Robert would only fight two hours after Amanda so he had time to talk to her. They sat side-by-side in the stadium's dressing room as she wept. He nested her head against his shoulder.
"Why?" She bawled her question.
"Explosions in confined spaces behave differently. The pressure mounts up."
"Not that," she sobbed. "Why didn't he yield?"
"I think it's because it's a game for them. They never faced a deadly threat. They were never forced to retreat or to fear for their lives. That's what I saw on the psychic imprints I collected.
Robert explained how he collected the imprints of the deceased through the night and earlier in the day. Amanda wasn't really paying attention to what he was saying but found his voice soothing.
"Too bad they didn't have your prescience," Amanda said.
Robert froze. What if he could add that function to the shield enchantment? Make the shield cast a bubble around the loser the moment it detects they will suffer deadly damage?
Was it even possible? And if it was, why haven't they done that already? Surely he wasn't the only one who thought of that. But this was not the time to break new ground or revisit old failures.
He hugged Amanda and picked her up, drawing a yelp from the girl. She relaxed and wrapped her arms around his neck. Then Amanda nuzzled her face against his cheek like a cat. Robert used his primary talent and immediately dove into the true void. They reappeared next to the Gurglock passage.
Samson didn't slack off while they were busy slaughtering their classmates and ruining the survivors' lives. The passage facility was almost done. He put Amanda down before the wide eyes of the construction workers. A security officer approached and saluted.
"Miss Samson! Welcome!"
"At ease, Jordan," Amanda said. "We are just going into the passage for one hour."
"As you wish, Miss."
They crossed. The island was now surrounded by a twenty-foot-tall wall with barbed wire on top. The passage itself was sheltered from the rain by a roof and the rough rock was smoothed around and textured with a relief of a deep-sea landscape. It was decorative and functional. Since most of the floor was damp all the time, it gave their shoes something to grab on.
Robert took Amanda on a bridal carry and used his primary talent again. He took her all the way to the other side of the planet. They landed on an empty island.
He had noticed that the Gurglocks no longer crowded the islands, and no longer challenged the denizens of the other realms. In fact, he found half a dozen passages where the inverse happened. The monsters from the other side were the ones to come onto the island to claim it as their territory. Though they often couldn't do anything against enemies who refused to leave the water's depths.
"Where are we?"
"Before the most magical passage ever," Robert replied with a grin.
He had scouted this one before but hadn't gone too far. As soon as he confirmed it was safe to leave it alone, he went back. He wanted to take Amanda here to share in the joy. Or maybe Veronica. But he wanted this first delve to be just the two of them.
Amanda took a look at the other side and squealed. Robert grasped her fingers and ushered her inside.
On the other side, starting right at the passage, was a winding pathway made of interlocking ceramic jigsaw puzzle pieces, loosely matched and curving into the distance. On either side, multicolored grass made of strands of ribbon swayed gently in the wind. Sparsely placed trees made of pencils with post-it notes for leaves dotted the grassland. Pencil sharpeners of all kinds and erasers dotted the grass, playing the part of rocks and other formations.
Far in the distance, towering bookshelves formed mountain ranges, full of gigantic books with animated letters on their spines and moving scenes on their covers. The clouds were bundles of cotton candy, complete with the stick used to roll the sugar web on. Between the cotton candy, lit lampshades floated idly, casting light and shadows upon the land below. The sky above the cotton candy and lampshades was a quilted patchwork of fabric, sewn with hand stitches with contrasting thread.
Far away, near the end of the jigsaw puzzle pathway, giant cutlery pieces towered, a jagged skyline of a city. Tiny moving things could be seen moving among the feet of the giant cutlery.
Amanda forgot her worries as she took in the fantastical realm around her.
"This is amazing," she shouted. "Are there any monsters to kill? Any resources to harvest? Or is this realm completely safe? Can we make this into a theme resort?"
Robert was stupefied that her first reaction was to think about it from a business perspective. Maybe she wasn't so amazed by it.
They followed the path.
"Nothing here registers on my druidic attunement," Amanda commented. She tried to get specimens of grass but they were just ribbons. It felt like the landscape was crafted and not naturally grown.
They reached the end of the jigsaw path. Before them, a bustling metropolis went along with their day, heedless of the two humans. The towering cutlery buildings were made of dozens of knives, forks, and spoons arranged to make the doors and windows.
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Walking around with cartoon legs and arms, teapots, mugs, plates, frying pans, tools like pliers, screwdrivers, garden saws, wrenches, and other household objects moved around as if they were people. They stopped to have interactions, boarded eggcarton buses and cars, and even bought and read newspapers.
"Are they people?" Amanda asked. "Or monsters?"
"People. Look, some of them noticed us but they're paying us no mind. But we have to go now. I need to be back at the stadium in less than ten minutes."
"Okay."
*
*
Wearing the Minotaur armor, a brand new item since the last ones were sent back to R&D to evaluate the battle damage, Robert stood before his opponent, another tamer. The girl on the other side had a ten-foot-tall, twenty-foot-wide lion. Its mane was made of fire while its hindquarters were covered in rock. A spiked ball swayed at the top of the lion's tail as if it weighed nothing.
The girl appeared with a different monster every fight. She hadn't used half of the creatures in her stables. The lion seemed to be a two-star monster and very powerful at it. If he counted the taming limit, she had more monsters than him, even though the Minotaurs were as strong as this lion.
"Where are your friends?" She asked with a mocking tone as she played with two balls on her hands, one of fire and the other of polished stone.
"Home, listening to Bach. I really didn't want to bring them here so you can try to steal them. Speaking of friends, are you sure you don't want to have the kitten step down? I'm not going easy on it."
"Do you worst, asshole!" She shouted. "And if you touch me, I'll —
The horn blared over her whiny voice. "Begin!" The referee said over it. How could they always hear the referee over the loud horn? The answer was simple. Magic. The shield came up.
The girl could have only one pet at a time but she didn't need to go through the lengthy taming process either. It must be her talent.
"Go!" She shouted to the lion. The monster deftly covered the ground while Robert remained still, watching how the girl would react. She took a whip out of her storage ring and snapped it.
He started to casually walk forward. The lion quickly reached him and pounced. The next instant, the boar spear was in Robert's hand ready to impale the lion. That's when the ground underneath him shifted. It had to be non-damaging because Robert got no warning from his danger sense. He engaged his primary talent anyway, moving away from the area of flowing rock.
Robert felt curious about this fellow tamer. How did she tame monsters over the limit? Did she catch and release them?
When he reappeared, the lion landed and turned to face him. It jumped once again and the previous scene repeated itself. The ground shifted and he got no warning from his danger sense. Robert evaded using his primary talent once again. The third time was the charm. Robert waited until the lion was on top of him, then took the beast to the liminal void.
"Mind Blackout!" He shouted.
The lion offered some resistance but Robert had the weight of a massive mind palace and the knowledge of two massive libraries to back his willpower. The lion's mental defenses shattered like a wine flute under a sledgehammer and he was in.
Beast bonding with the creature was dangerous. Robert scanned the monster's mind in the short time he had and created a new VHS tape. Then he broke contact and let the void devour the lion, leaving a dead husk. He stood in the same position as when they entered and returned.
"LEO, NO!" The girl shouted as she went into shock. Falling on her knees, she screamed and wept. "I'm gonna fucking wreck you!"
Then she transformed into the same lion species Robert killed but remained female. The lioness charged at Robert. She pounced and opened her mouth, spitting a cone of orange flames at him.
Once again, Robert felt no precognitive warning. He suspected it was the lion species' talent. Which meant she could take on more than the form of the creatures she tamed. Feeling adventurous, Robert trusted Samson's engineering division as he tanked the flames and grabbed the lioness, placing himself underneath her as he dropped on his back intentionally.
Robert used his primary talent once again, dragging the girl with him. In the liminal void, he used Mind Blackout once again.
He had vowed to never use the spell to brainwash someone. He just wanted to have a peek into her mind. He searched for what the Prime Vestige said when she took it.
The Prime Vestige had said, back then: "Form a symbiotic relationship with a powerful entity, sharing its abilities and enhancing your own."
Bloody hell. She could borrow the talent and affinities of the creatures she bonded with so long they were nearby. The relationship was symbiotic, meaning the creature could use her affinities too. The girl only had Earth and the lion had Fire.
He then asked what the Prime Vestige had said when she evolved her talent.
"Take on the form of a fallen friend, becoming one of them once, for as long as you wish."
Robert saw that she waited for a long time to evolve that talent. The girl has been an Arch for six years now. It was a heavily guarded secret that her faction made her absorb a Prime too soon.
He tried using beast bond on her but the spell failed. Not because it couldn't affect humans, which was true, but because he didn't have the mental bandwidth to dominate a sapient monster.
It was tempting. But he would be breaking not only the law but his personal ethics too. He made her forget the visit to the liminal void and instilled three commands. Do not attack him and transform back once they are separated, then yield the fight once in human form.
He still had to wait one and a half hours underneath the pacified lioness. He monitored her mental state which was quickly devolving into bestiality. Her mental prowess and willpower were orders of magnitude lower than Robert's. While he took a few months to start turning into a fairy, she wouldn't last a day before she forgot she was human and started to behave like a monster.
Robert worked on his mind palace, weaving his imprint with painstaking care. Once the time was up, they returned to reality in the same position they left.
The lioness climbed on her legs and walked away from Robert. She transformed back and shouted, "I YIELD!"
Out of the effects of his spell, she looked around, confused. The horn blared and the referee shouted, "Winner!"
Robert's portrait moved up on the leaderboard, to the semi-finals. He and Amanda were on opposite sides, with a blank spot in their bracket as the fights to decide their opponents were scheduled for last.
The girl looked at him. "WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME? I CAN'T TAKE LEO'S SHAPE ANYMORE!"
"I saved your life," he said. "This is the first time you lose one of your friends, right? I know about your evolved talent."
Robert's words took the edge off of her anger. "NO way! You used your company to spy on me!"
He approached her. She stood defiant. Robert removed his horned helmet. "Don't get me wrong and don't start a faction war over nothing. Samson did nothing besides paying my wages and letting me test this armor. I want to help you, from one tamer to another."
He got closer and whispered. "You became an Arch too soon. It worked well for your two-star talent evolution but it gave you a skewed vision of things. I too have creatures I tamed and consider friends. You won't see them in the arena. You killed Leo the moment you took him with you."
He glanced at the furious teacher who wanted to climb on the arena and drag his pupil away before Robert could either brainwash her or break the control they had over her.
"I see your teacher was the one who convinced you to take your pets to the fight. You have a very powerful talent and won the other fights easily. But don't treat your friends like weapons if you don't want your enemies to treat them like targets."
She started to cry. Robert turned around and walked away, knowing very well that the scene, when seen from afar and in the context of his latest public interactions with females, painted him as the villain.