Page 367 of Light Leech

“Hey, Pet.” Distance did nothing to inhibit her voice.

“We can’t do this, Ral.”

She nodded. We both looked at the business warrior, seeing that her confusion had doubled. Ralia’s outfit was full of light and color, enough to give anyone a headache as words and symbols moved around her violet armor as if she were a walking advertisement. “We have to.”

“But–”

“Trust me.”

“What is this?” the woman asked. “You can’t join sides, that’s not how this–”

“Who said?” Ralia asked. “I never said we were joining–”

“Welcome competitors to the final round of the Standardized Test! Each of you will face two opponents! Yes, two opponents. No alliances are allowed and only one victor will prevail!”

I faced Ralia. She held her composure well, but I knew the panic was visible in my eyes. The businesswoman snorted an ugly laugh.

The announcer introduced the other six competitors before us. “On arena three, we have PetNeb in the red corner, RalEsp in the blue, and CarNin in the green! Choose your starting legends”

My cards floated before me. I didn’t care to look at them. Ralia. Zeg me, what were we going to do?

I watched her choose her cards. Her lumens depleted to one as she selected her initial legends. She looked at me with unshaken confidence.

I wanted to say something but didn’t want any comment from CarNin. I tried to appear confident, but knew my efforts resulted in an awkward countenance.

Ralia raised her eyebrows, then shook her head. She waved her hand as if brushing the whole problem away. Did she really think it was nothing?

Had she found a loophole?

She pointed at my side of the battlefield. I sighed and chose my cards. Even if her confidence was for show, I proceeded with only her trust to hold me up. My life was no tapestry of mercy, but I did not have what it took to betray her.

Zhu wasn’t in my starting hand. He hadn’t offered any advice yet, so I chose a new four-cost card called Dark Dealer, a succubus wearing a business suit not unlike CarNin’s.

I played her on my first slot, then chose Digital Dependent for the sake of novelty. I had the four-cost muscular dolphin called Purpose but chose to save it for later. Perhaps that was a stupid choice. I had made worse decisions. I made another. I spent two more lumens on The Pain, hoping that it would last more than one round despite my past failures.

I confirmed my starting legends. CarNin finished hers among some of the last few competitors.

“Please select your preferred ability card count.”

After two wins with my previous count, I settled on thirty-five again. Ralia chose thirty. CarNin chose thirty-eight.

“The gamble deck has been set to match the theme for this round. This rounds’ theme is…”

An icon floated before me displaying the symbol of a simplified bowed head with two extra eyes. Spirit.

CarNin had one as well, hers was the icon of a coiled centipede. Below it was the word “Crawler.”

Ralia’s icon was a human brain with wires stretching out and a square in the middle. Her type was called “Digital.”

The announcer continued after we all had a chance to look at each other’s icons and the associated titles. “Amalgamation! Each field will be a blend of its competitors’ deck types.” The fields changed from the pixelated melange into something new. The furthest field looked like the previous frozen hellscape with rocks and frosty greenery. The second was a metallic plain with sludge that oozed out from its center, forming a variety of objects and small creatures. The announcer finished explaining the others, then reached ours.

“Field C’s theme is Technological Ghoul’s Crypt!” The ground had transformed into what looked like an abandoned laboratory with parking wires sticking out from the cracks between work metal plates. Robotic arthropods crawled out from the crevices around the debris.

The round began with each green player. The card we had played summoned their attached legends. Ralia’s were a variety of mythical creatures with cybernetic enhancements. I focused on CarNin’s as she began her turn by using each of her four legends to attack. Rather than strike Ralia’s legends or mine, three of them attacked one of hers. The recipient of the attacks was a five-cost bloated sasquatch corpse called Decompositor with no attack strength but with more health than all my legends combined. Her other three were each some kind of worm or invertebrates one-cost of various colors, each glowing from a light-infused core. Their attacks were weak, dealing only a single damage each to Decompositor. With the first attack from a worm with human legs, Decompositor gained the keyword parasite, which allowed him to take half of the damage dealt to his attacks to heal himself. The corpse stood with its imbued power. Though its many lacerations and rotting patches remained, it stood with pure vigor. The second and third legends had chitinous armor along their thin bodies. One was green with villi for legs and the other was blue and without appendages. The first sacrificed its life to transform its health into strength for Decompositor. The other jumped into the greater legend’s mouth, causing it to double in size, then split in two like cells going through mitosis. The lumens she used for Decompositor to attack worked for its slightly paler clone. Both of them attacked Ralia, leaving her with one legend standing and had taken her health down to twenty six.

RalEsp: twenty-six.

PetNeb: thirty-five.