Tim stood in his quarters near the entrance. He'd been teleported there a short while ago after having his last question answered, and now he was thinking. His new surroundings were helping: two windowless rooms covered by a soft, gray carpet with matching, carpeted walls, a brown armchair on one side of the sitting room opposite a matching sofa with a small table between them and an odd, tall clock just behind the chair, and a made-up king-sized bed with a lighter gray blanket and a stack of pillows on top in the attached bedroom. There was even an alcove off the bedroom with a fairly normal-looking bathroom area, including a toilet, a sink, and a shower enclosure bigger than the one he had at home. If it was a hotel suite, he'd have rated it a nine-out-of-ten for its elegant simplicity. Based on the layout of the room and how the bedroom wall should've been directly adjacent to the hallway beyond, however, it should have been physically impossible for the bathroom to exist where it did.
So Carl was picked because he was strong and because he knew the others, which meant he could be a leader and keep them from getting into "trouble", whatever that means. Probably at least part of why I got picked is for my leadership skills. That makes sense. But now I'm here. He took a slow, deep breath and let it out just as slowly. It was a technique for centering himself that he'd learned from…
He took another breath. There's definitely no way to get back that I can figure out. Some god power brought me here as my character, and even if I could somehow cast a portal to get home, I'd probably still just be my character. Not good. And I'd be stopped back on Earth, because apparently time is stopped there, which is a regular power that gods have.
He took a final breath. Alright, Carl, you're gonna owe me big-time for this. When I get back, I'll clear out some time in my schedule, and we'll hang out just like old times, and then you're gonna tell me all about whatever the hell you've been up to. Shit, maybe I'll take a long weekend and see if we can get everyone together for something. We can all get really drunk—almost all, I guess—and I'll tell the story about how I saved this dumbass from a death tournament in another world somehow.
They'll never believe it. I'll need a souvenir or something.
Shaking his head, he walked over to the stone door and pulled it open, revealing a broad, red-carpeted hallway with walls of stone. The door across from him had a placard with the word "Scorpion" written in block letters. He looked at his own door as he stepped out. "Outworlder" is me for as long as I'm here, isn't it. Deep breath. You can do this. Time to go see what the hell leadership is supposed to do here. At least I'm prepared for that much. Step one: try to figure out what I'm dealing with. Shouldn't be too hard. Barely a challenge.
He pulled his door shut behind himself and checked both ways, seeing the familiar, larger stone doors at one end of the empty hall which led to the chamber of a god, and headed in the opposite direction. A stairwell lay at this other end of the hallway, with one set of stairs curving upwards and another downwards. He passed by a door that read "Human" next to his own room and one labeled "Demon" which was positioned across from it. This really is almost like a hotel. He snickered at the idea, and only a small part of his humor was from the hysteria he was still managing to successfully hold down. A hotel belonging to a god that can stop time.
A third pair of rooms were set next to the "Human" and "Demon" rooms, between them and the stairs, but nothing was written on either of the final doors. Huh. Maybe there's going to be more champions coming? Four's kind of an odd number. Maybe Carl will show up and it'll all turn out to have been a really elaborate joke. Heh. If only…
He started down the drab, three-point-seven stairs, which were made of the same stone as everything else. The steps curved back on themselves almost immediately. Feels like I'm in a world of stairs now. What if they just went on forever?
After no more than fifteen steps, he came to a stop. What the…
He was no longer indoors. A sprawling, silent valley was situated just in front of him, lit by a sun shining in a blue, partly cloudy sky. There was a small stream running through the middle, a few trees here and there…
And the entire thing was walled in by a flat surface of smooth, gray stone.
Alright, this god stuff is making my head hurt. He rubbed his face with a palm as he walked forward into the giant room that he wasn't even going to try giving a rating to right now.
As far as being a demonstration of god powers went, however, this was an easy five-point-five, having lost points for not being pre-populated with any small, alien animals. Also, aesthetically, the walls just didn't fit.
"Let's go!" Vol called out from somewhere ahead.
"I am not yet ready," Ir'alith said in a chastising tone.
"You've been not yet ready for so fucking long though!"
Tim moved up to the edge of the valley's steep decline and spotted the duo at the bottom a short ways ahead. Ir'alith was sitting cross-legged while floating some distance off the ground, and Vol was standing next to her, poking her on the shoulder. What are they… Sateus did say this was for sparring…
"We have twelve hours," Vol wheedled. "You can do your sitting later. I wanna see how strong you are here."
"Very well," Ir'alith said, sinking to land on her feet, "but I may be unable to control my strength. I have never before—"
"Yeah, yeah, talk later," Vol interrupted. She hopped backwards but didn't take up any form of fighting stance. "You can start whenever."
Ir'alith's tail tapped against the ground, and she began to change. Her blue skin shimmered and shifted, at once becoming somehow shiny under the light. Her horns shrank and moved to the sides of her head, her tail flattened and grew pointier at the end, and her hands became little more than sets of claws. She raised one claw-hand up solemnly in front of herself. "I thank you for fighting with me on this day," she said.
She moved forward in a flash of blue, almost too fast to even be seen. Vol blurred similarly when they collided, and neither was more than an impossibly quick display of combat prowess for a few seconds. Then they separated and Vol began walking in a semicircle behind Ir'alith.
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"You're faster than I remember," the shorter woman remarked. She reached up and brushed her hair away from her pretty face.
"I will be faster this time," Ir'alith said. "Defend yourself." She disappeared into an even more speedy flash of blue light a second later.
Vol mimicked her, the red of her shirt contrasting against Ir'alith's blue and providing the only visual cue that Tim could see to have any idea what was happening.
How are they so fast? Tim watched closely but it was like he was trying to understand a movie that was playing on maximum speed fast forward, with any number of parts being skipped entirely.
The two came to a stop again, this time with Vol standing in front. "You did get faster!" she exclaimed. "How're you doing that? Can you be faster than that?"
"I can," Ir'alith said. Her body began to glow faintly with purple light. "Defend yourself." She disappeared completely in the next second, and the ground where she'd been standing exploded backwards, throwing clumps of flaming grass and a shower of dirt towards the edge of the valley. The destruction continued and intensified, becoming a cloud of dirt and dust that completely obscured the entire lowland.
Uhh… Tim blinked, but the explosion of earthy particles continued to grow. A wind swirled, buffeting him with small pellets and chunks of dirt and forcing him to squint.
"You're really fast now!" Vol shouted from somewhere, sounding excited. "How'd you get so fucking fast? This is so great!"
The particulate abruptly fell, dropping towards the ground. The valley as it had been was no more, and instead the entire area had been turned into a big bowl of dirt. Ir'alith stood at one end, her skin both gleaming from the sun and glowing from within. Vol stood across from her, not seeming the worse for wear.
"You desired a fight, but I have not finished," Ir'alith called back. "I will strike you this time."
"We'll see about that!" Vol taunted.
Ir'alith crouched a little, and she stopped glowing. A pattern illuminated itself in her skin, shining like a small, purple sun, though Tim couldn't make it out at the distance. "Defend yourself," she called out. She disappeared again, and this time a massive wave of earth rose up behind her to wash over the side of the valley and strike the stone wall in a cacophony of heavy, cannon-like impacts.
Immediately, another explosion sounded out, and Vol smashed high up against the opposite wall, causing cracks to spiderweb out and a wide fissure to burst into existence behind her. "You hit me!" she yelled, sounding utterly bewildered.
"Fight me seriously, Vol!" Ir'alith shouted back from somewhere within the giant cloud of dirt that had once again taken over the lowlands. "This is my true strength!"
"What's all this?" asked a voice to Tim's side.
He glanced over and saw Emma standing a few steps away, looking out over the valley.
"Okay, okay, this is so fun!" Vol yelled.
"They're sparring," Tim replied.
"Here I cooooome!" Vol shouted as she ran vertically down the cracked wall, picking up speed until she again vanished from sight.
"Where's she gone?" Emma asked, shielding her eyes with one hand.
"Back into the dirt cloud," Tim said.
The sound of a thunderous impact boomed through the enclosed space and, completely on instinct, Tim had already ducked.
Ir'alith came to an abrupt stop in midair just in front of him. She let out a bestial roar and vanished again.
"How barbaric," Emma said with disapproval heavy in her voice. A fierce gust of wind rushed over them moments later, and she let out a brief shriek, holding a hand over her eyes as a shield while she crouched to maintain her balance, her dress fluttering madly around her.
Tim rushed over towards the short woman even as another terrible roar sounded out from somewhere ahead. "You okay?" he asked, standing just in front of her in case another windstorm erupted.
After a moment, she grabbed onto his closest arm near the elbow, pulling heavily to steady herself. "My thanks," she said. She turned her face up towards him with a small smile, and he was momentarily stunned again by her beauty. Then she released her grip, and he roused himself.
A flash of light drew his gaze back to the fight. "Too much fucking dirt!" Vol bellowed from somewhere. Lightning cascaded with increasing frequency, forming endless series of coruscating strikes within the dirt cloud, the flickering too constant and bright to look directly at.
Emma let out a cry and huddled against his side, which prompted him to reflexively put a hand on her shoulder. An overwhelming wave of heat rolled up over them as though they were standing next to a colossal fire, and he felt his palms begin to grow sweaty.
What the hell is even happening? Tim held his free hand over his eyes and squinted into the thinning cloud, but the only things he could make out were the spots that started immediately appearing in his vision from the continued brightness. He felt Emma shiver against his hand and turned his head, looking down at the eleven-out-of-ten woman pressed fearfully to his side. She's fucking gorgeous. I still can't believe Carl knows all of them.
The lightning strikes abated, accompanied by a crashing sound that drew his attention back to the fight. The bottom of the valley had been completely glassed over and was now a shimmering, glittering surface that sparkled under the sun, except for one part to the side where a deep crater had formed.
"Stop, stop, this is too fucking annoying," Vol called. She climbed up the far side of the crater, hopping with each step as she tugged on a dark pair of pants, her naked back still visible across the way. After a few steps, she pulled a lighter colored shirt out of the air and started dragging it over her head. "I'm gonna get this annoying idiot to make us a better place to fight in. Feels like I'm a farmer again with all this fucking dirt and shit."
Ir'alith, or at least Tim assumed it was Ir'alith, dropped out of the sky. Dozens of glowing, pointed tails extended from behind her, each moving and squirming as though it was alive. She had three arms on one side of her torso and two on the other, and her purple hair was actively growing back out of her bald head as she touched down on the ground. "As you wish," she called back.
Vol hopped across the crater to stand next to her. The two began speaking more quietly, punctuated with lots of hand motions from the shorter of them.
"My thanks once again," Emma said quietly. She pushed away from him, not meeting his gaze when he looked down. "I… I believe I'll investigate what manner of edibles our host has provided, Mister Storm," she said, sounding a bit shell-shocked. She turned and hurried back towards the stairs, her blonde hair bouncing with each step.
She seemed pretty terrified. Tim stared after her as she continued up the stairs without looking back. Like any sane person would. That was some DBZ-level fighting. If everyone here is at that level, I think I'm pretty fucked. He glanced back towards the inhuman duo. Why am I even here? Couldn't one of them just beat everyone? Or is it going to be one of those stupid tournament things where the opponents are so strong it doesn't make sense? Yeah, that's probably it. We'll just use the power of friendship and then I'm sure everything will be fine. His eyes returned to the stairs. Maybe I should—
"Drake Storm!" Ir'alith called. "Will you spar with me? I would see your prowess before I return to my meditation."
Tim grimaced. My prowess? I think that would just end with me a splatter on… Or maybe I've gotten super strong since I came here? They did say that Carl was really strong, so maybe…
He turned to the glazed lowlands where Vol was making her way up towards him and the stairs. "Yeah, why not," he muttered. May as well get a preview of what I'm up against. Have to start somewhere if I'm going to win this thing somehow. He started descending down the slope, which changed from dirt to glass partway down.