“I won't wait for a second horn. We talked about zoners a lot these past weeks. Don't try to dodge the responsibility for that, since we all know it's true. Not an officer among us isn't thinking, 'I could fill the zoner's berth. Dosellian Urapta said so. He's too sophisticated in appearance to lie.' Never mind that. What is a zoner? Just a fighter with a projectile?”

Dosellian adjusted his collar in preparation for the speech he had wished to deliver for a long time but always refrained from doing for fear he would scare off potential fight buddies. “A zoner is a fighter with a projectile,” he declaimed, “the same way that those Christmas stars over there are horses. It's half-true, and the untrue half is too weak to stop us from calling them that.”

Waltzing Rudolph looked over her shoulder. “I call myself that,” she assured them.

Dosellian bowed. “There is charming proof that a term may be employed either more or less rigorously as the situation demands. The true zoner ought to have an array of tools helpful for maintaining a specific distance from the opponent that is advantageous for the zoner. Keep him out, pull him in, move yourself away, whichever. Allow me to demonstrate.” He socked Coremel in the stomach and danced away, which clarified things for everyone.

“Note, hrrk, if you will, ah, no projectile necessary,” Coremel squeezed out before he fell to the ground.

“Just so, as theory has it. A zoner might lack so much as a single fireball. In practice, anyone with ranged moves who wishes to stay more than a step away from his opponent is called a zoner. Why, I must seem something of a zoner myself when Boxer Andit is about.”

That thorough explanation distracted Dosellian and Coremel sufficiently long for Jonathan Brightwater to beat Nautical Wedding Manyana and lose to Newlywed Quircy in turn, but the battles over the champion's couch never stopped. Crusher Domingo tagged out for Bel Felicitous Fasde, who had prepared his distraction beforehand as befit a conscientious interceptor.

“What does it mean for a move to be 'safe on block?'”

“An excellent time to ask. Observe how Coremel writhes on the floor after being educationally punched. No one does it better. He'll be down there for some time, but what if he had blocked it? He would be stunned, possibly by his friend's betrayal, but for a shorter period. His natural next move is to attack me. The question is, would I be able to throw up my own block in time? The answer comes down to a straightforward frame calculation. If my move's recovery is shorter than his block stun plus his fastest startup, it's safe. If it's longer, he may be able to punish me. We then classify the move as unsafe and mock Cadmos for his excessive recovery frames. I know it's wrong of me to switch examples like that, but I can't stop thinking about it.”

“It's time to stop thinking altogether!” An officer ran in, deranged, his frenzy casting his stylish white coat and slender cane in a fearsome light. The only thing that stopped Luerre Voine from foaming at the mouth was his sleeve that was conveniently located for wiping. “New trailer! It's . . . No. No, I won't tell you. Come!” The man struggled to master the beast within; Luerre's expression shifted between his usual composed but thoughtful look to a twisted thing of secret passions and the pleasure found in spite, and as he left, he almost dropped to all fours before he recovered himself.

His audience faced the same struggle. Having no need for human speech at the moment, they decided to give in immediately. Officers ran out of the room on all fours if they were not centaurs and also if they were. The shorter ones ran on the backs of the taller ones, the narrower on the broader, and the golds and rainbows on the silvers. All Freegate reverted to that primordial chaos that prevailed before order set right the universe according to several creation myths. Was there an ice giant? If three Floods stacked up leg-on-shoulder counted, then yes.

The ungovernable mass rolled toward the dining hall and merged with other lumps coming in from the walls, the courtyard, the garden, and the ever-open gate. Some tourists and shoppers from other lands got assimilated as well. There was Ivar from Holy Legend Army, ready to be enraged anew that the younger game's spinoff had advanced so far in development before the older game's was announced. There was Paradise the Enchant's Higgins of Fort Fondue, who sometimes became so frustrated with his fellows at home that he felt compelled to take a vacation before he said things difficult to take back. That happened no more than a few times per day. BigGuy30, one of the many comic-relief characters who relieved the monotony inherent to the Always Leveling Titan concept of leveling always, was buying an Eclipse Dragon miniature for the new pan-ludic wargame developed by the strategic minds of Ten Thousand Years in collaboration with Fields of Steam when the crowd picked him up and carried him along. “My Romance of Worlds army needs that!” he shouted, but his pleas were lost in the tumult. He bought it later though. Another happy ending in this otherwise-grim world.

But who within Commandment of Hero would have a happy ending, and who would be left to pin weakening hopes to a dwindling number of roster slots like a gambler taking worse and worse odds to protect his scrawny little legs atrophied from all the time he spends watching the ponies? Many knew already, but they were too busy rewatching the trailer to tell newcomers about it.

“Hurry up! I need to get back to Strufor the Vault!” Tiboleus the Experimenter hopped up and down while waving his little arms. And why? Gameplay footage was why. Unlike when Cadmos showed up and demanded all the attention, that glory hog, here was something to pause and advance frame-by-frame for clues. Commandment of Heroes officers used to analyze videos second-by-second, but Dosellian Urapta, Coremel, and Dennet had put them straight on that.

Even before combing through the video for clues like a defense attorney whose clients are never guilty or a prosecutor whose suspects always are, a superficial examination revealed 2D stages, which answered that. Expected for anyone familiar with the developer's oeuvre, which is French for “games that don't matter 'cause they ain't CoH,” but Dosellian nevertheless slammed his fist into a palm, his phantom ambition for Ersatz Struggle to be as much like T***** as possible dispersed by the expected advent of dawn. Ozric Orn Pallad did the same with as much vehemence despite the fact he had played a fighting game for the first time not even a month before because elegant and sophisticated gentlemen invariably prefer T*****. Dennet was happy though, as expected of an A***** H**** lover. What a degenerate.

What else? Each competitor possessed a star on screen near the health bar. It lacked the skills at the five points that constituted CoH's distinctive Skill Star but did seem to fill up over the fight for Novalogical purposes. Below the health sat another meter that hardcore squinters identified as the Guard Gauge. “Does a full bar let you bring in a Champion to Taunt for you?” Puzzled Reapers, Warpers, Harassers, Strategists, and Medics took some time to remember that in the genre selected for the spinoff, guarding was everyone's problem. Aside from those elements, Ersatz Struggle lacked shamefully in the numbers, meters, three-quarter circles, glowing triangles, pips, chevrons, and rows of nails that people of Dennet's taste demanded.

Ignoring the tasteful 3D enjoyers and stimulus-starved 2D demanders, the common viewer looked first at who was beating up Cadmos. Yells, hoots, and screeches flew around the dining hall as if some Rare had put a soup spoon in the wrong position. “It's Aerywe Beruvo! And she's a puppet character!” Adigail Zem yelped, her face no longer visible through the tears. What could the officers do but scream and hop around till an authoritative voice told them what to think?

“Puppet characters look upright enough to me.” Rylweadh of Mercy said that and thereby made herself the arbiter of the new narrative. Coremel exaggerated. The developers could be trusted to balance a 2v1, and nothing is queenlier than bringing someone else along to fight for you. Furthermore, consider the identity of the puppet: Gaelvry Beruvo. What objection could there be to letting twin sisters handle life's challenges together? Did Coremel hate family?