Chapter 2179 (Patreon)

ToC: https://www.patreon.com/posts/23899958

Aimed for a four chapter day, but couldn't quite manage it. Three now, but I will make up one more chapter tomorrow for this week. Pretty well set up now in Australia now.

Oh! And for those who ordered signed copies in Australia and New Zealand, I should be sending those out this week.

On the morning of the Hobfootie final, Devick went to visit Toll right after she woke up and broke her fast. As she walked, she periodically broke out into skipping, her warm certainty urging her to a faster pace. She had trained tirelessly for the past two days, her body burning with the resolve to grab a Class and discover her own power, albeit tempered by the very legitimate point that Nether King Hungry Eyes had made.

Her first goal would be to fulfill her end of the bargain she had made with her teammates. She had dragged them here, now it was time for her to put on one last display of capability. And Devick had found another way to rapidly accumulate power, which made the whole situation more acceptable: the birthday present given to her by the Nether King.

She had gotten a sense from her impression of the item that its power would grow, but the truth was ridiculous. The Frolic of the Needle Tooth Hare Skill had changed her movements into a caricature of a monstrous rabbit, making her impossibly light one moment and ominously heavy the next. In terms of acceleration, Devick could not be matched. If someone got in her way, she increased her mass with the same Skill, bashing through any impediment like a train of full-grown Arakis Beasts.

Of course, there were bumps in her development. Most of the rest of the team couldn’t keep up with her to begin with, let alone with this developing Skill. Her understanding of how it would be able to manifest in an actual match was rough.

Yet with the confidence she had gained from her rapid improvement, Devick came to see Toll. She marched into his room and was very pleased to find him sitting up in his bed, chewing on his tongue as he attempted to figure out an interlocking metal puzzle mechanism. She greeted him with a wave and sat down in the chair next to his bed.

Cheery and focused Toll she could handle. And she came bearing the best sort of news.

“Do you know what today is?” Devick tried not to fidget, but her entire body was buzzing with anticipation. Once she had refocused her attention on the task of winning the championship, her excitement toward the upset built. Besides, wouldn’t even the Nether King himself be impressed by a victory here?

Toll raised an eyebrow and set down his puzzle. “What, are you going to now claim today is your actual birthday? If you continue periodically floating the idea, people will begin to suspect your deceit. Or they will pity your deteriorating mind..”

Devick waved a hand, happy to lean into the playful exchange. “Let the gossipers spread their rumors. I will not be cowed by bitter words from small minds. Glad to see you’ve regained some of your good cheer. Actually-” Leaning forward, Devick put on her best conspiratorial grin. “I’ve developed a fool-proof formula for completely overturning expectations and seizing the Hobfootie crown for the Miracles. I shouldn’t even ask, considering your combative spirit… but are you in?”

The moment stretched, Devick leaning forward with a lopsided grin on her face next to Toll’s bed. Gradually, the smile slid off his face and what lay beneath was an emotion that made her recoil. His gaze felt hollow.

“I think I’ll pass,” Toll said quietly.

Devick leaned back into the chair and had an awkward smile on her face. The small rejection had drilled a hole in the bottom of her soul and all of her excitement now drained out of her body.  “...maybe I wasn’t being clear. Honestly, I’ve- well, not to be arrogant, but I’ve found a way to very quickly accumulate power. The way I can now move- you just need to be on the field to experience it! We’ve worked so hard for this, so I just want you to be out there-”

“I don’t want to play Hobfootie again,” Toll spat the words out through gritted teeth. He seemed to notice how her expression sank, so he tried to make a playful expression to make up for it. His face just ended up seeming sad and empty, however. He couldn’t shake the bleakness that had taken root at his core. “Look, I appreciate you’d be willing to let me back on the team at all, in my condition. But I don’t want to hold you back. I’m not… I’m just no good.”

“Your condition? Your body is fine, right, so-” Devick bit her lip, trying to keep more words from tumbling out of her mouth.

Her teammate and her greatest supporter looked at her then, his eyes haunted and grey. “Are you going to make me say it, Devick? Shit, I’m scared. I felt my own skin boil. The possibility of pain like that again- not that I regret stepping up and putting my body in your way, but whenever I imagine-”

A tremor ran through his arms. In the aftermath, Toll couldn’t even meet Devick’s eyes.

She left and walked toward the preparation area to meet the rest of the Miracles. Devick’s soul burned with shame and indignation, although she couldn’t articulate the source of either. Something massive and ugly rampaged in her chest. In those few hours as the team slowly warmed up their bodies, her eyes grew red.

Why am I so weak?

*****

Because it was the climactic Hobfootie finals and because he had such a connection with Devick, Randidly actually came to the match. Due to damage suffered to the skyislands, the event was hosted in Malloon’s historic stadium, in a part of the city Randidly hadn’t visited previously. A special box had been prepared specifically for Randidly and he had been guided to his box by a sweating soldier. Several more soldiers were waiting outside his viewing box, studiously avoiding meeting his gaze, perhaps as much to prevent Randidly from running wild as to protect him from the growing anti-Nether sentiment.

Randidly glanced around the interior of his private box, seeing a few comfortable chairs, a cold box for drinks, and a wide viewing window out toward the field. The walls were freshly painted and all the furniture smelled new. Randidly clicked his tongue, almost amused. They’ve recently remodeled, likely to imitate our more popular design…

He moved to the window and drew a deep breath in through his nose. Ever since he had entered into the city, a certain bit of business had needled at him. He moved with malicious competence to find his target. He picked out the thin strands of Nether he could sense, taking them apart one by one to find a particular thread that he sought.

In the end, he pursed his lips in frustrated indecision. The scent, but not enough to track. He found thin traces of Swacc, but nothing that he could follow. It seemed that the man was aware of what would happen if he found him.

Randidly rolled his jaw, a smoldering fire of anger being banked for the future. If not for the subterfuge of his craftsman, the damage to the skyislands wouldn’t have been suffered at all. It would cause some trouble with Mae Myrna, but Randidly felt like it was worth it to wipe this scum out of existence.

So long as it wouldn’t require him to go on a war path through all of Malloon. But if all it required was a swift, clean strike…

Besides, Mae doesn’t seem particularly fond of her father anyway, Randidly hummed to himself. Almost reflexively, his hand drifted up and traced the heated surface of Sulfur. The limb had grown out to include part of the forearm, perhaps three-fourths of the way through its transformation. But then the growth had ceased and instead the pain had changed, drilling deeper into his nerves with every pulse.

The limb began making direct contact with Randidly’s powerful nervous system. Sulfur seemed to have the wild energy of its birth well in hand and now sculpted the way it would connect with Randidly’s form. The fact so much time had been spent preparing his body to receive the energy filled Randidly with anticipation; he suspected something extremely valuable would be built by bridging their bodies.

Wasting time before the match began, his eyes scanned the stadium around him. Malloon’s elite were out in force today, parading up an exterior walkway in plain view of the crowds, while Randidly had been led to a back entrance. They had on their finest silk robes and wore crowns of braided flowers, in celebration of the ‘victory’ over the Nether. It was a city refusing to acknowledge loss.

The display made Randidly roll his eyes. The city had adopted a double standard about the events of a few days prior, simultaneously announcing how it had triumphed over exterior threats while also growling how dangerous the Nether had proven to be and whipping public sentiment up for an offensive crusade against the Nether.

The people celebrated in here while outside of Malloon’s gates, people still were discovering bodies killed just the aftershocks of the confrontation.

Gradually, the fanfare faded as more and more of the average person streamed into the stadium. It was very obviously smaller than the stadium Randidly had built on the skyisland, with inefficient seating entrances meaning that most people had to use one of two stairways up into the stands and then crabwalk, in some cases literally, across the whole of the row in order to arrive at their seats. But they came with excitement and fury, the confrontation between the Miracles and the Brass Sabers becoming the most hotly contested in the history of the sport.

Even from his box, Randidly’s senses picked up the threads of conversation on the stands below. He could see the spiritual struggle between supporters of the two teams. The Brass Sabers had actually been something of a dark horse in Malloon Hobfootie circles, only the 6th seed prior to the start of the tournament. But in the preliminaries, they had achieved a notable 3rd seed and had dominated all of their opponents with exceptional teamwork and the strong leadership of their three captains.

Compared to the other Malloon Hobfootie teams that relied on superior training and tradition to oppress their opposition, the Brass Saber’s considered style was much more of a threat to the Miracles, who thrived on improvisation and chaos.

In the end, public sentiment leaned toward the Brass Sabers, although most acknowledged that the Miracles were an extremely capable team despite having no real backing.

Randidly smirked at the conclusion and waited for the inevitable beginning of the match. Not that he knew much about strategy, but he knew a little bit about overcoming the rules with raw force. With the few days it took for Mallon to recover after the Nether attack, he knew that Devick would have been extremely active. It was time to see how well the item he had made for her had allowed her to grow.

After a short speech by some relative unknown from Malloon’s council, the Hobfootie match began. The crowd gasped and muttered with each other because while the Brass Sabers usually spread out their three captains, they had chosen in this instance to gather them all in the middle section of the field, where Devick had been deployed.

Their strategy announced itself: use their best players to isolate Devick, who was far and away the favorite to win the MVP for the Hobfootie tournament due to her overwhelming ability to score points. Then trust that their established methods had raised their ancillary players to have better performance.

Randidly chuckled to himself as the balls were released and the game began in earnest. Already, ripples and significance traced out how this confrontation would unfold. In this instance, the Brass Sabers had made two critical mistakes. The first they could be forgiven for: they had assumed the difference between their weakest player and that of the Miracles would be decisive enough to earn them a massive lead. Despite the fact they would spend three of their players to eliminate Devick entirely.

In the end, while the three captains of the Brass Sabers dealt with Devick, they did accumulate steady points. But the lead was much less anticipated.

After fifteen minutes, the Brass Sabers led 35 to 26. Not only did they underestimate the back-breaking amount of cardio work Devick had pushed the team through, but they also didn’t consider the burning motivation the wounded Toll had become for the team.

But this was not the end of the match.

Randidly’s lip curled up as he watched the central portion of the arena, already, the significance there had swollen to the point it began to influence the entire match. The Brass Saber’s second mistake was underestimating Devick. To the crowd’s roaring approval, Devick finally used her vicious movements to seriously injure one of the captains of the opposing team. Within two minutes, she had put all three captains out of commission.

The central area now belonged almost exclusively to the Miracle’s.

She stood in the central area, her shoulders heaving and blood dripping from her fingers. Despite her relative weakness, Randidly shivered. In that defiant stance, he could see the same intense madness of the current Devick revealed to the world.

It took her ten minutes beyond that to achieve the promise of her team’s name.