Chapter 1: Life Springer's Game

Maybe it is indeed the universe's doing, or perhaps there is a higher being at work. The systems in Aquarian space have no shortage of various forms of ocean planets, whether it is tidal locked planets that contain a ring shaped ocean around the planet in between the day and night side, or it is full on ocean planets with few continents like Old Earth, or planets in the aptly named Poseidon system near the edge of Aquarian space that's somewhere in the middle.

Poseidon 5 is one of those strange planets when the tidal cycle determined everything, every three standard human days, a tide that lasts five hours will sweep across everything on the various continents before returning to normal. To Aquarians that has been settling here, it simply meant they can move with the tide and have settlements that way, but to the handful of visitors to this planet, the three days of dryness is something that's always welcome.

The planet's atmosphere is average in its thickness and density with a transparent atmosphere that looked a beautiful blue, reflecting the colors of the oceans beneath, and if one is to be transported to this world, there really isn't too much of a difference here than the old earth, apart from the strange tidal cycle which felt like the great flood happens every three days. Instead of it being the divine punishment from god, it is rather a wave of nourishment and feeding as nutrients and organic matter are swept up from the ocean floor and brought onto the land, allowing the quickly grown and resilient plant life to feast on this. The animals on this planet is still in its early stage of evolution before the Aquarians arrived, and the invaded species from their home planet quickly wiped out the indigenous species, though a great extinction occurred right after as a local parasite killed off a majority of the invaders as they went out of control.

It was a hazardous few generations until the ecosystem settled into some semblance of equilibrium, as the plant lives thrived once more on this planet.

Sitting in the ocean is a gigantic circular shaped island, which is really just one of the continental plates that's slightly taller in its altitude than the rest. It looked innocently natural from the outset, and yet if you looked closely, there have been signs of various items, crates, fires and other man made things left in the beautiful environment. If you really look closely, you can see figures of humans, Aquarians and Rockies scattered throughout the island.

'When you said this is a simple game, this isn't what I was expecting!'

Amidst all of the movements on the island, two figures belonged to the bearers. The human male dressed in full athletic outfit towards the left is Rydel Daera, the bearer of the Glove and Lightning Rod and the only being to hold two artifacts at the same time. The human next to him is a short skinny human girl who's wearing a long workshop trousers and shirts, she is Alrith, and she's the one that put the two in this peculiar position.

'When you have two of those...artifacts, I imagine you to be a lot stronger than this!' Alrith protested, 'so tell me why are we running, instead of chasing and hunting them down?'

'Because,' Rydel threw his hand backwards angrily and pointed it towards their pursuers, 'just look at them, and look at how many of them there are!'

Behind them, a herd of twenty Aquarians are actually keeping pace with them, despite the innate disadvantage of Aquarians on land, and the fact that both of them are enhanced to the T. All twenty of the Aquarians are charging forward at the same pace as their foot steps are completely in sync with each other, so all Rydel is now hearing apart from the short sharp breathing from Alrith next to him is the synchronized foot step of them stomping across the mushy mudlands.

'Doesn't look like we can get any weapons and supplies from this area,' Rydel said, 'why did you want to steal it from them anyway?'

'Well, I did tell you to cover me.' Alrith protested.

'If it's stealing, my powers are much better suited.' Rydel said, 'I will do it next time!'

'It's not like you didn't have a chance to warp the boxes out.' Alrith said, her face red and her eyes stubborn.

'I would have if you didn't expose my position!!' Rydel said before finally decide to drop the matter, 'anyway, according to the map given, there is another place for supply drops about a kilometers from here. If they kept on chasing, we can set up an ambush in the pond there!'

'What are you going to do?' Alrith asked, but her voice is instead cut off as she was warped into Rydel Glove and tossed towards the other end of the twenty meter wide pond. She landed face down in a pile of mud as her short red hair became brown as she struggled to get up and paddle away from the edge of the pond.

'Just run!' Rydel said, turning around and throwing up a middle finger towards those Aquarians, which only angered them even more.

Then, taking a big step and jumping off a rock, Rydel landed into the middle of the pond and dropped into chest deep water. The pursuing Aquarians dived into the pond of water, their natural environment and swim towards Rydel with the full intention of tearing him up into a thousand pieces like a groups of sharks around a prey.

'Good night.' Manifesting the Lightning Rod in his right hand, Rydel unleashed a sudden jolt of electricity throughout the pond as the water sizzles and the Aquarians burned. Then, the bodies of unconscious Aquarian began floating up one by one towards the surface as Rydel swam towards Alrith.

'Both of my weapons are simply too single target focused to effectively use against a large group of people.' Rydel explained towards a grumpy looking Alrith who's pretending to ignore him, 'sorry for tossing you, but I have to give them multiple incentives to chase me.'

'What kind of a man throws a lady into mud?' Alrith said with arms crossed and eyes still not looking towards Rydel.

'The kind that is dumb enough to come with you here.' Rydel sighed and looked up and around the environment. Without the pursuing Aquarians, the island sounded a lot more peaceful and quiet, he reached out a hand towards Alrith, 'I am sorry, but it had to be done.'

'FINE! I am forgiving you this time, but it's because I am nice to you!' Alrith said, 'I bet your lady friend won't forgive you so easily.'

'Well, she probably fights those Aquarian head on with Lock Down...'

The game that Alrith has driven Rydel to do on Poseidon 5 was organized by Life Springer as a monthly event, when the prize money was an appointment with her for whatever requests. From the sound of it as Alrith is entering them two into the competition while Rydel's taking a nap, the locals treat Life Springer as a goddess, and she knew it too. The game allowed for up to two people in each group, so Rydel and Alrith simply left their ship tucked away with Elmyra on board on orbit with many other ships who are also here to participate in the 'Game of Life', which is really a game of deaths and killing.

Alrith swore that the results of an appointment with Life Springer would surely be good enough to work with Elmyra's condition, as some of the richest families in the galaxy has hired professionals to win the game for a chance of getting an appointment for whatever needs they may have in regards to biotechnology.

A battle royale on a ring shaped island, when you are only allowed to bring yourself and nothing external. Alrith thought the nature of the artifacts meant Rydel has already had two legs up on the rest of the competition, but as she and Rydel was waiting in the main room for the start of the game, most of the beings here are augmented to some level.

There are Aquarians with two arms, humans with four arms, Rockies that are two meters tall, and those with bone spurs protruding from their wrists and elbows...whatever mystical and made up species there are out there, there is probably a good chance that they will be here in this room.

The kind of weapons offered are only melee, as all three species have a certain fascination with classical combat and the art of using melee weapons. And the island's raw materials can also be reprocessed into weapons too.

However, it is much more than that. Rydel swore when they were first eyeing the supply crates that were first found by the Aquarians, there were only two of them? And yet as they ran more and more, the sounds of the footsteps only became louder and louder? Rydel has merely a suspicion, but perhaps those that are on this island also have some kind of special abilities, meaning you skills and physicality aren't enough.

The galaxy is truly a big and weird place. Rydel thought, as they opened up the crate in front of them. There are a set of a spear with a retractable body, sets of small throwing knives, some medical supplies in the shape of pastes and seaweeds, and a lot of food packets and bait for fishing. In comparison to the limits supplies of weapons, the amount of food is actually mountainous.

'This is two days?' Rydel said, reaching his hand and grabbing one of the packages before tearing it open, 'hah, we don't need to do anything else until the end of this!'

'Well, I mean all of the contestants looked like they can eat a mountain in the main hall.' Alrith said, also reaching and grabbing one.

Now, the deadly game actually felt like a picnic as they said on the slope of a hill, overlooking the plains in front of them. The island is big enough that it doesn't look and sound like anyone else is here with them.

'This is nice.' Rydel said after sliding yet another energy bar into his mouth, all of the packets of food are simple and generic energy bars, though a bit too bland for a human palette, it still does to job of refueling their enhanced bodies. Alrith stood up first and walked towards the nearest pond which looked much deeper and cleaner than the muddy one Rydel had just downed twenty Aquarians in.

'Watch my back, but not too closely!' Alrith said back as she began to undress and zipping open her workshop shirt, letting it dangle to the sides by her waist as she walked into the pond to wash her body. There are marks and tattoos on her atheltically built back, though Rydel can't really tell the actual patterns thanks to the mud bath that he put her in earlier. She bent over and dived her head into the water to wash her red hair before she suddenly shot up and screamed.

'Are you okay!' Rydel shot up to his feet and yelled, but she appeared to have calmed down. Then, she disappered from the surface of the waters without a sound.

'Shit!' Rydel immediately started running towards her, as the Glove is activated and on stand by just in case anything has happened and Alrith will need to be warped out of a sticky situation. As he approached the pond, a few gas bubble began to surface before Alrith appeared topless with a giant fish on her hands.

'Aaaaaah!' She screamed, covering her body before a gigantic fish hit Rydel in the face.

The night cycle of the Poseidon 5 has finally arrived, and Rydel and Valerie has finally found a place to stay for the night. Like most biological humans, sleep is still something that is somewhat essential to their enhanced bodies, whether the benefits are merely mental at this point is anyone's guess, however. They settled in a patch of grass next to a running waterfall, as they are still running the waters from the latest tidal wave. This waterfall is located in one of the tallest hills of the region, and when the tide returns in two days and a half, any high point will be immensely valuable.

The game would end shortly after the tide, and last pair to survive will become the winner. However, due to the disparity between the time of the flood and the time of ending the game, Rydel and Alrith will have to win the game way before the flood swallows everything.

The cave he has made is nice and hidden away behind a patch of grass with small openings that allowed a nice stream of air to flow. The fish they caught earlier in the day is now sizzling on the cover of the metal supply crate which Rydel is heating with the Lightning Rod.

Alrith is the sitting in the corner and looking at the ship as Rydel's cooking it, and the pair shared a few words since getting in the cave.

'So...how did you get started in all of this?' Breaking the silence, Rydel said as he looked up, but instead, he saw Alrith sulking towards him as her cheeks are propped up by her arms as she rests them on her knees. She didn't say anything, but her stare is burning more than the metal crate is burning the fish.

'...'

'I didn't mean to...''I told you not that closely!'

'Yeah, but you screamed...' Rydel said innocently, 'I thought you are in danger, or you are getting caught by something...'

'I don't want to be seen like...' Alrith buried her face in her arms as her voice became muffled. Then, she looked up at him again and said, 'Anyway, do you think I am this useless?'

'What do you mean?' Rydel asked, and Alrith crawled towards him and sat in the empty place next to him before looking him directly in the eye.

'Do you think I am this useless?'

Rydel opened his mouth, and he was about to be quite objective about it, but Alrith turned her head away and pinched him in the arm.

'So you do think I am useless...' She said with a grumpy voice, 'that I am just a useless little human girl that needed to be protected?'

'That's not true.' Rydel said, shaking his head and flipping the fish over while spooning the oil all over the top of it to get some more flavor out, 'you have skill, you move with speed and precision in the operating room, and you can keep up with me today. But there are different skill sets for different scenarios, right?'

'I can do more than just do surgery.' Alrith said, reaching into her pocket and grabbing a small knife from it. It is similar to the blades that Valerie liked to use, but they are even smaller and thinner. With quick precision, she diced through the flesh of the fish in a blur. Then, the flesh opened and rolled back like a flower.

Damn. Rydel couldn't even react to what has just happened despite the enhancement in his observation and processing speed. He thought she is fast, but she may be way faster than he thought.

'I am sorry.' Rydel said, looking towards Alrith who's still looking grumpy and looking away, but now she is really just waiting for an apology and a compliment, which Rydel is happy to offer both, 'You are much better than what I gave you credit for, and I won't repeat that again. We can act on equal grounds tomorrow, you and I fighting together to win this for Elmyra's sake. How does that sound?'

'That's more like it, Rydel Daera.' Bursting in a smile, Alrith turned towards him with a red face as she picked up the perfectly cooked fish and swallowed it whole. Her red pony tail bobbing joyfully up and down.

Throughout the night, Rydel and Alrith each took turns standing guard for two hours at each time so at least each person can get a few sleep cycles through the evening, though it was mostly empty and quiet with few activities throughout. Both of them are quiet sleepers, and there is no light nor fire or sound that could ever give away their location. The running stream of water provides a nice and relaxing backdrop to Rydel as he plays with the Lightning Rod while Alrith somehow found her way to use his legs as a pillow.

Seeing the incantation of the strange patterns on his Lightning blade only brought him back to the years of adventure since he first discovered the artifact in that cave on old earth. So much has happened, and so much has changed, and yet this new journey he is on will continue as long as the artifact is with him, and the looming threat predicted by them all still exists.

Alrith shifts as she turned to the side and faces Rydel, her breathing is slow and steady and her face looked calm. On their journey here, they had a few conversations about her past, but it never something that's fully revealed to him.

Soon, the timers on her personal artifact woke her up after exactly one sleep cycle which is just a bit short of two hours, and Alrith rolled her eyes as Rydel fell asleep. Now, it's time for Alrith to wonder about the same thing.

The man in front of her is really still a boy. He may have appeared carefree and relaxed on the exterior, but there had always been some hint of tension, as if he is being driven forward by some unknown force that has kept him going. Despite all of the metaphysical things the artifacts enables him to do, it also appeared that it's the root of all of his issues. He briefly talked about how most others only has one, and the reason he has two was because there were no other choice.

There is a shared curiousity between the two, and both of them wanted to know more about the other person. Perhaps being stuck in a death game together on a strange planet is one way to do it, apart from 21 questions.