[If you were going to listen to any advice that I offered I’d probably tell you to run away somewhere and hide,] The AI in my head remarked as the echoing voice of the woman from the screen faded away.
It was right. My plan wasn’t to run away and hide.
“That wouldn’t work and you know it,” I said. “Not if I want to come out of this thing as a winner, anyway. I need to get at least one elimination, and my plan is to get a lot more.”
[Some day that cockiness is going to get the better of you,] The AI said, [Who knows, maybe that day is going to be today.]
“We’ll just have to wait and see,” I grinned. “Maybe I’ll get my ass handed to me, maybe I won’t. I won’t know my own limits until I try though, right?”
The AI was silent at that, which meant I’d struck a nerve or something. I was pretty sure that I was right on the money with my way of thinking, though. I was going to treat the whole battle royale like a test for my newfound powers.
Defeating the giant mech had already proven that I was pretty strong and that I’d be able to hold my own against tough opponents, and the woman replaying the video of that happening would have only painted a target on my back.
[Fine, fine,] The AI said, [Let’s do it your way. It’s not like you would have really been able to hide away anyway.]
That gave me pause.
“Why not?” I asked, “Is there something you’ve been keeping from me in all of your snarky responses?”
[Keeping from you? No, not quite. Forgotten myself? That’s a little bit more accurate,] The AI said, [You can’t shield your mana from the view of other beings, both due to the sheer scale of it and because of your lacking skill. Everyone else in this Battle Royale can do that, pretty much, so you’re going to be a bit of a beacon to anyone who wants to try and take down the guy that destroyed the mech.]
That probably should have made me feel a little bit worried.
It meant that anyone with a grudge against humans, or anyone that truly wanted to make themselves look good in the eyes of whoever was watching, would be trying to take a shot at me.
It didn’t make me worried at all, though. If anything it just made me excited. If people were gunning for me that meant I was bound to get into a fight and it was probably going to end up being sooner rather than later.
[Dodge to your left, right now!] The AI all but screamed in my mind.
I let my instincts take over and dived to the left, rolling over my shoulder and springing back up to my feet as if I were some kind of video game character. The area I had been standing in just seconds before erupted into a pool of molten rock.
I took in my surroundings and instantly locked on to what had attacked me.
The alien looked human, for the most part, other than its much more vibrant pink skin, pointed ears, and wider eyes. If I had been sent to a fantasy world I would have called it an elf.
I thrust my palm out and sent out a blast of superheated plasma. It screamed through the air at the alien, who didn’t even seem like he wanted to move out of the way.
Instead, he cast a series of intricate sigils with his hand and then placed his palm on the ground.
In the seconds before my attack was set to hit home a big brick of the ground below was torn upward by whatever spell the alien had used.
My attack ate into the now vertical slab of ground and blew it to pieces. The shield had been nowhere near enough to completely stop my overpowered beam of energy, but it had slowed it enough for the alien to get clear.
They ran up their own wall and sprang off of it like a free runner, two more clods of dirt in their hand.
They threw the rocks at me, and while for a second I considered the fact that they may have just been normal rocks, that belief was quickly cast aside when I saw them shifting into a more lava-like molten form.
Blasting them with my beams would just spread the lava’s area of effect over a wider distance, meaning I’d likely just get sprayed by a bunch of superheated rock. That wouldn’t be ideal.
Instead, I took off at a run, each step powerful enough to gouge out footstep-shaped holes in the ground beneath me.
I dipped below the molten rocks and grinned as I heard them explode somewhere behind me.
The alien was still soaring through the air toward me, but I was ready. Whoever he was his speciality was clearly magic to do with controlling rocks and dirt, something that they had honed to an impressive level. But now they were out of their element. Now it was my turn.
With a powerful jump I rocketed up into the air and tackled the alien out of the sky. I grabbed them by the throat and with a wild punch across the jaw knocked them out in a single blow.
When I hit the ground again I made sure to put the alien down gently. They’d only been trying to win at the battle royale, secure a bit of glory for themselves. That warranted respect now the fight had been won.
As I stepped away from the unconscious form of the alien a beam of light came down from above and consumed his body until nothing was left but motes of light.
[Teleport beam,] My AI clarified, [Took him to the med bay no doubt, I’m pretty sure you broke his jaw with that punch.]
I didn’t take any pleasure in hurting others, but I couldn’t stop the grin from returning to my face.
One down, I’d secured my spot in whatever came next. Everything else was just icing on the cake.
After taking down my first opponent so easily I was ready to start looking for a challenge. I wanted to fight with one of the other people who had managed to stand up to and distract the mecha when I’d been knocked down, giving me the chance to take it out, but I had no way to search them out. I also had a feeling that, since they were there to see me deal with the Mech first handed, they were actually less likely to try and hunt me down than anyone else who was currently present in the Battle Royale. They knew what I was capable of. They had seen my strength, felt the heat of my beam attacks as they scorched through the air and ate through the hull of the metal giant. [Really waiting for someone to put you on your arse and shut up that cockiness you’ve got going on,] The AI sighed. I decided to ignore the artificial construct. There wasn’t any point in dwelling on the negativity of a creature who was living rent-free in my head. Instead, I chose to look around the area that I h
I found myself frozen in midair, a prisoner of time itself. The tentacles of the time manipulator, writhing and twisting, had ensnared me in some kind of a temporal stasis. My body was suspended in a state of perpetual stillness, a frozen statue amidst the chaos of battle. My AI chimed in, its voice dripping with sarcasm. [Well, this is just great. Just what I wanted, to be stuck here for all eternity. How about you, Victor? Having a blast? Glad you decided to go and hunt out some more powerful opponents?]I gritted my teeth, focusing my mind. My system was still active, still granting me access to my powers. I could feel the strength coursing through my veins, the speed and strength that I had been granted when I was reborn in this new world. I had to find a way to break free. “Any suggestions, AI? Or are you just going to be insufferable all the time?” I asked through gritted teeth. [Oh, I don’t know, Victor,] it replied. [Maybe try using your laser blasts to break the time lo
The darkness was beyond suffocating. It wrapped around me so tightly that I couldn’t even see beyond my elbows if I stretched my arms out all the way. The only light visible in the… wherever I was… were tiny motes of light dancing in the distance. They flickered into being and fluttered down from somewhere above to somewhere deep below where they were snuffed out. The motes of light were the only reason I could see the two creatures before me: creatures that made my head ache and my heart pound like a jackhammer in my chest. They were nothing more than silhouettes, a darkness so deep it was darker even than the black that made up my surroundings. The purest dark. If I looked at them for too long I could imagine my sanity slipping away into a nightmare of Lovecraftian proportion. One of the things drew closer and, somehow, even though I could barely see myself in the dark I could distinctly see what looked like a giant figure shrouded in a hooded cloak. “Now then, that is most u
I woke with a groan. My head felt as if someone were beating on the inside like a drum, and my tongue was so dry I could have convinced myself I’d been eating sand the night before. It must have been one for the storybooks. Sure, I couldn’t remember a single thing that had happened, but I hadn’t had a hangover like this one since the very first time I’d gotten drunk so I’d probably been on one hell of a bender. I let my eyelids crack open, winced at the bright light of the morning sun, yawned and then stopped dead. Waking up in someone else's bed was always a bit of an odd experience. For the bed you wake up in to look like it was in a room ripped straight out of a sci-fi show on TV? Well, that really turned the weirdness up a few notches. The room I’d woken up in was a wide and expansive space with walls that were made of some dark black metallic material and a light brown wooden floor. Across the other side of the room there were a series of wardrobes that seemed to have futu
I ripped my hand away from the shelf and practically flipped myself out of bed. [Oi! Chill out human, it’s like you’ve never had a neurolinked hyperspatial artificial intelligence hotwired into your consciousness before,] the voice in my head said snarkily. “A what?!” I squawked, I’d thought taking my hand off of the shelf would cut off the connection with whatever the thing had been speaking in my head was. Clearly, that wasn’t the case. [Oh great, he’s as dense as he is weird,] The AI said, [Long story short, I’m the thing that’s going to keep you from getting killed now that you’re in this universe. And uh, yeah, obviously I have access to your memories so I know all about what’s happened to you. Properly weird situation you have going on here.]“So… you’ve given me like… powers, or something?” I asked, my heart rate was already returning to normal. I was in a super advanced sci-fi world, there was no telling what strange innovations I was going to come across. I was going to h
I didn’t see anyone as I was walking through whatever apartment building or complex that I had woken up in, though it got me thinking about the kind of life forms I might expect to find during my new life. “Are there many humans on this world?” I asked as I walked. [Uh, a few here and there,] The AI replied, [Though it’s probably best to warn you in advance that humans aren’t exactly most species' favourite lifeform in the galaxy.]“Oh, why not?” I asked, a feeling of dread creeping into my belly, “This isn’t going to cause any problems, is it?” The AI was silent for a moment, [A war between the wider galaxy and the rest of the human race came to a close around fifty years ago. There are still some hard feelings here and there, but for the most part, you should be fine.]It was an explanation that left me feeling considerably uneasy, and not even the resplendent view of the glittering city that I was treated to upon entering a glass lift at the end of the corridor I had been walkin
As I ate the AI that had taken residence in my head explained the positives and the negatives of my situation, and there definitely were both at play. The biggest, and worst, thing was that the AI units that everyone in the GDC were equipped with had never been designed to deal with the sheer amount of energy that the creatures from the Space Between had granted me with. That meant that, for a long while, I wouldn’t be able to access the greater portion of my power. If we were to take off all the limiters and go full force without a care in the world it’d be like taking the pin out of a grenade… literally. I’d physically explode in a shower of magical energy that would probably be big enough to wipe out a large star system with some power left over to wipe out an entire galactic sector. In other words, it would be pretty bad. The second thing was that using mana and magic was, believe it or not, a fine and delicate art. Sure having boundless power was all well and good if all yo
“So here’s what’s gonna happen next,” The armoured alien girl said, “I’m gonna head out to the training arena. If you can make it there, we’ll have to see about getting some kind of a tournament going. But trust me, getting there ain’t gonna be easy.” She was gone in an instant, blurring away at velocities a comic book superhero would be proud of. The moment she disappeared a heavy thumping began from outside the building. It sounded as if something very big and very hostile had begun to trudge its way to the hall that we were all sitting in, and as the footsteps got louder and the vibrations in the floor got more noticeable more and more of the aliens began to look even more concerned. [I mean, you’re not wrong, that’s exactly what’s happening,] The AI said, I couldn’t tell if its tone was amused or just as worried as I was feeling. And then all hell broke loose. The thudding stopped and the collective aliens began to whisper to one another, that whispering was cut off by a col
I found myself frozen in midair, a prisoner of time itself. The tentacles of the time manipulator, writhing and twisting, had ensnared me in some kind of a temporal stasis. My body was suspended in a state of perpetual stillness, a frozen statue amidst the chaos of battle. My AI chimed in, its voice dripping with sarcasm. [Well, this is just great. Just what I wanted, to be stuck here for all eternity. How about you, Victor? Having a blast? Glad you decided to go and hunt out some more powerful opponents?]I gritted my teeth, focusing my mind. My system was still active, still granting me access to my powers. I could feel the strength coursing through my veins, the speed and strength that I had been granted when I was reborn in this new world. I had to find a way to break free. “Any suggestions, AI? Or are you just going to be insufferable all the time?” I asked through gritted teeth. [Oh, I don’t know, Victor,] it replied. [Maybe try using your laser blasts to break the time lo
After taking down my first opponent so easily I was ready to start looking for a challenge. I wanted to fight with one of the other people who had managed to stand up to and distract the mecha when I’d been knocked down, giving me the chance to take it out, but I had no way to search them out. I also had a feeling that, since they were there to see me deal with the Mech first handed, they were actually less likely to try and hunt me down than anyone else who was currently present in the Battle Royale. They knew what I was capable of. They had seen my strength, felt the heat of my beam attacks as they scorched through the air and ate through the hull of the metal giant. [Really waiting for someone to put you on your arse and shut up that cockiness you’ve got going on,] The AI sighed. I decided to ignore the artificial construct. There wasn’t any point in dwelling on the negativity of a creature who was living rent-free in my head. Instead, I chose to look around the area that I h
[If you were going to listen to any advice that I offered I’d probably tell you to run away somewhere and hide,] The AI in my head remarked as the echoing voice of the woman from the screen faded away. It was right. My plan wasn’t to run away and hide. “That wouldn’t work and you know it,” I said. “Not if I want to come out of this thing as a winner, anyway. I need to get at least one elimination, and my plan is to get a lot more.” [Some day that cockiness is going to get the better of you,] The AI said, [Who knows, maybe that day is going to be today.]“We’ll just have to wait and see,” I grinned. “Maybe I’ll get my ass handed to me, maybe I won’t. I won’t know my own limits until I try though, right?” The AI was silent at that, which meant I’d struck a nerve or something. I was pretty sure that I was right on the money with my way of thinking, though. I was going to treat the whole battle royale like a test for my newfound powers. Defeating the giant mech had already proven tha
The atmosphere in the coliseum was electric and I couldn’t help but find myself swept up in it.Looking around and grinning up at all the cheering alien faces, it felt like I was somewhere I truly belonged. “We’ve got a few more initiates than usual this time around,” The woman on the screen said, drawing my attention back to her, “But I’m sure a replay of what exactly went down out there can explain exactly what happened!” The holographic screen flickered and all of a sudden instead of showing the girl it was showing me, moments before I began fighting the mecha. I barely recognised myself. In the footage, you could actually see the power crackling off my body in the moments before I launched myself toward the giant mecha. Lightning trailed after me as I soared through the air, only to be gripped by the mecha’s hand. But what had felt like an eternity of me being squeezed by the mechanical monster was actually only a few seconds in the footage. When the mecha threw me out of i
For a third time I began to channel the power that resided in the core of my being into the palms of my hands. I’d used the ability twice before and I felt as though I was beginning to understand how the energy felt, how it moved and what I needed to do to get it to obey my commands. The twin glows in the palms of my hands crackled and spat with power. I let it build until the glow condensed into twin suns in my hand, so hot that it stung my skin. The build of power was so immense that the energy turned from its usual golden white into a dangerous blood red. The robot’s operator was still struggling with the vines that had wrapped around their mecha’s arm, the machine was completely defenceless. I grit my teeth and braced myself before launching my attack. The beam of raw magic screamed through the air and tore the chest piece of the mecha into molten slag. My beam ripped clean through the other side of the thing and while I was able to hold it in place for a few seconds the reco
The pressure from the squeezing hand of the mecha was immense, but I quickly realised that it was nothing that my newly buffed body could handle. The robot was just a little bit too weak to squeeze me hard enough to do any real damage. While that was the case, sitting in the palm of the mecha’s hand wasn’t exactly going to win me many points with whoever was watching. I’d planned to put on a show, and that was still my goal. I took a deep breath and began to push back against the colossal grip of the robot. For a moment nothing happened, our power was seemingly matched, but then inch by inch it was clear that I was breaking my way free of the thing's grasp. Before I could break my way free completely the robot took things into its own hands. It slammed me down into the ground as hard as it could. The chairs that had been in the way were smushed into the ground and I was buried in a pile of dust and rubble, the ground cratered away beneath me. The robot stared down at me triumpha
“So here’s what’s gonna happen next,” The armoured alien girl said, “I’m gonna head out to the training arena. If you can make it there, we’ll have to see about getting some kind of a tournament going. But trust me, getting there ain’t gonna be easy.” She was gone in an instant, blurring away at velocities a comic book superhero would be proud of. The moment she disappeared a heavy thumping began from outside the building. It sounded as if something very big and very hostile had begun to trudge its way to the hall that we were all sitting in, and as the footsteps got louder and the vibrations in the floor got more noticeable more and more of the aliens began to look even more concerned. [I mean, you’re not wrong, that’s exactly what’s happening,] The AI said, I couldn’t tell if its tone was amused or just as worried as I was feeling. And then all hell broke loose. The thudding stopped and the collective aliens began to whisper to one another, that whispering was cut off by a col
As I ate the AI that had taken residence in my head explained the positives and the negatives of my situation, and there definitely were both at play. The biggest, and worst, thing was that the AI units that everyone in the GDC were equipped with had never been designed to deal with the sheer amount of energy that the creatures from the Space Between had granted me with. That meant that, for a long while, I wouldn’t be able to access the greater portion of my power. If we were to take off all the limiters and go full force without a care in the world it’d be like taking the pin out of a grenade… literally. I’d physically explode in a shower of magical energy that would probably be big enough to wipe out a large star system with some power left over to wipe out an entire galactic sector. In other words, it would be pretty bad. The second thing was that using mana and magic was, believe it or not, a fine and delicate art. Sure having boundless power was all well and good if all yo
I didn’t see anyone as I was walking through whatever apartment building or complex that I had woken up in, though it got me thinking about the kind of life forms I might expect to find during my new life. “Are there many humans on this world?” I asked as I walked. [Uh, a few here and there,] The AI replied, [Though it’s probably best to warn you in advance that humans aren’t exactly most species' favourite lifeform in the galaxy.]“Oh, why not?” I asked, a feeling of dread creeping into my belly, “This isn’t going to cause any problems, is it?” The AI was silent for a moment, [A war between the wider galaxy and the rest of the human race came to a close around fifty years ago. There are still some hard feelings here and there, but for the most part, you should be fine.]It was an explanation that left me feeling considerably uneasy, and not even the resplendent view of the glittering city that I was treated to upon entering a glass lift at the end of the corridor I had been walkin