Roy Rocket - Beyond infinity

Dangerous games

On Kantogea the first lethal Matterball challenge of the tournament was underway, to the delight of the delirious crowd thirsty for violence and totally fascinated by the gruesome show.

The contestants in the arena were, unfortunately for them, forced to do their utmost to resist, in a fight that didn't show any mercy for the losers. In fact, to lose meant to die, disintegrated at the touch of a sphere or by coming into contact with the surface of the stabilized anti-matter lake.

With such a high risk at stake, fair play was out of the question. Even though the contestants had been divided into two teams, most of them didn't think twice about sacrificing one of their teammates, if it was beneficial to save their own life. Playing dirty assured them a bigger chance of survival and not only was it tolerated by the public, but they actually seemed to enjoy it.

The kantogeans rejoiced immensely when a member of the red team having seen a sphere headed directly towards him, used one of his teammates as a living shield, powerfully kicking his teammate's disk so hard that he was dispatched straight in front of the green matter sphere.

The technique of knocking the opponents off of their disks so that they fell into the lake was by far the preferred method so, apart from having to dodge the deadly spheres that continuously revolved in elliptical orbits around the arena, you had to be very careful to keep your distance from the other contestants, plus avoiding being hit by the poles that held up the player's disks.

In the middle of all this frenzy and confusion, Roy and Smogghel had, so far, managed to cope, mainly because they were part of the few, if not the only contestants, actually playing as a team. They moved swiftly around the lethal carousel, paying close attention to cover each other's backs and not to drift apart.

Finding themselves catapulted into that savagely brutal situation, Roy's first reaction was to panic: fear turned his legs to jelly making it impossible for him to stand upright on his disk. Anfry and Smogghel however, had reacted immediately, discussing strategies for the trio's survival between them. Although the moghistani had in fact, always disowned his fierce warrior instinct, he found that this natural disposition had come powerfully to the fore, giving him the strength, the skill and most of all the clarity of mind necessary to confront the situation. Anfry, on the other hand, moved by infallible logic and the pragmatic approach programmed into his memory had instantly predisposed maximum energy to his movement sensors and elaborated a virtual map of the arena, identifying which positions and trajectories would guarantee them the highest probability of survival.

The tough alien and the little automaton had understood each other straightaway, quickly exchanging information about the deadly sphere's movements and diligently looking out for each other.

Roy, after a few moments of bewilderment, had shown excellent stability and great control of his disk shaped platform, thanks to his skateboarding experience. Smogghel, despite his heavy build, had revealed himself to be much more agile and a lot faster than his appearance led to believe.

The youth, totally concentrated on what he was doing, piloted his disk following Anfry's instructions to the letter, while the automaton securely settled himself in the rucksack on Roy's back, before pointing his sensors all around them on maximum power.

At that point of the contest, the red team was in great difficulty, reduced to just over ten players, while the yellow team, which Roy and Smogghel belonged to, still had about thirty elements left.

During the challenge, thanks to Anfry's valuable advice, Roy had managed to avoid the errant spheres without too much effort and he'd protected himself well with his shield on more than one occasion, warding off his opponent's attacks. The youth had even succeeded in grabbing one of the greenmatter balls with his glove a couple of times. The first time, he'd tried to hurl it angrily against the Master of Ceremonies' platform, but because the sphere was linked to the gravitational pull used in the game, his attempt failed miserably and the lethal green lit globe had bounced back towards him, almost hitting Smogghel who was covering Roy's left side, not far away. The second time, an easy opportunity arose to fling it against one of his opponents who was passing just a few meters below him, focused on the game and totally unaware of Roy above him.