Angelos Odyssey

1 – Temporary Master-1

1

Temporary Master

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Raiko

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Just when I thought things were gonna come together, s**t went south real quick. I thought Tavon would pull through, but he’s been outta commission for over a damn week. They said he’s in a coma, and now I’m on my own. Like I’ve always been.

Tavon told me his life story, started lecturing me a whole bunch, and then just passed out. He left behind his Kom Cell, but I can’t figure out his password—so I have no money. I went to Shotobai for help, but his lazy ass brushed me off for a random girl and told me to meet him in two hours on the third floor’s gym hall.

The cruiser we’re all on isn’t just one ship; it’s connected with over a dozen cruisers of the same size, each one stacked either side by side or atop one another and separated into floors and halls. Altogether, I’d say there’s around a hundred thousand people on board, but some of the lower floors can hold half that. This web of connected cruisers is mostly filled with Federation refugees, but the conditions on board are comfortable enough.

While Tavon’s been knocked, I’ve found different spots throughout the fifth floor to sleep. No one ever bothers me—and there’s air conditioning—so it’s all fine; I still ain’t been able to shower, though, and so I’m buggin’ when I finally get to the gym. I thought Shotobai could help me out, but it looks like this dude has something else in mind.

On the third floor’s top deck, I leave the main building that connects one giant sky ship to another; every one of them’s got wide, metal bodies with pairs of long wings, and they all narrow into points at their cockpits. In the middle, a netite elevator is what keeps traffic flowin’ up and down through central lobbies based on each floor. From the central lobby of the third floor to the gym held within the next building, my heels crunch over a long bed of gravel. Gravel turns to grey stone a little ways farther, and stone becomes green grass spread around a group of short, rounded mountains. It’s easy to reach the top of the tallest one, and I climb my way onto a grassy plain surrounding what looks like a white cathedral. It’s eight stories high; from where I’m standing, I hear shouting echoing right above—right from the highest levels. Instead of a cathedral, it really is what Shotobai said: a “gym hall.”

Once I’m inside, where the walls shine white in between simplistic paintings of boxers in grey and red, I can see the Sun pouring in through the gaps in each story. There’s only the stone floor at my feet, and I walk into a room that’s full of grown men beating the s**t out of each other.

In the gym hall, where holographic banners of every color hang from every corner and open space to represent each combatant, fighting’s the rule of the day. Everyone’s here to train. The center room on the first story feels too hot to breathe in. To my left and right, the first story connects into separate rooms, and, even in those rooms, motherfucka’s are fightin’ each other. Boxing, bare-knuckled boxing, mixed martial arts—straight up wrestling on thin black mats—and weapons training is scattered all over the area.

Hundreds and hundreds of fools are here to train before the tall statue of a god holding a trident, but, within all the chaos, I don’t see anyone who knows how to use zol. I’m kinda tense as I try to avoid entire groups of combatants on my way through the middle, but no one seems to pay me any mind.

Shotobai’s standing across the room with his back to the wall and right before a set of steps leading to the second story. We make eye contact, and he nods his head like we’re cool. Dude looks too confident. I don’t like it. He’s got on loose, black pants and a tan, sleeveless jacket, and he’s wearing a stupid red headband for no clear reason.

Before I can get close enough to say anything, the asshead turns his back to me and starts up the steps without a word. I follow behind him and into a dark passage that leads up for a while.

“Did you find your way here all right, kid?”

“Yeah,” I tell him. “Just been hungry.”

“Hungry?” He glances back as he asks, “Tavon didn’t leave you any credits to use?”

“Nah.”

“I see.” Shoto scratches his head and sighs when we get to a room on the second floor lit by fluorescent lights and lined with walls made from bamboo paper. “Well, I suppose I can look out for you for the time being. I’ve already got a genzaon, though, and he’s not exactly the most... approachable, if you catch my drift?”

I start to answer him as we continue walking, but Shotobai just stops. He stops so quick that I almost run into him and just before we’ve left the room and gone into the next gym hall.

He’s staring hard at somebody who’s standing near the door leading into the gym and studying a wide painting to my right. I study it, too, and see deep blue waves drawn crudely below an atmosphere of light blue. It looks simple, but the sharpness of the ocean against the soft sky draws me in for longer than I expect.

A weirdo with long, black hair and a black kimono turns to face us, but he doesn’t show any emotion when he speaks.

“Hello, are you Shotobai?”

“Uh, yeah. How do you know my name?”

He smiles and says, “We’re on the same team, aren’t we?”

“What?”

“You are Shotobai, number seventeen, and I am number eleven. Inen’s on board as well.”

“Number eleven?” Shoto’s voice breaks.

“Yes.” He bows. “It’s nice to make your acquaintance. They say you’re very strong.”

“Well, uh, I’ve still got a lot to learn.”

“I know this might be on short notice,” he says while totally ignoring Shoto’s response, “but would you be interested in fighting me?”

Shoto pauses way longer than he should, but I can sense that he’s scared. I don’t know why, and I speak up for him, “I’m supposed to be a ‘student,’ so maybe watching you two go at it—”

“No thank you.” Shoto replies with a nervous smile. “You see, I threw out my back the other day, so I don’t think you’d be able to face me at my best right now.”

“Hmm.”

The stranger nods.

“Okay,” he says. “Be on your way then.”

“Right.”

Shotobai tries to pat me on the back; I brush him off because I’m not his damn kid, and we enter the gym hall of the second story.

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