Unchosen Champion

Coop took a second to appreciate the light show. It seemed like it was always the little things that brought him happiness, and this was no exception. The lustrous sprites shimmered before they faded into the Underlayer after he harmlessly swatted a reflexive attack away.

He was already in a pretty good mood after adopting a new strategy with Inheritance of the Mists. No longer was the advanced skill exclusively an ultimate move that he could only reasonably use for the conclusion of a kill or be killed scenario. Instead, it would be the key to saving as many settlements as possible from the Underlayer Event, and more importantly, might give Ghost Reef a better chance at the top spot while declaring their place in the world.

Therefore, Coop easily forgave the panicked attack from the stranger; there was no damage done anyway. It was his own fault for being too excited to find people wandering in the underground expanse. Did they need assistance? Were they lost? He could probably help either way.

The dreary Underlayer, full of nothing but stagnant air, comfortless dirt, and silence, was briefly decorated with silver filigree in the aftermath of his errant attempt to say hello. He openly smiled, barely suppressing a giggle as he embraced his inner child before he resumed greeting the two strangers. He thought it was inappropriate for him to treasure irrelevant little moments and simple pleasures during an apocalypse, but he didn’t care. His lightheartedness was a spontaneous personal rebellion against the tragedy of integration.

When he did turn his attention back to the pair of strangers in the aftermath of the ephemeral glitter bomb, he noted that neither of them had a particularly good complexion. He tilted his head slightly to the side in concern.

The silvery girl’s face was looking a bit too pink as she stiffly turned away from Coop and stared at her companion with wide eyes, expressing clear uncertainty. In her partner’s case, his skin was an even shade of reddish orange that made him seem kind of radioactive. The color was evenly spread on his entire body, glowing through his cream-colored shirt wherever his protective vest didn’t cover, extending from his fingers to his ears. Coop had never seen aposematism in a human, but maybe this was his first example.

Coop did his best not to openly stare. It would probably seem rude if he pointed their strange features out, so he just shrugged and started over.

“Hi!” He greeted cheerily, raising his empty hand again in a motionless wave. “If you’re looking for safety, you should go that way.” He stated clearly, pointing in the direction of Ghost Reef. He guessed he would need to make the arrows he absently drew in the dirt a bit bigger so they would be easier to notice for them to serve any purpose at all.

Coop smiled at them encouragingly, naturally feeling friendly, especially after his sparkly entrance. The man’s color was slowly returning to a more expected shade found in humans and he adjusted his glasses while Coop explained further. “You guys seem pretty fast, so I think it’ll only take like half a day before you reach Ghost Reef. My friends will make sure you can relax once you get there. No need to worry!”

He tried to calm them down with a few reassurances, feeling like he was advertising an all-expenses paid vacation. He basically was, considering the amenities of his tropical island. Should he suggest visiting the Clumsy Shark or was that too much?

The man looked at the still frozen girl and released the tension in the air between them with a hearty laugh at her flushed appearance before returning his bespectacled gaze at Coop as he calmed down. “You’re Coop, I’m sure.”

Coop was only a little surprised to hear his own name, given the context of meeting a solitary gladiator on a peaceful battlefield with no enemies in sight and a couple leaderboards that provided all the clues necessary to figure it out.

“That’s right.” He confirmed, before double checking. “How’d you know?”

“You’re exactly as advertised.” The man observed, subtly shaking his head. “Marcus has told us all about you, and even knowing what to expect, you’ve caught us completely by surprise.”

“Oh!” Coop’s generous smile got a little wider. “You know Marcus? Am I getting close to Neon Park then?”

The man chuckled knowingly. “Pretty close.”

“That’s good. I was worried the Underlayer would be more like a maze.” Coop admitted, letting his genuine relief spill into his voice. “It’s confusing enough as is.” He added, lowering his voice like they were discussing a school exam during a break.

“Marcus didn’t tell us you would seem like a wrathful god from so far away.” The girl muttered, seeming a bit disgruntled by Coop’s introduction, though she was visibly softening as he slowly made a better first impression.

“Haha…” Coop laughed awkwardly, shifting his hand from a peaceful wave to rubbing the back of his head shyly as his eyes closed. “Sorry. I guess my presentation still needs some work…” He sighed. “I thought I made it better already.” He added a bit sadly as the pair seemed to take a closer look.

“Don’t worry about it. There’s no harm done.” The man quickly forgave Coop while the girl slowly nodded in agreement, clearly losing herself in thought as she reassessed him, though Coop would keep trying to adjust things regardless of their approval.

“There’s probably nothing you can do about the level difference.” The man continued, already identifying the root of the issue that had gone unaddressed by Coop. “Seems natural for the system to enforce position in such a way.” He astutely concluded.

“Still…” Coop was discouraged by the fact that it seemed like he was always working against his own aura when it came to making friendly connections. Presence of Mind could only do so much if the system itself was doing its best to maintain its own internal hierarchy even on individual perceptions.

The girl offered Coop a supportive smile since he looked so disappointed in himself. “It’s fine. I don’t think you really need to change anything.” She waved her hand as if dismissing his concern. Then she paused and hummed, tilting her head as she continued to evaluate him.

Coop glanced at the man who seemed to be doing the same thing. They were both breaking him down with their eyes like people who understood advanced concepts behind establishing an image. Coop suddenly felt shy as the pair took charge of the interaction. At least they weren’t fighting?

“The contradiction between aura and personality has a certain appeal...” She spoke quietly to herself while tapping a finger against her chin in consideration, and the man hummed along with her, before they ultimately came to a conclusion. “A surprise that doesn’t quite meet expectations, but in a good way, like seeing a delinquent help an old lady cross a crosswalk, or finding out a gangster fosters kittens.” She bobbed her head once as if that was that and the man nodded the same way, confirming the accuracy of her read.

“What the heck?” Coop mumbled, unsure if he was being clocked or made fun of.

The man laughed at Coop’s befuddlement. “Anyway...” He gave the girl a look that she received from the corner of her eye, communicating far more than Coop could hope to grasp, though he could understand they had been through a lot together. She responded to the bespectacled man with a one-shouldered shrug without taking her assessing gaze off Coop. With a quick look and a silent gesture the pair had made a decision.

The man cleared his throat and spoke with businesslike authority. “I’m Neon, Champion of Neon Park, and this is our finest warrior, Platinum. It’s nice to finally meet you, Coop.” He skillfully articulated, stepping forward while offering his hand.

Coop shook it automatically, suddenly feeling impressed by the celebrities in front of him. “Oh! It’s you. You’re famous.”

“Pretty much.” Neon confirmed with a confident smile.

“Seriously? You couldn’t tell?” Platinum asked, pointing to her own hair.

Coop winced. “I mean, isn’t it more silver?” He tried excusing himself.

She raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Huh. That’s right.” She looked at Neon with a bemused expression.

“But is it really okay to just tell me you’re Champion of Neon Park?” Coop wondered. “I could be dangerous.” He pointed out the obvious risk.

“Would you like to become Champion of Neon Park, Coop?” Neon questioned.

“Nope.” Coop responded quickly. He already felt like he had enough to worry about.

“Exactly.” Neon nodded. “Consider it a gesture of goodwill. Besides, we obviously have a common enemy and other connections forming. We might as well be friendly.”

“True enough.” Coop confirmed, deciding to get straight into it. He didn’t really have time to play the role of ambassador with the Underlayer Event ongoing. “I noticed Neon Park’s score stopped moving, did you finish clearing the Constructs?” He asked, letting his curiosity take over.

The annoyed sound that Platinum made drew both Coop's and Neon’s attention. When she offered no elaboration, Neon responded for her. “We defeated an army protecting one control point, but retreated as alien reinforcements arrived. Before continuing with the raid, we decided to check our subordinates to allow for some time to recuperate and consider a change in priorities.” Coop nodded along, then Neon waved back toward the four control points representing the Cherry Hill settlement. “What kind of forces were here? And how did you overcome them?”

Coop had an accurate count already, so he didn’t hesitate to give exact numbers. “In total, there were one million Elite Primal Constructs, 50 Field Bosses, and one Siege Boss split between four castles.” He recited with confidence. “Over there, I found 100,000 Elites and four Field Bosses.“ He pointed toward the Shenandoah objectives. Both Platinum and Neon raised their eyebrows at the casual way he threw around such large numbers.

“As for how…” He leaned on his spear as he considered how he would explain that he mostly just grinded it out while occasionally being empowered by human myths. He decided it would be too hard and he really only wanted to get to the next fight. “Better to demonstrate it on the next army, I guess.”

Neon laughed, but Platinum still looked a bit annoyed, though it didn’t seem to be his fault exactly, and she stayed silent about it either way.

“Alright Champion Coop, what can we offer to have you help us?” Neon asked, clearly prepared for a serious round of negotiations. The way he tilted his glasses and spoke, it was like the concessions had already been decided as he calculated how the discussions would go, but Coop wasn’t angling for anything like that.

“Normally, I would just ask to be pointed in the right direction, but it’s a pretty linear tunnel.” Coop noted, implying even that much was unnecessary if it came with a cost. “I guess you can tell Marcus I said hello.” He added offhandedly, feeling like he had to ask for something given the atmosphere.

Neon seemed taken aback. “That’s it?” He asked, clearly a bit confused. The negotiations weren’t what he expected. Coop had so much leverage and just wasn’t engaging at all.

“I’m going to do it anyway.” Coop pointed out. “You’ll note I’m not asking for permission either.”

“Huh.” It was Neon’s turn to seem a bit put out, and Platinum laughed at his expense. It seemed like he hadn’t imagined a reason to need permission.

“We won’t leave them all for you.” Platinum declared with a glint of comprehension in her eye, more closely in tune with Coop’s line of thought than the leader of Neon Park. Her statement wasn’t a threat, just an expression of understanding.

“Good.” Coop approved of Platinum’s attitude, recognizing her potential. “We all need to get stronger.”

“For the Eradication Protocol?” Neon asked, and Coop nodded in confirmation, happy that they could all understand that much.

Coop turned to leave. “So, it’s nice to meet you, but if you don’t mind, I’ve got a lot of ground to cover.” He tried to head out, but they ended up quickly directing him to a specific location anyway, hoping to guide his efforts in a way that was mutually beneficial.

After Coop moved on, he was feeling good about the impression he had left on the prominent leaders of Neon Park. However, he wasn’t done with the statement he intended to stamp on their alliance of settlements. For the next part, he would give those with some ambition something to aspire to, and for the ones who needed confidence, someone to depend on. If he was going to do it, he might as well go all out in terms of building Ghost Reef’s reputation. That was the full extent of Coop’s diplomacy.

When Coop engaged with the most massive Primal Construct army he had seen, shortly after leaving the pair of Platinum and Neon behind, he approached it in the same way as any other. He immersed himself in the rhythm of combat, opening the song of battle with an empowered ranged assault.

The Siege Boss went down first, being crushed beneath an empowered opening salvo that clouded the entire encampment in deep shadows thanks to Inheritance of the Mists. For a brief moment, sinister eyes formed from within a light devouring miasma, high in the underground sky above the Champion, lending murderous power to the ethereal spear that he wielded.

Anyone that witnessed the fixated glare in the distance felt instinctively grateful to be away from the darkness. The Apparition of the Moonless Midnight was the kind of thing that went bump in the night - the sort of fearful superstition that drove ancestral humans to embrace the comfort of fire.

After defeating the Prime Construct, the foreboding presence faded away. In seconds the illumination of the Underlayer returned to normal, but it was clear a battle had ignited. A few million people far in the distance shared a moment of solidarity, relieved to have avoided whatever had caused a portion of the Underlayer to darken.

Meanwhile, Coop drove through the alien castle and lodged himself within the control point. His actions made his intentions crystal clear to the aliens. He was planting a flag and daring the Primal Constructs to tear it down. The single control point was defended by roughly the same number of enemies as he had already defeated in the entire trip from Ghost Reef to Neon Park, but that hadn’t added a single second of hesitation to his actions.

Half an hour into his fight, Platinum and Neon appeared at the edge of the reorganized battlefield. The light show they created flashed in the distance from Coop’s arena. He couldn’t see exactly what they were doing, but he imagined a glittering spectacle of as they chipped away at the enemies enough to satisfy their own desire to contribute. They had effectively flanked the army by merely approaching it from the outside since it was oriented to contend with Coop who had penetrated directly into the objective.

Coop put his head down, summoning his fragmented Fog of War and settled into the new cadence of his cherished grinds. The punctuation that cleared thousands of enemies at once repeated periodically, multiplying his efficiency by several times, but that didn’t mean it was a short battle. Time was a blur within the Underlayer, and he had more than a million opponents, but soon enough, the last of the local Primal Constructs fell.

Coop stood like a statue, in the center of the control point as it transferred control, facing the next objectives in the distance as he held onto the feeling of being in the zone. It was no time to relax.

“I don’t know how you can do that.” Neon jokingly observed between deep breaths as the dust settled, finding Coop fully focused. It was clearly just the beginning of Coop’s grind.

The shrinking number of enemies had inevitably drawn Neon and Platinum toward the control point as the invaders concentrated on Coop’s assault. While Coop was fully warmed up, with few smears of dirt on his skin, his ethereal equipment cleansed itself, combining with his unfatigued posture to make him seem unaffected. It made him seem more machine than man.

Both Platinum and Neon were clearly worse off, despite engaging only in a tiny fraction of the enemies he had dealt with. Their exhaustion sent them into the dirt as soon as they breached the edge of the objective. Platinum collapsed face down onto the ground, comically, with her light sword fading with a shimmering fizzle.

Coop wasn’t sure if he could really explain all of the incremental progress that had gone into turning himself into such a single-minded grinder, even if he was sure anyone could easily follow in his footsteps. “Practice, I guess.” He conceded to the still conscious Neon.

“Which one next?” He asked, completely ready to keep going.

Neon lifted an arm and used his whole hand to line his eyes up with a specific direction of glowing control points. “That way for the one that still had its full army.”

“I’ll leave you to capture this, then.” Coop decided, sending his spear on the path that Neon had described.

By moving right away, he was able to catch the Primal Constructs that intended to reinforce the freshly contested objective while they were still with their castle.

It took over two hours before Platinum and Neon joined him again, but this time they had invited a few dozen more people. Coop let them work at one edge of the army as it converged on his position, dead center within the control point. As before, they were careful to stay on the edge, only fighting what they could handle, which turned out to be quite a lot. They picked off Field Bosses and made a significant contribution to reducing the mass of Elites, demonstrating that they weren’t weak, Coop was just at an absurd level for this event. There were even some familiar powers thrown into the mix as members of Camila’s family joined in.

Coop tried to be cognizant of the bursts of power he invited into his rotation through the brief appearance of apparitions, but the forces of Neon Park kept their distance all the same. Seeing the ghosts of gods superimpose themselves into the battlefield in order to unleash dramatic elemental strikes was enough to encourage care. Coop was like a lightning rod in a spectral mana storm that they preferred to stay away from.

The enemies were eliminated in due time, measured in hours rather than days, but as soon as they were done, Coop was itching to keep going. He hated the downtime.

“Next?” Coop prompted while the others licked their wounds, struggling to catch their breath or even keep on their feet.

“That way.” Carlos gestured, having arrived with the groups that reinforced Neon and Platinum. “We can show you.” He offered generously, clearly pushing himself.

“That’s alright, you can rest while you claim the point.” Coop answered, already raising his spear.

“You’ve gotten stronger.” Gabby added, rubbing a smudge from the end of her baseball bat, barely a change in her consistently stoic expression.

“A little bit.” Coop replied as he threw his spear and watched it fly.

“Understatement of the century.” Carlos mumbled as the Champion of Ghost Reef flickered away, leaving a gentle cloud of mists in his place. He turned to Gabby as he sighed. “I actually thought we were pretty close last time.”

Gabby shook her head. “That guy is a monster.” She observed.

The third Primal Construct army was only half the size of the others, having split its forces before Coop arrived in the region. Still, it had a Siege Boss for him to destroy before he tore down the walls of their castle and settled into making himself king of the hill once again.

Neon Park’s entire army joined for Coop’s third battle, picking off distracted Elite Primal Constructs at the edge while the rest of the invaders packed themselves together in an effort to reach the contested control point.

The battle transformed into a living art piece. A single point in the center of a glowing ring, surrounded by a mass of flowing metal forms, which were also completely encircled by the chaotic masses of human warriors. If the invaders ever reached the center, they only found themselves shrouded in waves of mists, confronted by one of a dozen ethereal weapons, unreasonably powerful phantasms, or the ascendant strength of humanity’s cultural scions.

The fourth and final objective was challenged by all of them together, though Coop shot ahead while they captured the point. Without a Siege Boss and with the bolstered confidence gained by having Coop on their side, the battle was more like a victory lap for the local fighters. When it was done, the relieved cheers almost drowned out Coop’s repeated question, this time seeking the nearest subordinate settlement so that he could keep fighting.