You Already Won

Outlanders were special beings—but far from invincible. They could bend Requiem to their will in ways the natives never could, wielding powers that seemed limitless.

But Requiem was alive in its own way, and like all living things, it adapted.

Two beings now moved at the heart of that adaptation, drawing on the very equilibrium that kept the realms balanced: Sryun and Magic.

Sryun was more common in this timeline, its prevalence owed largely to the dominance of the Rituain Clan. Outside their bloodline, few could wield it, and even fewer dared to try.

Sryun was the darker side of Ryun—a current that drew upon the negative energy of those around it.

It was the closest thing to true magic in Requiem, a force rare yet feared. And while it could counter Magic to a degree, it could never truly overwhelm it.

For Magic is…

Ashantiana's gaze swept across the strange space she now stood in.

A court—metaphorical, metaphysical—had unfolded around her, vast yet confined, its boundaries humming with a pressure she didn't recognize.

And there he was.

The boy.

His robe hung in tatters, his locks swaying as if stirred by a phantom wind. A single purple gem at his neck burned like a brand, its light pulsing in rhythm with the steady, defiant beat of his heart. Brown skin, brown eyes—both fixed on her.

She took him in silently, cataloging everything. Every tear in his attire, every subtle shift in his stance, every possible flaw she could exploit. She was already breaking him down, step by step, picturing the exact moment she would destroy him.

She didn't notice—didn't care—that her own Ryun had shifted, molting and blackening into Sryun under the pressure of her hatred. Such changes meant nothing.

What she did know was that this stain of a mortal… this Outlander… was shaping something that wasn't Ryun based.

It had to be Magic.

Her first proof was immediate: her abilities felt suppressed, hemmed in by invisible laws. This place wasn't neutral—it was a barrier of sorts. A barrier with rules.

She would hear those rules. She would understand this so-called game.

And then she would kill him.

Jamal smirked, sizing up the void-looking creature across from him. Thing had a figure—probably a woman. Sexist? Maybe. Didn't matter.

What did matter was the vibe. The thing reminded him of the creepy late-night horror creepy pasta you find at 2 a.m. on YouTube—distorted, wrong, something that looked at you like you were already dead.

He let out a long sigh.

It took forever to claw his way back up from underground—forever just to figure out if he was above ground. Then came the sprint, cutting through the chaos while gunships roared overhead and explosions turned the sky into static.

And Skittles—when could she do that? The hell was all this?

But then he saw Destiny. Beat to hell. Barely standing.

Goddamn.

She'd helped him out when she didn't have to. Acted like she was above most things, yeah—but she kept it humble when it counted. She was cool peoples.

And anyone who messed with her?

Opp.

And all opps gotta die.

Jamal stepped forward, the purple gem on his neck pulsing.

"Here's the rules, blood."

The court—metaphorical and metaphysical—tightened its grip on reality. The world outside distorted, distant, like a paused cutscene. Here, time dribbled to its own rhythm.

Ashantiana blinked. She understood him now—fully. The Ryun suppression, the spatial anchor, the clarity of translation—it was definitely Magic, no doubt. This Outlander wasn't bluffing. He wasn't just strong—he was rewriting the rules around her.

He grinned, laying it out.

"One on one. First to seven buckets. Ones only. You dribble more than once, that's a carry. Travel, that's a turnover. No teams. No timeouts. Winner stays standing. Loser?"

He tilted his head toward her, eyes cold.

"Vanished. Forever."

Ashantiana narrowed her eyes. The boundaries of the court pulsed in response to the terms—like Requiem itself acknowledged the conditions. Her Sryun, no longer unhinged and limitless, flexed under restrictions. A barrier with rules, imposed by a will. She grit her teeth.

Tsk. Bastard twisted the world around him like a sorcerer in a fable. But she still could find a way to kill him.

"You understand?" Jamal asked casually, spinning the glowing ball of light between his fingers. Purple lightning rippled across the lines of the court.

Ashantiana glared, silent.

"Bitch, you understand the words coming out my mouth? We can keep talkin' 'til you nod."

A long pause.

Then, bitterly, she said, "I understand you ver—"

"Shut the fuck up and check up, blood."

He bounced the ball once—BOOM—the court vibrated like thunder.

Ashantiana stepped forward, teeth bared, and caught the ball in both hands.

Game on.

Ashantiana slapped the ball to Jamal's chest.

He caught it with one hand, grinning. "Light work."

He dribbled once—BOOM. The sound echoed like a canon. Ashantiana braced, but he was already past her. A blur of movement. One cross, one step, one dunk. The rim shattered as the ball crashed through it. No glass—just flickers of fragmented light.

"1-0, blood."

Ashantiana hissed. Her aura flared, but the court muted it. She was still adjusting.

Next possession, same result. He hesitated, then blew past her again, faking left and vanishing right. Finger roll. "2-0."

She growled, circling. Her eyes scanning like a predator. Then, something shifted. She stopped reacting like a beast. She started reading him. Movements. Foot placement. Body weight. Like swordplay.

This wasn't sport. It was duel.

The third possession, she didn't fall for the fake. Her hand struck the ball mid-dribble, sending it skidding across the glowing court. She spun and chased it, pivoted, and fired a jumper. Clean swish. The board lit: 2-1.

"Okay, okay," Jamal said, nodding, wiping sweat. "You learning. Let's hoop, bitch."

The tempo exploded.

From outside, Crisper sat beside Destiny—unconscious, breathing shallowly, her golden aura twitching. They weren't on the battlefield anymore. Not even in the real world, not fully.

They were beside it. On the bleachers.

Crisper glanced around. The court existed like someone had slid a new page atop the current one—layered reality. She tried to aim her sniper at the Herald again, but the bullet vanished mid-air.

No effect. No trace.

Crisper slowly lowered her weapon. "Damn. He really made a whole-ass zone."

She looked down at Destiny, bruised and barely glowing.

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"That wave almost had us…"

Her voice trailed as her eyes turned back to the court.

Inside, Jamal and Ashantiana were no longer just playing. They were moving like espn titans. Each dribble cracked the court. Each step bent the rim of space. Blurs of motion. Blocks. Crosses. Swipes. Fades.

A warrior of hatred versus a streetball god.

Jamal's shot lifted clean—but not clean enough.

Ashantiana launched, her Sryun coiling around her like black mist, fingers snatching the ball out of the air with eerie grace. She twisted mid-jump and snapped the shot back across the court.

Swish.

The score ticked: 5–4.

Crisper flinched from the sidelines. "Yo…"

Jamal wiped his brow, smirking. "Okay. Okay, I see you, shadow whore."

Ashantiana didn't respond. Her expression hadn't changed, but inside, she was calculating. Two more points and he wins. One mistake and she loses. These rules—the Magic rules—clung to her like chains. The court muted her Sryun, bent the air around her, made her slower than she should be.

But she could feel it now.

It wasn't Ryun.

Sryun still flowed, barely restrained. Suppressed, not erased. Jamal's domain didn't know how to fully cancel it. Magic operated on different rules—but Sryun was born outside of rules.

While they weaved and clashed—his ball-handling smooth, her footwork tight—Ashantiana began to change her rhythm. Just slightly. Enough to insert intent into the gaps. Between the pump fakes and step-backs, between the rebounds and pivots.

She struck.

It was subtle at first. A flick of Sryun in her heel to lurch forward mid-crossover. A sudden unnatural lean while blocking a layup. Jamal felt the shift. His gem glowed, pulsing like a heartbeat, keeping pace, barely dodging her sudden, ghostlike speed-ups.

"You playing dirty now?" he muttered, sliding past her with a spin move, missing the rim.

The ball skidded away. She let him grab it.

He dribbled again.

Then—SLICE.

He twisted, just in time. A spear of Sryun whipped past his cheek, vaporizing parts of his dreads.

His eyes narrowed. "Okay… so that's what we're doing now?"

She didn't answer. She didn't have to. Her next move wasn't toward the rim—it was toward him. A blur of muscle and malice.

Jamal tightened his grip on the ball, his purple gem pulsing at his chest like a metronome of survival. He couldn't afford another jumper—Ashantiana was adapting too fast. She was already hunting the spaces in his movement, lacing her defense with Sryun like landmines.

Only a dunk would work now. Something definitive. Something that said this game ends with me.

He faked left, spun right. Her body moved on instinct, following the feint—but she was too sharp, too fast. Her Sryun flared, adjusting mid-step. She lunged.

He jumped.

She swiped—

But he tucked the ball behind his back, pivoted midair, and slammed it home with enough force to crack the metaphorical court like glass.

6–4.

Ashantiana's eyes twitched. Her fingers flexed once. Then, she calmly walked to retrieve the ball.

Crisper pumped her fist from the sidelines. "That's what I'm talkin' about!"

Jamal caught his breath, knees low, gem humming. He wasn't celebrating.

She wasn't mad. That was the problem.

Ashantiana took her stance. Jamal readied himself.

They moved.

He reached to steal. She faked, twisted, elevated—a shot from the mid-range with unnatural precision.

Swish.

6–5.

"No—" Crisper stood up. She looked over at Destiny—still unconscious, barely stabilized. "This was supposed to be a sweep…"

She clutched her sniper rifle, helpless to act.

On the court, Jamal exhaled, mind racing. He was thinking too much. Trying to calculate. Wondering if he'd written the rules too tight, made a mistake that boxed him in. Of course he hadn't thought about a rule for cheating.

That slip in attention was all Ashantiana needed.

She lunged—not for the ball, but for him.

A lash of Sryun clipped his leg. He stumbled, hard, the ball bouncing loose—and she didn't even let it stop. She scooped it, pivoted, shot. Her release was smooth.

Swish.

6–6.

He pushed himself up, eyes wide, breath sharp.

Crisper shouted from the sidelines, voice breaking:

"You got this—"

"Fuck that, don't!" he barked, coughing, standing straight. "I'm good!"

His eyes locked onto Ashantiana.

She stood still, holding the ball now. She didn't smile. She didn't blink.

Only one point remained.

And the next bucket decided who stayed.

And who got erased.

Jamal's legs tensed.

She had him figured out. Ashantiana's footwork, her timing, her eyes—she wasn't playing basketball anymore. She was hunting. One more drive and she'd tear through him like she did Destiny. He could see it—feel the invisible blade hovering over his thoughts.

And he couldn't use the death clause. That was final-score only.

But there was one thing he could do. Though it was a gamble, if he wasn't fast enough… well he wouldn't have to worry about that if it didn't work.

As she moved, Sryun lacing her limbs, he drove forward. She mirrored perfectly. Their bodies blurred—motion trailing like afterimages. She saw the fake coming. She saw everything.

So she reached.

That was her mistake. As she cut his arm—

Jamal jumped back, one foot stomping hard into the glowing line at the top of the key. He raised both hands.

"Technical foul!"

The court shuddered.

A deafening buzz ripped through the sky.

Ashantiana froze mid-lunge. Her eyes widened, confused—but not afraid.

Until the air warped behind her.

The court—no, the reality of the court—spun like a referee's whistle. Lines blurred. The metaphysical basketball space groaned with law and order. In glowing text across the sky, a single rule flared:

**No unauthorized contact with the player outside of ball possession. Penalty: Ejection. **

Ashantiana's body trembled.

"What—"

Then came the ejection.

A force the size of a freight train slammed into her from behind. No warning. No buildup.

Just BOOM.

She was flung skyward like a comet shot from a cannon, her shriek fading into the atmosphere. Her dark form streaked across the sky, shrinking… shrinking…

Until she became a speck.

Then not even that.

Launched to a different part of Curtenail entirely.

The court steadied.

Silence.

Jamal dropped his hands. Chest rising. Dripping sweat.

Crisper stared from the edge of the bleachers, jaw dropped. "He flagged her out the universe."

The ball bounced once.

Jamal caught it.

Looked up at the scoreboard.

6-6.

Game over.

He turned to the air like he was staring down a camera no one else could see.

"Told you I got it, blood."

The court flickered, lines unzipping from reality like seams being ripped from a dimension that never belonged. With a low hum and a shoop, the metaphysical basketball realm folded in on itself, disappearing with a faint pop in the wind.

Crisper exhaled sharply, knees trembling.

"That… was the second scariest shit I've ever been through. We are never doing that again. EVER." Her voice cracked. "I've played VR horror games in real life. I've seen people get spawn camped by psychos. But that?! That creature? I felt that shit in my ribs."

Jamal wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. His cloak was practically fused to his skin now. "Yeah… same here. That scream was hella unnecessary. And I'm like—beyond tired. I don't even know what I just did. I blacked out somewhere between calling 'check up' and flagging her out the atmosphere."

Crisper checked her UI, blinking through the haze of ash still settling in the air. "Only two killstreaks left…" She sighed. "Shit. I was saving those for a final boss or a raid. This was neither, and we still barely made it."

Jamal crouched and gently slipped one arm under Destiny's shoulder, the other steadying her back. She was still breathing—barely—but her golden aura flickered like a dying torch.

"C'mon, shawty. You ain't getting turned into mashed potatoes on my watch."

He lifted her, slowly. Crisper stepped beside him, still stealing glances at the sky, at the broken terrain.

"…She's coming back, right?" Crisper asked quietly. "That void freak. You launched her like Team Rocket, but…"

"Oh yeah. She'll be back." Jamal started walking, voice heavy. "Soon as that 'ejection' penalty wears off, she's gonna come tearing through whatever continent she landed on. Screaming and mad."

Crisper winced. "Great. Cool. I don't think I'm emotionally prepared for round two."

"Maybe she fell into the gold wave shit."

"Yeah… hopefully…"

"We'll move. Regroup. Find a spot. Lay low." Jamal's breath was shallow. "That thing might've beat the shit outta us, but we ain't done yet."

Crisper looked at the scorched trail behind them, the rising plumes of smoke where entire chunks of the region used to be.

Twenty minutes. That's all it had taken.

And it felt like war.

She swallowed the lump in her throat, adjusted her loadout, and glanced sideways at Jamal.

"…For real though? You flagged her like a ref in the finals. That was kinda tuff."

Jamal cracked a tired grin. "Don't gas me, blood. Let's just get outta here before my legs stop working."

Crisper nodded, but the minute they went to move, she felt it. Auras—six of them—bleeding through the dense smoke. The air shifted. The haze wasn't clearing—it was being pushed aside.

Then a figure emerged.

And her heart dropped.

Her body went cold, her throat tightened. Maybe it was the leftover adrenaline. Maybe it was the death screech still rattling around her bones. But the mask—it brought something back. Dread. Hatred. A memory stitched into her being. Her hands moved before her brain caught up, and she aimed her sniper.

BANG!

The masked being's head snapped back, body crumpling like wet paper. Dead. Instant.

The others rushed forward.

Crisper didn't hesitate. She opened her weapon wheel, selected the enhanced minigun, and let it sing. Muzzle flare lit the dust-cloud like lightning in a bottle.

BRRRRRRRRRTTTTTT—!!!

She carved through the next two like they were mannequins. Blood sprayed. Limbs twisted unnaturally. Armor crumpled under the force. They never had a chance.

She didn't stop.

Jamal was yelling something next to her—maybe her name—but she couldn't hear him. The roar of the gun? Silent compared to the pounding in her ears. Her own heartbeat was louder than anything else. She had to keep firing. She had to end this.

They all needed to die.

She wouldn't be prey again.

But the moment snapped.

A golden-eyed man stepped through the smoke like he was untouched by the chaos before—like the world hadn't been fractured or the skies twisted by Sryun. His ornate armor shimmered with elegance and authority, blue hair tousled yet regal. The sword in his hand was a masterpiece: regal gold intertwined with a radiant, star-flecked sapphire core, thrumming with Ryun energy that bled celestial power. His very presence felt like the calm after a storm—and yet… still the eye of it.

She recognized him.

Caelus, the Calmbrand.

He'd cut down her minigun barrage like he was slicing through mist, and now he stood—flanked by three others.

"So blood, we gonna talk or y'all gonna keep surrounding us thinking we gonna fold?"

Caelus tilted his head slightly, amused.

"Oh, you're bold," he said, voice sharp. "I thought you'd be quiet like your friend here."

He raised his sword again, slowly—pointing the glinting tip directly at Crisper, whose hands twitched near her weapon wheel.

"Watch yourself," Jamal said, stepping forward still holding up Destiny, eyes locked. "This can be chillin'… till it ain't."

Caelus exhaled slowly, like a knight tired of the game but unwilling to let them go unpunished.

"You're in no condition to negotiate," he replied flatly. His golden eyes, so deceptively warm in hue, hardened like stone. "You took three of mine. That girl," he gestured at Destiny, still unconscious between them, "ripped a hole in the region's leylines. That is not something I can just ignore. She's also responsible for the tower we approached being destroyed."

Crisper's finger hovered by her side. She could trigger an EMP flash, maybe buy a few seconds—

But Caelus seemed to read it.

"No," he said softly, raising his free hand, a faint wave of force pressing the air down around her. "No more tricks. I've tolerated far more than I should have already."

His aura pulsed once, and the surrounding three moved in unison.

The woman with white gloves summoned a pale white curved sword. One of the men summoned mirror blades that hummed in and out of reality. The last cracked his knuckles as flames spiraled up his forearms.

Jamal leaned slightly toward Crisper.

"So what we doin', blood?"

"I don't know," Crisper muttered. "But if he's the Calmbrand… I think we already used all our extra lives."