First Bloody Ballroom (Second Set)

--- Maya ---

“I’m doing that… Mask thing…” She admitted, feeling somewhat bashful in doing so.

“Mm, fair enough.” Anavi shrugged, as if the denial of a name didn’t actually bother her. “Though truthfully I’ve never gotten the point of Masks and such.”

“You… haven’t?” She frowned. “I thought it was pretty obvious with the whole ‘people can come after your family’ thing.”

“Oh, no I understand that.” Anavi assured her. “It’s just I’ve never understood why everyone does it including your… ‘heroes’, back home people with power were pretty obviously marked as such.”

That made her curious. “What do you mean?”

“My Mystic’s Markings.” Anavi explained, gesturing to the dozen or so black bands on her arms. “Each band is a spell I’ve mastered to the point of using as much as I please as far as my people are concerned, allowing me to cast the spell as much as I wish.”

“Oh…” (She’s a magic user…) “That’s… cool?”

(And all attraction is lost.) Her inner logic noted.

(Eh, I wouldn’t say that.) Her inner passion argued. (If we ignore the crazy for believing in magic she is still physically hot, hot, hot.)

(And given how we’re arguably insane ourselves…)

(Exactly.)

“Ah, you’ve heard about the practice…” Anavi grimaced. “I’ll admit, looking back the practice is a bit… barbaric.” The older woman ran a finger over one of the higher bands with a fond expression. “Though Zaum says he doesn’t hold it against me, even volunteers to make me more…”

She… wasn’t entirely sure how to respond to that, given how she didn’t actually know what the deal with the bands were.

Eventually Anavi realized she’d gone silent before shaking her head and coughing into her fist with an obvious amount of embarrassment. “Sorry about that, I’ll uh, I’ll get the next round going if you’re ready.”

“Uh,” she checked her COMP and found that she was still at about half power before nodding, “yeah, yeah. I am.”

Anavi messed with something on her ‘magical’ -(Ooh, I can just feel that derision.)- console before the ring around Maya flashed and two swarms of light began to form in the center of the ring.

When the light show faded standing in front of her were two goblins -one male and one female based on their clothing- each holding their own little knife.

Rather than waiting for the two to rush her with their knives she raised both of her hand cannons and blasted each of them with a burst of Sound, sending them flying and rolling across the dirt.

Quickly reclaiming her -mildly forgotten- Heavy Weight she rushed towards the downed goblins before reducing her weapon’s gravity just long enough to raise it into the air. At which point she let the Heavy Weight fall upon the goblin’s head with the weapon’s full weight as she let its true weight return.

With one goblin dissipating into light she turned to the other one as it picked itself off the ground and snarled at her.

Knowing that even with a lower weight she couldn’t maneuver her cumbersome weapon into the proper position, she instead simply raised one of her Hand Cannons and once more blasted the construct with a burst of sound. One that caused it to slam into the hard light wall of the ring’s boundary, seemingly with enough force to shatter the goblin.

“Hmm, so you’re not completely new to fighting.” Anavi noted from the sideline.

“Uh, no, no, I’m not.” She agreed, not sure if she should be offended given how on the one hand that seemed like an insult but on the other Anavi was a guard for a fight club, (meaning she’s probably seen enough fighters to see we haven’t been doing this long.)

“Good, because most of this set revolves around dealing with two enemies at once.” Anavi warned her. “Most people end up letting themselves get overwhelmed when honestly these constructs are fairly low level in comparison to the real things.”

“What do you mean?” She wondered.

“From my understanding the Bloody Ballroom has a… scaling parameter you can set to decrease or increase the power of the various constructs it makes. Something far more apparent when you go against the scanned construct of a named figure rather than simple generic scans such as these.” Anavi explained.

“Does that mean you’re going easy on me?” She couldn’t help but frown at the idea of being looked down on.

“Mm, not quite… I actually don’t know how the adjustment system works, so I simply leave it at the stored default that Tru had all of the Ballroom’s set to when he had them installed.” Anavi admitted with a shrug. “All I know is that the creatures you’ve fought thus far are slightly below the average of the variations of the species I’ve seen. Though that might be more due to Yggdrasil having more dangerous Anima levels in its surroundings than the local areas.”

“So it might just be that your homeland is more dangerous than ours?” She summarized, having more or less put together, that the older woman was a Traveler from the same place as the non-human from earlier.

“Given how your city isn’t surrounded by an armed and patrolled defensive wall, I’d assume so.” Anavi nodded.

“Right…” (So she’s from a fantasy hell world?)

(It’s possible it’s less a hell world and more a medieval world where everyone is constantly at war.) Her inner logic pointed out.

(Ooh, but probably with dragons!) Her inner madness added in an awed tone. (Actually, thinking about it how hard do you think it would be for us to make a dragon?)

(Well, we’d likely need a bigger bio-pod as well as a little more experience using them.)

(So what like level five biology?)

(To begin at the very least.)

Before she could chime in on her other-selves conversation the walls of light flashed as two more figures began to take shape in the center of the ring.

Unlike the previous two which were a pair of humanoids, this time the light solidified itself into a pair of (thankfully mundane looking) hounds, if with something clearly wrong with them given the patches of missing fur all over their bodies.

(Alright, this is just like with Decker’s wolves.) She told herself, reloading both of her Hand Cannons. Something that may’ve been a waste of power given her remaining rounds but after her fight with the less mundane Storm Wolf she felt it was better to be safe than sorry with what she was sure would be a pair of hard to hit enemies.

The hounds shook themselves out as whatever programming the Bloody Ballroom gave them took over, before they both turned towards her with a pair of dead white eyes she was pretty sure most canines didn’t have.

As their dead eyes locked onto her they each growled in a mix of hunger and malice before slowly splitting in separate directions as they circled her, one going right and the other left, her eyes quickly darting between them.

She flexed her hands, waiting, knowing that the moment she acted so would they.

With her back near a wall the two hounds could only circle her so far before coming up against the Ballroom’s ring of light, which is why as soon as the two neared said wall she raised both of her Hand Cannons figuring by her will or theirs they’d be rushing her soon enough.

The two wolves turned towards her, intent on taking her down in a pincer attack as they both rushed her, or that was their intent prior to her blasting them both with a wave of sound once they were close enough.

Unlike Decker’s wolves from months prior, this wasn’t enough to shatter the two Arcane Constructs, which is why she took her Heavy Weight and rushed the one on her left before smashing it in what was quickly becoming her go to tactic with the weapon.

While she was busy with this the second wolf was able to pick itself up from where she’d blasted it before rushing her as its packmate shattered into a swarm of lights.

Gripping her Heavy Weight she slid her foot back before picking the weapon up in a wide sweeping swing that would hit anything that came close to her. More specifically the hound as it proved unable to change direction mid sprint, leaving it open for her Heavy Weight to crack against its ribcage in a blow that sent the beast tumbling away even as she found herself stumbling under her weapon’s momentum.

(Really need to start accounting for the follow-through at some point.)

Once her weapon was back under her control she turned to the downed beast as it struggled to rise back up to its feet. A state that left her free to finish it off in much the same way she had its packmate as she ran forward, her heavy weight dragging against the ground before letting it impact the construct in a form shattering golfer’s swing to its face.

With the sudden disappearance of her target the remaining momentum of her swing sent her stumbling forward as she tried to get it back under control.

“Fuck…” She gasped, as she finally got the weapon to simply fall to the ground rather than trying to escape her grasp.

“Yeah, the sudden disappearance takes some getting used to.” Anavi commented from the side with a soft laugh. “Honestly, it’s the reason I just can’t get into this thing myself despite how much you locals seem to love it.”

“This thing, uh, this thing gets a lot of mileage then?” She found herself asking as she worked on catching her breath before the next round could start.

(Honestly, starting to get a bit thirsty…) She realized, rubbing at her throat. (Need to look into packing a water bottle or something when I go out…)

(Ooh, we can fill it with chemical concoctions to buff ourself up!) Her inner Madness clapped with glee.

(Perhaps untested drugs aren’t the best thing to be using on ourselves…) Her survival instincts cautioned.

(Eh, it’s something worth considering if we ever get that medical stuff going.) She figured, before turning her attention back to a talking Anavi.

“-even your local ‘Heroes’ stop by on occasion.” Anavi finished, having answered her question while she was distracted.

“Uh, really?” She said, more because she’d missed everything the older woman had told her.

“Yes, though only one of them is on this pit’s level.” Anavi told her. “The rest are considered ‘too strong’ for this beginner’s pit, even if the one with the cards comes here a lot.”

“One with the cards?” She repeated, before her eyes went wide. “Puck comes here?”

As something of a Mask nerd, she knew all of the local Masks -(the heroes anyway)- and while he stood on the more ‘magical’ side of things, the most infamous card user she knew was Puck, the Card Caster. A Deviant hero for more than a decade, he’d become the city’s iconically roguish hero and one time crush of pretty much every teen girl in the city. (Except for the ones who realize he’s a filthy magic user anyway.)

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

(Too bad Vi never realized it, I think she still has a poster of him on her wall.)

(Hopefully Izzy will rise above it.)

“Yeah, supposedly it’s to keep an eye on any up and coming Deviants in the city.” Anavi shrugged, unaware of her musings. “A threat mitigation of sorts, I believe.”

“That… makes sense.”

If the fight pits were legal, and at the same time a popular place for people and Deviants to pass through, then it would also serve as a place for gathering intel on the cities up and coming Deviants. (Meaning if we participate in the tournament and do well, we might end up on the heroes’ watch list.)

(Definitely something to keep an eye on.) Her inner logic agreed.

“Like I said, he’s not the only one who comes through here either, though I feel it’d be unfair of me to tell you which one will be in the upcoming tournament.” Anavi told her.

(So change that might to a definitely…)

“Uh, can you at least tell me how I’m doing in comparison to them?” She asked, figuring if she really did go through with the tournament that was something she definitely wanted to know.

“It’s hard to say, you and they fight fairly differently.” Anavi answered hesitantly. “But if I had to guess I’d say you're slightly below them, though you could probably put up a decent fight against them based on what I’ve seen.”

“I see… that’s fair.” She admitted reluctantly, after all while she’d only been working at becoming a Mask for the last few months most of the Jr. Heroes had been active for at least a couple of years. (Even the one Izzy’s age has been a Mask since she was eight…)

“Well, the fact that you can admit that without getting mad is a good thing.” Anavi assured her. “After all, you can’t improve unless you see someone to defeat.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” She nodded, her mind drifting more towards Decker than anyone else given how -(despite how annoying he is)- he was the strongest person she knew personally.

(Don’t worry, we’ll kick his ass eventually.) Her inner Madness promised.

With that thought affirmed she turned back to Anavi. “Load up the next round.”

“Alright.” Anavi agreed, tapping away at her console and causing the wall of light to flash once more as it started loading in the next pair of monsters for her to fight.

Only instead of two creatures she found herself standing in front of a single human looking figure.

“I thought I was supposed to fight a pair each round for the second set?” She frowned.

“There’s a trick to it.” Anavi called having heard her.

“Okay…” (Then what’s the trick?) She wondered, narrowing her eyes at the man as he held his hands in front of his chest as a small orb began to form between his hands.

Not willing to let the man finish whatever it was he was working on, she switched one of her Hand Cannons to Electricity and fired a bolt at him.

The man spread his hands and the orb expanded around him forming a dome of light that took the bolt of electricity on and dissipated it into a handful of sparks across its surface as the man formed a second orb between his hands.

“Uh, this one isn’t just going to turtle underneath a shield the whole time is it?” She had to ask, especially given how she was working with a limited amount of power and didn’t feel like wasting too much of it. (Actually, I wonder…)

She started adjusting her Headset’s UI as Anavi once more told her, “There’s a trick to it.” sounding much more amused this time.

“Uh-huh, wonder if this trick will work?” She countered before firing off a Burst() of fire where the man was standing.

The construct began to panic as its clothes caught fire and it quickly forgot whatever it was working on before shattering into a swarm of lights just as quickly.

“Well, that was anticlimactic.” She couldn’t help but comment as she watched the light fade.

“Yeah… the uh, the construct was supposed to shield itself and then summon another creature.” Anavi told her, looking more than a little surprised. “It’s supposed to get you used to Arcane summoning minions in the middle of the fight which is allowed by our rules, even if only really seen at higher levels.”

“So I’m guessing I wasn’t supposed to be able to attack it from within its own shield?” She filled in realizing why the fight was so easy. “The summon was supposed to be a surprise attack while the summoner had a glass jaw but shielded the minion until I beat him. That was the trick.”

“Yes.” Anavi nodded, seeming to shake off her (awe, it was awe because we are awesome). “That shield spell specifically disrupts anything in a sphere, meaning the only way to attack it would be from inside its shield. Something most people cannot do given how they’d be limited to the energy within the shield which the construct was already manipulating.”

“Huh, neat.” (Burst() ignores external shields.) She’d been fifty-fifty on if that was the case.

“Right… so I’m assuming with how easy that fight was you’re ready for the next one?” Anavi asked, tapping something on the console.

“Yep.” She smiled, feeling fairly good about herself.

The wall of light flashed and went through the usual light show as it began the fourth round by bringing in her two artificial opponents. The first was a four legged creature that looked like another one of the hounds from a couple rounds prior mangy matted fur and all. While the other looked like a man similar to her previous round though in this case with something very clearly wrong with the construct as he scratched at his pale leathery skin.

Of course what really made this duo so dangerous wasn’t what they were so much as the fact that the man was holding a rifle. (Right… so since I don’t want to get shot we’re going to deal with that first.)

She raised her hand cannon before firing a bolt of electricity at the sickly man, forcing him to twitch and spasm as small sparks danced across his body. A state she was happy to maintain by firing a second bolt as soon as the first ended.

Unfortunately, her focus on the rifleman meant she just barely noticed as the mangy hound rushed her going wide from her sparking Hand Cannon before lunging at her with a maw full of fangs.

Raising her arm more on reflex than intent, she managed to keep the beast from tackling her to the ground as it instead bit into her armored bracers, and she swung it around to keep herself standing. Despite the fact that her bracers were taking the majority of the snarling beast’s teeth on the metal of her armor, the fact that it had clamped her arm between its teeth meant she was largely pinned in place until she could get the beast to let her go.

Which is why she placed her other reloading hand cannon next to the beast’s skull and unleashed a freshly loaded bolt of electricity point blank into its head. A critical strike that forced the beast to shatter into a swarm of light as she killed it off.

Before she could bring herself to celebrate this little victory a gunshot blasted through the air, something she only tangentially noticed as she felt an impact hit her chest hard enough to make her feel it even through the metal plating protecting her.

She turned back to the man as he fumbled with reloading his old hunting rifle before raising her freshly reloaded Hand Cannon at him and shattering him with a blast of lighting to the face.

“Fuck, that stings…” She hissed rubbing at the faint dent in her armor, less because it would help her with the bruising tissue underneath and more out of habit.

“Yeah, don’t care much for firearms myself.” Anavi agreed. “What’s worse, they're significantly more common here than they were back home and a lot more dangerous as well.”

“Well, at least I know my armor can tank a bullet… though I’m a little worried that you guys used an actual gun during this ‘game’.” She admitted, feeling just a little more timid about what the upper levels might bring.

“They’re not actual guns.” Anavi assured her. “From what I’ve been told, while they look like actual bullets, unless you remove the Ballroom’s safety features the actual -what was it… bullet is the word- disappears on impact making it like a blunted arrow.”

“Not sure if that’s better or worse for my armor…” She grimaced, feeling like she might want to upgrade it a bit more. (Or the power armor, if I fix the power issues on that I should be good.)

“Yeah, I can understand that.” Anavi nodded, before looking at her console. “At the very least all you have left for this set is the boss.”

She glanced down at the stat bars on her Headset’s UI, taking in the fact that she still had five units of power left though she was sitting at just above half health with twelve HP. While she had plenty of power to fight the boss, (I’m definitely starting to feel that lack of eight HP.)

“Uh, out of curiosity what would happen if I were to tap out before defeating a Boss?” She asked the older woman, not entirely feeling like breaking herself on a ‘challenge’ if she didn’t have to.

(Yes! Sanity prevails for once!)

(Boo! You suck!)

“Well, it would reset your progress to your last Boss, the Storm Wolf.” Anavi frowned, unaware of the commentary. “Which means as far as the qualifiers go, that would be the marker for your progress. Why?”

“Nah, just starting to feel all of this and my COMP is starting to run low on power.” She tried to explain, holding the little device up and gesturing to the dent in her armor. “How tough would you say the next boss is?”

Anavi considered the question for a moment before shrugging. “It’s a scan of one of your local warriors, an Orkin the locals call Andre. He ended up losing a bet with Grit and now a weaker version of him is the second set’s boss. Though if you lose to him your assessment will count as winning nine rounds since Tru has this whole love for people with grit.”

“I see…” Beyond her placing that all meant next to nothing to her.

(No, wait. I remember what an Orkin is… sort of.)

If her video games could be trusted, -(And of course they can.)- Orkin were a sort of larger Bruiser type of unit that a lot of Arcane units tended to summon as muscle to make up for the fact that they themselves were often depicted as glass cannons.

(Which is why you invest in stealth tech early to assassinate them and dismiss their sub-units quickly.) Her inner logic reminded her.

(Yeah, that doesn’t really help if the Orkin in question doesn’t have a summoner.) She pointed out to herself, really wishing she actually could just use her stealth pack for a quick win.

“So were you going to tap out or did you want to continue?” Anavi asked her.

“I’ll go ahead and fight him then see where I’m at.” She answered, rolling her shoulders out as she got ready for the next fight.

“Alright.” Anavi nodded as the ring of light flashed and a large figure began to form in the center.

When the light cleared she found herself facing a massive bipedal at least eight feet tall with elephant like feet, a brownish yellow sort of leather like skin, and a round head with a flat nose wearing a large hoodie over an equally large t-shirt and jeans.

(You know on the screen Orkin a lot smaller…) She had to admit as she stared up at the figure looking down on her.

“Heh, ain’t you a little thing.” The construct chuckled, making her wonder just how in depth the scans really were.

“These things can tal-” She was forced to dodge to the side as the massive Orkin rushed her with significantly more speed than she thought something of that size capable of, punching through the space she’d been with enough force for her to feel the wind behind it.

The Orkin, Andre followed up this crushing blow with a backhand in the direction she’d dodged, forcing her to take another stumbling step to avoid the blow. Unfortunately, this second step proved one too many as she ended up slipping and falling on her backside.

“Really was hopin’ for more of a fight.” Andre told her before raising one of his massive feet into the air to stomp her.

Reacting more on panicked reflex than anything else she raised both of her Hand Cannons and fired them at the Orkin, unleashing two massive bursts of both sound and electricity upon him. And while the dual blasts were enough to force him to lower his foot and take a step back, it looked as if they did little damage beyond that as the Orkin smirked down at her.

“Not a bad hit kid, but you’re going to need a little more force to get past the ol’ Orkin hide.” Andre told her, tapping his bandaged knuckles against his shoulder.

Her response was to unleash another dual burst of force and lightning, sending her Hand Cannons into a reload and buying her the time to scramble back onto her feet.

(Okay, need to hit him and need to hit him hard.) She swallowed backing away from the Orkin as she tried to figure out what to do.

Something Andre apparently wasn’t willing to wait for as he once more rushed her with a heavy swing that she somehow managed to duck underneath before following the tried and true method of dealing with giant enemies in any video game.

“Wha- I, come on will you just- Quit running in circles!” Andre shouted as she continued to circle behind him while the large Orkin tried to turn to face her, his species clearly not built for the agility necessary for such quick turns. “Okay, fuck this.”

A massive foot slammed into her as rather than trying to turn to face her Andre simply kicked backwards, something that -if she were less concussed and could think about it- she wouldn’t believe him physically capable of with his build, at least not without stumbling. Something he didn’t do as she was sent flying almost a full meter back from a blow that she was sure would’ve cracked something if not for her armor.

“Fu~uck…” She groaned, her eyes just barely noting how that single blow had taken out a third of her remaining HP. (Okay… can’t take… another… hit…)

Sitting up she glared at the Orkin casually walking towards her, as she began shifting through her COMP’s various menus on her headset.

“Ya know, I was really hopin’ for a proper fight not this kiddie shit.” Andre told her with a glare. “So either give me a fight or get stomped.”

“How about this then?” She growled, triggering a Burst(Gravity) and doubling the Orkin’s weight causing him to stumble even if he remained standing.

“Not bad, but you magic types should know how to throw something stronger than… whateva this is.” Andre shrugged, more successfully resisting her Gravity’s effect than the Storm Wolf from earlier.

(At least he’s slowed down some.) She figured, once more forcing herself onto her feet before making her way a safe distance from the Orkin as she pulled something special from her pockets. (Wonder how many of these it’ll take to put him down? You know what, let’s go with all of it just to be safe.)

Turning back to the Orkin as he slowly did the same to her she began throwing several makeshift bundles of scrap and chemicals at the Orkin’s feet.

“What are these supposed to do?” Andre frowned, looking down with little concern.

“Go boom.” She answered, arming all of her explosives at once.

“Oh.” The Orkin blinked. “Shit.”

A massive explosion rippled out from where the Orkin stood, sending a wave of heat and force strong enough to blast her off her feet from several meters away.

“May’ve gone a little overboard there…” She admitted as she laid on the ground, waiting for everything to quit aching.