”Well, my team of Numbers to be,” 139 said, “do you know who you’ll pit against this rule breaker? Someone unfair is the only correct response.”
The four surviving members of the team huddled together, matching Tremble’s giddy energy. If they were shaken up by David’s gruesome death they didn’t show it.
“We’re doomed… we’re fucking doomed.” An unhelpful thing to say in a time like this. Devon would have chastised Dive but she knew how Adam got when she did. He was the most bullyable of the Collective, and it was hard to resist the urge to smack him on the head when he got like this.
”I think this is Stumble’s fault. Anyone else think it’s Stumble’s fault?” Plunge scanned the faces of the others, the way her nose poked out from her neck warmer was unfortunately very comical, even in a situation like this.
”Guys let’s not-“ recovering from his almost death, Trip could only get three words in before Dive grabbed Stumble and started accusing her of a thousand different things.
With a bit of a boost from Adam, Devon slid in between them. “Hey come on. Listen, I don't like Tremble either.”
”No one does”, Hailien said. “No one likes or wants Tremble to be here.” Stoic as always.
”Y-yeah. No one but Stumble,” Dive was sweating so much it shouldn’t have been possible, the inside of the pirate’s ship was chilly, hands in pockets weather. “Confess, you were the one who let her on, weren’t you?”, he said, trying to sound intimidating even as Devon blocked his view.
“Stumble, how do you plead?” Plunge asked.
Stumble didn’t even look up. She was still mumbling to herself, pupils moving so fast they were doing loops.
”I think she’s in shock,” Devon gently guided Stumble away from the others.
”There’s something else going on. Her Remark signature has changed.”
“Her Remark signature has changed, you know how people get.” Devon explained to the others. “She’s stressed, we’re stressed. Let her recover and then I’m sure she’ll take the blame.”
They all nodded, accepting this easily. Which was a relief, because Devon had no idea what anything Adam said had meant and would not have been able to explain if asked.
Dive folded his arms. ”I’m not… I won’t be easy on her when she snaps out of it. Someone has to answer for this.”
The pirate team ended their discussion, and a representative came forward, gesturing towards one of their own, a tall cloaked figure. “We have chosen Kirst Clotting.”
”That's not good,” Hailien said. Again, no sign in her tone that this was good, bad, or anything other than a comment on the fact that it was a thing.
”The pleasure killer.” Trip said, meeting Devon's eye. “I thought he lived in The Silver Streets, what’s he doing here?”
She gave him a shrug. “I’ve never heard of the guy.”
”Trip only knows him from me, so don’t feel bad,” Hailien said.
Kirst took off his cloak, revealing a man with a barrel chest and a soggy beard. His eyes possessed a strange immediacy that made it hard to focus on anything else. His clothes, yellow undershirt, maybe green. Suspenders attached to grey pants, nothing else that mattered, her gaze kept going back to his eyes.
”A pleasure killer”, Hailien began “Someone who kills not because it’s expected of them, but because they enjoy it.”
“That's half of the people in Gutworth then”, Devon offered.
”No it’s not,” for once emotion found its way into her voice, the last time she got like this was during their endless fight, when Devon had done a dueling faux paus so bad Hailien had to stop the fight and explain why what she did would have gotten her exiled from eight different cities.
Tremble lined up in front of Kirst, she held out a hand to shake. He kept his hands to his side.
“A pleasure killer is someone who lets pleasure dictate their life entirely. Some people find joy in killing if they have a good reason, or if a death is particularly satisfying, thats fine. But pleasure killers are different. They’re only motivated by the rush. They don’t think of the consequences, they live in the moment to a unhealthy degree, weighing the immediate over the future because to them, it simply does not exist. A pleasure killer would crush his husband’s skull if he found it more satisfying than kissing him on the cheek.”
In Kirst’s gaze was a complete and utter boredom, only roaring to life at moments when his hands twitched, as if exciting himself with the slaughter to come.
And yet Tremble didn’t seem to care. The matchup felt like a bad joke. He towered so high over her that three Trembles in a trenchcoat couldn’t even cut his hair. Tremble was insane, but she wasn’t stupid, she had to know this was bad news for her.
”Oh grand, she’s fucked isn’t she?” Dive asked.
”I don’t know”, Hailien answered, “I’ve never seen her fight.” she gestured to Devon. “What does Adam think? Does she have a chance?”
The space in her brain reserved for Adam shuddered in a new pattern. “There is something wholly and utterly wrong with her, her Remark signature is unlike anything I’ve experienced. Through what that means for her strength, we’ll only learn by watching.”
“He doesn’t know cause she’s fucked up”, Devon wiggled her fingers in front of her forehead, to signify fuckedupness.
“Fucked up as a pejorative or fucked up in a laudable fashion?” Plunge asked.
“I don’t know what either of those words mean.” Adam was buzzing to explain more but she urged him to calm down with a mental shush. The match was about to start. Kirst raised his arms and settled the crowd.
”Before we start. Let me please-“ he unhooked his suspenders and unbuttoned his shirt. His voice surprised Devon, more subdued and measured than she expected. If it wasn’t for the occasional twitch, which read like float rats trying to escape a sack, nothing about him would have seemed out of the ordinary.
Underneath his shirt was a weighted vest that disappeared. It was his Remark, and he had just unsummoned it. His body expanded an extra few feet. Muscles unburdened, released and flexed, his pants bulged and tore at the calves. He was four Trembles tall now, and looked like an aberration. “That’s better… It’s hard to think… when you’re weighed down. My Remark helps strengthen me… for my private joy.” He pointed a twitching finger at Tremble, “do you consent… to my private joy?”
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”Sure! So do I start the match?” Tremble said. She had not summoned her Remark, or done anything to prepare herself. Was she trying to throw it?
”Yes” the giant Kirst cracked his neck, his neck muscles inflating like airbags, his knuckles followed. “The first hit… is yours.”
”Excellent.”
What happened next was visually confusing. First the colors reversed.
Everything Devon saw was now like a photo negative; reds appeared cyans, blues like yellows, the pale green of Tremble’s flesh bright magenta, her all black smile now an empty white. The moment was a moment, that is true, but Devon could perceive it as if time flowed, able to look around and see the way her friends stood stock still, frozen like a loop image paused.
Devon and Kirst’s eyes locked. He stood as still as a prisoner but his eyes were watery and alive with fear. The space around him was outlined with a color that was texture, spikes that threatened to pierce his throat. The texture color contracted inward until it was pushing into his flesh. It did not seem pleasant, if he could have it is certain he would have screamed.
Tremble attacked him with a casual flick of her hand. Time got back to work and there was once again causation, thank Grand. Though now things were a bit funny, a bit askew. For there was no way such a casual little flick should have obliterated Kirst where he stood. But it did.
Like a sand castle being kicked by an especially petty bully, he crumbled, he was decimated, he ended up as a lump on the ground. He broke apart in ways bodies should not be able to break apart.
He was dead. To everyone but Devon, all Tremble did was flick her wrist.
The crowd went nuts. They were into it, oddly enough. Devon reasoned this whole thing was a spectacle, and that was what they valued above all else.
“We… she did it. We’re saved, by grand, we’re saved!”, Dive rushed to hug Tremble but was stopped by Hailien’s firm grip. Tremble was soaking up the praise like she breathed in, thanking the crowd and jumping up and down.
”Let’s give her some space,” Hailien’s metal jaw quivered, and she kept blinking rapidly, it was hard to trust your eyes. “There’s still two matches to go.”
Devon was besides herself, had anyone else seen that? She turned to Adam, beside herself, “did you feel that? Right before she attacked time stopped and there was, there was, uh, spikes, and colors were all different, and it was the same feeling as when she cried, remember that? Remember how the world itself seemed to be breaking?”
He shook his head, which for him meant wiggling his sharp end, “None of that happened for me, Devon.”
That made her feel like shit. Adam was the one who could make sense of things like that, without him it felt like the experience had been wasted on her.
“I can see your memories, it did happen. I can’t account for why I didn’t see it.”
“That’s… that’s weird right? Some sort of Trick?”, she took a seat, it sapped her energy just watching Tremble be happy. At this rate Tremble was gonna plow through the next two fighters, and most certainly challenge herself afterwards. The last thing that girl needed was an ego.
“You remember how Yucian talked about having a different power? She called it the Contrarian’s Needle?”
“Tremble has the same thing right?” She looked up above, where clouds should have been, into a clinical rusted dome, with large floodlights that bathed the ship's interior in artificial light that stung her eyes in ways the sky never did.
Adam didn’t respond. “Okay, she definitely does. That explains a lot. Fuck, how did she get her hands on that.” It didn’t scare her cause it was strong. What was strength, right? She had kicked the ass of a Constant wielding the same type of nastiness, strength meant nothing outside of bragging rights, what mattered was winning, and what scared her was she didn’t know how to win against something like that.
”Huh. Sorry, I didn’t expect you to figure that out on your own”, it clearly disappointed him that he wouldn’t get to infodump.
She blushed, she needed all the compliments in the world right now, even something as backhanded as that.
“Stop, this is impossible!”
The crowd didn’t quiet down, despite 139’s command, the spectacle of Tremble outweighed her authority, thought Devon. That was an Adam thought, or normally would be. Pretty slick of her to have a thought like that, she should try having them more often.
139 pleaded for sanity, waving her hands and jostling the corpse below her, “Kirst has a body count in the thousands, he can kill with a stare! The victory from the Numbers should not have been possible, you’re all… you’re guilty! You’re guilty of cheating!” Her hand pointed accusedly at everyone, even the crowd and opposing team. No one was free from sin.
A burly man wearing designer jorts and a chest harness made out of ties climbed down from the rafters and whispered into 139’s ears. She nodded once, whispered something back, and then pushed him into the drink.
“I have just been informed that identity can be distinct from the self, I did not know this,” she calmed herself and folded her legs. “Hmm, an elaborate imposter then. That wasn’t the real Kirst, that explains it all. Neither I or my consumed souls have ever seen him fight before. A faker taking on the persona, one unworthy of digits”, 139 paused. The loop face on her sack repeated the same smile three times before she added, “It also could be that his opponent danced with Death in the manner that raises armies. If so, no one could hope to beat her, and it was a mistake to allow her to compete. What was your last number, victor?”
”17”, Tremble said as she did a standing bicep stretch. The dastard had no right to look as cut as she did.
”Shockingly weak if that power was yours. Do you pay tribute at the altar of an alternate Idea?”
“Yes. But it’s a secret”, Tremble said, smiling wildly. Her taught forearm veins pulsed and danced as she clenched and unclenched her black claws. Grand she was jealous.
”A person’s self worth isn’t defined by their physical strength or appearance, Devon.”, Adam said.
“That may be true, but like… I’d kill to have her workout routine.”
“Now, 17, to have you continue to fight, even if your opponent was a liability we are happy to forget, would be against the spirit of my sheer contempt for all of you.” 139 pointed a finger at Devon, “You’re the one named Adam, you were a terror in the pre-modern world. It was so long ago.”
”It was only four months.”
”In blood it has been centuries. NOW!” 139 balanced on her bone swing and held out a hand, offering it to the air. “I have chosen you, Adam. Because all of your remaining options are trusted to kill in the way that satisfies, you have the burden of choice.”
The future numbers walked to the center (roughly pushing Tremble out of the way) and stood in a line, like vendors hawking their wares.
”Which one will you give your Number to?”
Devon was only 1, assuming she had even been put into the system, surely there were better reasons to kill her.
Her options were laid out before her and none of them were appealing.
To her left, a crooked man wrapped in bright yellow caution tape, he pounded a spike covered mallet greedily in his other hand.
“Remark Signature is… fingernails being torn and salt being put in the wound.”
Besides him was a woman as tall as Hailien, a brown purse over her left shoulder. Her black hair hung in two neat bangs on either side, framing her square face well. For some reason there was only smooth skin where her left eye should have been, everything else about her was so normal Devon didn’t notice at first.
“Remark signature is an ouroboros (what?) it’s an ouroboros (what’s that?) it’s a- its a wyrm eating it’s own tail (why not just say that?)”
And to the right was a nondescript guy holding a gun.
”Remark Signature is- wait, Devon, do you know what a gun is? (Yeah, of course. Do you not?) I very much do, I was just surprised to see one here, that's all.”
139 loomed over them, the loop image on her sack laughing at Devon and Devon alone.
“The choice is yours, Number. Which will it be?”