Chapter 422: See you on the flip side

Carl whistled as he watched the eastern rebel team take down their latest batch of the emperor’s players. He glanced at Becky watching beside him, and the ex cowgirl winced and took a drink.

“They ain’t playin’, I’ll say that.”

“That guy with the spear. He looks tough, and scary.”

Becky’s eyes narrowed.

“As opposed to me? Who’s just tough?”

Carl held up his hands for peace, glancing at Tommaso at another table.

“We’re gonna have to…exploit their weaknesses before they exploit ours. I’d say I sneak in and drop that guy at the back. But you’ve gotta think they’ll expect that.”

Becky nodded and eventually shrugged.

“Not sure they can do shit all about it. Guess we don’t really know. Maybe we take down that girl with the…ring things. Then we just keep away from the big fella. Seems pretty slow. Just wait till you re-charge. Pick ‘em off.”

Carl took a breath and another sip of water. Christ he wanted a proper drink. But between the constant matches and the stress of the last few days, he knew if he gave in to temptation he’d be neck deep in booze, heavy food, and probably Sylvie in no time. Better to keep some discipline.

“Well. We’ll decide if it happens. If we’re lucky maybe we get to see them fight again. Now what the hell do we do if and when we fight Blake.”

It was definitely an elephant in the room. After their first disaster against Mason’s brother, they hadn’t talked much about a potential re-match. But unless one of them lost (which seemed pretty unlikely), that re-match was coming.

Mason had been pretty clear he wanted nothing to do with it—that however they all handled it was up to them.

“Don’t ever ask me to pick sides,” he’d said a night or two after the first match, looking Carl right in the eyes. It was about the coldest, hardest thing Carl had ever seen in the kid’s expression. He’d fought a shiver before he nodded like it was no big deal.

Becky was quiet awhile, but Carl knew her well enough now to see the mixed emotion, and the anger winning out.

“Well there won’t be any rules this time, that’s for damn sure,” she muttered.

Carl clenched his teeth but couldn’t disagree. He had no desire to really hurt Annie or Seul-ki, but this was a game and he had a team depending on him to win. If Blake and his people were willing to kill, even if ‘fake’, they had to be willing too.

It was hard to make a ‘plan’ against Mason’s brother. The kid’s powers were weird and ridiculous, and a lot would depend on the arena. The best thing would be just to end him as quickly and efficiently as possible, but it was damn hard to actually get at him.

So it probably made sense to bring down Annie and Seul-ki as quickly and brutally as possible, then take Blake three on one and hope for the best.

Carl winced when he considered they might very well still lose that.

“These brothers are fucking crazy,” he mumbled, and Becky gave him an eyebrow raise. “Just thinking out loud,” he said. “But really, what the hell was in the water for these two.”

“Well,” Becky shook her head. “At least we ain’t fightin’ the other one.”

Carl’s mind started trying to imagine that before he laughed out loud and shut it down. He’d been there when Mason beat the Devourer. When he’d taken down a living dragon and then a dead one. There was no ‘fighting’ Mason. Not for mere mortals like Carl. And hopefully not for this ‘emperor’.

“At least we ain’t fightin’ the other one,” Carl mockingly copied Becky’s accent with a grin, and she kicked him under the table.

It wasn’t long after when that God damn hated timer started ticking down, and Tommaso came from his seat with Garet and Jason and plopped down next to Carl and Becky.

“So,” he said, looking between them. “Try to live, ah? Do something useful?”

Carl rolled his eyes, knowing the man was more effective than they all let on.

“Just try and glue someone, alright? Preferably someone scary.”

Tommaso winked and swallowed down something that hopefully didn’t have alcohol. They all went silent after that, Carl putting a hand over Becky’s, and an arm on Tommaso’s back.

“We got this,” he said with a grin.

He was the damn ‘Chancellor’ of Nassau, after all—the right hand man of the ‘Wolf of the West’ himself. And though he’d never have believed such a thing in his former life, he figured it was his job to show a little encouragement to his underlings now and again—even if he did feel a bit like a fraud.

But Becky gave him a smile and a nod, and even Tommaso seemed to straighten up a little. Carl dared to hope maybe he wasn’t so terrible at this leadership thing after all.

* * *

Carl opened his eyes in what was becoming the familiar, hated, confined space of the arena holding cell.

“I bet it’s Blake,” Tommaso said, forming and unforming his fiery cocktail in a hand. “Inside. Long corridors, ah? No room for us to get around his bullshit.”

“I’m thinkin’ a big ol’ stadium filled with nonsense.” Becky rolled her shoulders and stretched her hamstrings. “Plenty of crap to get in our way.”

The Italian’s greedy eyes roamed her body as she moved, and Carl gave the idiot a head shake. They’d had a ‘heart to heart’ about the man’s open lust and bad behavior a night or two ago. It was vague and pleasant enough, until it came to Becky.

“I’m just gonna say this once,” he’d told him, just trying to be honest. “You might think all’s fair in love and war. And maybe you could even charm that girl with enough time. But son, the day you managed it is the day you’d fuckin’ die, and not me or anyone else on this earth could save you.”

Tommaso had opened his mouth as if to say something clever. But he’d seen the look in Carl’s eyes and nodded. They’d left it at that. Carl was pretty sure Becky wasn’t actually at all interested. But with young, horny idiots you could just never know what the hell they’d do. He honestly tried not to think about it.

“Well I’m glad we’re all feeling optimistic,” Carl said, giving them both a glare. “It could be some resurrected garbage team. But I’ll stick with you, Becky, so just get that aegis going now. And if it is a corridor, separate someone out the second you can.”

The ex cowgirl nodded and activated her power, and Carl tried not to touch his smooth scalp as the seconds counted down. Even the sudden jerk of the lift startled him, and he closed his eyes to steady his nerves. In another second, they were out.

Turned out Becky and Tommaso were both kind of right. Three separate ‘corridors’ with see-through glass on the top and in between stood beneath the teams like giant bowling lanes, the players on raised platforms in clear sight of each other maybe 500 yards apart.

The eastern ‘rebels’ stood staring and inspecting just like Carl. It was a kind of sloped ground heading into the corridors, and from where they were standing at least it looked like there was no way to get from one ‘lane’ to the next once you were inside. Unless you could smash those glass/plastic separators, of course, but Carl doubted it.

What he didn’t quite understand is why they would separate or pick different corridors in the first place. If you couldn’t actually help each other in between, wasn’t it obvious both teams would pick a corridor and get ready to fight it out in the narrow space, or wait on either end?

“We’ve got flags,” Becky said. Carl turned to see three little red flags on poles hanging behind them, with three empty holes with space for more. Each had one of their names, and a little text below.

[Flag removal will result in immediate reduced power effectiveness. Flag capture will result in immediate death. Try not to lose them!]

Carl winced, mind racing as he tried to comprehend this new variable. Becky looked spooked, and he understood why. She was one of the toughest players in the whole game, and here was this little red flag that could just…instantly kill her.

“I could wall off our flags,” she said instantly.

“But that walls off our ability to capture theirs, too,” Carl said.

Even so, he thought it might be worth it. Maybe it was optimism, but in a straight fight he had his money on his own team. These rebels had tricky bursts of speed, and they might very well consider just going for the flags instead of the men.

“Or I could block off two tunnels,” Becky said. “Make ‘em fight us in one.”

Carl winced, not so sure. Between that support and the spearman, he didn’t think a narrow little battle was to their benefit. They needed to get Carl out and free to pick his target and strike at will.

It was a bad God damn arena, that was the reality. He hoped that meant the system favored his team, and thought their enemies needed an advantage.

“We’re all pretty decent on our own,” he said, meeting Becky’s eyes. “You’ll give us all the time we need to get to you. Tommaso can fall back. I’ll just kill whoever.”

The more he thought about it the more it made sense.

“I say we each take a tunnel. They won’t see me, won’t know if I’m on my own or with one of you. I expect they’ll be too worried about me and just stay back and guard their flags. We get to their end, and I pick my target. You separate them with a wall, if you can. If not, we just bring them down in a straight fight. What do you think?”

Becky’s face scrunched up as she considered. But she nodded.

“OK, y’all,” she said, giving a now customary, and very endearing wink, which Carl seriously hoped Tommaso didn’t think was personal interest. “I’ll take the middle. See you on the flip side.”