Sub-space stratosphere
Lugh and Failinis looked down at the shining orange lights with the occasional green ones.
“Show me teenagers with attitude.” He said out loud, and in a split-second most of the orange and green lights disappeared. He started to fly down and check the remaining lights.
His search was still the same as before. He just didn’t find anyone he wanted as his retainer. He decided to head towards an island in North America for the final stop of the day.
There he saw a young man with red hair, it was styled weirdly. This red haired youth was the bancho.
“Woah he’s got natural red hair! Wait… Why it’s it styled so weird?” Lugh asked. Failinis barked at him. “ A pompadour huh?” Lugh watched as the bancho walked up to four people. Three of them were crowded around one person, they seemed to want to hurt the person they were around.
“No way, this kid is going to fight against three people by himself?” Lugh was watching intensely.
One of the youths started to run up to the bancho, he was revving up a punch with his right fist. The bancho instantly shifted his speed moving fast, he then jumped in the air and dropkicked the youth that wanted to punch him.
The bancho jumped high enough to hit the other youth in his face with the soles of his feet, the impact pushed the youth hard to the ground. His nose was bleeding.
The other two youths quickly ran to the red-haired youth that was currently on the floor from the dropkick.
One of the youths was about to throw his fist down on the bancho. The bancho dodged and then pushed forward and head butted the youth that was about to attack him.
That youth reeled back in pain; he too now had a broken nose. The final youth hesitated a bit before launching his attack, he clenched his fist and put all his force behind it.
BAM, he connected. The youth was excited and then fear was in his eyes, the bancho had gritted his teeth and stopped the blow in its tracks with his face. The youth’s fist was being pushed back. The bancho yelled out a loud battle cry which scared the youth.
The bancho grabbed the youth's right shoulder, pulled him in and then punched in the face. This punch’s impact was nothing like the youths' impact on the bancho earlier.
All three of them were on the ground with broken noses, absolutely defeated by one person. Lugh floated in place with his mouth slightly open. He looked directly at the bancho’s soul to see his stats.
Ariel Morales
STR:<0/0/0/0/0/_>
INT: <0/0/0/_/_/_>
ATH: <0/0/0/0/0/0>
RES: <0/0/0/0/_/_>
Failinis barked. “Yeah agreed, this kid is strong.” Lugh grinned. “Let’s go and introduce ourselves ,Failinis.”
///
Lugh stood in front of Ariel grinning from ear to ear.
“I got to say you’re—“
Lugh dodged two jabs from Ariel, he almost got hit. He wasn’t expecting an attack, especially from a human.
Ariel continued his jab attacks and Lugh dodged them effortlessly.
“Can you stop attacking me?.” Lugh looked quite bored.
“Back, you demon kid!” Ariel responded back to him with words and more jabs.
“That’s kinda of rude, do you always call new people you meet demons?”
“I didn’t meet you, you were flying!” Ariel held failinis tightly. “Don’t worry doggie, I'll protect you.”
Lugh started to laugh and then flew up to get away from Ariel’s assault. “That doggie is my friend.”
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
Ariel looked at the dog which looked at him. Failinis barked as he wagged his tail.
He jumped out of Ariel’s arms and flew up to Lugh.
“The dog…is flying?” Ariel was startled. It was quite clear that he was freaking out.
“This is such a hassle, what was it Damaris told me?” Lugh said as he tried to recount something important.
Lugh had asked Damaris what to do if a human started to freak out after seeing him.
“All you have to do is go up to their temple and touch it. You should be able to give them whatever information you want too. They will believe everything you say after that.” Damaris said. “Oh but don’t feed them too much information, you could break their mind.”
Lugh remembered what to do and flew down towards Ariel. Ariel tried to move away from Lugh, but Lugh was just too swift and nimble. He tapped Ariel’s left temple.
Ariel was fed the basic information he needed to know. The war, Eden, the Tryfing and the deities themselves.
He fell to the ground and threw up, the flow of information being sent into his brain was a bit too much for him to handle.
“What the heck? How did you…” Ariel stopped himself, he knew how Lugh did it. It was one of the things Lugh had just taught him during the transfer.
“Hehe… so now that we got all that silly exposition stuff out of the way, what do you say? Do you want to be my retainer?” Lugh said grinning.
Ariel blinked twice and rubbed his eyes, Lugh was still there, flying. The information transfer made it so Ariel knew everything he was told was real.
He thought over everything focusing on two aspects. The fight itself and the winning retainer receiving a wish.
The image of a kind and caring man appeared in Ariel’s mind. He blushed red and asked “if I accept I can ask for any wish?”
Lugh saw the embarrassment all over the boy's face. He flew closer to him and had his devious grin on his fight. “Oh? Tell me kid, what would your wish be?”
Ariel looked away blushing even more red “ my dad..” he stopped speaking, Lugh started to poke him on the cheek as if going come on, tell me. “Okay okay! I just want me and my dad to have a better life. But mostly him, he sacrificed so much and for what? A shitty son who can’t stop getting into fights.”
Ariel looked down to the ground feeling ashamed. “I want my dad to be proud of me.” Lugh stopped trying to make fun of the boy.
“Damaris.” Lugh shouted.
Damaris appeared with the tablet in hand, Ariel wanted to be surprised but thanks to the transfer he already knew angels existed and who Damaris was. She waved at the two with a cheerful smile.
“Can I see more about him?” Lugh pointed to Ariel.
“You got it!” Damaris gave a thumbs up and then took a picture of Ariel. Pulling up his information and stats for her to see. “Oh you just turned eighteen, happy birthday!”
Ariel’s embarrassment came back and he was barely able to say thank you to the cute angel. Damaris showed the tablet to Lugh and pressed play.
Lugh saw how happy Ariel’s dad was when he was born. The day Ariel’s mom died, the countless hours of work Ariel’s dad did to make sure he had everything he needed. The relationships his dad had to disregard to focus solely on himself and his son.
The bullying of Ariel because of his name sounding girly. The martial arts training and Ariel’s learning that he had a knack for it. His isolation and loneliness from his father having to work a lot.
All of these experiences created the unbeatable bancho of San Juan that stood in front of Lugh.
He was an angry young man with a chip on his shoulder. Even with all the violence he had caused in his life, there was no taint in Ariel's soul. He was pure.
Lugh had seen enough he walked up to Ariel and extended his arm. “That wish is an honorable one and one that I respect. If that is what you want then I’ll make sure it gets granted if we win.” Lugh smiled at him as he said this. But this smile wasn’t one of malice. It was genuine.
Lugh had found his kindred spirit. “I Lugh of the Long Arm, ask you… Do you wish to fight for my cause? Do you heed the call?”
Ariel stood as if he was contemplating what to say. Then he remembered, Lugh had transferred everything he needed to know and everything he needed to say. The bancho of San Juan smiled back at the trickster savior.
“I heed your call, and wish to fight for your cause. As your eternal retainer.”
Ariel grabbed Lugh’s hand to seal the deal.
///
Above Earth
Sub-space stratosphere
Freya had spent the last few hours comparing potential retainers, she heard the rumor that the first retainer had already been chosen. She heard another rumor that it was Inari who secured the first retainer.
For all the years Freya had known her sister in arms, Inari was a strong willed deity knowing exactly what she wanted and doing everything in her power to get it.
Freya always felt she was the opposite, things weren’t that easy for her. Maybe it was her attitude? Her brother would call her lazy but to her she just didn’t want to do things she didn’t want to do.
It wasn’t that she was rebellious, she just hated being told to do things. So her enthusiasm for things that she was made to do was always low.
Much like Lugh she didn’t find anyone interesting yet, she was also only looking at women. She was the proud Norse Deity of Fertility after all. She had to reinforce her pride.
It was starting to feel like quite a hassle to fly around the subspace. In response to that, she had summoned her chariot, which was pulled by two medium size cats, to lay down on.
She was loafing around on the chariot looking down at all the orange and green lights. When she remembered about keywords to narrow down retainer searches.
She specifically remembered that sometimes when a human is killed whether by doing a noble deed, or by their own hands, certain deities would take those humans aside and send them to live in another world. Granting them the privilege to live another life.
She mentally thought of three keywords “women”,“recently decreased” and “about to die”
The list narrowed down a bit too much, there were only five lights. She sighed and decided to take away the “women” keyword. She had to swallow her pride and find someone quick. After all, she was secretly trying to get Inari to win.
As she was doing all of this she noticed Ra flying to North America, he didn’t notice her yet. She thought maybe she could peek at what he was doing.
Concealing her presence, Freya snuck down behind Ra and landed on a rooftop. She and her cats poked their heads out to see what was going on.
Freya's eyes widened in shock.
“Holy shit, that human is unbelievable.” Freya said. Then she squinted harder and instantly lost all interest. “That human has a small taint in his soul.”
Regardless of how strong this human was, Freya wasn’t interested in tainted humans. She decided to continue her search.
Ra was already in contention to win it all and now he was in the process of recruiting possibly the strongest human that will enter this Tryfing.
She sighed. As she looked towards earth something caught her eye. She had just found her own “unbelievable” human.
“Incredible… there are humans like this that can become retainers?”
Freya’s interest peaked and she commanded her chariot to head to the location of the human she wished to see.
3rd Tryfing
Official judge: Heroic Greek deity, Achilles.
Support judge: Angel, Damaris.
Chosen deities:
Ra:Demi-God
Lugh: Knight: Ariel Morales
Zhong Kui: Exorcist
Inari: Polymath: Kento Sanosuke
Freya: Assassin
Nuada: Conqueror
Minerva: Tactician
Team Arc-Angel: Hero
Fantasia world: not yet created.
Starting year: not yet decided.
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