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The Gamer Chapter 1536 – The Foregone Conclusion [Beatrice POV]
🕑 Added 2023-10-09 14:39:16 +0000 UTC“Arkan of the Azure Tribe. Beatrice of Fusion.”
The announcement created a moment of silence throughout the coliseum. All eyes wandered to Beatrice, who calmly had Perfect manifest from its special place in her inventory. The weapon may not have spoken to the passive maid in the same way Strimata and Rex Magnar ‘spoke’, but the weight of the armament said enough.
“The fight will be… within an arena!” Romulus sounded excited about this. Why, Beatrice did not understand. An arena was just another variety of flatland.
Dutifully, the second maid began walking towards the edge of the viewing area. She stopped for a moment by her Master’s side and exchanged a glance. He let out an unhappy sigh. A little smile played around Beatrice’s lips. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” her Master returned. “You’re allowed to surrender, if it is too much.”
“Affirmative. Disagreement: I will maximize intel gathered.”
He sighed again. The wrinkles of his forehead were so oddly kissable. Indulging that flutter in her stomach, she bowed down and pressed her lips on his skin. He smelled as pleasant as ever. The musk of his cologne, just the right balance between subtle and unignorable, was so different from the many sweet and refreshing scents of the women.
Swiftly, she retreated from her one and only Master. She jumped over the railing, wings spreading from the parts of her back that the uniform left exposed. Electricity crackled as a membrane between white, semi-metallic fingers. She landed softly and stood there for a moment.
‘Analysis: approach like this…’ She imagined herself taking long, confident strides. ‘…or like this?’ She imagined herself sashaying with wiggling hips. ‘Taking into account the atmosphere and expected result of combat, a more refined approach will be more effective. Diminish erotic energy. Increase combat readiness. Analysis concluded.’
Beatrice took her first step. Her hips were swinging, to the degree that the width of her hips made natural. Her steps were plain. A confident approach towards certain loss would have looked bad on the cameras. A tepid approach, however, would have made her look cowardly. Master’s maids were no cowards.
A little bit of irritation flared up within Beatrice. Her face remained a plain mask, not betraying even that easily controlled emotion. The passive maid had never quite understood most people. So many of them struggled to stay in control of themselves. Her id was simply not developed enough to subject her to such overpowering emotion.
The irritation’s source was simply identified. She would lose and that would bring displeasure to her Master. Her physical being would also be hurt in the process. ‘Contemplation: remove valuable metals from current composition?’ she thought. ‘Affirmative, bonus defensive capabilities will not yield the necessary edge to win against the Father of Arcane. Diminishing losses is second in priority, trumped only by gathering intel. Moving Celexiums out of main body and into repair material storage.’
The sensation of shifting materials around was akin to drinking a glass of room temperature water. A mindless, dull task, accompanied by some minor and short-lasting stimulations of her nervous system. As the inside of her body changed, she adjusted her outside as well. The maid uniform was replaced with a layer of white scales. Fingertips were enveloped in curved claws of ephemeral blue and yellow electricity. A thin tail, ending in two prongs, extended from her lower back. Beatrice waved it around a few times, getting re-used to the additional limb.
Her opponent walked with the same leisurely pace she did. Arkan stared at her impassively. An expression she mirrored. They reached the teleporter, then stepped through one after the other.
They walked to the obviously marked spots. In this case, they were 9,987 metres apart. Beatrice tried to ignore the shoddy measurement. Was it too much to ask for a clean 10?
“Request: may you share with me the nature of your incantation?” Beatrice asked, once they were on their designated spots. It wasn’t that she felt chatty. She didn’t feel much of anything about this fight. It was just a shot at extracting something from him.
Arkan tilted his head. His features were difficult to read, all robotic as they were. “No,” he responded ultimately, and then like those that fought before him, he removed the red cloak.
The body underneath was interesting. Curved plates of metal overlapped into and outlined the areas generally found on a human body. However, all around, his form did not attempt to truly mimic the shape he was based on. He was like a robot shaped like a suit of armour, grains flowing between and creating a solid body. Much of him was silver. More of him was azure, especially below the neckline. The unknown metal, the seventh Celexium by Beatrice’s estimation, harmonized in colour with the grains of sand swirling beneath it. He was synthetic, through and through, and yet not.
Beatrice could empathize with that. Simultaneously, she did not care.
Her eyes drifted to the nearby stands. Their arena was an empty, miniature version of the coliseum they had just left. A few places to hide, but nothing of note. Her eyes snapped back to Arkan. An explosion went off overhead – the signal to begin.
The Father of Arcane rapidly raised a hand. Five arc rays shot out instantly, all of them black, all of them cutting wire-thin lines through her perception. Beatrice had expected an immediate opener. Twist Position brought her out of range. His hand swiped sideways and she just barely managed to duck underneath.
‘Analysis: speed minorly inferior. Potential attack angle?’
“Thousands of years, awaiting.”
Beatrice snapped upwards and went for a swift offensive. The immediate use of his Babel Phrase was simultaneously appreciated and worrisome. He wished to eliminate her as fast as possible. Beatrice would do her best to make it difficult.
Her spear penetrated the air. Arkan had used a magus step to gain distance – twice as much as John was capable of crossing with the same ability. Turning into an electrical current, she gave chase.
“Synapses melding in the sand, wisdom unified.”
Arkan met her thrusting spear with no action at all. This time, the tip did connect, the enchanted and Poseidury reinforced tip came to a halt when it met with the Father of Arcane’s particle skin. It sparked, white and potent.
Beatrice activated Needle Assault. If her doom was a foregone conclusion, then she could at least test the defences. It was a shame that the distance to her Master deactivated the most potent of the weapon’s enchantments. A design flaw to be rectified at a later date.
Each of the hundred rapid strikes to the synthetic man’s chest bounced off with a spark. Arkan did not show a single reaction.
“And now I am here. I am Father of the Arcane.”
The explosion of force was swift, the implosion that followed just as quick, the interplay leaving Beatrice exactly where she had stood before.
In front of her stood a god.
His body had barely changed. Curved plates, flowing sands, a face between robotic and human. All of that remained the same. A second pair of arms had been attached underneath the first. Three tails of a cord-like shape slithered around behind him, ending in needlepoints. Above his head, a halo shimmered azure, a ring crossed by six thin lines. His eyes were the same.
For how little his physical appearance had changed, his might was seeping into her very bones.
Arkan’s hand suddenly reached out. Azure nails sunk into her skin, as if it wasn’t even there, and pulled out the arcane wires of her nervous system. Beatrice let out a rattling sound. It wasn’t painful. It wasn’t anything she had felt before. The closest this could be related to was the very first spark of her existence, the moment her magical matrix was hit by a spark that made it move.
That same magical matrix was now on partial display. The Father of Arcane reached out to pluck a specific vein of flowing, blue energy. Before he could, the passive maid finally managed to react.
Chronoshift brought her several seconds back. The maximum cost invested froze time upon completion of the Skill. Arkan already had locked eyes on her new position. ‘Unfortunate,’ was all the second maid could think about that. ‘Good news: magical matrix retreating back into its proper place. Bad news: mobility options limited. Swing expended. Reverse expended. Volt Storm expended. Decision: stand still.’
Time flowed again and Arkan immediately loosed another handful of arcana rays. The attack first aimed to Beatrice’s left, where she would have been most likely to dodge to. He would have missed as little as a split second of damage, but he did not even permit that much. One of his tails extended and curved around his side, adding a sixth ray.
Flawless calculations angled melding lasers into each other, sending them all drilling and slicing into Beatrice’s stomach. The clean hit did not do as much as one would expect when hit with the very pinnacle of the spell’s effectiveness. Her Master’s preparations assured that much.
Still, her HP diminished and kept diminishing even as she moved. Arkan was continuously angling the rays to stay on her, keeping up with her every move. She ran and leapt over the railing of the empty arena below, but the black ray sliced through the brown stone as if it wasn’t even there.
She broke line of sight by hiding in a corridor and that finally got the attack to stop. The damage to her body had already knitted itself back together. The attack came in thin slices, directed over the moderately large area of her torso. For all the cut scales, this kind of damage was easiest for her physique to knit back together. The loss in HP, however, was entirely real.
‘Observation: target seems intent on finishing me with minimal means,’ Beatrice thought. ‘Question: how to-‘
Her rapid analysis was interrupted by an all-encompassing explosion. The building was ripped apart around her, turned into a glass floor by something she could only guess to be a variant of arcana strike.
Beating her wings, she broke the rubble around her and dashed through the still ongoing scattering of arcane energy. The shockwave dispersed into a curtain of crackling arcane energies, hanging in the air as a thin veil.
With a magus step, Arkan was suddenly upon her. He tried to grasp her again, but this time she had options. Unsteady Limb twisted her out of the way. Impassively, he tried to grab her a second time. The (theoretical) Unleash had made the Father of Arcane faster, but the difference between them was not insurmountable. Prepared, Beatrice took another step back and brought the tip of her spear between them.
It was smacked aside like a child’s toy. Again and again, Arkan stepped up to her and attempted to grab her. Utilizing all the tools in her arsenal, she kept her distance. ‘Analysis: he has revealed the ability to read my ‘code’ immediately and continues to attempt its usage despite more effective alternatives. Ulterior motive to be suspected. Question: victory possible? Answer: uncertain. Particle skin makes reading of enemy health impossible. Given prior knowledge, prudent answer is: 99% chance of loss. 1% is deemed unworthy of potentially enabling ulterior motive.’
Arkan nearly had her. For her cyclical utilizing of cooldowns, Beatrice still was being chased by a faster and higher levelled opponent. The outcome was inevitable. He pushed aside her spear again and reached for her head.
“I surrender.” The hand continued to move for a split second. He stopped just short of digging into her skin. After they hung like that for a moment, Beatrice leaned to the side, to look past the clawing hand. She spotted the first sign of emotion in Arkan’s eyes: irritation. “Congratulations on your victory.” She could not help herself and showed a mocking smile. “It must be satisfying to achieve your prime directive.”
The fingers next to her head twitched dangerously. Beatrice weighed the pros and cons of her next words for a moment. Was whatever he could potentially do to her worth goading him into a mistake that could get him disqualified?
‘Weighing: Master’s progress towards membership in the Divided Gates versus own physical and mental security in Master’s service? Result: obvious.’ Beatrice took two steps away from the still motionless god. Arkan kept staring at her, even as the halo faded and the additional limbs retreated into his form, returning to sand.
“You are smart,” Arkan stated.
“Neutral: I am told this at times.” She kept her guard up, even now. Master hated it when his property was damaged, he hated it even more when his women were hurt, and she absolutely loathed it when she was incapable of doing her work – especially since she was already planning a minor adjustment to herself. “Interest: would you be willing to share your plan?”
Arkan finally pulled his hand back and looked at his palm. Once again, he contemplated. Their eyes crossed and Beatrice, again, felt the impassive kinship. She did not bond with the man, she just felt like she was looking at someone similarly low on emotional investment. “I wished to find out what I could do.”
“I express surprise,” Beatrice uttered. “Anticipations: a non-answer or a motive of inserting hostile programming into my matrix.”
Arkan assumed a relaxed stance. “That would have violated the tournament’s rules.”
“The Purest Front is not to be trusted with pacts.”
“I am not part of the Purest Front. I am the Azure Tribe.” It was the first time the Father of Arcane answered immediately. There was a finality to the words that they both immediately understood. Beatrice executed a flawless curtsy, her scales replaced with her skirt, and Arkan bowed his head similarly. Then, they separated.
All of what he had said could have been a lie. Beatrice had no way to verify. A lie could have netted him minor benefits, while the truth offered nothing unless Arkan was interested in a cordial relationship with Fusion. If that was the case, actions of previous members of his tribe would have made no sense, however.
‘Lack of central leadership? Lack of respect for it?’ Beatrice theorized, as she walked away. Her HP bar was only a third depleted, much of it had been restored during the game of tag they had engaged in towards the end. ‘Ability scouting has been minimal. Loss in that regard.’ She stepped through the teleporter and then flew back to her Master as quickly as she could. John greeted her with a hug and a kiss. ‘Master is appeased, total success in that regard.’
Beatrice let out a pleased little hum.
“I don’t know if it should infuriate me that your loss had so little of an effect on you,” Nathalia commented from behind her Master.
“Statement: the behaviour of a good person would be to be concerned with my wellbeing.”
Nathalia rolled her eyes. “Please, you are tough as dragon scales.”
“Correction: I am tougher than dragon scales, yours included. I would survive every attack thrown at your exterior.”
“…I forgot I don’t need a reason to be annoyed by you, sassy creature,” Nathalia hissed.
“Haha!” Delicia laughed in the background. The alchemist repeatedly slapped her thigh. “I love watching these things go on from the outside!”
“Master, it would be fine if you stopped hugging me now,” Beatrice informed the Gamer.
“I don’t want to,” he told her plainly.
“I will not utter a second reminder,” she whispered and nuzzled against him.
They were down to 5 vs 5.
