Aetuornos Beta 3b-2

 First / Previous / Next / Latest

---

3b-2: Firebrand's Foray

"It's a battle of wits and wills. Manual dexterity too, sure, but that's mostly practice. Once you get good—so good there's no barrier between what you want to do and what you fighter does—it's your avatar versus theirs. Outthink, outplay." He tapped his forehead with an index finger. "The thrill of victory! The cheering of the crowds! The rush of being just two or three pixels of health away from dying! No risk of actually dying," he added quickly. "It's a sport perfect for people of my, uh, physique, too." And then, finally, with a big grin: "Yeah, the prize money doesn't hurt, either."

Blake was fully aware that it was a very slow news day, for them to be covering some nerdy fighting game competition. He didn't particularly care. Being famous wasn't his goal, but hamming it up for the camera was a lot of fun. Miraculously, someone in charge actually liked his somewhat theatric response to a simple question about why he liked these games enough to make more-or-less a career out of competing in tournaments, resulting in maybe dozens of eyes watching that performance from an overweight, bunny-eared nerd. But perhaps one or two of those people would be his future competitors in few years..that'd be nice.

One thing he hadn't mentioned, figuring maybe it went without saying: The ridiculous, fantastical worlds the fighters took place in were a lot of fun. Sure, he was a Rabbit who'd lived outside the veil his entire life, but they still didn't live in a world where a girl who looked like she was twelve years old had an entire army of squeaky-talking, lego-looking robots under her command, or a maid attacked people with brooms and vacuum cleaners, or literally little red riding hood herself beat people up with a purse. It was probably a good thing the real world wasn't like that, but it was fun to be transported into a world so ridiculous and see all those crazy animations play out.

When it came to the reasons people tended to enjoy video games, Blake mainly liked just three things: Real competition-slash-cooperation with other people, raw challenge, and...aesthetics. Okay, he liked the cute girls—he was a dude in his early twenties, so sue him! The point is, not a lot besides fighting games tended to interest him. But, when the consolation prize for second place after he lost a very hard-fought match against a worthy opponent was beta access to the universe's first real, true, full-immersion-tech virtual reality game, he couldn't very well say no! The more he heard about how it all worked, the more excited he got. The game was going to be so freeform and his own player character so customizable that he could basically make the experience exactly what he wanted it to be.

The goal for Blake was simple. His whole life, he'd played as all manner of ridiculous characters with loud personalities—mostly cute girls—and flashy powers and attacks. This time, he'd live out that fantasy as for real as he possibly could: No screen in the way, but his own physical form's lack of physical fitness not getting in the way either. For this, he selected an entire persona to embody from the ground up, kitting out his stats like a DND minmaxer.

A strength-based fire mage, with plenty of agility—firework-like punches and kicks! A voluntary no-weapon, no-armor penalty in exchange for access to unarmed fighter skills. Last-second dodges, fast combos! And loose clothes rather than armor, so nothing would get in the way. A ferocious wolf-person for flair, plus the extra bonuses to strength, balance, and reflexes. And then, of course, a name to reflect this character's bombastic personality: Blaze!

He was very excited for the game's release, and the opportunity to finally embody this person he'd envisioned and meticulously set up. It was a shame he was out of town winning another competition for those first few days, but at least they'd released some new content by the time he was back home and ready to play. Wednesday evening, he finally lay himself down in the weird little pod and mashed go, already feeling pumped for what was going to come.

Blake had been browsing the beta forums off and on since the game's initial release, so he had a pretty good idea of what to expect when things started: His body seeming to fall away out of the real world and into a blank sort of sky, where it would be reshaped into the form he'd chosen. There was still a little bit of reflexive shock and flailing around from the sensation, but he got over it quick. And—the change was already starting, he noticed, with a feeling of tingling rolling across his ears.

The tingling gave way to a pushing, downward and inward, compressing his familiar tall black rabbit ears into a shorter, wider, spikier canine shape. At the same time, his tail suddenly stretched itself out, growing longer and thicker until it was a huge mass of fluffy fur nearly the length of an arm behind him. He turned around, brushing a hand across it. "Haha, wow." All the predatory beastfolk, and plenty of demons too, had super-long tails; he always thought they looked kind of inconvenient for everyday life. But this wasn't going to be any everyday life for him.

After fixing which animal-hybrid he was, the change moved on to pushing Blake's entire body inward: A sharp yet pleasing, almost massage-like pressure causing him to rapidly shrink smaller and shorter in nearly every way. "Who~oa~ah..!" His clothes quickly tented around him, especially his shirt as this shrinking seemed strongest on his belly, flattening it out in a matter of seconds. "Aa~aah..!" At the same time, his voice cracked and squeaked a couple of times as it quickly changed, by the end paradoxically sounding deeper, yet no longer the slightest bit male. After all—just like all of Blake's other favorite characters to play as, Blaze was a girl.

"Mnnh—rrfh!" a high, cute bark came out as he shivered, feeling his skin erupt into tingling and his hair suddenly burst out into a long, wild mane falling nearly down to his hips in the back. Already his very loose clothes were starting to pull closer again, even though he still wasn't quite done shrinking. His flab was all gone by now, leaving his midsection flat and his arms and legs slim, but this last bit of pressure shrank his frame into a particularly slender shape, with narrow shoulders and a soft, round, cute face.

When the tingling hit him between the legs, it didn't stop—even as it faded from everywhere else. Instead it grew steadily stronger, as Blake's pants slid off of his hips and broke apart in the middle, turning into a pair of long stockings, and his underwear lost most of its leggings and pulled quickly tighter about his hips and, of course, down there too. "Maan, aa~aah...mrr~rfh..!" His cheeks felt the warmth of a blush as the tingling progressed into the slipping, tugging feeling of his manhood giving way. It felt strangely good, he thought, squirming his legs against each other as it swiftly melted away.

"Oo~ooh..." Blake's deep, womanly alto came out in a soft cry as she felt a burst of exciting, fuzzy feelings down there—even as her lowerwear pulled snug and flat between her legs. Her t-shirt was actually getting a little overzealous with the shrinking at this point, as its hem yanked itself halfway up her midriff. Exposing more skin was fine with her, really, but it shouldn't disappear entirely! At the same time, she could feel her hips and thighs gently plumping out, followed by a rush of tingles across her chest. "Mm~nnh..rrfh!" A low hum gave way to one more high bark as the wolf-girl's chest burst forward, taking only a couple of seconds to go from flat to—well, some still kind of small but undeniably present breasts, filling out her small, slender form nicely.

"H-heheh..!" Blaze patted her body down with a satisfied grin, letting a cute giggle emerge from her lips. This was perfect! She then noticed the ground had appeared at some point below her, and with a small shrug, she tilted around so that her arms were below her in a full-on downward dive. She wasn't falling at the kind of speed that normal gravity would've provided, and anyway it wasn't like anything in the game could really hurt her, so this just looked like fun! After a moment, she landed on her hands, did a neat, easy front flip to land on her feet. Putting one hand on her hip and feeling her tail wag happily behind her, she lifted the other one in an open, palm-up position, and effortlessly summoned a flame hovering above it. She hadn't seen it happen, but her eyes were now much the same color as that bright orange light.

"Yeah, this'll do nicely," she said, closing her fist to dismiss the flame. Looking around, it seemed she was in a forest. That wasn't a very good place to find people, and—since her character was supposed to be a hero anyway—it wasn't really somewhere she felt appropriate to properly let loose, either. So she just picked a random direction and took off at a run, which soon enough turned into a rather effortless sprint.

After a couple of minutes, Blaze 'felt' something ahead of her and to the right, and quickly jumped away from it, twisting in midair to land facing it. She felt not the least bit sore or winded! Was this what it was like to be fit in real life, too? Questions like that would probably have to wait until, at least, after she'd exterminated the monster that had interrupted her run.

It was roughly the shape of a deer, maybe a little larger in size, and did have hooves, but it had short and spiky horns rather than antlers, sharp teeth in a shorter muzzle, and—most strikingly—was covered in reddish-brown scales rather than fur. Now that she was standing across from it in a 'ready' stance, the creature reared itself up and kicked its feet in the air like a horse, its mouth making a hostile hissing noise.

"Yeah? Come on then, if you're so tough!" Blaze taunted, making a 'come get some' gesture with her right hand. The lizard-deer immediately charged at her, and she ducked aside, wreathing that same hand in flame as she punched into the thing's side, knocking it over into a forward-sideways tumble along the ground until a tree trunk stopped its momentum.

She couldn't follow that strike up, however, as her 'instincts' had her jumping forward and rolling out of the way of a charge from a second member of the same species. It turned itself around to pursue her, but she was ready before it arrived, ducking backwards under its charge, bending into a handstand-backflip that had her flame-wreathed feet kicking up into its body to send it briefly flying up-forward through the air.

The first monster had recovered its feet by now, so it charged at her from her side. "Pfft, predictable," she said, bending slightly to spring up past the reach of its horns and land herself directly on the monster's back. Grabbing its horns in her hands, she sent a fire down into it as it bucked and thrashed wildly to try and get her off of it. She yanked it sideways to point it toward a tree before using the momentum of its bucking to leap off it into the air and land on the other one's back fist-first, knocking it over and leaving her free to hop off and away from it.

The other deer-lizard indeed rammed itself into that tree, and continued flailing around in a desperate attempt to no longer be on fire. In fact, its act of running around with Blaze on top of it had spread quite a lot of fire all around. But that was no problem for the little wolf-girl mage; in fact, this kind of thing was simply a part of her tactics—part of her theming. She spread out her arms with the hands palm-up, and all of that fire swirled into the space above them as a pair of burning fireballs. Then she put her hands together and made a quick 'hadouken' gesture, sending that ball of fire flying straight into the beast she'd just knocked over, smacking it hard in the side just as it recovered its feet. It was bowled over by the impact, and the fire wreathed itself all around its body as it fell and tumbled.

Now that it wasn't on fire anymore, the other monster hissed loudly again and charged Blaze's way. She readied herself to counter it again when something bright flashed into view between her and the beast: A humanoid shape of glowing fiery bright-gray light a little shorter than herself, floating off the ground. It caught the thing's head in its 'hands', not seeming to mind those hands being gored in the process, and pushed it back. Another near-identical looking thing was floating over to the other monster as it shook off the last of her flames, its hand turning into a small knife-like blade as it raised that arm and then slashed into the beast's throat.

"Aaaalright then?" Figuring that these things were on her side, at least for the moment, Blaze ran up and around the one blocking the nearest beast, leaping to flaming-bicycle-kick it in the side. The floating light-man let go when her feet made contact, letting it fall naturally over onto its side, and then floated over to assist the other one in continuing to restrain/cut up that other beast.

Blaze's target stood up shakily, looking pretty badly injured to her eyes, but hissed again, jumping and opening its mouth to snap its teeth at her. She smoothly dodged the bite and socked it in the side of the head, then hopped back out of the way as it raised itself up and tried to kick at her with its front hooves. By now, the other monster was out of commission, and the two light-things floated up to stab some blade-hands into the remaining one from its sides. It was sufficiently concentrated on Blaze to be completely blindsided by this attack, and only briefly convulsed before falling over dead, too.

The wolf-girl looked back and forth between her two 'helpers', not entirely dropping her ready stance. "Sssooooo..." Both of them blinked out of existence, and then she could see someone behind them: A guy in a robe with a staff, the spitting image of a 'normal' mage.

"Hey...I saw a bunch of smoke, and thought someone might be in trouble. Sorry, I guess people don't like 'kill stealing', but..."

"You couldn't let a cutie like me fight all on her own~?" she said teasingly with a big grin, taking a couple of steps closer. "Really though, I appreciate it. We are supposed to work together here, right?"
"Yeah, that..was what I thought," he said a little uncertainly, like he wasn't used to people flirting with him. That just made her want to mess with him a little more.

"So—are you a new player too?" she asked.

"Well, everyone's new if you.." he sighed. "No, I've been on before. My name is Ronin."
"Blaze~!" she said, eagerly offering her hand up at him to shake, which he accepted after a second's hesitation.
"I, came back to these woods to look for..newcomers. Especially mages."
"Oh really~, that's interesting. I'm kinda a mage myself," she said, wreathing her right arm in a spiral of fire for a second or two. "Fire mage, to be more specific. So, what's your interest? Hoping to form an all-mage party for a challenge run or something?"

"No, I..hmm. How do I put this..." Ronin seemed to need a moment to think.

"Follow me out of these woods first, okay? The exit's not far, we can talk on the way."

"Alright then," Blaze nodded. "Lead the way."

He still seemed to need a moment to gather his thoughts, after which he quietly cleared his throat. "Listen...soon, a massive army of demons and monsters will descend on this country."
"Oh, yeah?" That sounded like fun.

"Already I've heard news of some of their leaders and elites scouting out the land, taking out groups of adventurers and seeming to have some mysterious missions of their own to complete, in advance of that army's arrival."

"Oh yeah! I heard about some stuff like that," Blaze admitted—although it was more 'read in the forums' than 'heard'. This phrasing worked for the roleplaying.

Ronin nodded and continued: "Their ruler, the Demon Queen. There is one thing she fears most, and all of those aligned with her will seek to destroy it. I was asked to...spread this thing, to as many people as possible. It's something only mages can use. And there is one specific...'form' of it, that we need."

The trees thinned as they arrived at the forest's edge. "So..you're thinking of 'spreading' this thing to me?" Blaze said, keeping the conversation going as they came out onto a much more open roadway.

"Right. You see..it's.." He took a moment to summon one of those humanoid light-things from before, pointing at it. "The gray glow there. That's what it is for me. It makes my summons a little tougher than they would be otherwise."

"So, it's not just this Demon Queen's weakness. It gives other advantages?"
"Yeah. But, I mean—disadvantages too. And also...I'm not really entirely clear on this, but it might destroy the world later. So there are some...risks."

"Bah, I can handle it! Especially if it's flame," Blaze said. "I mean, did you see what I did earlier? I can handle any fire. I'm literally an expert at it!"

"Okay then." He stopped, turning to face her. "So, to be clear—we're looking for someone with a white flame. But I don't think there's any way to tell what color someone will have until they get it. If someone gets a white flame, the Demon Queen and her minions will target that person especially, so there's a big risk."
"I don't mind a little risk. I'm in this for the thrill anyway," the wolf-girl said, grinning. "I say, let 'em come! So what do we need to do to 'spread' this thing?"
"Well..it's a pretty simple ritual. You..pick it up along with the fire itself. Just hold still...it does involve drawing a tiny bit of your blood."
"Alright," she shrugged, holding out her left arm.

Ronin nodded, having his summoned creature poke her finger with its blade-hand before dismissing it. He placed his left hand under hers, and his entire body started to glow with the same bright gray shade of flamelike flickering as the summon had a moment go. "This fire, kindled as the world began. This fire, to consume the world at its end. In the time between, it must through mages spread. Will you take it in?"
"Yeah!"

"Then...take this Secret Fire. Handle it wisely." Ronin gently placed his other hand atop hers, and the gray flame raced across her arm to the rest of her body. Its color brightened steadily until it became what she thought of as the color fire should be: Bright, blazing orange, like her magic usually was; like her eyes were. It disappeared from view a moment after covering her, but she could still 'feel' it inside of her, now a part of her own magic, and understood exactly how to spread it to another mage.

"Hmm..orange."

"Are you disappointed?" she asked.
"No..hff.." he paused, panting slightly to catch his breath. "We just need to get it to a lot of people. I am curious what it 'means', though. I only know what purple and gray do, and that white is supposedly important..."
"Well, I'm sure I'll figure it out soon enough. Anyway, thanks~," she said, pouncing up at him with a hug. He was too baffled by this act to really respond before she'd let go and hopped back a couple of feet, and he was left cutely blushing afterward.

"I guess you're not really looking for a party at the moment, then?" Blaze said. "Just more newbie mages for this Fire thing?"
"Y-yeah..pretty much."
"Well, I'm gonna get back to exploring—maybe I'll find a party to run with if I keep looking. So, see ya later, Ronin! Maybe we'll really party up then, huh?"
"Uh, sure..." He was still blushing! Blaze just giggled and gave one last quick wave before heading out on the road.

A short walk later, Blaze caught sight of an unusual monster from the top of a hill. It was shaped like a wildcat, but very clearly made of ice. If that wasn't a perfect target to test her newly-enhanced magic on, she didn't know what was. So she hurried, running and then sliding her way down the hill to stop off just in front of it.

"Hello there, kitty cat~!" On the off chance that it was a summon like those things Ronin used, or someone's magical familiar or something, an ambush just seemed wrong. However, it proved to be just as much of a generic enemy as expected when it quickly leaned its head back and then jerked it forward, spitting out a big spiky chunk of ice right at her! She dove aside and rolled, popping back to her feet in no time. "Wow, ruuude!"

The ice-cat monster wasn't interested in being polite, however, as it now charged straight at her with clear intent to pounce. But this was really the kind of attack Blaze had been hoping to see all along. She ducked back just out of the way of its pounce, drew her arm back, concentrating a swirling mass of fire around her fist, and punched straight down into the top of its head. The impact immediately shattered the monster apart, much of its mass melting—it was dead in one hit!

"Whooo yeah!" Blaze cheered, punching a fist up into the air. Her fire magic felt hotter and was clearly even stronger than before. Even if that thing was super weak to fire, it definitely didn't look like the kind of enemy that was supposed to go down that easily. "Awesome."

"..Excuse me." The wolf-girl's ears twitched, and she turned to find the owner of that voice making their way down a hill opposite the one she'd come from. It was a human girl with dark hair done up into some stupidly long twintails, wearing shorts and a tank top. Something about her, maybe something 'in the game', told Blaze she was a monk. Her expression was: Stern, severe, serious.

"Oh, hey—did I kill steal on ya? Sorry 'bout that," Blaze said, kicking a bit of dirt behind her. If someone else had damaged that monster first, no wonder she'd killed it in one hit—but that was a somewhat disappointing possibility.

"I was hoping to track the origin of that beast. Its kind is not normally seen at this elevation." The stranger stopped a couple of yards away. "However, more importantly: You are a mage?"
"Yeah. Guess I don't look the part, huh?" It hadn't really registered to the wolf-girl when she was talking to a guy earlier, but—she was really short now! She even needed to tilt her head upward to look this monk in the face. Still, she maintained a winning grin.

"And did I see a trace of the Secret Fire in your magic?"

"I guess so? Some guy called Ronin did just 'spread' it to me."
The monk girl's expression turned even darker than before—if that was possible. Blaze definitely had the sense that this was a real frown she was looking at now. "Irresponsible. Have you any idea of the danger?"
"What, you mean how the Demon Queen's minions will be after me? Just sounds like fun to me!"

"Beyond that. The gods of this world themselves abhor this power. It poses a danger of destroying this world one day. It may even be capable of consuming one of weak will, who uses it recklessly and without consideration."
"Eh, maybe," she shrugged. "My will's pretty dang strong, though!"

In response to this, the monk shifted her stance just slightly. It was still pretty loose, relaxed—but between 'ingame' instincts and years of watching animations of fighting-game characters at the start of their matches, Blaze could spot instantly that she was getting ready to fight. "I will test that claim. Prepare yourself."
"Oo~oh, yeah?" The wolf-girl got ready herself, her grin getting even bigger. "Bring it on!" She could practically hear a deep-throated, male voice saying: Round One. Fight!

The monk came up on her surprisingly fast. It was a good thing she dodged sideways and slightly early, because instead of just a fist, there was a golden blade of light just barely missing her neck. She tried to punch back with some fire on her fist, but her opponent kept moving forward like she'd been expecting to miss, making that fist only hit air. Then she flawlessly continued her run while turning around to go for a diving kick (complete with another of those blades coming from her foot) that Blaze had to dive to get away from. She rolled and whirled as she stood halfway up, more obeying an instinct than making a decision when she put her hands up and caught the monk's wrist between them—the hand attached to which had a light-blade on it, and had been halfway into a downward chop that very well could've cut her head in half otherwise.

Thinking fast, the wolf-girl sent her flames up across her hands onto the monk's arm as she did a kind of judo-throw sideways. Picking up and throwing another person felt effortless, and from that brief exchange it felt like her opponent was physically weaker than her—in terms of pure physical strength, that was, with her arm so easily pushed away by Blaze's hands. She went flying, bouncing off the ground a couple of times before managing to make a perfect landing onto her feet and skid along the ground a couple of feet from the momentum.

By that point, the wolf-girl was back on her feet, and running toward her in hopes of capitalizing on a briefly prone state. Seeing now that that idea wasn't going to work out, she jumped as she closed in, going for flaming bicycle kick and hoping the unexpected angle would at least catch the monk somewhat off-guard. The attack was perfectly and completely dodged, and she had to tilt herself around awkwardly after landing to avoid a couple of bladed hand-chops, then nearly lost her balance—would have completely lost it if not for her tail—to an awkward sideways-downward duck out of the way of a bladed roundhouse kick.

She tilted back upright as the monk went into what her brain registered as a brief 'recovery animation' from that big kick, which made her instinctively want to punish with some kind of counterattack. Remembering what had worked before, she grabbed the monk by the upper leg and judo-threw her straight over her own head onto the ground. Her opponent predictably didn't stay prone for even half a second, cartwheeling to upright and immediately starting to advance on Blaze again.

It occurred to her that she was perhaps underusing her fire magic in this fight—and she was a fire mage, after all! So rather than retreating or preparing to dodge, Blaze summoned up a whirling flame around herself to a distance of a couple of feet, making her opponent flinch back slightly out of her aggressive motion rather than get burned. She dove forward—still wreathed in flames—hoping to tackle the monk-girl to the ground, engulf her in that fire, maybe get some face-punches in while on top of her. This..turned out to be quite a mistake.

The monk's brief hesitation wasn't nearly the opening Blaze was hoping it would be. And rather than trying to dodge partway out of the tackle or the flames, she simply kicked her foot forward and upward into the air, a light-blade flickering into view—placed perfectly where the wolf-girl's belly was going to be in about half a nanosecond. She couldn't very well dodge that, and so managed to impale herself directly into it.

It was a very good thing that injuries in the game didn't truly, physically hurt like their equivalents in the real world. Even though the monk dismissed the blade and let Blaze flop face-forward onto the ground immediately after the hit, she could tell her injuries were 'very bad' and 'hurt an awful lot'. The fire she'd been wreathed in went out with that hit, too—since she wasn't exactly concentrating on keeping it up anymore.

She turned her head over to one side to breathe something other than dirt, and found the monk knelt over next to her. "You show some promise. Not as foolish in combat as you act."

"Pfft. This is a game, you know? Just, hff—smile and...enjoy the.....victory." It felt kind of difficult to breathe and talk at this point.

Kay Oooh!

Dying in the game was kind of weird. 'Blaze' lost consciousness, but not 'Blake'. There was the brief impression of a choice: Stay and wait to be revived, or respawn at a 'nearby religious site'. Figuring that someone who'd attacked her unprovoked wouldn't likely be willing to waste any revival magic or items on her, Blaze immediately chose the latter. She was mentally fed a blurb about a 'kind miko' finding her collapsed in the wilds and carrying her off to be healed...and then she 'woke up' to find herself lying down on her back, on a hard cot sort of bed.

---

That's right, I can kill off whoever I want in this story because it's all in a video game anyway! It might seem weird for Blaze to die in practically just one solid hit, but that's the price of minmaxing. She's still a squishy mage wearing zero armor, even with all the strength, martial skills, and fast movement. Besides, it was a very nasty hit.