, scanning and listening to what the people were saying.
It did give her a sense of pride to know she was part of the Gamer’s perceived omniscience. ‘An odd mood,’ she wrote back. ‘The people do not want to root for Hypercrush or Justinian. Simultaneously, they want the fight.’
In response she got a thumbs-up, a simple signal that the message had been read. No follow-up questions were to be expected. Fianna put the phone away, then drank some more of her orange soda.
The third reason that she rejected anyone that came towards her was that she was genuinely not sure how she felt about her employer.
When they had first met, she had said to his face that in an optimal scenario they would fall in love. It would grant her power and financial security. A blunt theoretical that lacked the kind of romance such a relationship required. In practical terms, she had stated then that her most likely path was admittance into Nightfall in a low to middle agent role. She had been made John’s personal scout. A much higher position than she would have bargained for. An honour with a greater purpose.
Before she had been assigned that position, she had also told John that she had opted not to attempt to enter a relationship with him. Flirtation with the ulterior motive of power was uncomfortable. She wanted to love her partner not for the resources they provided but for the way they strengthened each other.
That was before the mission in Yucatan.
Fianna had deemed herself disposable. She knew John could think of her that way. One did not become a world leader without the ability to disassociate feelings from the demands of a situation. Despite that, he had saved her when she had become infected. That was appreciated. It had been what came after that had made her heart skip a beat.
He had found the cure. Too late to save her arms, but he had found it. Then, he waited at her bedside until she woke up. He apologized to her. He had looked at her with eyes that hadn’t known sleep in days and yet he had only been worried for her.
That was not just a man she had been talking to – that was the living legend whose Federation she had joined believing that it was going to make a difference in this crooked world. Through her dulled empathy and calculating humanity, she had seen him for what he was. John Newman was flawed and he was perfect.
She did not yet know what to do with those feelings.
Hypercrush and Justinian entered the arena. ‘An addled ape against the average Order follower,’ Fianna allowed herself a sarcastic thought. ‘Absolutely peachy.’
This fight barely interested her. Whoever won would challenge the President. THAT was a fight she wanted to see. It was rare to watch John Newman engage in direct combat. He usually had his many familiars do the fighting for him. What would he pull out to defeat these apparent titans of the close quarters?
The fight began when the silver star landed on the ground. From the moment it had started to fall, Hypercrush had been downing an ungodly large bottle of booze. Justinian did not wait for his enemy to finish. In a flash, he was across the distance. His sword met Hypercrush’s forearm, miraculously able to withstand the keen edge.
Fianna glanced up at the screens that hovered above the arena. The footage was playing with a notable and growing delay. Motions were slowed down so those of lesser power could trace them. Fianna was technically in that category, but she had an advantage others lacked: her eyes. With her Innate Ability to zoom, trace, and find targets through her sight, she could follow the fight reliably despite the differences in all other levels.
‘What would my chances of a successful hit be?’ Fianna wondered.
Hypercrush gulped down the rest of his booze then let out a truly enormous burp. Fianna gave the arena a deadpan stare as a stinking wind washed over her. She had been through worse, even before the Yucatan mission. One time she had laid in a shallow pool in a swamp for three days to get a proper shot.
‘I would have to catch the monkey sober. Otherwise, I doubt my bullet would get through the reality bending nonsense. In other words, assassination chance is 0%.’
“Hic… It is time for… a beatin’!” the drunk drug-fuelled Latebloomer slurred and went in for the attack. Sloppy as it was, Justinian dodged easily. His counterattack was ruined by the hurled fist slamming into the ground. Such force was behind it that the earth cracked, forcing the self-righteous annoyance to jump away. Drunkenly, Hypercrush gave chase.
‘Wide open, no defences beyond base agility… could definitely react to a bullet before it hits. Should be doable with the right angle. Around 55%? A single bullet to the brain probably won’t be enough to kill.’
The two Latebloomers engaged in what everyone wanted to see: a rapid exchange of blows. Hypercrush was a cumbersome mountain of violence wreathed in iridescent light. By contrast, Justinian was surrounded only by radiance. “You shouldn’t deny the magnificent magnificence of being really drunk!” Hypercrush declared.
“A creature like you cannot be allowed to stand as victor! You are a role model only of depravity!” Justinian shouted back. Fists and weapon constantly clashed, the rhythm only breaking when the much nimbler blond man backed away from the direct fight to attack from a new angle.
Despite drunken sluggishness, Hypercrush defended well. Slash, block, retreat, repeat, that was the rhythm of the fight for a little while.
Fianna yawned. Beside the scale of it all, it wasn’t that different from the fights between lower-levelled Abyssals. Her eyes drifted across the battlefield. Pieces of debris bounced off the mana shield that surrounded the structure. John Newman sat in his chair, chatting casually with the pink-haired first of his harem next to him.
He was handsome. Plain, yes, but handsome, with a nicely shaped face, brown eyes and short brown hair. He was the image of a stereotypical women's magazine cover. Fianna felt no shame for being attracted to that. Most women were, whether they admitted it or not. ‘What do I do with these feelings?’ Fianna thought.
Stoicism was ever a reason why she preferred to work alone. Typically people around her lacked the kind of control over their emotions that made them capable of planning for more than the next week, if even that. It made everyone exceptionally frustrating to be around. Rather than resent that fact, Fianna had decided to embrace being alone. Not lonely, just alone.
Fianna had known many lovestruck girls in her time. She refused to be one of them. Infatuation was an animating emotion, compelling but not forcing her to act. The feeling would have to wait until she had run her cost-benefit-pride analysis.
Cost: nothing, really, worst case he shot her down and she was back to square one.
Benefit: unfathomable riches, power, the best sex in the world, the best genetics in the world for her offspring.
Pride: selling her current life for ulterior motives?
It was that last, uncertain point that still kept her mulling over this. She would have loathed it if someone approached her purely because she was attractive and fairly well-off. Being an elite agent in Nightfall paid handsomely. She had already bought a luxurious mansion in the outskirts of the Hudson Barrier. She rarely went there, preferring the single room she had in the HQ, but she had it.
She wanted to be absolutely sure with herself that she approached John Newman because he had actually won her over as a person, not because she wanted what he had to offer. ‘I’m being emotional in a different way,’ she told herself. ‘I am only human. I already knew that.’
Down in the arena, Justinian was experiencing his second act low point.
“You cannot defeat the power of the uppers and downers!” Hypercrush declared. “Look at you! Gasping for air, like some kind of fish, when your body could be high on the power of the gods!”
Justinian was indeed out of breath, standing three metres removed from the much taller man. Hypercrush himself was also drenched in sweat, but his grin was so removed from reality that he likely did not even notice his own state. “It may be true… that I am not as strong as you…”
‘And here comes the righteous speech,’ Fianna thought and tuned him out. She could summarize it all in her brain anyway. ‘Bla-bla, justice, bla-bla, I must stand up to you, bla-bla.’ Then the holy light around Justinian surged and he rushed forwards.
Hypercrush was caught off-guard by the wave of ‘holy’ light. The arena trembled with each swing of Justinian’s sword. Waves went through the now visible mana barrier as it struggled to contain the exchange of power. Hypercrush took several blows, before managing to catch himself on the backfoot. He brought his head down. Justinian did not budge when their foreheads met, both of them bleeding from the impact.
Hypercrush kissed his enemy on the nose.
Weirded out, Justinian recoiled. An opening that Hypercrush mercilessly exploited. Prismatic wings sprouted, made less of feathers than confetti particles. “HYPERCRUSHEEEEEEEEEEER!” he shouted, slamming his fist in the side of Justinian’s face.
The self-righteous swordsman was launched up into the air.
His body grinded against the barrier, excess motion force keeping him flat against the magic. It was too unstable to make him bounce back. Cracks started to form.
“MOVE!” Fianna shouted, jumping to her feet. The dazed crowd realized what was about to happen and streamed out of the way. Just in time for Hypercrush to jump at Justinian, tackling him through the barrier and into the watcher’s area.
Justinian, by luck or instinct, landed a devastating blow in that moment. As he and Hypercrush broke the stone foundation of the seats, the drug-fuelled Latebloomer was impaled on the elongated sword of the blond man. Radiant power seared flesh, Justinian sending it pulsing into his armament.
Hypercrush grinned widely, dragging himself further down the sword. “True justice is only found in the colours of the mushrooms,” the man hissed.
A grey sword appeared in front of Hypercrush’s neck. “Stand down at once,” Ehtra demanded. Around the two fighters, Rave, Sylph, Salamander and John Newman himself landed in short order.
“This fight isn’t over,” Hypercrush declared manically.
“You are disqualified,” John spoke harshly. “You saw that the mana barrier was struggling to contain your previous attack, yet leapt in to shatter it completely anyway.”
“Rules are…”
“Shut the fuck up!” Salamander grabbed Hypercrush by his long hair and pulled him off the other contestant. At that point, Undine flowed into the scene to heal both Justianian and Hypercrush.
“You’re being confined,” John told the white-haired man. “You’ll be judged by a jury of your peers.”
Hypercrush laughed. “I have no peers! None are on the cloud I am on!”
Suddenly, the drug-fuelled Latebloomer charged forwards. His new target was the Gamer himself. Despite that, none of the surrounding haremettes intervened. A sound like a metal heart beat filled the air. The body of the Gamer shifted from one of skin and suit to a golem crafted from stone and metal. Inkaryl, the legendary war trophy from another dimension, beat with energy as cruel as its design as it was swung, crashing into the ribcage of the assailant.
Hypercrush was sent flying back down into the arena. Sylph and Salamander zapped after him, the former moving too fast for even Fianna to track, and pinned him down. The earth itself moved up to aid in the confinement.
“…A sordid affair,” John groaned, his real body arriving in the scene with the light sparkle of arcane teleportation. “Can you stand?” he asked and extended his hand to Justinian.
The paladin knocked the hand aside and got up on his own. “Of course I can… Our fight is tomorrow!”
“Spiteful, ain’t he?” Rave asked.
“Principled would be the more flattering term,” John drawled.
`Moronic is the word I would use,’ Fianna added mentally, but bit her tongue. She couldn’t join in the banter, not while posing as part of the crowd. She wanted to though. She really wanted to, especially when John regarded her with a brief glance. He turned away. Rave did so only after winking at Fianna specifically. ‘They should learn not to compromise my cover.’
For all of her snark, Fianna did have to wrestle down the butterflies.
Comments
Nessa Bright
And this basically confirms Fianna joining the harem at some point. Not that it wasn’t already basically Chekov’d from her introduction. Thanks for the chap!
gordianTangle
Yeah, but that has a key difference of getting everyone up to a certain point, but not really being able to advance past that, rather than a boost that could be given to anyone even if they are already exceptional. That said, I was not saying the story needs this, only that, to me, it feels like so far a gap in the power mechanics - not that it is inappropriate for such gaps to exist. That said, we do know that wish fulfillment mechanics are, at least somewhat, in play, so this is, in a way, a question of if John wants there to be some way to explicitly honor and elevate people, or if he wants his bestowal of power to be specifically tied to his harem. With his resistance to a monarchy faltering, that is a fair question
Funatic
Fusion is already turbo-busted with the Training Hall being a thing. I am very hesitant to add more such mechanics to John's arsenal.
gordianTangle
Regardless of whether Fianna gets added, I think one of the biggest holes in the powerset right now is the ability to meaningfully empower other people, in the name of the Federation, without them being romantically/sexually tied to John in some way. For instance, something like a medal of valor (with a limited quantity per year) that raised level cap, or something like that, would be thematically and mechanically fitting.
camoore
I think it would be interesting if Fianna eventually joined the harem, after choosing not to, especially if we get insights into her realizing she is in love with John.
icequeen52
Please don't make Fianna another haremette
Hansuwepeter
Still loving the look into other characters thought processes and how they view everything Thank you fun for years of content!
