Death was playing a game, and Francis Lisi was losing it.

He sat behind his ancient desk, slumped down below the high back of his wooden chair. An ornate chess set of white and black pieces was set up before him. He was playing black, though the game was untouched, and no opponent was there to make a move. None except for the death creeping through the old man's bones, playing its game; one no mortal man could hope to win.

"Come on," Francis growled. "Play a game you can lose." With his one good eye he glared at the white end of the board, expecting one of the pieces to move. A pawn sliding toward him, a knight jumping into the fray. Anything.

The white king and his army stared back in silence. None of them moved.

"Come on." He grit his teeth and pulled himself up in his chair, wincing with every pop and crack he felt in his joints; every move death was making in its own game. "One game, you bastard. One game."

Nothing.

Francis shouted and swept the pieces off of his desk, slamming them all into the wall. They clattered noisily to the floor, some of them chipped, others snapped in half. The old man rested his head in a hand and ignored them.

He'd been losing death's game for years. Every day was greeted with a new set of aches; a slow rot settling deep into the woodwork of his skeleton. The elder did his best to combat his decay with exercise, laying off the cigarettes and booze, eating regularly, but nothing curbed death's moves. Its game would have its end. He imagined even blinking would soon become a pain-ridden chore.

He moved his hand across his face and upon his scalp, felt the wrinkles in his skin. He remembered a time when he had full hair to put his hands through, instead of just the feeble wisps that dangled from his crown. He poked at the glass eye in its socket and tried to remember how he had once been able to see from it.

His legs used to run, his arms used to lift, his body used to work. "See what you've made of me?" he whispered. All they did now was ache and suffer, forced to wait for a release from death's game with no moves to make of their own.

"Pa?" someone called from outside the room. "You okay, Pa?" It was his son Jack, probably itching for a game of chess. Francis glanced at the destroyed pieces and sighed.

"What is it, Jack?" he said, and sat upright in his chair. A moment passed in which Francis heard his behemoth of a son shuffling noisily outside the door, searching his damaged brain for words. The old man rubbed his forehead. At least my brain's still kicking, he thought, and smirked.

"Mike says he's got somethin' for ya," Jack finally said, and was immediately followed by the mentioned brother barging through the door.

"Something amazing," Mike said through a grin. He was clutching a parcel in one hand and a smoldering cigarette in the other. His eyes were concealed behind a large pair of sunglasses, and a red bandana covered his head. "It's good you're already sitting, cause-"

"Shut up." Francis glared at his belligerent son and grabbed the wide-brimmed hat resting on top of his chair to pull over his head. He then stood up as fluidly as he could, keeping his face clear of pain. He may have been losing death's game, but he wasn't about to show it to anyone. He looked to Jack standing dumbly in the doorway. "Leave us alone for a bit, Jacky."

The giant nodded and shut the door silently. Mike stood in the center of the room, puffing on his cigarette. Francis looked the young adult over and shook his head.

"You look like a Lazdamned fool, you know that?" The elder stepped around his desk and came to stand in front of Mike, towering over him. He plucked the sunglasses from his face, inspected them with his good eye, and dropped them on the floor to crush them under his boot. The glass and plastic shattered easily beneath his heel.

Mike stared off to the side of the room, his cigarette smoldering vacantly between his lips. Francis kicked the ruined sunglasses aside, its myriad pieces skittering noisily across the wooden floor, and made his way back behind his desk.

"Sunglasses ain't easy to find, you know," Mike muttered.

"Then the next time you find some," Francis said, "maybe you'll have the common sense to wear them where they belong." He sat back down and grit his teeth when his knees cracked loudly from bending. He resisted the urge to rub them and waved at his son. "Get on with it, kid. What's so amazing?"

Mike gave a lingering gaze to the destroyed frame of his shades for a moment before turning to his father. "This," he said, forcing his grin to return. He placed the carefully wrapped parcel on the elder's desk and took a seat in the small chair in front of it. "Snatched it from a caravan headed into the Ups."

Francis made no move to unwrap the package and kept his eye on Mike. "'The Ups'?" The words felt foreign coming from the old man's lips. He assumed it referred to the Upper district of Kaj, but he hadn't heard anyone call it that before. He didn't like it.

"Yeah, you know," Mike said, shrugging. "Upper Kaj, Land of the Riches and Bitches, call it what you want, that's not the point."

Francis closed his eyes and slumped in his chair. Please, get to the point then.

"The point," the son continued, "is who this package was being sent to." He leaned forward in his chair and tapped the parcel's top a few times with his finger.

The elder took in a breath and opened his eyes to stare at his son. He wondered why one of his more responsible children wasn't delivering this package to him. Fear? No, clearly it was a matter of pride, which meant Mike was the only one who actually cared about it. Always eager to impress, this one. Francis smirked and reached for the package.

"Oh," is all he managed to say upon reading the name stamped on it:

EDGAR LISI
UPPER KAJ

"Yeah," Mike sneered. "Oh."

The only other marking on the package was a stylized capital H up in the corner. Francis had seen it on other products strewn about the wastelands; it was the logo of a certain company from In, the megacity in the center of the wastes. He shook the parcel lightly, but whatever was inside didn't move.

"What else did you find with it?" the old man asked, and turned the package upside down to see where the wrapping was taped.

Mike shrugged. "Pretty normal stuff for Upper folk." He reached into a pocket and produced a golden pocketwatch that had several precious stones set into its cover. He dangled it around by its ornate chain carelessly. "There wasn't even any security around it either aside from the drivers. Ted, Casey and me had it locked down in no time."

Francis drummed his fingers on the package. It was strange something addressed to his brother, the self-proclaimed ruler of Upper Kaj, would be delivered without more caution. Unless the king wanted it to be moved discreetly; a transport with little security would seem like small pickings to thieves, something not worth their trouble. Obviously the plan didn't quite pan out in Edgar's favor.

"And the drivers?" he asked as he pulled open a desk drawer. He rummaged through it and fished out a thin knife to slice open the wrapping paper.

"Roped 'em up and left 'em with whatever we didn't take." Mike took a final drag from his cigarette and leaned forward to stub it out in an ash tray on his father's desk. "Was kinda disappointed they didn't put up more of a fight. Nothin' gets a chick wild like a good scar does."

Francis ignored his son and pulled the rest of the paper apart, revealing a white cardboard box beneath it. The word reVAmp was emblazoned boldly upon it, with the V and A printed in bright green and the rest in black. In smaller text below it read, New and Improved Vitality Amplification. Up in the corner, the H logo made another appearance.

"Vitality amplification," Francis said. More words that didn't feel right on his lips. On the side of the box was a large block of text printed in script too small for the old man to see clearly. Dammit. He tightened his lips and tossed the box onto his desk. "Read what's on the side there," he demanded. "Assuming you're one of my sons that can read."

Mike narrowed his eyes. "You've got a bigger stick up your ass than usual today, old man." He snatched the box up from the desk. "Maybe have Big Jack take a look at it for you later, huh?"

Francis slammed his knife into his desk, sinking it in deeply enough to have it stand on its own. Pain raced up his arm from the force and he bit his tongue from the sudden shock. Rage flared up in his gut. Calm down. He gripped his thigh tightly and closed his eyes, took in a slow breath. His mouth flooded with the coppery taste of his own blood; his arm pulsed with a dull ache. Another slow breath. He loosened his thigh.

"Just read it," he muttered. Who looks like a Lazdamned fool now?

Mike stared at his father for a moment before looking to the box. He cleared his throat and began reading: "reVAmp is a radical improvement to its. . ." The Lisi mouthed the next word a few times and continued, somewhat unsure in his pronunciation. ". . .revolutionary predecessor, VAmp. With unmatched success rates attained from years of thorough research and testing, reVAmp has proven itself to be the most reliable method of youth restoration available today."

Francis leaned forward in his chair. Youth restoration.  Just what had Edgar gotten his hands on? "Keep going."

Mike rubbed his eyes and sighed. "reVAmp is only to be applied once, and can be applied quickly and easily with or without the aid of a medical professional. If you're without the aid of a medical professional, follow the enclosed instructions closely. Do not apply more than one dosage of reVAmp under any circumstances, and consult a medical professional with any questions or concerns that may arise after. . . Ugh, okay. Fuck this."

Francis glared. "What's the matter?

Mike placed the box on his lap and produced a flask from his back pocket. "Don't you have a daughter that's a medical professional?" He knocked back a swig and sighed with relief. "She should be reading this shit, not me. I can feel my dick shrink with every word."

He spoke of Riley, one of the few children Francis had who showed any interest in helping people, and the only one clever enough to have beaten him in chess. He glanced at the ruined pieces on the floor again and smiled wanly. He'd have to clean that up before she arrived.

"Get her then," he said, "and don't go scaring her off." Being a decent human being put you on the fast track for ridicule in the Lisi family, an issue Riley met by secluding herself from her siblings by any means possible. He had helped her down from rooftops on several occasions due to this. "Just tell her I need help with a tricky riddle."

"All right." Mike took another gulp from his flask and placed the reVAmp back on the desk. "But if she ain't here by sundown, then I couldn't find her 'cause hell if I'm wasting my whole night lookin' for that little piss stain."

"Go," Francis growled, and Mike obeyed. When he shut the door behind him, the old man doffed his hat and sunk back in his seat. He felt drained; his eyes, heavy; his arm and tongue and legs all throbbing with pain. It let him know he was still alive, but only just so. He wondered if his body would lose feeling or break out in pain in the end, and meekly hoped for the former. He was tired of hurting.

The last thing he looked at was the reVAmp, where the rest of his hope now lied. He closed his eyes.

The old man wouldn't wake up the same again. Not for a long time.

*   *   *

"Looks like our game's gonna be put on hold for a while, old friend," said the man Francis had never seen before.

It didn't take the elder long to realize he was dreaming. He was sitting in a dull concrete room lit by an uncovered lightbulb that hung from the ceiling, occasionally flickering like fire pestered by a breeze. In front of him was a table with a game of chess that was already in progress, and clearly reaching its end.

Black pieces littered the outside of the board, all of them in battered shambles. The only remnant of the black army left on the board was its king, who was a pitiful sight, trapped hopelessly in a corner in white's territory. The king was far more worn down than the other pieces, with great chunks of its paint missing and deep cracks set into its foundation. Whether the game would end before the miserable piece would fall on its own was a mystery.

All the white pieces shone immaculately even in the dingy light of the room. Several of them were lined up on the board's outside, and though they were out of play, they all stood just as proudly as their brothers still in the fray. Those pieces, the ones hungering for the black king's defeat, seemed to move around the board freely, Francis discovered. They swam around the spaces, threatening their lone enemy with pokes and prods from their various weapons.

Definitely dreaming, Francis thought, and finally looked up to the man he had never seen before.

His eyes were hidden behind the brim of a red cap, and a toothy smirk as bright as the ivory pieces he controlled consumed his stubbled expression. He wore a faded denim jacket stained with dark, greasy spots; what Francis assumed to be oil once its aroma hit his nostrils.

"Don't usually dream of strangers," the old man said, "let alone ones beating me at my own game." He reached to pick up one of the defeated black pawns, which immediately crumbled into dust upon his touch. He frowned and wiped the residue off on his leg. "What makes you the exception, kid?"

The man's smirk widened into a grin. "I ain't a stranger, Francis," he said. "In fact, I may know you better than anyone else." He moved his hand over the game; the white army continued scrambling around their prey. "Recognize this game? It's the same one we've been playing for some time now."

Francis glanced down at the board and scoffed. "Played a lot of games in my days, kid, and this one looks like a Lazdamn child threw a tantrum when he couldn't win." He poked another black corpse, shattering it into more dust.

The man laughed. "Right you are, Francis, right you are." He reached for the black king and placed his fingers gingerly around its base.

Francis shifted in his seat when he felt the pins and needles of numbness in his legs.

"But this game of ours." he continued, "is much different." The man's grin shifted into a caustic scowl as he squeezed the black king.

Francis shouted as pain erupted through his legs. He scrambled in his seat and kicked around wildly, only worsening his pain when he struck the sturdy table in front of him.

"This game," the man seethed as he gripped the center of the king, "is designed to hurt."

The pain ended in his legs and moved to his torso. He felt his ribs shift violently, tearing up the muscles around them. His lungs constricted and put an end to his shouting while his heart raced faster and faster, pumping fiery waves of pain across his chest with every beat.

"And like every game," he continued over the old man's sputtering throes, "it has an end. An end with a winner, and a loser." He finally grasped the top of the piece, and Francis' screaming began anew. "Guess which you're going to be, kid."

His vision went entirely white, and he imagined the burning sun of the wastes had risen within his skull, burning it from the inside. Scalding steam rose from his pores instead of sweat. He felt the sun ravaging through his cranium, trying to escape, and succeeding in finding his empty eye socket. His false eye erupted into flames as the sun forced its way out of the miniscule exit. The old man's screams reached a crescendo.

"Remember this pain, Francis," he heard the man say. "It's what's waiting for you when our game continues."

*   *   *

A young man awoke in silence.

He laid still on a hardwood floor. A large desk was overturned beside him, its innards spilled out across the ground. Dim light strolled in through a broken window and various holes punched into the walls. Standing upright beside his head was an unmarred chess piece: a black king.

He heard a floorboard creak and immediately sat upright. The culprit scrambled backwards into a corner: a young girl with disheveled, light blond hair tied into a clumsy ponytail. She stared back with wide, frightened eyes and held breath.

"Riley?" the young man said, and placed a hand to his mouth at the sound of his voice. It was clear, crisp, free of the gravel he had grown used to. He moved his hand across his face, where soft, smooth skin greeted his fingers. He reached his left eye and poked at it, grimaced from the stinging pain it left behind. Finally he found his scalp, where a thick forest of white follicles had taken root.

"Who am I?" he asked. He refocused on the girl, whose face was growing pale from lack of air. "Take a breath, kid! I need you alive."

The girl took in a sharp breath and placed a hand to her chest. She took in several more and cast her eyes to the ground. "You're. . ." she started in a small voice. "You're Francis."

He put a hand through his hair and nodded. Francis Lisi, he thought. The name sounded. . . old. Ancient and withered. He reached for the upturned desk to help him stand, but realized he wouldn't need it. He instead leapt to his feet and bounced around on them, his heels springy and his muscles strong.

Riley stood up in her corner and held her mouth to suppress a giggle. "I was scared it wasn't gonna work," she said.

Francis stood still and looked to his daughter. He remembered he had more children like her; remembered that they were all young, which made him feel old. But I'm not. He looked at his hands and balled them into fists. I'm as young as them. He smiled.

"The reVAmp," he recalled. "That's what you mean, right?"

Riley nodded. "It said you needed to be sedated, and you were already asleep, so. . ." She let her sentence hang and produced a large, empty syringe from behind her back. Several smaller ones littered the floor around her.

Francis clapped his hands together and laughed triumphantly. "Thank Laz I had a daughter like you!" He jumped around again, touching the ceiling and bouncing off his desk, which he then threw back up onto its feet with ease.  His eyes then found his old wardrobe, and he grinned.

"From this point on, you're my favorite child," Francis said, pointing at Riley. "And anyone who says otherwise can expect to get their teeth kicked in by me. Got it?"

The young Lisi gazed in bewilderment for a moment before nodding resolutely.

"Good." Francis whipped his old coat off and stepped over to his wardrobe. "Now get on out of here, kid, I've got work to do."

Riley obeyed and scurried her way out of her father's room, scooping up the empty syringes on her way. When the door clicked shut, Francis opened his wardrobe, revealing a number of clothes hung up neatly on a rack. He brushed a hand fondly along the old garments before he selected one: a dark t-shirt with a worn pair of slacks folded under them. He pulled them out by their hanger, turned them around, and tossed them carelessly behind him.

He did the same with the next set, and the one after that. Soon his floor was drowned in a sea of cloth, and he didn't stop until but a few items of clothing were left in the wardrobe.

"Hello, beautiful," he said to one of the greatest companions of his youth: a leather jacket. It was cracked and weary from countless bouts with the blazing sun of the wastes relentlessly  pounding down upon it for years. The leather was cracked in several places, showing splotches of pale hide beneath it. He was reminded of the cornered and battered black king in his dream, which he immediately brushed away from his thoughts.

He pulled the jacket out along with several other pieces of clothing he had favored so long ago: a white, button-up shirt, a once dark pair of jeans that now matched a bright blue sky, a belt with a buckle shaped like a star missing one of its points, and a pair of square-toed boots that were just as durable as the day he had found them. Finally, from an ornate box he retrieved his gun: a shining silver revolver he spun deftly in his hands that made its home in a holster attached to his belt.

They all fit to him snugly, stirring memories of the many days he had spent in them. Scouring the wastes for food in the beating sun, bundling up tightly in the cold sting of the dark, fighting for what was his, or what he wanted to be his. He smiled and cracked his knuckles. Excitement and energy spread through him like wildfire; things he hadn't felt in such force for ages. He laughed heartily, partly in disbelief, mostly in joy.

"Let's put this to use," he said, and headed out the door. He made a beeline for the bar as the wasteland sun bade its pink-orange goodbye to its denizens.

That night, no one in the decrepit slums of Lower Kaj could say they had ever partied harder.

*   *   *

Francis awoke on the ground, and wryly hoped doing so wasn't going to become a habit. His head hurt like a son of a bitch. The dull murmur of muffled voices around him only made it worse. The sun that presided over him was. . .

"You're not my sun," he grunted. No, this sun was weaker, almost fake in its paltry incandescence compared to the merciless inferno Francis was accustomed to. He looked to his side and saw himself in a mirror. His other side produced the same result.

An inexplicable calm fell over him as he realized he was no longer at home.

He sat up and held his head, which, despite his well-earned hangover, was feeling better by the second. Something he chalked up to either Lisi genes or the reVAmp. He was alone in a sand-covered area surrounded by mirrors on all sides. What- or whoever was behind the murmuring he heard wasn't in sight.

Think. He had headed to the bar, started the night off with a gunshot and a whiskey shot. No one had recognized him. They all just assumed he was another Lisi bastard, and for the night, all his sons and daughters in attendance had treated him more like a brother than a father. He had enjoyed that.

A glowing red beam appeared from the sky across the arena and touched down on the ground, whipping up sand in its wake. Francis regarded it mildly.

The whiskey flowed the entire night. The ex-elder couldn't remember a time when he didn't have a shot ready and waiting for him to knock back. He grasped his jaw and rubbed it, felt it ache at his touch; the result of a fist in the face from a punk looking for a scrap. Francis recalled throwing the asshole through a window and smirked.

A silhouette appeared from within the pulsing red beam. It was too vague for Francis to make out.

One peculiar thing stuck out that night: a man Francis had never seen before. Not the one from his dream, thank Laz, but an odd man nonetheless. He had meandered around the party wearing clothes so clashed and extravagant that not even Uppers would be caught in them.

The silhouette began to take a human-like shape. Above the murmuring Francis could hear savage growls coming from it. He smelled blood on the air.

Francis saw the man more and more as the night went on and the party's numbers dwindled. Oddly enough, it had been his family that he began to notice less of. The brothers and sisters he had shared whiskey with drifted off one by one without even a clap on the back in farewell. Eventually the man sat down across from Francis, introduced himself. He had a scar shaped like a grid that covered half his face.

The red beam vanished, revealing its charge: a feral-looking woman soaked in blood. Crimson dripped from her hands and lips, onto the ornate, dark dress she wore. Her hands were clenched like claws, and also dripping in red. She licked her lips, locked her gaze on Francis and for an instant they recognized each other. Erin.

He said his name was Fred, and that he was intrigued by Francis, oh yes. He said he wanted to play a game, while Francis had declined. He was done with games, at least for a while. I want to live, he said with a drunken smile. Fred had laughed. Trust me, the strange man said, this game will make you feel more alive than you ever have before. He smiled a devil's smile and things got dark. Francis woke up on the ground. His head hurt like a son of a bitch.

"And it's only gonna hurt more," he muttered, and stood up to face his acquaintance. Erin had taken his notorious pariah of a son, Dan, under her wing after his family had tried to kill him. He kept faint contact with Erin, who would occasionally make a shadowy appearance in his office to talk, which the old man didn't mind. She was smart, and played a hell of a chess game.

She also had the stale smell of blood about her frequently, and now he could tell why.

He was about to call out to her when she appeared in front of him, as if she had traversed the arena in a single step. She was far shorter than him, and stared up at him with her teeth bared. Her pupils were pin pricks. She fidgeted violently as she forced words from her mouth:

"Don't let me kill you."

Their eyes remained locked. Francis nodded slowly; she wasn't in control of herself, and it didn't seem like she'd be regaining it any time soon. He went through his options, only came up with one.

Like lightning he reached for his gun, but Erin struck first; a solid palm to his chest that sent him off his feet and onto his ass. He coughed but recovered quickly, just in time to roll out of the way of Erin's pounce.

He stopped on his knees and fanned off three shots at the bloodied woman. Two of them hit, clean shots to her torso that planted her on her back. Francis stood and rubbed his chest. The murmuring from behind the glass turned into a rumbling roar.

He walked over to Erin and looked down at her. She was clutching her wounds, gasping for air. Blood that was her own sputtered up from her mouth, mixing in with that which already covered her face. Francis sighed.

"I don't know where we are," he said over the mirrors' roar, "or why we're here, but know that I never wanted you dead." He pulled the hammer back on his gun, kept his eyes dead level with Erin's. "Remember that in whatever life you greet next."

He squeezed the trigger, and just as the muzzle flashed, he found himself somewhere else entirely. The thunder of his gunshot was cut off halfway through, and the roaring of the crowd ended abruptly. He was now standing upon a plain white floor surrounded by utter darkness. He was only able to see the edge of a large circle that surrounded him, lit by an unknown source from above.

"I'll take that," chirped a feminine voice from behind him. A pale hand appeared and tried to snatch the gun from his hand, but Francis kept his grip on the handle and whirled around to meet the thief.

Riley stood before him, but like the arena's sun, Francis could immediately tell it was a fake. Although in this case, the blatantly off-putting grin plastered on the impostor's face was a dead giveaway.

Francis narrowed his eyes and pulled back on his gun. "Just what the hell are you, kid?"

She cocked her head to the side curiously, her grin only shrinking the tiniest bit. "You seem upset," she said. Her eyes then brightened. "Oh, that was your friend out there, correct? Is that why you're upset?"

Francis pulled back the hammer on his gun. "You're asking a lotta Lazdamn idiotic questions, kid. Now tell me just who the hell you are cause you're sure as hell not my daughter!"

"Aha!" the girl said, snapping her fingers triumphantly. "It's my current form that's upsetting you. I must apologize, I only wanted you to be more comfortable in your new environment!"

Current form? Francis shook his head and waved his free hand. "Okay," he conceded, "forget whatever the hell you are. Start with wherever the hell I am."

"Oh, that's easy! You're at. . ." She disappeared from in front of Francis, leaving no trace behind. He blinked and didn't move a muscle, only using her peripheral vision to find her, but the sudden squeaking sound in the distance told him exactly where she was.

"You're at. . . !" she repeated as the squeaking got closer. A red light flared up in the darkness and began squealing loudly. Francis took aim at it, but an instant later it rocketed into the air, where it exploded into a large capital R made of red sparkles. "Oh, darn it," the girl muttered. "One moment! You're gonna love this, trust me."

Francis sighed and holstered his gun. This wasn't getting anywhere, but he saw no way of speeding the process up. "I'm waiting, kid."

A few more moments of squeaking past and a red I exploded overhead before the girl reappeared, jogging back into the circle of light. She was holding a detonator attached to a wire that stretched out into the darkness. "Okay, you, Francis Lisi, are at. . ."

She pressed the button on the detonator and many red lights appeared in the shadows. After a moment of fizzling, they flew into the air like the others had and exploded into two aligned rows of glowing letters:

IFT

AR NA

"Ift ar. . . na?" Francis mouthed the words out and raised an eyebrow. "Sounds like gibberish, kid."

The girl looked behind her and gasped. "No!" she shouted, tossing the detonator out of the light. "No no no!" She stomped her foot on the ground several times, and with every stomp, to Francis' shock, she appeared to instantly change into a different form. A woman in purple business attire. Another with dark hair wrapped up in a haphazard bun bristling with hair clips. A woman with pigtails completely nude save a pair of tassels over her breasts.

Francis took a step back, unsure of how to believe what he was seeing, to believe he was somehow no longer in Kaj, to even believe he was young again. He put a hand to his head and sat on the ground. "Calm down," he whispered to himself, but the shapeshifting girl seemed to hear him as well as her tantrum ceased.

"Oh, I'm boring you," she said, back in the form of Riley. "I suppose I should get right to the point, then." She cleared her throat and pointed out to the smoky remnants of her failed firework performance. "My name is ARi, and that was supposed to spell out Rift Arena, which is where you are now!"

Rift Arena. Back in the wastes his children regularly bet at an arena where captured denizens of the wastes fought to the death. Was that where he was now? No, the sun was a fake, and he was fairly certain no one back home was able to transform into other people at will. This was another place entirely.

"Now I bet you're wondering," ARi continued, and shifted her head into an exact copy of Francis' own. "Why the hell am I at Rift Arena?" she recited in a perfect rendition of his voice before turning back to Riley's. "Well, that was the idea of my wondrously intelligent master, Fred, who decided you were an exceptionally interesting individual, and would therefore be a prime candidate for our games!"

Francis resisted cursing the shapeshifter for mentioning games. He was sick of games, sick of strategizing and plotting his every move. He sighed and rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. "And what if I don't want to play your Lazdamn games?" he breathed.

"Well, I may not be the best person to ask that, Mr. Lisi," she said with pursed lips. "But I think these fine folks may have an answer for you!" She pointed back to the darkness with her fingers held in the shape of a pretend gun. She pulled her finger back with a silent pchoo and a screen appeared, showing a number of people standing on a massive set of gallows.

"No," Francis said as the image became clearer. The face of his son, Jack, stared dumbly back at him, a noose hung around his neck. The image then began moving to the side, showing the faces of the rest of his family in quick succession, all of them staring blankly, all of them adorned with nooses.

"Get them out of there!" he roared, and unholstered his gun. He fired the final three shots, almost jamming it from fanning the hammer back too quickly. The bullets screamed toward their target and hit her squarely in her chest, her gut, her neck.

The bullets passed straight through those same parts, not fazing the girl at all. She giggled and waggled her finger. "You're far too dangerous with that gun, Mr. Lisi," she said, and snapped her fingers.

A metallic wire darted out from the shadows and wrapped itself around the barrel of Francis' gun. When he tried to pull it free, part of the wire split off from its base and lashed out at his face. The Lisi cursed and let go of his gun from the shock; the wire darted back into obscurity with the firearm in tow.

"That's better," ARi stated with a nod, "and I'm afraid I can't fulfill your request to get them out of there. Not yet, anyway."

Francis felt where the wire had struck against his face, winced when it stung at his touch. He grit his teeth and spat on the ground. Not yet, huh? His options were, once again, already narrowed down to but one.

He was getting sick of that.

"So these games," he said. "Are they all like that? Just shedding blood? Cause that isn't a game, kid."

"On the contrary--" ARi began, but Francis interrupted her.

"It's life," he seethed, "or death." He pointed to the screen in the distance, which was still scrolling through more faces of his family. "If their lives are on the line, I won't be playing anything. I won't be following any rules. I won't be listening to any shit from you or your Lazdamn master.

"I'll be fighting, and I won't stop until I see my family free."

ARi gazed at Francis with wide eyes during his tirade, and after a moment of silence, began clapping wildly for him. "That was so dramatic!" she squealed. "Master Fred was right about you! You're gonna be perfect!"

Francis stared at her, finding himself at a loss for words at the sight of ARi's jubilation. A pair of words then exploded in the darkness, which caught the shapeshifter's attention: NEXT ENTRANT, they read.

"Aw shucks!" she cried. "That means I gotta get going, Mr. Lisi, but it was sure a pleasure meeting you!" She grinned, and then put a finger to her chin. "Even if you did try to shoot me. . ." She cast her eyes to the floor sadly before shrugging and waving excitedly as she ran into the darkness. "Good luck!" she called, "And try to make some friends in the catacombs!"

"Catacombs?" Francis whispered, when the ground gave out from beneath him. He fell for a brief moment and landed hard on his ass in the middle of what seemed to be a cave-like corridor fashioned from polished metal. He looked up at the ceiling, now solid even though he had fallen straight from it. Of course. He got up slowly and began walking down the corridor, moving a hand through his hair as he went. Thoughts weighed down on his mind greatly, making him feel drained, old, but one thing he knew for certain:

This Fred was playing a game, and, despite himself, Francis Lisi didn't plan on losing.