Chapter 22: Drone Debutante

The date with Tiffany ended with him dropping her off at her preferred log-out spot.

She gave him a brief, but firm, hug as they stood out of the small home. There was a smile on her face as she pulled away. An action he couldn’t help but mirror. It wasn’t the fanciest or most expansive date he’d been on. However, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed that hard, or that much.

With everything else going on, it was nice to just enjoy someone’s company.

“I have to head out,” Tiffany said. “This was a lot of fun.”

“It was.” Jester gave her a small bow, causing her to swat at him. A soft, playful action, and one that he’d elicited more than once over the course of the night. “Are you up for doing it again?”

“That would be nice.”

As she spoke, she twisted her fingers together. He could see that her hands were shaking, and without thinking, he reached out to grab one. She met his eyes. Together, they stood like that until she pulled away.

“I’ll see you soon. At the Dollhouse for tomorrow’s celebration, at the least.”

Tiffany grinned and shrugged.

“Want to see me again that soon?”

“Yes.” Jester didn’t feel a pang of guilt for saying that. Nor at the wide-eye’d reaction that he received.

No point lying about it as far as he could tell.

“Right. Well. Yeah. See you tomorrow then, dude. Better win now.”

There was a touch of excitement in her voice, though she tried to hide it.

She logged off before he could reply. He shook his head, surveying the empty street around him. Confidence coursing through him at the idea of the fight tomorrow. Tiffany was right. There was no reason for him not to win now.

A feat that would start with getting Happy Hour properly dressed. Jester hoped that Madame Merriam wouldn’t mind him dropping in.

It turned out that she didn’t mind at all. In fact, by the way she sat him down and served him tea, Jester got the feeling she’d been waiting for him. Happy Hour was all smiles as he walked in the door.

Only after they forced him into a seat with tea in hand, did both women turn on him. They asked for details. Attempted to coerce him with flattery to tell them everything about what had occurred while he was with Tiffany.

At his mention of him enjoying their conversation, and all the laughing, Madame Merriam appeared as though she might swoon.

Happy Hour clapped for him any time he mentioned, making Tiffany smile.

“I’m proud of you, boy,” Madame Merriam said at last. “She needed someone to take her out. I’ve been worried about that girl for a while now.”

“What, Tiffany?” Jester stared at the woman who returned to measuring Happy Hour. “Why?”

“Oh, she’s always online in front of that door. More to life than this place. Even for me.”

With one motion, she forced Happy Hour into a pose. One that made her appear as though she held a spear as readying an imminent strike. A click of Madame Merriam’s tongue was the sole indicator of her thoughts on the scene.

“That’s true,” Jester agreed. “Though this place is becoming more important. Especially considering tomorrow.”

“Ahh, yes, your upcoming fight.” Madame Merriam turned a critical eye on him. “Tell me, boy. Are you feeling prepared?”

“That depends on if you have the outfit finished.”

Happy Hour’s red eyes moved to meet Madame Merriam’s. Both of them nodded at the same time.

“I have indeed. Would you like to see it?”

Jester gave his own slow nod at that, a sudden feeling of apprehension in his stomach. There was something in her tone he didn’t like. A smugness that made him feel like he was getting in over his head.

Not that it would stop him from seeing the finished project. They’d kicked him out of the room too often for him not to wonder at this point.

“In that case, boy, would you wait outside?” Madame Merriam’s grin was wide. “I’ll grab you as soon as she’s ready.”

“Of course,” Jester said as he moved towards the door with heavy footsteps.

At least this time, he might not be out there for hours.

It wasn’t five minutes later when the gargoyle door shifted to reveal Madame Merriam. She was standing in an odd stance. Back too straight, arms held too still.

The stance would have made her look stern if not for the grin she struggled to contain.

“Jester St’Servo. If you would please follow me inside and have a small look at what I consider one of my finer works. I’m not even going to charge you for the additional accessories.”

“Accessories? Like the broach?” Her words piqued his curiosity as he pushed away from the wall.

“Yes, yes. That’s equipped too. It fits with the theme, I must say. A little dull, but it works.”

With her piece said, she spun on her heel and walked back inside. The ripple that ran along her hair speeding up with her pace. It was a mesmerizing effect, and he couldn’t help but watch the way it made each strand shift.

However, when he got into the room itself, he forgot about it in short order.

Happy Hour stood on a floating platform. Once again, all others moved above and to the side. A spotlight that came from nowhere shone down on her, doing its best to make her the center of attention.

Jester couldn’t fathom why Madame Merriam bothered.

Not when the dress she wore did that herself.

He couldn’t fault Madame Merriam, it was without a doubt Bee themed. No other creature could possibly fit.

From the classic 60s bee hive hairstyle, to the small gold and orange tiara sitting at the front. The light glinted off the piece. Its design making it appear all the word as though a crafter shaped piece of amber for this sole purpose.

As for the dress? That was something else.

His gaze fell first on the steel plates forged to look like the bodice of a ballgown. Though one its wearer was planning to go to war inside. Each of the plates were painted a solid gold, whereas the trim was the same orange as her tiara.

At irregular intervals, balls of a strange orange substance would travel down to the bottom of the bodice. Though they vanished before they hit the start of the hoop skirt.

An effect that gave the outfit the appearance that it oozed honey.

Along her arms, chain mail flowed like cloth, draping like billowing sleeves. With small hexagonal links, instead of the standard overlapping circles.

Jester’s eyes travelled to the hoop skirt itself. It was wider than Happy Hour’s shoulders near the bottom. Seven rings making up the hoop structure itself.

Over that ran vertical panels of yellow and orange cloth. These were each stretched tight enough he could see the hexagonal chain mail below. The effect left her looking as though she wore the inside of a honeycomb.

For a second he stared, trying to see if he could spot the worker bees inside.

To his surprise, he did.

Small shapes moved in between the hexagons. Similar to the stars on her maid outfit. Jester stepped closer, unsurprised to hear a feint buzzing as he did so.

“Warrior queen indeed,” he breathed as he stared up at her.

It was the single thing he could think to say. When he’d suggested the idea, he’d expected some simple yellow and black concoction. Easy enough to fight in. Not this. This was so much more.

His gaze fell on Madame Merriam.

The woman was beaming, looking prouder than a new mother.

Before he could voice his appreciation at the marvel, Happy Hour spoke. Her voice was soft and patient. However, he snapped to attention as soon as she did. It held a power, that voice. One that was used to being obeyed.

The buzzing grew louder as she spoke, making those few simple words sound even more imposing.

“My brave worker. Who shall we make bow before the colony first?”

***

Jester almost got her to take off the outfit for the walk to the coliseum.

Almost.

A part of him wanted it to remain a surprise. To see the audience’s reactions first hand through the screens. For their shock to morph into delight at whatever insane performance Happy Hour was going to put on.

He didn’t, though.

Instead, he let her walk through the city streets the next morning. Both of them head held high as they moved. People stopped to stare and whisper. Several he knew were taking screenshots. One person started ranting to thin air as they began a livestream or vlog.

Beside him, Happy Hour radiated confidence. She moved with graceful steps. Never hurried, but not stopping to let people pass. Not that it was an issue. With her spear in hand, and game face on players and robots alike, stepped out of her way.

Her arm intertwined with Jesters as they moved.

He felt underdressed as he moved next to her. As they walked, he wondered if perhaps he should have gotten Madame Merriam to make him something as well.

Though the question would have been what? A new suit? Some more royal regalia? The sight of the coliseum’s waiting room cut his musing off.

Chester met them once again. The NPC bowing as he saw Happy Hour. A nervous smile forming on his face. That got a raised eyebrow from Jester. Why would another NPC act like that?

Sure, the kid was always nervous.

However, this was something else.

Weirder.

An effect of her dance emote powers picking up something from the outfit? Her last few didn’t do any such thing.

When Chester finished his bow, his voice sounded normal. Nor did he display any other odd behaviors. He checked Jester in and motioned towards the same door as last time. One that Jester didn’t hesitate to walk through.

His excitement was rising at a steady pace, even as he moved on Happy Hour’s arm.

He knew the score. He was escorting her to the fight, not the other way around. A fact that didn’t bother him. Though he knew it should. Others certainly looked like they were about to laugh at him.

When he entered the waiting room for the fights, he found it empty. All except for a single serving NPC. He’d seen these before. They were silver cubes, with arms and legs. A screen displayed a pixel-art face.

Too basic to assign any form of gender to it.

This one was old. Damaged as well. Cracks ran through the screen, and the corners of the machine were rusty. When it spoke, it was slow. Each word interspersed with the hissing of a hydraulics. A fact that made each word slow and painful.

Jester winced, and from the corner of his eye, he could see the small frown on Happy Hour’s face. She wore an expression of one who expected better service. To be honest, he did as well.

“Sir. Or. Madam. Please. Wait. In. An. Empty. Room. For. Your. Match. To. Start.”

One of its arms rose with a series of clicks and pointed towards the hallway.

Jester gave it a court nod and moved in the required direction. However, Happy Hour tugged at his arm. A motion that caused him to pause next to her. She was staring down at the damaged robot. Whose pixel-arm eyes watched her right back.

“You.” The way she pronounced the word made it a miniature proclamation. “What is your name?”

A series of dots replaced the pixelated image of its face. One by one they vanished, then reappeared. A sure sign that it was thinking. Jester wondered why Happy Hour was bothering.

These things didn’t get names often. Even if they did, it wouldn’t mean anything.

“I. Am. Watcher. 54321k.” The NPC jerked a little as it spoke.

Jester frowned. Was that its best attempt at a bow? As he tried to work it out, he could hear a buzzing. Muted, but there. Now that he thought about it, he wondered if he’d heard it while talking to Chester. With how noisy it’d been, he couldn’t be sure.

“You have done me a service today. I do hope you continue to work hard.”

“Thank. You. Happy. Hour.”

There was no doubt about it now. That was weird. It shouldn’t have known her name. As evidenced by the prior greeting. When she turned away, the buzzing lowered. When the noise fully died down, the NPC stared back at the door as if nothing occurred.

Once more acting like a normal robot of its type.

While they walked, Jester sent a quick report to Kylee with his free hand. He detailed the change to her ability. The bow and the kind words as opposed to the dancing. She might simply be activating another emote.

Some did come with such a function. Players enjoyed feeling superior.

However, he figured the mechanic might like to know.

The room they found themselves in was exactly the same as his last one. He settled himself in to wait, as Happy Hour moved to stand in the center of the room. With a quick motion, she tapped the butt of her spear against the ground.

A buzz filled the room. Jester sure he saw those specks that covered her dress move.

“They dare make one of my lineage wait?” Happy Hour snapped.

“I’m sure it won’t be long.” Jester’s eyes flicked towards the screen.

He was also wondering what was going on. All the times he’d seen the Cups play out, it was a set of straight matches. One v One. Machine v Machine. With the lack of color coding, though? Jester was less sure of himself.

His mind flashed back to the start of all this. To watching Captain Rocket and The Lovecraftian Knight fight in the area. The announcement afterward was strange. RagerSystems were making a big deal out of this.

All for a future update.

Knowledge of the showy update announcement, plus the virus, plus the Final Cup, made him think something big was going down. Some change was going to get declared. Which made him wonder if they were going to be testing something new with these matches.

The screens flickered on.

They didn’t show the arena, nor the screening crowd of fans. All it showed was a blue screen with white text. The words please wait splashed across it.

A sound next to him, Happy Hour, giving a delicate cough to clear her throat. An action so unnecessary, he almost laughed.

“At least they’re being upfront about this. Still. It is not in my nature to wait. Busy days are the best.”

Jester nodded absentmindedly as he watched the screen. This would change things. He knew that. It was a question of how. He’d been working on getting Happy Hour set up for a straight fight. If they took that away, he didn’t know what else to do.

Without warning, the screen changed.

A box appeared before him, to mimic the words on the screen. It made him wonder why they bothered.

{To all our lovely watchers!

Welcome to the second round of the Frankenstein Cup.

As some of you may have guessed from seeing the Arena, this is going to be a little different. A three on three fight. One that doesn’t take place on anything as simple as a sandy plain.

No, today we are here to showcase the fact our robots can manage for more than combat. Though do not fear. They’ll still be fighting for your entertainment.

In today’s trial, we will showcase them going through a maze. They will need to find each other. Then fight as usual. But heed this warning! Traps and other robots will be roaming. Ones that will act as deterrents.

Plus, a rather special guest.

Are your robots strong enough to survive? Pass through obstacles, traps and even NPCs?

Let us find out.

Contestants, get ready.}

Jester read the words twice more while he glared at the screen. Puzzles? Traps? Robots? What was this? His racing mind caught onto an idea, and he shook his head.

The Developers wouldn’t make the traps too complicated. With the variety of robots in the arena? Never mind, the robots that were currently present in the game. They would be a button on the floor, if even that.

None of the AI could manage anything much harder.

Well, aside from Happy Hour, of course.

A smile formed on his face at that. Other robots? An arena designed to make sure that none of the others could gang up on her at the start? It was almost perfect.

“Are you ready?” Jester asked.

Happy Hour looked away from the words on the screen. She tilted her head, Tiara catching the light. With a subtle motion, she adjusted her grip on her spear.

“I am a queen, Jester. We are always ready to face any challenge. How could we face ourselves if we did otherwise?”

A smile graced her face.

“Besides. While the others will face this alone. I’ll have my colony with me.”

At those words, a buzzing filled the air. One that sounded excitable. Those black dots swirled about the fabric, always stopping so that they landed in the exact middle of each hexagon.

Happy Hour reached down and brushed at the fabric.

“When do you think they’ll—”

Her sudden disappearance cut her words off mid-sentence, leaving Jester alone in the small room.

***

The words on the screen faded out to be replaced by an image of the arena.

It was a slow transition. An aerial view fading into view. When it finished, Jester winced at what he saw. This was not what he’d been expecting.

All the seats were full. Players of all shapes and sizes crowded together as tightly as the game would let them go. He saw smaller players, pixie sized entities, on people’s shoulders.

From the way their mouths moved, he was sure the noise would have been deafening.

Players held all kinds of different signs. Some bearing names of contestants, others showing off various game related memes. It struck Jester as odd. No matter how he looked, it was the same three names.

Happy Hour, who was by far the least represented.

Minemachine13, who seemed to have the most support.

Spellslinger, who appeared to have the most hardcore fans. As anyone that bore his name or image dressed in stereotypical wizard garbs.

A fact Jester supposed made sense, considering the name.

It wasn’t the crowd that took all of his attention, however. No, the lights shifted around in the air took that honor.

In seconds, a bright blue hologram covered the arena’s center.

The display showed broken walls, similar to most of the common architecture in The Outskirts. They snaked around each other, forming corridors. Some of which ended in dead ends, and others that opened up into rooms.

Said rooms came in two types: Normal and obstacle.

Normal rooms were nothing special. Rectangular chambers that weren’t too different from the standard arena.

Obstacle rooms were something else. One that drew his attention was a narrow room filled with water. A series of bridges spanned the room. Each connected to a different thin platform.

This appeared to be the single way to cross the room.

As he studied it, he swore he saw a shape moving in the water. The message mentioned other robots being in the arena.

Happy Hour could cross such things with ease. Her compact form and dexterity would make simple work of such a room. Any bigger robot? Well, if there was another ZZZ_Dozer, they would have to pick another path.

A new series of three lights came into view. They appeared in separate sections of the maze. As he watched, they morphed, transforming into miniature versions of the contestants. When they completed, large screens appeared above them.

Ones that showed a view of wherever the contestants were in the maze proper.

The first to appear was MineMachine13, the robot owned by Dwarvos. It was one of the normal rooms. Several floating lights illuminating it for the audience. Jester nodded as he saw it. It was an impressive build.

What showed on the screen was a sleek ruby-colored snake. Each of its scales was a gemstone, and sharpened blades made up the twin fangs in its mouth. On its tail, instead of a rattle, a drill rotated. The spikes sticking off it remained visible until it increased the speed.

Then it became nothing but a spinning cone of destruction.

A bright green tongue appeared from its mouth, as it rose its head. Before it started nudging against the walls.

Before it could do whatever it planned, the next screen appeared.

Happy Hour.

Relief filled him to know she was fine. For a moment, he was worried that her random placement would stick her into the most dangerous section of the maze. Some area he didn’t spot at the start, filled with quicksand, and robot vampires.

Instead, she was standing in a darkened hallway. Two torches were the only light to show her off to the audience.

Not that it mattered.

What little light they’d given her was still more than enough to display her new outfit. A quick cutaway happened on his screen to show the audience’s reactions. He’d been right. They were loud. However, there was less booing than he expected. Oh, it was there. That would never go away.

However, the cheering was more obvious this time.

Still, no signs or posters for him, though.

On the small screen above the arena, Happy Hour stood waving with one-hand. From the way the image roasted, it allowed her to be seen by the entire audience. With that motion, plus the way the tiara caught the light?

It was hard not to see her as the royal they’d dressed her as.

Jester hoped someone was taking screenshots.

Even as she stood still, it was clear the hoop skirt part of her outfit seemed to move. He knew if they were getting a better image, they would see the black dots. Each shifting about, buzzing as they moved from hexagon to hexagon.

Last, but not least, was a robot design that confused him.

Spellslinger, whose owner Karmagician Jester hadn’t heard of before meeting The Troll, was a wizard hat. Not a robot wearing a wizard hat. The hat itself. A conical shape, with a wide brim and a small fluffy ball sitting on the tip.

More of a Santa hat accessory in his mind. However, the purple fabric and the silver stars made up for that. Unlike the stars’ on Happy Hour’s dress, none of these moved.

It floated above the ground, tilting to shift left and right. At one point, it flipped over, displaying the bottom. There was no open spot for a head to fit in. What filled that hole was a mouth.

One with realistic human teeth, and a long pink tongue that flicked about. Even though he wasn’t getting sounds, Jester shuddered. He could imagine the wet sounds it would make. A part of him hoped the snake would take it out before it got to Happy Hour.

If that tongue went near her? The GIFs would become unbearable.

So gross.

All three competitors stayed where they were. Happy Hour shifted. The snake rubbed against the walls and the gross hat continued to float. However, none moved forward.

Jester frowned, wondering why they hadn’t started yet. He received no countdown. Nor did the stats appear on the screen. Was some other thing meant to load into the arena?

No other lights came into view, so instead he settled down to wait. Perhaps they needed a second longer to test something in the arena. With how new this environment was, it didn’t surprise him there was a bug or two.

Even the crowd, whenever his screen showed them, looked confused.

Players all stared at the arena. As they waited for the hypothetical starting gun.

It came with the sound of an explosion.

Dust billowed out from the center of the maze. Holographic clouds plumed towards the sky before they vanished.

Players screamed and cheered in equal measure at the sight.

Before the dust even cleared, he got the box.

The start of the countdown.

He ignored it, eyes fixed on the screen. Jester was sure there was something there. A form big enough to tower above the walls. However, it remained obscured. The dust not vanishing the way it should.

With a shrug, he focused on Happy Hour’s miniature. The screens showing their proper forms vanished. He supposed they would appear again when the battles started. Not that it would be soon.

With the way they’d spread everyone out, they’d have to go through at least one obstacle room first. Perhaps two, depending on the path they took.

That was fine with Jester. He trusted in Happy Hour. However, if the other two took each other out, it would be an easy win for him. As a Scrapper, he wasn’t too proud to not look for those at any opportunity.

Jester clasped his hands together as he watched. Happy Hour moved towards the obstacle room. One that filled with a series of columns. All cracked and splintering.

As she stepped into it, the screen above the miniature reappeared.

It showed her determined face before it swung around.

Jester sighed in relief.

A puzzle was something Happy Hour could complete, right?