TEAM ZRCN ARC 1 REWRITE - CHAPTER 3
A game night with friends - what could possibly go wrong?
Zelde
Zelde slowly turned the page of her book, doing her best to ignore the voices in the room, and instead focus on the words written on the pages in front of her. She needed to get further into the book than she already was. It was a recommended book for her Remnant History class and she was already further behind than she would have liked due to a few missions that had gone on longer than she had anticipated.
Unfortunately for Zelde, her desire for a quiet night catching up with coursework had been ruined by the arrival of Xanthos and his friends.
She had been reading quietly on her bunk when Xanthos barged in, dragging a foldable table in with him. Behind him came Kinu Matsumoto, Hamnet Kerbel, and Zinnia Winfield, of whom only Zinnia waved hello. Slightly irritated about being interrupted, Zelde had peered over her bunk and demanded to know what was going on. Xanthos cheerfully reminded her that it was his bi-monthly game night, during which he and his friends played lengthy games of Remnant: The Game. Zelde asked if they could play elsewhere, but Xanthos insisted they stay where they were, citing that it was his turn to host and would be bad form if he avoided his turn. Zelde relented after a moment, holding them all to a promise that they would be quiet so she could read in peace.
Unfortunately, that promise was swiftly broken.
Swept up in the excitement of the game, the four of them began loudly cheering and yelling, and Zelde's quiet evening was ruined.
For a while she was able to power through, focusing on the content of her book rather than the voices of Xanthos and his friends. Things took another turn when events in the game got a little heated. Zelde didn't really know what had triggered it, but Hamnet quickly went from mere yelling to jumping to his feet and pointing at his fellow players, accusing them of all manner of things, and complaining about a move Kinu had played. When his blustering was largely ignored, Hamnet waved a hand and promptly left the room declaring he was done for the night.
Zelde watched him go with a raised brow, surprised at how such a game could elicit a response like that. Though she supposed Hamnet had always been hot-headed and prone to bursts of anger such as that. When she had first joined the academy she had found Hamnet quite attractive with his golden curls, dazzling blue eyes, and easy smile. His attitude had quickly shown itself however and her infatuation had quickly faded.
"Yeesh, Kinu, what kind of play was that?" Zinnia asked, turning back in her seat to face the remaining players after watching Hamnet leave. "I've never seen him get that mad before. I think I saw actual smoke coming out of his ears."
"It was called the Sandstorm Gambit," Zelde explained, answering for Kinu. "It is a sequence of moves favoured by fools and gamblers." Her response earned her a curious look from the two girls in the room, and she closed her book, sensing an impending flurry of questions.
"I didn't realise you played," Zinnia noted.
"She doesn't," Xanthos answered with a chuckle. "At least not with me anyway but Zelde knows all the moves and gambits."
"My father used to play semi-professionally," Zelde explained. He had made a decent chunk of money at it before his own father - Zelde's grandfather - had pushed him to settle and start a real career. "When I was a young child, my father taught my brother and I how to play. I have little interest in the game but I recall the moves and gambits quite well."
“You should join us!” Zinnia said, clapping her hands enthusiastically together.
“Yes, please join us,” Kinu said in agreement, her green eyes appraisingly looking Zelde up and down. “It would be interesting to play at least one match against an opponent with a modicum of skill.” She blinked and then looked at Xanthos and Zinnia, before adding in her familiar monotonous tone, “No offence.”
Zelde hesitated for a moment, debating whether or not to decline and continue reading her book. However, after deciding she had lost her place in the book, she shrugged. “Just one game.”
“One game,” Kinu echoed, nodding her head in confirmation. She extended a hand and gestured to the now vacant seat that had briefly been occupied by Hamnet. Zelde placed the book on her bed and hopped off the bunk. She calmly slid into Hamnet’s former seat and waited whilst Zinnia rounded up the action cards and began to reshuffle them, careful to split the kingdom-specific cards into four neat piles. Once the cards were reshuffled, the four players were randomly assigned one of the four kingdoms in the game. Zelde got Vale, Kinu got Atlas, Xanthos got Mistral, and Zinnia got Vacuo.
As was usually the case, the game began slow, with most of the players making small moves to progress their armies and build up their supplies. By ten rounds in, however, things had taken a dramatic turn. Zinnia’s Vacuan army had been halved when Kinu played a Giant Nevermore card and she was further struggling after Xanthos took two cards from her hand on his turn, both of which would have allowed her to repair and replenish her army. Everyone else’s armies seemed to be faring well, though Zelde’s Valean army was beginning to flag. It took another five rounds for Zinnia’s army to be wiped out completely. By that point, Kinu’s Atlesian army was also starting to struggle, having failed to attack the wall of Zelde’s kingdom and then losing a portion of her army to a tornado trap card.
Amazingly, as they hit the twentieth round, Kinu somehow managed to continue to survive. Zelde thought she either was an incredibly talented player or imbued with incredible luck.
Kinu finished her turn by collecting some supplies, before turning to Xanthos so he could begin his turn. Zelde peered over her hand, watching as Xanthos seemed to mull over his cards, going back and forth between which cards he would play.
“First of all, I’m going to play a Resourceful Raider,” Xanthos announced, setting the card atop the play pile. The card allowed him to take a card from one of his opponents' discard piles, and he chose to raid Kinu’s pile, plucking a repair card from the top. Shuffling that into his hand, Xanthos then considered his card again, debating over which card to play for his final move. When he did eventually pick a card, he gave Zelde a sheepish expression before putting it down. “Sorry, Zee.”
The card in question was an Alpha Megoliath, a card notorious for wiping out whole armies due to how hard it was to avoid them. Even Kinu winced when she saw it get played.
“Well, as you know Zelde, you need to roll a fifteen or higher in order to avoid the attack and for me to take the hit instead," Xanthos said.
It was small odds but Zelde remained cool. She grabbed the two ten-sided dice, shook them in her hand, and then dropped them on the table. The first landed on the number eight which meant she needed seven or higher to avoid the attack. Her silver eyes shifted from the first dice to the second and her shoulders sagged slightly when she saw the number. Six. Which meant she had rolled a fourteen, leaving her just one off the number needed to avoid the attack.
With a defeat, Zelde knocked the remainder of her wall down and deposited her last seven cards onto the discard pile. Now that she had been knocked out of the game, Zelde could leave, but she thought it was poor form to leave whilst Kinu and Xanthos were still playing.
Another round went by and it became increasingly likely Xanthos would storm away with the win. Kinu had managed to get a good hit on his wall with her Atlesian Air Support but at this late in the game, it didn't seem like it would help much.
"Well, I hate to say it Kinu, but unless you have some miracle card up your sleeve, I do believe you've lost," Xanthos said smugly, as he played a raider card, allowing him to pilfer the discard pile, before he slapped down a Prowler Pack card to follow.
"Oooh that's a doozy," Zinnia said.
"Hmm, I suppose it seems only fair I should counter with this," Kinu responded, placing down an Atlesian Knight card.
Xanthos groaned. "I thought you'd used those all up!" He complained.
"I have played two throughout this game and one I was forced to discard thanks to Zinnia," Kinu responded. "You should remember there are four available for me to use at my discretion."
Xanthos nodded his head in defeat and moved to grab the two dice. He needed to roll a ten or higher in order to avoid the attack. Unfortunately, it seemed his luck had run out as he proceeded to roll a two and a five. And with his army at only a quarter of its starting strength, his army was swiftly overrun by the Prowler Pack.
"Well, Xanthos, I do believe you just lost," Kinu said, using his earlier words against him. "An unfortunate move to play when your own army was so weak."
"It was my own fault believing you used all those cards up," Xanthos conceded with a laugh. He shook his head. "Damn robots…"
"Well, I will admit that was quite entertaining," Zelde said, once the immediate chatter of Xanthos's loss subsided.
"You should play with us more often," Zinnia suggested. "That's the most fun I've had in the game since Kinu and Hamnet sat one out and we had to get the twins involved."
"The twins?" Zelde asked, raising a brow. It completely slipped her mind that they were referring to Zinnia's teammates until Xanthos clarified for her.
"She means Isolde and Noah," Xanthos explained. And then his eyes moved to Zinnia and he pointed a finger at her playfully. "Don't get ideas about inviting them again, Zin. I don't think I've recovered from the thorough thrashing they gave us."
"Gave you," Zinnia countered with a smirk. "From what I remember I fared quite well."
"Teammate bias," Xanthos offered as an explanation for this thrashing.
Zinnia rolled her eyes. "Uh-huh, sure it was."
"Well, this has been delightful as always, but it is time for me to retire to my own quarters," Kinu said, slowly rising from her chair. "I do believe Hamnet is our next host?"
"Yep," Xanthos responded. "If he'll even play with us again."
As they were beginning to pack away, Zelde lifted her head at the sound of commotion outside her dorm, noting several students heading in the direction of the common room in a hurry.
“What’s that all about?” Zinnia asked.
They would soon get their answer when Kinu’s twin, Nishiki appeared. He had clearly travelled with some speed to get here, as he was panting a little when he stopped. “Oh good, you’re still here,” He said, quickly leaning on the doorframe to catch his breath.
“Nishiki, did something happen?” Kinu asked, stepping around the table to reach her twin. Zelde was certain the only time she ever saw Kinu’s expression change was around her brother.
“Yes, it looks like something happened at the Vytal Festival,” He answered quickly. “The news is still pretty hazy on what happened but it sounded bad. I think you should all come and see.”
One by one they all agreed to go and followed Nishiki back to the common room. Unsurprisingly, the majority of the Atlesian students had all gathered to see what was happening. There were a few party supplies scattered around on the chairs and tables from where students had been watching the matches earlier, and judging by the chatter of those in the room it seemed no one really knew what was happening. Whilst Kinu and Zinnia broke off to find their friends, Xanthos moved towards Neela, and Zelde found herself drifting towards Cordovan. Her red-haired teammate was standing near the back of the room, studying the currently blank screens with a serious expression.
“Any idea what’s going on?” Zelde asked, giving him a little nudge prior to speaking so as not to startle him.
“Not a clue,” Corodovan responded. “They were playing one of the matches and then suddenly they cut the feeds.”
Zelde nodded her head in understanding and before she could ask anything else, the screens flared back into life, revealing they were about to cut to an urgent news bulletin. A hush fell across the room as an elderly news presenter appeared and began to speak. He started with the usual formalities of greeting the audience watching before revealing they were about to cut to some video footage from Vale, quickly warning that some scenes they were about to show might be distressing for some viewers. A few mutters of concern could be heard from the students but everyone remained focused on the screens. What they showed next was shocking; waves of Grimm attacking Vale, interspersed with scenes of civilians fleeing in panic as the city began to burn around them.
The footage quickly got a reaction from the students gathered and Zelde heard shocked gasps and words of disbelief exchanged.
“As you can see from the last moments of footage, it appears as though the festival has been attacked,” The reporter continued once the screen cut back to him. “Whilst we are unable to get any further footage from the area at the moment, we are still receiving up-to-date reports from military officers on the ground in Vale. From what we know, waves of Grimm have been seen approaching the city, and we strongly believe that Beacon Academy has fallen.”
Yet more gasps were heard and a few students were visibly crying and shaken by this news. Zelde herself even reacted strongly to this, subconsciously making a grab for one of his hands for comfort. As she gripped his hand, she was faintly aware of him looking at her from out of the corner of his eye, before he gave her a reassuring squeeze.
Looking back to the screen, the reporter gave a heavy sigh, his shoulders sagged as he uncharacteristically broke character. “The civilian and student casualties are as of yet unknown, though reports indicate it could creep into the hundreds.”
At the mention of casualties, Neela let out an anguished cry, and Zelde turned to see her teammate struggling to keep standing, supported by Xanthos. Quite a few of the students were now yelling and in clear distress. The panic that was settling in was quickly dashed by the sudden arrival of Professor Velour, who had likely been called in to see to the students and potentially settle them down.
Upon seeing the chaos around her, Professor Velour was quick to try and field them out of the common room. “That is enough! Everyone back to their dormitories, now!” She ordered her tone firm but not unkind. When a few of the students moved, she clapped her hands together and started waving them about to get them to move. “Back to your dormitories!” She repeated, finally succeeding in getting the students to file out of the room. “Go, go!”
Moving with the rest of the students, Zelde and Cordovan made it back to their room, though along the way they had somehow lost Xanthos and Neela. In fact, Zelde wasn’t even sure if the two following them.
As they waited for their teammates to join them, Zelde sat down on the lower bunk belonging to Neela, and Cordovan stood at the foldaway table admiring one of the pieces still set up for their earlier game.
“I forgot Xanthos would be playing tonight,” Cordovan mused, turning a piece in his hand before setting it back down. “Who won?”
“Kinu. Technically they never finished the first game properly, but she was the clear victor in the second.”
“There were two games? I could have sworn I saw Hamnet glowering in the common room earlier.”
“Oh you definitely did,” Zelde confirmed. “He lost his temper in the first game and stormed out. I was convinced to join their second game.”
Cordovan smiled faintly. “I’m surprised you didn’t win in that case,” He said earnestly.
“Xanthos played an Alpha Megoliath card,” She explained.
“And that’s bad?”
“Very,” Zelde nodded. Although this line of questioning helped take her mind off of things, Zelde couldn’t help but frown as the thoughts about what was occurring in Vale crept back into her mind. “It all seems so trivial compared to what’s going on in Vale…”
Cordovan looked at her with an understanding expression. “Do you think-”
Before he had the chance to finish his question, the door opened and Xanthos stepped inside.
“Where’s Neela?” Zelde asked, immediately noting their teammate was not behind him.
“Oh, I had to take her to see the nurse,” Xanthos explained, swiftly taking a seat next to Zelde on her bunk. “Professor Velour thought she might need a sedative of sorts. No doubt you saw how she was after the news bulletin.”
“Understandable, of course,” Cordovan said. “Her girlfriend is in Vale currently, as are Team PCAN who are close friends of hers.”
Team PCAN was actually friends with all of them, but their leader and Neela had known each other from childhood.
“I hope they’re alright,” Xanthos said, letting out a soft sigh. “As I was coming back here I heard rumour the CCT is down too, so we likely won’t hear anything for a while either.”
Cordovan sighed and Zelde shook her head. What a terrible situation they found themselves in, but even worse for the people in Vale having to go through it first-hand. Although in bad taste, it made Zelde feel quietly relieved she and her team had been unsuccessful in getting the chance to go to the Vytal Festival. Zelde could only hope that whatever was happening there would be resolved soon and that normality - or as close to it following such a tragedy - would quickly be restored.
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