Opening Moves (The Gam3 Book 1) (33 page)

Just concentrate on making the shots most likely to hit him, and the movements most likely to defend yourself. You don’t need to consider all of the simulations, just the best one.

Got it.

Then the countdown hit zero, and the duel began.

***

Sidestep arrogantly glared at Alan. There was no way this human, this earthling, had actually earned 5000 guild points. They had been handed to him, like everything else. Sidestep would show this fool the folly of his ways, perhaps even taking him under his own wing after thoroughly trouncing him. That is, if the human still made it into the Black Rose guild after losing all the points he possessed. Sidestep had purposely shown off his signature sidestep ability in the great hall, to get people to assume that it was his main ability, and that it depended upon his armor. While he had less psionic energy without the armor, Sidestep could just as easily use the ability and his others. With two short steps, he’d be within striking distance, able to end this farce.

The countdown reached zero, and Sidestep took his first sidestep, blinking 10 units horizontally towards the newbie, preparing to take a second sidestep. He was immediately met by a laser blast to the face, dealing 30 damage due to a multiplier as it hit his head.

Assuming it was just a lucky shot, Sidestep prepared his second step forward, but to his surprise he saw a laser shot headed to the exact point he’d planned on stepping towards, arcing in such a way that it would hit him if he teleported in that direction.

Sidestep turned in another direction, but saw the human begin aiming one of his laser pistols at that spot as well. Sidestep shifted his feet once more, planning on stepping in a new direction, but saw the laser pistols fire off both towards this new planned destination, and directly towards him!

Slightly nervous, Sidestep stepped backwards and to the left, away from an oncoming barrage of laser fire. He continued to step backwards and to the side, away from the laser fire that spread further and further apart, trying to gather his thoughts. To anyone else, it would look like Alan was simply firing randomly in a wide spread, hoping to catch Sidestep, but Sidestep knew that each of the lasers hit a point that he was considering moving to.

Sidestep couldn’t even imagine the years of training, the skill involved, to both anticipate an enemy’s movement and fire directly at those predicted targets, even upwards of hundreds of units away, far outside the range of a standard laser pistol! As far as Sidestep could tell, each shot was aimed perfectly to align with his head as well. He hadn’t wanted to reveal any more of his abilities, but 1000 guild points were on the line…

***

Alan watched as Sidestep retreated back, feeling more confident about his and Eve’s abilities, when suddenly Sidestep took a sidestep, but left behind a mirror image! Each Sidestep then took another step, leaving behind another. There were suddenly four enemies! Luckily, those four clones left no additional clones behind, but they were still four different targets, indistinguishable from one another at least as far as Alan could tell. Luckily, three were likely fake, mirror images, rather than actual Sidesteps. Otherwise, that would be too overpowered, right?

The four figures suddenly charged towards Alan, but all used the same left and right sidestep movements, which Eve easily anticipated. Trying to spread out the damage, with the hope it would reveal the real one, Alan managed to hit each Sidestep once as they closed half the distance between them and Alan. Nothing revealed any of the four as being the real Sidestep though. Alan managed to hit each one an additional time in the head right as the four converged on him, leaving the real Sidestep, whichever he was, with 10 energy left on his shields. One more shot and Alan would win the duel.

Alan dived to the right as the four Sidesteps converged on his position, narrowly avoiding a downwards strike as well as a sideways slash with perfect timing, firing twice to hit both duplicates in the stomach. They vanished in a shower of green sparks, revealing a single Sidestep stabbing forwards. Eve anticipated the fourth clone was behind him, and thus Alan fired once behind him and forwards while diving in such a manner that would both dodge the hypothetical attack from behind and the stab from the front.

Unbelieving, Sidestep could only watch as Alan masterfully evaded his every attack, even the one from behind. Alan simply aimed, fired and hit. And the duel was over.

***

With a flash of light, Alan found himself once more standing in the same dueling ring, and a message popped up, notifying him that he won the duel.

To Alan’s surprise, Sidestep graciously bowed before him, and calmly said, “Well fought. It seems I greatly underestimated your abilities. I forget that worlds not touched by the Game are still full of actual warfare and killing. You must have trained hard to become such a warrior.”

Embarrassingly, Alan could only say, “Thank you, you fought well too,” while feeling a bit guilty about how Eve and his augments were what had done all the work. It was better if people didn’t realize that though, thus he kept silent.

“I hope that you forgive me for trying to get a rise out of you, I knew a bit about the guild trials beforehand thus actually antagonized a number of people with the hopes they’d challenge me,” Sidestep whispered conspiratorially with a mischievous grin, “I look forward to working with you in the future.”

“Um, sure, no problem,” Alan said, a bit taken aback at Sidestep’s sudden attitude change. “Maybe later you could give me a few tips about the flying simulator as I actually haven’t ever used one before, or what you know about the guild trials.”

“Of course, just find me once the first trial is over. Well, I look forward to your future duels, don’t you dare lose to anyone else!” Sidestep said with a cheerful grin, as he stepped out of the ring.

Alan turned to look at the crowd, who looked more confused than anything else. There were some disappointed murmurs as well as surprised glances at Alan. It was clear no one had been expecting Alan to emerge victorious, and he noticed various objects changing hands as a few of the arms masters had apparently bet on the outcome of the fight.

“Congratulations on winning the first duel! A bonus 100 points to you, and 50 points to Sidestep for a valiant effort. That was quite the fight,” Mason’s booming voice sounded from Alan’s side, startling him.

“Um, thanks. You said to put on a good show, but people’s reactions are a bit strange…”

“Well, of course they are! They didn’t see the fight, after all. Only the arms masters and full guild members saw the fight, the rest of the recruits just saw you disappear then reappear. We realize that if other players saw your abilities it would give them an unfair advantage, after all, and I must say, both of your abilities were quite impressive. It’s a shame Phantom has his eyes on you, otherwise I’d like to test you myself. Anyways, that concludes the duel!”

As soon as those words were out of Mason’s mouth, a large, heavyset giant that must have been six and a half feet tall with the same grey skin as Mason leapt into the middle of the ring, and challenged Alan to a duel. As he had no idea of what the other recruit’s abilities were, Alan hesitantly made the decision to set the duel’s wager at 500 guild points, as the other recruit only had 750. Shortly thereafter, Alan and his opponent, whose name was Skar, were transported into what appeared to be an underground fighting pit, about the size of a boxing ring. The duel’s settings that Skar had chosen were unarmed, unarmored combat until a combatant either lost consciousness or conceded. Looking at his opponent’s bulging muscles, Alan felt a bit nervous… until Eve reported a 99% chance of winning. The tactics she outlined were pretty simple. Go for the weak spots.

Skar assumed a combat stance, and Alan reactivated his hypercognition mode as the countdown neared zero. To his surprise, he felt a slight headache as he reactivated the ability. It looked like there was a limit to how much he’d be able to use the ability, and these duels would help him learn that limit.

The duel began, and Skar took an aggressive swing at Alan, who sidestepped the punch and kneed Skar in the groin as hard as he could. Skar doubled over in pain as Alan let loose a fury of additional blows to Skar’s eyes, neck and the back of his knees. With a sickening crunch, the giant let out a roar of pain, and shouted, “I concede,” and thus the duel ended.

Alan shook hands with Skar as they were teleported back to the dueling rings, apologizing for the low blows, but Skar seemed to accept that it was within the rules he’d outlined. Given the speed of the victory, especially when Skar had been the one to set the terms of engagement, no new challenger appeared to try to best Alan, which suited him just fine.

As Alan began to eye the recruits around him, wondering who would make for a good person to challenge, a sudden flurry of duels began, setting off a chain reaction as people tried to avoid being challenged by the wrong opponent.

Alan decided to play it safe, and challenged a swordsman recruit in simple power armor that only possessed 250 guild points. The swordsman chose a swords only battle, and Alan chose to wager only 100 guild points, as he planned on not using most of his abilities. The subsequent duel was actually more challenging than Alan expected; he was barely able to finish off his opponent, even with Eve’s calculations.

Eve’s ability to help him wield a sword didn’t translate nearly as well as the ability to wield a gun. With a gun, all Alan had to do was aim and shoot, but when it came to fighting with a sword, Alan had no idea how to grip the thing, or the proper movements. While Eve could show Alan the correct motions, he had little to no idea why they were the proper motions, and thus often found his balance off. Finishing blows turned into glancing ones as Alan struggled to face off against insofar as he could tell, a middling opponent. It was suffice to say he had room for improvement, and needed to train more.

Alan quickly challenged another random recruit, who quickly set the wager to 100 guild points, given Alan’s string of victories. Alan let it be a simple pistol duel, and easily won with Eve’s help. He was about to challenge a 5th opponent, then retire for the night, when someone tapped him on the shoulder. He turned to find Aurora.

“Um hi,” Alan said.

“Greetings. Sidestep tells me that you are surprisingly powerful, and I would enjoy a duel, with certain conditions attached,” Aurora said.

“Um, what conditions?”

“First, don’t tell anyone about my abilities. I will not reveal anything I may learn about yours. Secondly, we duel for 500 guild points, in a free-for-all, anything-goes duel to the death. Are these terms agreeable?”

Wondering what Aurora’s abilities were, Alan readily agreed.

They were transported into the center of what appeared to be a Roman coliseum, and the countdown began. Alan activated his hyper cognition ability, despite the steady pain that now accompanied its use. He felt like he might need it.

Despite the free for all settings, Aurora made no motion to reach for the knife at her side. Instead, she calmly faced Alan, looking at him. Alan had a bad feeling about this. The countdown reached zero, and Aurora made a sudden hand motion, clutching her fist as a wave of energy emerged from her hands.

BELOW
, Eve yelled at Alan, as ice began to emerge at his feet. Desperately, Alan tried to dodge to the side, but he was simply too slow, and the ice erupted from the ground, encapsulating Alan, sealing his movements. While he could see this happening, he simply did not have the speed or ability to stop it. He vainly tried to get off a laser shot at the ice, but it had no effect. Trapped in the ice, Alan could do nothing except watch as Aurora slowly walked towards him, alert. She seemed on edge, like she couldn’t believe how easy the fight had been.

God damn it, isn’t that ability too OP? Is there anything we can do? What was that attack?

That was a psionic ability, most likely some sort of element control. In our current state, it is rather problematic, and unfortunately it does not appear there is anything we can do.

So, every time we run up against a psionic player we’re just gonna die? Also why was everyone so cautious to face off against us if such a simple ability can completely shut me down?

Psionics users are fairly rare, with about one in a thousand users demonstrating much psionic ability at all. Fewer still possess abilities that are so combat oriented or strong. This Aurora must be incredibly talented or was taught a number of secret abilities by her mother, probably a combination of both. Additionally, many of the guild members, and some of the ones we faced, probably aren’t too heavily focused on one on one combat, and have invested their points or have classes that aren’t as relevant to these duels. In the future, we will hopefully have items or allies capable of counteracting such psionic attacks.

Suddenly, the headache from using the hypercognition mode became increasingly painful, transforming from a mild ache into a splitting, mind numbing pierce. Groaning with pain, Alan quickly deactivated the ability.

Aurora stopped before Alan, tilting her head to the side, lips pursed, examining him with a thoughtful expression. Alan could only silently stare back, feeling his cheeks turn red.

“You don’t have any psionic abilities, do you?” Aurora asked, removing the ice encapsulating his face with a wave.