Codename: Freedom - Book 5 - Chapter 20

What does a man do when he sees no way forward against impossible odds. He takes ice cream to a Krato to tick him off. It had worked before. Why wouldn’t it work again? Except, instead of the fury I was expecting, Aeneus Raptis sighed.

“Just say it,” the Ekseliksi said. “What is it you want from me?”

I began to explain the impossible odds Prodos was facing when he interrupted me.

Crossing his arms behind his back where he hovered on the platform across from me, Aeneus responded, “I’ve seen the footage. Including that of your most recent team training. There are strengths to fighting in a squad, but also weaknesses. You want me to help you fight within the confines of a system with limited variables. You know my strengths. The more mobile you are, the more variables are available for to you to exploit.”

“Forgive me, Krato, but even if there are more variables, I don’t see how that would make it possible for me to defeat a squad of rank D psionic users.”

He held up his hand to stop me. “We will discuss this again after the information for the next event is revealed.”

I bowed my head as I hovered across from him. “Yes, Krato.”

After the ice cream exchanged hands, he had me prepare myself.

He shot into the air, staring me down the entire time he ascended.

I didn’t stay still. Swaying side to side like a top losing steam, I became an uncertain target. This was a game I still couldn’t win, but that didn’t mean I hadn’t improved drastically. Aeneus Raptis had as much control in the air as I did on the ground. I did have control as long as I didn’t over or under commit to any specific movement.

Then he came.

I had enough experience with the timing from the height that he reached that a hop from one foot to the other was all it took to cause him to miss.

However, he was powerful enough that he didn’t have to obey his momentum’s will. A psionic push in the opposite direction, he only ascended about fifty feet before he was already coming again.

I jumped to the opposite platform, which he responded to by flying parallel to the ground like some superhero out of a comic book. I’d felt those bio-enhanced claws far too many times for me to remain in his range.

Almost teetering off the platform, he shot by, just barely missing.

I’d already fallen into that flow state that was only possible now because I’d experienced this so many times before. In the beginning, I was running on panic. Such extreme emotion has its own flow, but it’s a frantic one.

It took him thirty tries to reach me this time. Even then, it was a shallow gash left on my right arm just above the elbow. It took him another six tries to draw blood again. This one was across the front of my thigh and much deeper.

I tried to heal myself, but there just wasn’t enough time. I dodged too a few more times before I tried something drastic. Instead of dodging, I lunged for him, trying to bat him out of the air. If I wasn’t mistaken, the last thing I saw was a rare grin from the man before I respawned a moment later.

***

I didn’t stop training with the squad just because of what Krato alluded to. It did get me thinking. The stealth squad soon joined us to start training tactics together. It would require us to more or less gang up on a squad with a rank D user, but if it worked, I’d take it.

I’m not sure if it was normal military procedure, but Harrison with input from Handshake and Hwan seemed to have a thing for impairing their targets instead of killing them. We’re talking anything like the smoke that reduced vision except for those with the right kind of lenses in their headsets, flashbangs, pepper spray, sonic emitters, etc. So who wouldn’t want a bunch of mostly invisible guys running around the battlefield with no other goal than to give your enemies a bad day?

That’s not to say that our combat engineer wasn’t coming up with more lethal ways to help us win the event. He wasn’t alone.

As much as they improved and they were getting inventive, in many ways they were still in limbo. It felt longer than it really was.

***

Soon enough, Kline and I were traveling in a military transport to Mia’s studio.

“Don’t be nervous,” my friend taunted. “I’m here to protect you.”

I raised my brow. “From what exactly?”

“Never underestimate short girls who randomly change the color their hair.”

“I don’t think Mia has a violent bone in her body.”

“That’s what she wants you to think.”

I snickered, but my mind was elsewhere. “Do you think the Devs will try and make it impossible for us to compete, let alone win?”

“They’ll try. They haven’t exactly had a lot of success, though, have they?”

That brought a smile to my face. “Not really, no. They haven’t made our lives easier. That’s for sure.”

Greg was there to meet us in the hall when we arrived. The large bodyguard was grinning the moment he saw us. As we drew closer, I found out why. I could feel a faint psionic aura coming off him.

Shaking his hand, I held him there, “It’s only been a week since the unlocking compound was released, right?”

He grinned even wider. “There was a recommended supplementation routine given by the company that released the compound over a year ago while you guys were still in Freedom. It was supposed to, you guessed it, make the unlocking process faster. Looks like I didn’t waste my money after all. It happened just last night.”

I shared a look with Kline.

My bearded friend whistled. “There’s no way they forgot to give us this supplement therapy so that we’d have to fight monsters with our own strength for the sole purpose of entertainment and making money off our suffering, right?” He smiled impishly.

Greg chuckled with me.

“That’s impossible,” he scoffed.

Kline pulled us in with a hand on our shoulders as he nodded philosophically.

I nudged him before turning to Greg and asking, “How’s your son?”

“Never better. He’s in the middle of test prep otherwise he’d probably be here.”

“We’ll have to make it happen.”

The bodyguard thanked me before ushering us in to the familiar studio.

It was there that I saw Mia who was already reclined back, awaiting our arrival. She held my gaze a moment too long before her face lit up and welcomed us.

The first thing I noticed about her was that only the tips of her hair was pink, and it straight with nothing crazy going on. That wasn’t all. Instead of wearing her camera-friendly green jumper, she was wearing a v-cut blouse with a professional looking jacket over it. She looked very… mature.

I tilted my head as I looked at her, saying, “Hey, Mia. You look nice.”

She stood to reveal a conservative skirt that wasn’t quite short enough to be considered a miniskirt. Doing a quick twirl, she played at being bashful.

“Thank you, Lucius.” She let out a slow breath. “We were able to get two of the unlocking compounds, which has given me the opportunity to do something that I probably should have years ago. Change my image. A girl can’t play at being a teenager forever.”

“You can still pull it off with ease,” Kline said, as he walked around the table to give her a hug.

“Thank you, Kline.” She gave his arm a squeeze.

“By the way, why is there a guy sitting in the corner?” he asked, pointing with this thumb to a guy sitting facing away from us.

“That’s my queue,” an announcer sounding voice came from the suit-wearing guy in the corner. He took that opportunity to stand and turn to face us.

“Mr. Rachet bet that you, Lucius, wouldn’t personally make it into the top three in the last event. He lost.”

It was then I saw what was off with his outfit. Even though he was wearing a nice suit, instead of pants he was wearing dress shorts that were shorter than Mia’s skirt.

“It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, gentlemen,” Mr. Rachet said with a bow.

“You’re the guy that’s always stirring up trouble,” Kline said as he shook the man’s hand.

The man didn’t deny it. “Someone has to do it. It might as well be me.”

Kline gave him a firm smack on the back. “We appreciate you more than you know.”

“Thanks,” the man said as he winced.

Mia went on to explain that Mr. Rachet was really just there as a small media stunt that some of their shared audience found funny. If it became too much of a distraction, they’d switch things up.

Like a true pro meta-caster, she went through her speech about wanting us to try comments and jokes that might be entertaining. The delay was still there, and Oren would do his magic if something needed to be cut.

They began with the same few starting segments as always, but she surprised the both of them by bringing out the reason they were there early. Despite her much more mature outfit that revealed she was much more of a woman than young teen, she still had the personality. She gave them this flirty yet demoness purse of her lips as she shimmied her shoulders up and down.

The room darkened as the event trailer played on the panel on the side of the room. Mr. Rachet was allowed to turn around for it.

The first thing that appeared on screen was what looked like the dirt floor of a coliseum. It was a perfect sphere that was hard to grasp the scale of until the camera flew in toward its center. There was something sitting there that was unclear until they drew near. It was a series of pedestals also aligned in a circle. Floating above each was a flag.

“How many?” I whispered.

Destiny responded. “One hundred.”

There were one hundred pedestals with a flag on each.

Then the camera pulled back at an angle to reveal a large stone wall surrounding the open arena that was several stories tall. There was passage after passage lined up as if there were many ways to reach this arena.

At first, I thought they’d have a one-hundred battalion free-for-all, but then the camera pulled back even further to show a maze encircling the entire arena. It only took a moment for me to realize that it wasn’t exactly a maze to the extent that it was easy enough to find your way through, but there were many twists and turns that an opposing force could use to their advantage.

If that were all. Then it would be enough, but as the camera flew back into the sky, another layer of tunnels was revealed. Tunnel might not have been the right word. There were walls between each tunnel that was a skyscraper in height. Atop the entrance to these tunnels were banners with the names of each battalion.

Flashing over the large walls, soon we were looking upon an empty space outside the gigantic sphere that had to be dozens of miles across. Then what looked like a fort, or small city appeared in the air above the empty space beneath. It started to fall and only when the words Lethal Accord appeared above the falling city did I realize it was their actual base.

Then the camera started to fly forward. One base after another fell from the sky until I recognized Prodos immediately. The speed at which we were flying and the bases fell only quickened until we made a full rotation around what would become the event grounds.

I saw that look in Kline’s eyes. As foolhardy as he often acted, he was also the most serious when the time came.

Mia was scratching at the fronts her teeth with her fingernail when she glanced at me. She knew what this meant. Every battalion would be facing off with one another in the same event.

My attention didn’t linger on their reactions. The camera dove until we were at ground level facing the tunnel with the massive stone walls surrounding the only access to reach the base. To add emphasis to this point. Massive slabs fell from above to surround the base. Then we started to move forward toward the tunnel. Bold font appeared and read…

Capture the Flag

As you’ve never experienced it before.

Masked ballistic wearing soldiers sprinted past us toward the tunnel entrance. Then we moved toward it quicker, passing them by. It was then that I realized calling it a tunnel was rather nonsensical. A four-lane highway could fit in the space with room to spare.

We couldn’t have flown forward more than half a mile before all movement came to a sudden halt. As if noticing us, a massive creature with dark scales pulled itself from the ground.

The description that appeared above its head was identical to the one used in the bonus round during the first event.

Manticore King

Attacks equivalent to rank D psionics

Defense equivalent to rank D psionics

Physical abilities only

No psionics

I heard Mia inhaled in shock but didn’t turn. There was more.

Only Battalions that can prove they have what it takes can compete for one of the limited flags.

The Manticore drew its head back like a bloody dragon and roared as the camera shot past. Soon, the tunnel began to narrow until there was about enough for two lanes of traffic. We reached the end of the skyscraper sized walls only to reach the maze-like section with walls that were thick, but only a few stories tall.

My first thought was that we needed to place men up there but realized that every other battalion would likely be thinking the same thing. Atop those walls would be a sniper’s dream.

The twists and turns were strategic by nature. After flying through them, it was obvious enough that they weren’t designed to mislead anyone. Then after what had to be several miles, we reached the end of the tunnels altogether to fly into the open arena. The podiums with flags made a lot more sense now. Even though there would be thousands of battalions competing for them, there were only one hundred available.

Event Objectives

Stage One: Defeat your Manticore King.

Stage Two: Capture the Flag.

Stage One Rules: In order to compete in the greater event, a battalion must defeat their Manticore King blocking the path to proceed.

Stage Two Rule:

1.       Capture a flag from the middle of the coliseum.

2.       A battalion will only have access to one flag at a time until it’s returned to your base.

3.       Take the captured flag to your base to start the 48-hour countdown.

4.       After a flag is captured, you can capture another if there are any left unclaimed for additional points.

5.       For battalions that reach the center after every flag is claimed, they must stop a battalion that is in route to capture a flag or steal a flag from an enemy base that has already been secured.

6.       Captured flags will be on display in front of each battalion’s base. If a fence or defensive wall is in place, the flag will be withing the defensive perimeter, but not within any buildings of the base itself.

7.       Every battalion that has a flag at the end of the timer receives a point.

8.       The battalion with the most points wins.

Note: Any alliances that are discovered whether they’re formed before or after the event begins will carry penalties up to causing a battalion to lose points.

Let the best battalion win!

After scanning through it a second time as the voice explained what was written on the screen, I slumped back in my chair and stared off as I considered the implications.