Walker was unaware that a second occupant had joined him. He was too busy reading the text appearing on the center screen, his selected participants frozen in place.

  All Creators have submitted their bets and the allotted time is soon to end.

  Each Territory within the fourth battle is designed to adapt to the specific needs of their Custodians.

  For the Defenders, entities must consider each potential attack vector, formulating possible defensive strategies. For the Attackers, they will need to systematically examine each Territory for vulnerabilities and threats.

  Both Defenders and Attackers may collect the dropped spoils of the defeated and utilize them during the fourth battle.

  Entity Elimination Conditions:

  Attackers win the territory by claiming the Obelisk or successfully eliminating the Defender.

  Defenders win if their territorial Obelisk is not claimed within a ten-minute timeframe, and they survive.

  Creator Victory Conditions:

  Should a Creator have all of their entities eliminated, they will be placed into stasis until the fourth battle concludes.

  Should a Creator have a single remaining entity and reach the final five Creators, they will move on to the second phase of the fourth battle.

  …

  Modified response: Upon completion of this battle and due to special circumstances, the losing Creators will be translocated to the position of the winning Creator’s planet of operations.

  All associated abilities, entities, landmasses, titles, and resources will transfer to the victorious Creator. The losing Creators will be indentured to the winning entity until such time as they are optionally released or perish.

  All Defenders will now have ten minutes to prepare their territories. At that time, Attackers will be released from stasis.

  Releasing Defenders in three seconds.

  3.

  2.

  1.

  Begin

  Walker’s eyes locked on to his people. In front of each Defender stood a shiny obelisk of dark metal. It was of middling height, with four flat planed sides ending in a pyramidion top. Upon touching it, a large blue screen lit up. He quietly watched as each Defender stared at the writing before something unusual happened, “Uhhh, I’ve always had my assistants manage the Territory screens. Can someone help me?”

  It was Melias doing the speaking, something that didn’t shock Walker.

  Thomas spoke up within a second, “You need first to select a theme for the Territory, then your options will appear. Knowing you as I do, you should select the relocating theme, or perhaps the mirror one.” In the few seconds since they’d touched down, Neus’s protege had a small wall of wood around his area, springing up in a flash of Cyan. Even as Walker watched, a small Mana Tree appeared beside him, reinforcing the magical atmosphere of the room. “The screens are intuitive, and the themes are slightly limiting, though I believe they will work well with some applied creativity. You just need to get started.”

  “A theme?” Melias said with a blank expression as he searched the screen.

  “Yes. Something that roots your planned defenses together.” A door handle appeared on part of the wall near him. He turned it and stepped out, the screen following along with him. “I believe I am going to go with traps for my design. It fits me.”

  Hearing a natural break in their conversation, Walker said, “Traps are a good idea. With how fast your walls went up, you might be able to sectionalize the whole Territory.”

  Thomas continued his work, the ground disappearing as he built his Territory piece by piece. Quickly, a set of wooden stakes filled the pit; then he moved on. What didn’t happen was a response to what Walker had said.

  “Hello? Can you guys hear me?”

  The sound of someone sipping at a nearly empty cup alerted him that he was not alone, “No, they cannot. We believed it would be too much if we allowed every Creator to speak to their Entities during the battle. Three said it would be too easy to cheat.”

  Walker slowly rotated his vision to the speaker on his left. There was a thin man seated there, an ebony black robe wrapped tightly around him as he sipped from a steaming mug, pinky held high. His skin appeared as if it was stitched together, with different colored patches standing out beside one another across the edges of his face. There was also something unusual about him…like he demanded you look at and speak with him. Something that pulled the eye…Walker couldn’t put his finger on it.

  The man took another sip, then placed the mug down beside him, a bright green ring shining on one of his hands. “So, we finally meet Walker Reed. I have to say, this has been coming for some time now.”

  With one eye on the odd man sitting on the throne beside him, his other eye watched the battle. Adele made her choice on the screen, a group of large spiders springing up around her. They began to web the area under her direction as the man beside Walker continued speaking.

  “I was curious about who you would pick. Admittedly, I am not as up-to-date on your entities as I was in the past, but I’m unhappy to see you didn’t at least try to select any of your Primigenials. It wouldn’t have worked as you did not create them; however, my disappointment is surprisingly profound. Your decision to not use them or the Poison Wyvern made me lose a bet.” He got Walker’s full attention when the green ring on his finger flashed, “Nothing like the one you have going here, but still substantial nonetheless.”

  Walker didn’t know who this was or what his end game could be. Rather than ask and settle into a long expounding conversation on his character, he instead said, “What were the stakes?”

  The man drummed his fingers on the throne, “Out of respect for your accomplishments, I’ll answer that. Two medium planets with a small population. They are inconsequential to my overall goals, but I’m not here to flaunt my wealth. Instead, I’m here to converse with the man who turned this rendition on its head.” The side of his stitched face quirked up as he paused for a second, “Do you have any idea who I am?”

  Walker internally rolled his eyes.

  But his real eyes caught the moment when the Attackers were released from stasis. All of the screens in front of him updated at once, and a secondary and slightly smaller screen appeared beside each original. For the Defenders, it showed key locations they had to maintain. While on the Attacker side, it showed their position on a map within the defending Territory, updating the more they moved.

  Runner was off in a flash of lightning, the monitor having a hard time keeping up with her, while Bale moved at a much more reduced speed, swinging through a forest of thinly branched trees. His face did not look happy with the situation.

  Phil, Gorlak, and Fillion took a more sedate pace, unable to move at the velocity of their fellow Attackers.

  Each Attacker was positioned differently, the Territory of their exit points unique to the theme selected by the Defender. As Runner and Bale zipped on the ground and through trees, Gorlak took a different route, smashing through every obstacle in view, even picking up large boulders he found and rolling them forward with gusto.

  Fillion the Kind Pirate pulled out two cutlasses, lightly jogging through the area in an oddly leaning fashion as he moved from cover to cover, eyes constantly roaming. An errant thought flew into Walker’s mind. He briefly wondered how a double-cutlass fighter would even handle a one-on-one fight, but it only lasted long enough for him to reply to the man beside him.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  “No, sorry. I have no idea.”

  He looked over at the man, feeling queasy at the rictus smile still on the man’s face, “You can call me Councilmember Five. I’ve made quite the fortune leaning on you, Walker. Quite the fortune.” The ring on his hand pulsed as he gave an almost imperceptible shake of the head, “Sadly, I’ve had to channel some of my winnings into supporting you in the Alpha Protocol, but it will all be worth it in the end.”

  He loudly tapped a finger against the throne as yells splashed back from the screens. Lucy was already engaged in single combat with an Attacker. It had a humanoid shape but with two more arms extending from the top of its back. The Golden Shield was parrying for all her life as she adapted to the creature’s fighting style.

  Walker tried to keep an eye on everyone as he responded, “So you’re a member of the Alpha Protocol Council?”

  He saw the man nod from the corner of his eye, “I am.”

  Walker pushed down the burning feeling that was trying to rise in his chest. In the most even tone he could manage, he said, “Then how have you been supporting me? From what I can tell, the Council has been trying to fuck me over since the second battle.” He reached into his memories, identifying key instances of when their changes had occurred. “The Army of the Lost and the Anti-Mage of the Second Battle.”

  “Whom you easily defeated and gained incredible rewards from.” He pointed out, but Walker wasn’t through.

  “Killing multiple entities on my planet, including one of my strongest at that time, and causing one of my assistants to enter a depression.”

  He smiled again, “An unfortunate occurrence, not something we’d intended, and one in which you were compensated for.”

  “Giving Mirail an easy leg up in the first round of the third battle?” Walker replied, finally turning in his chair to see the stitched councilmember’s reaction. But the man kept smiling.

  “And yet, you succeeded. Who do you think pushed the Lamda Protocol to create the contained world of the second round? Who do you think pushed the Council to take a chance on you with Rendition 4AB and the discovery of basic strands?” He paused for a long moment, the smile still engrained on his face, “I’ve been pushing the Council to support you since the very beginning. And I did so, even as I faced resistance from my fellow Council Members, particularly number one.”

  Walker turned, his eyes drifting back to the screens. He’d missed a lot already by what he could see. There was a number three above Runner’s monitor already. It updated even as she plunged a hand covered in lightning through the entity’s eye. With a grimace, she swiped her hand through the air to remove any liquids clinging to her skin, then reached down, rifling through what had fallen on the ground with its death. She held a glowing object in her hand, shrugged as she put it into her inventory, and then stood still as she began to be translocated to the next location. Sand touched the bottom of her boots as she kicked on her magic again, racing into the distance, the number four glued to the top of her monitor.

  “An impressive specimen.” Five said beside him, “When you created kernels, I was quite shocked. An internal magical locus. It isn’t the first time we’ve seen it, hardly that, but to tie it to their genetics rather than direct rewards from the Creator. That is unique. Of course, Council Member One and I have been paying attention to you since the very beginning. Since you had trouble drawing a circle, of all things.”

  He didn’t like to remember his battle with Dysgraphia.

  “Why,” Walker said harshly as Lucy finally defeated her opponent, her breath coming in gasps. His eyes moved to a talking Melias, dozens of mirrors holding his image across his entire territory as he spoke softly to the Attacker, his words not coming through the monitor. “Why have you been paying attention to me from the beginning?”

  “The Tree of the Gods, of course,” he replied with a full-throated and unexpected laugh, the sound utterly incongruous with his appearance. “It is an anomaly we can’t account for with the Alpha Protocol. Only ever seen once before, on a planet called Earth.” He smiled again, “One i believe you’re familiar with. You know we couldn’t ignore that. Councilmember One and I took opposing sides on the matter. He wanted you out of the protocol entirely, whereas I believed you would bring nothing but merit to the Alpha Protocol Council. Oh, that had to hurt,” He remarked as Gorlak ripped his Defender in half, the number two now on his screen. “You know, your entities are really something. I believe the odds of you failing the fourth battle will come down to the changes that occur when only five Creators remain.”

  “And those changes are?” Walker asked, trying to get an idea of what was to come.

  “Ah, ah,” The man said, waving a ring-covered finger with a stretched smile, “No spoilers, as your people like to say. But Councilmember One, ah,” He sighed, the smile leaving his face for once, “He’s an old Evolver. Very old. Did you know that the Cerulean line can trace its lineage directly back to him? One of his children was selected for the Alpha Protocol long ago. If I was betting on you, he was betting on the three Ceruleans in this rendition. After the Mirail incident, not to mention the anomaly, you are quite on his hit list. I’m afraid of what will occur in the final battle.”

  Before Walker could ask about it, the man pointed at the screen holding the Wanderer. Melias was still talking to the Attacker while it stood as if caught in a net, responding with multiple shakes of the head and brief bouts of screaming. It stood in place just long enough for a large, sharp shard of glass to fall from the sky, splitting it in half. Walker shuddered.

  “Terrifying that one.” The man on the side said, another steaming cup in his hands. He offered it to Walker, “Would you like some? It’s a delicacy from the second rendition, said to create quite the virility in those who consume it.”

  Walker took the glass, briefly touching the man’s hand. His skin felt like cold wax. “What’s in it?”

  “I’ve never asked, but it does infuse the imbiber with a powerful dose of energy.” He took another steaming mug, drinking it with a smile as Gorlak’s number hit four. “Remarkable that not a single of your entities has fallen yet. I suppose that speaks to your power as a Creator.”

  “I’m of the belief that it speaks of my people’s character and hard work. I’m simply a facilitator for their goals, like Bale there.”

  They both focused on Bale Quick as the Guardian dove around a rocky plateau. Small boulders rained down from above as the Defender tried to dislodge the albino squirrel from his attack, but Bale wouldn’t be denied. He quickly scaled the side of the small mountain, diving over the lip of a crevasse and rolling through an opening in the side of the wall. Seeing his chance, he reached out a hand and grabbed the obelisk in the center. The fuzzy, gas-like Defender wailed as it dissipated into the air, small baubles and a large amount of goo the only thing left behind.

  “So you’re a facilitator, not a God?” The man said with a heavy emphasis on the g. One of Walker’s memories came forth, causing him to stumble mentally.

  “No, they’re, uh, my friends. They’re good people.”

  “Even that one?” He said, pointing a stitched finger at Phil’s screen. The sapient scorpion only had a number two on his screen, “He seems to be the weakest of the bunch.”

  Walker looked closely. While the others were out of breath, tired, and damaged, Phil was still in perfect shape. They watched as he snipped a long cord, revealing a spiked trap swinging through the forest he was traveling through. With some happy taps of his segmented and armored legs, he continued to move forward inexorably- as if he were on vacation and just seeing the sights.

  “Phil’s going to do things his way. They all volunteered to be here, nobody was forced. If the slow and steady march is how my friend wants to complete the battle, then so be it. Speed isn’t always the most important factor in these things.”

  “And yet you came in second for the second battle, far faster than almost every Creator within the Rendition. Do you know who came in first?”

  Walker shook his head, “You know I don’t.”

  “Indeed,” He said with a large smile. When he didn’t expand on that, Walker looked over at him. “You haven’t touched your drink.”

  “I’m not thirsty,” Walker replied, gently placing the cooling cup on the ground.

  “Pity. That would cost about as much as one of those portals you like to place everywhere. Speaking of,” He said, an unauthentic transition to something else he wanted to speak about, “We’re very aware of what you are doing in Luck’s Haven.”

  “Really?” Walker replied, trying to stay calm, “It’s my planet, is it not?”

  “That it is, that it is,” Five replied, tapping his fingers together, “But those people are not yours, not technically. What they choose to do with themselves is their prerogative, but bringing them to this rendition, Rendition 4AA? Not possible. We gave you a special license with Raganoth the Bleeder, mostly because we were curious about what you would do with his genera, and the Tree of the Gods is already a part of the Protocol. But with all those people on Luck’s Haven? That, we cannot allow.”

  Walker didn’t say anything for a long moment.

  He didn’t say anything because he was reviewing what had been revealed in the surprising conversation thus far. The Council knew about the Tree of the Gods, the Primigenials, and what he was doing with Luck’s Haven. The Primigenials and all of the hubbub around the Tree of the Gods made sense, as Virgil was required to report back to them before his rebellion. For Luck’s Haven, it would be simple for one of the nobles vacationing on the planet to report back what rumors they had heard, putting a stop to him bringing those people to Symphony.

  But, the council didn’t know about all the creatures and people he’d taken from the Grand Auction, nor his part in its destruction.

  Had they known, they’d have surely executed him by now. Yet, it still unsettled him how closely they were watching Luck’s Haven and the lottery. He couldn’t undo what he had promised to those poor people. According to Virgil and the application team, some of the psychological profiles and stories told by the citizens of his newest world were more than deeply disturbing. Even the Supreme Assistant called them horrifying.

  Aside from his general want to save them, his oath had pressed a finger on the scale. He’d have to save them one way or another, and he didn’t like his only alternative to Symphony.

  Outloud, he said, “I understand,” Just as Chipper defeated his fourth Attacker.

  “Yes, I thought you might.” The stitched man replied. He put his half-drained cup on the table beside him and then stood up, “I’m sorry to say I cannot stay longer. Even gaining the chance to have our little chat has cost me quite a lot of resources. I’m afraid my time has run out.” He looked at the screens one last time before glancing at Walker, “I’m certain you will reach the final five. As for the final battle that follows the fourth, let me just warn you: Councilmember one has a powerfully malicious grudge against you and the Symphonians. I am very certain that the battle will be all but impossible to win.”

  Walker felt something flare up in his chest, “We’ll see, won’t we.”

  The stitched man smiled, “Oh yes, we will. Goodbye for now. I’m looking forward to the Protocol Review should you make it through to the end. Ta-ta.”

  As he started to walk away, the wall shifting open for him, Walker turned his head quickly and activated soul vision. Just as he stepped through the exit, most of his body already obscured, Walker saw what made the stitched man feel so unusual.

  There was a series of long black lines running through the parts he could see, ones he’d recently become intimately familiar with.

  Link

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