My eyes snapped open to the view of a marble stone ceiling above. I got to my feet and looked around for the orb that had attacked us, but it was nowhere to be found. The stark walls of the small room felt quite close, and I had a sudden urge to leave into a more open area. I’ve never been claustrophobic, but I wanted to get out of here as soon as possible. The moment I set my gaze on the open door at one end of the room, a notification appeared floating in the centre of my view.

What the hell? Was this EDGE Force’s doing? It didn’t look like their interface.

I concentrated, and a quest notification appeared.

New Quest: Orientation

Gather with the other chosen warriors in the Temple of Awakening. There, you will receive your orientation for the Contest of Valour.

The notification was accompanied by a map marker which appeared in the centre of my view. Beyond the stone doors, I saw movement.

If that pulse of power from those orbs wasn’t some kind of crazy death ray, but part of a larger mechanism that I didn’t fully grasp yet, then Kaiser and Hikaru might be here too. The people who had done this called this a Contest of Valour. Whatever that meant.

Before leaving the safety of my room, I tried to open my inventory, but another message popped up.

Your inventory, status, equipment, skills, and maps are currently disabled. These features will become enabled once the contest has begun.

Okay. This definitely was some kind of game, not dissimilar to the interface EDGE Force had used previously but utterly different in aesthetics.

Was this Mnemntech? They were closely aligned with the interdimensional entity called Mnemnhion, who was supposedly like a supercomputer capable of simulating his own version of reality to calculate the odds of a particular series of events ending in a result that he favoured.

I needed more information. Someone else walked past the doorway, and they wore a strange white outfit. A glance down revealed that I wore something very similar. I’d been dressed in a white jumpsuit, and a pair of white shoes covered my feet.

This was so bizarre. I would find no answers in this empty room, so I stepped out into the hall at the same time as others emerged from their identical rooms. A man stood directly across from me, and a window appeared next to his head.

Quinn McGregor

That was it. No other information appeared. Quinn gave me a quizzical look when he noticed me staring at him.

“Hatchet? What kind of a name is that?” he asked.

It was strange that this system, whatever it was, recognised me by my EDGE Force callsign, not by my actual name. Just what kind of fingerprints did EDGE Force leave on me, even after they’d removed their EDGE Augment?

“Not as catchy a name as Quinn, I’ll give you that. Do you know anything about what we’re doing here?” I asked.

Quinn shrugged. His outfit was similar to mine, but there were holes all over it. “No idea, Hatchetman. I’d be interested to find out what kind of contest this is, though.”

“You got the notifications too?”

“Yeah, weird stuff. I mean, weird is pretty normal for me, but I feel like I’m in a video game or something. Anything like this ever happened to you?”

“Weird is pretty normal for me too,” I admitted. “But this? This is a first.”

Others joined us in this long hallway, stepping uncertainly out of their rooms into this new place. I knew something extraordinarily strange was happening when someone walked out into the hallway that looked like an honest-to-God dinosaur. This guy’s name was Lockjaw, and he had the head of a Tyrannosaurus Rex in miniature but with unmistakably human eyes.

“What are you looking at?” he growled, showing off the impressive fangs that lined his long jaws.

“Nothing man, my bad. It’s not every day I see something out of Jurassic Park walking around. My kids would love you.”

I couldn’t tell whether Lockjaw grinned or snarled. The expression was remarkably like both and like neither at the same time. He took a couple of steps toward me.

“Children are the tastiest. Maybe you should introduce me to them.”

I felt the blood rush from my face as my fight or flight instinct kicked in. Instead, I froze in place.

Lockjaw laughed. “Dude, I’m kidding. I’m a carnivore, sure, but I don’t eat kids. I might look like a monster, but I’m not one.”

“That was a joke?” I said with a surprised laugh. “You bloody well had me!”

“Just like I’ll have your kids for breakfast,” he said with a chuckle as he walked past me.

We all moved in the direction of the map marker, but the closer we got, the more worried I became. There were a lot of people here, and frankly, they were all weirdos. There was one kid named Spook with her hair covering her face like a Japanese school-girl ghost about to crawl out of a television. She couldn’t have been any older than my daughter, Lorelei. A grey-skinned dude named Franklin Gaunt looked like a literal walking corpse.

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When we arrived in the atrium, I saw my buddy Kaiser walking around, sniffing the hands of people trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

“Kaiser!” I called out.

Kaiser’s ears pricked up, and the moment he saw me, they flattened back down again as his big goofy doggy grin erupted across his face. Kaiser ran at me, did a few laps of my legs, and then nuzzled his head into my hand.

[What the hell happened, man? Did we die? Is this heaven?] Kaiser’s thoughts drifted into my head as our connection by touch was re-established.

[I have no idea, but I don’t like this one bit. What have you managed to find out so far?]

[Not a lot. No one here speaks dog, but I can tell the good guys from the arseholes. There’s one real familiar arsehole right over there.]

I followed Kaiser’s gaze and shook my head. Bastard, an EDGE Force defector, was here too. He was dressed in a white jumpsuit very similar to mine. He had a white mask on which covered his face from nose to chin.

What the hell was under that mask?

[We didn’t leave things on bad terms in Romania,] I thought back to Kaiser. [He said we’d only have troubles if we found ourselves on different sides of a conflict. It sure looks like he’s neck deep in shit like the rest of us.]

Kaiser blew a breath out of his nose. [I still don’t like him.]

Lockjaw walked past us then and leaned down. “I like eating puppies too,” then laughed like he’d just told the funniest joke in the world.

[What the hell is that?] Kaiser asked.

[His name’s Lockjaw.]

[Yeah, I can see that.]

[Wait, you can see the notifications?]

[You bet your hairy pink butt.] Kaiser gave me another big doggy grin. [Looks like I’m just as much a part of this as you are this time.]

I ruffled the hair on the back of Kaiser’s neck. [I’m happy that whatever’s happening, we’re here together.]

“Hello strangers,” said a familiar voice from behind us.

I spun, recognising the voice immediately. I took Hikaru in my arms and held her so tightly that I lifted her off the ground. Although the name plate displayed her as Naginata, just as mine called me Hatchet.

“I am so glad you’re not dead.” I put her back down again.

Kaiser barked once to voice his agreement.

“I was so scared that was the end,” Hikaru said.

I looked towards the centre of the atrium and the people gathering within. “I think this is just the beginning of something a whole lot worse.”

Bastard and I locked eyes, and I was surprised to see him raise a hand in greeting. Then he walked over towards us with another two people in tow. One was Scythe, the drop dead gorgeous assassin who’d tried to kill us back in the mountains, but he was accompanied by a new face too. The newcomer was a young Japanese man wearing a white version of an old school ninja gi, complete with a full face mask. He reminded me of the ninja Storm Shadow from G.I. Joe I watched as a kid.

“I wondered whether you’d end up here too,” Bastard said. “I believe you’ve met Scythe. This is my buddy Shuriken. He doesn’t talk much, but it pays to listen when he does. That’s a lesson I learned the hard way.”

The names that appeared on their nameplates matched what Bastard said. I wondered why our nameplates used our callsigns, and the others were called by their own names, like those Quinn McGregor and Franklin Gaunt guys.

“No hard feelings about what happened in the mountains, yeah?” Scythe asked.

“You tortured Xiphos,” Hikaru said, pointing right at Bastard. “You killed me. I will never forget that.”

“I am sorry about that,” Bastard said. “Everybody makes mistakes, and nobody can see the future. We’re both on the same side of whatever this is, though. We’d do well to put our past differences aside until we know what’s going on.”

I remained dubious, but there was wisdom in his words.

Suddenly, a savage snarl erupted from beside me. It came from Kaiser, but I’ve never heard him make a sound like that before. He trembled in terror as he let loose a barrage of barks.

“Kaiser, what-” I asked as I spun, but then I saw him.

Grendel stood behind us, stalking towards Kaiser with his lips pulled back around mismatched fangs in jaws that were too large for his head. One eye was larger than the other, and his face had an asymmetrical slant to it, like I was looking at Kaiser through a funhouse mirror.

Well, maybe not a funhouse mirror. Perhaps a demonic mirror in a haunted house.

Both Grendel and Kaiser had their eyes locked on each other. Kaiser’s tail was tucked between his legs. He was terrified. Suddenly, Grendel launched right at Kaiser, who yelped in terror. Kaiser ducked behind me, and I immediately activated my Balaran armour, which slammed into place a moment before Grendel hit me.

That wasn’t enough to save me. Grendel slammed into my chest and knocked me backward, armour crunching as the beast drove me to the ground. Its massive claws pierced my anima armour and slid into my flesh. Pain exploded as the beast tore strips of meat from my chest, then snapped forward and took my head in its jaws.

The pressure built, and I realised this twisted creature was going to kill me if I couldn’t get free. I had no abilities or weapons aside from my claws, which were now integrated with the gauntlets in my armour. I plunged my clawed gauntlets into Grendel’s side as I felt the sides of my helmet buckle.

Hikaru, Kaiser, Bastard, Shuriken and Scythe tried to dislodge Grendel, but the beast would not be denied.

A bright light bloomed in the centre of the atrium, and then suddenly, the pressure relented. Grendel’s jaws widened as he was plucked from the ground by an energy field of some kind.

The same energy flowed around me and lifted me back to my feet. It sunk into my skin, repairing the jagged tears left by Grendel’s claws, and even reconstituted the white jumpsuit until it was whole again.

The light in the centre of the room was so bright that I had to turn away from it. A strange being stood in its place when the glow dimmed. It looked like a cross between a robot and glowing energy source. It was mostly humanoid in proportion, with two arms, two legs, a body and a head sitting on top, but the joints between the limbs were held together by currents of white light. Was that pure anima? The head was the shape of a teardrop on its side, with a flat black screen where the face should have been.

The black screen lit up into a smiley face emoticon. Yeah, an emoticon, with a colon and a bracket, like I used on MSN Messenger when I was back in high school.

: )

“Greetings, valorous warriors of Earth,” the robot said. Its mouth changed from a smile to a line and a circle as it spoke. The robot swivelled its face towards Grendel, who thrashed inside the energy field but could do nothing to escape. “The time for conflict has not yet arrived. Any unwarranted attack on other chosen warriors in the Temple of Awakening shall be neutralised while the contest rules are made clear. This area is a sanctuary, and any further attacks once the games begin will be met with immediate execution on the aggressor.”

I shared an uneasy look with Hikaru. The mention of chosen warriors, games, and immediate execution immediately put me on edge.

The robot gestured with its three-fingers hands, which looked like a stronger version of the mechanism you’d see in those rigged claw machines that my son loved wasting money on.

“Approximately ten months ago, a signal was detected that marked your civilisation as ready for assessment with a view to joining the Alarendei Empire. I, Altessa, am here as an Emmisary of the Grand Empress Marennia Veknasz and her Imperium, to determine whether your civilisation will join us, or perish.”