Events of Arrival

Episode 6: Rookie's Streak

It was early as shit in the morning, and Calder was riding back from feeding the flock in Zebulon. She'd left even before the chicken was gone, which took on average somewhere around thirty seconds.

Then again, she'd left Aegis early as shit to get down there, feed everyone, and get back to the dorms in time to sleep for another half hour. So was her morning routine for the last three days.

Percher yawned. Calder followed suit. Another twenty minutes or so of flight. They could portal into Zebulon, but not accurately enough to get out to Aegis. So, a ninety-minute casual flight it was.

At five am, it had been an arid seventy degrees. An hour later, and the sun was still not up. The Eastern horizon over Zebulon was starting to look a little glowy, but still no sun.

Twenty minutes. The airborne duo shared another yawn.

***

The banging on her door was accompanied by someone yelling and calling her a rookie. There was also something about waking up thrown in there. She rolled over towards the door, and groaned. Whoever it had been was gone now. Stumbling out of bed for the second time in four hours, Calder grabbed a set of clean but trashable clothes and got dressed.

She grabbed her phone next. Nine twenty-one. People were spamming each other in the group chat about a video game tournament on the first floor or something. Not bad for a Saturday.

Oh, wait. Coliseum matches were on Saturday.

"How the fuck am I gonna sleep in late on my first day on the goddamn job?!" Calder yelped before grabbing her license, keycard, and wallet and bursting from the room.

"Hey, look. You were right," someone down the hall in the common room muttered. She didn't sound too impressed.

"Of course I was right!" Yoyo retorted as Calder made her way to the common room and he retreated to the stairs. "I've been in charge of you guys for almost eight years!" He saluted to Calder before disappearing through the door.

The draconic blinked. "I know it's supposed to feel normal eventually, but the boy who kicked the snot out of Alfa that one time just winked at me," she said, dumbstruck.

"It's not normal because you've only been here three days, rookie," the unimpressed voice from earlier retorted. It belonged to a woman, wearing some kind of grey sleeveless tracksuit, with hair tied up in long indigo braids and dark, heavy mascara hiding violet eyes. A heavy book sat open on her crossed legs as she leaned deep into the couch.

"It's Calder."

"Yullis. I don't really care."

"Good to know, thanks. I'll leave you alone."

Great first interaction, Calder thought as she heaved the stairwell door open. She checked her phone again. There'd been a last call for game participants. The slots were probably full by now. Might still be worth watching, if only to see some people yell at each other.

She could hear the yelling from three floors up. Most of it registered as jeering, two or three dozen people commanding someone to win. But there were about two voices that managed to cut though the racket around them, howling in something akin to rage.

Her ears regretted leaving the stairwell.

Creeping down the hallway granted her the sight of a very crowded common room. No furniture was visible through the wall of people, and Calder had to squeeze through and crouch down to actually see what was happening.

And four people were sitting across the couch, holding the tiniest controllers you ever did see, punching out combos and yelling at each other, the jeering crowd, and the make-believe characters on the massive TV screen. Three of the players went unrecognized by Calder, likely admitted to the community over the last two years. The fourth, silent and grinning maniacally, was Yoyo. And he was winning by a lot. Within fifteen seconds, two players went down at the same time, flying off the stage and disappearing into columns of bright colored light. They dropped--well, more like threw--their controllers to the floor and admitted defeat in a variety of poor ways. There was only one guy left, and he fell silent as the stench of his own defeat swept throughout the room. Yoyo's little avatar--some buff superhero looking guy--reeled back and delivered one final powerful punch complete with glowy feather effects. His opponent was nothing more but a sideways tower of flickering light.