Angel did not like to be late, but when I explained why she and I were going to rock up at the Fort's PvP arena a cruisy twenty or so minutes after our duel was supposed to start, she followed my lead and did it anyway.

Amnesia was weird as hell. I couldn’t remember anything I’d been or done, but I could remember the details of books and skills I’d studied, even if I didn’t recall the context. I could remember that I’d been through Musashi’s Book of Five Rings and read Robert Greene’s 33 Strategies of War cover to cover several times, but not why or when. I could guess it was because I’d had to understand the tenets of war on the personal and professional levels.

Camping with Angel out in the woods gave me enough time to finally recount some of this stuff and think about it in the context of our upcoming duel. Realistically, Targent did have some pretty big advantages against us. Inferno Ball had a 20-second cooldown between uses, which was a long time inside of a single fight. I had one Psionic and one Poison move I could use. The former was effective against the Driado, the latter against the Skyfury. His Legions were five levels higher than me, and because they were over Level 20, they’d been through their first evolutions. That made their Prime Abilities twice as strong as they’d been in their first phase… and yet despite that, I was sure Targent didn’t have HRIDAYA or any other mandala. He hadn’t taken the risk to fight the Daeva for some reason.

My current memory wasn’t impeded, so I lay in the dark and thought over every detail of our interactions with him. My hunch, the one that had informed our decision to be late, was that Targent was a control freak. I’d bet money he’d been some white-collar mob patsy IRL: an accountant, a lawyer, someone who kept their nose down and ignored the dirty work he was doing for the sake of a fat paycheck and a nice BMW. Then one day, he screwed the wrong person, or handled a job so dirty that he had to be taken out after he was done. He was killed, his memory wiped, and he was sent here.

As far as I saw it, the biggest difference between a formal arena battle and the brawls we’d been having out in the wild was that in reality, this was a battle between Angel and Targent. Angel had pointed out that Targent, having collared his Legions, was empathically connected to them. She saw this as a strength, and if we faced Targent in a good frame of mind, that was true. But if he was scared, angry, unsettled… well, that empathic feedback cut both ways.

This is why we started by showing up late. As I moseyed on up to the arena, Angel rode my back with the relaxed, easy posture of an experienced cowgirl, one hand resting at the base of a tentacle, the other petting Lulu on her lap. The arena was a cleared area of jungle to the north of Fort Hope, spitting distance from the parade ground where they drilled soldiers. It was about a third of a football field, around 120 by 80 feet. There were two gladiator stands, each equipped with a circle six feet in diameter and a sleek, prefabricated podium. The perimeter was marked by a rippling energy barrier that glinted and flared whenever something living approached it. Outside of that barrier were rows of crude bleachers groaning under the weight of our audience.

“Looks like most of the camp turned out,” I remarked to Angel. My eyes flicked to Targent, waiting for us on the other side. His face was a barely controlled mask of rage.

"Ah, wonderful. Her ladyship has decided to finally grace the arena with her illustrious presence," Targent spat, acid dripping from every word. He was standing at a podium-like device that amplified his voice.

“Oh man,” I quipped. “Targent is going full cartoon villain over there.”

Angel didn't reply. She avoided looking at Targent, and instead searched out Falks among the Tribunes. She levelled a piercing, pale stare on her from my back. I followed her gaze - and grunted in satisfaction when I saw Falks' try - and fail - to clamp her poker face on.

"Do you know the penalties for tardiness, Cadet?" Targent screeched from across the arena. "Even if you win - which you won't - I issue you ten... no, TWENTY-TWO lashes. One for each minute you made me wait here. Do you hear me, girl?"

Angel slipped from my back and took her place on the gladiator podium. She went her lips, and leaned forward. " No, sir. I'm deaf."

A ripple of startled laughter erupted from the audience.

"What do you mean, you're deaf?" Targent scowled across the arena at her.

"I. Am. Deaf." She voiced, then also signed. "So with all due respect, sir, I can't hear a thing you say."

“Then how are you replying to me?”

“Lip-reading, sir. I wasn’t able to see your mouth across the arena before, so I’m not sure what you were asking me before you asked me if I can hear you.”

The laughter grew louder. The officers in the crowd began to look very stressed indeed, some of them rising to their feet and looming over their troops to maintain a semblance of order. I watched with amusement as Targent's face turned red, then white with fury.

"Your insubordination just earned you another ten lashes." He leaned forward, hands white-knuckled on the edges of his podium.

"Sir, the Centurion's Code is suspended during arena battles," Angel retorted.

Targent's eyes narrowed. "But not after."

“No, sir,” she replied blandly.

The forcefield surrounding the arena parted as I padded toward it, allowing me and Lulu to pass inside. I looked up: there was no visible ceiling to it. It went all the way up to the skybox.

"Take position in the starting squares." Angel quickly signed at me and Lulu. "And whatever you do, don't look at our odds."

She said that, so of course I pulled up my Odds panel and checked out my Stream. The chat was going mental, comments flying up within milliseconds of each other. A lot of it was excited emoji spam. Some of it was anxious fan chatter and battle tips, but the majority of the commenters wanted to see us fail. The punters had the same opinion: the odds were 16:1 in favor of Targent. Everyone was looking at my x3 weakness to metal and my x1.5 weakness to Earth, plus Lulu's weaknesses to Mind and Air. My mysterious patron, Cold Fox, was rooting for us. They'd put down a good bit of money, too: ten grand for us to win.

“Oooohhh…” Lulu groaned. She was looking at her HUD, too.

"Nice to know someone believes in us," I thought to Lulu. "Don't worry, kid. We got this."

A tense silence met us from the crowd as I bounded into the arena, tentacles and tail lashing, and let out an air-splitting roar. There were some wide eyes, but none of the Centurions were willing to cheer for the Legions facing off against their commanding officer. Then a cold shadow streaked over the arena. I looked up as a winged shape vanished into the glare of the sun. The crowd began to get excited.

"It's Lancelot!" Someone called out.

"Lancelot. Who the fuck names their edgelord Pokemon 'Lancelot'?" I snorted a cloud of dust, pawing at the earth as I got a feel for the terrain. The land was flat and neutral, without significant advantages or disadvantages for any particular Legion save for Earth types.

"Targent does," Angel signed back. "We have him off-guard, but don't underestimate him, Noodles.”

There was a shrill screech from overhead, the sound of a robot mimicking an eagle, and Lancelot plummeted into view. He was half bird, half miniature fighter jet, as if H.R Giger had designed a drone. He tore a low circle around the arena, trailing blasters from the edges of his wings, and came down to hover as Targent worked some options in his HUD. His Lesser Legion, Guinevere, erupted out of the ground at the same time. She was a slim, humanoid effigy of a human woman, made of twisted vines and leaves and grasses. She strutted forward on pointed wooden feet. Her face nothing more than a flat wooden mask, but she radiated confidence and self-possession.

"She's intelligent," I remarked to Angel and Lulu. "Guinevere. There's a human mind in there, kind of. She's semi-sentient, like Kaya."

"Doesn't matter," Angel signed back. "Arena battles are to KO, usually. Not death."

Targent closed his HUD and crossed his arms. "Ready to lose to your superior, girl?"

"I don't know." She glared back at him. "Are you?"

That earned an ‘ooooh’ from the crowd.

"Tune your Legions and either put up, or shut up," Targent snapped back.

"’Tune your Legions?’" I asked Angel.

"Legions are mentally controlled by their trainers in L2L battles like this one," Angel signed back. "I have to pretend I'm jacking in and taking you two over."

"Right." I looked back to Targent. He had assumed a meditative posture on his podium, breathing deeply, but the agitation was still visible in the flush of his skin and rigidity of his spine. Angel stayed on her feet, but mimicked the same meditative drop.

Both Targent’s Legions changed somehow. They both suddenly seemed less bestial, more human – animal minds possessed and directed by the will of their trainer. I flicked my tentacles out, letting them hang up warningly in the air.

[Arena rules are now engaged. This is a refereed match. Remember the rules: No gladiators on the battle field. Legions must stay within the battle lines. All matches are to KO. HP is throttled at 1 point. Do you agree?]

“Yes,” I thought back.

[Gladiator His Radiance M.T Noodles the 4th, PhD confirmed.]

As the confirmation came up, I was able to see some new information about my opponents. Names, Legion types, Levels and HP bars filled over the pair in front of me. Lancelot – jeez, that name – was a Skyfury, Level 24. Guinevere, the Lesser Legion, was Level 25. We weren’t the only ones who’d fibbed about our levels.

[All Legions are locked in position. Arena Match in 10, 9, 8…]

I narrowed my eyes as a strange paralysis gripped my limbs and froze Lulu to my back. For a second, I wondered if Targent was cheating, but his Legions were frozen the same way I was, trapped behind unseen gates as the timer counted down.

[7, 6, 5…]

“Just remember the game plan, kid,” I whispered to Lulu.

[…4, 3, 2, 1. FIGHT!]

The lock lifted, and Lancelot and Guinevere exploded toward us. Too fast. I stumbled forward a step, dropping down under Lancelot’s diving strike more out of pure dumb luck than skill. The Skyfury streaked up into the sky, positioning himself against the blinding sun overhead.

“Eeek!” Lulu squealed at me to do something, anything, as Guinevere began to summon a storm of leaves around herself.

“Liquid armor!” I barked at her, breaking into a zig zag charge across the arena – straight at Guinevere.

The dryad-like creature looked me dead in the eye, unflinching as she threw her arms open and the cloud of dried leaves ashed into dust and blew toward us. Instinct kicked in: I closed my nostrils and nictating membranes against the dust, blowing through it and leaping at her.

[You are immune to Poison. You gain +10% Health Regen for 5 minutes]

The Lesser Legion was surprisingly agile: she danced aside with the grace of a ballerina, throwing out a branch-like hand as she dodged. A thicket of vines ripped from the earth beneath us. I jumped, but not fast enough. They snapped around three of my limbs and yanked us back down, just in time for Lancelot to dive out of the heavens like a missile.

“OH FU-“ It was all we could do to brace for impact as the Skyfury hit us dead on. Lulu shrieked around me as metal cut through her gelatinous shell and pierced my skin, rending it to the bone. It was so fast that Lancelot had already blown past us by the time I realized what had actually cut us. His feathers were made of razor-sharp metal.

[Liquid Armor reduces damage by 25%. Lulu HP: 2244/2400, Noodles HP 3925/4758]

Guinevere was casting another spell. I levelled my head, as if sighting down an invisible horn, and ran at her. The charge shocked her out of her move with a musical cry of surprise, but once again, she evaded me.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Angel ranting at us in sign. “FOR FUCK’S SAKE! YOU’RE A POISON LEGION! GAS HIM!!”

There was no way to tell her I’d been trying to save those sync moves for later in the fight, but she was right. We were being pressured, and

I shielded my eyes with the same membranes I’d used to protect against Guinevere’s dust storm and bounded up along the solid energy wall of the arena, causing spectators outside to flinch and gasp. Claws churning up plasma, I leaped out of the way of the vines that shot from the earth below, looking up wildly to see a dark spot streaking toward us. I hunched, and as soon as the shadow blotted out the sun, discharged a cloud of acrid violet gas into the air.

Lancelot couldn’t halt his trajectory. He tried to pull up to avoid the dense poison, veering to the side. I slapped him with two tentacles as he blew by us at incredible speed, sending it careening across the arena with a shrill scream of agony. It bounced, rolled, and crashed into the base of Targent’s trainer podium.

[Poison is ultra-effective: 3x damage. Arena strike: You deal 1260 combined element/impact damage.]

[Lancelot is poisoned!]

Guinevere warped over to her Brute, glowing with brilliant green-white light that suffused the smoking metal bird. [Nature’s Grace] neutralized the Poison debuff and healed its HP bar back to full. That was fine with me: because it gave me time to plug all four tentacles into Lulu’s mass.

[You have used Soul Drain.]

The world around us leached of color, time slowing down to a crawl. The familiar diagram of available abilities leaped up. And there it was: our secret weapon. The key to the entire battle.

[You have selected Inferno Ball.]

I triggered the move as soon as time began to wind forward, leaping as far as I could as blue foxfire painlessly enveloped my body, then shooting forward like a ground-level comet. Targent shouted as Guinevere threw herself in front of her partner, thin arms raised to shield the Skyfury. “NO!”

The Driado took the brunt of the one-and-a-half tons of burning Noodles that crashed into her like the fist of God. The flaming barrage bowled her right into Lancelot’s face, and twin howls rose to the sky as she burned and he slagged under the combined impact and fire assault.

[Double Attack: You deal 1100 damage to Guinevere & Lancelot.]

[Guinevere is Burned.]

They might be higher leveled than we were, but I was higher tiered. Guinevere let out a panicked trill, clawing at the flames engulfing her wooden body. Lancelot, who was much tankier, stood his ground. He was ready for me as I charged him like a tiger, leaping with claws and gaping jaws. Lulu’s mass tightened around me as the bird backflipped to slash with its talons. It was trying to get airborne: I lunged up with my tentacles and reeled it back into a grapple. The Skyfury let out a metallic squeal as I wound the tentacles around it and bit with poison-drooling fangs. The metal plates buckled around my teeth. I shrugged off the cold agony of its metal claws slashing through Lulu and into my hide. If it had just been the two of us, we’d have died like this – the eagle crushed and poisoned, me bleeding out from the cold iron I was so vulnerable to – but Lulu made all the difference in the fight. I belched poison from my vents, pinning everything but the Skyfury’s beak as it thrashed in my arms. My HP dropped into the orange as finally, Lancelot’s body crumpled under the shearing pressure of my tentacles like so much tin foil.

Targent screamed.

I hurled the twitching, comatose Legion aside and whirled to face Guinevere alone. She had the same confused look I had during the start of the start of the fight.

“It’s not over! Keep up the pressure!” Angel signed with vicious emphasis across the arena.

Guinevere crossed her arms in front of her, body tensing. For a second, I thought she was just bracing for impact – until I saw a forest of mushrooms erupt from her bark-like skin. She ejected the cloud of spores as I closed in, and I got a faceful – and a lungful – of them as I clumsily smashed into her and bore her to the ground. She beat ineffectually with her wooden fists against my dead weight as I slumped onto her, drooling and twitching.

[You are Paralyzed!]

[Lulu is immune to Paralysis.]

“Nuu!” Lulu pulled away from me as Guinevere ejected sharp wooden blades from the backs of her hands, like some kind of weird scarecrow Wolverine, and lunged for us. The Limne ignited and dashed right into the Driado, sticking to her like napalm. Guinevere, still burning, let out a harsh croak and tried to batter her away, but what Lulu lacked in attack power she made up for in stickiness.

[x2 Fire damage: Lulu deals 110 damage!]

It wasn’t much, but the Burn status was taking its toll on Targent’s Cute, and Lulu had decent defense for a Legion of her level. Now it was their turn to brawl in the dirt, and every second that passed was another where I could recover from the Paralysis effect. Targent was screaming incoherently at Guinevere, but she had no moves with significant advantage thanks to the mandala and Lulu’s resistances to Body, Poison, and Psionic attacks. All Lulu had to do was hang onto her and pick away at her HP, until after what felt like an eternity, my muscles twitched and came back online.

“Hold her still!” I swayed up to my feet, head low, and triggered Inferno Ball a second time. As soon as I did, Guinevere knew the gig was up. She sagged, tangled in Lulu’s mass, and her head twisted toward me as I charged up for the strike.

I didn’t need to wind up this time: I lanced forward in a ball of searing flames and knocked her out of Lulu’s grip. The Driado looked away just before the impact sent it flying. She landed heavily, tumbling limply in a trail of embers across the grass before coming to a limp, final stop.

[The match is decided: His Radiance M.T Noodles the 4th, PhD and Lulu are the victors.]

[You gain 1000 EXP. You are Level 19. Lulu is Level 17.]

“Hu!” Lulu made an officious, huffy little sound as she bounced over to her and engulfed Guinevere’s svelte, human-sized body. She began to bob up and down in a familiar way – except the Dryad wasn’t dead.

“Lulu, you… you know what, never mind. Good job.” I groaned, and let my tentacles sag. “Damn, that dryad powder is one hell of a drug.”

“Noodles! Are you okay!?” Angel signed from across the arena.

“I’m tripping balls.” I wobbled forward. Even though the status was gone, the air was full of whirly, flickering shapes. “Dude. I can smell the sun from here.”

I jumped as a loud clash echoed around us. To my surprise, my HP began to rapidly refill, chasing away both the hallucinations and the lingering pain of battle. Lancelot and Guinevere also recovered. The Skyfury shrieked before launching itself into the air, while Guinevere began to struggle under Lulu’s weight. The slime was still trying to eat her.

“C’mon, kiddo,” I said to Lulu. “Leave off the nice scarecrow lady. We’ve gotta face the music now that we kicked Targent’s ass, as I knew we would.”

Lulu made a sad sound as she oozed back off the dryad. Guinevere sniffed derisively as she scooted back, picked herself up, and flounce-limped back to her trainer. I watched her go over my shoulder, and when I saw Targent’s face, I knew Angel was in deep shit.

“Congratulations,” the Captain said tightly, as Angel joined Lulu and I in the arena. “I wasn’t aware that Reapers could use Fire attacks.”

“Oh. That’s a shame,” Angel replied.

Targent’s eyes narrowed to smouldering slits. “Well. There’s nothing in the rules against it. I suppose you want to talk to me now?”

Angel was still a subordinate rank to the Captain. She was feeling good after her victory, but she wasn’t stupid. She didn’t mouth off something about him going to home to eat depression nachos and wank first, like I would have. Instead, she gave him a polite smile, saluted smartly, and said: “Yes, sir. And thank you for the good match. It was a close battle, with advantages on both sides.”

Targent’s expression flickered for a moment. On the one hand, he liked praise. On the other, he didn’t like losing very much.

“Thank you,” he said, stiffly. “I will answer your questions in private… Vigiles .”