The performing arts center was eye-catching. It stretched up and out, taking up at least a city block. Steven had never been great at estimating exactly how big that was.

  The entrance had brick walls and a green arched and overhanging roof that always caught his eye. It helped that the lights running along the curve were flashing in slow pulses that changed colors occasionally, moving through the Christmas gambit.

  It was one of Anchorage's features that made Steven feel like he was actually in a city rather than an unusually large town.

  They walked through the front door, and Steven cautiously looked around. It didn’t look too different from usual. The room stretched out in front of him a few hundred feet to the other entrance. Above, the room stretched to the distant roof, and a little ways ahead and to his right, a staircase led up to the second floor.

  He rechecked his map. The event was dead center in the auditorium. “Let’s head for the steps and enter from the top,“ Micheal said. “I’d rather be far from the stage when we enter. I have a feeling that if something spawns that wants to kill us, it’s going to be front and center in the spotlight.“

  Carla eyed Micheal and held up her hands at an angle as if examining him through a camera.

  “What are you doing?“

  She narrowed her eyes. “I think you’re a theater kid.“

  He gave her a sour look. “I resent you pinning me with that after knowing me for only a few hours. Also, you’re right, theater is cool.“

  Carla smirked and practically skipped alongside them. It seemed the two of them had built a rapport while he’d been fighting the Captain. It made Steven smile.

  While stopping territory claims and helping people made him feel good, it was draining his mental health. He’d begun to feel like everyone in the city who had an ounce of power was an asshole, so finding another group that didn’t want to crush everyone else to get ahead was an extremely welcome change of pace.

  There was a practical element to it: strong allies were always good. But more than that, Steven was happy to have met decent people.

  They marched up the steps, the eerily empty room seeming to press in on them.

  Steven hadn’t gone to the PAC often, but he’d been enough times to know what it should and shouldn’t feel like. He was used to the place bustling with people, the throng of humanity shuffling along towards the auditorium entrance.

  Seeing the halls empty was bizarre and more than a little unsettling.

  ??Buford and Noodle cocked their heads as Margie’s Skill dropped, leaving them as ordinary dogs strolling the halls. It would come off cooldown before the event started, but it still made Steven nervous, even if they couldn’t die here.

  As the dogs paused and stared off in the distance, the rest of them stopped. “What is it, boys?“ Margie asked. Buford shook his head and pointed his nose toward the doors leading to the theater.

  Steven closed his eyes and listened. Music. Faint, just barely audible through the doors, but someone was playing music.?

  A pounding beat that sounded classical to his ear.

  The tune switched, becoming slower, more methodical.

  Margie stared at the doors with a look of open skepticism. “The event doesn’t start for a few more minutes. So either something is going on leading up to it, or maybe the System is playing around. But if not, some weirdo is playing music in there.“

  “It is a theater,“ Vanessa said. “Can’t really blame them for treating it like one.“

  Micheal paused, cocking his head to the side. “Is that 1812 overture?”

  Carla gave him a look.

  He waved her off. “Shut up.”

  “I didn’t say anything!”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Margie grunted and held up a hand as they tried to walk past. “Give me a few minutes.”

  They waited in uncomfortable silence as the music drifted through the doors. After a few minutes, Margie raised her hands, black and red light crackling along her fingertips. With a brush of each hand, the hounds gained their coats.

  “Okay,” Del said, rolling her shoulder with a wince. “Let’s go face the music.“

  “Boo!“ Micheal gave her a double thumbs down before sticking out his tongue.

  She scoffed. “Don’t stick your tongue out at me! What are you twelve?“

  “You don’t get to use, let’s face the music like that; that’s the low-hanging fruit.“

  Carla sniffed. “What’s your problem with low-hanging fruit? It’s there for a reason.“

  Vanessa snorted and started walking. “Bicker while we move, please.“ The others fell in the line behind her, and to their credit, they didn’t stop bickering.

  Steven‘s shoulders relaxed as they approached the doors, the group's quiet banter a balm to his nerves. They weren’t in danger. That didn’t mean they shouldn’t try to win whatever was going to happen; they had very real rewards to gain for this. But if they lost, then they would be kicked from the Scenario.

  That was a consequence Steven could live with, literally.

  ???Vanessa pulled the doors open, and the sound intensified. It was beautiful, rolling through the air as if an entire orchestra was on stage. Steven supposed there could be, for all he knew.

  The doors led to a horseshoe-shaped hallway that led down to the lower rungs of the theater.

  The music grew louder, the pounding percussion spiking through the walls with a violence Steven could feel in his chest.

  He reached for the nearest door. Better to be able to dive back towards the exit if something nasty was on the other side instead of running up the horseshoe.

  Markus, Micheal, and Margie started in behind him, but as Steven‘s hand closed on the doorknob, a flash of purple covered his eyes, and a prompt filled his vision.

  Multi-stage event! With the current number of participants, The Performing Arts Center will operate at two-thirds capacity. With two theaters in operation, your group will be split accordingly.

  When Steven‘s eyes cleared, he was through the doors, looking down at the stage below him. Margie was to his left, Vince to his right, and Del had been moved just ahead of him. There was no sight of the others.

  Steven squashed his surge of panic.

  The System told him what happened to the others, and even if the event proved too much for them, they wouldn’t be hurt; it was fine. He took a deep breath and focused on the one-man orchestra before him.

  A thin, pasty man stood at the center of the stage, a conductor's baton gripped firmly in one hand.

  “Ain’t no way,” Margie cackled.

  Steven laughed with her as he took in the man’s clothes?.

  The man looked like he was out for a night at the opera or in it. Not ready to fight for his life.

  The man swished a conductor's baton through the air, and a deep, melodious song poured from his lips. He was good, better than anyone Steven had heard in person.

  The sound carried further than it should’ve, bouncing through the theater like he had an entire orchestra behind him. He slashed the baton up and drums crashed down as a trumpet blared, joined by a whole quartet of violins.

  It was beautiful, so beautiful that it took Steven a few moments to realize that the chairs, the chairs lining almost every square inch of the theater, were shaking and rattling against their frames.

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  The event timer ticked down, 1 minute 59 seconds.

  Steven slowly approached the man, and the others followed. “The event hasn’t started yet, right?“ Del asked. Margie nodded. “Oh yeah, he’s doing that on his own.“

  Vince stayed quiet, but his usually stoic expression had spread into a delighted grin.

  As they walked down the steps of the auditorium, Steven glanced around to see if anything changed. It was an impressive sight, with a large domed roof with a pattern running through it that Steven didn’t know the name of.

  The main bowl of the auditorium stretched around them, with elevated seating to the left and right and another floor above and behind them. It certainly wasn’t a Super Bowl stadium, but it was not a small room by any means. It could fit… A lot of people—Steven wasn’t gonna count the chairs.

  “The performing arts center can fit two thousand people in its concert hall. Uncultured swine.“

  Steven rolled his eyes.

  As they drew closer, the music reached a crescendo before cutting off. The man stared at them, his expression distant and haughty. They were now a few dozen feet from the stage, and Steven could make out more of his features. He had a long, striking face with sunken cheeks and bright green eyes. His dark hair was slicked back, and his thin frame was planted like a post on the stage.

  He stared at them all before reaching out to his left. As his hand closed, an orb suddenly appeared, and a prompt filled Steven’s vision.

  Someone has decided to start the event early. Have fun!

  Steven swore before a wall of music crashed into him. It blared from the right, powerful and deep, rattling his bones as it swept across the room.

  There was a and then five figures appeared on stage. They were shadowy yet detailed, as if a person had all the colors sucked out of them. They wore fancy suits that split into tails at the back. Steven didn’t know what those were called either.

  Their skulls were bare like a marionette, but the rest of their clothes and features were precisely detailed. Steven could make out each knuckle as they flexed their fingers and reached to their sides. Instruments appeared with another clash of music.

  The figure in the middle tilted a base taller than it was and produced a bow from nowhere. They struck the strings, and a resonant sound thrummed through the air. The next two figures produced violins, the fourth a trumpet, and the last figure, positioned on the opposite end of the stage from the man who started all this, sat behind a shadowy piano, its keys a brilliant ivory that seemed to glow against the shadows around them.

  Steven stared at the bizarre sight for a few seconds before a prompt flashed into view.

  Battle of the Orchestra. Humans versus shadows. Defeat the players or flee in shame. Prove that you are a real artist!

  Stevens scowled as the base began to play a steady beat.

  The man with the baton stiffened, which Steven was somewhat surprised he could do; he was already standing like he had a metal pole between his shoulders.

  The man raised his baton, and Steven scanned him. He’d been saving it, but now it felt like a very valid use.

  Steven considered that for a moment before shrugging. That was fine. They would just defeat the shadows and—

  Antwon slashed his baton through the air, and music flooded the room, clashing against the rising tide from the shadows.

  The chairs had bucked and strained before, but now they ripped themselves from the ground with screams of tortured screws. They hovered there for a second as the music rose and rose. The baton crashed down, and a storm of metal and cloth crashed with it.

  Shields snapped into place, slapping chairs aside before they could crash into them.

  “Get to the stage!“ Margie shouted. Buford and Noodle leaped up, reaching the stage with ease. The rest weren’t far behind, bobbing and weaving between chairs as they went.

  The shadows stared at the oncoming furniture storm and didn’t move an inch. The pianist raised both hands before slamming them down. Keys stung, and then its hands flew. The melody was fierce, violent, and it reminded Steven of a classic he couldn’t place.

  The other shadows joined in, the bass and violins singing before the trumpet began to blare. The storm changed; instead of a wall of chairs hurling at the shadows, they suddenly switched directions, spinning about as if caught in a hurricane.

  He slapped a chair out of the air with a shield, stopped another from catching Vince in the side of the head, and then pulled Margie back a step before a chair caught her in the shoulder.

  Vince pulled back his bow and loosed an arrow at the pianist.

  There was a sharp sound from the trumpet, and a gust of air wrenched the arrow off course.

  Antwon frowned, and his baton flew. His music rose, overtaking the shadows. Drums crashed, the sound rolling through Steven’s chest like cannon fire.

  The momentum shifted back towards the shadows, and more chairs were ripped from the floor and sent flying out, making more work for Steven. The music rose and rose, each crash of instrument answered by a squeal of tortured metal as more and more chairs were ripped free.

  The curtains raised above the stage began to flutter and shake in an invisible wind.

  Steven lost himself in his purpose. Shields flew, and bodies shifted as he guided them through the hurricane of metal. Vince kept trying to throw shots out, but it wasn’t working. Antwon was overpowering the shadows song, but it wasn’t gone. And the closer an object got to them, the stronger the resistance became. ?

  Del joined Steven, tossing her buff out as chairs slipped through.

  “We need to close in!“ Margie shouted. “We can’t just keep weathering the storm.“

  They started for the shadows, but Antwon was on the attack, making it harder for Steven to protect them, as the chairs came at them from behind, forcing him to walk backward.

  They gained a few yards, and then the music shifted. The shadows gathered themselves, and their song ballooned out, an almost visible wave of force coming with the sound as it crashed back across the room, and the chairs came with it.

  Steven spun as the shadows took the lead. He slapped aside chairs and even a few musical instruments. A drum set nearly clipped him in the temple as an assortment of violins, trumpets, and a guitar joined the hurricane.

  “Where is that even coming from!” Del shouted.

  Even as he desperately worked to protect everyone, Steven marveled at the sheer scale of this. What on earth was Antwon’s class? He could do this with two thresholds? He had lifted dozens of chairs into the air and sent them hurtling forward before the shadows matched him. That had been all him at the start. Steven had never seen a human Skill affect that kind of area before, and the man was still going, more and more chairs entering the fray as the song progressed.

  The shadows shifted, leaning forward as if pushing against a strong wind.

  Their song rose again, overtaking Antwon. But something was off. A force had joined the song, something Steven could feel in his gut.

  None of that force was touching them directly; they weren’t fighting to stay on their feet, but Steven could still feel a presence in the song, in the same way he could feel his shields even without looking.

  The song began to crescendo, and power gathered.

  A dozen chairs wrapped around each other, metal groaning and cloth ripping as they formed a boulder of metal and fabric that screamed toward Antwon.

  Antwon’s eyes widened as the metal cluster, easily moving faster than a speeding car, careened towards him.

  Steven reacted. It didn’t matter that the man had tried to smash them with his chairs; it didn’t matter that he wouldn’t truly die when that thing crumpled him like a paper cup. Steven saw someone about to die in front of him

  A shield materialized to the left of the chair boulder and slammed into it. The instant that shield struck, it vanished, and another took its place.

  He had to focus on each shield, moving it further away from him as the attack closed in.

  The focus made his eyes hurt, but it worked. He didn’t stop the boulder cold, but he didn’t need to.

  It hurtled past Antwon, Steven’s strikes sending it wide.

  The man stared at Steven, his eyes wide, and then he nodded once and lifted his baton back up.

  As two symphonies crashed around them, Steven let himself laugh. His focus was still strained, split half a dozen ways as he tried to keep up. But even as his body and shields moved in a constant race against disaster, as the music rolled through him and chairs flew past him, Steven laughed.

  The relief of the Scenario, the safety net the System had placed, let Steven truly soak in the absurdity around them. The musical silhouettes, the flying chairs. It was all crazy; the world was crazy. And he was starting to feel like he’d gone a little crazy with it.

  He angled a shield to allow Buford to bounce off it and avoid a flying saxophone. At the same time, another shield deflected a chair aimed at Noodle. Before he could pause or hesitate, he was lashing out, shoving Del to the side with one hand as she focused on buffing Margie.

  The buff to Margie let her spring forward and avoid a guitar from who knew where while his push against Del sent her clear of a falling chair.

  They closed on the silhouettes, moving as one.

  The orchestra tried to slow them down, the assault picking up until it felt like a solid wall of metal cloth and string was hurtling toward them.

  They broke through, shields and bodies flying through the air as Steven pried open a hole through the middle of the storm.

  Noodle was the first to reach a silhouette, his shadowy teeth latching onto one of the violinist’s calves. They went down with a shout, but the dog didn’t let them back up. Instantly, the orchestra‘s strength dropped.

  Steven used three shields to bat away a tangle of chairs and instruments so Buford could shoulder into the other violinist, taking them off their feet with a snarl.

  Vince leaned around Steven, losing an arrow less than a dozen feet from the players. With two of their members down, the shadows couldn’t knock his shot off course. It slammed into the bass player's chest just before Del sent a wave of black light sinking into them. They crumpled, leaving only the trumpeter and the pianist.

  Margie tackled the silhouette with the trumpet while Del charged the piano. White light flashed over her shoulders in quick bursts before she jumped, sailing for the lone silhouette.

  The pianist’s fingers flew over the keys, and a maddening sound rushed across the room.

  Chairs, instruments, and the fallen bodies of the other orchestra members all began to launch themselves toward Del.

  Steven met them all.

  His Anchor Shield slammed into place to Del’s left, his Tower Shield to her right, and then Hand Shields sealed off every opening, slapping away projectiles before they could reach his friend.

  Del landed on the piano like a falling boulder, her stomp cracking the thing in half. She drew back and slammed a single punch into the silhouette's chin.

  They blasted from their seat, and a prompt filled Steven’s vision.

  Congratulations! You have cleared your stage of the event! Please wait while the other performance finishes.

  Steven sat back and let out a long breath.

  “You know what, that was pretty fun. Unbelievably exhausting, but pretty damn fun.”