Infinity Legends

Chapter 11: Blurry Lines

“You’re finally old enough to drink,” Dana nodded at Barry. “First one’s on the house.”

“Thanks, but I don’t drink,” Barry said, sitting on a stool by the counter. “Just in general.”

“Eh, not surprised. You were never very fun,” Dana poured herself another shot of whiskey and turned to Luca. “How ‘bout you, Blondy?”

“Pass,” Luca leaned against the counter, his leather jacket and shoulder length hair fitting quite well with the rowdy joint. “I’m driving.”

“You two really gonna make a lady drink by herself?” Dana asked and immediately downed her dose.

“I wasn’t aware a lady would be joining us,” Barry snarked.

“Ya’know I have a shotgun behind this counter, right?”

“Said every lady ever,” Barry smirked, than nodded towards Luca. “Dana, this is Luca. He has convinced me to return to FSL.”

“Nicely done, Blondy,” Dana pushed herself to sit over the counter between the two men, never letting go of her cup. “When you stop being a p***y about DUI’s lemme know and I’ll buy you a round. So, what’s the plan?” she turned to Barry. “Want me to talk to Richard about bringing you back? I would love getting rid of Andrew Laserburn… Man, what an asshole!”

“No,” Barry said sharply. Dana raised a thin eyebrow in silent questioning, while Luca frowned. Apparently even Luca had been under the impression Barry was coming to take his old seat back, which he was not. “I am not going to bow my head, put my tail between my legs and beg for another chance.”

“So… What the hell are you here for?” Dana asked.

“Yeah, I’m not clear on that either,” Luca spoke from behind her.

“You were the only one who stood by me that day,” Barry stared deep into Dana’s dark eyes. “You are the only one I still hold to any regard. I want you on my new team.”

Luca could not help but smile at that, a jolt of electrical excitement overtaking his body. If deciding to get back on the game was a development, the decision of starting his own team from the ground up was nothing short of a miracle. Apparently, the coach had really gotten through to Barry!

Dana, on the other hand, had not looked as thrilled and instead simply slid down from the counter and started pacing around the bar. She did not have the friendliest demeanor, but she looked even less accessible when she was deep in thought.

“Kid, you know I’d love to…” she started.

“But you have a contract,” Barry completed. “Can’t we find a way around it? There must be something…”

“Afraid not…” Dana shook her head.

“Hold on,” Luca took backed away from the bar. “We drove all the way out here for a ‘no’ you already knew you’d get?”

“Not exactly…”

“Your system!” Dana understood. “You want it back.”

“What system?” Luca asked.

“Back in the day I developed a system to dictate a team’s overall effectiveness on a FSL match,” Barry said plainly as day. “A software that weighs the strengths and weaknesses of all characters and returns a score that can be used to compare their readiness against another team. It also allows us to see where a team’s stronger and where it needs developing: Damage, Tanking, Healing, Tech, Spawning…”

“If I give you that, the others’ll hang me for treason,” Dana said.

“It is my system!” Barry retorted. “You can keep a copy, I just need…”

“Chill! Jeez!” Dana grunted. “I said they’d hang me, not that I wouldn’t help. s**t, I even like some rope action from time to time. I’ll get it in a pen-drive for’ya tomorrow.”

“It’s not here?” Barry glanced towards the small door leading to the back room. Being their old HQ, that small room was where they kept the computer in which he had installed the system.

“We don’t train here anymore,” Dana rolled her eyes. “Too moldy for Mr. Laserburn, apparently. I hate that guy.”

“So, we’re staying the night?” Luca asked. “In that case I’ll take you up on that offer, Dana. Hit me with the good stuff!”

“Ha!” Dana laughed, then ran to the bar and leaped over the counter like a trained parkour artist. As soon as her feet touched the ground on the other side, she had a scotch bottle in one hand and a cup in the other. “Knew we’d get along, Blondy,” she said as she served the man with a flourish, then turned to Barry: “Sure you’re not joining us?”

“Sure,” Barry grunted. “By the way, is your dad okay with you burning through the bar’s stock like this? Knowing the guy…”

“I’m the boss now, kiddo!” Dana spread her arms as if hugging the whole bar. “Dad’s in a better place, so I do whatever the f**k I wanna!”

“Oh…” Barry gagged and raised a hand to cover his mouth. “I’m so sorry to hear… If I’d known…”

“He’s not dead, dumbass,” laughing, Dana flicked Barry’s ear from across the counter. “His better place is Miami. Up and retired one day, left the kingdom to yours truly.”

“All hail queen Dana of Crooked Goose, first of her name!” Luca raised his cup for another toast.

Dana met him halfway. She downed her whole drink, while Luca merely took a sip. Once she was done shaking the liquor punch away, Dana slammed the cup onto the counter and nodded to a black-and-white portrait of an elderly woman hanging from the wall: “Second of her name. Nana was called Dana too. She opened this joint!”

“So, it’s a dynasty!” Barry stared at the framed picture. The woman was much older, her hair longer than Dana’s, and she obviously did not sport Dana’s half dozen earrings or tribal tattoos. Still, the resemblance was striking!

“And, since I am a benevolent queen, I will give my supplicants even more than they came begging for.”

“I don’t recall begging, but do go on.”

“I know you came here looking for a tank…” Dana stabbed a thumb onto her own chest.

“Hollup!” a slightly inebriated Luca spoke. “You’re a tank?”

“Don’t look tough enough for’ya, Blondy,” Dana crossed her arms, and Luca simply hid behind his cup as he took another sip. Dana smiled, pleased by the results, then returned to Barry. “I can’t be your tank, but I can give you a damn good healer!”

“Healer?” Barry raised an eyebrow. “I’m listening.”

“You brought your rigs?”

“Yeah, we both did,” Barry nodded. “They’re in the car.”

“Well, then, go fetch’em! You’re about to have your minds blown!”

***

“Know what in the galaxy your friend wants to show us?” Takol asked Kramen as he flew the Infinity past the stormy clouds of Amocci. That planet was considerably far away from where they had last logged out at, but Dana had insisted they met there. Luca had protested, given how Takol had promised Serry, the ice-mage, that he would lead her to the mining drill beneath Silver Creek, but Dana was relentless on getting them there, even if she remained absurdly cryptic about it.

“No idea,” Kramen replied, looking out the cockpit’s window to see the gloomy forest surface of Amocci. “All I know about this world is that it houses the Temple of Light.”

“Pretty dark place to the Temple of light.”

“It’s part of it. What do you know about dark-matter?”

“Not much…” Takol nodded to his rifle, resting behind his chair. “Mage powers are fun and flashy, but I got all I need behind that trigger.”

“Dark-matter can absorb the properties the world around it,” Kramen said. “A ship filled with dark-matter was hit by a storm here, years ago, and crashed on the mountains ahead. The dark-matter, however, captured the power of the lightning that struck the ship, and the shipwreck became the eye of an endless storm. There! See those birds?” Kramen pointed a flock of dark fliers that transferred electricity to one another. “Thunder Flocks! They feed on the electric discharges. Life here evolved around the perpetual storm.”

“Lovely. And that relates to the Temple of Light… how?”

“See for yourself,” Kramen pointed to a mountain range as they flew by, indicating a huge metallic structure with bright slick towers reaching for the sky like silver fingers, and the sky reached back. The heavy clouds bombarded the ground around the building with thunder, and the Temple of Light retributed by shooting its own pulses of energy back into the sky. An infinite exchange of blinding bolts from the metallic systems to heavens above. Kramen smiled at the sight. “That’s where the ship crashed. The dark-matter, bending the rules of space-time, make it so that lighting hits the same spot again and again.”

“Amazing,” Takol blubbered. “Can’t believe I never came here before.”

“Few people do. This is the training site of Lightning Mages and Storm Ninjas, not many quests for anyone else.”

“I didn’t know those classes could heal,” Takol scratched his long scaly chin.

“As far as I’m concerned, they cannot.”

“So why did Dana bring us here?” Takol asked.

As Kramen looked out of the window, he saw the massive wet frame of Arlak, Dana’s gigantic, hairy, fanged avatar, standing by the Temple of Light’s landing platform.

“Well, I suppose we are about to find out.”

***

If it weren’t muffled by the constant thunder clashes against the temple towers, the Infinity’s landing would have awakened every animal in a million miles. The ships belly crashed against the shiny landing pad, sparks flying as a deafening screech reverberated until the ship came to a halt. Sideways. The crooked landing ramp dropped onto the ground a second later, and a pale Kramen Blacksky stumbled out, followed by the reptilian pilot, who stopped to check the apparent damage to his ride’s hull.

Mostly the paintjob. Blue flames were out of fashion anyways.

“Kramen Blacksky!” Arlak opened his arms and looked to the thundering heavens. “Feeling at home?”

“More than you know, old friend!”

Arlak turned his attention to the reptile inspecting the products of his own rough landing. “Blondy? That you? You really shouldn’t have drunk. Pretty sure you parked over the line there.”

Takol didn’t answer, simply approaching with wide eyes as he ran his fingers over Dana’s transformed being. It was her eyes in the monster, alright, but that was as far as the similarities went with the short, not very bulky—although toned—barkeeper.

“Arlak, Takol. Takol, Arlak,” Kramen introduced each other. The hairy alien nodded at the scaly alien, who was still gawking. “So, that healer you mentioned?”

“She’ll meet us at the Trial Spire,” Arlak said, waving his companions to follow him into the Temple. “This is gonna be fun!”