PierceGrey

Chapter 405: He has a gift

"I'm afraid...I can't do that," Blake said, giving Mason a tight lipped smile. Mason stared for a long moment, no idea what the hell is brother was thinking.

"What? Why? Haley tells me there's nothing preventing you from joining my house. Literally right now. It keeps us from fighting."

Blake was well on his way to actually pissing Mason off. The drugs were almost finished smothering the auditorium, every civilian and most of the players all dancing and laughing like they were in ...

Chapter 404: Pride

Surrounded by his own people, sitting with Blake and Haley and Lexi—and after a drink or two that probably did more for his brain than his body—Mason found he was almost...comfortable.

"And then we were locked out, so..." Blake laughed as he remembered his own story, Haley smiling, Lexi leaning forward as if enthralled. "Mason climbed up to the balcony, which was two stories. He was drunk, freezing, ice everywhere. And then the balcony was locked, too."

"Oh my God." Lexi laugh...

Chapter 403: The Meet and Greet

Mason paused as the elevator dinged to his hotel suite. Sometimes he felt like he'd worked out everything with his girls, then other times he realized how complicated it was. Or that things and people could change.

Making a woman happy wasn't like buying a couch and having the couch problem solved. It evolved. It demanded constant attention. Attention Mason didn't have at the best of times, and the apocalypse wasn't the best of times.

All he could do was his best. And of course re...

Chapter 402: Prowling the promenade

After enough sitting on his 'private' balcony and staring at the rest of humanity's players, Mason remembered a survivalist he'd paid to teach him a few things outside Houston.

The man was generally abrasive and hard to get along with, full of venom about the world and everyone in it. But he did have a few nuggets of wisdom. A specific quote came to mind:

‘Eat when you can eat.’

Mason stared at the teleporters and all the other players enjoying themselves, and he suppose...

Chapter 401: Horny young idiots

Mason woke when Becky did, his lover smiling and cuddling closer on their shared couch, stretching like a cat. She shook with a laugh.

"Did I hear the girls say they were on a sex strike?"

Mason just wiggled his eyebrows, and Becky grinned.

"So I've got you all to myself. For hours."

"Aren't you tired?"

Becky blew air through her lips like he was an idiot.

"I can outlast you any day, city boy."

Then they were tearing at each other's clothes, and Becky...

Chapter 400: Is it over?

The system made Mason and all the other players fight for another twenty four hours, approximately every 30 minutes.

Which was at least better than every 15. There were far more individual bouts than team bouts, and Mason's opponents were almost always Easterners. Despite a few very bad arenas, they always had no chance.

One or two gave him a workout. These were faster players who kept their distance and were good at dealing with his arrows. But his regeneration, near endless stam...

Chapter 399: A pretty good run

Becky stomped into the hotel room and slammed the door. Mason let her pace back and forth a few times muttering to herself before he decided to test the waters.

“So uh…what happened?”

"Yer Goddamn brother happened."

She kicked a shoe across the room and flopped on the couch. Then she stood and paced again, looking more cute than scary to Mason.

"I used to go out riding when I was mad. When my family made me so damn angry I could just...punch one of 'em right in t...

Chapter 398: What can be done in a day

Tommaso woke up and cringed as he put his hands to his gut. Getting cut in half by some spell hadn't been the greatest experience, but it hadn't hurt nearly as much as he'd feared. Once he’d managed to collect himself, he looked at the clock on his wall, then rushed down to meet his newest beauty at full speed.

This one was Moroccan. Dark haired and eyed with a body even Tommaso hardly deserved. And she spoke Italian! This she did with a French accent and a girlish voice that might ha...

Chapter 397: A very long week

Blake activated Mind Rend as Carl warped. He had learned it was actually targeted mostly based on location, so escaping it physically was a good tactic. But he suspected it had at least grazed the man before he escaped.

Not that he'd 'escaped' anything. Blake was going to teach that man some God damn humility. And some fear.

Annie's scream had sent a shiver down Blake's spine. He'd heard it before in her dreams—the pain, the fear of failure. She thought she was letting him down ...

Chapter 396: Three versus Three

Carl stared at the ‘waiting cell’ monitor with the others, blinking dry eyes as he watched the description of the other team’s affinities.

“Arcane/Psionic. Martial. And…unknown? OK. That’s Blake’s team or I’m too tired to understand reality.”

They all kind of went silent at the prospect. They’d ‘planned’ for it, in a kind of loose, ‘we should get Blake’, three drinks in kind of abstract way. But they all knew it was bad news.

The lift took them up...

Chapter 395: A different kind of marathon

The system put Mason against two more players he didn't recognize, this time in some kind of Indian bazaar with everything but the people. The players fought him together with practiced teamwork. They fought brilliantly, and with great skill, using the terrain to set mechanical traps and launch hidden sling bullets, managing to keep ahead of Mason’s speed.

And then they died, having had no chance at all. This time as Mason grabbed his enemies and held them with impossible strength he ...

Chapter 394: Why didn't you move?

Mason lay between Rebecca and Lexi, both girls cuddled into him and fast asleep. They’d showered off basically in silence, just smiling and pressed together in the warm water before staggering back to the bed and closing their eyes.

But Mason couldn’t seem to drift off. He eventually gave up and crawled out of the bed, covering the girls as he paced around the suite. The pretty prison crafted by their synthetic overlord.

Though it was actually mostly something Becky had said t...

Chapter 393: A successful date

Mason set Lexi down outside his private 'elevator', then pushed her against the wall. He kissed her and lifted her up, toned legs wrapping around his waist.

"We're supposed to be getting Becky," she said with a grin, chest rising and falling with quick breaths.

"We are." Mason kissed her again, then growled and carried her wrapped around him. She shrieked and laughed as he stepped in and reached for the button before the thing just dinged that they were back.

"I really hate ...

Chapter 392: Not a gentleman

Lexi wasn't wearing any kind of bra. As the thin, red dress dropped to her waist her small, perky breasts were almost right in Mason's face. He lifted her up higher with his hands on both firm cheeks, sucking her already hard nipples. Lexi gasped and squirmed as his mouth took them in, her hands on his arms as she closed her eyes and moaned.

"A sex toy…doesn't do that," she said, voice pinched as she gripped his hair. Her nipples were obviously sensitive like Becky's, which was defini...

Chapter 391: Privacy mode

“Welcome, Founder, to The Rose. You honor us with your presence. Would you like to be seated in the private or public level?”

The blue-tinged, system servant at the front of the restaurant smiled somewhere from the uncanny valley. ‘The Rose’ was stuffed full of flowers in no doubt tastefully imagined arrangements, making everything look and smell wonderful. Mason fought his natural urge to hate it all because it was made by RoboGod.

And Haley hadn't sent him here to go 'pr...

Chapter 390: Team Britain

Mason smiled as he watched his players all fight and win. Then he flicked to Blake’s team and stared, vaguely confused. All he could see was a big metal box.

Then he realized Blake and Seul-ki were inside. Blake must have created it with True Making, which was pretty undeniably clever. There were dozens of arrows and javelins lying on the ground all around it.

As the ‘camera’ panned out Mason saw a bloody Annie and several constructs chasing, and eventually killing, two arch...

Chapter 389: Still alive

“Jesus H Christ,” Carl said, watching the six man team take down their first round. They were in the holding cell waiting for their own match, but the system still let them watch their screens.

Becky and Tommaso watched, too, as Seamus ended at least four players with his cataclysmic new power.

Becky got a little shiver up her spine, glad the crazy Irishman was on their side. But also glad he was afraid of Mason.

“I’d survive it,” she said, “but I�...

Chapter 388: Kill casters

Daniel Nyman, Sergeant First Class in the Emperor's Guard, had one of the top teams in the capital. Every member had been carefully selected for their individual aptitude, and overall team synergy. They'd practiced several times against other teams in the Emperor's private training facility, and only lost to the very best.

They were designed melee-centric, with two players (including Daniel) built exclusively for close combat, and two more as hybrid melee/ranged and melee/support. They ...

Chapter 387: Second to none

Mason soon stood in the entrance of his private house 'wing', all his players gathered around him. A few faces looked anxious. Most just looked pissed off.

"Bloody thing could have given us more notice," Seamus said, wearing nothing but a white robe and slippers. He dropped it, completely naked for a moment as everyone groaned or turned away or made various 'Damnit, Seamus' noises. Then his innate robe wrapped around him, and the Irishman rolled his eyes. "Nothin' you haven't all seen b...

Chapter 386: No rules in a chicken fight

Rosa and Mason kicked Becky and Lexi's ass.

"That's cheatin!" Becky yelled as Mason hooked her leg under the water and pulled them both over.

"There's no rules in a chicken fight. I'm a warhorse. Horses kick."

Rosa did a dance on his shoulders, note even trying to be sportsmanlike. Then Becky was launching herself at them both, executing some kind of flipped leg grab to scissor Rosa's upper body and yank her off screaming. Lexi and Haley cheered their support.

They spe...

Chapter 385: One big, happy, apocalypse family

"The arrogant prick wants to pretend like everything's normal. I'm doing his God damn job while he screws around playing orc house."

Haley sat on their huge hotel bed while Mason paced, trying to look sympathetic. But not too sympathetic.

She was never completely sure how to cure his Blake troubles. The waters there ran deep, and she knew whatever her man and his brother might say or do, they were fiercely and eternally loyal.

To get in the current of that ragi...

Chapter 384: Skip to the begging

Blake blinked as his second arena faded from view. He'd fought some kind of hybrid ranged/caster, who launched exploding arrows and warped around. No doubt it would have been a problem for some slow melee type. Blake had tossed the arrows around with Telekinesis, mostly for fun, as his constructs chased the man all over the place.

When he got tired of that he started using some Arcane Blasts, but his opponent had ranged and magical defences. It went on for a painfully boring amount of t...

Chapter 383: Round Two

John Macdonald opened his eyes to a domed arena, the air practically sizzling with some kind of energy. He attempted to charge his Lightning Fist, grinning as he filled it practically to bursting in seconds.

The space was also open, mostly clear save for a few concrete pillars. This was good for John because it meant his opponent couldn't hide or easily get away. As long as it wasn't a ranged enemy who could out-last him, victory was likely.

In other words, it was much better luck...

Chapter 382: Killing with kindness

A sizable number of Nassau's players were officially drunk. Or stuffed to bursting. Or both. And they weren't the only ones. The general volume of the promenade had increased to night club levels, with music blaring and people shouting to be heard.

Mason sat looking off his balcony feeling mostly miserable. He'd eventually spotted Blake down there near a giant leaf, sitting with Annie and Seul-ki. His brother hadn't noticed him, and he'd soon looked away.

It was hard for Mason’s...

Chapter 381: As long as there's one man left

Haley waited for the doors to the civilian bazaar to open, taking a deep breath to ready herself. As they did, a wave of sound, scent, and colored lights hit her, and she walked through with a pleasant smile.

The 'bazaar' was like a huge park mixed with a market. Perfect grass and cobblestone paths, hundreds of merchant stalls, dozens of system servants bringing everyone drinks.

It was the wet dream of a middle-class female shopper. And as expected, it was a madhouse. People shout...

Chapter 380: The Arcane Order

Blake took a seat with Seul-ki and Annie under a giant...pond frond, with a decent view of the eastern leaders. And as close as possible to a bar.

"Two old fashions and...a sprite." He smiled at the alien or robotic bartender and decided Annie and alcohol likely weren't the greatest mix.

"Of course, sir. Cost will be deducted from your overall Neutral Zone Allowance seen in your profile. And please don't over-indulge.  Important information will be communicated soon."

B...

Chapter 379: Information

Mr. Simms wasn't joking about the whiskey. He practically chugged his glass as Mason sipped, the eye watering and throat clenching apparently not dissuading him from what was obviously close to addiction.

"Now that's a thing of beauty." Daniel shivered and closed his eyes as he put the glass to his cheek, taking in deep breaths. "I can finally die happy."

"They don't make whiskey in the 'capital of man'? Even us country bumpkins have a brewer."

"Oh they make it." Daniel scow...

Chapter 378: The Player Promenade

Mason didn't bother trying to push his way to the promenade. Though plenty of other players did. After the eastern elite went through in a vaguely orderly fashion, the rest of the crowd started clustering and squabbling as they all tried to get out first.

A sound like a security alarm blared. Some player cried out and fell to the ground, shaking like he was being electrocuted as he foamed at the mouth. Everyone else pulled back and stared in horror.

[Player against pl...

Chapter 377: Good morning, players

[Good morning, players] boomed the ‘polite’, slightly more human voice of the Neutral Zone system. [You are all cordially invited to enjoy a complimentary breakfast in the player promenade. Directional arrows will guide you in your personalized user displays. Some tournament rules will be explained, and a few tournament rewards will be demonstrated. See you soon! We hope you're enjoying your stay in the Neutral Zone.]

"But it makes no difference if you aren't," Mason mumbled, throwi...

End of book 8

(Image: Rosa and Lexi after their evening with Mason...)

Another one down. Book 9 is pretty much written. This one is damn near all tournament, so look forward to a bunch of player vs player action, getting to know Lexi better, and a few surprises...

After that, it's back home to a new landscape, and life in the new phase.

Thanks as ever for reading/commenting and all your support. I hope you're enjoying the story so far. This next bit was a blast to write.

Onward!