Tag Archives: Neely Yin

Champions of Battle: The Very Best – Opportunity #21

Catlin sat back down and looked passed the empty seat across from her.  The others ate in silence.  Brisa was walking up the stairs towards her cabin still wearing the armor and enchanted gear Catlin had made especially for her.  Catlin knew exactly where Brisa’s cabin was, but it was best not to force a conversation right now.

Catlin had approached Brisa’s door with a powerful disguising enchant to keep Brisa from freaking out on site.  The event at the shuttle platform had affected Brisa much more than Catlin had wanted.  There was no way to know Brisa would be so ill-equipped for life outside the news room.

She slowly got to know Brisa.  Honestly, she was easy to get along with.  As they bonded, Catlin slowly weakened the enchantment but Brisa was still not ready to know the truth.  She had thought that eating with the person she was hired to follow would be enough of an apology.  Perhaps it was working for a while

Catlin had dropped the disguising enchantment at the table some time ago.  Her mask also had a perception enchant making it easier for her to see through disguises.  With all that, Brisa was still under the influence of Catlin’s spell.  Which meant one thing: Brisa wanted to believe the lie.

Once her eyes were open, they saw how she reacted to being tricked.  She didn’t like it.  No one does.  No one ever does.  Catlin knew that from the start but she was assured that things would turn out for the best.  They were following an “inspired” plan after all.

Catlin turned to Neely, “You told me to hide myself.  Now she doesn’t trust us at all.”

“It was better than the alternative,” he rebutted calmly after taking a drink.  It was water this time, “Or would you have liked her to run, scream, and call security on you.”

His distant calm bugged her and his tactics were unfeeling.  All of her hard work was wasted.  She’ll be recovering from performing those enchantments for at least a day.  The fruit of her labor walked away along with Brisa.  Catlin had lost a friend and they still needed to find someone to report on Jaquan, all because of Neely.  “What do we do now,” she asked Jaquan.

“We continue on our way,” he answered with his mouth full, “You said she was only going to stay in the town for a little while, right?”  He chewed a bit more then he swallowed, “We just have to wait for the replacement team.  Then we check them.”

They continued their meal.  Everyone ate their fill except Catlin.  She wasn’t hungry.

—–

Brisa reached her cabin still a little shaken.  It seemed that the BigBad Crew was fine eating without her.  They seemed not at all hostile to her this time.  Still the tricks and betrayal were a different type of hostility.  They had attacked her before.  No matter if they were remorseful, they wouldn’t get another chance.

Catlin’s impromptu meeting was a good trick.  The Crew may have wanted her to join them on their trip.  However, after telling them her secrets, she didn’t feel safe around any of them.  Catlin could use her fears and weaknesses for any purpose.  The “Catlin” she met could have also been a smokescreen.  She just didn’t know.

Duard would probably call her a fool for leaving like she did.  But he wasn’t here.  Only she was here with no backup.  Still, Brisa had surpassed him on one note.  She had, after all, gotten as close to Jaquan as he did; and without getting stepped on.  Duard was probably just leaving the hospital after his three day reminder that Jaquan ‘hated’ reporters.

All the same, the shuttle was landing.  It was time to call South Coast.

#1 – Opportunity #20 – Opportunity #22

Champions of Battle: The Very Best – Opportunity #20

Brisa sat there for a few moments, paralyzed by fear.  Jaquan and his crew took their seats around the table.  None of them said a word.  Jaquan made it a point to sit just to the left of Brisa.  They waited in silence giving Brisa time to think.  Within a few minutes the servers brought food serving Brisa first.

Still, it took a little time for the truth to sink in: Catlin’s friends were the BigBad Crew.  Brisa thought back to their earlier conversations.  Each time Catlin giggled was a reaction to knowing this secret.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”  Brisa was still wearing the mask.  There was thin black cloth covering her eyes along with a painting of a mantis designed to hide were she was looking.  However, it was quite obvious that she was talking to Catlin.

“The first time we met, wasn’t under the best of circumstances,” was Catlin’s calm response.

“What do you mean?  You knocked on my cabin door.”

Neely was sitting to the right of Catlin.  He mumbled something to her.  Catlin whispered a barely loud enough for Brisa to hear, “I dropped it a few minutes ago.  We have to wait for her.”

After a time, she gathered her wits just enough to look them all in the eyes.  Almost all the BigBad Crew was there: Jaquan, Neely, and Liana still in her mech suit.  Even Justice was there.  Brisa wasn’t sure if he was an official member of the crew.  However, he had been with them since the championship victory party.  The only one missing was…

OH NO!

Catlin sat across the table from Brisa with a bored look.  Brisa had missed it all this time.  Catlin’s eyes were different than before.  Not red in black, not glowing, or spouting black flame, they were normal.  Still, there was no mistaking it.  Catlin had attacked her at the shuttle port.  The one she had the most reason to fear had just become her close friend in the last few hours.

Brisa’s thoughts of safety were nothing but illusionary smoke.  Catlin had tracked her down easily.  Within the first few minutes of the flight Catlin was knocking on her door.  Like a fool she opened the door embracing the enemy with open arms.

How did Catlin disguise herself so well?  She must have used something, perhaps an enchantment to hide herself.  She was never malicious and could have attacked at any time.  Instead, they had what Brisa thought was the most wonderful time.  Still Catlin used a trick to get close to her.  If she was truly repentant, she would have apologized at the beginning.

“I apologize for my reaction to you earlier,” Catlin said, “I thought for sure you were a spy.  I was looking for a good time to tell you but it never came.”

“We all apologize for our actions before,” Jaquan spoke up, “but now, let’s eat.”

Brisa was so full of conflicting emotions: ultimate deception by an enemy that had become a best friend; a lady that had given her so much to prove that she wasn’t what she had to be?  Brisa said as she got up from the table, “I’m sorry.  I can’t do this.”  She walked away from the table, back towards her cabin.  She half expected to be pulled back to the table and forced to sit.  Since she was not she assumed she was free to go.  Under the mask a tear left her eye.

Catlin stood almost grabbing at Brisa with her Kin-Po Talents but thought against it.  Instead she called, “We’re planning to leave for Bear Gate at hour seventeen.”

Brisa paused at the information then kept walking.  She was welcomed to join them but unsure if she wanted to.

“So,” Liana said, her mask altering her voice to that of a machine’s, “What do we do now?”

Jaquan simply answered, “We eat.”

#1 – Opportunity #19 – Opportunity #21

Champions of Battle: The Very Best – Opportunity #16

Jaquan sat with Justice at the bar in his celebrity cabin.  They talked extensively about the upcoming tournament.  From what Justice was saying, these fights were going to be particularly difficult.  As such, Jaquan wanted to know everything.  Every now and again, he even caught himself fidgeting in his stool.  Was he actually nervous about this?

The Great Champion Jaquan Zu had not been nervous about a challenge for the longest time.  Of course, he never thought that he could lose for the longest time either.  If Justice and Neely were correct, these fights had “next level” written all over them.  This tournament would challenge him to become the best, the very best in the entire world.  Any and all of his past experiences could be called on to do well in the next few months.

Liana was in the cabin, but was too busy to pay attention to them.  She had promised Neely mech armor and was across the room building it now.  It was not nearly as advanced as her suit, but it would aid him greatly in combat.

Neely sat with them.  He was listening in though he didn’t say much.  He hardly engaged in small talk with anyone except Catlin.  He was slightly distant from the topic.  He would not do any fighting in the tournament.  However, he would help Jaquan any way that he could.

Catlin was still in the shuttle working on Brisa.  With her talent sets, she found Brisa immediately.  After that, her disguising enchantments and disarmingly cheerful and charming personality would get all the information they needed.  They needed to know the better details of Brisa’s mission.

There was still a great chance that Brisa was unable to help them or simply would not help them.  Brisa may not forgive them for scaring the life out of her.  If there was any chance of her helping them, they needed Catlin to pull through.

Whether or not Jaquan got news coverage on his travels, he needed to know more about his challengers.  “Why would these fighters be any different than the contenders I beat already,” Jaquan asked.  For the longest time he thought his championship was proof that he was already the greatest in the world.  For the last few days, Justice and Neely have suggested a different story.

“These fighters don’t care about money or titles,” Justice said with all certainty, “they just want to be the best they can be.  In your championship fights, a fighter has to be willing to give up a lot of gold for a chance at your title.”

The corrupt gold factory behind the scenes of his championship title was nothing new.  Technically, any fighter with a good enough record was in the queue to face the champion.  However, it always seemed that the ones willing and able to dish out extra gold were moved to the front of the queue.  The promoters, managers, and venues all loved getting paid, the firestorm of angry calls after he left for West Drop told him that much.

Thinking back, Jaquan didn’t want to say anything about the corruption.  He got a small cut and he knew that he would eventually fight all the contenders eventually.  His only objection was that his championship fights became formulaic.  Often times, the fighter with the most money had less than the greatest skill.  After a while, the fights became just plain easy.  Until now, he just thought it meant that he was that good.  This new tournament promised to be full of skilled fighters.  They only wanted to improve and were hungry to be the greatest.  The concept of joining the fray gave him stomach jitters.

Jaquan remembered when he followed the simple path.  Defending the championship became a simple matter of playing against a single fighter’s weakness.  In tournaments like this, that was never enough.  There was no way to prepare for thousands of different possible talent set combinations and the dozens of strategies involved with each one.  Enchants and gear choices added an additional layer of randomness to the fights.

To excel and compete, each fighter had to simply become the best they could.  Studying your next challenge was always advised, but each fighter always had several different styles and at least one trick.

He was excited about this.  The prefight chills told him so.  No doubt, there would be some new and interesting strategies.  The fighters were always looking for a way to take step up the ladder.

Jaquan had a lot of researching to do.

#1 – Opportunity #15 – Opportunity #17