Pulling her arm free from his ruptured chest, Gaia shot both of her solar amplified hands through his abdomen to accomplish what she had promised: smash his core like overripe terano fruit. Hands in place, she flooded the flow of her meridians out her palms and started the reverberation process his core would not survive. In two micros its crystalized external layer had shattered like a freshly laid egg under an iron-shod boot to reveal the functional heart of the core meridians beneath—

  The surge of energy from Huitzuilopochtli’s exposed core blasted Gaia’s limp from across the room and back into the Sol Throne. Her dazed body tumbled three meters further having toppled the massive chair on impact. She finally came to rest sitting with her back against a cracked column, legs spread out in a wide ‘V’ infront of her. Over the riding in her ears she could barely hear Machitis shouting orders. After several micros of healing her avatar’s nervous system registered more than a cloudy haze and she was able to stand while holding onto Machitis’ supportive right arm. Several micros after that and she finally realized that her enforcer had asked her the same question two or three times, desperately wanting an answer.

  “…I said Mother, Are you all right?!?” Her towering friend was calling into her face.

  Still glassy eyed, Gaia nodded her head woodenly. “…I …I think so…I don’t think … I don’t think that I touched it…” Still in obvious reeling shock, she turned her head stiffly to look at the bloody gore covering her hands. Unacknowledged tears streamed down her face, joyous that there wasn’t any of the unknown contaminant she desperately feared.

  Laser focused on her hands as well, Machitis’ tone was driving, “Touched? Touched what, Mother? Touched what!?!”

  “…I …I’m not sure…It was… It was pure death…” Gaia looked up at Machitis still wide eyed as if what she said explained everything. “ it…it linked his core to some outside source…it wanted me… I could feel it…It wanted us…all of us…It wants to devour all of us!” Gaia was yelling almost hysterically at the end.

  Machitis seemed to have no answer for her last words. He continued to look down on her with concern. This grew as he noticed that her hands and legs were shaking with shock or fear or both. Gaia saw this was happening as well, but she couldn’t control her nervous reactions any more than she could stop her involuntary recoil from Huitzuilopochtli’s healed presence five micros later when he threw the three guards off of himself and smiled a mouth full of sharped toothed malice at her.

  “…He told me that you wouldn’t be able to do anything but quake in fear when you felt how strong we had become. I hadn’t believed him…” Then as if in test, he stretched out a hand toward Gaia. She violently pulled back in terror as if without mental control over her own movements. “…It’s true!” The leopard crowed in pride at his apparent feat. “House Olympia will fall—erk!”

  With no gap in time, Machitis’ large armored form had appeared between his Mother and the Aztec, the quad prongs of his spear’s business end dead center on the leopard’s blood stained snout. Far too late to have stopped the Enforcer, Huitzuilopochtli braided a life, force, fire, and mind Aura shield snapping into place around himself most un-instantly.

  Through a horse whisper the Aztec repeated his last interrupted words. “House Olympia will fall. Your spear causing my death will not change that, Crush Dweller.” Huitzuilopochtli hissed, calling out Machitis by his little known race. “House Olympia will fall and it will start with your forfeit of these games. As you are two players short of a full team, your House cannot even take the field. You will be disqualified before it begins.”

  “The Games?!” Machitis’ repeated in disbelieving surprise at the Aztecs ridiculous focus. “The Games of the Ligat are a propaganda stunt to please a disinterested populace. Win or lose, Mother will draw the Star Children’s attention to what matters: You! And whatever foul power lies within you.”

  The prongs on Machitis’ spear glowed cherry red and he began spinning it at approximately the rate of a pulsar. Worry entered the Leopard’s eyes with Machitis’ next words, “… I believe I’m going to kick everything off by testing my luck against what laid my Mother low. Let’s just see what drilling several holes in your head—”

  “Hold your spear warrior.” A voice that the Gaia would recognize anywhere, spoke out following the subdued wet ripping sound of a portal of the Way opening in the room accompanied by the glow of the rich blue fibers of Reality.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Machitis lowered his weapon to a lower on-guard position as Zenyak’s consciousness Clone stepped through the tear in time and space with his own myriad hues of azure brilliance flowing from his Ka kernel’s UV shielding.

  Glancing at Gaia’s trembling form the Clone moved right on to business, “Gaia, we must speak.” Without looking at the Aztec, he held the palm of his hand up at Huitzuilopochtli, “Begone.” And the troublesome pup disappeared with a small pop.

  The Clone extended the same palm he had just dispatched Huitzuiliopochtili with to Gaia. An enveloping blue/white light surrounded her and her trembling ceased immediately. “You were poisoned by the greatest concentration of death the Iterations have ever know. I can teach you and your Enforcer how to shield yourself from it in the future. You are going to need it.”

  Healing and meridian flow fully returned, Gaia immediately regained her feet giving reassuring squeezes to the hands of her guards who had been supporting her. With her returned focus, the things he had been saying also started to click into place. A myriad of questions started to bloom like wildflowers after a dessert rain. She voiced her concerns. “The greatest concentration of death…” She trailed off not wanting to say the rest.

  “Yes. Zelviz’s aura. You are correct.”

  “But how!?!” Gaia starred wide eyed as the Clone’s admission proved her greatest fears correct.

  There is a tale to tell. However, it’s not my story to share. As I am the last living spirit being capable of telling it, I will have to in the full measure of events… But before I do, I must speak with an old friend.”

  Gaia blinked at the Clone’s nimble sidestepping while at the same time simultaneously revealing that the greatest threat the multiverse had ever faced was present and accounted for on her neo zoi!

  “Ok…We’ll put a pin in that one for now…” She rolled her eyes at the impossible situation. “How about you explain to me why we didn’t erase that sleaze ball who just ate two of my children?” Her voice cracked at the freshness of the cruel end her two junior Titan daughters had endured.

  “That is part of the story not yet ready to be told. But understand, that for now, the Ligate must continue and Huitzuiliopochtili must also continue to play his part.”

  “Ok…another pin.” Gaya’s tone grated with frustration. “…But as hard as it is to admit, he was right. The Games start in twelve gyra, We cannot replace the two we lost before the games begin.” Gaia blushed with her next admission “My direct descendants have not been gentle with each other and I don’t have two more in this timeline…”

  I can offer you replacements for your fallen Ligat members. Are you interested?”

  The Clone’s proposition was as entirely unexpected as his arrival, but in the end Gaia had to admit that it wasn’t even the most surprising thing she had heard in the last thirty micros. She found herself nodding.

  *****

  She and Machitis wound their way through the garden paths back to her gynaeceum. Stepping through the pair of guards standing at its main entrance Gaia noted that neither of them had been present during the incident with the Aztecs. Still she couldn’t help but suspect that their looks lingered on her looking for any weakness or injury that could have explained the rumors of her falling to the Huitzuiliopochtili. She couldn’t blame them. News spread fast. Especially news of leaders having trouble.

  Machitis waved a hand, and a rectangular portal opened through the structure’s encapsulating isolation wards. Gaia stepped through and Machitis spoke a series of orders to the guards, then followed his Mother up three more broad, low profile, marble steps into the open, airy layout of Gaia’s main living space. With another subtle gesture, the Enforcer restored the fields that granted shielding from bombardment along with preventing the scrutiny of gawking onlookers and the more calculated spying of those with the skills and means to do it. Once the barrier was restored he took an at-ease, broad-based stance over the alabaster tiles. A clear signal that Gaia could now be at ease as well. At least until he spoke, “Mother, the match is beginning.”

  Machitis activated the holographic interface housed under the empty space of her receiving chamber. A miniature three dimensional image of the Tafl pitch rose out of the floor before her throne. She extended a finger and the visual interface grew to 10 meters. She could clearly see the four challenging teams in this first round. The gold crowed individuals with at least two beings sporting multiple upper appendages was definitely the Hindi positioned to the west. Unfriendly, her mind registered.

  The next group with two male and two female members, all four wearing various forms of large nature based head-dresses, showed Gaia that the Aztecs were idling on the pitch’s south border. Servants to my enemy.

  On the east side, four large humanoids, all bearded, with two of the four bearing feathered wings. All wearing helmets adorned with various numbers of animalistic horns indicated the Sumarians. Classically unfriendly, but still neutral in most things.

  The last group, lithe humanoid figures sporting the living heads of various animals let Gaia know that the House of Ra was to the north. Possible ally.

  “No real friends here. Machitis… Please request that Ra join us here for this event. Perhaps a door can be opened to strengthen our relationship. Who knows?” She shrugged her shoulders in the unknowing of it all

  “Yes, Mother.” Machitis nodded to a runner and the message was sent.

  Gaia accepted a stemmed goblet from an offering servant's tray of refreshment and took a sip. She then raised a jaundiced eye to Machitis. “When– If we win… I will see to the rest of the line of supplicants outside and take their oath pledges. She flicked her index and thumb apart. The holo display zoomed into the center of the Tafl field and she saw the two human members of her Ligat team.

  Senyak was standing even footed, staring straight ahead. From the transfers of Aura around him it was clear the cultivator was listening to all sounds and trying to perceive any disturbances in the air with the exposed skin on his arms, legs, and face.

  Joshua was looking around anxiously. His pinched face indicated that he was about to curse the heavens or was trying to maintain control of his bowels. Maybe both?

  ...Yep, that’s about what I expected. They are as ready as they are going to be.

  As if her thoughts had been sent directly to the Fates, Mark Buffer’s voice called out from the display in all of its compelling strength.

  “LET THE GAMES BEEEEEGIIIINNNNNNN!!”