First Bloody Ballroom

--- Maya ---

“First wave coming up.” The woman called, as the ring around Maya flashed and a figure began to form out of light in the center of the ring.

When the light faded she found herself in the ring with what looked like an red desiccated corpse, one that looked kind of familiar though she couldn’t quite place from where.

(It’s a Husk.) Her inner logic told her. (It's one of those creatures that invaded during the summer festival a couple of months ago.)

(The ones we never fought?) Her inner passion asked.

(Quite.)

(Well then let’s fix that shall we?)

At first she contemplated simply blasting the thing with her hand cannons, but upon remembering that the Bloody Ballrooms she could recall always seemed like endurance runs of a sort, she instead pulled out her heavy weight and began walking towards the shambling corpse.

One quick swing later and the Husk was dissipating into a swarm of lights that really did remind her of the various gamer guild constructs she’d fought.

“That’s it?” She frowned, having expected a bit more fight from the thing.

“We get a lot of people from the mundane pits or… Tru called them ‘colliege posas’- Damn it, I know that didn’t translate right.” The guard cursed. “Anyway, we get a lot of people who think they can fight on a higher level than they really can. So we scare them off with something scary looking but ultimately harmless to anything other than a child.”

“Gotcha…” She nodded, thinking back to the day of the festival and how everyone had run from the Husks despite them being relatively passive and harmless now that she thought back on it. (Huh, I probably could’ve taken them with just my hand cannons…)

(It definitely would’ve been an easier first blood than the Bloodhounds.)

(Ooh, don’t forget we wiped the floor with a bunch of Decker’s minions before that.)

(Yeah, but he was just playing with us.) She forced herself to admit after having run through the gamer guild’s dungeon, something she was fairly certain a lieutenant would get further in than herself.

The ring around her flashed once more as a ball of light began to form in the air, before coalescing into (a ball of colored light?)

“Uh, is your thing broken?” She asked, figuring that that would be just like ‘magic’ to break when someone tried to use it for something important.

“It’s a will-o-wisp.” The woman explained. “They’re supposed to look like that.”

“Okay…” She nodded as the little ball of light began to drift towards her.

She actually knew what a will-o-wisp was from her various games, though she hadn’t recognized it in real life. If they were anything like the units Vi always spammed during their game sessions, then the little ball of light was a cheap swarm unit that while worthless on its own became a terror when you got enough of them together, given how they set fire to everything they touched.

(Which just means I shouldn’t let it touch me.) She figured raising a Hand Cannon and blasting the little light with a burst of Sound once it started to draw near.

The orb went flying before smashing into the ring wall and breaking apart.

(That was oddly cathartic.) She couldn’t help but think as she recalled the numerous times Vi would harass her with will-o-wisps, burning down Maya’s base infrastructure as her sister bought time to research her faction’s various spells and enchantments.

The ring flashed for a third time and this time the light formed a little green person with pointed ears that came up to her stomach while holding a little knife and wearing a pair of pants and a leather wrap around it (her(?)) chest.

“A… female goblin?” She figured looking the thing over.

“Eh, two fold on this one…” The guard shrugged while making a so-so gesture. “First is someone willing to hit a girl in the ring, and then Tru has an issue with ‘uncivilized’ goblins, so we use a lot of female ones to reassure him.”

“Uncivilized goblins?” She repeated, feeling a little upset by the way that was phrased.

The woman grimaced. “Trust me if you don’t know, you don’t want to know. They’re not really a problem on earth and your Arcane make sure they don’t become one.”

Before she could say anything else on the matter the goblin was rushing her with the knife raised high, something that got the more instinctive than anything else response of her kicking the thing in the chest and punting it half way across the arena.

The little goblin began picking herself off the ground and Maya grabbed her heavy weight, the weapon dragging slightly on the ground as the anti-grav portion took a second to kick on. A second that led to her delivering an upswing to the goblin’s jaw and breaking its neck as the construct broke into light.

“Hmm, not bad.” The older woman told her. “Need to work on your swing a bit though.”

She rolled her eyes, trying to remember what she was talking about a minute ago before the ring around her flashed for a fourth time and the light in front of her gathered into the shape of a person even smaller than the goblin, one that quickly grew little insect wings and antenna.

(Ooh, is that a fairy?) Her inner child cooed at the little person as it flew up to her and watched her with a face that was somehow cute despite being a hybrid of human and insect features.

She raised a hand to reach out to the little fairy and it immediately zapped her.

“Ow, you bitch.” She hissed, as the fairy blew a raspberry at her and started zipping around the ring.

Readying her Hand Cannon she tried to aim at the little nuisance, only to give up after a moment when she realized it was moving too quickly for her to get a bead on it. So instead she waited for the fairy to come in for another attempt at zapping her, only to blast the fairy instead, shattering it before it could even hit the wall.

“Serves her right.” She huffed.

“Yeah, the will-o-wisp is usually the one to get newcomers, and warn them that any of these can be a threat. The fairy is usually more to see how people deal with a quickly moving target.” The guard told her before giving a huff of amusement. “Z’aum ends up chasing the things around the arena for an hour despite the fact that he can just blast them with a wave of his hand.”

“Right, so each of these is a test of some kind.” She nodded in understanding.

“Well, this is an entry test for a Deviant fight club.” The woman pointed out.

(And that bit of narration reminds me…) “Hey, I just realized you never told me your name.”

The (hot) older woman considered this for a moment, before telling her, “Hmm, how about you beat the first boss and I’ll tell you my name. No point in it if you’re not going to stick around here for long.”

She narrowed her eyes, before accepting the challenge as the ring flashed for a fifth time, the light eventually gathering into the shape of a large blue wolf.

(This is the first boss?) She scoffed, remembering Decker’s significantly more impressive canines as she switched both of her Hand Cannons to electricity and fired twin bolts of lightning at the Wolf.

“Ooh, bad call.” She heard the woman grimace, as instead of shattering into light, the light began to gather around the Wolf as electricity crackled around its fur.

The howled before crouching down and launching itself at her in an electrified mass of fangs, fur, and claws that she just barely avoided by throwing herself out of the way. An action that forced her to abandon her Heavy Weight as she thankfully avoided being torn apart by the wolf as it stumbled back from the wall.

“Right, okay, electricity is no buen.” She nodded, switching her Hand Cannons back to Sound.

The wolf turned to her with a growl, electricity still crackling around it.

(Probably, shouldn’t get close to it either.) She grimaced, before raising her Hand Cannon and firing a burst of Sound.

A burst that completely missed as the wolf ducked to the side in a sparking mass before rushing her once more.

“Shit.” She cursed, jumping out of the way and sprinting to give her a bit of breathing room as she turned back to the electrified beast.

(Need something it can’t dodge.) She told herself before shifting through her headset’s UI as she pulled up her Burst() program and set it to Heat as she focused on the wolf in front of her.

Red embers began to gather around the wolf, before it froze for a second and then dashed out of the way just as the space it had been standing ignited in a brief flash of flame.

She growled, realizing that she couldn’t hit the wolf at all as long as it could move this quickly. So once more she triggered her Burst() program as she focused on the beast, only this time instead of running [Heat] through the function she ran [Gravity].

The wolf stumbled for a moment as it suddenly found its weight doubling.

A moment she had no problem exploiting as she quickly fired off another Burst(Heat) at the wolf, gathering red embers in the air around it. Sensing what was about to happen to it, the wolf’s electricity began sparking twice as brightly as it struggled against the increased gravity before the air ignited and the wolf caught fire in a miniature explosion.

The beast howled in pain as it became consumed by the flame, completely unaware of the fact that she was once more aiming her Hand Cannon at it until it was blasted against the ring’s wall in a wave of sound.

For a moment she thought the wolf would get back up before it finally gave up and shattered into a swarm of blue lights, both the electricity and the fire quickly dissipating into the air at the lack of their source.

Seeing that the threat was gone she couldn’t help but let out a sigh of relief. “Fuck, that was a bit of a jump in difficulty don’t you think?”

“To be fair it was a boss.” The woman told her. “Also Storm Wolfs aren’t half as fast or intelligent as that normally, it’s just since you used a lightning spell on it right out the gate…”

“It got a power up.” She figured with another sigh, not feeling up to explaining that she’d used science not magic given how that would be a point against science if she admitted to it. (So I’m just going to let magic take the fall on this one…)

“Pretty much.” The woman nodded. “The way it was explained to me, the point of the first boss is to see how you react to a non-humanoid that is a legitimate threat, given how most humanoids are only used to fighting other humanoids.”

“Yeah… that makes a bit of sense.” She admitted, remembering the differences between her fights with her more beast-like opponents versus her more human-like ones. While she’d still consider the human ones more dangerous with their traps and tactics, she was also fully aware that the beasts had a sort of ferocious nature that still made them a threat if in a much more obvious way.

“Also, my name is Anavi.” The guard told her.

She blinked. “Oh… that’s a nice name.”

“I think so too.” The woman -Anavi- smiled (so prettily). “I don’t suppose you’re willing to share yours? Or are you doing that odd thing where your… Masks keep their names to themselves.”

“Oh, um…” She swallowed, not sure how to answer.