Chapter 130: A Temporal Battlefield
🕑 Added 2024-11-30 21:09:12 +0000 UTCAmidst the arena noise and his opponent's hollow-sounding laughter, Walker looked toward the bottom, where the rules were further fleshed out.
The first round is a battlefield.
As each Creator selects a summon, the battle will change, modifying itself to fit both sides best while the center becomes a neutral field.
Hazards are present across the area, which can be directly manipulated with the control of temporal energy.
Should a Creator’s summon perish, they will have five seconds to change to a different summon; otherwise, a new base model will be created at the starting point.
All summons are randomly chosen from a pool created by Alpha Protocol assistants.
While Creators are unable to use any technology they may have developed during their time within the Alpha Protocol, ability use is approved.
The winner of the round is decided when an opposing summon enters the green zone in front of each Creator.
All Creators have been gifted fifty temporary Temporal resources.
Should the totality not be used, they will be remanded back unto the Alpha Protocol Council.
Walker squinted across the empty area, finding a small green border in front of Mirail, with a similar situation near himself. He guessed that since neither summon had yet been chosen, the battlefield hadn’t presented itself. He looked back at the four options he’d been presented with.
The first was a spearman.
Summoned Spearman
(standard warrior)
A spearman with a small amount of experience in fighting battles.
They are quick on their feet, with significant piercing attacks but almost no defensive capabilities.
So, fast with a solid attack, but nothing to defend himself with. That’s not bad. The second was something different.
Summoned Gunman
A gunman with great experience from afar but little to no ability to survive when found in close quarters.
Their ranged attacks are to be feared.
Alright, Walker thought to himself, So it really is going to depend on the battlefield; which I won’t know until after both summons are picked. That’s tricky.
While Walker was considering everything, the ice Creator spoke up.
“How long does it take you to read, fool!” Mirail laughed in the distance, “The battle has already begun while you sit there at your pleasure!”
Walker looked across the distance, finding a huge flying creature with a long proboscis sticking out from the end of its face. It looked like nothing less than a massive mosquito, diaphanous wings speedily flapping on both sides of its body.
The ground around it turned a hazy blue as the battlefield changed to fit the summon. Great swathes of reeded bushes sprung up, separated by winding water hazards and mud. The central area just beyond the creature’s area turned into flat grass.
“The first selection goes to Lor-I mean, Creator Mirail! My notes here say that the Summoned Terror is quite the fearsome opponent! With the ability to fly and the sharpness of its needle-like nose, it will be difficult for Creator Dante to overcome this advantage!”
Walker looked at his options again, but he had nothing like the terror. Spearman, Gunman, Shieldbearer, and Adventurer?
He shook his head as he thought about it, the massive mosquito already flying across its field, God damn Council fuckery. It’s not enough that they tried to screw me over in the second battle. They upp’d the stakes here. I can’t let my summon get anywhere near that thing.
Glaring at the mosquito, Walker selected the Spearman, figuring that quick feet may keep it alive long enough to get across the way. The moment his summon started to fade in, the environment around him changed, small ghostly hills popping up with narrow chokepoints sprinkled around the area.
“What is that!” Mirail yelled with a choked laugh, “You must’ve chosen the weakest summon you could find! Giving up already?”
Knowing that everyone in the arena could hear him, Walker spoke in a clear, calm voice, “It’s not about strength or weakness, but about how you adapt to your circumstances that matters. Life is a crooked die. You don’t have to be born with wealth to know that most empires are built by calloused hands and worn backs.”
The environment solidified at the same time as Walker’s summon, freeing the spearman to move. He stood stock still until Walker realized he needed to give it instructions, “Go to the right, don’t allow the other summon to get close.”
The summon didn’t nod or show any notice that it heard him, but it did jog off to the right. The moment it left the area, the battlefield changed yet again. Many locations that once held the Terrors reeds or the Spearman’s hills now held something else. One area on the right became increasingly windy, while another near Mirail’s side in the middle formed a small crater.
Noticing the changes and no information about them, Walker turned to his System Viewer ability. He hadn’t used it as much recently but knew this was a rare moment where it could come in handy.
As the intersecting gridlines of the Universe’s soul presented itself to him, he looked towards the Crater on Mirail’s side. While within the displacement, he’d worked on many of his abilities. And, through working with Virgil, had begun to better understand what the System Viewer presented to him. It wasn’t about reading the environment but about instinct, something he’d learned to trust since joining the protocol.
And that Crater was a burgeoning mini-volcano.
As the large mosquito flew close to it on an unerring path through the middle of the environment, Walker tapped into Time. Choosing only a year, Walker precisely advanced the area below the crater, using his fine control of the Temporal subsystem. A special dividend for the man who spent a year locked in time.
That small crater, seemingly at peace only moments ago, exploded in fire, taking down the Terror with it and causing the area around it to turn molten, the ground crackling as it burned.
“What!” Mirail yelled out in shock as laughter poured in from around the arena, “It’s not possible that my summon died first.”
Walker gave him a seemingly bored expression, sure in the fact that Mirail and the projection would see it, “Unearned arrogance is a constant failing of the unimaginative. I bet you even believe you’re fated to win.” Walker shook his head with slow deliberation, “Nothing is ever set in stone if we push ourselves to always be better, to strive for more than what we currently hold. Tempered ambition should be lauded, while ignorance is never truly bliss.”
The five seconds passed by quicker than he’d expected, his speaking filling the gap in time enough for a newly summoned Terror to spawn. All the while, his Spearman was inching around the right, carefully crossing the neutral territory on his way.
Something dropped from the sky fast enough that even Walker’s eyes didn’t catch it. In a cyan-flash, Walker’s Spearman exploded, setting him on his own timer.
“What useless words you speak. Drivel!” The Terror advanced again, this time keeping a healthy distance from every hazard on the field. “Tempered ambition? What even is that? No, if you want power, you seize it!”
“I agree,” Walker replied calmly as his spearman came back again. “It’s something I’ve done myself since entering the Alpha Protocol as a…what did you call me again? A peasant?”
Walker tapped into his overlay and selected the Hologram ability. Looking at his Spearman again, he made several copies. Each appeared just the same, the summon’s lack of expression providing a grand boon to his devious play. Of course, nobody would be able to tell the difference between them. Not unless they had access to the System Viewer.
“What is that? What did you do? There are no abilities like that registered to the Alpha Protocol.”
After bending to give a whispered command to his summon, Walker stood up, quickly scanning the battlefield. Eyeballing the Terror as it skirted around the edges further, he made two quick movements before the summon and its holographic counterparts sprinted into the distance, moving as fast as they could to reach the green line. One of them stopped near the breeze for a moment before running again.
“It’s an ability I picked up from my experiments. I’ll be the first to admit that I am not the smartest person in the multiverse, Dante the Inventor indeed.” He gave a soft chuckle at that, “But what I lack in intelligence, I seem to make up for in instinct. That’s how I’m going to beat you now.”
“Beat me? Phfaw!” He looked left and right quickly, picking up where each Spearman was located. A collection of objects began to shoot from the sky, moving across the battlefield. “I may not have a large amount of abilities, but what I do have more than makes up for it.”
Walker was too slow to stop the first couple of explosions, his attention taken by something else for the moment. When he looked back over, four of his holograms had been destroyed before he was able to do anything about it. But again, Walker’s control of the Temporal subsystem showed itself. Four metallic canisters floated in space just above the battlefield, held in a slowdown that would last a few minutes. Just long enough for the next part of his plan.
“How are you doing this! Nobody should have that kind of control-” He was cut off from speaking further by a large gust of continuous wind flying across the battlefield.
“Practice,” Walker said with a grin, thinking back to a similar situation that’d come up half a year ago, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” He looked over at his opponent, “But you shouldn’t be worrying about my summon so much as your own.”
“What?”
As the words left his mouth, something moving faster than both of their eyes could see pierced the skull of the summoned Terror, causing it to wink out. Mirail stood there with his mouth open.
“Did you know if you freeze something in time and act upon it from an outside force, it builds upon itself? As in, if I accelerate the wind to the side, while simultaneously freezing a rock I had my Summon throw nearby, it’ll gain momentum by simply existing? Then, when that moment in time unfreezes, well,” He pointed at the giant hole in the arena wall far in the distance, watching as Mirail’s eyes naturally traveled that way, “you see the results.”
“You…You learned all of this by experimenting with the Temporal Subsystem?”
“Yep. Hard work always gets you further than relying on shortcuts.”
“But the Temporal Subsystem is too new! It’s chaotic and uncontrolled!”
“Nah, man, you just have to know how to work it, speaking of."
Walker’s summon inched forward on its hands and knees through the reeds, just below Mirail’s vision. It crossed the green line, causing a loud blast to echo out in the arena.
“There you have it! Dante the Creator wins the first round!”
Walker’s overlay agreed with him.
Round 1 Complete.
Creator Dante has defeated Creator Mirail in the Summon Battlefield!
Should Creator Dante win another round, they will be declared the winner of the Third battle of Rendition 4AA’s Creator Wars!
- - -
Round 2 begins in one minute.
The holograms winked out in time with the battlefield, leaving a smiling Dante waving to a jubilant crowd. His opponent, on the other hand, had turned a bright red.
“You fucking son of a whore!”
“I was wondering what type you were. Some get angry, others depressed. Guessing from all that red, you’re the angry type.” Walker said with another smile, “And my mother was a good woman, I’ll have you know.”
“You won’t win again! I swear it on the entire Cerulean rendition! You’ll not win again! I’d bet-”
“But you don’t have anything to bet,” Walker said with a large grin, “You bet everything you have that you’ll defeat me, remember? What happens to all those planets of yours when I win? What happens to your title, Scion?”
Walker watched as the coloring within Mirail’s body bled out to a deep blue, the orbs in his skull filling the entirety of their sockets. He held the grin on his face as his overlay updated again while the announcer yelled in the background.
“What a memorable achievement we’ve seen here! Creator Mirail, a favorite for completing the Alpha Protocol, loses in the first round! Creator Dante has shown a spectacle here that the crowd is not likely soon to forget!”
The cheap seats yelled out their agreement, shaking the arena in tune with their excitement as they stomped their appreciation of the event.
On the other side, those in their cabanas looked on silently, many of them glaring down at Mirail. Their vocal support of Dante was one thing, but to watch him take down a fellow noble, a member of the upper echelon like themselves, was something else.
Walker was still waving at the crowd, ignoring his overlay for a moment, when the announcer called down, “Creator Dante, as the winner, do you have any words to say before the second round begins?”
Walker looked up, seeing himself magnified many times over on the projector. Inwardly happy for the opportunity, he tapped into the wellspring of acting skills he’d picked up as a teacher a lifetime ago. Looking away from the screen and directly at the largest crowd, he felt the weight of their stares as he spoke up.
“I want to say thank you for your support. I didn’t expect to be here, and I never chose to enter the Alpha Protocol in the first place. That was a decision taken out of my hands.” He spread his arms wide as he spoke in a softer, almost confiding tone, “I’m a man out of his depth, in an element beyond him, and I’m simply trying to do my best. I’m sure most of you can understand what that feels like.” Taking a deep breath, he let the crowd absorb that before moving on, “I’m going to try very hard to win the next round,” He said in a firmer voice, “ and I want to say a large thank you for believing in me, even if only for a moment. For believing that we aren’t defined by our birth or where we’re from, but by the actions that we take and the legacy we leave behind for others. So they, too, can live better lives.”
Walker gave a firm nod to the crowd before turning back to the center of the arena. A large hologram presented itself before him as the announcer stutteringly began speaking again.
“Ye-yes, thank you, Creator Dante. And so, without any further waiting, the second round! This time around, we have a new twist presented by the geniuses from the Lamda Protocol. Kingdom building! Who knows what crazy ideas we’ll see from our two competitors!”
A hollow sound drifted across the way, but Walker wasn’t shaken. This was something in particular he had felt confident in doing.
Looking at the blue-orbed Creator across the way, Walker gave him a strong wink.
Comments
Jeremy Young
Thanks for the chapter.
