Ace in the Hole!
| Year 2700 |
| Zanzibar Forest |
| Troth City |
[ Planet Galatea |
voorrr! voorrr! voorrr!
Alice turned the throttle, urging her all-terrain motorbike to race faster. Shebangs of dark soil splattered against her cheeks and forehead as she bounced on the chase. On the other side of the meadow, her teammate, Skylar, followed with her bike, the two pincering the beast. Giant trees flipped past them, the hover vehicles barely missing tree trunks and jutting roots.
"Woohoo!" Skylar shouted across the landscape.
They were pursuing what appeared to be a nimbus of dust that sauntered ahead of them. Alice spied a dark, blurry shape in its core. Their quarry, a four-legged beast, had been giving chase across the forest for over half an hour.
Rusus, one of the suns, smirked in the northwest sky to her right as draughts of hot air buffeted her like fingers of hellish fire. Afel hid behind a cloud in the southwest.
Zanzibar forest was nature at its most brutal, with undulating terrain, extremes of diurnal temperature, and the most ferocious beasts in all of Galatea.
They had started the journey as a team of eight. Three of the fellow teammates had already gone down. One's bike crashed into a rock, and he fell heavily, although his shield protected him from grievous hurt. The others simply collapsed from exhaustion.
'This mission is supposed to be for the rookies,' Alice thought. But the intel turned out to be wrong.
She looked into the meadow, her eyes seeking a solitary rider who rode vigorously behind the hunted animal. He was a hulk of a man on a shiny red Coyote 250 horsepower, a vehicle not meant for the feeble-hearted.
Drake, her Trinity Ace.
He was the de facto leader of the Fellowship- an elite enforcer team of Providence. The young man was a legend, a veteran warrior of the battles against the Kallikantzaroi in the outlands.
Drake was her ideal, her one true love. Not only was she obligated to bond with him, but his skills and heroics demanded admiration as well.
A dyad of riders came up long behind him.
'As if they will ever measure up to their new leader.' Alice cackled loudly at the thought and inhaled a mouthful of dirt in the process.
The fleeing cloud of the prey had stopped, and the dust was settling.
The trick to hunting a Karkadann on bikes was to tire it in a chase. Once exhausted, it had little energy to fight back. Although, it was not wise to fight the beast, tired or not.
Bifff! Thwubb!
Drake's Coyote swiveled to a pivot halt, digging an arc across the ground. Alice veered to her left, leaving the tree cover and entering the wilderness.
Their leader got off his bike and paced around, waiting for the rest to join him. The two rookies behind them huddled to a stop soon. Skylar appeared too, bringing her Minx-160 to a grinding halt near the Coyote.
The four remaining members gathered around the Trinity Ace.
Drake donned a plunging red tunic over an enormous muscled torso. The tunic flowed to his knees, splitting in the front and back. A pair of canvas pants barely hid his lithe legs.
There was something very ghoulish about the young man. Only twenty years old, he looked like someone who would kill without a second thought.
Drake was only friendly when he was drunk. Otherwise, he looked troubled, angry, and hostile to everything.
However, he was a celebrity on the Trinity network. Only ten users were above Level 50, and Drake was one of them. Alice looked at him and felt queasy between her legs.
The Ace eyed his unit and then squinted ahead at his target. The girl wondered what he was thinking and whether she had a place in those thoughts.
Alice was a nineteen-year-old, five foot eight brunette, regarded as wildly attractive. However, only Drake's opinion mattered to her.
The dust had settled, and they could see the outlines of their quarry. It had turned about to face them.
Not that it had a choice. The edge of the ground ahead was a precipice plunging fifty feet down. A tributary of the turbulent Mio river flowed under. The animal had no escape.
The Karkadann is a titanic beast, twice the size of a Kampuchian elephant and weighing thrice as much. A juvenile Karkadann can be easily wounded with steel. Its vulnerability disappears as its skin turns to armor on maturity.
Skin that repels steel.
"The Karkadann waits," Drake spoke up to his remaining team of four. "It is a treat for us as warriors of Providence." He made an enormous fist to drive home the point. "We were hunting a youngling for the experience of our rookies," he added, gesturing at the two eighteen-year-old boys- Chad and Omar.
"But it seems this is a mature beast." Drake pointed at the monster. "Therefore, I will take the lead."
Kyle and Omar cheered while Alice and Skylar left their bikes and approached him. Either girl took turns to kiss him, although all three were covered in a layer of dust.
"It would have been nice if Eve had joined us as well," Drake said, with his arms around the girls. Alice and Skylar exchanged glances, both gritting their teeth at the mention of Eve, the third female of their Trinity. She was the Ace's favorite.
Drake shook free of the girls and regarded their target.
The Karkadann was the fiend of the forest, and victory over it meant supremacy. A rite of passage.
"Get ready, girls!" he ordered Alice and Skylar. The latter was also a nineteen-year-old, taller than Alice, but skinnier and more athletic. Alice was undoubtedly envious, but she had come to terms with it, especially because both of them paled compared to the lovely Eve.
Alice looked at her HUD.
The Trinity network was active.
She turned on battle mode.
[ User: Alice Trinity ]
[ Level 39: Human ]
[ MP: 8199/ 9500 ]
[ HP: 7813/ 8000 ]
[ Battle Mode ]
[ Loading… ]
Drake had activated battle mode as well and had summoned a broadsword.
It was the Almace, known as the scarlet sword. He had acquired the weapon on the Trinity network the previous month. It was utterly leveled up, resting in the scabbard on his back. Whenever the Ace drew the sword, it was to kill.
The Karkadann had sensed his murderous intent and had lowered its head in anticipation. A single horn grew over the beast's muzzle.
Karkadanns were ridiculously overpowered. Their headbutts could bring down a rosewood tree or a skyscraper of the city. They moved surprisingly fast, considering their size and weight. Moreover, they did not tire easily.
Perhaps the Karkadann had meant to tire his pursuers with the chase.
Drake's right arm moved and grasped the hilt of his sword. A screeching sound made the others cringe as the Almace grated against the scabbard and appeared in view. The metal was inky red and seemed to devour any sunlight that fell on it.
The rookies also drew their weapons. Chad wielded a Belrite ax, while Omar retrieved an electric charge gun. Alice scoffed at the futility of their offensive power. They were raiding on a goddamn Karkadann, not a bunny rabbit!
"Here I go!" Drake said with a flourish.
He bent his knees and took a dash stance.
Alice looked at him and fed a command into her HUD.
[ Appraise User ]
[ User: Drake Ace ]
[ Level 51: Special Race ]
Around a hundred feet ahead, the Karkadann let out a threatening outcry that shook the forest. Flocks of birds scattered out of the area in alarm.
Roarr!