The Manticore Ascension: A Short Story in the Arena Mode Universe Read online

  The Arena Mode Saga

  By Blake Northcott

  Arena Mode

  USA / UK / Canada

  Assault or Attrition

  (Book Two in the Arena Mode Saga)

  USA / UK / Canada

  PRE-ORDER

  Final Empire

  (The Conclusion of the Arena Mode Saga)

  USA / UK / Canada

  NOVELLAS

  The Manticore Ascension

  (A Short Story in the Arena Mode Saga)

  USA / UK / Canada

  The Manticore Ascension

  A Brynja Guðmundsdóttir Story

  October, 2014

  Arena Mode Logo by Dennis Salvatier

  Arena Mode is Copyright © and Trademark 2013-2015

  Blake Northcott, Digital Vanguard Inc. and Noösphere Publishing

  ArenaMode.com

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious (except the people who specifically asked to be in the book – you know who you are). Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher or author, except in the case of a reviewer, who may quote brief passages embodied in critical articles or in a review.

  Written By

  Blake Northcott

  Editors

  Jeff Geddes

  J.D. Hunter

  & J.E. Smith

  Very Special Thanks To

  David, Drake and Dawson

  Editors

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Epilogue

  This story takes place between the events

  of ‘Arena Mode’ and ‘Assault or Attrition’.

  Chapter One

  Being zapped with a few million volts of electricity isn’t as bad as it sounds. Yes, it hurts like a kick in the ass with a frozen boot – that kind of goes without saying – but after the initial shock everything goes numb. It’s like you’ve been given anesthetic and the doctor just asked you to start counting backwards from a hundred; by the time you hit ninety–five you’re already flirting with unconsciousness, peacefully drifting towards a warm, silent void.

  Recovering from the electrical shock? Not nearly as serene.

  Peeling my face off the icy floor, I felt as if I was waking from a night of binge drinking, or as if a cinder block had been dropped on my skull from a height of about nine feet. I massaged my throbbing temples, turning slowly and painfully to check my surroundings; if this was supposed to be a hospital, it wasn’t like any I’d seen before.

  I couldn’t recall most of what had happened leading up to being electrocuted, but the contract that Cameron Frost’s assistant had asked me to sign was still fresh in my mind. The terms of the agreement were simple: anyone eliminated from the Arena Mode tournament was to be immediately air–lifted to the nearest hospital, where their treatment was to be paid for by the Frost Corporation. In a sporting event where death and dismemberment were a distinct possibility, a free trip to the emergency room was the least they could offer.

  After a couple of false starts I staggered to my feet, and found myself standing in a cavernous hall with towering ceilings, all fashioned from grey stone and wooden pillars. Flickering torches lined each wall that bathed the room in a hazy orange glow. The ceiling was so high that the torchlight had trouble reaching it, but as my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I could vaguely make out the details of the fresco that loomed above. I studied the Italian renaissance–style painting that covered the entire ceiling, and the detail was mind–blowing. It depicted a story – from what I could tell, a series of battles – that raged across a vista of snow–capped mountains: knights in shining armor hacking away at mythological beasts, superhumans in capes being shot at by military aircraft, and in the midst of all this carnage was a man sitting atop a throne; a handsome, bearded gentleman who appeared bored and distracted, as if unconcerned by the chaos that surrounded him.

  Mesmerized by the artwork above, I heard a whoosh followed by a metallic clank. The doors at the far end of the room had slid open. They appeared to be made of time–worn oak, held together by bands of iron, but they retracted into the walls like a modern entranceway.

  A lanky teenage boy danced into the room, his ears engulfed by a pair of silver headphones. Completely oblivious to my presence, he spun and broke into what looked like a ‘moonwalk’ – a backwards sliding motion I once saw in a vintage Michael Jackson video. A mess of blond hair flopped across his face, blanketing his eyes as he popped, locked, and shuffled across the floor, occasionally kicking out his foot or hollering in tune with whatever song was filling his ears.

  The dance was hilarious, though funnier was the kid’s attire: a shimmering suit of medieval armor. It wasn’t a clunky iron suit, as I imagined an authentic suit of armor would be; it was sleek and streamlined with a glowing crest emblazoned on the breastplate: a pair of flaming dragons – one red and one blue – nipping at each other’s tails in a circular pattern. Whatever this armor was designed for, it definitely wasn’t medieval.

  I attempted to flag down the moon-walking knight, but my efforts were futile. “Hey!” I shouted, my voice nearly cracking into a giggle. “Yo, King of Pop, I need to ask you a question.”

  No response.

  He continued to dance towards me; head bobbing, eyes closed, until I reached out and grabbed his shoulders, stopping him mid–spin.

  “What the holy heck!” he screamed, eyes snapping open. He scrambled back a few steps and tore the earphones from his head, tossing them to the floor. “Where did you come from?” His eyes trailed disapprovingly from my long blue hair down to my torn crop top, and continued further south to my ripped jeans and spiked combat boots. “And what are you wearing?”

  I blurted out a laugh, studying his ridiculous costume with the same disapproving glare. “Okay Sir Galahad – you’re giving me fashion advice?”

  His brushed his golden bangs aside and furrowed his brow. “Sir who?”

  “Forget it,” I groaned. “Can you just tell me where the doctors are?”

  “Doctors?” he replied, increasingly perplexed.

  “Oh for the love of...” I trailed off for a moment, exhaling loudly. I squinted and pinched the bridge of my nose, sensing the onset of yet another killer migraine. “You do know what a doctor is, right?”

  “Of course,” he said with a small nod, “but I’m not sure why you’re looking for one.”

  “I was just electrocuted,” I said sharply. “During Arena Mode. You know, that thing that’s on every single simulcast all over the world right...like right now?”

  The boy didn’t respond. He just stood perfectly still, scanning my face as if he were attempting to solve a puzzle. Then he burst into a fit of laughter. “Oh man, did Drake put you up to this? You had me going there for a minute.”

  “Look,” I shouted, jamming a finger into the kid’s breastplate, “I don’t give a fudge who you are, or how you...” I paused, suddenly unable to control the words as they rolled from my tongue. “Wait – why the fudge did I just say ‘fudge’? This is fudging weird...”

  “If you were trying to swear,” the kid said matter–of–factly, “the word was
caught by the PMD units installed throughout the castle. They’re everywhere.” There was something about the way he enunciated the word ‘everywhere’; slow and condescending, as if I should have already known the answer.

  “The what?” I asked, gazing around the room.

  “The Profanity Modulation Devices – the units that translate inappropriate words into...” he stopped mid–sentence, narrowing his eyes. “Why don’t you know this?” he asked suspiciously. “Everyone in the Kingdom knows this. Something strange is going on here.”

  The doors at the far end of the room slid open once more. Another knight entered; a kid who bore a striking resemblance to the one who had danced in just a few moments before. But this knight appeared slightly older, had shorter hair, and seemed quite a bit angrier.

  “Dawson!” the knight shouted as he stomped towards us, the soles of his metallic boots clanking across the stone. “Where the heck have you been? Didn’t you hear about the shields?”

  “Hey Drake,” the younger knight replied. “No, I didn’t hear anything. I was getting my groove on.”

  “You and your 80s pop hits,” Drake grumbled. “Sometimes I can’t believe we’re even related. We have an emergency: there was a power surge five minutes ago and all the shields died.”

  “All?” Dawson asked.

  “All,” Drake repeated, eyes bulging from their sockets. “As in, every single fudging shield in the fudging Kingdom. We’re completely exposed, and we have no fudging idea what caused it.”

  Dawson clapped a hand over his mouth. “Watch your language, bro! What if dad heard you speaking like that?”

  “I’m sorry,” Drake replied, visibly reining himself in with a trace of embarrassment, “but I’m more than a little vexed, here. We need to find the source of this anomaly. Could someone have hit us with an EMP?”

  “If someone did hit us with an electro–magnetic pulse,” Dawson said, scratching at his mop of hair, “this blue–haired commoner might know something about it.”

  I was annoyed before – now I was ready to kick someone in the face. “Commoner?” I shouted. “I don’t have to stand here and listen to this sugar.”

  “Is this blue-haired wench with you?” Drake asked, jamming a thumb in my direction.

  “I thought you sent her,” Dawson replied with a shrug. “One of your jokes...I figured you dressed up a commoner in strange rags and sent her here to trick me – ?”

  “How on Earth would that be a joke?” Drake shouted. “I don’t even make jokes – and if I did, how would this be one of them?”

  “Yeah, it was kind of a head–scratcher,” Dawson replied. “I figured you were trying to be funny and this was just a really bad first attempt.”

  Drake produced something from his hip: it looked like the hilt of a medieval sword, but there was no blade. “She’s the intruder,” he announced, his words dripping with venom. He leveled the hilt towards me as a series of metallic links telescoped from the cross-guard, solidifying into a shimmering amber blade.

  “We don’t know that for sure,” Dawson said, “Why don’t we just – ”

  “Move!” Drake interrupted. In once swift motion the knight swiped his younger sibling aside and raised his sword, swinging it towards me.

  Chapter Two

  A clang echoed through the hall when the blade passed harmlessly through me, striking the stone floor with a burst of sparks.

  My attacker’s jaw fell slack.

  “The c–commoner,” Dawson stammered, peering at me through his mess of blond locks. “She’s a superhuman...but how did she get in here?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Drake replied swiftly. “I’ve seen her kind before. I’ll deal with her.”

  “’Deal with me’?” I sneered. “I don’t think you understand: I can ghost. You can swing your cosplay props at me all day long and it won’t make a difference.”

  “Electrodes,” Drake commanded, speaking directly into the hilt of his sword. The shimmering steel blade began to glow, radiating with angry purple light.

  The next swing came before I could react, passing through me once again. I didn’t flinch.

  The blade didn’t quite connect with me, but for reasons I still can’t explain it didn’t quite miss, either. The after-effect of the electrified blade left me nauseated, dizzy. I fell to one knee. It was like a concussion, food poisoning and a muscle cramp had been thrown in a blender, and I’d downed the mixture with a single gulp.

  I stood and staggered forward, wildly flailing fists at my attacker. It wasn’t my most impressive display of fighting technique, but my motor skills had been reduced to Jell-O for the second time that morning. It was all I had in me.

  Drake had no trouble evading my attack. He clasped his hand around my wrist in mid–swing and produced a pair of handcuffs – or a pair of bright yellow bands that looked more or less like handcuffs – and bound my arms in front of me. Whatever his sword did, it succeeded in making me corporeal; I was solid, unable to pass through objects. And now I was trapped.

  “Take her to the dungeons,” Drake commanded, shoving me towards his younger brother. I lurched a few steps and collapsed, landing at his feet. “We’ll execute her in the morning on a live simulcast. It will serve as a warning to any who dares infiltrate House Lehmann.”

  “Wait,” Dawson said, peering down at me with innocent eyes. “Let’s take her to dad. He’ll know what to do with her.”

  “I know what to do with her,” Drake replied without missing a beat. “This is part of running a Kingdom: obeying the chain of command. Have you forgotten that, little brother? I’m the eldest, which means that one day, I will be king. Your king. I suggest you start growing accustomed to heeding my words.”

  Dawson stepped past me, coming nose–to–nose with his older sibling. “And I suggest that you start accepting counsel, because that’s part of ruling, too: listening to the people around you. Or do you want to end up like the last person who ran this territory?”

  Drake’s lips pressed into a thin line. “Fine,” he conceded, though his eyes revealed it wasn’t without reluctance. “We’ll see what dad thinks. But you do remember what day it is? If he’s mad at us for interrupting him ...”

  “I’ll take the blame,” Dawson agreed with a small nod.

  I was dragged to my feet and led through a series of dark, narrow passageways that were crafted with intricate stonework like a medieval castle, and illuminated only by the torches attached to the walls. Whenever we arrived at a doorway a motion sensor detected our presence, sliding open to allow us access to the next corridor. This continued until we reached a particularly striking set of double doors – the largest we’d come across in our journey – which remained resolutely shut.

  “Drake Lehmann,” the knight proclaimed, standing a little straighter as he spoke, “First born to King David Lehmann, slayer of manticores, heir to the one true throne of Iceland, first of his name.”

  The doors pulled open. Drake marched into the room as if he owned it, striding several steps ahead of us.

  I turned towards Dawson and arched an eyebrow. “Slayer of what?”

  “He does this every time,” Dawson grumbled. “The voice activated locks only need your first name, but he says that whole thing whenever we come here. And for the record he’s never even seen a manticore.”

  The throne room was massive and imposing. It was roughly the size of the hall I woke up in, though far more ornate. A dozen marble columns flanked each side of the hall, stretching towards an arched ceiling. Light poured in through stained glass windows five storeys above, brightly illuminating our long golden walk from the entrance to the apse.

  At the far end of the room elevated on the dais were two men engaged in a game of cards. One was sitting in the flamboyant ruby–encrusted throne that was large enough to seat a giant, while his opponent sat across from him in a markedly less-impressive plastic folding chair. Separating them was a matching fold-out table where various dice, cards and soda cans were
strewn about, with candy bar wrappers littering the floor around them. Whatever game they were playing, they’d been playing it for a long time.

  The man sitting in the throne looked vaguely like the king I’d seen depicted in the fresco; they had similar facial features and roughly the same build, although that was where the similarities ended. The regal leader that adorned the ceiling of the main hall was buried beneath a thick chestnut beard, had a wave of untamed hair, and was cloaked in layers of crimson and gold. This man was clean–shaven with closely cropped hair, and was dressed as if he were about to spend a day at the beach: flip–flips, cargo shorts, and an oversized black t–shirt with a cartoon wizard on the chest. He never averted his gaze from the cards in his hand, even as we loudly approached.

  His opponent, a graying middle–aged man with tired eyes and a crooked nose, seemed much less enthusiastic about the game they were engaged in. He was dressed far more formally: a black suit and outdated bowtie hung from his narrow frame.

  “Yes!” the man in the throne shouted, pounding his reddened fist into the table. The impact sent a pair of twenty–sided dice and an empty Dr. Pepper can sailing from the surface. “That’s eighteen in a row! You just can’t seem to catch a break today, Morton.”

  Morton dipped his head into a barely perceptible nod, as if he lacked the energy to complete the gesture. “Another impressive performance, Your Majesty. You are not only the King of House Lehmann, Lord of the Realm and Ruler of the Icelandic Republic, but you are undoubtedly the best – ”

  “Yes, yes, yes...” King Lehmann interrupted. “I know my name and how impressive I am. Now clean up this mess and get back to work. You’re ten hours behind and this place is an absolute disaster.”

  “Thank you, sire.” The man stooped to gather the garbage at their feet.