Willow
New Grand Festival Hall, Near Unterdachsberg (Austria), Earth
The sound was deafening. The heat sweltering. The excitement exultant. Her focus - complete. This is what she lived for. Not the cheering crowd, the commentators yelling words in a language she vaguely understood snippets of, or even the sheer energy and rush of joy flooding her. What Willow lived for was the moment of focus, of perfect clarity. The world was there, in its complete colorful glory, but it was only a pinprick. That pinprick was all she needed to see, to see everything.
The buzzer exploded over the speakers, the cheers reached a crescendo - then faded into the background of her focus. The sound lost its meaning, and therefore lost its ability to influence her. The sights outside of her bubble, outside of the area that she claimed as hers, faded as well. Like the sound, it was still there, but it was meaningless.
The area within her domain sharpened. She heard the stamp of the feet of the man in front of her as he burst forward. Jacques Carrillo was her opponent, Venezuela’s champion and another contender for the first MMA Gold in the Olympic history. As he moved toward her with bursts of speed that left his feet positioned perfectly, his body’s center of mass balanced, she let her mind drift. The moments before actions were as meaningless as the sound and the sights outside of her influence. These moments weren’t hers. Hers were coming.
She remembered the last time she had felt herself fall this deeply into her focus. It had also been on the world’s greatest competitive stage. Not in Austria of course, the last games had been held in Germany. Her trainers called her focus a flow state. She didn’t know whether they were right. This felt deeper. She could get into a flow state with the best of them, she felt time thin and hours slip away in a rush of dopamine and productivity. This was almost the opposite. Time extended. Every moment was an eternity, she could see Jacques’ left foot land just millimeters out of alignment with his body. Maybe just a mistake, maybe a weak calf muscle.
Willow repositioned minutely, accounting for her weak left shoulder. It still ached and of course it wasn’t pretty to look at, the surgeries which had saved her use of her arm also left a grotesque ball-like shape to her shoulder. Unfortunately she wasn’t allowed to wear the padded shirts she preferred that hid the disfigurement while competing. Standard jerseys and all that.
Jacques’ right foot landed again, he was one step from having her in range. Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said for her. His reach was several centimeters longer than her own; a problem easily solved once he was close enough. In the meantime, she basked in her feelings of adrenaline and purpose. Fighting was an even greater source of enjoyment to Willow than Gymnastics had been.
“There’s the silver lining”, paw-pa had said when she mentioned that to him after a particularly good sparring match.
She smiled as her opponent’s left foot just about hit the mat. Her moments had arrived. She claimed the next small portion of time as she ran forward. She moved with a dancer’s grace, an acrobat’s agility, and a gymnast’s explosive strength. Moment by moment, she watched Jacques’ eyes begin to widen as she vaulted directly over his head with her two quick running steps and powerful leap; clearing his head by mere milometers as she twisted in the air.
She noticed the shadows changing from the corner of her eye as Jacques pivoted on his left foot and threw a perfect back kick. Though lightning fast, she felt as if she had all the time in the world to respond as she brought her left hand up while still twisting in the air, landing her palm against his foot and pushing off - moving herself through the air and leading the kick wide. Landing in a crouch with his leg still high in the air, she exploded forward, taking him to the ground. His reach was a problem while standing and frankly, she wasn’t confident that she was a better striker. Her ground work though, that’s where she could shine.
As with any fighter, Willow had studied her opponent’s previous fights and knew he had a few weaknesses she would be able to exploit. The main one was his sloppy escape technique. Jacques was right on the edge of their weight class, and knew how to leverage his strength well, but he relied too much on brute force to escape certain holds.
As they struggled on the ground, Willow managed to twist the larger man into a back hold with a sharp scissoring motion of her legs and a twist from the right to left, avoiding using her left arm and shoulder muscle as much as she could. The moment was about to end. She felt the final grains of sand dropping to the bottom of the hour glass. The world would wrench the time from her if she refused to release it, but that was fine. She didn’t need any more stretched moments to claim victory.
As the world around her suddenly sped up, Willow stiffened her entire body as she achieved a perfect Guillotine; both arms tightly engaged around her opponent’s throat. She counted as he thrashed. She knew he wouldn’t tap out, because she’d never seen him tap out in any video. Even the fights he lost, he never tapped. She’d have to take him to K/O. He suddenly slackened, but she kept her hold. She had seen him play possum only to turn the entire fight in one of the videos she had reviewed.
The ref’s whistle broke her sphere of focus and the entire world burst back; demanding her attention. She released the man who was laying atop her and scrambled out and up. She grinned and whooped, holding her hands up as she made for her corner. The crowd screamed for her, “PHOENIX RISE! PHOENIX RISE!” Her grin widened.
They called her the phoenix now. She’d just been “Willow Gagné” when she competed as a gymnast at sixteen. Not that she had a problem with that, Willow Gagné was her name, after all, but it was a name easily forgotten. The phoenix, though? No one was ever going to forget her. When she got to her corner she leapt from standing atop the three foot fence which demarcated the arena, arms still raised, grin still on full display; or as on display as it could be with a mouth guard clenched tightly in her teeth. She spit it out and screamed back at the crowed, “The ash burn to life!!!”
She felt hands gently but firmly pulling on her, she let herself fall and was caught by her coach and one of his aides. He scowled at her, “Didn’t we talk about showboating, Willow?” She widened her eyes, going for too-innocent-to-scold. It failed, like always. She’d never had the doe eyes to pull that off. She had her dad’s hard-eyed stare, a gift from the super-white Texas blood. If only she’d inherited her mother’s soulful eyes, no one would stand a chance.
“You’re daydreaming again. Snap out of it Willow, round two, remember? The fight?” Coach Conahey’s glare was well-meaning, probably. He was strict and yelled a lot, but he also knew his stuff. She grinned again, going for mischievous this time. This one she could nail. She knew she had, when coach rolled his eyes instead of yelling again.
“Good round. No notes except the showboating. You could have slipped by him easily enough, you don’t need to do that jumpy shit.”
Willow winced, “Cm’on coach, he might have lunged and caught my arm or something. No way he was gonna expect that jump though!” A wicked grin spread across her face, “I’ve also setup the perfect trap for the next round.”
A deep sigh, “Right. You’re going to do something else unnecessary and insane. You do know you get no points in style for this event, right?”
“Maybe I should.”
“No.”
“Why not? It’s a spectator sport!”
“MMA is a serious sport rooted in self defense and can be traced back to actual combat and warfare. It’s like fencing. It should be approached with dignity.”
Rolling her eyes, Willow asked sweetly, “Will you remind me of that when one of the contestant’s mouth is dribbling blood from being smashed again and again by someone’s elbow?”
“Sure.” Coach’s voice was dry and clearly unwilling to indulge her.
She glanced at the massive timer hanging above the stadium. Seeing she had a few minutes to spare, she pulled her headgear off and sucked down some water from the bottle the aid, Tony maybe, had been holding for her. She took deep breaths, working to calm and center herself. She knew it’d be easier to claim another moment, to reach her perfect focus, if she was calm before she got back in the fight.
She looked up at the monitors, looking up at herself - as she appeared to gaze directly back at the viewers. She saw the camera rig which was recording and waved at it. She stared into her own ice-cold blue eyes, set deep underneath thin black brows and shaded by long dark lashes. Her nose was a little crooked, haven been broken last year during a spar, but it was still cute in her estimation - not too big and not too small. Just a bit too crooked. The only vanity she allowed herself for this match was the red lipstick, which highlighted her full lips against dusky brown skin.
Although she bemoaned getting her dad’s cold eyes, she knew her appearance was striking. She might have called herself pretty, before her shoulder had been turned into something approximating a World of Warcraft style ball pauldron. She made a funny face for the camera, then winced as she felt a pinch on her arm. Conahey was glaring at her again. She beamed in return.
“One minute”, he growled. “I swear to God I’m done coaching you after this. Such a belligerent whelp.”
“Love you too coach!” She donned her headgear and slipped her mouth guard back into place. Probably Tony checked her hands, making sure her gloves were still tightened properly, weren’t slipping with sweat, and so on. She gave him a thumbs up once done and he flashed her a nervous grin.
The second round started. She didn’t quite manage to capture a full-fledged focus like in the last round, most likely because she hardly felt she needed the edge. Having taken Jacques’ measure, she knew now that she was the better fighter. The gold was hers.
When the buzzer sounded she rushed at him. She didn’t shuffle forward or hold proper “fighting form”. She leaned on her years of acrobatic and floor work training to keep her balance. She slipped past his quick jab-turned-grab and kneed him hard in the solar plexus. Showing his experience, her opponent flexed and released, managing to avoid losing his air. The knee had just been an attack of opportunity, though, she was now inside his guard and as he punched at her, she leapt horizontally.
Her legs wrapped around his waist as her right hand intercepted his jab. She caught it and forced him to overextend, even as the weight of her jump forced him to the ground. His left fist came out to strike at her kidney but she managed to roll away from it, contorting her body around his controlled right arm and flexing into a straight bar. She actually wanted to avoid joint holds with this Jacques since she was legitimately worried he wouldn’t tap out before she broke his bone.
Fortunately, he had apparently grown wiser after the previous round and tapped the mat twice with his free left hand. She released him and rolled up, throwing her hands in the air and whooping, letting her mouth guard fall out and throwing jabs into the air toward the roaring audience, before making her way back to her corner.
“Showboating.”
“It’s fun!”
“This isn’t supposed to be fun.”
“But it can be!”
Willow stared at coach Conahey with as little expression as she could manage. For about three seconds, then she broke into a grin and they both laughed at the running joke. Conahey was under the impression that sport was like a job, something to master, but not necessarily something to enjoy. Willow believed if something wasn’t fun, then it wasn’t worth doing.
“Last round. Nervous?” Coach’s gruff question caught her off guard.
“Nervous of?”
A pause, then a sigh, “Most people would be nervous about having the victory torn away at the last turn?”
“Oh. Nope! I’m a little nervous that ma’ma’s gonna insist we go get some local fare for dinner again though. The Käsekrainer last night left me… Well, I’m just glad my match was late today.” She coughed slightly, “Delicious though!”
They bantered for another few minutes while the timer ran down, then she stepped back in the ring. She called her focus to block out the unneeded noise and sound. When the buzzer came, she stayed still. So did her opponent. She nodded at him and started walking toward him slowly. He mirrored her action and started circling. She thought he’d actually tried to circle last time, too, but she hadn’t given him a chance. She’d seen his body moving as if to circle before she jumped at him.
His eyes flicked between her shoulders, hands, hips, eyes, looking for a tell. Willow started bouncing, then took two quick steps and crouched - identical movements to the first match. He countered beautifully by taking a fast step left and twisting his body to intercept her leap. She hadn’t jumped though, she instead took off like a sprinter and slammed into his middle as he twisted. He brought both elbows down on her back but she ignored the sharp pain and pushed through. A few moments of back and forth and for the first time, he managed to escape her. Jacques extracted himself and quickly found his feet. She followed, rolling backwards from her back to her feet in a smooth motion.
He said something that she didn’t understand. She shrugged apologetically, “Sorry, don’t speak Castillian.” He nodded and continued circling. She brought him down three more times, and three more times he managed to get back up. She realized what his strategy was when she noticed her breath was sharper and faster than his. He was trying to wear her down.
Well, she couldn’t have that. Time to take him down. She let out a shout and charged him. He braced himself, not even striking this time. He was expecting another nearly uncounterable take-down, she was sure. After all, that’s what she’d done the last four exchanges. Instead, she slid around him and spun into a sharp heel-kick into his ribs. He grunted and staggered back. Her eyes widened, she had felt something give.
“Uh, are you okay? It felt like something broke.” He either didn’t understand or wasn’t willing to acknowledge the injury. “Ref?” She called a bit concerned, “I think I might have broken a rib.”
The answer was expected, “He hasn’t called it. Round’s still live.”
As they circled, she realized she might have misjudged. He may not have been trying to wear her down, he may have just been trying to come up with a plan. He was more hesitant than someone of his ability should be. He was going to win a silver Olympic medal, after all. Taking a deep breath, Willow leapt into action again. She’d go for another take down, this time maybe she could catch one of his limbs in a hold and - an odd squealing sound broke through her bubble of focus. Popping it in the same way the buzzer or a ref’s whistle would have.
Confused, she and Jacques both looked toward the source of the odd noise, up. The camera rigging she had waved to earlier was directly above her. With another agonized squeal of metal, half of the rig snapped and fell. Directly toward Willow. She backpedaled, leapt away, hoping only to be fast enough to avoid the worst of the…
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Willow floated in an odd darkness. She saw nothing at first but after an indeterminate amount of time, she saw the strokes of a brush leaving a red trail behind. The stokes slowly formed into words, “You died.”
She stared, uncomprehending. When she was about ready to start screaming into the void, brilliant blue light did its best to blind her. She recoiled, or tried to, but no matter where she looked she saw the letters; and the new box. The box looked like a future cyber-punkesque pop-up. The kind of thing she wouldn’t be surprised to see in some sci-fi anime or maybe a VR game made by an amateur developer or something. It was way too bright, way too saturated, and way too much in general.
Despite her complaints, as she blinked the spots from her eyes Willow witnessed more unnecessarily flashy effects as two lines literally “popped” into place, with the sound someone might make with their tongue on the roof of their mouth and everything. The lines read, “START” in all caps, colored in several shades of garish neon greens. The line below read, “REPLAY TUTORIAL”, also in caps but shaded with offensive neon violet and purple. As she was still processing, a typing sound filled the emptiness and a final pair of words typed itself letter by letter, like an old-school hacking console, in hyper-link blue at the bottom right of the glowing blue box with a downward facing chevron to its side. The last words read, “Run Stats.”
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Willow, the Phoenix, Gagné stared in incomprehension for what felt like an eternity. “I died?” She asked no one. She tried to look around, and it felt like she was moving, but the words and box followed her field of view. She couldn’t see anything or anyone behind it all either.
Taking a deep breath, she held it for a full ten seconds, then released it. She repeated the process a dozen times until she felt moderately calm. Actually, she felt like she was standing at the edge of an absolute freak out! Holy fu… Her thoughts ground to a halt as she nearly swore, whoooo… That was close. Ma’ma would take a belt to her, no matter her age and… Ma’ma… She wouldn’t ever see her again, or Paw-pa, or anyone.
No Vash and her dry wit, no Whitney with her stupid fashion tips and “basic white-girl starter kits”, no more shy smiles and will-we-won’t-we with James and no Fenny quietly supporting and keeping everyone together.
Willow thought she would cry. She should have, but tears simply wouldn’t come. Maybe dead people couldn’t cry. Instead, she stood and wallowed in sorrow for a while. How long, she didn’t know. She tried to sit, but she wasn’t sure if she actually had sat. It felt like she had, but it also felt like she was still standing. She was both sitting and standing at once. If she tried to stand, she stood. If she tried to sit, she sat. It didn’t matter whether she had already sat down, she still felt herself do it again.
Using this discovery to distract herself, she tried double jumping. That seemed to work! It wasn’t really as much fun as it should have been without the sensation of falling directly after. She distracted herself with weird sensations for a while, purposefully ignoring the only visual stimulus she had. She needed more time.
She needed to process this properly. Process that she was dead. She would never see anyone she knew ever again. Everything she’d ever accomplished was behind her now, and probably didn’t matter anymore. She thought “probably” purely because of the box, but she ignored that. It wasn’t relevant right now. It was about the same as if everyone she knew had died. The opposite was true of course, but as far as her feelings of loss and sorrow, it was the same.
She needed to cry! She needed a good cry and then she could move on. Okay, she probably couldn’t… But she needed to cry either way. Another eternity, or maybe ten minutes, of silent contemplation later, and she finally felt ready to move forward. It was time.
Acknowledging the box in front of her once again, Willow tried to reach out to touch it. She felt her arms and hands moving, but didn’t see anything and didn’t touch anything. She tried to say, “Run Stats.” No voice came from her, though she felt herself speak. She could feel the air coming in as she drew breath to vocalize, and felt the vibration in her throat, but nothing happened. Undeterred, she thought “Run Stats.” at the box.
As soon as she pushed the thought at the box, it changed. The “START” and “REPLAY TUTORIAL” vanished, and the box expanded to the size of printer paper with a scroll-box which she quickly found she could navigate easily by just thinking up or down.
RUN STATS
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Run Time: 20 Years, 85 Days, 16 Hours, 22 Minutes, 44 Seconds
RUN RATING:S+
PREVIOUS RUN COUNT:6
PERSONAL BEST RUN:A
BEST POSSIBLE RUN:SSS+
TUTORIAL ACHIEVEMENTS
Competitive: Compete in over 100 officially judged contests
Competitive Upgraded to >> Ultra Competitive
Ultra Competitive: Compete in over 500 officially judged contest
Elite Competitor: You’ve competed with some of the best of your chosen competition and won!
Elite Competitor Upgraded to >> National Elite Competitor
National Elite Competitor: You’ve competed with the best your nation has to offer and won!
National Elite Competitor Upgraded to >> Global Elite Competitor
Global Elite Competitor: You’ve competed with the best the world has to offer and won!
Global Elite Competitor Upgraded to >> Victor
Victor: You stand at the pinnacle of your competition of choice.
Victor Upgraded to >> Serial Victor
Serial Victor: You stand at the pinnacle of multiple competitions, showing none should presume themselves your better.
Combat Veteran (Gloved): You are a veteran of combat, at least the sporting kind.
Family Ties: You have forged unbreakable ties with your family and hold them in high esteem.
True Friends: Make at least one true friend, forge an unbreakable bond with another person.
True Friends Upgraded to >> True Friend Group.
True Friend Group: Make at least three true friends,
Selfless: Give up something precious to you, for the sake of someone you love
Determined: Retrieve something precious to you that you’ve lost
Broken Dream: Lose your dream, either by losing the ability to achieve it, or giving up on it.
Broken Dream replaced by >> Dream Again
Dream Again: Having lost your dream, you have picked up the pieces and made something new. A new passion, a new dream, a new goal.
Unbreakable: Adapt to an injury or birth defect which might have dominated and irreparably ruin a less determined person’s life.
Cocky: Live most of your life feeling superior to the majority of those around you.
Cocky Upgraded to >> Self Obsessed.
Self Obsessed: Live most of your life knowing you’re better than most other people.
Stubborn: Pit your will against what others tell you. Sometimes even when you know you’re wrong!
Stubborn Upgraded to >> Pig Headed
Pig Headed: Pit your will against what others tell you, because you’re right and they’re wrong. Once you decide on something, you almost never change your mind.
Folk Story: You’re something of a hero in the right circles, people know about you and think you’re special.
Folk Story Upgraded to >> Local Legend
Local Legend: You’ve transcended your own self! Your story will live on for a while after you’re gone, at least in a small area for a handful of years.
Local Legend Upgraded to >> Star
Star: People know about you! A lot of people! Most of them even like you. You’re well known, and your story will continue even after you’ve checked out of it.
Star Upgraded to >> Super Star
Super Star: People around the world know about you! More people know about you than don’t. A lot of them don’t know why they know about you, what’s special about you, or why they should care - but they’ve probably heard about you.
Super Star Upgraded to >> Living Legend
Living Legend: Nearly everyone had heard about you, and every day your legend grows! You’ve been given accolades and many people think they know you and connect with you. Your story inspires the masses.
Living Legend Upgraded to >> Legend.
Legend: Nearly everyone has heard about you, and after you’re gone your story will only grow. A minor accomplishment will become a monumental victory. Your friends’ achievements will be attributed to you. You are a shining example of human progress, ingenuity, determination, and victory. The gods of Olympus compete with your legend and fall short.
Willow stared at the list of accomplishment in stunned silence. If someone had asked her how her life had gone, she’d say that she had no complaints. She had friends and family she loved, had goals and achieved them, and had overcome adversity. She wouldn’t claim that she’d overcome as much adversity as others. Her family and friends were a huge support to her, and she knew without them she wouldn’t have managed even half of what she had done.
Not to mention being born with the privilege of money and education. Even so, she was proud of her life. Though, now that she looked at it all… I didn’t really help anyone but myself and my own family and friends, did I? She felt a bit guilty realizing her entire life had revolved around herself.
Looking at the achievements, she was certain that Fenny would have achievements related to helping others. He spent half of his life, at least, volunteering and doing things for others. He could fix pretty much anything, and would fix anything he could, if asked. No reward required, or even considered. He was the kind of person who gave the shirt off his back without a second thought.
In fact, he had done that before. Several times. Louisiana had plenty of unfortunate souls, some of them with nothing left to their name. Though, they couldn’t say they had nothing left after meeting Fenny. She sighed, feeling a twinge of regret. The regret wasn’t even for the reason it should be. She didn’t really regret not helping people… But she regretted not regretting it.
Well… I can’t change it now I guess. She thought her acknowledgement at the box and the previous screen returned. “START” and “REPLAY TUTORIAL” both blinked slowly at her in garish neons. What does START even mean? She thought the question toward the box, hoping for something. She got something.
METADATA QUERY RESPONSE
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START will begin your true life. You’ve gone through the tutorial, which means you understand the basic mechanics of controlling a body, social interaction, physics interactions (even if you do not understand the mechanics), and have at least a basic level of capacity for learning and teaching yourself.
If you START, you will retain your memories from the tutorial run which you just completed.
That wasn’t as helpful as she’d have liked, but better than nothing at least. What does REPLAY TUTORIAL mean?
METADATA QUERY RESPONSE
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REPLAY TUTORIAL will wipe your memory, reroll all randomly assigned aspects of the tutorial (Social status, economic status, race, family, parents, chronic illnesses, natural strengths, etc.)
All achievments are lost upon resetting the tutorial.
You will then re-run the tutorial as a new you. Your soul is preserved, but your mind and body will be made anew. Most scholars agree that replaying the tutorial is akin to a rare “true death”.
That was both more helpful and less. On one hand, knowing all of her memories and accomplishments would be gone was good. On the other hand, what the heck did the box mean by “true death”? Isn’t every death a ‘true death’? Well, I guess not, given I’m dead but also not dead.
She thought at the box, Is death in the tutorial not true death? No answer. Not entirely unexpected but still disappointing. She took some time, not feeling like she had to make any decision quickly. She thought through her life, remembered what she could, reviewed her achievements. Finally she asked the question she had been trying to find an answer to, Could I do any better?
After a lot of introspection she decided she probably couldn’t. She had almost every advantage she could possibly have in this “run”. She’d had a strong support system, family and friends who loved her, she’d had opportunity. She’d had motivation. Were there things she’d have changed, that might have made things even better? Of course.
Maybe she could have had some encounter that would pound into her stubborn head that she should care more about other people and help others without anything in it for herself. Maybe she could have been born drop dead gorgeous, with an army of servants… Okay, maybe not that. I’d probably just be lazy and useless if I’d had that… She thought with a bit of mirth.
So, if I can’t do any better… I guess there’s only one option to choose, right? I choose START.
As soon as the thought had been pushed to the box, she felt her like a mist gathered around her body, infusing it, then fell away from it. The “You Died” message, and the blue box, vanished. Shapes began to take form in front of her. She looked around, finding herself in the midst of a huge crowd of people, presumably others who had also died and chosen to “START” their life.
A massive man started lumbering toward her, gently pushing his way through the crowd of confused looking people. The man had a face so plain and uninteresting, that its perfect blandness somehow caught her attention. It was like someone had made a “big human man”. That’s the face he had. As she stared, she realized she was having trouble picking out specific features and committing them to memory.
What skin tone did he have? Couldn’t say. What color eyes? No idea. Does he have wrinkles? Not sure. She could SEE all of those things, she was sure of it, but when she tried to think about them her thoughts kind of slid away from all of it. A headache was starting to build behind her eyes, either because she was trying to look so hard, or simply because of the weirdness of it.
Before she could spiral further into a state of confusion, the man spoke. His voice was like someone picking the notes of a bass-boosted bass guitar, plugged into a massive sub-woofer. Willow was pretty sure she could feel the bass in her soul, “Hello. Please accept the terms of your new life and follow me.”
Another blue box popped up, this one with a massive scroll of text. She thought down as fast as she could and watched it scroll for a good thirty seconds. “It’s all standard stuff. If you want to read it all, I will bring you to a sitting area and you can read through it. I believe it takes about six hours to read through all of it.”
Yeah, no thanks. Not reading legalese for six hours. Also not accepting some random contract thrown at her by some random giant. She thought decline at the box and it vanished. She thought that the big man blinked, but again, couldn’t really focus on his eyes enough to be sure.
She smiled up at him sweetly, or as sweetly as the ice blue eyes her daddy gave her allowed and said the magic words, “I want to speak to a lawyer.”