Nightmare Realm Summoner

Aaron scrambled back to his feet, but no followup attack came. Even Tael had paused to stare in the direction of where the coin had plummeted over the edge of their platform. He almost looked sad, as if he felt bad for his opponent. A very significant portion of Aaron desperately wanted to throw himself over the edge of the platform and join his coin in oblivion.

“Did… you happen to possess another one of those?” Tael asked slowly. “It seems your weapon has departed you.”

“I’m going to depart myself at this rate,” Aaron muttered.

“What was that?” Tael asked.

“Nothing,” Aaron said through a grimace. The absolute last thing he needed right now was his opponent feeling so bad for him that he stopped fighting. This might have been the most pathetic thing he’d ever done in his entire life, and that was saying a lot. His only saving grace was that May wasn’t here. If she was, he’d never have heard the end of it.

“Do you surrender?” Tael asked.

“Are you kidding me?” Alex let out a bark of laughter from behind Aaron. “Hell no he doesn’t. The fight isn’t over! Get in there!”

Goddamn it. Are you a psychopath or something? Do you want me to die? I — oh, goddamn it. What else can anyone say? I’m not just giving up and making them lose magical items for no reason.

“Yeah,” Aaron said, sounding considerably less confident despite his best efforts. He raised his hands before himself. “We’re not done.”

Tael didn’t look convinced. But that didn’t stop him from blurring back into motion, lunging for Aaron and thrusting a blade for his chest.

Aaron darted to the side. As fast as Tael was, Aaron had a lot of experience running away from monsters. Perhaps more than anything else, that was the skill he’d practiced the most extensively in the Apocalypse. The sword sliced just past him, barely falling to meet its mark.

Tael’s other blade sliced out and Aaron folded himself, barely managing to pull his midsection away from the attack. The tip of Tael’s blade still scored across his chest, sending a flash of hot pain through him. Aaron hissed and jumped back to try and put some space between them.

Strangely enough, Tael didn’t try to press his advantage. He just readied his blades and started toward Aaron at a steady pace. Even though everyone on the platform could clearly see just how significant the advantage the large man that had over Aaron was, he was still taking the fight completely seriously.

Tael wasn’t leaving any openings where he could be caught off guard. Maybe he suspected that Aaron was just faking this, or maybe this was just he approached fights. Either way, it wasn’t helping. The gap in experience between them was only becoming more and more evident.

“You know,” Alex called. “If you want to win a fight, you generally have to fight back.”

What the hell do you think I’m trying to do? You think I like running around like a headless chicken?

Aaron reached for his magic.

Tael accelerated. He leapt for Aaron, his swords flashing with magic as he brought them both down more than a dozen feet too far to hit anything.

Aaron’s instincts screamed a warning. He threw himself to the side, hitting the ground in a roll. A sharp stone dug into his shoulder and tore his shirt open as he scrambled back to his feet just in time to see two streaks of magical energy tear across the ground. They sliced up the floor of the platform with a crackling hiss, passing by where he’ been to vanish into the crackling energy beyond it.

But Tael wasn’t done. He used the time he’d bought to close the distance between himself and Aaron once more, his swords carving through the air in a mesmerizing dance. Energy streaked in trails behind them in a manner that would have been far more enjoyable if they hadn’t been headed right for Aaron.

He dodged and dipped, slipping bast the blows as he backpedaled and desperately searched for an opportunity to somehow turn the tides of the fight. But, without his coin and with Tael bearing down on him incessantly, Aaron couldn’t come up with a way to turn the tides.

“Is this seriously the best you can do?” Claire called. “I was expecting more. This is pathetic. Even from you.”

“I’m working on it!” Aaron yelled, unable to even glance back at her. He dodged out of the way of another strike, then rolled to the side to avoid getting skewered.

Tael was coming faster, now. It seemed he was getting annoyed at constantly missing his attacks. Blades of black and gold light flashed free of his weapons to carve toward Aaron, forcing him to dance and dodge past the flurry of attacks desperately.

All he could do was keep himself from getting cut into pieces.

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“I understand you’re trying,” Claire continued. “But this is on a different level of disappointing. We let you come along because we thought you’d grown at least a little bit since the last time we’d fought together. But if anything, it looks like you’ve gotten worse. You haven’t tried to attack or use your magic once. Is all you can do run away? Are your powers really that limited? I hope May doesn’t get into danger when you drop your coin. Fat load of good you’ll be able to do her.”

Aaron was more than aware of what Claire was trying to do. He wasn’t stupid. She’d never been anywhere this antagonistic before. She was trying to rile him up so he’d actually fight back. There weren’t going to be many better opportunities for it. Tael wasn’t going for killing blows, after all. This was the spot to take risks.

But he wasn’t quite so easy to piss off. Perhaps that was his own failing. But he knew Claire well enough to realize that she was trying to help, and by realizing that, her insults became entirely useless at driving him to find some hidden inspiration.

He lurched back, narrowly avoiding a blade of magic as it flashed past his nose, then ducked to the side to avoid a blow that would have lopped his arm off. There were pretty big differences between non-lethal and non-crippling. It seemed that the other man saw arms as optional.

This is so goddamn pathetic.

Aaron clenched his teeth. He tried to focus on Claire’s words. Tried to draw on some deeper anger. All that did was make him stand there for a moment clenching his jaw, which earned him a nasty blow across the side. He barely managed to avoid the followup attack, which would have taken off one of his legs.

He staggered away from Tael and clutched at his bleeding side. Blood dripped to the ground all around him. That had been stupid. He’d left himself open. Things were only getting worse.

There weren’t any more insults coming. Claire had probably realized that her method of baiting him into anger wasn’t working. She and Alex were just silent, now. Watching. They were probably wondering why they’d been stupid enough to bring him along.

Tael raised his swords again. He almost looked ashamed, as if this fight was beneath him. It probably was. Aaron’s stomach flipped over. His brain just wasn’t working right. He’d always used the coin. Without it, he didn’t even know how he was supposed to start a game. He didn’t have a deck of cards or anything.

What do I do? Come on! Think! There has to be a game I can—

Aaron’s vision went black.

It was only for an instant, and so abrupt that he barely even had a chance to react.

Then it snapped back.

Tael was blurring toward him with his swords raised and murder burning in his eyes. And standing directly before him, hands raised before herself defensively in terror, was May.

“Help!” May screamed.

Aaron’s blood ran cold.

What? Why is May here?

But the answer to that question didn’t matter. She was. And Tael’s blade was headed straight for her neck.

Aaron stopped thinking.

His magic exploded forth, tearing out into the air in a screaming wave.

The world ground to a halt.

Game: Rock Paper Scissors.

Stakes: Right arm.

Tael’s eyes widened. His gaze darted through the air as if he were reading something. Confusion warped his features. Then he looked down at his hand, motion suddenly returning to him. His sword was gone. It, like the rest of the world, had vanished.

There were only the two of them.

“What?” Tael asked. “What is this?”

“Best of one,” Aaron snarled.

Magic coiled tighter around his arm as he raised it.

Tael’s rose as well. Whether it was intentionally or not, Aaron couldn’t tell. He didn’t care. Their hands moved, rising up and down.

Once. “Rock.”

Twice. “Paper.”

Three times. “Scissors.”

As their hands fell the fourth time, Aaron drew deeper still on his magic. Pain wound through his body and clawed into his chest.

And then Aaron cheated.

Time slowed down to a crawl. His teeth grit and darkness pulsed at the edges of his vision — but he ignored all of it. All he cared about was the motion of Tael’s hand.

It was flattening out.

Aaron chose scissors.

Time snapped back into its normal flow.

Tael’s hand flattened.

The two of them stood there for a brief instant, staring at each other. Then Golden words carved through the air between them in a flash of scrawling writing.

Winner: The Gambler.

Result: Right arm.

The frozen world collapsed. Reality returned, motion slipping back into its proper time as Tael’s swords returned to his hands and they both found themselves back in the Mirrorlands once again.

A dozen loud cracks tore through the air. Tael screamed in pain, staggering back a step. A sword tumbled from his grip as his right arm abruptly jerked in all the wrong directions at once. Armor squealed as bones ground against it from within and blood splattered from its seams.

Tael stared in disbelief at his ruined arm.

“How—”

And then his words ground to a halt. His eyes went wide as he looked down the length of the blade that was now resting against his neck. Aaron’s breath came in sharp, hysteric gasps, his teeth clenched so tight that his jaw ached as he held the hilt of Tael’s blade in a still-trembling grip.

“Surrender.”

“What was that?” Tael breathed. “Never in my life have I seen magic—”

“Surrender!” Aaron screamed. He pressed the sword closer to the other man’s throat.

Tael stared at him for a moment. Then his head tilted ever so slightly back.

“Well fought. You had me going that whole time. That is not a strategy I have ever witnessed before. It will not be one I forget. I surrender.”

Aaron let the blade fall from his shaking hands. It fell to the ground with a ringing clang and he spun, searching for May.

She wasn’t there.

There was nobody behind him but Alex and Claire.

I don’t understand. She was there. I know she was. That was her. Her voice. There’s no way I hallucinated it. She was here! Right here! That definitely wasn’t Tael’s magic. Couldn’t have been. He doesn’t know what May looks or sounds like.

“That was fucking sweet!” Alex exclaimed. “How’d you do that, Aaron? I didn’t even see you do anything! Why didn’t you use that earlier? Hell, why didn’t you tell us you had an ability like that? Dude, I thought you were going to get your shit rocked. Well done.”

Wait. I… won?

“Well done indeed.” A sly smile crossed over Claire’s lips. She wiped the side of her mouth with a thumb. “You did it. Good job.”

And, as Aaron stared at her, his mind still sputtering as it tried to figure out what had happened, a slow realization finally dawned on him.

He might not have been the only cheater in their group.