274: A Plague of Phantoms: Dueling Competence IV

I was suddenly snapped back to reality, falling several feet and into the ocean. As I breeched the surface and took another breath a large shadow suddenly blotted out the sun.

"STAR BOSS!" Grimm-Guard exclaimed. I laughed and started floating on my back.

"Grimm-Guard! Gods I'm glad to see you!" I laughed.

"Are you okay Star Boss?" Grimm-Guard asked. I nodded and gave him a thumbs up. "You captured that evo. I can sense it inside it's biome. Feels dark…incomplete."

"It is incomplete." I said softly while I channeled float attribute mana throughout my body. I floated op to Grimm-Guard's head and sat down on top and then stopped channeling mana. "I've seen its lysdale script, it's a shitty job disguised as masterpiece. A patchwork held together by redundancies and duplicity."

"You said that you were going to fix him? Can you do that and still fight the queen?" Grimm-Guard asked. I opened my mouth to say 'obviously.' Then instantly shut it because I knew it was a lie. Subject XX01 was majorly messed up, more so than any evo I've met before and I wasn't sure that I had enough mana to even attempt to try fixing all the problems.

"No, I'd need to borrow mana from Bone-lasher, You, Jiggles, and Empress just to attempt it. That would leave me completely drained and unconscious for a few days probably." I said then glanced over at the afternoon sun. "Speaking of, we should probably head back to the island. Do you know if everyone got the cage gateways and enchanted stuff to the King's glaive safely?"

"Yes. According to Jiggles everyone but Bo, Damon, and Alberto is back at the King's glaive." Grimm-Guard replied.

"Well that's good." I said then looked off towards the island.

In the distance I could see the Sky skimmer with Beaufort, Thomas, Logan and his squad still swimming at max speed towards the harbor. They probably thought I was dead or that Grimm-Guard had come to save me. As big as he was there was no way that they didn't notice him flying overhead.

"Lets head back, I have a duel to prepare for…." I said.

***

"About time you got back!" Iris grumbled as I walked into the King's glaive's engine car.

Iris was standing in front of the navigation column with Jane and Madilyn beside her. They were all obviously waiting for me. I arched a brow at Iris and smirked.

"What's wrong? Worried about me Tri-clops?" I teased. Iris rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, that you were going to do something stupid and not follow the plan." She replied then crossed her arms. "Which according to Damon and Alberto, you didn't follow the plan."

"I followed the essence of it!" I defended. Jane groaned and shook her head.

"Figures…" Jane muttered.

"I don't know why you expect anything different from him at this point. He's not going to change." Madilyn said then took a few steps towards me. "You at least said all the things you were supposed to right?"

"Yep! Admit to know about the lab, know about corrupt thards and thadiz…yep!" I replied. Madilyn let out a sigh of relief then looked at me again with a serious look.

"What did you do with Subject XX01?" She asked.

"Captured. I'm going to fix the redundancies and glitches in its genetic structure later. Right now I'm keeping him contained in my farm crystal." I answered. Madilyn nodded and seemed satisfied with that answer.

"Good! All objectives were met. We need to sow fear and doubt into my grandfather's mind. The best person to do it is someone he thinks is beneath him." Madilyn said then turned and started towards the door to the other cars. "I'm going to start preparing things for tomorrow's presentations. We'll be presenting aerial evos tomorrow."

"Gotcha." I said then waved her goodbye. Once Madilyn was gone I looked to Jane and Iris. "Now about the queen…"

"Yeah…" Iris said then frowned at Jane. Jane looked away from both of us, her cheeks a shade a deep red.

"I already explained my reasoning for asking my mother to challenge you." Jane said.

"Yeah…that doesn't mean I can't complain about it for the rest of Evo-cution." I grumbled.

"For once I agree with Chase. You know your mother is on par with Anansi Paragon when it comes to power and combat ability." Iris said.

"Well I know that now!" Jane grumbled then huffed. "Besides Chase killed Anansi so it'll be fine."

"I BARELY killed Anansi!" I exclaimed then shivered as I remembered the fight. Jane looked away and sighed.

"Mother plans to use that Lunar Liger Shark you sold her in the fight. Given the fact it's going to be a full moon tonight and my mother's abilities…you might want to take this seriously. Mother will and she'll want to fight you at your best." Jane said. I groaned and stretched my arms.

"Okay…taking this seriously. I recalled Empress, Fours, Grimm-Guard, and Bone-lasher. My mana reserves are at about sixty percent right now. Empress and Grimm-Guard are currently feeding me their mana to try and recharge it." I said.

"You didn't recall Jiggles?" Iris asked.

"Jiggles is in charge of his squad. Without Grimm-Guard acting as a silent threat we'll need Jiggles and the others to act as security tonight." I explained. Iris nodded then turned and started walking towards the door to the next car.

"In that case I'll get Sin, Chad, Alberto and Damon, ready." Iris said. I nodded and followed after her.

"I'm going to get changed real quick and swap out a couple of my rings. Jane, tell everyone that's going to be coming with us to get ready. We'll be arriving to the duel area in the King's glaive." I said.

***

Logan

"Why are we even going to this?" Cross grumbled.

I was standing at the front of my squad's protective formation around Beaufort and Dad as we stood on the back of the Sky skimmer that was acting as a taxi to the staging area for the combat demonstration. A hour had passed since our confrontation with Chase and nearly getting killed by his antics. The sea dock that housed Subject XX01 was completely destroyed. I honestly figured that Chase was a goner until I saw his oversized flying centipede evo flying over them towards the sea dock. When it flew back I caught a glimpse of Chase sitting on its head and imagined the smug look he'd have had on his face.

"Because it would make America weak and pathetic to not show up." Beaufort grumbled and crossed his arms over his chest. His eyes glowed with a devious glint as a devilish smile creeped across his lips. "Plus how can we not witness that bastard's fall after all his stunts today?"

"His fall?" Dad queried. Beaufort snorted as he chuckled.

"Well obviously he has to lose." Beaufort said. Dad frowned as did I and a couple others in my squad.

"Why would he have to lose? He's going up against a pampered queen, how good could she actually be in a fight?" Dad asked. Beaufort sighed and shook his head at dad.

"Think about it for a second Thomas. She's the queen of the country that the college the brat is going to is located. He can't come back to America and he's burned a few bridges here in the past day. If he doesn't let her win in this little duel then he's got nowhere to go." Beaufort said.

"I doubt that…" Dad replied then scratched his chin. "...if today has taught us anything then it's that Chase always has a plan. He's cunning, devious, and worst of all too stupid to care about his own life. For all we know this could also be part of his plan. A declaration that he's able to stand toe to toe with royalty."

"He his evos killed a royal guard from Scotland and embarrassed China's emperor. Isn't that enough?" Cross asked me Dad.

"No." Beaufort said in a oddly serious tone. A total reverse of his earlier attitude. "It wouldn't be enough for me…"

"We'll see in a few minutes. We're here." Dad said pointing ahead of us.

The combat demonstration was to take place in a arena that was built on a tiny island about twenty miles from Tsushima Island. It was so small that you could barely call it a island but it was the perfect place to hold the demonstrations this year. The island was in the shape of a crescent moon with a large lagoon in the center of the island. The arena for the duel was built into the center of that lagoon and the only way to get to it was by water through the opening in the crescent.

The sky skimmer we were currently on floated at the mouth of the crescent moon lagoon where a dock for the arena stood. There were dozens of sky skimmers and Zee-waros, and Zee-O's already docked there with their splicers lazing about and waiting for the military official or Royal that they ferried to the island. Our sky skimmer floated to the dock and everyone quickly disembarked.

"Looks like we're the last ones here." Dad remarked as he looked at the other evos at the dock.

"Its like that every year, why should this one be any different?" Beaufort said then walked down the length of our dock towards the sole entrance to the arena.

We had to walk up several flights of stairs in a long hallway that went straight up before exiting onto a vast semicircular platform that spanned the entire rim of the crescent moon lagoon. The platform was split into three tiers with common soldiers being seated in the lower tier, higher ranking military officials and company heads seated in the middle tier and world leaders were seated above them in a specially made tier that was sectioned off with glass partitions that boxed off the entire tier.

Beaufort immediately headed towards the stairs that lead straight to the top tier. The stairs were guarded by four soldiers from French, English, Egyptian, and Spanish armies. The soldiers immediately moved to the side when they saw Beaufort and us, letting us pass. Nobody said anything to the soldiers, we didn't need to. They were splicers, trash, beneath us.

Walking up the steps to the top tier I suddenly felt uneasy. Something was in the air, not a poison or a toxin, but something else. I quickly moved to pass Beaufort on the stairs, not a easy task given his bulk, and rushed up the stairs ahead of the president. When I reached the top I froze and had to blink several times to ensure I wasn't seeing things. Beaufort reached the top of the stairs behind me and I heard a growl escape his lips.

"The fuck are they doing up here?!" Beaufort snarled as he pushed me out of the way and stomped off.