Chapter 354 - Far Future Ch.64 – Briggs (1/2)

So we walked, and we talked. There were endless places to stroll to, and the destination wasn't all that important... which didn't mean I wasn't being fed hints and suggestions from the cheering section all the time.

I told him to go first with the life story, as I pretty sure his was longer than my own personal one was. He sighed and unburdened himself of things he'd been keeping tight to his chest for more than twenty years.

It quickly became obvious he was a template, like me. He'd been self-aware from birth, identified as Briggs, had insisted on it since he was a toddler, and officially changed it when he was four. Briggs Ergen Rikkodivich, actually, although nobody ever called him anything but Briggs.

I listened to stories of his childhood, a poor family Underspire who really couldn't afford a kid growing up an Ancient, and he'd escaped from them up to the streets of Downspire, where his size, strength, and Levels for his age carved him a place among the homeless and the street kids, and the fact he was way smarter then they gave him credit for helped in all sorts of ways.

Pit fights and street brawls soon evolved into nasty caged matches for money, while on the side he was building up funds and the knowledge and skills to be a tech armorer, as the levels of opponents who could fight him had to get more and more cybered, and he began to progressively armor up to face them.

He had a hard and very well-deserved reputation as a borg-smashing terror in the arena league he had graduated to, fighting in front of major crowds for big money, which led to where he was now. The only reason he wasn't more famous was because he didn't pander to the fight fixers, and indeed had some violent altercations with them. Unfortunately, there was no stopping his fans, and his fightviews dwarfed all his competition.

Money talked, and so he'd been relentlessly moving up the rankings, while the cyborgs ahead of him tried to think of some way to deal with him. Nothing organic was supposed to be that damn strong and fast, after all.

Then, of course, it was my turn.

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”Well, damn.”

We were in a park atop Grumblespire, having strolled more than twenty miles along pedways and highways during our conversation, pretty much ignoring everyone. We'd gone off-topic many times, appreciated the sights, ridiculed the sights, and finally plopped down in a pair of public seats, chased off everyone nearby with mutual glares, and just chatted.

He wasn't all that perturbed to find out he'd been Templated to begin with. As a matter of fact, he considered himself damn lucky, as Ancients like himself generally weren't too bright, and he definitely put others like himself to shame. The template made him smart, insightful, and gave him access to knowledge and discipline early on in his life, which had profited him ever since.

He was a Ten Source, without a doubt the most powerful one in the whole city, and probably the Planet, given that his only rival was likely to be some other Ancient. The grimdark of this place didn't get him down, it just gave him something to overcome. He had chosen a unique route, and was carrying it forwards to the end.

Which meant he'd sworn an Oath, to stand on top of the Arena Rankings, and pretty much nothing and nobody was going to stop him. I couldn't rope him in right now, because of that Oath, but afterwards, well...

We were gonna do some abso-smurfly incredible shit together.

I sent him a file, and he opened it, poring over the specs for a Shield Focus, and grinning toothily. ”Oh, nice. This will really supplement the Force Shield I use in matches nicely.”

”I see you have the full Mark IV Vajra. I don't think that comes with the Briggs template, it's something Ma worked out later. How did you figure it out?”

”Well, the psionic stuff came when some punk of a mindblade cut me with his little psychic knife... and my Sun didn't unmake it. That kind of proved it was transpsionic and not subject to the normal rules. I beat his face in and had him cut me a dozen more times before I figured out how it was interacting with my Sun, used the logic that normal folks are psions who can't use psi so they never develop it, and bink, there it was, sitting right there ready to be developed.

”And if we could amass a Psionic Reserve, it was plain we could do a magical one.” He did give me a stink-eye. ”Four damn Caster Class Levels for free with each of your Racial Levels? That is insane, girl!”

”Ah, that,” I purred, and his big mouth pursed at the look I was giving him. ”We both know Mithar plays the deep game, and Mom, well, she's a pretty cunning bitch, too. There is only one reason you would be on the same planet with me at the same time as me, you know?”

He nodded agreement. ”We were put here together to find one another and work together.” His nostrils were flaring, and he could definitely see and smell where this was going.

”Ignoring the fact that you look totally scrumptious and your Source Sun is so damn ticklish, there is absolutely no way either of them would want you to be categorically inferior to me. So I'm betting there's a little something special that just might happen between Rantha Hags and Ancients...”

Even as he was grinning at me, he was still thinking. ”What? A Rantha Hagspawn Ancient?”

I opened my eyes in delight. ”You forgot 'Advanced'. And maybe, for you, Exemplar Lite...”

He breathed like a bellows, full of fire swimming in the air. ”You look like a moving statue. Your Null feels like this cold, pure steel my Source is just washing over, and you smell like a field of flowers, leather, and woodsmoke... in heat.” He grunted, obviously controlling himself. ”My place or yours?”

I held up my hand, and a grinning Fyr dropped down in a modded flitter from above. ”My place is gonna have a lot of ghosts watching.”

”I gather that's by design?”

”Oh, yes.”

”Then let's give them a hell of a show.”

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After a performance where even the ghosts are cheering...