The Tournament [A Non-Traditional Fantasy]

The audience, hungry for a fight, erupted with furor. Feet stomped, hands clapped, and a roar of voices swelled loud enough to nearly drown out the gong of the starting bell.

Palmer moved first. His free hand crossed to the empty purple sheath at his hip, palm hovering over its open mouth. Slowly, he drew his hand back—and wood answered the gesture. A branch sprouted forth, coiling into the shape of a sword.

"It's a far cry from Ishin Denshin," he said evenly, grasping the hilt, "but we use the tools at our disposal." He levelled the wooden blade at the Game.

The Game stifled a laugh, making no move to ready himself. "A wooden training sword? And how exactly are you planning to—"

Palmer exploded forward. His dash cut The Game's words short, and the blade came down in a clean arc to split the man in two. The Game stumbled back in a panic. The wooden edge sliced through his wild hair—then stopped cold, barely tapping his scalp.

The Game toppled onto his backside with a bark of horrified laughter. "I know I said no hard feelings. But opening with a kill-shot! I gotta admit, it's hard not to take that a little harshly."

Palmer frowned, pulling the sword back and studying it as though the weapon had betrayed him. From the corner of his eye, he caught the Game scrambling upright. Palmer slashed again, this time driving straight for the chest. The blade tore through flax cloth—then halted just shy of skin.

Palmer grew even more confused, scanning his opponent to try and parse what was happening.

The Game beamed his challenger the whitest smile. "Oh, sorry if this makes things more difficult for you, but that won't work here." He dusted himself off casually as he continued. "See, last month I started playing a little game with another contestant. We were never able to finish our game though, and that just ain't right. Wouldn't be fair if I were to die and leave the board mid-match, don't you think?"

Palmer's silence stretched. He looked down at this harmless wooden sword as if his glare could somehow scare it into functioning properly.

The Game carried on, unconcerned. "So, to keep things sporting, I can't die until that game concludes. Problem is—" He tapped a finger against his chin, feigning deep thought. "—even with immortality, I doubt I could physically overwhelm you either. Which leaves us in a predicament, doesn't it?"

He gasped theatrically, snapping his fingers. "Ah! I know. Why don't we settle this fight with a game of our own?"

Palmer finally tore his eyes away from his useless blade and fixed the Game with a flat stare. "A game?"

The Game's grin stretched mischievously. "I call this one… The Trouble with Bubbles."

Palmer merely raised an unsure eyebrow in response.

Unbothered, the Game flourished a hand outward and addressed the whole audience. "Here's how it works. Each of us will command an equal mass of floating water on opposite ends of the arena. No ordinary puddle stuff, mind you—this water ignores gravity. We can still swim through it, see through it, even drink it if you want. Think of it as our little ocean-in-the-sky."

He turned away from the audience back to addressing Palmer directly "Now, to play this game we'll need an instrument of course. How about a three-piped flute? Each tube with its own trick.

Play the centre pipe, and you absorb neutral water into storage—an infinite pocket dimension within the pipe for the sake of convenience and simplicity. Neutral water is just the standard typical water we all know and love… except floating as mentioned before.

Play the left pipe, and you spend some of that water to create a bubble of defensive water. Defensive water will be dyed by team: yours will be purple, mine orange. Only its creator can touch it safely. If you're ever completely submerged in your opponent's defensive water, you lose.

Play the right pipe, and you will spend neutral water to spray offensive water. Offensive water will still obey gravity and be dyed green for clarity. Offensive water will be used to convert any defensive water—yours or mine—back into neutral water.

The Game paused to let it sink in for both Palmer and audience alike, "So: neutral is clear, defensive is team-coloured, offensive is green. Stay afloat, swim clever, and don't get trapped. The first one to touch the ground or get submerged in the other's defensive water loses."

Palmer stared at him, his glare unbroken, jaw tightening.

The Game mirrored it with mock severity, eyes narrowing, grin twitching at the edges. The two locked into a silent standoff.

Finally, Palmer squinted harder and gave the faintest nod. "…What?"

The Game let out a long sigh. "Look, it's simple, we start with two bubbles of wat—"

"Wait. Wait." Palmer cut him off with a sharp wave of his hand, then marched over, wooden blade still in his grip. He crouched and scrawled two rough circles into the dirt. "Okay so we have two bubbles. Essentially we can move these bubbles around."

The Game bobbed his head approvingly. "Right, defensive water is basically just drawing walkways that you can move through, well I guess they'd be more like swimways but you get the idea."

Palmer rubbed out one of the circles and scratched smaller ones around it. "And if we run out of water—or want to steal the other's…"

The Game chimed in "You can reclaim it with the offensive water."

Palmer's brows furrowed, gears turning. "But the offensive water is spent in the conversion, so the total supply decreases?"

"That's right." The Game's smile broadened, genuinely delighted. "You're getting the hang of this already."

Palmer scowled, pinching the bridge of his nose as he was already developing a headache. He had come expecting another straightforward brawl. "Do we really have to do this?"

The Game grinned, noticing Palmer's uncertainty and discomfort. "Or we could both just wait here until you give up or starve to death. It's up to you."

Palmer's frown deepened. "Hardly fair that I'm forced into some contrived style of combat tailored to your whims."

"I assure you, Sir Palmer," the Game said with mock formality, "that I only ever play a game once. This is as new to me as it is to you."

Palmer weighed his options, then exhaled irritably through his nose. With that impossible barrier rendering his strikes useless, what choice did he have? He slid the wooden blade back into its sheath, where it promptly decomposed and melted into the purple lacquer and nodded his head in acceptance.

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The Game smirked to his opponent's capitulation "I need verbal confirmation that you agree to the terms of this game."

Palmer straightened, gaze locking with his opponent's. "I accept your terms."

The instant Palmer's last syllable left his lips, two enormous bubbles of water popped into existence, encasing the contestants. They lifted lazily off the ground, buoyed by unseen currents and carrying both men with them.

Not expecting to be instantly submerged, Palmer snapped his mouth closed, lungs burning from the sudden strain. He kicked upward and broke the surface of his bubble with a ragged gasp. Across the way, the Game waded half-submerged in his own sphere, chin resting against the rim and taking his own lungfuls of air.

"Shall we begin?"

As The Game spoke, a three-piped flute shimmered into being at the centre of his bubble. The Game's eyes flicked to the centre of Palmer's sphere, realization dawning at once, and he vanished beneath the surface in a clean dive. Palmer followed his glance, spotted an identical flute suspended in the heart of his bubble, and dove for it with a strong kick.

His fingers closed around the instrument and instantly he sucked through the centre pipe—half his bubble folded inward, vanishing into the flute's hidden reservoir. Palmer broke the surface again, just in time to glimpse what the Game had wrought.

The Game had already consumed nearly the entirety of his starting bubble and had shot out a thin orange stream over the arena floor. He quickly followed up with firing three more medium sized round bubbles in an upward arc.

The Game abandoned the last shred of his starting bubble, making a leaping dive from out of it and into the central orange sphere, already poised to chain his next move.

Palmer knew his edge lay in raw combat skill. He wasted no time—firing a long purple stream straight at the Game while surging forward, intent on forcing a close-range clash.

To his surprise, the Game didn't retreat. Instead, he launched himself out of his bubble in a sudden dive, skimming just over Palmer's head. As he passed, the Game fired a green jet to cut Palmer off from his starting point and replaced the stream with his own orange water.

Already, the flow of the match was set. Palmer's neutral water was sealed behind him, the Game's defenses before him, and the Game himself closing from the rear.

Palmer quickly began to dismantle the Game's defensive formation, fluting sharp bursts of green that pierced the Game's orange bubbles one after another. Each one popped with a dull splash, the converted neutral water rushing back into his own flute.

Palmer then whipped around to face his opponent, and loosed a thin purple sheet that slashed downward at an angle. In a sudden bout of inspiration, Palmer sprouted a small wooden knife from his purple sheath and threw it at the Game.

The Game hastily blew his own orange sheet downward to intercept Palmer's wave of purple, but that left him exposed. The knife cut through the water, arrowing straight for him—only to lose all momentum as it sank deeper in. It slowed, sagged, and finally drifted downward like a fallen leaf, sinking harmlessly out the bottom of the bubble and staking into the arena floor.

The Game let out a bubbling chuckle, air escaping his lips in a fizz of silver globes.

Palmer didn't hesitate. Knife or no knife, he used the distraction to hurl himself down the sloping sheet of purple water, cutting toward its base.

The Game followed suit, charging down his own sheet of orange water. Their twin wakes tore through the strange bi-coloured V they had created, both men driving hard for the bottom.

The Game reached the bottom first and made his move. In a single breath, he emptied his flute, loosing his entire store in a reckless spray of green offensive water. The entire V of both his and Palmer's defensive water turned to crystal blue neutral, and with one greedy inhale of the flute he dragged every drop he could reclaim into it.

The effect was immediate. The V-shaped channel vanished in a rush, leaving nothing to hold them. Both fighters plunged, weightless, into open air.

Below them stretched that thin sheet of orange water The Game had set at the very start. The sheet wasn't thick enough to stop the Game's falling momentum, but it was high enough that Palmer would hit it and lose the match before the Game hit the floor.

As gravity claimed them, the Game faced upward, eyes wide with triumph. He watched Palmer tumble above him, helpless, fated to touch that waiting orange shroud. A grin broke across his face, cheeky and victorious. The match was his.

And then—a sound. Low at first, but growing. A deep rumble, vibrating through the arena floor, through the thin water film below, through the Game's very bones.

The Game let out a startled yelp as something slammed into his back, spinning him in the air. His eyes darted downward—and widened.

From the tiny wooden knife Palmer had hurled, a trunk was erupting, thick and unstoppable. Bark split and groaned as it surged upward, drinking greedily from the last of the Game's orange veil, his precious defensive water swallowed whole in seconds.

Panic cut through his triumph; The Game jammed his flute forward, wedging it between the trunk's ridged plates. The bark clenched tight around it, and the instrument hauled him upward, carrying him alongside the monstrous growth.

He craned his neck. Far above, Palmer already stood balanced on a jutting branch, his silhouette framed against the rising canopy. From the trunk, new limbs tore outward in every direction, whipping like ravenous straws. They plunged into each floating bubble, siphoning them dry, leaving nothing but splinters of vapour in their wake. Every droplet was consumed and fed the tree's furious climb.

The Game's grin had vanished. His lips tightened, and for the first time in the match, he frowned. His water game had been drained of any water. Now it was only him, clinging to his flute, against a rival far stronger, with the only safe surface being the very tree that his rival had summoned.

Palmer caught the strain etched across the Game's face, and his own lips curved into a knowing smile. He set one foot against the trunk, and at once a lattice of vines burst forth, binding him firm to the bark. Another step followed, and more greenery writhed out to meet him, gripping his leg and pulling him fully from the branch. Soon both feet were planted sideways, the stoic man standing as if horizontal were no different than upright. Step by step the vines carried him downward, each root and tendril unfurling to steady his weight, until at last he hung directly above the Game, who clung desperately to his wedged flute.

"It would appear," Palmer said evenly, his grin sharp and unyielding, "that this is my victory."

The Game adjusted his grip on the flute, wincing as his entire weight pressed down on the few fingers holding him. "Impressive, I must congratulate you on not forgetting your own capabilities in this game. You definitely caught me off guard." he said with only a slight grimace, "but don't forget, you still can't touch me. As I don't plan on coming down anytime soon, you'll still need that water you've hidden in the tree to beat me."

"Easily done," Palmer replied.

The Game's flute shuddered violently in his hands. Then, in a sudden geyser of orange water, it burst forth, dislodging him entirely. Palmer's eyes widened—the water was under the Game's domain, not his own—and the vines around his ankles untangled, yanking him upward along the trunk to safety.

The orange water arced outward, a stubborn simulacrum of a branch refusing to fall. The Game swam along it, rising steadily, his head breaking the surface as he locked eyes on Palmer. "Don't be so predictable, my friend."

Palmer huffed in irritation, tossing another wooden sword to the ground. Immediately, a tree sprouted from it, rising to catch the orange water and siphoning the liquid into its trunk.

This time the Game was ready and stabilized himself so that the rising tree took him up with it. Palmer guided his own vines to ascend his own tree, keeping pace with his rising opponent.

Finally, Palmer crested the canopy of his own tree just as The Game's tree siphoned its last drop and stopped growing. The two combatants now balanced precariously among the thin branch tops, nearly touching the arena roof. Below, the audience squinted past the arras of leaves, trying to discern the two small black dots poised at the summit of their surreal battleground.

The Game paused, testing his balance atop the slender treetop, muscles coiling for control. He squared himself and met Palmer's gaze. "No water, no more trees… what's your plan now?"

Palmer only smirked for response. He casually tilted his empty purple sheath forward. As if called by Palmer's action, the tree beneath the Game's feet shuddered, twisting and contorting with almost fluid ease, flowing toward the sheath and vanishing into its hollow core.

The moment The Game felt his foothold shift he readjusted, but it constantly deformed in an amorphous rush. He lunged for handholds, claws scraping bark that no longer existed, but the shifting wood offered nothing stable. He slipped. His body pitched violently as the floor rushed up to meet him. His protective barrier flared just in time to cushion the impact, but even so, the jolt sent pain racing through his limbs.

Above him, Palmer's calm figure loomed impossibly high up. The Tournament gong reverberated through the dome.

The Game had lost.