Chapter 329

The Angel Express, Hamlet, North Carolina - 6:27 AM Eastern Standard Time

“I’m not used to feeling this tired anymore,” Jeff complained as he slumped over his coffee. He wiped the sleep from his eyes and shook his head. “We’re supposed to be superhuman because of the system, right? How is Constitution not covering this?”

“He’s a monster, man,” Mercury answered from where he was laying on one of the dining car’s benches. The ninja was just as lethargic as the knight. “I’ve been going through this since we dropped you off. You’ve been doing it for two days. Imagine how I feel.”

“Can’t. I’m too busy wondering why we didn’t listen to your warning. Kay, why didn’t we listen?” Jeff asked, not bothering to look up. There was no answer. “Kay?”

He and Mercury looked towards the Double Agent only to see that she had her head down and she was asleep at the table. Some of her hair had gotten into her pancakes, which she had been eating before taking her impromptu nap. She’d have to do something about the syrup once she woke up.

“The Warmonger is an evil, evil man,” Mercury said as he laid his head back down and covered his eyes with his arm.

“I don’t know why I’m catching strays over here, I’m just trying to enjoy my morning,” I claimed, trying not to sound amused as I bit into my breakfast sandwich. It was a little greasier than I normally would have liked, but I was treating myself.

“Ant, I’m pretty sure I heard boss music playing during the last session,” Jeff said, leaning back so he could slouch before taking a drink of his coffee. “The training car doesn’t even have speakers.”

“That just sounds like praise to me,” I replied with a shrug.

“Princess, how smug does he look right now?” Mercury asked. I waited for a moment as he received an answer. “Insufferably so. As expected. Thanks.”

“Yeah, thanks Princess,” I chuckled.

Corwin, who had been laying underneath Kayla’s table, suddenly perked up and looked towards the dining car entrance. We had been stopped for a while as we waited for Jamie to show. The Evolution Hound’s tail thumped gently and hesitantly against a chair leg before it started up properly.

I sipped my water as the Weapon Master stepped onto the train. Her armor was dinged and dented, and her Seven-Tenner Bowling Shirt had four large claw marks through the front. Despite this, Jamie herself seemed no worse for wear. Public transportation just didn’t have the same gear-cleaning capabilities of the Angel Express.

The Half-Dragon smiled and leaned down to pet Corwin as he ran up to her and pressed his side against her legs. “Good boy,” Jamie whispered to him as she scanned the rest of the dining car. Her eyebrow raised at the sight of everyone else. “What happened to all of you?”

“Jamie!” Mercury greeted enthusiastically, sitting up. “Never in my life have I been so glad to see you.”

“Thanks?” she asked, confused.

“Ant sent you off to fight monsters and get their rewards, but it was all a cunning ruse,” Jeff said before taking a long drink from his coffee. “He got young Mercury all alone, and then there was no one to train him except Anthony. So he did.”

“What we did wasn’t training, it was torture,” the ninja corrected.

“See, I’d call that exaggerating, but then he asked Kayla and I if we wanted to join in,” Jeff continued after nodding. “And, like fools, we agreed. Because how hard could it be? We survived you, after all.”

“You survived me?” Jamie repeated, crossing her arms. “You want to rephrase that?”

“No,” the knight answered adamantly. “No, I said what I said. We were practically doomed.”

The Weapon Master looked from Jeff to Mercury, who laid back down, before turning her gaze on me. “Why do I feel like I’m missing something?”

“Dunno,” I answered with a shrug. “I’ve been doing some light training with them in your absence.” “

“Light training?” Jeff asked incredulously.

“Booooo, down with the Warmonger,” Mercury added.

I ignored them both. “I’ve been pushing Mercury exactly as hard as I know I can, but I don’t know where Kayla and Jeff’s limits are so we’ve been exploring that. I think it’s been going quite well.”

“So they’re just hamming it up for sympathy points?” Jamie asked, eying the still sleeping Kayla.

“Yup,” I answered.

“No,” Jeff said. “If anything, we’re downplaying it.”

“Yeah, downplaying,” Mercury repeated.

The Queen’s Knight nodded. “I’d almost rather go back to Graceland and fight the—”

“We agreed not to talk about Memphis,” Kayla suddenly said loudly, lifting her head off of the table. She didn’t look all that awake yet, and frowned as she felt the few sticky strands of hair that fell against her face.

“Good morning,” I told her with a smile. “Jamie just got back.”

“Welcome,” the Double Agent said as she used a napkin to try and clean off the syrup. “How’d your mission go?”

“Well enough,” Jamie replied as she finally moved to join the rest of us. Corwin followed alongside her, sitting down at the Weapon Master’s feet when she claimed a chair.

“I’ll be honest, I’m curious as to how you did,” I said as I sent my empty plate away. It disappeared as the dining car’s magic did its thing. “I’ve never sent you to handle the Filbins before. If it weren’t for the time crunch I'd have done it personally, as usual.”

She nodded and swiped open her menu. I thought she was going to retrieve the bowling ball and the patches she had won on her travels, but a plate of chicken and pasta appeared in front of her instead.

“The gold and platinum teams were pretty easy,” Jamie said before taking a sip of water. “I managed to get the Bowling Ball Weapon Mastery ability, but I didn’t put a lot of levels into it considering I’m probably never going to use one in battle again.”

“Smart,” I replied.

Mercury sat up properly in his seat and leaned against his table. “There’s tiers, right?” he asked, and I nodded. “So if the gold and platinum teams were easy, what about the diamonds? Did you get to any of those?”

The Weapon Master wrinkled her nose. “Two of them. I just came from Rockingham, where I played against the Kingpins.”

Kayla bristled at the name, dropping her napkin. “The who?” she asked quickly, slightly panicked. Her eyes locked on Jamie.

Who was clearly confused by the intensity in the other woman’s voice. “The Kingpins.”

“Close name, but not the same, Kayla,” I said gently, and she visibly relaxed.

All the way back in Etson, she and an entire hotel’s worth of people had been mentally controlled by a metallic slime known as the Kingtin. I had destroyed it by diluting its body in the establishment’s pool, but the boss had left its mark on everyone it had afflicted. I hadn’t been sure if Kayla would ever recover, but she had been a fantastic ally.

Clearly there was still a little something there, but such traumas weren’t easy to get over. Since it didn’t affect her work, I glossed over it.

“They’re a bit bottom of the barrel when it comes to diamond crews,” I continued, turning back to Jamie. “But Strike Force Omen was your first one, and there'd have been a substantial difficulty spike from the platinum teams.”

“You can say that again,” the Weapon Master snorted.

“That was me saying it again, because I warned you and you assured me that you were going to be fine,” I said in amusement. “Did you forget?”

“No, I just thought I could handle it,” she answered before taking a bite of food. “Strike Force Omen was surprisingly civil, though. Like, all of the golds tried to dogpile me while I was squaring off against their boss and the plats weren’t much better, but the Filbins on Omen were respectful and didn’t try to force any wager on me. Their lanes were also well taken care of, which was a nice change.”

I nodded. “You can usually guess what rank a Filbin team’s going to be by how they treat their alleys. Gold and platinum generally roam around a lot, though not as much as silvers, while Diamonds know that challengers will come to them after they’ve made it big. They focus on longevity since their name is attached to wherever they call home.”

“From what I’ve seen, I can believe it,” Jamie replied. “The Kingpins were more defensively aggressive, which seemed to be their whole shtick, but they were actively repairing their lanes after what appeared to have been a botched attack from another Filbin crew.”

“Let’s see, end of April…” I said to myself as I leaned back and looked at the ceiling. “The Tenpin Conglomerate should be roaming around North Carolina about now.”

“What, like a group of Filbin crews banding together to raid big names?” Mercury asked.

“Yeah, that’s exactly what they are,” I confirmed. “Been challenged by them a few times, myself. If you think an alley is full with just one crew, imagine one where there’s eight to twelve Boss Filbins trying to bring you down.”

“That sounds like cheating,” Jamie said, clearly disapproving of their methods.

“After playing the golds and plats, would you put it past them?” I asked.

“No, I guess not,” she sighed. “Anyway, this is yours.”

Jamie swiped open her menu and finally retrieved my bowling ball. It was the same size as it was before, but its composition wasn’t. Instead of a golden gleam, it was now made out of diamond. I could see her hand holding it on the other side, slightly distorted by the spherical object, and there was no core inside.

Giddily, I reached out and grabbed it from her. The previously 30-pound ball had doubled in weight, though I held it like it weighed barely anything at all.

<<<>>>

[[Notice]]

Your Adopted Filbin Elite passive is now evolving into the Filbin Grandmaster passive.

[[Passive]]

Filbin Grandmaster

Lesser Filbins are in awe of your skill and your crew. You are met with respect no matter how begrudging wherever you go, and only those in a similar position can denounce you. The Seven-Tenners is a name known throughout all the bowling alleys in the land, and some Filbins will actively try to join your crew. All patches you add to your bowling shirt are automatically shared with your elites.

Boss Perfect Game is awaiting your challenge.

<<<>>>

“Oh man, how I’ve missed this thing,” I said with a grin as I set it down in front of me, careful not to scuff the table. 

The final sentence made me more excited than it should have. Back when I was simply an Adopted Filbin Elite, it said “Boss Perfect Game has noted the name you have chosen for yourself.” The fact that it had been updated to show recognition in the Seven-Tenners wasn’t unexpected, but I felt a thrill from it every time.

With luck, we would be able to make it to him before the Patron’s Ball so we could go to Hell immediately after and end this deadly game.

But that was for the future. I returned my attention to Jamie. “You made it through two diamond crews, so that means you played against seven crews in total, right?”

“Right,” Jamie confirmed. “I prioritized the ones you wanted me to hit no matter what first, and I was going to swing back around to the gold and plats list once I was done with the diamonds. Shame there’s no rank above that, though. Athena knows we’d be up there easily.”

“Sure would,” I chuckled as I rolled the ball around with my finger.

“That is a pretty strong item you have there now, though. The blessings have really made it pretty outrageous, and that’s saying something.”

“Just wait until you see how good the shirt is when we add seven more patches to it,” I said jovially. “Going to go from an item with low stat increases but good passives to three great physical boons and several good passives.”

“You going to get around to sharing the information on that thing?” Jeff asked, leaning forward on his table. “Just talking about how strong it is won’t actually tell us what’s changed, you know.”

“Oh, sure. Let me pull that up real quick,” I said with a snap of my fingers. It didn’t take long for me to send out the information Jeff was looking for.

<<<>>>

[[Item]]

Boss Anthony Franklin’s Diamond Bowling Ball

When used as a shield, this bowling ball allows the bearer to block blows as if their Strength were five times higher than it actually is. 10% of all damage blocked this way is reflected onto the attacker. (Seven-Tenners, Tough Actin’ Pin Action, & Kingpin Blessings)

When used as a thrown weapon, you can choose to envelop this bowling ball in fire. This adds fire damage equal to your Dexterity stat to each strike and burns the target, reducing physical stats by 10% . You may use this skill up to 12 times per day. (Iron Anchor & Burn Lane Blessings)

When thrown, you can cause this bowling ball to become invisible until the moment before it strikes. Based on how it is released, you can change direction midair to strike a different target at the last moment. In addition, up to 10 times per day, create a duplicate at the time of the hook to hit a second enemy.  (Dime Store, Hook Line, & Hood Rack Blessings)

25% of all damage done by this weapon is inflicted to enemies within 20 feet as splash damage. (Strike Force Omen Blessing)

Once per day, the spirit of Boss Steener will inhabit the bowling ball in order to block a fatal blow against the wielder. This ability may be activated when the item is in your inventory, but there is a small, stacking chance that Boss Anthony Franklin’s Diamond Bowling Ball may shatter completely.

Authorized wielders: Anthony “Perfect Game” Franklin (Filbin Grandmaster), Jamie “Summer Shrapnel” Summers (Adopted Filbin Elite).

<<<>>>

“Dang, that is much better than it was,” Mercury said with an appreciative whistle.

“Good for both offense and defense. Still wild to me that you can use this thing as a shield,” Jeff stated, scratching his cheek as he read through the description. “I mean, it’s round. You’d think any attacks would slide right off.”

“Normally, you’d be right. However, it’s magic, so, fuck physics I guess,” I replied with a sage nod.

“That’s about the system in a nutshell, there,” Kayla said before sending the plate of pancakes and the napkins she had used on her hair away. They disappeared from the table.

“Yup. All I need now are the patches. Jamie?”

She hesitated for a moment before glancing back towards the front of the train. “You can have them, but not here. You can sew them on while you fulfill a promise.”

I arched an eyebrow. “A promise?”

“That’s right,” Jamie answered, turning back towards me. “Back in Dublin, you said you’d give me whatever details I want in the privacy of the Patron’s Car. Remember?”

“I do…” I replied slowly. “I recall saying a Q & A session would be fun.”

With a smirk, the Weapon Master pulled out a stack of patches and held them up. “Then let’s do it now while we’re on our way. I’m sure Mercury would love to know all about how you turned yourself into a woman to save him.”

“You did what?” the ninja asked incredulously, his neck nearly snapping as he turned to look at me.

I gave her a thin smile. “Yeah, alright. That could be fun, thanks,” I said, causing her to laugh.

Overall, it wasn’t a bad idea. The battle of Washington D.C. was coming up, and we could all use a little down time to bond that wasn’t training. I stood up and stretched.

“C’mon. There’s no time like the present,” I said before heading to the Patron’s Car. Jeff and Mercury almost knocked over tables in their rush, and I had to hold in a snicker at their auras.