Collide Gamer

John enjoyed and loathed the privileges of being a backliner. When he had first conceived his combat stratagem, he had done so in the isolation of video game mechanics. Now that the ‘units’ he was sending out had manifested to be his loves, sitting in the safety of a palace had much less appeal. All the same, it was where he was the most useful.

“Tea?” Irielz asked, pointing at his empty porcelain cup.

“Why not,” he responded with a weary sigh.

The succubus picked up the tea kettle and poured the last of its contents into the Gamer’s cup. Afterwards, she rose. A servant lady was swift to try and take on the task for her, but Irielz shooed her away with a gentle smile.

“I only got so many months of free movement left,” she joked.

John leaned back and put his arms around the shoulders of Lee and Lorelei. One was there in case they needed a swift evacuation, the other to spot if anything approached that warranted an evacuation. Hailey and Delicia were standing on the nearby balcony, scanning the landscape as they chatted about technical things.

Sucking on his gums, John contemplated the bad luck of who was out and about. He was wondering if Lord Perlsbach-Tyrol was in cahoots with the enemy, having scattered the haremettes about on patrols just in time for the prison break. Rather than level the paranoid accusation in the middle of the tense situation, John kept that to himself and sipped on his tea.

Return orders had been sent out. The only one not reliant on public transportation was Nia. Because she was who she was, the only thing they had heard was that she was on her way back. When that would be was anyone’s guess.

The air in the room was tense. Irielz tried not to let it show, but John sensed it all the same. The same care that made her atypical for her kind was now causing her to stare at the water as it slowly began to boil.

Besides him, his women, Irielz and two female servants, the room was also filled with ten royal guards. They were scattered about the room, wearing ornate armour, and stood perfectly still. Had they lowered their visors, they could have been mistaken as plated statues.

Unseen, the elementals hung around the Gamer – three of them. Sylph was aiding the clearing effort while Salamander stayed as a watchful eye in the sky. Stirwin, Gnome and Undine remained in their incorporeal state. Siena was also present, but she lingered in the connected shadows of couch, legs and table.

Irielz returned with a fresh pot of tea. “It will be alright,” she muttered.

“It will be,” John promised.

The door to the room opened up. John glanced over his shoulder to check who entered. In the first microsecond, he just saw the uniform of a male palace servant. Then, his eyes inspected the man’s face. He just barely managed to prevent himself from freezing up visibly. Lee noticed anyhow and turned her head. She did not hide her reaction nearly as well.

The man had blond hair and blue eyes. He appeared to be around John’s age, appearing on the handsome side without crossing into the beautiful territory. He was exactly the kind of pretty face that could easily blend into the background that would be expected as palace staff. He walked up to the table, then bent in John’s direction.

“If I may pull Mister Newman aside for a moment? Lord Perlsbach-Tyrol requests his presence.”

“Which I will oblige, of course;” John responded smoothly. “Lorelei, please come with me.”

“Of course,” the seer responded smoothly and rose with him.

‘Salamander, Sylph, return to Irielz,’ the Gamer contacted the duo. ‘Gnome, Undine, stay here.’

‘Understood,’ Gnome responded for her fellow elementals.

Irielz had noted that something was off, but only watched as John followed the servant to the door. The blond man proceeded to walk down the corridor, guiding him past the various royal guards that covered every angle adjacent to their liege’s chamber.

They reached a remote corner of the massive estate. There were no windows there, just a closet with cleaning supplies behind an ornate door. It was a dead-end with barely any light and only one way for any eavesdroppers to approach from.

“Here should be go-“ The man spun around on his heels, only to immediately be webbed up in threads of shadow. Siena’s tail was around his throat before he could react, totally constricting him. The claws of the midnight elemental hovered just beside the face of the man.

“I spared you,” Siena hissed. “I told you to slink away into obscurity.”

“And I… very much intended to…” the freed puppet croaked out with what little air he was allowed. “…However…” The tail coiled tighter around his throat. Siena’s eyes glowed like twin moons in the dark corridor.

John clenched his teeth. He hated the man before him thoroughly for faults that were not necessarily his own. It was an irrational hatred that was yet grounded very well in a healthy caution. When one dealt with the fundamental traitor of western mythology, prejudice could be quite justified.

“What are you doing here, Vier?” he pressed out.

The clone of Judas, of Herman, inhaled desperately when Siena released his throat. He would have collapsed, had it not been for the strings still attached to him. Though he himself was of no particular strength, it was his intellect that John feared. Under all the guises that he had been known under, the Traitor of All had always stood out because he was scarily resourceful.

The fact that Lorelei hadn’t seen his coming much earlier spoke to the fact that he was manipulating intel to a horrifying degree. ‘And I thought the Tzitzimimeh were the only cognitohazard I had to look out for.’

“Vier is hardly accurate.” The once-puppet of Mengele coughed. “If you want to, you can call me Zehn, though I prefer Judas, as a whole.”

John inhaled deeply and pulled his shoulders back. “You’re cloning yourself now?”

“Someone had to inherit all of Mengele’s secret laboratories.” Judas’ blue eyes focused the Gamer with cold calculation, yet he smiled. Both existed simultaneously, resonating with each other in an unnerving way. “Sadly, I do not have his level of biomancy – yet. My clone production is rather slow.”

“Do you want me to get rid of you that badly?” John asked, his tone grim. “Why would you keep boasting about how much of a threat you are going to be?”

“I won’t be a threat to anyone. My pursuit is eternal life and the wonders of Apothecary technology that exists now… well, it’s really not that necessary for me to keep taking from other people. I got everything I need. Too sad for my original that he didn’t have access to my technology.”

“I hate that you’re a walking argument for biological essentialism.”

“Oh, please!” Judas’ smug tone had Siena pull on the shadow strings. He continued in it despite the pain under his tone. “Mengele cloned and programmed me to be a good puppet and now I am living my life to the fullest. It’s hardly like I was placed in a vacuum and am acting purely based on my genetic inclinations.” He paused for a moment and sighed. “If you feel that strongly about it, kill me. All you will cost me are the memories of infiltrating this place.”

“And the items on you that block scrying magic,” the Gamer responded.

“Ah, that’s just the tri-“

“There is no item,” Lorelei interrupted. “This body itself is crafted to avoid us. Even now, I cannot read his emotions… he is a fixture in the flow of the Lady’s vision. An abomination.”

Judas sounded both pleased and annoyed that his scientific breakthrough was being acknowledged. “Raised from the first split cell for the specific purpose of infiltration,” he said. “I am just one part of the Clonelord. Thanks for taking care of the Lorylim and the God of Remus, by the way. It makes using Gestalt technology a lot safer.”

Every part of John demanded he splattered the heart of the man all over the wall behind him. This was the face of the man who had taken from the Gamer the blessed naivety of trust in his fellow man. The paranoia that he was settled with for life all came from that smirk. Wiping it from the face of the Earth felt like an almost biological imperative.

All the same, John stayed his hand. Reason was stronger than hatred. “If you are brazen enough to talk to me directly, that means you have something to say to me that makes you sure you’re of enough value to warrant not killing you.” The Gamer crossed his arms. “Lorelei, can you sense if he’s lying or not?”

“Of course she can’t, didn’t you-“

“Yes.”

The word of absolute certainty interrupted the Traitor of All yet again. Lorelei’s second sight moved across all of them as a metaphysical wave. Her spread out attention, allowing her absolute vision of the world around her, focused solely on Judas. Light flickered behind the seer’s head, an unforged halo awaiting completion. Her eyes glowed through the solid metal of her circlet, two points of light giving rise to golden mist.

“Abomination, you who have been offered redemption in the dark, you step before the Saint and the seer of the Order of the Golden Rose, a mockery of the Lady’s holy world,” Lorelei whispered. “I see the twisted mockery of your soul. You fear me. Do not be afraid of the truth, the tapestry is woven by the threads of your sins.”

John observed Lorelei with keen interest. She had not displayed these signs before, neither the halo nor the burning gaze, incomplete as both were. Whatever evil she saw in the depth of Judas’ soul, it was enough to push her to some sort of revelation.

Making a deal with this devil was horrific, but the original Judas would not have lived as long as he did had he been bad at making the risk-reward calculation. John had to assume that this was worth his while.

“Let’s cut to the chase, then.” John returned his attention to the Betrayer of All. “You wanted to lay low, what happened to that?”

“Yohua Graham-Sotwoth,” Judas responded.

“Yoshua,” the Gamer corrected.

“What?”

“His name is Yoshua, not Yohua.”

“That’s… weird. I… triple checked every source.” Judas shook his head. “Exactly what’s making me wary of all of this. This whole Tzitzimimeh matter concerns me.”

A sudden suspicion hit John. “Wait… you were the one who tried to spy on me during my wedding?”

The unnerving smile once more spread on Judas’ features. “That’s hardly important now, is it?”

John disagreed vehemently, because it meant that the self-declared Clonelord also had people operating in the Guild Hall or, and this was the more concerning alternative, one of the present guests was his sponsor. The only thing worse than Remus spying on him was Judas spying on him on Remus’ behalf.

“Every word you say just worsens my paranoia,” John hissed.

“I can make sure this one never speaks again,” Siena promised. “I can make him sing first too. Horrid tones that will make his other selves reconsider.”

“Might not be the worst idea.” Crossing his arms, John gave it some honest thought. Sometimes it was better to take the hit in the moment to make sure a self-assured intelligence-manipulator didn’t get to keep playing the game.

“I don’t know what the Tzitzimimeh are!” Judas got to the point. “I saved hundreds of artefacts from Mengele’s storage units, many of them from the Aztec empire. When it comes to the Tzitzimimeh, it’s not just vague, it’s deceptive. Worse, what remains is an unsolvable riddle. I disregarded it as tribal nonsense at first, but then I had the dream. Ink rained from an opening sky.”

John showed nothing on his face, but he remembered that same dream. Both he and Lorelei had it during their latest grinding session. He had already been convinced it was an ill portent.

“Your current troubles, I can make them disappear,” Judas continued. “I stumbled over the leader of this merry band of combat-junkies, Ernst, by happenstance. I thought he could make for a good ally, to build my powerbase. He’s uncontrollable and possessed by the need to battle. Worse, one of the Tzitzimimeh managed to get his ear.”

“What?” John pressed out.

“She appeared two weeks ago, a woman with ears of bone and a ribcage without a sternum, and skeletal wings.” Judas hissed in frustration. “I would have brought you a photo, but all I take turn into smudges. I don’t know how the Aztecs managed to capture their likeness in stone.”

Too many questions, too little time.

“What is her objective?”

“I have no clue, but she creeps me out,” Judas stated. “She completely wrapped Ernst around her finger too.”

John’s heel repeatedly hit the floor. This changed things, yet not in a way that adjusted any of his combat plans. “We already have Ernst in a fight,” he told Judas.

“Yeah and you didn’t send enough to win,” Judas responded. “You will need me to tell you where his base is, so you can assassinate him in cold blood.”

“He believes this,” Lorelei told John.

“His Innate Ability is to be a Perfect Challenge, right?” John tilted his head, rereading the messages Aclysia had sent him since combat began. “No healing, just power equalization. If Jane, Aclysia and Scarlett fight him in sequence, they’ll be able to whittle him down.”

“You don’t get it,” Judas pointed out. “Ernst isn’t part of the Generation of Monsters. He’s a natural Latebloomer. That Innate Ability has been active for the last 81 years, passively turning everything he ever did into a challenge he was just barely able to beat. He lived through the second World War with that active.” Rare was it that a renowned liar looked completely sincere. “The Great Re-Alignment gave him power to restore his youth. It doesn’t matter. They won’t land a single hit on him. The Tzitzimimeh is there as well. She took the guise of a prison guard.”

Anger got the better of John for a brief moment, long enough for his knuckles to make impact with Judas’ face. He pulled the punch enough that he did not break the man’s neck from the impact. “Lead with threats to my women next time, you pompous prick!” he shouted.

Rolling his jaw, Judas laughed. “He’ll let them go, if they’re a good enough fight. Next time, though…?” John growled, but the traitor just giggled some more. “I will tell you where to find him. You take that asset out of the Tzitzimimeh’s hands and I’ll be out of your hair. Deal?”

John hated his response.