Prima Falks was lounging in a chair in front of her tent, busy carving a piece of bone, using a small paring blade to shape a palm-sized figurine of a horse. She was one of the few Legion-owning gladiators in the camp. Her team were resting to either side of her tent. Her Brute, a [Seerlak], was a strange hulking Body/Earth/Metal-type monster made of iridescent bismuth. Her Cute was something called an Irizado, a slim, harpy-like Mind/Blood/Air Legion with long, spindly legs, a human-like face, and wings for arms. It chittered when it saw us, cocking its head sharply from side to side.

"Prima Falks," Angel voiced aloud, saluting smartly. "May I have a word?"

The woman looked up from her work. Her mouth sloped over in a way that suggested she was unimpressed by the idea, but was obligated to at least listen. "What’dya want, Cadet?"

"I have to duel Captain Targent in the arena to earn my rank in the guild morning after next," Angel replied crisply. "It'll be my first arena battle, and I was wondering if you could give me some tips."

The officer arched an eyebrow. "He challenged you? A cadet with no fighting experience?"

"Some fighting experience," Angel replied tersely. "I was solo for two months before I considered joining the Centurions. All lives intact."

That statement brought the other eyebrow up. "You're tougher than you look."

"Yes, ma'am." Angel's pale eyes turned hard and pale. "And I’m going to beat Captain Targent."

Falk glanced at me and Lulu, who was riding between my shoulders like a flan. I resisted the urge to wave.

"With that pairing, it’s hard to say if you’ll win or not," the Prima said, after a minute of consideration. " I can't tell you much, but I can give you some names. The Captain's Legions are named Lancelot and Guinevere. He's a Skyfury Brute; she's a Driado."

Neither of those names meant anything to me. I looked to Angel, whose brows were furrowed.

"That's a strange combination," Angel said. "But now I think about it... Body/Air/Metal and Mind/Plant/Psionic is a strong pair."

"Mmm. High level for the Jungle, too. Most people get killed before their Legions hit Level 12." Falks slowly looked around, as if checking to see if anyone was listening in. "The captain's a pressure fighter. If Guinevere paralyzes your Brute and Lancelot gets his aerial attacks off, you're screwed. That’s your tip."

"Thank you, Prima Falks." Angel saluted again.

"Dunno what you're talking about. You didn't hear anything from me." She gave Angel the ghost of a smile and picked up her carving. "Now, scram."

"Not going to ask her about moving tents?" I followed after Angel as she fell out, turned on her heel, and marched off.

"No. She's already done us one favor: I'm not going to ask for more," Angel signed back. "Besides, we're not sleeping here. We'll camp at our training site."

"Training site, huh? Got a place in mind?”

“A couple, but we need to pick the one that will give us the most bang for our buck.”

“Right. Well, you know this game better than me. How do we win, coach?"

"Targent's team is strong," Angel replied. "I've seen Furies and Driados in the wild. Driados are shy; they paralyze or stun gladiators and escape. Skyfuries are aggressive predators. They hunt like falcons, balling their claws up into fists and diving to strike. And they're REALLY fast. If they hit you, they do Body-Metal attacks."

"Which do triple damage to me. But Lulu protects me from about half of that bonus with her Dermal Armor ability."

“Ooh!” Lulu agreed weakly.

"Yes, but Lulu's weak to Air, and Furies also have special Air attacks. All Targent has to do is figure out that she’s compensating for your elemental weakness and KO her. Compared to you, she doesn’t have much HP. That won’t be hard." Angel motioned to Lulu. "She's a Spirit/Water/Acid Legion. She takes triple damage from Air and times-half damage from Plant and Mind. The Driado and Skyfury will crush her."

"She doesn’t take much bonus damage from Plant attacks now," I replied. "The Mandala gave us a bonus. Plant is 0.5x damage for Lulu, and I have 3x resistance to it."

Angel looked relieved. "That's good news, but still."

"What are THEY vulnerable to?" I dropped my head as we padded along. “We can get as introspective as we want, but if we don’t know our enemy, we’ve only prepared for half the battle.”

"Based on their types, they're both vulnerable to Fire. The Fury is just as vulnerable to Poison as you are to Metal, which is good, but the biggest gap between us isn't type matching. It's experience. Targent and his team have worked together and trained for God knows how long, they're Level 23, and we don't have any fire attacks."

I flicked my tail and considered how much I wanted to reveal about me and Lulu’s big discovery. "There's a way Lulu and I can get fire attacks. One, at least, which might make all the difference in a battle like this. Don't suppose you know where to find any Medium-sized or smaller Fire-type Legions?"

Angel looked back at me, coming to a stop. "Sure. The Malhela Lava Fields, where Sam caught Kaya."

"Is it close enough for us to make a day trip?"

"Yes. Why?" She looked between me and Lulu in confusion. "Lulu’s Absorb ability isn't strong enough to make a difference in this fight."

I sighed - and decided to let the tentacles out of the bag. "Absorb by itself isn't, but Lulu here is basically a library of ass-kicking. She can use Absorb to drain dead Legions of their abilities and store a permanent roster of ten. Then I plug HER with Soul Drain and get to select any ability she has in a battle."

Angel blinked a couple of times. Then her eyes widened.

"Holy shit," she signed. "You broke the frigging game."

“Broke the game?” My nostrils flexed in a hissing snort. "C'mon, it's good, but it's not THAT good."

"No, no, no: think about it." Angel was visibly excited now, her mobile face alight with fresh energy. "You two are only in your first evolutionary stage. Legions evolve every thirty levels. Each time you evolve, your first Prime Ability gets better, and you gain a second Prime Ability. Do you do full damage with the attack you take from Lulu?"

"Yup."

"Then Soul Drain II and Absorb II as you just described it will do stacked bonus damage," Angel's hands moved with renewed energy now. "Think about it. Lulu does 10% of any Absorbed ability she takes from a Legion, right? That goes up to 20% at Absorb II. If you're doing 100% damage yourself, you're basically multiplying her base damage by ten... so when you're both at Level 20, you SHOULD do double damage with those special attacks. Plus, you'll be able to Soul Drain two attacks instead of one."

I relayed this to Lulu. She began to froth and burble happily.

"Convoluted, but I think I get it." I scratched my nose with a tentacle, looking up at the darkened sky. “How many times do Legions evolve? Is there a cap?”

“I don’t know for sure. Chorus won’t tell me.”

"Right. Well, I think we could hit Level 20 in twenty-four hours, no sweat. How far are these lava fields?"

"About ten miles south." Angel bobbed her head. "Let’s go there to level up. Well... you two will level up, because I don't share your EXP. Ugh. I REALLY need a gun. Shooting a couple of Legions would bring me up to Level 10. I can finally get a class."

I’d already resolved to finally give her the rifle still burning a hole in my inventory - but only once we were out of the camp. "Gladiators get classes?"

"Yes. Well, kind of. Like Legions, we get a sigil, but the three elements are special abilities we can level with schema points." Angel signed. "If I hit it today, that might not help us in the fight, but it would make me feel better. Are you ready to pack out?"

"Hell yeah. Ready to kick grass and eat ass," I replied.

Angel gave me a peevish look. “Noodles…”

"You heard me." I drew a deep breath of the smoky air. "Let's fuckin' DO this."

***

The Malhela Lava Fields were a scene straight out of Hawaii: an undulating plain of black magma rumbling its way toward the ocean from the giant volcano at the center of the island. According to Angel, it traveled about a hundred miles underground, erupting from smaller shields close to the shore. The ground was solid to walk on, but painfully hot under my feet. Here and there, fissures opened like fanged mouths to show tumbling red-hot magma.

"We need to go to the east." Angel hopped down so I could see her hands. "There's some old lava tubes on the periphery of the volcano. That's where we'll find Fire-type Legions."

My eyes bugged a little. I was hot-stepping on the creaking lava, dancing from side to side. “You’re taking us into lava tubes? Near an active volcano?”

“Correct. Don’t worry, they’re inactive: I used to live in them.”

“You lived in the lava tubes. Were you crazy? Naïve? Or just suicidal?"

She hesitated before replying. Long enough that I got the message.

"I’m fine now, but my first month in SoTF was hard," she admitted. "The Malhela Tunnels were my refuge. Not many Gladiators stay out here for long because... you know. Lava.”

“But not you. Nooo. You lived in the freakin’ lava tunnels.”

“I figured I had a choice between dying in an eruption or being enslaved or murdered so people could watch me suffer. Guess which one I picked?"

"Well, when it put it like that...." I winced as a small fissure cracked in the crust underneath me. Lulu cooed, and leaned away from the whistling plume of steam that spewed out. "Saddle back up and point me to these inactive tubes. These ones are a bit too active for my peace of mind."

"Sure. Sorry." Angel was gazing at the distant shield, her expression one of bittersweet affection. "Let's keep going. The entry to the tunnels isn't that far."

Angel got back on, and then it was up to me to pick our way across the roiling black fields. It felt weird to admit, but I was getting used to carrying them around. Angel was a pro rider, steering me with her legs and one hand in a way that told me she'd grown up with horses. That was both reassuring and uncomfortable. Reassuring, because I could trust she wouldn't be a liability if I suddenly had to jump or break into a sprint. Uncomfortable, because country folk weren't usually very sentimental when it came to beings of the four-legged variety. Angel knew intellectually that I was a man trapped inside the body of a sexy shark-dragon-panther-squid, but emotionally? I still wondered if she saw me as an animal to be used.

We headed for cooler terrain shaded by young palm forest. Angel directed me off the black sand beach into the trees, following a narrow trail to the entrance of a calcified lava tube. As soon as we reached the mouth of it, I smelled opportunity – and danger. Legions of every size and level had passed through this tunnel, with scents ranging from earthy and pleasant to musty and foul. I dropped my snout and began to sniff everything. Multiple translucent trails appeared, criss-crossing near the entry to the caverns.

"How the hell did you survive here?" I asked her, astonished. "This place is crawling with Legions."

"I covered my skin in swamp mud and relied on traps." Angel leaned out and to the right to sign, gripping with her thighs. "I didn't have the resources to make traps that can catch Legions, but I was able to drive them off. Even killed a few. Some of them might actually still be in here. I left a cache with traps to protect it."

"Are you some kind of wizard?"

"Engineer. Pretty much the same thing." After some consideration, Angel dropped to the ground again, and drew her bow. "Get ready to soak fire attacks."

"Why aren't you staying on my back?" I lashed my tail, snorting a cloud of dust along the ground.

"Because I can't ride and shoot a bow." She had to tuck the thing under her arm to sign. "A rifle would be a different story. God knows I spent enough time riding fences and shooting varmints when I was ali... back home. Like I said before: bows are a different skillset."

"Lulu... I'm going to regret this. I KNOW I'm going to regret this." The memory of the crippling injury was all too fresh in my mind as I went to my Inventory, selected the rifle, and sighed.

"Ooh?" Lulu leaned out to watch.

"Put your bow in your inventory and hold out your hands," I said to Angel.

"What? Why?" Angel signed in brief confusion before she complied.

I folded the rifle into her waiting arms, then sort of regurgitated all the ammo I'd picked up. My inventory lightened by 10%.

Angel looked down at the weapon and blinked several times.

"I couldn't give it to you at the camp," I said gruffly. "Not with everyone leering at you. Got it from one of those loot boxes I opened, so... uhh... happy birthday. "

She stroked the polished dark wood, tested all the different moving parts, then sighted down the empty barrel into the cave. Something in her changed in that moment. She straightened up, lost the hunch in her shoulders. When she turned back to me, her expression was complex. Wonder, relief, a little suspicion, a little fatigue from the long months spent battling her way with stone picks and spears.

“You okay?” I asked her.

She slung the gun over her shoulder, then threw her arms around my neck. A full-blown, chest-pressed-against-me hug.

"Noodles! You're amazing!" She let go of me to sign, her eyes bright with emotion. “Thank you so much! My God, if I’d had one of these earlier-“

"Yeah, yeah, I know. You'd have taken out any Legion you wanted." I was trying not to feel tense. For some reason, I felt like I was about to be stabbed in the back – kind of ridiculous, given she’d done nothing to even hint she was ready to betray me. It had to be some instinct from my life before the game. One that probably wasn’t about Angel at all. “You gonna get back up now? I’m worried about you being on foot. There’s some bigass monsters in here.”

Already walking, Angel loaded her rifle with the absent ease of an expert. She didn’t even look down. “At this range? I’ll be fine. If you watch my back, I can get a shot off from here and retreat.”

“I will. But hang on a minute. I need to do something in my menu.”

Angel paused, and turned back to look at me as I went into my HUD and spent some more ability points. I picked Poison CLoud and White Noise, gaining my first pure Psionic and Poison abilities:

Poison Cloud: Release a toxic cloud that deals damage over time and Poisons susceptible enemies.

White Noise: Emit a disorienting blast of Psionic force that savages Gladiator concentration-based abilities and deals +200% damage against Earth, Blood, and Air-type elementals.

“Okay. There.” I confirmed the abilities and felt them consolidate. “White Noise is good against Earth, Poison Cloud against Metal. I can smell both types in here.”

“Good idea.” Angel smiled and signed. Lulu burbled with concern as she turned back to the caverns and took point. I padded along slowly after her, eyes forward.

“You like her, don’t you?” I asked the slime.

“Yuuuu!” Lulu’s voice bounced off the tunnel walls. Angel didn’t notice, but I winced.

“Well, that’s great… but try and keep it down, okay?”

I felt Lulu sag a little, but he her cooing voice was little more than a whisper when she apologized with an: “Ooh ooo.”

As the darkness swallowed us, I felt the slime shrink back and start to shiver. My thermal vision kicked in, mapping the tunnel in monochrome. Angel paused to light a torch, which I accepted with a tentacle and held up so she could shoot. She seemed to know the tunnels well, because she unerringly led us through the twisting confines to a crossroads. As I looked down the tunnel to my right, my skin ruffled. Couldn’t see anything down there, but…

“That’s the trapped corridor,” Angel signed, pointing at it.

“Tell me about it.” I backed away, nostrils flexing in agitation. “Gives me the willies.”

“You must have a crazy good Instinct stat.” She squinted at the tunnel. “Huh. I could have sworn I disarmed this one.”

“No. It’s armed, believe me.” A little blinking orange icon had appeared in the corner of my HUD: an animal trap. I really did have some kind of trap sense. Neat.

Angel picked up a jagged piece of stone and threw it at the ground about six feet from us. The rock hit a tripwire toggle concealed under the dirt. There was a small ‘bong’ as the tension of the tripwire cut, a split second before a spike-studded cross made from two logs dropped from the ceiling and smashed to the ground. Lulu squealed in terror.

“Well, fuck me.” I blinked a couple of times. “You made that?”

“Sure did.” Angel regarded it with satisfaction.

“Gladiators get recipes for building this kind of shit, huh?”

“Not really, actually. I spent my time down here learning how to hack the building system to make all kinds of things.” Angel went over and kicked the splintered logs. “I’m not proud of it, but trapping’s how I survived.”

“Why are you not proud of this? It’s awesome. I dub it the Spiky Crucifix of Facial Deconstruction.”

Angel paused to scratch her head. “Guess I feel like I should be more… I dunno. Honorable, or something.”

I was about to ask her how human gladiators advanced in the game when there was a roar from the tunnel to my left. I whirled with a growl.

“Shit – that’s a Skarpo! Give me the torch!” Angel gestured for it.

I handed it to her and did my best to block the hallway while she rapidly upgraded the [Crude Torch] to a [Standing Torch] and placed it down.

“Ready?” She set the rifle against her shoulder.

“I was born ready. And if my name isn’t Monster Truck Noodles the Fourth-“

Before I finished, a bright sphere of light appeared at the end of the tunnel, hurtling toward us like a meteor. Bright, blazing… hot.

Lava. Lava pitched at the three of us with the speed and precision of a fucking baseball.