Yes! Early Bird Bonus is mine!
(I'm going to lose in the polls incredibly badly, so I might as well try to scrounge up points as best I can...)
The battle was almost over.
Only a few thugs remained, valiantly fighting to the end, hopelessly outmatched. Finally, the last of the thugs disbanded and retreated into the shadows.
"Congratulations newcomers and latecomers alike! You have just pledged your entrance fee of...your lives!" boomed a disembodied voice.
Somehow, I don’t like this, thought Pencillum.
Utter silence ensued for about three seconds, then a huge tesla cannon that looked like something straight out of the movies descended from the warehouse’s ceiling. A large blue beam blasted out at the nearest gladiator, a pretty young woman wielding a sword. The beam enveloped her, and when it dissipated, the woman was gone. Not a single piece of evidence was left that would have proven she was ever in the warehouse in the first place, save for the piles of defeated thugs around where she had been and a few earthen abnormalities sticking out of the floor.
A few gladiators backed away in shock. The machine paid them no heed (obviously; it’s a machine, after all) and blasted a second gladiator, this one appearing to be a magician horrified at the carnage around him from the massive brawl. By now a few gladiators had already began nervously looking back and forth between the cannon and the door with a hole in it.
The cannon turned toward Pencillum, and seventeen pencils went straight down its end. They seemingly had no effect, and a large blue beam blasted through him.
Everything went blue, then changed to nothing.
Well, not quite nothing. Pencillum still felt a slight tingly sensation on his right hand.
I’d recognize that sensation anywhere – it’s the same sensation as when Novroc teleported me to the Stickpage dimension. So it’s only a dimension teleport, not a true Tesla beam? Huh…
The nothingness around him dissipated and revealed an empty classroom. Pencils and scrolls were scattered around the room. A lone cauldron sat on what apparently used to be the teacher’s desk, along with a primitive livestreamer-like device.
No way… not the Lost Abandoned School for Gifted Wizards… that’s been lost for fifty years!
He remembered his teacher lecturing the class about it in the third grade. “Well, the Lost Abandoned School for Gifted Wizards is just that. Lost. About forty-five years ago, it was still running perfectly. One day everyone there teleported back to Pencil Island saying that it was beginning to get unstable, and it was starting to move. Of course it’s still out there somewhere, the magic’s enough to keep it running, but because it was moving, we don’t really know
where it is, so we can’t teleport back, because of Pell’s Law of Teleportation, of course.”
How did the Host find it? he thought with wonder, then stopped.
Well, no matter. The only reason the Host would teleport me here is because either there’s an enemy here I’m supposed to defeat, or…
His heart sped up as he realized what the other possibility was.
…this is the battleground for my first round battle!
He dashed out of the room, and in his haste to find his enemy, he tripped over a chair leg and went flying into the air.
“Corvon. Stay here.”
“More bloodshed? Surely you don’t expect the purpose of the Host teleporting us here to be to fight a battle…”
A withering glare, and the magician stopped.
“Stay.”
“You’d best be careful…”
“I can take care of myself, thank you.”
She left, leaving Corvon standing there, still wondering if it was a good idea to let her go on alone.
Pencillum dashed out of the room, and his haste to find his enemy, he tripped over a chair leg and went flying into the air, directly towards the wall. Expecting a hard landing, he braced himself, and when none came, he realized that the wall was actually made of a bubble-wrap-like substance.
Ahh… good designing by the wizards, I suppose.
Kalena strode purposefully down the hallway, seeking out her opponent. A loud series of CRACKs were heard from behind her. She turned around and saw a teenage boy embedded
inside the wall.
“Huh. Well, this is interesting…”
“Huh. Well, this is interesting…” said a hard, yet melodious voice.
Pencillum would have jumped up about five feet into the air had he not been stuck in a wall at the moment. He merely stayed stuck for about three seconds, dumbfounded, before slipping out, standing up, stretching, and suddenly realizing that the first gladiator to be zapped, the young woman, was standing in front of him.
“Er… hi.”
“You are part of the system, aren’t you?”
“Well, um, yes, but – “
DANGER INCOMING! screamed a voice inside his head, and in one fluid motion the woman drew a sword, whipped it at his neck, and stopped with a dull THUNK as it slammed into a pencil. Another pencil was flipped at the woman’s shoulder, and in turn, it was slapped away by her sword.
Pencillum, still with a pencil in his right hand, stabbed that at the woman’s other shoulder, but that was blocked yet again by the woman’s sword. Another slash with the sword, which Pencillum dodged and retreated from. The woman now stabbed her sword hard in the floor, waited expectantly, and… nothing happened.
“No earth here, it’s not going to work,” said Pencillum, with a smile.
A slight pause for reality to sink in, then:
“How do you know – “
“I read the character profiles. Unlike some people…”
“I thought only the Writers could view the profiles.”
“Oh, I can be very… convincing… at times, when it comes to information. Or you could say that my Writer is… rather weak.” He chuckled, then looked up at the ceiling nervously. A small fracture in one of the ceiling tiles began to appear, for apparently no reason. His ghost of a chuckle disappeared.
“Erm… actually, on second thought, I take that back.”
Another pause, then Pencillum leaped back into the fray, now wielding a pencil in both hands.
“Oops, I just realized that I forgot to introduce myself,” Pencillum said casually, as he slashed at Kalena’s face. She blocked with her sword. “My name is Pencillum – “ – a jab at Kalena’s shoulder, which she dodged with ease – “and I like pencils.” The sword-and-pencil fight continued, neither side gaining an advantage. “So what’s your name?”
“So what’s your name?” the pencil fighter asked, a foolish-looking smile on his face.
“Kalena Eirwen. Although it is not important. Why are you in this system that mindlessly sheds the blood of its participants?”
“I wish to train my abilities against… better, more powerful opponents.” Another pencil slash, easily turned away.
“Train… for what?”
“Why, for world domination, of course!”
“So you are evil…”
“In a sense, yes.”
“Then you must die.”
Pencillum sighed, blocking a sword strike without looking. “If you must.” He hurled a red-tipped pencil at the hilt of the Sword of Truth. Realizing what the pencil was made to do, Kalena jumped back, dropping the sword. The pencil soared between her hand and the sword and exploded when it hit the wall.
The sword fell to the floor, blade pointing down. Almost in slow motion, it sliced right through the floor and fell towards the earth, ten thousand feet away.
Both fighters watched the sword fall, Pencillum in amusement and Kalena in horror.
Almost a full five seconds passed before Pencillum leaped at Kalena, pencil in hand. He pinned her against the wall and put the pencil to her throat.
“I have you now,” smirked Pencillum, in almost a perfect Darth Vader voice.
While Kalena had been fighting with Pencillum, Corvon was looking around.
Stupid School for Gifted Wizards. Thank goodness it’s abandoned now. If it hadn’t been for them we would have won the Multidimensional Wizardry Championship, School Division! Them and their idiotic Perpetual Pencil Motion Machine!
He looked around a bit more.
How obsessed are they with pencils anyway?
Dozens of pencils littered the room, each with different colored tips.
I’m guessing all of them do different things.
He continued to look around for several minutes before he had an odd feeling.
I don’t know. This just feels… weird. Like Kalena is in danger or something.
Well, there’s no harm in investigating, is there?
He stepped out of the room, looked down the hallway, and saw a fairly odd-looking teenager holding a pencil to Kalena’s throat. Her sword was nowhere to be seen.
“I have you now,” said the teenager.
You know what, I’m interfering…
A blue bolt of energy slammed into the pencil fighter’s pencil, knocking it into the wall.
“What?”
“Yahoo,” said Corvon dryly, without any hint of excitement.
Another bolt of energy slammed into Pencillum, blasting him backwards and into the wall.
“You’re all clear, kid,” muttered Corvon to Kalena.
“What?” was the response.
“Sorry. I had to finish the scene.”
Pencillum slipped out of the wall and ran quickly down the hallway, Kalena in hot pursuit. More bolts of energy were launched, which slowed Pencillum down as he dodged them. He reached the end of the hallway, turned the corner, and disappeared.
Kalena sped down the hallway after Pencillum, trying to catch him and…
Wait a second. What exactly am I planning to do when I catch him?
She tried to stop, but she tripped over something and flew into the wall…
Pencillum tore across the corner, then stopped.
Let’s see if that pencil on the ground I kicked up can trip her. If the trip pencil doesn’t work, I’ll ambush her.
Kalena tripped over the pencil stuck in the floor and flew directly into the wall…
Okay, the trip pencil worked.
…went through the wall…
Er… okay, that’s even better.
…conjured a sword from nowhere…
What exactly is she going to do with that transient blade?
…and sliced through the air with the sword, and disappeared. Two hands clung onto the bottom of the human-shaped hole, and a split second later, Kalena stood in front of Pencillum as if nothing had happened.
“You cut through your
momentum. Impressive.”
“Er, Kalena?” called a voice from down the hallway.
“What?”
“Your momentum wasn’t the only thing you cut.”
“So…”
“You also cut through the magic surrounding this place and keeping it 10,000 feet in the air.”
“But that’s just a small cut in the side!”
“Oh no, don’t forget about Pfleffley’s Law.
If any part of a magical barrier is cut through, the entire barrier is considerably weakened.”
“So that means that…”
“Yep. Not good.”
A loud, long creak was heard, then a crash. Pencillum landed with his feet on the roof; Kalena and Corvon bumped their heads on the ceiling.
Flicking a pencil at Kalena, Pencillum smiled. “The very laws of physics are on my side!”
Kalena managed to dodge the pencil.
Aaagh, I can’t keep this up for long. I hope that sword’s arriving soon…
At that moment, another crash was heard. A sword hilt burst through the floor, followed by the rest of the sword, followed by a circular piece of earth.
“What? But – “
“My sword needs only to
stab itself into the ground for me to be able to control the earth. Now, goodbye. Your bloodthirsty evil must be stopped.”
Kalena grabbed the sword, pulled it out of the earth, and in one swift stroke, swept the pencil fighter’s head clean off.
“Phew…”
“Er, Kalena?”
“What?”
“You know, we’re still falling…”
“Right…”
“Congratulations! Kalena Eirwen wins the round,” boomed a disembodied voice. Again, a Tesla cannon descended from the ceiling.
“Now this, my friends, is a REAL Tesla cannon,” laughed the voice. “Mwahahahahahahahaha!”
The expressions on Kalena and Corvon’s faces turned from relief to shock, and then to sudden fear.
The ghost of the Host’s laugh echoed through the hallway as the Tesla cannon blasted, which was made more creepy because it should
not have echoed, given the design of the hallway. “…haha…haha…”
“Wow.”
“’Wow’” is a nice word for it.”
“Yeah. How much did it cost to do this?”
“I don’t know, ask the finance guys. All I know is that this baby is a freaking flying drone tank. With extra weapons and stuff thrown in.”
“That’s pretty impressive.”
“Yeah. Hope the politicians like it.”
Suddenly, a sword fell through the air and impaled itself on the ground.
“Wait. What?”
The sword began to rise up as the ground rose with it.
“What in the name of…”
“Whoa…”
The earth continued rising.
“Hey, whatever. As long as it doesn’t hurt us.”
“Good point. Should I call in the politicians then?”
“They might be unnerved by this… earth abnormality, but… sure.”
“Now, I bet you guys are all wondering what this “super-vehicle” looks like. Well, we have the prototype with us right now. John, if you please…”
The massive tanklike vehicle
flew towards the podium, hovering above it, and stopping.
All of the politicians in the audience applauded. There were quite a few shouts of “Wow!” and “Whoa!”
The sky darkened.
“Was that supposed to happen?”
“No…” muttered John, looking up at the sky. “Oh. My. God.”
Now the audience was screaming. “What is that?” “I don’t know! Some kind of building?” “I think it’s a school!” “Falling from the sky?” “I don’t care what it is! RUN!”
All the people present scattered and ran for their lives as the Lost Abandoned School for Gifted Wizards descended upon the secret military base…
Pencillum groaned groggily. “What happened?”
“Oh, Kalena cut your head off.”
“Er…”
“Yeah, you lost. But on the bright side, we’re pretty good healers.”
“Thanks, then.”
“Fear not,” boomed the Host’s disembodied voice. “You still have a chance in the Loser’s Bracket.”
“Loser’s Bracket?”
“Well, that’s a bit harsh, now that I think about it. How about, ‘You still have a chance in the Non-Winner’s Bracket’?”
“Er, okay. How does that work?”
“All will be revealed in due time. In the meantime, I suggest you rest up and train some more. To be honest, you were beaten pretty badly this time.”
“Gee, thanks for the compliments,” muttered Pencillum dryly.
There was no response.
“Oooo…kay…”
Kalena and Corvon materialized in the Victory Room, still mildly confused.
“Okay, I was kidding about that being a real Tesla beam. Welcome to the Victory Room.”
“Oooo…kay…”
There was no response.
“So…”
“You didn’t have to barge in and save me like that. There still was a… large… chance that I could save myself.”
Silence.
“Okay, fine. Thank you.”
Corvon smiled for the first time in what seemed like years.
A low growl.
“Fly, boy, fly…”