Tournament of Heroes

5. WINTER-1

Nyle Maxwell, better known as the Hero Winter, one of the most famous players in all of Capes Online, certainly didn’t expect to find himself picking a fight with a teenager as soon as he stepped through the portal to the Castle. And he definitely didn’t expect to find himself losing that fight, either.

The day had started out weird enough already. After defeating Paradox and freeing its players from Paradox’s forced log-in, Winter had planned to get married to his girlfriend, Sally, and spend the rest of his life in the virtual reality that was now his new reality. With his Sidekick, Cyclone, by his side, Winter had looked forward to building the life in-game that had been stolen from him in the real world by that fateful car crash.

Which was why he had been blindsided by the arrival of the mysterious alien, Sigil, who invited him to some sort of ‘Tournament of Heroes’ hosted by some guy calling himself the ‘King of the Multiverse.’

Naturally, Winter had rejected the offer right away. Winter felt like he had had enough adventure for now. True, the life of a Capes Online Hero meant he’d always be going on missions and putting his life at risk, but the idea of entering some kind of ‘Tournament of Heroes’ was too much for him. Even Sigil’s offer of waiting a week to go was unappealing to him.

But what Sigil hadn’t told Winter was that the invitation was not actually an invitation. It was an order. Straight from the mouth of ‘King Aeno,’ the self-proclaimed King of the Multiverse, himself.

Although Winter never considered himself a monarchist, he now understood why his ancestors had thrown tea into the ocean and revolted against a king hundreds of years ago. It seemed like no matter where you went, monarchs couldn’t handle being told ‘no.’

Now Winter found himself standing in the courtyard of the strangest castle he’d ever seen. The castle towered over him, looking like a mishmash of an ancient medieval castle, a modern skyscraper, and wooden blocks, of all things. It looked almost like something that a child would make. A large glass dome peeked out between two towers on the west side of the castle. The courtyard was wide enough, with walls made of wooden blocks and green grass that smelled vaguely of fruit loops, of all things. A small patch of red flowers stood a couple of feet away.

The sky was weird, too. There was no visible sun, yet it was as bright as daytime. The sky was a strange purple color, with black streaks in it. The texture reminded Winter of something that a classmate of his had described to him in high school. Said classmate had also been high on drugs at the time, which made this all the more puzzling to Winter, who never did drugs as a rule, not even alcohol.

Cyclone, Winter’s Sidekick, on the other hand, was bouncing around and looking around at the castle and courtyard like he was in a playground.

“Oh, wow!” said Cyclone, flying around Winter’s head like an insect. “This place is so cool! Purple sky, cool castle, and grass that smells like fruit loops!”

Winter shook his head. “’Cool’ is the last word I’d use to describe this place. Weird, yes. Cool, no.”

Cyclone landed beside Winter and held up a red flower. “Look at this flower, boss! It’s so pretty.’

Winter looked at the ‘flower’ Cyclone had found. It had petals that resembled cat heads, staring up at Winter and Cyclone with unblinking eyes.

That is until one of the petals ‘blinked’ and the others started meowing like actual cats, causing Cyclone to immediately drop it on the ground with a loud, “Ah!”

Winter didn’t even hesitate to stomp the unnatural flower into the ground. Winter liked cats well enough, but not enough to spare what was clearly an unnatural abomination that needed to be destroyed.

“Okay, maybe you have a point, boss,” said Cyclone, looking around uneasily. “This place is kind of weird.”

“And there’s no one around, either,” said Winter, stroking his chin. “Sigil did say that the was the castle of the ‘King of the Multiverse,’ but this has to be some kind of DLC the developers added onto Capes Online. Weird time to launch a new DLC area, but maybe they’ve been working on it for a while.”

“I’m not sure,” said Cyclone, picking earwax out of his ear. “Can you contact anyone from the League?”

Winter paused and opened his character sheet, allowing him to see the small 3D model of himself. He toggled over to the Winter League page, clicked the name of his brother Busker Burn, and tried to send him a message, but the message button was grayed out. “No good. Can’t send anyone messages.”

“Yay!” said Cyclone, clapping his hands together suddenly. “That means we can be the first to explore this new part of the world together! What a rare opportunity for a player. Most players usually don’t get access to new areas of the world until the developers open it up. I bet we were picked to test a new part of the world and this whole Tournament of Heroes thing is just part of that.”

“Maybe,” said Winter, “but it doesn’t add up. I’d think the developers would have contacted us if they were going to have us beta test a new part of the—”

Winter was interrupted by a laser blast striking him in the back. The blast knocked Winter off his feet and he landed on top of the cat flowerbed before him, causing the flowers to meow loudly when he crashed on top of them. His head spinning, Winter shook his head and glanced at his Health bar, which had dropped a solid 30% from that one hit alone.

“Boss!” said Cyclone in surprise, only for him to get blasted in the chest and sent flying from the impact. He landed on his head on the other side of the courtyard and lay very still, causing this notification to appear before Winter:

[Sidekick Cyclone] is Unconscious! Duration: 5 minutes.

Who is attacking us? Winter thought as he jumped back to his feet and turned around. A new DLC enemy?

He turned around just in time to see another laser coming his way. Winter thrust his hands forward and summoned Ice Barrier, forming an ice shield in front of him that took the brunt of the blast. Even so, the laser blast made the ice shield explode, sending chunks of ice flying everywhere, though Winter finally got a chance to see his attacker.

Standing on the other side of the courtyard was someone who looked like a Hero, though not one Winter had seen before. He was slightly shorter than Winter by about a head or two and wore a green-and-yellow bodysuit that clung to his body like a second skin. The Hero wore a protective helmet on his head, his eyes hid behind a glowing red visor. Above his head, the nametag [SIDEKICK BEAMS] hovered faintly.

“A Sidekick …?” Winter said. He Scanned Beams, only to get this error message:

ERROR. No Scan data is associated with this character.

That was bad. The only times Scan failed Winter was when he was dealing with an enemy who shouldn’t exist in Capes Online. And this Beams character, apparently, was one such character who either didn’t exist in the game’s code or wasn’t supposed to.

This meant that Winter had only one option: Eliminate this guy before he got eliminated.

Winter fired an Ice Beam at Beams, but Beams jumped high into the air—much higher than someone like him should have been able to—and landed behind Winter and kicked him in the back. The impact of the blow sent Winter staggering forward, but he whirled around and summoned his Ice Daggers just in time to block another laser beam from Beams, who had apparently fired them from his eyes.

“Ice Daggers, huh?” said Beams in an oddly young-sounding voice. “You’ve learned a few new tricks since I last saw you, Fro-Zen.”

“Fro-Zen?” said Winter, lowering his Ice Daggers in confusion. “Do you mean Frostbite? I know he’s my clone, but—”

“Don’t try to play dumb with me,” Beams snapped, pointing an accusing finger at Winter. “I’m not sure how you’re still alive, but I always suspected you survived my lasers. Just didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Kid, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” said Winter, shaking his head. “Where’s your Hero? Are you like Cy and can exist independently of your—”

Beams fired another laser blast at Winter, which struck him in the chest and sent him flying. Winter hit the ground and rolled for a couple of seconds before coming to a stop, dazed from the blow. A glance at his Health bar showed him that he had lost nearly 50% of his Health now, which annoyed him greatly.

Time to get serious, Winter thought.

Rising to his feet, Winter hurled both of his Ice Daggers at Beams. Beams blasted them out of the air, but Winter activated Freezing Touch and slammed his foot against the ground. Ice exploded from his foot and rushed across the ground toward Beams. Before Beams could dodge, the ice struck his feet and frozen his feet to the ground. It didn’t stop at his feet, however. It went up to his legs and then his waist, leaving him completely unable to move.

Sensing his chance, Winter activated Flight and shot toward Beams. Landing behind Beams, he twisted Beams’ arms behind his back hard enough to make Beams cry out in pain.

“Okay, kid,” said Winter, increasing the pressure on Beams’ arms just enough to hurt him but not enough to break his arms, “I have no idea who ‘Fro-Zen’ is or why you think I’m him, but I’m extremely pissed off at the moment and am not above hurting a kid like you if you keep trying to murder me.”

“You don’t scare me,” said Beams in a strained voice, “I killed you once already. I can do it again.”

Winter smirked. “I seem to have you pretty well controlled, kid. Promise not to kill me and I’ll happily let you go.”

Beams, however, shook his head. “No.”

Without warning, the ice around Beams’ feet shattered and he suddenly went flying into the sky thanks to what looked like rocket boots on his feet. This caused Winter to let go of him and stare in disbelief as Beams flew into the sky.

“Oh, cool!” said Cyclone, appearing next to Winter out of nowhere. He pointed at the flying Beams. “He can shoot lasers from his eyes and fly? Man, Shooters get all the cool toys!”

“Where were—oh, never mind,” said Winter, shaking his head. “Look, we need to stop this kid now. He’s trying to kill us.”

Cyclone saluted Winter. “Don’t worry, boss! I got this covered. Observe.”

Cyclone flew into the air like a wasp. Beams tried to shoot him, but Cyclone’s superior mobility allowed him to avoid Beams’ lasers easily. He tackled Beams in the stomach and the two crashed back onto the ground hard enough to send dust into the air. Cyclone immediately pulled his Kunai out of his inventory and held it against Beams’ neck, causing Beams to freeze underneath him.

“Okay, kid,” said Cyclone in a serious voice that didn’t really work on him. “Take one more step and you’re gonna be tasting your own blood. I bet it tastes really bad.”