Back in bed, tucked in like a child. Fuck, this is a refrain I’d like to move past. Unconsciousness is the lamest result of heroic stuff. I don’t even get to see what happened. Doesn’t seem fair.
Kora stirs in the back of my mind.
Well. I guess I didn’t die.
“No, you didn’t. But if you keep falling to a single point of soul energy, I imagine you will soon.”
What happened? Did it work?
Kora hesitates. In her silence I know the answer. I press the heels of my hands into my eyes to hold in tears.
Did any… did any of them make it out?
“No.” The word strikes a hammer blow to my chest. “I am sorry, Competitor. I know what you hoped, and why. The Otachai… They thought you were trying to escape. They thought that you were attempting to throw the Laranya away from you. They thought they were saving you.”
I know. Of course I fucking know. They were doing what they thought was right, even though they were so wrong. I can’t tell whether I want to give Threenut a hug or launch his little ass into orbit.
“You know which of those is the correct choice.”
Sighing, I throw off the sheets and force myself upright. A figure sits in the corner. They’re bathed in violet light before my mind even processes their presence. Energy bleeds into the bauble that fills my palm, but I hold my soul in check, barely.
I almost do it.
Because slumped in a chair, for all appearances like a worried family member sitting by my bedside, is Grettel. Or the thing inhabiting Grettel.
Logic and exhaustion and confusion and numbness conspire to stay my hand.
If she, or it, wanted me dead, I would be. Clearly. So it can live. For now.
“It is remarkable how far you’ve come in such a short time.”
What do you mean?
“Look at how you reacted: instantly, instinctually, ready to attack or defend yourself before your conscious mind caught up. You are on your first steps to becoming a warrior.”
More paranoid and terrified than warriorlike, but sure. Let’s go with that.
Keeping an eye on the creature slumped in the chair, I bring up my soul summary.
Name: Sam Foreman
Race: Human (Pure)
Class: Singularity (Unique)
Level: 41
Class Evolutions: N/A
Soul Energy: 501
Statistics
Strength: 2
Agility: 4
Toughness: 8
Intelligence: 8
Will: 12
Charisma: 9
Skills:
Identification (Mythic, Evolutions: 5)
Soul Sight (Mythic, Evolutions: 5)
Soul Expression, Gravity Aspected (Legendary, Evolutions: 3)
Weaken Gravity (Rare, Evolutions: 1)
Strengthen Gravity (Rare, Evolutions: 1)
Gravity Manipulation (Unique, Evolutions: 1)
Attraction (Unique)
Boons:
Ravenous Soul (Legendary)
Psychic Telos (Mythic, Evolutions: 1)
Artifacts:
Deity’s Bauble (Rare Artifact, Toy)
The Slippers of Queen Elia, the Bounding Princess of Thellin (Rare Artifact, Equipment)
The Death Shroud of Samantha Foreman (Unique Soulbound Artifact, Equipment)
Damn. Even latently absorbing Clug’s soul made me a ton stronger, and, judging by the firestorm swirling in my chest, I’ve got plenty more to spend. I almost feel the weight of my soul like the other heavy hitters I’ve encountered, like the world bends itself slightly around me, rather than the other way around.
Well, time to bring up some of the lagging Skills.
Soul energy available! You have enough soul energy to evolve a Skill or Boon. Choose from among the following options:
Soul Expression, Gravity Aspected (Legendary, Evolutions: 3)
Weaken Gravity (Rare, Evolutions: 1)
Strengthen Gravity (Rare, Evolutions: 1)
Gravity Manipulation (Unique, Evolutions: 1)
Attraction (Unique, Evolutions: 0)
Ravenous Soul (Legendary Boon, Evolutions: 0)
Think that it’s finally time to hit Ravenous Soul? Would I have enough left to improve the rest?
“That is impossible to say. Even Skills and Boons of the same tier require differing amounts. The only truth of the matter is that, if you continue to survive, evolving Ravenous Soul could offer extraordinary benefits.”
Yeah, I mean, I guess we’ll find out. This isn’t really a choice at this point.
The fire in my chest responds to my unspoken command, swirling tighter and faster until it feels like a miniature tornado rages over my heart. My soul drinks. The channels of power sear deeper, a marble statue carved with flame.
Boon evolved! Ravenous Soul (Legendary Boon, Soul Evolution) has become Insatiable Soul (Mythic Boon, Soul Evolution)!
Your soul consumes the energy of the world with a prodigious and efficient hunger.
Eh. That description is mildly alarming. But I do still have enough to improve myself, so… the remaining energy carves into a different pattern across my soul.
Skill evolved! Strengthen Gravity (Rare, Magical) has become Strengthen Gravity (Legendary, Magical)!
You have the ability to efficiently heighten the effect of gravitational forces in a localized area or for particular entities (as determined by the caster) at the cost of soul energy.
Energy Cost: Variable
Cost determined based upon area of effect, strength of effect, mass affected, and souls affected.
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Evolve to gain additional benefits.
Huh. Not exactly the craziest change, but I guess there are only so many ways making gravity stronger can go. I’m not exactly going to rip a hole in space time and make a black hole any time soon, but I like that it is now ‘efficient’ and that I can affect multiple targeted entities with a single activation of the Skill.
And that’s it. The fire is quiet, my mind at ease. My soul energy reads an absurd 723/723. I’ve risen to level 47. Compared to the fragile girl at the start of the Tournament, I can hardly recognize myself. If I went back to Earth, I’d be a literal super hero, able to do crazy magic. I could ignore gun shots… topple buildings… crush people with my mind… fly?
Probably. It would be more like falling sideways, but that’s close enough to flight that it might as well be.
Unfortunately, I have to compete with other super people.
Grettel stirs, and my hand twitches to point the bauble squarely at the old woman’s chest. Her eyes, sharp and discerning, take in my posture and my lingering threat silently. She lifts her hands and slowly sits upright, a wisp of gray hair escaping from the tight bun on the back of her head to drift across her eyes.
“So you know, then,” she—it—says softly.
“I know,” I say flatly, feeling a weird mix of emotions. Anger, that this creature would take my friend’s body. Curiosity, that it didn’t kill me when it had the chance. Exhaustion, that I have to even wonder about this shit. “So, tell me why I shouldn’t splatter your parasitic ass against that wall.”
“Because you have questions. Ask them. I will answer.”
“Give me a minute.”
Identification: Grettel Friedrich, Human Shadowwalker
Level: 37 (32)
Strengths: Charisma, Intelligence
Weaknesses: Indecision
Humanity is the Competitor species of the Twelfth. The only species to be entirely unaware of the evolutionary pressures readying them for the Tournament, humanity also has the dubious honor of being the only species to compete in every Tournament that has ever been held in the name of the Twelve. Compete, and lose.
Grettel was the daughter of a university professor and a baker, raised to work and think in equal measure. After her family was killed by a new regime in a sweeping purge of the disloyal, she bent her potential towards revenge, becoming one of the most successful assassins in modern human history.
I bear down to break through the Bui’s natural defenses. It’s easier this time.
Identification: Po, Bui Shadowdancer
Level: 32 (27)
Strengths: Charisma, Intelligence
Weaknesses: Indecision
The Bui are the Competitor species of the Ninth. Born as little more than intent and hunger, the Bui grow in strength by joining with a host body and, over time, completely absorbing the host’s soul. Once joined, their true bodies are nearly impossible to extricate from their host without destroying both.
Po ascended nine times prior to the start of the Tournament through his position as a Spiritual Order Advisor for the Glorfa clan. His therapeutic ministrations led to the rehabilitation of dozens of Bui trapped in disharmonious ascensions. His personal ascensions were made reluctantly in order to bring peace to those patients whose disorder he could not correct.
“What’s a disharmonious ascension?” I ask, keeping the bauble aimed at the Bui’s chest.
His eyes widen in surprise at the question.
“How did you…?”
“Answer the question.”
“I…”
He trails off, and his poster shifts, his face turning contemplative. And strangely… animated. A sense of vertigo strikes me. Even though I’m looking squarely at Grettel’s weathered face, I know that I am looking at someone else entirely. His mannerisms, his posture, the way his eyes move… he is human, but he is most definitely not.
“I assume by your question that you understand how Bui grow,” he says, nodding before he finishes the sentence. “What you might have assumed from your choice of words is that our fusions are always acrimonious.”
“You’re saying people choose to combine themselves? Like a kind of spiritual, uh, blending?”
“Exactly that,” he says, leaning forward. Grettel’s weathered face suddenly feels like that of a middle-aged male therapist. My vision swims a bit. What the fuck. Seriously. “It is possible to absorb an unwilling spirit, but that is both a crime and an uncertain proposition. Spiritual warfare leaves scars upon the soul, whether successful or not. Much better to find a willing partner to ascend with. Which is why, when I found this spirit, I—”
“Don’t.” He stops, his expression freezing. The animation, the odd professional excitement, fades from his face, and he sits back in his chair again. “I know what you’re going to say. You found Grettel weak, helpless, her soul in turmoil. You’re going to tell me that you took her body because she asked you to. That she wanted you to absorb her soul. That what you’re doing is somehow good for her. Am I wrong?”
He doesn’t answer. Of course he doesn’t.
“I have to be honest, Po. I can’t really imagine a combination of words where I buy that bucket of bullshit.”
“I understand,” he says, his face—Grettel’s face—resigned and accepting. “It is a step too far to ask another species to empathize with mine, especially in this place. I’ll just offer this: do you have any other questions? Things you want to know? Or do you just want to get on with it?”
“Can I trust anything you say?”
“Yes, though I imagine you won’t.”
My teeth grind against each other so fiercely my jaw aches. I want to hate him, to strangle that calm understanding out of him so that he shows who he really is. God, I am angry and confused and tired.
I also want to believe him. Part of me does. Maybe that’s just my own stupid blind idealism. I’ve been trying to extend metaphorical olive branches this whole fucking tournament, with, to risk putting it lightly, limited success. Now, when I finally started to make real progress, my own allies decided to happily murder each other.
Oh, god. The Laranya… none of them made it?
“Not that I saw.”
Then I truly am their Crownbreaker. Every spider I see from here to the end is going to want to put me in the ground.
“Fuck!” The word tears itself out of me, and I punch my bed. Which is stupendously unsatisfying. So I stand and punch the wall. My knuckle cracks with a pop, and I fight tears as it subsequently snaps itself back into place. “Fuck!”
I don’t know if it’s my Soul Sight or my own broken instincts, but I know what the Bui wants to do the moment Grettel’s mouth opens. I stab a finger straight between his eyes.
“Don’t you fucking dare. I am not yours to try to fix.” He sits back. Or she does. Ugh. I have to ask the question, which is probably what he is hoping for. But I have to. “Is she… is she still in there?”
“Yes,” he says, though he looks uncomfortable. I stare at him until he breaks. “Listen, this… it’s complicated.”
“You’ve got a captive and impatient audience.”
“Right.” He takes a moment, seemingly searching for the words. “So you might conceive of an ascension as a deletion of the host body’s soul, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. It is a… combination. The separate ‘I’ becomes the collective ‘we.’ We are not the individuals we were before, but someone new, taking not only parts, but the entirety of each. There is usually something of a dominant personality, though sometimes we are radically altered by the souls we ascend with, becoming someone new entirely.”
I scrub my face with my hands. Try to make sense of this. I mean, it makes total sense by the logic of this hellish new paradigm, but for humanity… for what we are, and the things we’ve been taught, religious or otherwise… it feels like a violation.
“We have a thing in my world, Po. A term. It’s called consent. Before you do a life-altering medical procedure, before you touch a person’s body, you have to give consent, or even the most altruistic intent can cause irreparable harm.”
“We have this term as well.”
“Good. So listen.” I meet his eyes. Their eyes? Fuck, he’s ascended ten times now? How many people are in there? Or, I guess it’s just one. “Grettel wasn’t all there, Po. She wasn’t in her right mind. How could she possibly consent to this?”
“Her physical mind was failing, yes. But the Bui do not speak purely in the physical. Her soul was suffering, and it was to her soul that I made my offer. That which was truly Grettel accepted gladly.” He stares into the middle distance, steepling her slender fingers before her wrinkled chin. When he speaks, it is to the empty air. “Can you imagine? To be trapped in a state of confusion, to be wounded by a repeated and unearned ignorance day after day after day, every experience more foreign and less recognizable? Would you not jump at the chance to be a part of something more, to be something more, rather than flailing about in the endless night of broken memory?”
Of course I would. I don’t even have to think about it very much. I don’t say that out loud.
“So why does my Identification Skill still separate the Bui from their host? If your souls are one, why do you have different levels and powers and capabilities?”
“Ascending with these exotic souls is… strange.” He holds up a hand to cut me off, his expression tired. “I would explain it to you if I understood it myself. I am certain that who was once Grettel Friedrich is now a critical part of the soul known as Po. I am also certain that what we are together is nothing like what I was before, nor was it like any of my other nine ascensions. To borrow a human phrase, I am still figuring this out.”
I let the conversation die. In the silence of its funeral, the air is less tense. I know already that I won’t kill him, but I also don’t have the faintest fucking idea what to do with him. Either he’s the universe’s most accomplished liar, or I just received some invaluable insight into how another species works. I even feel something like understanding for the poor symbiotic bastards.
“Dangerous, that.”
How so?
“It is difficult to hate that which you understand.”
And I still may need to genocide them, yeah. I get it.
Or I find another way.
I don’t care what it takes, I don’t care if I have to tear heaven down, I’m going to end this fucked up cycle.
“Will you vow to me not to kill humans?” I say eventually.
“No. Though I will vow to only kill the ones that deserve it. As… we… once did.”
As Grettel once did.
“I’m not going to live to regret this, am I?” The words are supposed to be flippant, sarcastic, but they come out raw. My voice trembles at the end. “Am I?”
“You’re… letting us live?” At my nod, his face eases into quiet surprise. I don’t know how it is so easy to recognize his inherent maleness in Grettel’s feminine wrinkles, but it is crystal clear. “No, Sam Foreman, I do not think that you will live to regret this. Some others of my people have spoken of you as a harbinger of our destruction. Many Bui have moved towards humanity with the intent of taking revenge for the deaths of ours that you caused. I will do my best to convince them of a new course of action.”
“Well, thanks, I guess. One less thing to worry about.”
Po stands, looking stronger than Grettel’s age should allow. He offers me a half smile.
“I said I would do my best. No promises. No guarantees. Watch your back, Sam.”
“I’ll do that.”
