You are now Duncan Samuels. You have been awake for a while now, and you have even gotten yourself some breakfast. You expect your brother to be awake soon, it's about 8:30 so any minute he should return from his forcefully induced nap.
Speak of the devil. Brandon comes down the stairs rubbing his eyes and clutching his stomach. "Morning, trigger-happy!" You say as he enters the living room.
"Ha ha, asshole!" He says without looking up from his direct path to the kitchen, "What's for breakfast?"
"Lightning fruit and toast."
"Why didn't you get anything but lightning fruit from the village?"
"Because lightning fruit's got nutrients."
"There is such a thing as showing off when it comes to exercising."
"If there is then I don't care!"
"You are quite possibly the most annoying person I have ever met."
"Well you are the most annoying acne-monster I have ever met!"
"I don't take kindly to that!"
"Well do you take kindly to a battle to the death?" Or as normal people would put it: A game of chess.
"Why not? I've got time."
This was a foolish decision on his part, your brother has never beat you at chess. The only time he ever got close, you tricked him into a draw by repetition. "Black or white?" You ask, letting him decide his color pieces.
"Black, I'll take the tactical advantage."
You move first, Pawn to E4
He responds with Pawn to G6
Your move, pawn to D4
"So..." You ask as he thinks about his move, "how exactly do we get out of the Medium?"
His move, Bishop to H6
"We create a universe."
Your move, Bishop to C4
"How exactly do we do that?"
His move, Bishop to C1, bishop takes bishop
Your move, Queen to C1, Queen takes bishop
"We need to do several things..."
His move, Pawn to H5
Your move, Knight to F3
"We need to kill seven gods, an evil King, and breed frogs."
His move, Pawn to G5
"Breed frogs?"
Your move, Knight to G5, knight takes pawn
His move, Knight to H6
"We need to create the 'optimal frog',"
Your move, Queen to D1
"What does this 'optimal frog' do?"
His move, Knight to G4
"You can refer to him as Billious Slick, and he IS the universe we are going to make."
Your move, Bishop to F7, bishop takes pawn, check
"Well done, but I don't intend to lose this early on."
His move King to F8
Your move, Queen to F3
"You've never beaten me before and you won't now!"
His move, King to G7
Your move, Queen to F5
"I forfeit!" He proclaims.
"Why? You've never done it before."
"Mate I three moves, I guess I'll just never beat you."
How did he do that? He's never seen mate moves ahead before. Was he able to predict the outcome. He couldn't have just suddenly gotten better and still let this get this far. "How did you know that?"
"I was able to see every failure before I made the move."
"How?"
"It comes with the Doom aspect, I can predict the bad outcomes of the future."
"Then how did you still lose?"
"I can only see loss, not success, I knew every move that would end badly for me, not every one that would go well for you."
"But, you could have lasted so much longer if you could see every peice you lost! Why didn't you use this to win?"
"Duncan, sometimes losing is inevitable. I'm not destined to beat you, and Jon was destined to die yesterday. I can see the future, but I can't escape fate. If I could, we wouldn't have lost Earth"
"But why did you decide to forfeit this time, when you've clearly lost and never given up before?"
"Sometimes the best way to win, is to give up while the casualties are low. When the the King knows he's going to lose, it's his decision to go down in battle, or to spare his men the same fate as him."
"Wait! If you knew when you were going to lose, did you know the outcome of the game from the beginning?"
"Duncan, I don't need to be psychic to know that I'm going to lose a chess game against someone with an ELA rating 700 higher than mine."
And with that he was gone, up the stairs. What was that all about? The way he talked he acted like he knew what a real battle was like. A real war, against other, intelligent life forms. How could he know about something like that, video games only go so far. What did he see when he looked into the future? Whatever it was, you know it had to be something a lot worse than a few chess pieces being taken.
END OF CHAPTER 13