Ascendant Red

The contestants are held underground in a squat, rectangular room with minimal lighting.

I lean up against the dirt wall, my dark clothing–unsurprisingly, black is the official color of Ancient Black–resistant to stains. I avoid making eye contact with the other seventy-or-so people down here.

I have my pride as a practitioner. Like everyone else here, I was one of the best of my generation. That doesn’t change the fact that my ascendant energy is as blue as a pineapple. This isn’t a game for novices looking to prove themselves. Powerful people have gathered here, either in the hopes of joining the Hall of Ascension or to strategically sabotage the chances of others.

I am the only one who lacks red ascendant energy.

By coercing me to join the competition, Crimson Teeth is challenging Ancient Black. We both suspected as much. Dunai told me to go along with Crimson Teeth’s plans. When I pointed out that we could just leave now, sidestep the competition, and return to get an answer from Achemiss, he disagreed. He said that this was as much a test from Holiday as it was from the black faction.

While waiting, I’ve used Regret scenarios to conduct overwhelming mental assaults on the practitioners with the weakest mental defenses. They’re still skilled enough to force me out in seconds.

A practitioner with flowing emerald hair appears within the waiting room. I don’t see any signs of transport arrays activating, so I suspect she’s an earth elementalist and tunneled herself to our location. The woman’s nose twitches, then she bursts out laughing, though doesn’t explain herself.

“Alright everyone,” she says, clapping her hands together. Her fingernails appear perfectly manicured, but since she’s probably a Mountain practitioner, the nails themselves might just be materially altered to be pink and glossy. “I’m Ascendant Gea. First round is the simplest. Kill each other.”

She looks up and the ceiling disappears. All we can see of the sky is a wall of clouds, as though the weather is overcast. “The first fifteen to die will be permanently eliminated from the competition. While fighting, you must remain within the valley. All artifacts are permitted. Be warned, if you act unsportsmanlike and utilize weapons of uncontrollable, mass destruction, you may be removed.”

In other words, don’t set off a massive bomb unless you can control the blast. Elementalists must be silently cheering–fire and wind elementalists can set off a bomb and control the explosion, either shaping the fire itself or manipulating combustible gases like oxygen. A water elementalist may summon a crushing tsunami from a voluminous void storage while maintaining control over every droplet. An earth elementalist can detonate a bomb deep in the earth, collapsing it under everyone.

Hopefully, thanks to some well-controlled weapons of mass destruction, I’ll be out of the running in the first few seconds.

Is that too optimistic?

—

Ascendant Crimson Teeth

Gea rises from the soil, ruining the perfectly uniform grass. She crosses her arms and remarks, “I thought Nathaniel was joking about turning the valley into farmland.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Why would he jest about keeping several thousand pounds of enriched draconic soil in a void storage? You know that he and Comptara are into plane-sculpting.”

She shrugs. “We’ll see if his plan bears fruit. It’ll depend on whether the elementalists churn the soil, water it, and give it a good blast of heat.”

I smirk. Some forests regrow after wildfires, seeds germinating only in extreme conditions. The same principle applies here, except instead of wildfires, the seedlings within draconic soil only sprout under conditions produced by flights of dragons nesting by bodies of water.

Ultimately, while fun, the soil is only a gimmick. It barely warrants my attention.

Ebon Pearl adjusts herself on my shoulders, her diamond-shaped head settling into the crook of my neck. “It’s time,” she says simply.

I swallow.

I’ve asked myself for a long time if there’s a better way to decide who joins the Hall of Ascension. A martial competition, even one with varied challenges, is so limited. The actual qualifications to conduct the duties of a member of the Hall aren’t horribly strict. An ascendant must handle sustained exposure to the void, with or without the aid of artifacts, though ideally without. They must be willing to kill and challenge powerful half-step ascendants, potentially even entire armies of peak practitioners in some cases, depending on how desperate a half-step ascendant is. They must be prepared to defend themselves against weapons of mass destruction as, while rare, some worlds have them in spades.

And sometimes, they must be prepared to fight true ascendants–ones that have returned to their original worlds.

Imagine that a weak, fearful, ignorant, or lucky–the adjective is irrelevant and subjective–peak practitioner commences their ascension in a city where a returned ascendant dwells. An ascendant from the Hall of Ascension comes to deliver judgment... only for the returned ascendant to intervene.

Such an occurrence has happened to me three times. Twice the ascendant in question murdered the half-step ascendant themselves before I arrived. Being the gifted practitioner that I am, I was able to arrest my descent and prevent unnecessary carnage.

The third time, it was the ascendant’s own daughter who was ascending. She was a Life practitioner and a pacifist, determined to use her abilities only to heal. She couldn’t fight me, and her father’s interference was grounds for her elimination.

Everything spiraled into a bloodbath.

Unless we want to host another one of these competitions every few years, we need practitioners who can survive those exceptional situations. But we also need ascendants who exercise good judgment while carrying out the will of Eternity.

Good... fucking... judgment.

“Good luck,” Ebon Pearl says, interrupting my thoughts.

I stroke her scales absently. “Why?”

“You changed the format of the competition. If it does well, it might stick.”

“Doubt it,” I reply, sighing.

“Then why bother?”

“Because we need more than combatants. These organizations have sent us champions, people they know can fight. How many pure Beginning practitioners are here, little Pearl?”

“Not one.”

“They’re almost all elementalists or other affinities that endear themselves well to conflict.”

“You’re good at conflict,” she points out.

I grin. “Because I need to be.”

The real answer is that I’m trying because ultimately, what my Beginning affinity tells me is never reliable. Not when Eternity has an opinion. That’s where so many Beginning practitioners in this place go astray–they believe this place to be like their old worlds, governed by strict laws.

I clear my throat and address both the observers and competitors.

“The Hall of Ascension is an august body with records stretching back millions of years,” I say, assuming an official drone. Ebon Pearl nuzzles my neck. “Its purpose is to protect the balance of samsara, the cycle of existence.

"Today, we invite a new member to join us. Our competitors will prove themselves in the crucible of competition, and only one will emerge victorious. The rules will evolve over time as the rounds progress. If there are any questions, please direct them towards Hall of Ascension members.”

I grin, flashing my teeth, red energy coating them like phantom blood. I clasp my hands behind my back. "Let the games begin!"

The games don’t literally start immediately. Gea leads the ascendants out of the room and onto the field, so they won’t all murder each other in the first half second. While that’s underway, I play absently with my left cufflink–a persistent void storage artifact I received as a gift a long time ago. It has a special property that allows me to invoke the artifact stored within with only my mind. I don’t need to withdraw it from the cufflink and can keep the artifact hidden. The key limitation is that it stores only a single object.

“Are you planning to use it?” Ebon Pearl asks.

The artifact I store within the cufflink is one of the most potent in my possession.

It mimics the ability of a Regret scenario.

It requires souls to run, much like an Infinity Loop, but the artifact has safeguards to ensure that they aren’t corrupted. Its loops last a maximum of two minutes, which is more than most Regret practitioners can muster, even in Eternity. However, it has a few severe limitations that limit its utility. First, its scope is minimal. It can’t simulate the future for an entire plane, unless it’s an exceptionally small one. Second, the drain on souls is more significant when using ascendant souls as templates. Eternity’s soul protections add significant resistance. Where I might be able to use the artifact every few minutes on a world with only mortals, using it in a location with multiple ascendants is a one in six hours kind of deal.

It’s best used strategically.

How do you keep the artifact’s use a secret, Crimson Teeth? some might wonder. Necromancers can see souls and would be notice if an artifact–or an innocuous item like my cufflink–was drawing them in and expelling them. Moreover, the soul requirement would be a stifling restriction on planes without soul-bearing life.

I’m a Beginning practitioner, so of course I found a way. I acquired a planar storage, different from a void storage in that objects are stored not in stasis, but in a remote physical location. I designed an End array and brought in a Death and End practitioner to pour her energy into it. The array traps souls in place, preventing them from drifting away. The last step was to form the channel between this soul bank and the artifact within the cufflink.

“Of course I’m planning to use it,” I tell Ebon Pearl. “The magic is in knowing what time is best.”

The ascendant competitors are all in their positions, spread out equidistantly around the valley. I spot Ancient Black’s practitioner, the man with Regret and Remorse affinity. Gea took pity on him and wedged him between an earth elementalist and a Dark practitioner, so he’ll probably last at least a few seconds.

I cock my head, parsing the probabilities. I know the Regret practitioner wants to lose and return to Black’s side, so he won’t defend himself.

“Part of me wants him to show up the battle junkies assembled by the bigger factions,” I think.

“Because the probability is low?” Ebon Pearl asks.

“I do like to defy the odds,” I reply. “But this ties back to the overall change in competition format. Ascendant Red lacks a bombastic combat-oriented affinity.” Remorse has inherently offensive capability but lacks in destructive power what it gains in utility. Especially at our level, when people have years of experience developing methods to defend their minds or acquire artifacts to shore up deficiencies.

There always exist experts who wheedle their way through the best defenses, but Red–in his youth–isn’t one of them. At least, not yet.

Ebon Pearl considers my words, her tail curling around my upper arm. “It’s out of our hands,” she says. “Metaphorically speaking.”

I turn my gaze back to the sky, then jump up, rapidly ascending toward the transparent platforms over the valley. I land on the edge and people step back, giving me respectful distance. I walk along the edge of the platform, the wind playing with my hair. Most of the perimeter is devoid of walls–if someone falls off, that’s their problem.

I don’t need to look behind to perceive my surroundings. I’m not a wind elementalist, but when I devote my attention to my senses, I can hear the way that they shift their clothes, sense the way that they impede the light breeze.

I bare my teeth again in a sanguine grin. Ebon Pearl’s tongue flicks against my earlobe.

“It is time,” she says, her voice reaching the collective audience.

I manifest a ball of red ascendant energy above my palm. “First round... begin!” Red light bursts from my hand like a firecracker.

The valley shatters. Fire and searing light envelop the earth, impossibly hot. They are fended off only by hurricane-force winds and a massive deluge of water that splits into hundreds of whip-like rivers. It’s impossible to see anything. Ebon Pearl’s infrared vision is rendered useless by the extreme heat.

I pinch the bridge of my nose, activating a set of arrays I implanted under my eyelids. They’re extremely complicated given their small size and work by sending out trace amounts of Light, wind, and ascendant energy and reading their reflection.

I chuckle and bring a hand to my mouth.

I love surprises.