“I hate you, you know that?” Aren was lying down on the floor, wheezing. I sat on a couch in the far corner of the room, relaxing, sipping on an orange soda, and reading the news. I hate orange soda, but that’s the only kind currently available on the menu, and I wanted to sprinkle some salt on the wound.
Well, in this instance, some orange, I suppose.
"If you focused on the evaluation rather than screaming that at me over and over again, I bet you could have done another lap."
I looked over at the results, and my shock must have been clearly etched across my face since Aren sat up, leaning on his elbows, and asked in an almost worried tone, "What? How did I do?"
"Impressive, kid. Very, very impressive. You scored in the top 10% for your age and size." I couldn't help it. I whistled and turned to look at the kid in admiration.
His face broke my heart. His earnest look of pride, excitement, and joy was too familiar. It was there for just a moment before he schooled his face back into the now-familiar scowl. It was almost like he was ashamed of letting me see him being happy. "Of course, I'm in the top 10%. And I told you not to call me kid."
"Right, sorry, Aren. Now come here and take a seat." I beckoned him over as I pushed some buttons on the terminal hovering before me.
"What is it now?" he muttered, dragging his feet until he collapsed onto the couch. "Where did this couch come from anyway? And where did you get the soda?"
"Couple button presses, and you can have whatever you want fabricated and brought to this room. Well, for a price."
"I thought you were broke."
"I am, but I have some tokens saved up here. So I could afford it."
"What tokens?" he tried to swipe the drink out of my hand, but I effortlessly avoided his clumsy attempt.
"I don't know how it works now, but it used to be that if you spent time training someone weaker than you, you earned tokens to spend. The bigger the disparity, the bigger the payout." Having made my selection, I clicked confirm.
"So, at some point, you pretended to be a teacher. What a teacher you must have been. Probably sitting on your arse while you tortured your poor students." He watched the robot that had been chasing him around the room a few minutes ago go back into its storage unit with venom in his eyes.
I just chuckled and leaned back. The surface of the table in front of us opened up, and from within rose a plate with a burger, some fries, and another glass of orange soda.
His hand unconsciously clutched at his stomach, and I heard a faint gurgle. His face instantly turned a bright red, seemingly in both embarrassment and anger.
“What the hell is this, now? You plan on having a little lunch?” His eyes hid a deep resentment behind them, one I hadn’t detected before.
I raised my hands in a placating manner. “Easy, there, it’s for you.”
For some reason, that turned his mood even darker. He narrowed his eyes at me. “What the fuck are you playing at?” He practically growled the words out.
“Nothing? Aren, you did well. You earned a reward, that’s all.”
He stared at me for a few heartbeats with narrowed eyes, studying my face. “Take a bite out of the food.”
That threw me for a loop. “What?”
“I said, take a bite out of the food.”
“Why?”
“So that I know you didn’t poison it.”
What in Terra was up with this kid? Being cautious was expected, but this bordered on the verge of paranoia. He kept staring at me, so I shrugged, picked up the burger, and took a bite. The taste was heavenly. I might have let out a groan. Okay, I definitely did. The temptation to devour the whole thing was strong, but I returned the burger to the plate. The kid picked up a fry and held it out to me. I popped it into my mouth, enjoying the salty goodness. When the kid offered me the orange soda, I rolled my eyes and took a sip.
“Satisfied?” I licked my fingers clean, my stomach very loudly demanding a burger of its own.
Aren nodded and looked down at the plate. “This is for me.”
“Yes?”
“All of it?”
“Uh, yes?”
“You promise?” He looked up, his green eyes brimming with tears, meeting mine and…
The golden eyes of a young boy staring at me, full of tears and questions. Blood. So much blood. More blood than I thought such a little body should hold. A trembling hand. A promise. Pain. My fault. My fucking fault.
I shot up to my feet. I had to get out of there. Aren flinched, looking at me with fear. I clenched my fist hard enough that I felt the skin breaking. That brought back some clarity to my panicking brain. I looked down at the kid, doing my best to give him a reassuring smile. It came out as more of a pained grimace. “Yeah, Aren. It’s yours. Enjoy. I’m going to step out for a minute.” Without waiting for a reply, I started walking towards the door.
“Oh.” I heard him say in a small voice. “Okay.”
I just kept walking until I stepped through the door.
“Hey, Razel?”
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Hearing him say my name for the first time, I couldn’t help myself. I turned around to look at him. He stared at the floor, shoulders drawn inwards as if trying to make himself look smaller. The sight nearly broke me. All I could manage was a choked “Yeah?”
“...Thank you.” I heard him mumble.
I opened my mouth to reply, but no sound came out.
The door closed.
I retched, covered my open mouth with my hand, and started running. I thanked my lucky stars when I found the nearest bathroom unoccupied. I barged in, not even bothering to lock, and kneeled in front of the toilet, my stomach promptly emptying itself.
I didn’t even taste the bile as I fought to stop the tears running down my face. It didn’t work. So there I stayed. A miserable sack of shit, puking, crying, screaming, and impotently hammering my fists into the floor, once again neck-deep in memories, pain, and guilt.
I don’t know how much time passed, but eventually, the tears dried up, and my stomach settled down. I remembered Hob, the tight deadline, the mission, Aren, waiting for me. With a shuddering breath and what felt like an inhuman amount of effort, I stood up and pulled myself together. I went to the sink and splashed water on my face, the cold water soothing the last of the pain. I looked up at my reflection.
Rings, I looked like a mess. I had neglected my hair for a long time, the black locks growing to brush against my shoulders, but at that moment, they looked even more disheveled than usual. My eyes were puffy and red, with dark circles underneath them, and my cheeks and jaw were covered in poorly shaved stubble. I looked like I lived at the bottom of a bottle, which, to be fair, wasn't too far off the mark. No wonder the kid thought so little of me.
I did my best to make myself look presentable, gargled some water, went to a vending fab, and got a 21st-century cocktail called a Mojito. I had to wash the taste out, and I really needed a drink. I headed back to the room. The kid seemed to have enjoyed himself since he had already finished his food and fallen asleep on the couch with a paper comic book on his face.
I felt bad waking him up, but the clock was ticking. I cleared my throat, and the kid shot up like a coiled spring, his hand shooting out toward me as if to grab me. I was still at the doorway, several meters away, hoping a little distance and the darkness of the doorway would hide the state of my eyes.
It took him a couple seconds to calm down. Seems like I gave him a really good fright! He looked around as if trying to scan for danger before he turned to me. "You took your time." I see he was back to his usual, taciturn self. Great.
“Yeah, sorry about that. I had something to take care of. I didn’t mean to run off on you. But I’m back now, and we can continue. Hooray!” I tried to make that last word as cheerful as possible. Probably a bit too much, in retrospect. Right, back to business. “Come on, up, up. I was gone for an hour. That's plenty of time for you to get some strength back.”
Aren groaned and stood up. “The rings it is. Everything hurts.”
“Ah, about that!” I tossed him a little bright green bottle. “Here, have this.”
He caught it in the air and looked at it with suspicion. “What’s this?”
I blinked in confusion. “What do you mean what’s this? Just use the scan function of your NovaSight.”
“I don’t have one.”
“You don’t have one?” That didn’t make sense.
“Well, I have the implants; not like I’d still be alive if I didn’t, but the scanning feature is kinda glitchy.”
“Oh. Huh, weird. Never heard of Novas having any glitches before. Anyway..” I scanned the bottle from afar, and a window popped up in my vision.
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[Thesi]
Rank: Official Product
A drink manufactured by the Thesi Conglomerate. Refreshes the drinker with a crisp, citrusy flavor using the secret, patented Thesi formula and restores stamina.
Winner of "Best Stamina Restoring Beverage in Rings 3 and 2" for the last 44 years straight! Thesi! The tastiest way… To extend your day!
“I drink Thesi every day. I love Thesi.” - Bishop Thekla.
----------------------------------------
I sent my window to his vision, and he made an “oh” face. He immediately uncorked it and chugged it down. Within a minute, he was jumping from foot to foot.
“You seem… Excited? I honestly thought you would complain about the evaluation the entire time. Call it a waste of time and grumble and all of that.” This kid confused me so much.
“Yeah, well, I bet you’ve never scored amongst the top 10% of anything in your life, so you wouldn’t know how it feels to be at the top. I wanna measure myself and see where I stand. This shit is exciting. And MAN, did that drink have a kick to it. Was I glowing green until I got my energy back? What was that all about? Middle Ringer stuff is weird. Still, I’ve always wanted to try one! WOO!”
Note to self: Only give half of a Stamina Bottle to Aren until he is 18.
“Okay, okay, fair enough. Next is the Close Quarters combat Evaluation. You’ll be fighting holohaptic enemies of increasing difficulty. The evaluation ends when you are defeated.” I pulled up the controls of the room once more and initiated the CQC Evaluation.
It happened in less than a minute. The entirety of the obstacle course disappeared, and in its place was now an arena with pillars of all sorts of lengths and widths inside of it, the floor turning padded yet firm. I waved at Aren to go inside and climbed up the stairs that had formed leading up to an observation box.
Aren practically skipped into the arena, mentioning Holohaptic opponents seemingly relaxing him a little, which was not a reaction I had expected. I expected he’d be at least a little in awe, but he treated it like business as usual. Holohaptic training partners weren’t exactly common on the outer ring. I hoped the effects of the Stamina Drink would diminish with some rigorous physical activity.
The close-quarters combat challenge at this level was against a single opponent. The opponent had a similar size to Aren, to begin with, and the kid dispatched it with minimal effort. Well, I’ll be. He actually knew some martial arts. And he was pretty good at them, too. Increasingly, bigger and more challenging opponents came out to fight him, and he used his environment and size to his advantage, hiding at the top of some pillars and jumping down on his opponents, using grapples to smash them into the posts and sneak around. Only when the opponent was the size of Thoron and what I would imagine Jim’s skill level would be did Aren finally get defeated. The holohaptic enemy turned around while Aren was in the air and used the momentum of the turn and the kid’s descent to punch him straight in the face.
The kid bounced back within moments, the effects of drinking too much Stamina Drink finally winding down. He turned up to look at me where I sat and screamed, “Hey! How did I do?”
I clapped slowly. This kid was going to be a monster when he grew up. “Top 5%. You might be eligible to compete against others your age in the yearly tournament with a bit more formal practice.”
He pumped his fist with a loud “Yes!”
“Alright, alright, settle down. We still have to get through the Sharpshooting Evaluation.” I said with a smirk. This kid was going places. It would be interesting to see where he’d end up. And to that end, I had to ensure he wasn’t hurt.
“Oh, that one is easy!” He said with a wide smile. “I can’t use guns!” His eyes rolled up, and he fell back, the arena’s padded floor cushioning his fall. For a moment, I was worried. Then I heard a very loud snore.
“Ah, right.” The after-effects. I had forgotten about those. Well, nothing that could be done about it now. The kid would sleep soundly for a couple of hours. At least he should wake up feeling fully rested.
I brought back the couch and table and ordered something to eat; I was starving. Once I had finished my steak, I laid back, sighing in relief. Was this the first real meal I’ve had in almost an entire day? I think it was. I set the alarm on my wristwatch for two hours and got comfortable, falling into a deep, blessedly dreamless slumber.
What a day.