Chapter 16: Incomplete Golden Spheres

When local news began to report that the Showdown was leaving, Rick should have been more concerned. He wasn't sure how H had paid for the hotel, but if they started demanding a bill from him, there was no way he could afford the whole training suite. Occasionally he entertained ideas about what he would do if he was just abandoned there.

Yet ultimately it didn't change much about his life. Rick packed up his suitcase and everything else they owned in the hotel, and otherwise just focused on his training. He'd found his limits for layering more on the Triune Golden Spheres every day, so it was just a matter of how many days he had. Otherwise, all he could do was continue focusing on polishing whatever skills he could.

Fortunately, two days after the Showdown left, he heard a helicopter on the roof. H swept into the chamber soon after, gesturing to him. "We're running late. Say goodbye to South Africa and get moving."

"I feel like I never got to say hello to it." Rick grabbed his suitcase and was ready to go, which he thought impressed H just a little bit. As they headed out, he looked over the city one last time. "How often does the Showdown return to a location? Will we be back?"

"Not in the near future. Five nations host a month every year, other major powers host roughly once every three years, and everyone else just hopes. Within each country, different regions bid to host a Showdown, so only the biggest cities get repeats."

Though Rick stared out over the rooftops and wondered at opportunities lost, H was obviously impatient. They walked up the ramp, the helicopter blades already beginning to spin. This time the bay door didn't stay open, closing before they lifted off the ground.

Once more, the strange aura descended, muffling the sound of the helicopter blades. The power of the movement also seemed distant, a surreal sense of being separated from the world. Rick wasn't certain if he hadn't noticed the first time or if his senses had improved. H walked to the opposite side of the main chamber, turned to face him, and folded his arms.

"Here's what's going to happen: you're going to participate in the Unlimited Defensive Ring, as planned. If you don't distinguish yourself, your patron will be severely displeased. But if you do, that just means you have to participate in a private contest between the proteges of several immortals. I hope you've been preparing enough, because if this doesn't go well, it will reflect poorly on both of us."

"Are we going to fight in here?" Rick asked. H scowled at nothing in particular.

"We can test a thing or two while flying, but otherwise there's too much risk you'll clumsily tear a hole in the side. No, let's start with seeing your portfolio."

Rick nodded and started to get his phone, but H simply brought up a screen to display it.

[Name: Rick Hunter

Ether Tier: 12th

Ether Score: 449

Lucrim Generation: 89,350

Enhanced Generation: 100,850

Current Lucrim: 17,200]

[Rick Hunter's Lucrima Portfolio

Foundation: 3700 (Lv VI)

Dark Blood Kettle: 17,600 (Lv IV)

Triune Golden Spheres: 11,500

- Defensive Sphere: 11,500

- Second Sphere: 0

- Third Sphere: 0

Offensive Lucore: 13,800 (Lv VII)

Defensive Lucore: 37,600 (Lv IX)

Bunyan's Step: 15,900 (Lv VIII)

Graham's Stake: 26,025 (Lv IV)

Demonic Bond (Bftgage & Ythsil): 800 (Stage I)

Demon Mass: 500 (N/A)

Total Lucrim: 115,425

Enhanced Total: 126,925]

H stared at the numbers for longer than before, then cast Rick an odd glance. "Have you been taking the Formula T more frequently than prescribed?"

"I never once took it a minute early." He decided not to mention how tempting it had been at times, especially since so much seemed to be on the line. After staring at him for a while, H accepted it with a low grunt.

"Then it looks like your compatibility is better than expected. Let me see the sphere." When Rick presented it, nearly filled by the burning golden light within, H gave an approving scowl. "That's adequate. I negotiated the order of events to buy a little extra time, which should be just enough. The technique will be weakened without three different spheres, but it will be better than nothing."

"You said we could test a thing or two in here?"

"We might as well see how far you've backslid on your footwork. No juggling this time. Let's spar in here, but touching the sides of the helicopter counts as failure."

Rick nodded nervously and raised his fists. Fighting in such tight quarters... should have been more difficult. Yet as he used Bunyan's Steps to flash around H, he realized that all his work on advanced footwork had significantly improved his ability to use the technique precisely. Occasionally he nearly rammed himself into one of the walls, but he was able to successfully move in the small space.

Until a foot hooked his and Rick slammed into the floor. H withdrew his leg and stared down at him. "Less adequate than your progress with the Triune Golden Spheres, but not as bad as I expected. I want to test your ability to multi-task, but not here."

"It's going to be a long flight, isn't it?" Rick picked himself up, chin a little sore from hitting the floor despite the fact that he wasn't injured. "Is there more we can do to prepare?"

"I'm going to start teaching you the final step in actually using the Spheres. Even if you've completely bungled all the other preparations, you're going to need to use them for real in the Showdown. That means they can't be floating around in the air."

"You said they'd be in my lucrima soul? Honestly, I really have no idea how that's going to work."

"These spheres are extremely carefully built to be partially physical, partially pure lucrim." H gestured for him to sit down and dropped into a cross-legged position without unfolding his arms. "It's the same principle as an aura leech, which seems to burrow into your body but actually exists in your portfolio. The difference, aside from not draining you, is that you need to be in control of these."

"So I'm going to draw these in somehow?" Rick pulled out the three spheres from their case and observed them carefully. They felt as real as the floor underneath him, but he assumed it worked somehow. "What's the first step?"

"You've already taken the first several. But now it's time for your juggling to pay off."

H instructed him in the new technique, which was really just a variation on the old one. Rick focused on letting his aura pulse in a circular flow, then carefully picked up the spheres with his aura and sent them spinning. Unlike with juggling, he made them spin horizontally, but with his full focus on them, it wasn't so difficult.

There was a strange imbalance, since two of the spheres were empty and the third brimmed with lucrim. H told him not to get used to it, since his goal was balance, but for now they had no choice. One step at a time, Rick worked his way through the obstacles preventing him from mastering the technique.

He was fairly certain that he would get it working by the time they arrived in China. But he could only hope that it would be enough.

~ ~ ~

By the time they arrived, they had finished what training they could and Rick was simply going over the necessary steps in his head. When H entered the cockpit to make final adjustments, Rick pressed up against one of the small windows to try to see what he could of their destination.

What struck him first was that the urban sprawl he saw below was surprisingly small. He knew China had plenty of cities with more than a million people, but the buildings he could see were far smaller than Branton. Could part of the city be underground? Was he misunderstanding some sort of unusual buildings as forests and mountains?

Strangest of all, Rick didn't see anything that looked like it might be a stadium, or at least certainly not a modern stadium. The largest buildings visible were a cluster of multi-story buildings to the east and what looked like a large temple complex to the west.

It was all a mild puzzle... until he saw tendrils of darkness rising from the ground. Directly toward them. Rick flinched back, looked again, and then hastily moved to where H stood.

"H, are you seeing this?"

"That's the landing gear," he answered without even looking. "Traditional Chinese design."

"Since when are tentacles traditionally Chinese?"

At that moment the helicopter blades stilled and something wrapped around them. Rick staggered a step as the entire vessel lurched, pulled out of the sky and toward the ground. Outside one of the small windows, he saw a line of darkness, more like pitch black ink than a three-dimensional object. Yet H still seemed completely calm, so Rick did his best not to react.

They were pulled to the ground, then sideways. There was a final crunch of steel on concrete, then the inky tentacles pulled away, leaving them somewhere dark. Rick peered into the shadows... and saw a neon sign announcing they were on floor B3. A parking garage?

"We need to finish your evaluation, then take final steps." H walked past him as the ramp came down, though there wasn't enough space for it to fully lower itself. Rick followed him, glancing around the parking garage but finding nothing out of the ordinary.

"Just what was traditionally Chinese about that?" he demanded as they walked out. H cast him a scornful glance.

"Not human Chinese. Welcome to the city of Odiyu."

As they left the parking garage, Rick began to understand. There were a few cars, but even more lucrim vehicles that flew. Some of those looked much more Chinese to him, either traditional constructs of gilded paper or modern planes of all sleek white curves. When they departed the parking garage, an attendant handed them a chit.

An attendant permanently bonded to a demon. The markings around his eyes were different, including a tattoo on his forehead, but as Rick understood what he saw, he realized the truth about Odiyu.

Outside, they walked on an ordinary enough street, but many of the people he saw were permanently bonded to demons. He even saw a few of the greater demons physically manifested, though of course they took forms that were much less like Western demons. A few wore clothing he would have called traditionally Chinese... but many others wore clothes of shifting ink that he suspected was just as traditional for them.

H hailed a taxi, which arrived driven by a man Rick at first thought was permanently bonded. Then he realized that the man merely had a high number of demonic tattoos covering his body. They should have conferred great power... but judging from how his generation rate felt like 10,000 lucrim or less, Rick thought that most of the bonds must have been overdrawn.

Once they were in the back of the taxi, Rick finally looked over to his mentor for answers. "Odiyu is a demon-controlled city?"

"No. Odiyu is a demon city, and the human reflection came into being to feed from the real city."

"Will the crowd be demons, then? We can't actually fight in the demon realm, not in any meaningful way."

"I'd forgotten you had that incident while working with the GLA." H regarded him coolly, then nodded. "Yes, the audience will be primarily demons watching from their realm. As their realm is filled with aura, they will be much more interested in physical applications of lucrim. That's one of the reasons that your... rudimentary style has a chance during this Showdown."

"Yeah, I get it." Rick sat back, momentarily enjoying how comfortable the seat was, then he recoiled from it. "Does this happen a lot? I didn't think there were many human cities based on demonic cities."

"It depends on a nation's relationship with the demon realm. It's very rare in the USA, and not common here. Siberia and the Nokan Empire are... conducting their own affairs. But we often visit a German demon-based city, or at least a European one. You didn't think the Demonic Legionnaire was called that for show, did you?"

Truthfully, Rick had barely thought about her at all, beyond being Europe's Godweight. Steering clear of demons had always worked well for him, so he wasn't sure how he felt about the knowledge that they had far more control in other countries. Then again, he also thought back to Bftgage and Ythsil... he'd had no contact with the two demon siblings other than their increasing bond, given the difficulty of communicating between realms.

Having spent his budget of explanations, H refused to talk until they arrived at their hotel. It was much larger and nicer than would be expected for a town the size of Odiyu, but that made sense if it was mostly there to host human visitors to demonic Odiyu. He was surprised by how many people with combat Lucores he saw until he realized that this must be one of the hotels the Showdown contestants used.

Then, across the lobby, he saw James Travis. The man's suit was as impeccable as always, but he brushed imaginary dust off his lapel and smirked. Had they been close enough, presumably James would have mocked, but H checked them in and pulled him onward.

This time they were housed in rooms on opposite sides of a hallway, near a gym they had to share with other fighters. Yet Rick saw his room was ether-reinforced and it looked like they could schedule hours to claim the gym, so that would work fine. He'd barely set down his suitcase when H appeared at the door.

"I booked us the first hours. Let's go and see just how far short you fall."

Sighing, Rick accepted that he wasn't going to get to rest just yet. They headed out to the gym, which was appointed with a variety of machines, even a stationary exercise bike that had a serious lucrim engine attached. H ignored all of those and just walked out to the combat mat, then folded his arms.

"Show me what you learned that isn't measured by your portfolio."

Rick had had the presence of mind to grab his equipment, so he began. He could keep the rubber balls spinning with his aura while fighting H, even when the older man began to actually attack. It took him off guard, since for so long H had only defended, but Rick managed to adapt without dropping the rubber balls at all. After pursuing him for long enough, H grunted dissatisfaction.

Next Rick showed how easily he could control the resistance spheres, his aura almost entirely smooth despite their buzzing efforts to disrupt him. H seemed marginally more accepting of this. But when Rick tried to keep the resistance spheres juggling, he found himself falling back repeatedly. He could focus enough to resist the spheres, or enough to hold his own in combat, but not both at once.

"It will do." H finally unfolded his arms, leaned back against a no smoking sign, and lit up a cigarette. "You still need to master actually using the Triune Golden Spheres, but you're not terrible at that, so you have time. What we need to do is emergency preparation to get you up to snuff."

"All of this hasn't been emergency preparation?" Rick asked. "I've done days of training that pushed me to the limit before, and they helped, but I don't think they'd improve me enough to matter in the Showdown."

"Not training. You're training about as hard as you can handle. But you have other serious shortcomings that provide low hanging fruit. All we need to do is pluck those and you'll be far more prepared for the coming competition."

"What's that?"

"Come this way." H took another drag on his cigarette, then gestured for him to follow. "This won't take long. We'll get it taken care of tonight, then you can rest up for tomorrow."

Still a bit puzzled, Rick followed H as they went through a back corridor and took an elevator down. As far as he knew, there weren't very many ways to instantly increase your power. Getting implanted with a powerful Lucore, of course, but that was extraordinarily expensive and not a good idea for a competition with a high skill level. Maybe there were secret legendary techniques he didn't know about.

When the elevator reached the ground floor, it kept going. Rick wasn't too surprised to see the number go to basement levels, but he hadn't expected the small hotel to have six basement levels. The doors opened and he realized that he might be right: the other side was a bare stone corridor, not the plush carpeting of the hotel.

"The barrier between realms varies over the world, depending on many factors. But in a place like Odiyu, of course they need reliable methods to get across. They're providing this as a courtesy to Showdown contestants, but don't use it without permission."

"We're going into the demon realm?" His question sounded stupid when they reached the end of the corridor and entered a room with a tear through space in the center of it. The surreal blackness on the other side was unquestionably the demon realm. "Why?"

"To get a demonic bond, of course. The fact that you're lacking a substantial one is a huge mark against you compared to all the other Showdown contestants."

Rick took a step back and raised his hands. "Wait a minute. That's not an accident, I chose not t-"

"Don't be a coward. Let's go." With that, H grabbed his shirt and threw him through the portal, into demonic Odiyu.