Chapter 1989

Raymund Ballast liked the sounds of the morning on the Ghosthound’s island. Like all good things, it started with silence. The perfect stillness of recuperating repose. There were a few hours when the frantic activity ceased and what replaced it was pristine.

All in preparation for the eventual transition to activity.

Randidly still hadn’t come back after the challenge, but the tight schedule of training continued without him. Dawn arrived and signaled the beginning. In the earliest hours of the morning, most people left their private training pods and stretched on the beach until their backs cracked. They stretched their hands upward, reaching for that next epiphany that would catapult them into sudden potency.

The tireless waves crashed and bubbled across their feet. A wind always began to rise from the East, stirring the cool air around the island. Then, as a group, all the members of the Vulpis Squad, the Order Ducis, and many of the individuals who wanted to train gathered together in a massive group and jogged around the perimeter of the island.

Raymund reached up to the gravity array and twisted the difficulty up. The air shimmered as the Ghosthound’s Engraving began to pressure each jogger individually. The Engraving rumbled beneath his feet. The sounds of the joggers’ breathing soon synced up, a hundred determined individuals constantly pushing their limits. Their shoulders and necks soon gleamed with sweat.

Raymund considered them all, but his gaze eventually settled on the young woman Beatrice. Her blonde hair bounced around her face as she moved. He hadn’t made the connection before the tournament, but she had been coming to the island from the very beginning; she was one of the first drawn by the spirit of training here to improve herself. And even after achieving such fine results in the tournament, she came right back.

The hole inside of her heart was not one easily filled.

Of course,

few individuals regard the tournament’s ultimate fight as satisfying.

Raymund rubbed his chin.

The long and winding Path was demonstrated in front of them all, but is a difficult enough prospect just to accept, let alone pursue. Still, it is gratifying she has not been dissuaded.

The sun crept higher. Heat began to settle down across the island on its haunches. The joggers continued their dogged training as the strain on their bodies accumulated. Raymund stretched out his hands, cracked his knuckles, and then stood. His own daily training would start soon, perhaps one of the last normal routines for quite a while. A change was coming; the Ghosthound had announced that he would leave in two days and return to the Nexus.

For the Vulpis Squad, that meant they would need to be ready for deployment at any moment. They could theoretically be summoned to the battlefield almost immediately.

Yet before he could begin his daily Willpower honing, Raymund needed to address the group of people gathered at the front of his dwelling. They had approached last night with a request Raymund had expected for quite some time and he had told them to wait while he thought about it. None had moved through the night, simply standing at attention while he made his deliberations.

Alana Donal’s expression was peaceful, as she stood at the head of the small group. But the rest had their own resolve as well. Wivanya seemed to be taking a nap next to her rider, her massive body crushing several of the nearby trees. Allowaen, the chimera woman, burned with determination while also staying frozen with cool control. The horrific sharpness in her eyes spoke to how long she was willing to stay like this for the opportunity.

The ogre Wolfram’s massive frame seemed positively demure as he sat and conjured exotic magicks across his fingers. The young man Zack Krum was the one that Raymund was the most dubious about, yet even underneath the pressure of the island, he didn’t waver even for a moment.

Finishing out the small group, a slightly overweight man they called the Rat King sat with his legs folded beneath him. About a hundred rodents waited a short distance back from their king, their eyes glassy and empty.

Sighing, Raymund walked to the front of the dwelling where the group waited. He put his hands on his hips as he weighed each one with his eyes. “Do you know the peril in what you are asking?”

Those that had been waiting with their eyes closed now opened them to look at Raymund. None answered, but they all projected a spirit of confidence. They lifted their chins.

If anything, that just made Raymund more annoyed. “Before seeing any action, you’ll need to pass through basic training. The entire process was designed by Helen, the Ghosthound’s original knight, to break your spirit and grind your body down to dust. It scales with your Stats; the process is torturous and pointlessly prolonged. No matter how stable your foundation is, we will need to blow it to smithereens and excavate a new base.”

Still, only expectant silence greeted him.

So Raymund continued. “Even then, you might be deemed insufficient and not allowed into active duty of the prestigious Vulpis Squad. Perhaps even worse, most of the foes that we fight against will be vastly superior to us. We have developed cooperative images in order to survive- and let me assure you that each of you will not fit easily into our pre-made squads. Your images are all too unique. A single mistake will cost not only your own life but probably the lives of your companions. Can you handle that pressure?”

Silence.

Raymund clicked his tongue. “Well, we will see how long it takes you to break. On a very probationary basis… welcome to the Vulpis Squad, you six. You will regret it.”

*****

Jane stood with her arms folded behind her back against the elegantly paneled walls of the Rainor Estate. Johann Rainor sat sullenly in the leather chair in front of his father’s desk. Dmitri Rainor steepled his fingers, his expression even as he stared at his son. The tension crackled between the two of them, who had been silent for the two minutes since the meeting had started.

The only other individual in the whole of the mansion was probably Dmitri’s personal aide, Elle. Otherwise, they were alone in the lovely building. All that space allowed the barely concealed mistrust between father and son to grow explosively into a hulking abscess of tension. Jane truly wished she hadn’t come.

“It’s not my fault,” Johann eventually croaked out into the silence. The contextless sniveling made him seem even more inept than he usually did. He sniffed loudly and shook himself, somewhere between a shiver and a wet dog shedding foul-smelling water. “Do you think I don’t know how much that property will be worth in a few years? But the Ghosthound came to the office and strong-armed me-”

“I do not blame you, Yoh.” Dmitri’s expression remained neutral. “At least not for that. Your… contextual grasp of business still remains shortsighted. That makes me uneasy. But I did receive something in the mail today. For which I have you to thank.”

With that strange and slightly ominous phrase, Dmitri pushed a fat manila envelope across the desk. After one last shake, Johann picked up the envelope and pulled out the papers and documents included in it. They spread him out uneasily, like a first-time poker player trying to remember all the rules. Yet as he read, his eyes steadily widened. He licked his lips. “Father, I swear to you I never promised the Ghosthound anything else- this sort of thankless task-”

“Pass the documents to Jane,” Dmitri interrupted. Still nervous, Johann did so.

Jane wasn’t sure what to expect based on Johann’s reaction, but she

certainly

didn’t expect the envelope to contain a proposal to develop an Order especially made to arrange, oversee, and administer future tournaments in the Alpha Cosmos. According to the letter, written by Tatiana of Kharon herself, the Order Ducis didn’t intend to expand its membership enough to handle all the related activities. The Order Ducis would provide support and legitimacy to this new Order, but it would leave the details to this new, unnamed organization.

She blew out her cheeks as she considered the implications. Jane understood Johann’s concerns; what was suggested in the proposal was essentially a mountain of work. It was necessary but not very rewarding toil. There was already a proposed schedule for the tournaments, with smaller tournaments hosted on other planets every year, with the fifth year returning to Expira. The smaller competitions would function as qualifiers, cutting down the numbers in the main tournament immensely. It would keep everything focused and capture the attention of viewers much more efficiently than the marathon of a first tournament.

But such an Order would need a

lot

of money and connections to set up tournaments on alien worlds. Especially if the first one was supposed to happen in a little under a year.

Because, again, all the Order Ducis would provide was support and legitimacy. It was an ambiguous promise.

Jane lowered the documents, signaling she had finished reading. Based on the way Johann jumped to speaking, he had been squirming the entire time. “We won’t stand for this! You know I was really mulling it over, and the way the Ghosthound just waltzed in and behaved wasn’t appropriate! We need to bring a lawsuit against him. Even if we don’t get the land, the fact he demanded we sell this for no value, while defacing our office-”

“I have heard from multiple sources that you have renovated Ironwood Capital, creating a larger wall around this ‘defacement’. And the magic left by the Ghosthound has expanded to the entire side of the building, showing full, flowering blooms of illusory beauty,” Dmitri leaned back in his chair as he considered his son. “At this point, it has become a tourist attraction.”

“Well-” Johann blinked several times. He shrugged. “You taught me well, father. I made lemonade with lemons. Are you trying to blame me for that?”

Finally, the neutral expression on Dmitri’s face cracked. “You were given a diamond and now you flash it around- No, we will not have that talk right now. This is too important. Let me ask you a question: what do you know about the code of unified laws introduced last month by the Order Ducis? It is rumored they were produced at the personal request of the Ghosthound, considering the situation with Missy Carp.”

“Errr… well, they don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of being approved,” Johann replied. He clasped his hands in front of him. “So I haven’t really bothered to learn more than that.”

Dmitri glanced sideways at Jane. She nodded, understanding what he wanted. “Obviously, Zone 32 supported the proposal immediately, with many of the more liberal Bubble Cities wanting to ratify. However, Zone 7 very immediately also gave its support, with relatively minor change requests. They are sitting at the table, chomping at the bit to sign.”

Jane could see the wrench being thrown into the rough machinery of Johann’s brain. “Oh.”

“Oh indeed.” Dmitri nodded. “So tell me, son, why would the Zone that has been staunchly opposed to outside interference suddenly acquiesce to acknowledging a universal set of laws?”

Suddenly, Johann’s eyes brightened. “Benefits of some kind.”

“Benefits indeed. I had my team go through the entire unified code of laws agreement. Then I read it myself, just to get a feel for the language. Luckily, it is not an obtuse document; the Order Ducis arranged a very readable and logical code of laws. The only controversial part is the text regarding increased penalties for powerful Classers. However, both I and the team noted a small passage near the beginning.” Dmitri leaned forward. “Only those sovereign powers that agree to the code of laws will be allowed to enter the All Alpha Cosmos sponsored tournaments.”

“And if we control that Order, we can use that leverage to gather-” Johann was practically drooling, right up until the point his father slammed his fist down on his desk.

“Damnit, Yoh. Can’t you see? This is not our chance to antagonize other forces, but to become invaluable to them. Going back through the information offered by the Ghosthound about the tournament, you can find several oblique references to the special way that the top 8 were rewarded. And suddenly the Zones with fighters in the top 8 are meekly agreeing? The reward is more than it seems.

“And while the effort to accomplish this task is enormous, this will finally give the Rainor Family the chance to establish a foundation.” Dmitri suddenly seemed exhausted. “Which we desperately need. Offering up this opportunity is a favor from the Ghosthound, not bullying. You should be thanking him.”

Johann nodded and lowered his head. Jane could see that the young man didn’t understand; already his wheels were turning to find how he could use this to his advantage. Jane could see Dmitri observing his foolish son too, and seeing the same pattern of destructive behavior.

Dmitri seemed so old and exhausted, knowing nothing he said could penetrate his son’s brain. But what could he do? He was his only son.

Jane’s hands tightened into fists. What could she do? She was just a foolish young man’s business manager.