Identities matter, even when you’re alone. And by identities, I don’t mean names. Without partners, nicknames count for nothing. I’m talking about a person’s character. What matters is that a person can live with themself. A handshake should mean something. People should live by principles. The saying always holds water—actions speak louder than words. If you know my actions, then I reckon you know me well enough. But until you get to that point, a name will have to do. I called myself Fabulosa and played my hardest to win this contest.

  Revenge is a guiding principle, at least in Miros. Whenever it comes to sticking up for me and mine, there’s no brighter North Star than revenge, and it’s what guides me now. As Lloyd would say, I’m on a beam reach and stealin’ wind from my competitors—a pair of Goth-wannabees calling themselves Bircht and Duchess. Ours was a collision course, and I’m unaccustomed to losing.

  Fury consumed me. I’d gouged their names out of the leaderboard for what they did to my partner. Apache was ten times the warrior. His getting knocked out robbed me of our duel—something I’d waited on for years.

  They held the upper hand, but that would soon change.

  Apache mouthed something to me, but I couldn’t understand through the bubble effect of Bircht’s vacuum.

  I spun helplessly in the air, and the next thing I knew, his cloak and gear fell into a pile on the ground.

  I paused the game by opening up my combat log and confirmed the events.

  /You cast Wall of Thorns.

  /Duchess activates Anticipate.

  /You cancel Wall of Thorns.

  /You hit and dispel Mirror Image.

  /Apache misses Duchess.

  /You miss Duchess.

  /You hit Bircht with arrow for 0 damage (49 absorbed).

  /You hit and dispel Mirror Image.

  /You miss Duchess.

  /Apache dies.

  Though it opened up a hole in my heart, I would not let them see me cry. This wasn’t a time for a pity party.

  Dad would say, “Suck it up, buttercup,” whenever I complained, and his words echoed a truth—losing partners was what we signed up for, but I don’t remember signing up to lose to weaker opponents.

  Still, Apache deserved better

  These trick-or-treaters couldn’t pull the same cheesy gimmick on me. I was onto them.

  I would Slipstream behind Bircht after Duchess ended her Stasis and wail on him with my Phantom Blade. She couldn’t channel the spell forever, and Bircht had already used his shrunken head.

  They probably figured a two-on-one scenario could cut me down before I took either of them out. Next, the pair would swing their weapons like amateurs, creating openings and weaknesses for me to exploit. Aside from the Stasis-vacuum trick, they wouldn’t fight differently than the players I’d already knocked out of the game.

  And I wasn’t afraid to face two players at once.

  When I was young, two girls followed me home one day. They meant trouble, so I picked up a stick and waited for them. I learned right then and there to show no hesitation in fighting. It usually threw enemies off their game, especially if they held the upper hand.

  Apache never wrapped his big brain around that. He didn’t care enough about what people thought of him to hold his ground. Sticking up for myself against two girls was an advantage on its own. Stalling and planning show vulnerability, not only to your enemies but also to your allies.

  Apache never lived in the moment—always fixing on the prize money, moral dilemmas, or distant dangers. He lived in the past and future, never the present.

  Sometimes, when we went into combat, I wasn’t sure he wanted to be there.

  It wasn’t right to speak ill of the dead, but I never could figure out his mindset. He was a sweet guy, but the boy clung to misery. Whether mindless library work, practicing moves, or juggling governor duties, it seemed like he steered clear of anything fun. When he had good times, it seemed accidental, a temporary thing that he’d stumbled into.

  After Charitybelle died, Apache protected Hawkhurst like it was the only thing that mattered. At first, I figured it to be part of the grieving process. It was honorable, but his devotion slowed down his game. It was sweet but too sad to watch. No, thank you.

  And now he was gone. I was the last of Team Belden.

  Watching his celestial blade, rewinding cloak, and belongings drop to the ground confirmed that I’d not only lost my last ally but opened an opportunity. Apache’s old gear gave me a tactical advantage that Bircht and Duchess might not have anticipated.

  Did they trust one another? Could they? Their underhanded tactics lead me to think otherwise. It’s not like Bircht defeated anyone in combat. Suffocating players wasn’t any way to fight. Would Duchess trust someone like that with a celestial blade up for grabs?

  I wasn’t facing a two-front war, and when Bircht reached for Apache’s gear, Duchess would turn on him. That was my opening. That’s when I’d give these crayon-eaters a category-five whooping they so richly deserved. I readied Slipstream.

  The game roared back to life when I closed the combat log interface.

  I blinked away tears and gripped my Phantom Blade. Its familiar grip and Windshadow’s voice remained my only friends—and I wouldn’t need to worry about losing them.

  My cape whispered into the back of my mind. “There’s an invisible human creeping behind you. She just equipped herself with a curved blade—I sense its dark magic.”

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  I knew Windshadow meant Duchess. She’d been Invisible during the whole fight, and I had to hand it to her—it was a clever trick. That’s why she’d gotten so lucky with the Mirrored Images.

  I didn’t know if it had been Duchess’s dumb luck or patience that kept her from picking up a weapon until now. If she had done so earlier, my cape might have told me so. I could have ignored these stupid phantoms.

  The Invisible Duchess had kicked over the battle standard, not her Mirrorred Image.

  When the Rooted and Grappled conditions disappeared, I hauled off at the remaining Mirror Images. I wanted my opponents to think that the annoying phantoms still had me fooled. Reaching Apache’s gear depended on my preoccupation with illusions, and playing the role gave them more time to turn on each other.

  Bircht wasn’t gathering wildflowers. He immediately dropped the shrunken head. It swung from his belt as he ran toward Apache’s belongings. He wasn’t waiting to divvy up loot afterward. He wanted that sword.

  Duchess’s disembodied voice called out to her partner. “Wait a minute. Help me take care of her first.”

  Bircht paid her no mind.

  His betrayal happened faster than even I anticipated, and I didn’t care about Duchess. Bircht picking up Apache’s sword meant he could channel without concentrating, and that wasn’t something I could allow. If I hadn’t already used my Compression Sphere on a Mirrored Image, I might have blown Apache’s equipment away from Bircht, who nearly reached it.

  To intercept him, I activated Slipstream, but nothing happened. My hair didn’t wave around the way it usually did.

  An icon appeared next to a Bleed debuff explaining the shortfall.

  Hex had been the spell Bircht mentioned before Apache went down, and its debuff didn’t appear until I tried to Slipstream. It worked like a predictive Counterspell, except it affected all categories of powers.

  Without words or sound effects, the only way opponents could know that Duchess had cast the spell was by monitoring the combat log.

  The ruining of Slipstream ended the footrace before it began. Other players wielding Apache’s old gear didn’t sit with me, but I couldn’t do anything about it.

  Before Bircht touched anything, Apache’s old robe and belongings disappeared, and a figure grew from the size of an action figure to full height.

  No way! Coming back from the dead shouldn’t be possible. That PR woman in the keynote speech said all deaths were final. Had my partner discovered an exploit? If anyone could, I’d wager my money on Apache.

  I doubted my eyes until I saw the celestial blade’s glowing point poking through Bircht’s back. His stupefied expression almost had me laughing, though I couldn’t rightly blame him for freezing. Though Bircht had lost over half his health, he stood stock-still, incredulous at Apache’s return to the game.

  Perhaps I wasn’t the only one trying to keep Bircht from taking the overpowered sword. I checked my combat log to see if Duchess had cast an illusion.

  /Apache critically hits Bircht with a Charge for 180 damage (0 resisted).

  /Apache triggers Slipstream.

  /Bircht triggers Anticipate.

  /Apache misses Bircht.

  No, Apache was alive and meting out damage. This wasn’t an illusion.

  Duchess backed away and dropped her guard. She pointed at my partner, outraged at the apparent cheat. “Wait! I saw you die in the combat log.” She shot an accusatory glance at the fleeing Bircht. “Did you not kill him? I don’t understand.”

  Between the three of us, I found my feet first and ran to Bircht. His Anticipate whooshed him closer to the lip of the ravine.

  Bircht’s health jumped by 100 points as he turned and ran down the mountainside, leaving Duchess to fend for herself.

  Apache and I each nailed him with a Scorch.

  For once, the winds favored me. While Bircht ran, I flipped up my hood and caught the breeze.

  The Airborne buff calmed my pounding heart. It felt like silently drifting with a parachute, where I couldn’t even feel a breeze on my face.

  Seconds after activating my cape, I removed the hood and materialized behind the turn-tail contestant. I landed a backstab for a critical hit that brought Bircht to a sliver of health.

  Bircht ran with a trail of golden ribbons in his wake. The streams of Rejuvenate inched his health upward, but not fast enough to make a difference.

  I stopped him with Tangling Roots.

  Bircht cast Vampiric Leech, a damage-over-time spell that reduced my health by 20 points a second while raising his, but his feeble efforts amounted to nothing.

  While the Tangling Roots held him, I cast a Lightning Bolt.

  Bircht triggered Reverb, sending the electrical bolt back to me.

  I Reverbed it back to my original target, knocking Bircht out of the contest. His belongings tumbled to the ground.

  Not trusting my eyes, I checked the combat log and contest interface to verify his death. The player count had fallen to seven.

  I separated Bircht’s gear from the disgusting, shrunken head. If the cursed relic prevented him from holding anything else in one hand, picking it up was the last thing I needed.

  I replaced my +3 willpower ring with Bircht’s +5 ring of strength, but the rest didn’t upgrade my kit.

  After collecting the loot, I ran up the hill.

  Apache looked to be in trouble again. Up on the plateau, a purple cloud engulfed him, and he swung his sword as if searching for an invisible opponent. Something about him didn’t look right—he appeared unfocused.

  After double-checking the combat log to verify that my partner was alive and not part of an elaborate Illusion, I Air Jumped up the hill to help him.

  I prepared myself for anything, but a hiding illusionist could cause all sorts of trouble.

  Apache had a puzzled expression when I returned to his side. “What happened?”

  His questions confused me until I checked the combat log. Not only had we left combat, but the last spells Duchess cast were called Forget and Disappear.

  While Apache regained his bearings, I recapped the fight—at least, the parts I understood. “I have a couple of questions for you, too, Buster.”

  Apache grinned.

  It wasn’t easy watching him die. Being caught in Stasis left me feeling helpless, a state I’ve dreaded ever since Winterbyte put me in a chokehold. And I hadn’t teared up since Charitybelle got knocked out.

  Seeing his grin left me relieved but angry that he hadn’t told me about his resurrection trick. We’d talked all night in the Dark Room, and he hadn’t mentioned a thing.

  I planted the battlefield standard. Only Apache and I appeared in the chat channel.

  Apache scanned the horizon. “Duchess has quite a disappearing act.”

  I crossed my arms. “Hers? What about yours? How did you pull that off?”