Off The Grid: A War With No End Book 1
Chapter 13
I awoke to a jerking sensation around my waist where I had tied the rope. Sure enough, I had fallen and Lilly didn’t stop me. We were both hanging from Swift’s claws, and Lilly didn’t look too happy. I shrugged. “Self-preservation instincts told me to do it.”
Bill chittered in laughter, and Lilly silenced him with a glare. He scuttled back into my pocket, and I shifted around in Swift’s claws until I could see the ground. In the distance, I saw a large gray castle looming in the distance. I pointed it out to Lilly.
“I know it’s over there, I was following my scanner before you fell off and nearly took me with you. I dropped my scanner, so you owe me a new one.”
I shrugged. “I’ll get John to give you a new one.”
As we got closer to the castle, I realized we might have a little problem. “Hey Lilly, how are we going to land? Swift has us in his claws so…”
She cursed, and started yelling at her poor bird. I glanced from Bill to my Suspender, and he skittered over to it, snagged it with a web, and brought it back to me before sliding into my pocket so the wind couldn’t send him flying.
I turned it on, and shot out of Swift’s claws. “Use your Suspender!” I yelled to her.
“I can’t reach it!”
Hah! One point for Drake Jinx and his Shadow Bill. I pointed with my free hand at Lilly, and then indicated my Suspender. Bill narrowed his eight eyes at me. It looked like he still hadn’t forgiven Lilly for trying to squish him.
“If you don’t say sorry for trying to squish Bill, he won’t help you!” I yelled.
Lilly cursed us out for almost a minute straight before finally caving in.
“Fine, you stupid spider! I’m sorry for trying to squish you! Although I’m more sorry for failing,” she added under her breath.
Bill blinked at me, and I nodded. He shot a web onto Swift’s foot, and swung over onto the bird’s claw. He shuffled around in Lilly’s pockets for a little, and pulled her Suspender out. He nudged it into the range of one of her hands, and swung back over to me.
“You’re like Spider Man…but you’re a real spider. Spider spider.” I whispered.
Lilly gave me a rude gesture, and shot down towards the castle. Swift cawed loudly, and dove after her.
“That bird is a real caw-tastrophe,” I said to Bill.
We shared an imaginary high five, and I shot down after Lilly.
My landing was scarcely graceful, but it was much better than before. I only managed to smash into one person, so I was counting myself lucky until he stood up and started giving me a lecture about how a peasant shouldn’t anger the royalty.
“…And that is why the common horse is inferior to Pueblo here. Now do you see the difference between me, Richard the Great, and you, filthy peasant!”
“Who names their horse Pueblo? And I don’t have a horse, so your dumb theory doesn’t apply to me anyways. Bye now!” I strode off towards Lilly, leaving Richard the horse lord staring after me in horror.
She was in a heated argument with some fat bloke guarding the courtyard within the castle walls.
“I have a Shadow right here! Let me through, you giant sack of potatoes!”
“Miss, I don’t care if you have a Shadow! It is common courtesy to allow the current King’s son entry to the battlefield first. If you would just wait a little, I’m sure he will be here soon! Just look for a man of about your age with the most magnificent Shadow you have ever seen!”
I walked up to them, and Bill skittered onto my shoulder. He began tap dancing, and I bowed to the fat man. “You called?”
The man took one look at Bill and blanched. “I have never seen a spider Shadow before. How do you even intend to fight with that?”
Bill quickly spun a little rapier, and its blade caught fire. He stood up on two legs and pointed the flaming weapon at the fat man. The fat man grinned a little. “A Shadow that can work with fire, how interesting! We have a few elemental Shadows this year, so I’m sure these games shall be entertaining! Will you two be entering the games as a pair or separately?”
“We’ll be entering as a pair.” I said before Lilly could say otherwise. Her Shadow was huge and could fly. I didn’t have any doubts about its combat prowess. Don’t get me wrong, Bill was useful, but I’m not sure how much a flaming toothpick will hurt a dragon.
Lilly gave me an annoyed glance, but thankfully neglected to voice a complaint. The ball of blubber wrote something on his paper, and waved us inside the doors. We strode inside, and he hollered after us.
“The Games start tomorrow, so you had best get some sleep! You won’t get another chance for the rest of your stay here!”
I nudged Lilly. “See? I’m royalty. You should pay me more respect now. They let us through the gates after I got there.”
The first thing I noticed about the area behind the gates was that where most castles have a courtyard or garden, this one had a huge ring standing several feet above the ground. The sides were covered with plated metal, and tall fences formed a dome around the ring.
“That must be where the Shadows fight.”
Lilly give it a quick look and shrugged.
“I don’t think that’s going to keep a large shadow inside if it decides it wants out.”
Lilly did have a point; the metal fences hardly seemed strong enough to stop a panther, or even Pueblo the donkey.
“Whatever. It really doesn’t matter. I feel like taking that fat bloke’s idea and getting some rest. I’m exhausted.”
Lilly agreed with me, and we went off to find a place to rest for the night.
After all my time hopping around like a crazed bunny from one pocket of time to another, one would think that I would be expecting some sort of attack. Of course, you should know me pretty well by now, and therefore know that I would obliviously expect such a thing. I did this expecting in my sleep, while my body rested unprotected on the bed.
My state of rest caused me to be unaware of the padded feet slowly entering my room and creeping up to my bed. The interloper lifted a long, glistening dagger, and a green drop formed at the tip. It wobbled slightly, and fell to the floor, hissing as it ate through…the assassin’s foot.
He screamed in pain, and I sat bolt upright in bed, accidentally slamming my forehead into his unprotected stomach. He doubled over with a gasp, and fell back onto his butt. He scrambled to get his dagger, and pointed it at me with a quavering hand.
“I-I’m here t-to kill y-you!”
I smirked, and wrapped my hand around the handle of the blade that was pointing towards me. “Did you intend to bludgeon me to death with the handle of your knife?”
I pulled it from his hands, and he looked down in horror at his gloves as the acid began eating them away. He frantically pulled them off, and completely forgot about me as he blew on his hands in an attempt to cool them down.
He suddenly realized where he was, and looked up at me in panic. I heard a groan from Lilly’s side of the room, and sighed. Even with all the racket this idiotic assassin had caused, she was still sleeping. Way to set your priorities, lady. Besides, what happened to “Save the Pisces Empire before they die!”
The assassin lunged towards my window, and promptly bounced off the reinforced glass with a cry of pain. By this point, I was barely containing my laughter. The murderer stumbled to his feet and ran out of the open door, holding his head the entire time. I could no longer hold it in, and burst into hysterical laughter.
I knew I should have been a little more worried, but that was the worst assassination attempt I had ever seen in my entire life. (Although the only other ones I had seen were on T.V., so I’m not sure if they count.)
Lilly’s eyes snapped open and she looked around the room.
“Why are you laughing? Go back to sleep, I’m tired! And close the door, you idiot. Someone will get inside.”
That only caused me to laugh harder, but I immediately shut up when she gave me a glare angry enough to burn a hole thr
ough a rock wall.
I quietly got up and closed the door before returning to the bed. I laid back down, but I watched the door carefully for the rest of the night.
The morning came quickly, and with it came Lilly in a strangely good mood. She shook me out of bed, and I groaned. “What do you want?”
“Get up! We don’t have time to waste, and I’m hungry! Therefore, move your fat butt so we can get food.”
What the people of Trinton considered food was what I considered my mother’s cooking: terrible. If I had to guess how they cooked it, I would probably go with tossing a dead fish into a sewer and then pulling it out a day later before burning it for an hour and dropping it on a plate.
I took one bite of the awful fish, and politely pushed the disgusting thing away and tried not to throw up. Meanwhile, Lilly was stuffing the fish inside her mouth like there was no tomorrow. “Ifts lihk mah mofthrs cookn!” she said, spraying food all over the table.
I nodded in agreement, completely aware that we were implying two things on opposite ends of the spectrum.
A strong blast of sound interrupted our conversation, and we both turned to look at the source. A short man stood on top of one end of the table, repeatedly banging a large spoon against a huge plate.
The plate suddenly shattered, and the man glared at the spoon as if it were its fault, and threw it onto the table in disgust. He cleared his throat and looked over his audience haughtily. “The Games will now be starting! Everyone make your way to the arena in the outside courtyard! You will be disqualified if you are late!”
I glanced at Lilly, who was rapidly chewing her fish, and then back to the little man. I looked around to see if anyone was watching me, and then chucked the fish at him. I stood up and started striding towards the door, and heard the fish smack into him after I had taken one step.
The table burst into laughter, and everyone streamed out of the building. I stayed behind them, and walked over to the little man, and lifted him into the air. “I’d let go of that gun if I were you. I could gut you like that fish I threw earlier in a second.”
His eyes widened, and his hand slowly released the handle of the pistol hidden in his pocket. “How did you know?”
“The people to your right looked slightly worried while those to your left didn’t care. And it’s too shiny, the light reflected off of it. Who are you working for?”
Bill skittered out of my pocket and hissed at the man. He tried to wiggle away in vain. “Will you let me go if I tell you?”
I nodded at him.
“I’m working for Richard the Great.”
I quickly slammed his head against the table with a resounding crack, and ran out of the room.
Lilly raised her eyebrows at me as I left. “You should have killed him.”
I shrugged. “I’m not the battle hardened nutjob you are…yet. All this running around for the Pisces Empire might change that. But he’s going to have a concussion. He isn’t telling anyone squat for now.”
Her hand drifted down to her gun, and she seemed to be deciding on whether to kill the man or not. For some unexplained reason, she turned around and walked away. Swift swooped overhead, back from wherever he had been all night. He continued circling us the whole way to the arena.
Swift crashed down next to us, sending a blast wind that nearly blew me off my feet. Bill hung on to my shirt sleeve for dear life, and I barely managed to stay standing myself. The people around us weren’t as lucky. Many of them toppled backwards, and the bat shadow of some poor bloke got caught up in the wind and flew away.
He cried out and chased after it, and I chuckled. “You’re getting rid of competitors before the match has even started.”
Lilly grunted, and a few people shot us dirty looks. I made kissing motions at them, and they all quickly turned to look back at the arena. A pillar of darkness suddenly erupted from the center of the arena, and a tall man stepped out. A snake was coiled around his head like a turban, and it hissed at us.
“Welcome to the Games! I will be your narrator for this year! My name is Rill, so if you have any questions, ask them while you wait for your fight! If you’re fighting first…too bad.” His voice was silky and smooth.
I disliked him immediately. Rill had the look of one of those door to door salesmen that try to tell you that their toilet paper is actually better than someone else’s, and somehow manage to convince you.
“I have the match bracket here! This year, we have ten major villages competing, along with Richard the Great himself! Now, during this tournament, you will forget your heritage until you win. If you fail to win, then it hardly matters where you came from. From this point forward, you will be numbered Team one through eleven. I know that some of you are working on your own, but frankly, I don’t care. You’re Teamed with yourself. Teams one through six will be fighting first in Team versus Team matches in three rounds. The winner of round one will face Team seven. The winner of round two will face Team ten, and the winner of round three will face Team eleven. Teams eight and nine will face in round four. Then the winners of rounds four and five will face off for the ultimate prize!”
He looked around quickly to make sure everyone was paying attention, and then cleared his throat. “Okay. Now, Team one will be the unknown foreigners!” I rolled my eyes at Lilly.
“I guess that’s us.”
He continued listing off Team names, but I stopped listening and looked up into the sky. A bird flew overhead, singing peacefully. It looked like a great omen to me. Peaceful, easy success. Suddenly, a large hawk swept in and grabbed the smaller bird right from the air. It cawed in triumph, and my peace was shattered. This tournament wasn’t going to be easy.