“The choice is yours, Number. Which will it be?”

“The one in the middle missing an eye,” Devon had a good feeling about her.

No, not a good feeling. It was more an absence of immediate doom. She sensed it on the gun guy, the mallet guy twice as much, the doom was practically dripping off him. Obviously she would have to fight one of them after this (and it would be her, no way she was letting someone else sub in) but by that time maybe, um, maybe-

“You can sense the power of their signatures, even without my help.”

She couldn’t speak, so she thought in the ways she would talk. The frustration of not knowing if she could beat Tremble in a fair fight, the way things had suddenly gotten far more complicated, the fact that she was built like a burden beast and still felt outmatched.

“I think you have an advantage,” Adam said to her, his vibrations like a warm cloth resting on her brain. “You’re Devon Near, and they don’t know what you’re capable of.”

Her opponent approached, limbs close and smile vacant. Every time she blinked it seemed like she was winking (due to the absence… you know, the absence on the left side). She opened her mouth to speak.

”My name is Chitany Proposal. I was born in Gutworth but I always wanted to travel travel travel! I never did so I wrote books about my adventures in towns and places that didn’t exist. There was the sloping slat salt mines of Crimfth, the towering steeples of Nondophelia. None of it was real, all my imagination and from dreams I had, mostly dreams I had. But wouldn’t you know it, not only were they popular, but some of those places became real! A man claiming to be from Crimfth accused me of starting a revolution through my book that had outed him, the vicar, and exiled him to my hometown. Can you believe it? A lowly girl responsible for an armed revolution in a city of my own creation? I realized I had power then, even as a Reserve. When the battle royale started I was more prepared than the others to convey power due to my independent success as a travel novelist, and my ability to create the towns and cities I see in my dreams by writing about them. I have not found a applicable use for this ability in combat but perhaps someday. Now you know who I am, and now you will die.”

Devon looked up. Chitany’s lip had moved but no sound had come out. Instead the words she must have said hung above her, a giant wall of text, each word bright yellow and glistening. The words shook and fell letter by letter, it was hailing sentences.

Periods and question marks covered the ship like sand while the larger words tore through the ship. It still didn’t sink, Devon assumed Yucian’s still thinking corpse was inadverdantly serving as the ships bottom.

The word “Nondophelia” crashed down at Devons feet, she backpedaled just as Chitany slashed with the word “creation”, which had been shaped into a sword she held by the “c”.

The water lapped at the sides of the boat and Devon pivoted to offense. She went for a downward slash meant to cut Chitany in half.

“Stop,” the word appeared in front of Chitany as a shield. Devon cursed, she had put effort into the swing and couldn’t right herself, but Adam could.

He leaped from her hand like a float rat and skimmed Chitany’s cheek.

”Unacceptable,” Chitany dropped her previous word and split this one in half. Devon got in a quick headbutt before Chitany pushed her away with an uppercut, the capitalized U packed quite a punch. She hit the deck hard, landing on the spiky “t” of travel. It hurt.

”Have you read any of my book’s Devon?” The sentence was lobbed like a cannon shot. Devon hurdled over it and broke into a run.

”I’ve never been one for reading,” she replied. Books were a luxury even those with power did not care for. She only knew how to read thanks to her dad. Orbits were said to have text on them if you looked closely enough, he had taught her that. The little round balls were made of tree pulp. Her dad remembered them being far bigger.

She parried an “I’m sorry to hear that”, tussled and won against an “It’s your loss,” that fell out of her mouth and slammed down on Devon like a sledgehammer.

Looking up from the word wreckage she was almost stabbed by a “My work is not for everyone,” dodging it at the last possible moment.

Enough of this. She kneed Chitany in the stomach, a new word literally dying in her throat. Despite the girl's enthusiasm she didn’t match Devon’s conditioning. Hailien had hit her in the gut like that hundreds of times, for the one eyed girl, this was certainly the first.

”Oh,” She placed a foot on the girls back, “you’ve never been in a fight before, have you?” She heaved Adam up, ready to split her skull.

And Chitany twisted her neck and word vomited.

”Actually I have, hundreds of times in my writings,” poured out, hitting Devon in the gut in turn. “There’s passages that have been cut out and pasted as a form of propagation, or at least that’s how it was explained to me. People cut stuff out of my books all the time cause they want it to spread and grow and grow and.”

She jumped off that last “and” just as the torpedo shell of words careened off the boat and into the sea. Chitany was suddenly absent, and it wasn’t like Devon could hear her. For it was not just her voice that was silent, but also her movement.

“You don’t understand what it means to be a writer,” was cut in half before it could push her off the boat.

“I couldn’t care less,” Devon shouted. To her, there was no less useful or interesting of a profession than being a writer.

She jumped back to dodge a heavy “writing influences every practice,” lobbed from above. Chitany sat on the broken mast, the yellow of the next word forming between her lips.

“Lighter.”

”how light? Please be specific.”

“A quarter normal gravity,” she ran up the mast so fast she didn’t have to worry about climbing it. She shoved Adam at Chitany’s chest, a waterfall of negatives in response. “No, nope, no sirree, not gonna happen,” they became a self fulfilling prophecy. She jerked her hand back, liable for it to be crushed by the words as they fell.

The sentence “A writer must live and understand every possible life,” almost took off her arm. Devon jostled for position on the small tip of the mast, trying to keep both her footing on the pole and her grip on Chitany. “I must know the plight of the common man as well as my own,” shot out with a wink and she lost her grip, “I need to express the responsibility that befalls a king,” jutted out like a punch and she lost her grip.

She fell on the Eggshell. The chitin below her cracked but didn’t give way.

”I was already on the level of Death, for I could shape the world and decide who lives and dies. Each word I write is heard by the world and they shift in a way that makes me smile and makes me laugh, they invent people just so those people can tell me how good I am. I mean me, I’m the one doing it, I control everything. You add an L and word becomes world. Is that a coincidence? Of course not. I am the greatest fighter because I have written the greatest fighter. I am the greatest poet because I wrote that they were, it doesn’t matter if none of those poems were put to paper, they still belong to me!”

She kept going on and on, her never ending rant becoming a sort of word tornado that encircled the ship and lifted her up in the air. Her arms were outstretched, her neck bent up to the floodlights. It was the type of pose Devon imagined a god would take.

“The tongue Devon, aim for her tongue!”

She noticed it then, the strange golden glow in her throat, separate from the words. The reason she couldn’t speak, it was her Grand-damned remark! She wasn’t a god, just an overzealous duelist who had bit off more than she could chew.

Devon threw Adam straight at Chitany’s wide open mouth. The wordnado was getting larger and larger, scraping the walls and colliding with the crowd.

”Even you, weird girl! Even you were written or dreamed first. I remember writing about meeting an ugly smelly idiot in Gutworth. My, that was you. My creations can disappoint me. You know, I bet our god was a-“

Adam went straight through her Remark of a tongue (automatically desummoned) and out through the back of her skull. (flesh demolished) The words disappeared all at once and she fell to the deck at an angle that would have killed her, if she wasn’t dead already.

“Excellent work, Adam!” 139 cooed, “You have made your inevitable failure all the more exciting.”

”That leaves just one more. How are you feeling?”

“Honestly, not bad.” For her first real Duel since training, it wasn’t that tough. Sure, Chitany had been quite flashy, and there was a good ten seconds or so where she was certain she was gonna die, but altogether nothing to complain about. She was good at killing now. Why wouldn’t she be?

Chitany’s handbag around her shoulder flopped open, a pile of paper scattered in the breeze.

She picked up a paper at random. On it were dozens of lines of unintelligible scribbles. It was no language she had ever seen, and the penmanship was sloppy.

”Everything she said about being a writer is a lie,” the man with the gun said. “She didn’t even know how to read, let alone write.”

Thanks,” she kicked her body for good measure, soaking up the crowds reaction. “Would you like to go next?”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

”If you’re offering, sure,” he had a firm handshake, strong grip. “Eric Just.”

”Devon Near,” it was hard not to focus on his gun, so blocky, a strong whisp of smoke always coming out, like it had only now been fired. His doom felt deceptive.

“His signature is that of a rigged deck. Five aces in his hand. Is the man with the mallet still available?”

“I wanna fight Eric, I don’t wanna fight the mallet guy.”

”You’re right not to, Peyton doesn’t play fair.”

“Then my next opponent will be this guy!” She presented Eric to the audience like she was a magician and this was her trick.

Peyton, to his credit, took the rejection easy. He shrugged and then jumped off the ship.

Eric leaned in, whispering in her ear, “between you and me, you’re the only one here with any value.”

”Oh?” She brushed her hair out of her face, suddenly self conscious. “If you’re trying to pick me up, I don’t really swing that way.”

”Neither do I. I’m truthful to a fault. You and the weird one killed my friends, but it’s okay, cause they didn’t have any value, you know. They weren’t additive.”

”I feel like you’re building to a point and I don’t really care, can we start?” Adam shimmered in agreement.

“Sure,” Eric raised his gun and fired point blank.

The bullet was blocked by Adam. It hit it hard like a piece of mucus, splatting on his scarred surface. The bullet detached with an audible plop and zipped back into the gun. Not a bullet, not a real one.

”Oh,” Devon said.

Eric fired again. It hit her shoulder in the same way it had hit Adam, not piercing in the way bullets should, just sticking there. Then there was a weird feeling, like something vital had been taken, and the bullet detached and was back in it’s little house of the gun.

Eric had a smug expression and was smiling, arms folded like he had already won. She’d wipe that smile off quick with a right hook.

But for some reason her body didn’t cooperate. She fell to the ground, her swing hit the floor and it hurt.

”Vestibular sense,” Eric said casually.

”Sense of balance,” Adam explained, picking up the physical slack for Devon by peppering Eric with blows. “Can you get up?”

“Yeah abso-“ a swift kick in the face, it felt like her head spun 360 degrees and the whole world rotated. She no longer knew what was up and what was down, was she not standing up now?

He fired again.

Adam punctured her left hand, allowing him to push her across the floor like a wet rag. Her hand hurt like hell and her back was now pockmarked in scabs and carapace splinters, but Eric had missed. The bullet, blue and jelly like, flattened on the floor.

Then it grew legs and scampered eagerly towards Devon.

”Crawl shitttt!,” with a roar she kicked Eric back and fished around for Adam as the bullet jumped up and touched her forehead.

The salty taste in her mouth vanished, there was an absence of sensation. Like the first time he had hit, but not as profound.

”Gustation,” the scampering bullet crawled back into his gun as Eric licked his lips.

“Your taste… oh no.”

Fuck, fuck fuck. She had put two and two together right along with Adam. She started screaming without realizing it. Eric tried to punch her but she still had enough of her senses to catch him mid swing and break a few of his bones, she heard the telltale crunch loud and clear. His response was a pistol whip and another kick she couldn’t dodge. She tried to get up but gravity had other plans. Wait. Gravity.

”Make me lighter, same weight as before!” And Adam did.

With the slightest intention she flew off the ground and into Eric’s chest. Still dizzy as a top it took all her effort to wrap her arms around his shoulders and hold on for dear life. From the corner of her vision she saw Eric smirk, “Well this is a surprise.” He patted her back, taking to this too well, “Forfeiting already?”

”Heavier!”

Her weight quadrupled and like a stone Eric sank. They crashed through the carapace, landing hard on what was once Yucian and now the bottom of the Eggshell. Eric took most of the fall, he coughed blood and Devon kneed him in the face again and again and again and-

”Devon, watch out”

Gun to her temple. Eric pulled the trigger.

She couldn’t see anything.

“Visual stimuli”

The soft breeze of Adam as he cut by her.

”Move away Devon, I’ll try to disable his Remark!”

She crabwalked away but a firm hand stopped her. A wet laugh that reminded her of Tread. He’d have that sort of laugh whenever she asked him about overdue paychecks.

”You have… no value,” he said.

She heard the sound of the bullet firing. She didn’t hear it hit.

She couldn’t hear anything now. Her only sensation was the chalky roughness of the floor on her hands and all possible flora and fauna of pain, flourishing in her body like a model environment.

She summoned Adam to herself with a thought and slashed out at nothing. She hit something fleshy and she moved forward till the flesh was on her mouth and she bit down hard. It could have been his hand or his face it did not matter. She had nothing but feeling, she had nothing but hatred. She could feel something even fleshier and more tender and she dug in on instinct, she would not stop until her sight returned, she wouldn’t stop cutting till she could hear Eric scream.

The steel of the gun was cold on her forehead. She didn’t feel anything anymore.

And with all her senses cut off from the world, she could finally see what had always been there, right in front of her.

…

Eric Just stared at the girl. In the bowels of this strange ship she kneeled in a beam of artificial light. She was done, she was dead, practically. She looked peaceful this way, rather improved. Figures gathered around the hole she had made, their shadows encircling her. He had already forgotten her name.

Her Remark aimed for his throat. Good for it to assert itself, it was what was important after all. Strange for it to still be summoned, shouldn’t have been possible. He caught it in his hand and let it tear at his flesh. He couldn’t feel any of it. Didn’t stop it from being Grand annoying.

”You’re Adam right?” He opened his hand, the tip of the Adam Remark turned upward, as if to look at him. Wild thing, this. “Can you hear me?”

Adam dove into his eye, drilling out blood and bits that only stopped when Eric reached into the wound and threw him across the hull. He only had half his vision now, he guessed this was permanent. Grand, what a hassle. If only Chitany was still alive, they’d be a pair.

”The killer of a Constant. They said it was a girl but I didn’t believe them, I thought Adam still lived. He’s my idol personally. When I heard how easily he killed 41, how he carved through a half dozen Numbers in a day? That’s when I knew he had value. Real value.

He wish they hadn’t taught him Carbunkle. He was addicted now, loving the way it felt to win a hand. It was a five person game, those bastards, where was he supposed to find replacements now?

“And you’re his Remark, to me that’s just as good. And now you’ve lost another user,” it wasn’t like him to kill, the elements or others did that for him, but it was his only option now. Who knew, he might come to like it. “I’d be happy to take over.”

The Remark skulked back, hovering in front of the comatose body of the girl. Her eyes were wide open, pupils oscillating. Slowly it nestled itself into her outstretched hand.

“That’s touching,” Eric didn’t mean it, he offered a hand, “you’re gonna like my grip better. It’s firmer.”

The girl’s eyes suddenly grayed. The limp hand on the Remark suddenly flexed fingers and squeezed. This shouldn’t have been possible, she was a prisoner in her own body.

She got up.

Her eyes weren’t gray, they were golden and covered in scratches.

She moved strange, like she had to operate each limb manually. He fired, couldn’t hurt.

She did an over exaggerated dodge, her spine cracking as she bent back and then flipped forward.

“Fuck, fuck!” he threw his gun and tried to rush her.

He ran right into a punch, her speed was inhuman. This couldn’t be happening. He called back his Remark and fired as he hit the far end of the hull.

She caught it as it raced towards him. Even though the Remark should have hurt her in the truest sense, she squished it between two fingers until nothing was left.

…

All of her senses came back at once, whatever she was in before, what she had saw, was forgotten due to the singular rush of experience that was comprehending reality. It was like being woken from a bad dream by being hit with a crawl cow hammer.

Eric was pinned at the back of the hull. His cool shades were askew, genuine terror in his eyes. She realized that Adam had been working in her absence. How nice of him.

”Thanks!” She reached out to the cringing Eric and pushed her fingers into his face.

”Lighter. 1/8th.”

She threw Eric 30 feet up in the air, clearing the hole easily as his scream dissapeared admist the crowd’s cheering. She jumped after him. A 15 foot jump was simple when you weighed one eighth the normal gravity. She was in position under his shadow, his body on target to fall right on top of her.

“Heavier”

When she hit him, she hit him with the strength of 500 pounds, a force like an out of control mechanical going 70 miles an hour. An impact so powerful the floodlights cracked.

He hit the crowd so fast there was no time to evacuate. His head was flattened by the concrete wall, the rest of his body burst into the hole directly below like an artillery shell, killing two and injuring several. The crowd scattered like they expected him to blow, some jumping off and diving into the water. When it became clear a corpse wasn’t prone to exploding, even one punched so hard it now had it’s own body count, 139 spoke.

”I must admit, impressive. A victory for the Numbers.”

The crowd was a strange mixture of cheers and boos. Some remembering that those were their crewmates she had killed, others just satisfied by her more than adequate bloodshed.

She would have taken the moment to rest, relax, celebrate with the others, but she couldn’t.

For she remembered what she saw when all her senses shut off.

She was in her own skull, and lining the walls of her head were two giant eyes, staring straight into her brain. Watching every thought she had. It should not have been there, it was not good, it was not pure, and it was inside her.

“Devon,” Adam asked, “is something wrong?”