First blood

Aether left the main beach with the resigned air of a man who had been firmly told his opinion was not required.

The pride and the newly arrived contingents had already scattered across the island with water weapons and competitive intent. Lynette had joined her assigned team without a backward glance, tail flicking once in residual excitement. That left him temporarily unattended for the first time since the Alcor had docked. He decided a long walk along the connecting sandbars and quieter shoreline paths between the islands was as good a way as any to fill the hours until someone came back victorious and claimed him.

At the open beach bar a short distance away, a woman sat alone with an untouched drink.

She watched the chaotic dispersal of the thirty-three contestants with calm, focused attention, offering no comment and attracting no notice. When Aether finally turned and started down the less-traveled stretch of beach that curved toward the neighboring islet, she waited a measured thirty seconds, then rose, left a few coins on the counter, and followed at a careful distance. The black half-mask she wore caught the afternoon light once before the path bent and both figures disappeared from the main resort’s view.

The Pride Claimer walked on, still unaware he had acquired a silent shadow.

Elsewhere on the island the agreed hour arrived.

Team Dehya moved first.

They were clear underdogs and everyone on the team knew it. No adeptal power, no Archon-tier tricks, no reality-bending witch. Just four women with soakers, pool noodles, and a shared refusal to spend the entire match hiding in a bush while stronger teams thinned each other out. Dehya rolled her shoulders, checked the water-sensitive seal fixed above her breasts, and grinned with the sharp, restless energy of someone who performed better when the odds were bad.

“We’re not waiting for scraps,” she said.
“We find someone, we hit them, and we either climb the ranking or go out loud. Questions?”

Candace adjusted her grip on a pool noodle and gave a single affirmative nod. Collei looked nervous but determined, ears ready and scouting. Nilou simply smiled, graceful even with multiple baloons hand, and fell into step without complaint.

They left the starting area at a steady jog, scanning the first stretch of open paths and low dunes for any sign of another team.

Team Dehya had just cleared a low rise of dunes when the attack came in from both flanks at once.

Xilonen skated in hard from the left, dual water pistols already up and firing in tight, controlled bursts. Mualani hit from the right on a surge of water, heavy soaker braced against her hip and roaring a continuous stream. The crossfire would have soaked at least one seal in the opening second if Nilou had not reacted first. A thin, spinning curtain of water flared up in front of the group — a makeshift skirt of pressurized liquid that caught the worst of both barrages and sprayed them harmlessly aside.

“Move!” Dehya barked.

They broke for a cluster of low rocks and stacked supply crates twenty meters ahead, returning fire on the run. Dehya’s pistol cracked sharp, short jets. Collei’s heavy soaker laid down wider covering arcs. Candace kept the pool noodle low and ready. Nilou lobbed the first water balloons in high, looping throws that forced Xilonen to carve a wider turn and cost Mualani a second of aim.

Collei nearly ended it early. A full-pressure blast from her soaker clipped the edge of Mualani’s surf just as the other woman tried to cut across open ground. The sudden impact of water staggered the shark; Mualani had to drop low and abandon the aggressive line, forced into a more cautious series of short hops behind available cover.

The exchange settled into a running fight.

Jets of water stitched the sand. Balloons burst against crates and rocks in bright splashes. Xilonen’s dual pistols kept up a disciplined, accurate pressure that made every exposed movement costly. Mualani’s heavy soaker punished anyone who lingered too long in the open. Team Dehya gave as good as they could — close calls on both sides, seals still dry, no one yet forced out of the match. The underdogs were holding, but the pressure was climbing.

Candace saw the opening first.

Xilonen carved a tight arc that temporarily put her on a predictable line between two dunes. Candace broke from cover at a full sprint, pool noodle drawn back for a heavy, two-handed swing aimed squarely at the center of the skater’s chest and the water-sensitive seal above it.

The strike never landed.

A blur of motion cut between them faster than ordinary eyes could track. Zibai hit Candace like a thrown spear. The impact was clean, brutal, and perfectly measured — a single strike across the chest that folded the guardian’s momentum in on itself. Candace’s own pool noodle disintegrated into wet foam and shredded foam chunks from the sheer force as the adeptis own noodle slammed through it. All the air left her lungs in one hard, involuntary sound. She went down on her back in the sand, the water-sensitive paper above her breasts already dark and soaked through from the residual spray and the force of the collision.

Zibai did not even slow down. She was already gone again, a smear of motion returning to her team’s flank, leaving Candace gasping and staring at the ruined seal while the rest of Team Dehya scrambled to adjust to the sudden loss of their front-line reach.

Zibai’s eyes had gone a flat, cold red.

She came in like a thrown blade, pool noodle already moving in short, precise arcs. Every jet Dehya and Collei fired at her was met and slapped aside mid-air with the same contemptuous ease, droplets exploding harmlessly into the sand. The distance between them collapsed in heartbeats. She would have been on top of the remaining three before they could reset if Collei had not reacted on pure instinct.

The dendro girl yanked a small sealed bottle from a pouch — one of the stranger Sumeru seed cultures she still carried — and hurled it into Zibai’s path. The glass shattered on impact. Thick, eager tentacles erupted outward in a sudden green-brown mass, latching onto the nearest moving target. Mualani never had time to cut away. The tendrils yanked her clean off her shark, coiled around her limbs and waist, and immediately set about their programmed purpose with single-minded enthusiasm. The hydro girl let out a startled, then rapidly melting moan as the tentacles found every sensitive spot at once and began fucking her in earnest right there in the open.

(https://im.ge/i/QMntTSF)
(artist: electroworld)

The sudden chaos bought a sliver of time.

Nilou lobbed a water balloon in a high, accurate arc straight at Zibai’s chest. The adeptus barely glanced at it; one flick of her noodle sent the balloon sailing away in a harmless spray. That same motion, however, left her a fraction late for the shot Dehya had already lined up. The pistol jet punched through the space the balloon had occupied and struck the still-restrained, already-climaxing Mualani dead on the seal above her breasts. The paper darkened instantly.

One down on the stronger team.

Team Dehya had half a second to feel the spike of victory.

It ended in a single, fluid blur.

Zibai stepped through the remaining tentacles as if they were mist, noodle already sweeping in a continuous arc that should not have been able to cover three separate targets so cleanly. The wet foam connected with Dehya’s seal, then Collei’s, then Nilou’s in what looked like one unbroken motion. Three soft, final impacts. Three papers soaked through. Three women frozen in place as the disqualification registered.

Citlali lowered her water pistol and exhaled through her nose.

Most of the exchange had unfolded inside the margins she had already seen — the aggressive approach from the underdogs, the timing of the crossfire, even the rough shape of Zibai’s counter. Mualani’s sudden removal by tentacles and a well-aimed shot had sat outside those margins. The Predicted Slut clicked her tongue once, annoyed at the blind spot, then filed it away. Acceptable outcome. Their team still stood three strong and the first opposing group had been erased in under two minutes.

They regrouped in the open sand ,Zibai’s eyes faded from that flat, predatory red back to their usual calm shade as the immediate combat focus left her. She offered no commentary on the efficiency of the wipe, only a short nod that the sector was clear.

Xilonen watched the taller woman with new, carefully hidden respect.

She had known almost nothing about this particular adeptus before the teams were drawn. Zibai, who had stood on the same battlefields as Rex Lapis during the Archon War was one thing on paper. Watching her move — the speed, the precision, the absolute refusal of ordinary limits — was something else entirely. The Perfected Slit adjusted her grip on the dual pistols and decided, not for the first time that afternoon, that having this woman on her side of the ranking was an extremely good allocation of resources.