I was shoved forward into the arena, nearly falling because of the uneven footing of the sand. Well, I suppose I wasn't quite in the arena yet. I was actually in a small cage connected to the edge, with two gates, one that I just came out of, and one that led into the vast, gritty expanse of The Sands. Both doors were closed at the moment, and since I had never actually seen any sort of event here, I just stood in my little cage, waiting for whatever came next.
I tried looking in the cages adjacent to me since they were only maybe twenty feet away. Each of the cages held a burly man, both wearing pretty normal clothes, plus leather armor and a sword that they were picking up from the ground behind them. It looked like the equipment had been slid through a slot in the door behind them. I turned to see what there was to grab from my own cage… though you're probably unsurprised that there was nothing there. Just as my luck would have it, I'd been given nothing to use in this fight.
"Well, what's this eh?" I heard come from the cage to my left. "Looks like they threw another trit in here."
One of the burly men next to me had a shit-eating grin on his face, tapping his sword against the bars of the cage in my direction.
"You'd think they would have figured this out by now," he called out to the gorilla on the other side of me.
"Seriously," the gorilla cackled, "they may as well just paint targets on their backs."
Both of them guffawed, obviously expecting me to be cowed. And, well, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried at all. I've been in plenty of fights before, but it looked like there were at something like a hundred men and women in cages all around the arena. If the men were right and I had to fight all of them Barehanded, then I was in trouble.
I didn't have much time to ponder my impending doom before an immense voice filled the air around me, echoing slightly off the walls and audience;
"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THANK YOU ONCE AGAIN FOR COMING FOR TODAY'S EVENTS!" The voice exploded seemingly from everywhere, "I'M YOUR EVER PRESENT AND IMPARTIAL HOST, GREGARIOUS MORGAN!"
The crowd began to applaud even more raucously, less for Morgan, and more for the event that they knew was about to start.
"WELL, NO ONE WANTS TO LISTEN TO ME TALK ALL DAY, SO LET'S GET RIGHT DOWN TO IT!" Suddenly, bright golden letters appeared in the middle of the stadium at least a hundred feet off the ground.
TEAM BATTLE ROYAL
"AND THERE YOU HAVE IT!" Morgan boomed, "WE'LL BE HAVING THE FIGHTERS IN TODAY'S MATCH ASSIGNED TO GROUPS OF THREE AND BATTLING IT OUT WITH THE OTHER GROUPS UNTIL ONLY ONE TEAM IS LEFT STANDING! THE TEAMS WILL BE DETERMINED BY COLORED PROJECTIONS OVER THE PARTICIPANTS CAGES!"
And sure enough, just as Morgan finished the sentence, a bright red light materialized above me. Looking next to me, I could see that the men who had been threatening me before were also on my team. It seems they decided to have team members start close together. I frowned, thinking that it was going to be difficult to work with these assholes, but I knew I needed to make it work if I wanted to win. I figured that they would probably hate our designated pairing too…
But when I looked at them, they weren't glaring at me, but rather gazing in horror at my team color.
"No." The man to my left said (I'll call him Fred for now), "Nonononono. Shit. How the hell did I get teamed with him?"
"Damn it." The gorilla cursed, then called over to Fred, "look, we've got to take him out fast, alright?"
Confused, I kept silent, turning my head between them, wondering what was going on. They were obviously talking about me, but why were they so scared? I mean, even if I was a Common, I was a pretty big guy thanks to all the training and working out I had done in the past year or so. Not to sound conceited or anything, but I was pretty strong at that point, so even if they didn't like me, it didn't make sense that they'd just automatically decide to take me out and leave themselves with one less person at the start of the fight. And I didn't even have a weapon! Not that that had ever stopped me before…
"NOW!" Morgan's voice blasted through the arena, "LET'S GET STARTED!"
And with that, the manacles I had been wearing fell off, and the gate to the arena lifted up. I could see the kaicor bands that the other fighters had been wearing had fallen off as well. Without wasting any time, I darted out into the arena- or at least I tried to, but the uneven footing almost made me trip again. I'd never run on sand before, and this sand was very soft and loose. I didn't yet have a feel for how to place and move my feet to keep from falling, so instead of deftly moving out of my cage to get a good defensive position, I just stumbled to the door. By the time I recovered myself, my teammates were already in my face.
I jumped back on impulse as Fred swung his sword at my neck, and ended up right back in my cage.
"Come on!" Called the gorilla, near panic in his eyes, "Get him already!"
"It's fine, he's in the cage now! I'll keep him there, and you stick him!" Fred responded wildly.
The cage was barely bigger than an outhouse, and the bars were easily big enough for a sword to slip through… you can guess where this is going.
Fred got in front of the gate with his sword up, keeping me at a distance while the gorilla moved around to the side of the cage to start stabbing into it. Even with my reflexes, I knew I wouldn't be able to keep from becoming a pincushion for very long. Really, there was only one thing to do. Rush the sword in front of me and hope I didn't get impaled.
Building a thick callous on my right forearm, I planted the sole of my foot for as much purchase as I could get on my unfamiliar footing and launched myself forward, guarding with my arm. Caught by surprise, Fred took a step back and brought his sword straight up, trying to guard against the perceived attack. Thanks to his hesitation, I easily caught his crossguard in my left hand, pushing it upwards so that I could tackle him around the waist. We both hit the sand with me landing on top of him, then rolling over him to quickly get back on my feet. I had even managed to nab the sword from Fred when his grip loosened for a moment.
"You damn trit!" Fred spluttered, "Give me back my sword-"
I've never been one to steal, so I elected to comply with his request by slamming his temple with the hilt just hard enough to knock him out.
Ok, maybe I hit him harder than I strictly needed to. But who wants to take chances? He didn't die in any case.
"Aaahhh!" The gorilla was charging at me with his sword held high. It seemed he didn't know the difference between a sword and a club. I smoothly stood up to deflect his rough downward swing… or I would have, but once again I lost my footing thanks to the soft sand. I was beginning to sense a pattern.
I didn't fully fall over, but my stumbling gave the gorilla enough time to reach me before I could set up a good defense. Watching his sword come down, I noticed that it was still quite a ways away, him being such a tall gorilla, and tall people usually have tall legs.
I quickly dove between his legs, his sword slicing into the sand where I had been crouched milliseconds before. I stood up, swung around, and drove my sword pommel into the back of his head, dropping him instantly.
"THE BATTLE HAS BEEN HEATED FROM THE GET-GO, AND THERE ARE ALREADY A FEW TEAMS THAT HAVE BEEN ELIMINATED!" Gregorious Morgan was fulfilling his role as diligently as ever. "IT'S DIFFICULT TO TELL AT THIS POINT WHICH TEAM MIGHT BE THE VICTOR, BUT THERE'S ACTION WHICHEVER WAY YOU TURN!"
Despite the dramatics that I had just been through with my teammates, it didn't look like I had drawn much attention. I wondered if that was because we had stayed near the edge of the arena, or if blind eyes were being turned…
"OH!? IT LOOKS LIKE THE RED TEAM ON THE SOUTH SIDE OF THE ARENA HAS BEEN TAKEN DOWN BY ONE OF THEIR OWN MEMBERS!"
Where's the south side? I wondered, looking around. Looking across the arena, I saw a giant "N" painted on the wall, and on the right and left sides were an "E" and a "W"...
Oh.
A low rumble from the crowd grew into a chorus of boos. I could actually hear a few of the people behind me; "Trash!" "That's trit bullshit!" "Why'd they even let him in here?" "Someone just kill the bastard!"
Despite the fact that I was the one that had been attacked, I was now the one being blamed. Looking back, I know a large part of that was because all the crowd knew was that one person on the team had attacked the other two. Most people were so far away they wouldn't have been able to tell who I was, much less that I was a common, and they wouldn't have seen or heard the dramatics of what happened. But I had already been stewing in a bitter swamp of emotion for the entire time I had been imprisoned. Hearing all these hundreds of people calling for me to die for almost being killed, looking at the spit fly from their mouths as they cursed me for something I did in self-defense, cursing me because of the color of my skin and shade of my eyes… It was too much.
"LOOKS LIKE A FEW GROUPS ARE GOING TO INTERCEPT THE REMAINING RED FIGHTER! LOOKS LIKE THIS WILL BE OVER IN JUST A FEW MOMENTS!"
I looked around and sure enough, there were at least three different teams headed towards me now. Well, now I knew why they had wanted to take me out at the start. Having a common on your team was like a green light for the rest of the groups to gang up on you.
It seemed that each participant's team color would float a little above their head to help the audience and fighters differentiate who was with who. I glanced down at Fred and the gorilla. Neither of them had a red light above them, but rather a dull white one. I guessed that once you were put out of commission, the light of your team went away and was replaced with white to show you were no longer in play. Also, I could see people with white lights either walking back or floating back to their cages depending on their condition.
Facing my new opponents again, I readied myself. I had a flashback of the scene from a month ago. Back then I was facing a seemingly insurmountable situation, and I was severely outnumbered. There may not be quite as many now, only about nine as far as I could tell, but these weren't just thugs. They were all battle-tested, and some of them looked like they had expensive armor and equipment. Every single one of them had their eyes on me, and me alone, putting aside the competition in favor of beating down the dirty common who dared to fight back against his assailants. All to please the people in the crowd calling for my head. This situation seemed even more hopeless than before. But there was one important difference, one thing I had now that I didn't back then.
A sword.
'Victory favors the one that attacks first.' Valdus used to say any time I would hesitate. I took the words to heart. Once the first man was still about twenty feet away, I used my first Sight of the day to leap forward and drop kick him in the stomach, causing him to keel over and lose whatever he had eaten for lunch that day. The woman on his team directly to his left started at my unexpected charge, but quickly regained her bearings and swung her sword towards my right shoulder, but my own thrust was quicker. I pierced through the top of her rotator cuff, causing her to drop her sword before it could reach me.
"Yield! Yield!" She called out, putting her unhurt arm in the air. Suddenly the deep green light above her disappeared and was replaced with a white one, the same as Fred and the gorilla's.
So quitting is possible? I thought, Why don't I do that then?
Thanks to my charge and surprising display of strength, the remaining seven attackers had backed off for a moment. Using the opportunity, I raised my hand in the air;
"Yield!" I called, looking up at the red light. But it didn't go away.
"Yield! I said I yield!" I called again, getting aggravated.
"Hehehehe…" the remaining man with a deep green light chuckled. He had thick black hair and looked very thin, but contrary to his build, he carried a huge claymore with apparent ease. "You can't yield until you have a reason too. You'd have to get incapacitated first… but don't worry, I'll be sure to give you the opportunity soon…"
Hearing the crunch of sand from my rear, I dove to my left just in time to avoid a long knife in my liver. On rolling out of the dive I grabbed a fistful of sand and flung it at my assailant's eyes.
"Gah! What the hell! That's dirty-" He was cut short by a heavy left hook to the nose.
"Win. There are no more rules." I muttered to his unconscious body.
There were six more immediate threats. The thin man with the big sword, a large blond knight(?) in heavy armor carrying a spear, a woman with long black hair wearing some sort of unitard and dual-wielding knives, and three more men with typical short or longswords. I didn't think I needed to worry about any of them too much except for the knight and the thin man. Their long weapons put me at a disadvantage, especially since they had already seen how quickly I can close long gaps. Unless I wanted to get skewered, I'd have to be more subtle-
"Gah!" I gasped at a sudden spike of pain in my leg. I looked down to see a short knife embedded almost to the hilt in my thigh. The woman that I had disregarded as a threat because I thought she had short reach had thrown one of her knives… and looking at her again, I could see that she had no shortage of them. I could see dull glints of metal on her legs, arms, waist, and… yeah, lots of places.
I gripped the knife and quickly pulled it out. Luckily, Rhonda had taught me how to do some more advanced Morph healing on myself. I couldn't do much yet, only close cuts and reattach muscle, but she said one day I might be able to mend my bones in just a few minutes. Luckily the knife hadn't hit any major arteries.
"Tch." The woman clicked her tongue, "I wonder how many times you can do that before you go soulless, trit?"
"You don't need to worry about that," I smiled as brightly as possible, "Because you won't hit me again, bitch."
Her eyes narrowed to slits, "We'll see," she growled, reaching for more knives.
"Hehehehe…" the thin man chuckled again, "Melza, it's not like you to get so worked up over a common. You losing your edge?"
"We aren't on the same team right now Grandil." Melza shot back, holding up another knife towards him, "So I've got no problem showing you my 'edge' if you don't shut it."
"Come now," The knight said, stepping between the two of them, "Let us put aside our differences and work together for the moment. After all, we have more pressing matters." He looked at me and gripped his necklace, which was the symbol of Markus, god of the soul and creator of humans. I could also see the same symbol painted on his chest plate, a black raindrop in front of a rising yellow sun. The followers of Markus often reviled Commons even more than usual, claiming that we were forsaken by Markus, and were instead children of Silvestine, god of terror and creator of the soulless.
I ground my teeth. More than being called a trit, more than being mocked and hated by the crowd, even more than being attacked by my own teammates, I hated that look. The look that told me that I wasn't being viewed as human or even a living being. His religion viewed me as a monster simply because I was disadvantaged. I had thought that if I could just forfeit, then I could avoid getting hurt, but I didn't want to leave just yet anymore. I wanted to hurt these people, hurt the knight who was looking at me with icy eyes, hurt the woman who had thrown the knife, hurt all of these people who were ganging up on me. I felt my chest burning with rage as a thought entered my mind.
They think you're a monster.
"DAMN IT!!!" I screamed, launching myself wildly at the blond knight. But before I could get too close, another knife sped towards me. I moved my sword to intercept it but at the last moment, it changed direction just a bit and cut my shoulder deeply.
Probably a Projection or Shift guiding the knife. I thought quickly. Still, a cut or two wouldn't stop me in time, so I turned my attention back to the knight- but he wasn't there. I instinctively crouched into a defensive posture, just in time for a spear to fly through the space where my head had been. I spun quickly with a low sweep, putting extra muscle into my hips, legs, and pivot points. I connected with nothing though, because the knight had Shifted several yards behind me. He had thrown his spear at my head in an obvious attempt to kill me, but for the moment, he was unarmed. I tried getting into a posture that would allow me to launch myself at him before he could Shift his spear back to him, but before I could Grandil, the man with the claymore, swung his sword down at my neck, forcing me into a back roll to escape. Before I even had time to stand up, I was just barely able to deflect two more knives that still gave me minor cuts.
"Hehehe…" Grandil's laugh was starting to grate on me, "You really bit off more than you could chew this time, don't you think? The only group looked down on more than prisoners like me and Melza are commons after all, so you shouldn't be surprised that you got ganged up on like this."
I didn't respond, but I knew he was right. I needed to do something about this situation, because I was already losing, and I was only being attacked by three of them right then. They had really impressive teamwork, so I figured they must have worked together before. Then again, maybe they were just that good. Who knew? In any case, I had to change something before the remaining three joined the battle, or I'd be in real trouble. I just needed a way to gain a few seconds, but thanks to this sand I couldn't move very fast, and even if I could, that knight could shift himself at least several yards, maybe more. I still didn't have perfect footing thanks once again to the damn loose sand…
Suddenly I came up with an idea. It was risky, and it would definitely use a lot of marks, but I hadn't used too many yet, so I thought it would be fine. I didn't have any better ideas at that moment anyway.
Without wasting another second, I pointed both hands at the ground around me, sending several wide projections at the sand, kicking it up and mostly obscuring where I was, as well as deterring anyone from venturing into the sand cloud. This would only last a few seconds, but that was enough. I crouched down to try to avoid any stray knives or the knight's spear if they were thrown, and started Morphing my legs.
"Look, I appreciate the effort," called Grandil, "but it's not like you're going to get away with just a smokescreen. We have you surrou-"
Thanks to his yelling, I knew exactly where he was, and bounded towards him with a speed that still surprised even me. Sword in front, I drove the point into his left side, making sure no vitals were hit, but he would still be out of the fight. I used the rest of my momentum to follow up with a headbutt to his nose just to make sure he went down. The last green light turned white.
"Wha-?" Melza started, but I didn't give her a chance either. I kicked out of the groove my previous dive had created to reach her and deliver a swift kick to the sternum, which sounded off with a solid CRACK. That was another white light.
"YOU CUR!!!" The knight roared, his face purple with rage, "IN THE NAME OF MARKUS I, DORGARSTAN TALLBLOOD, WILL STRIKE YOU FROM ROMA!!!"
He disappeared from where he had been standing, but I knew where he was now. A normal human can see over one-hundred-eighty degrees including their peripheral, and if he wasn't there in that space…
I immediately pivoted onto my right knee, easily avoiding the spear that once again would have stabbed me, this time in my lower back, and sent a Projection towards Dorgy the Markus Knight. Surprised at my quick reaction, he took the projection head-on (literally), and staggered backward, easily giving me the time needed to hit him with a final left roundhouse to the head. He hit the sand like a bunch of bricks wearing armor. A white light appeared over him as well.
I looked at the other three, who had a mixture of blue and pink lights. A minute ago they had seemed so confident, but now that they had seen me take down those three so quickly, they seemed to decide they'd be better off finding weaker prey.
I breathed a sigh of both relief and frustration. I was glad that I didn't need to fight anyone else just yet now that my earlier battle fervor had worn off, but I was still all alone. From what I could see, there were still at least thirty people left in the arena, though it seemed most were too preoccupied to pay me any attention at the moment.
"WHAT AN EVENT THIS IS BECOMING!" Boasted Gregorious Morgan to the crowd, "SO MANY UPSETS, AND YET UNSURPRISING TO ANYONE, VENTOS OF THE OLORIUS FAMILY HAS SWEPT ASIDE ANY OPPONENT THAT DARES TO STAND IN HIS WAY! IT LOOKS LIKE HIS TEAM IS A SHOE-IN TO WIN TODAY!"
I looked around to see who he was talking about, and it wasn't difficult. Right in the middle of the arena, which was a horrible tactical position but allowed one to be easily seen by everyone in the crowd, stood a tall swordsman wearing fine chainmail, Blasting opponents who got too close and following up with efficient strikes of his longsword. As I watched, he never used more than one move per opponent. And something about him looked familiar, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. In any case, I figured I'd do my best to lay low until I could find an opening to take him down…
I stopped for a moment, remembering Valdus' words; "When you're fighting a group, don't focus too much on one opponent, no matter how strong they seem. If your heart is pierced by a knife, it doesn't matter if it's a child or a gladiator holding it, you're dead either way."
With that in mind, I kept my view of the arena wide, sticking to the sides, and only fighting if I was challenged. It may seem boring, but I couldn't take chances. I was lucky in my encounter before, but I couldn't count on that happening again.
Using that strategy, I only had to take down a few more stragglers, loners whose' teams had been whittled down and were looking for a loss so they could forfeit and wouldn't have to fight Ventos the swordsman in the middle.
Before too long, the numbers had been whittled down to twenty, fifteen, then less than ten. Finally, Ventos' team was taking down the last few people. I honestly wouldn't even call it a fight, more like a woodsman easily cutting down a sapling. As Ventos brought down the last man, Morgan shouted out,
"AND THERE YOU HAVE IT FOLKS, LEAVING US UNSURPRISED, YET MORE THAN SATISFIED ONCE AGAIN IS VENTOS GRANT!!!"
The crowd roared their approval at first, but then wavered as some individual voices could be heard,
"Why is his color still up?"
"Shouldn't the Game Masters have said he won?"
"Watch out Ventos!"
"There's one more guy!"
"It's the trit!"
I hadn't gotten close enough to hit Ventos as I had planned, but I was able to pounce on one of his teammates before they even knew I was there. With a swift jerk, I both broke his dominant elbow and dislocated his shoulder. I dropped him quickly and rushed the other teammate, but before I could get to him, a projection nailed my ribcage, knocking me over mid-leap. As I tumbled to the sand I cursed myself for getting blindsided like that. Fighting a two-on-one battle wasn't going to be easy, especially since I was almost out of marks. I probably only had twenty percent left if I was being generous. After what happened last time, I wasn't willing to risk getting so low on marks again…
I regained my footing, sword at the ready. Ventos was still a ways away from me, and his teammate had retreated behind Ventos, obviously for protection. I gritted my teeth because now that I didn't have the element of surprise, it would be better to take down the weaker teammate before tackling Ventos himself… but then again, the man looked like he was scared. Thinking for a second, I realized that from his perspective, I was a large common with giant mishappen legs that had come out of nowhere to take down his ally (who was currently crying on the ground after forfeiting) in a moment and then lunged at incredible speed to just barely be knocked over by his powerful partner's attack. I was willing to bet he wouldn't attack me recklessly, so I could probably focus on Ventos.
Ventos, for his part, wasn't completely unperturbed either. He was watching me warily, sizing me up. Fortunately for me, I had already done all of my sizing-up before I had even attacked.
"INCREDIBLE! IT LOOKS AS THOUGH THERE WAS ONE MORE CHALLENGER WHO HAD BEEN LAYING IN THE SHADOWS THIS WHOLE TIME!" Morgan boomed to the stadium, trying to shake up the angry crowd into the throes of excitement once more, "THERE'S ONLY ONE OF HIM, BUT HE TOOK DOWN A MEMBER OF THE WINNING TEAM IN A FLASH! MAYBE HE CAN TURN THINGS AROUND?!"
I furrowed my brow at him calling them the "winning team." They hadn't won yet.
I dashed forward, closing the distance in a flash. Ventos launched a few more Projections, but I easily dodged them, and I had almost reached him, pushing out my sword to impale his sword arm-
When a heavy force slammed me backward before I could even notice, much less react. I was able to land on my feet, but I couldn't straighten out thanks to the blow to my stomach, which also felt hot for some reason.
What was that??? I gasped mentally. I hadn't seen anything come from him. Even if it was fast, I should have at least seen the light…
But I didn't have time to think about it. Ventos was on me like a panther, delivering one agile blow after another. I was used to fighting fast and strong opponents thanks to Valdus, but because I had only face Valdus, I was used to his patterns. Valdus had always tried to do different techniques and combinations for just that reason, but there's only so much one man can do. Where Valdus would use brute strength supplemented by technique with thrusts, Ventos used subtle slashes that swam through the air before coming down in the most unexpected of places. On top of that, my legs were still Morphed, so my footing felt slightly off because of that. My Alpus form was fantastic for surprise and speedy attacks, but not so good for swordfights. I had tried to practice fighting while transformed for the week before I was arrested, but I definitely wasn't perfect. Still, Valdus was much faster than Ventos, and I would've been just fine if it wasn't for the goddamn sand!
Everywhere I stepped shifted and slipped under me, and every time I tried to brace I lost energy and time just getting the right position, and Ventos was taking perfect advantage of all of it. The sand didn't seem to affect him, most likely because he was used to fighting on it. I was letting slashes and jabs alike slip through my defense, and I couldn't go on the offensive at all. To make matters worse, I could see that his remaining teammate was being emboldened by my plight, and was moving to join the fight. I couldn't take a two-on-one right now. I had to get out and fast.
Sweeping my sword in a large arc in front of me to give myself a few feet of clearance, I jumped backward against the sand. The footing was still horrible, but I managed to get at least twenty feet between us, and I kept bounding back until I was around fifty yards away. I knew I had neither the marks nor the time to revert back out of my Alpus form, and if I tried a straight sword fight again, I'd lose for sure. This crowd hated me, so I didn't like my chances of survival if I lost. That left me with one option; charge him head-on once more.
The obvious problem with that was that invisible force that had knocked me back before. If I went in blindly I'd just get sucker-punched again, and lose all the same. I figured it had to be a Projection, but why couldn't I see it? And why had my stomach felt hot when it hit?
I knew this wasn't some perfect situation where I'd suddenly figure it out after thinking for a few seconds, but I still needed a solution even if I couldn't get an answer. I knew that it was a Projection, and it was solid, so if something else hit it…
I knew what I needed to do. I flashed forward, sword in hand and arm outstretched. I sent a constant wave of extremely small kinetic blasts towards Ventos.
"IT SEEMS OUR CHALLENGER HAS GOTTEN DESPERATE," announced Morgan, "HE'S SIMPLY CHARGING AT VENTOS AGAIN, AND THROWING PATHETICALLY TINY BLASTS AT HIM!"
So much for an impartial host.
It was true, even if the blasts retained the energy needed to make it to Ventos, they'd feel like someone flicked him. But I wasn't trying to attack, I was trying to defend. I dodged a few Projections while getting closer, ready for what was coming and watching closely. I was just a few feet away now-
And there it was! A section of the Projections I had been emitting was interrupted, and I moved out from in front of that section. Ventos' eyes widened in sudden understanding, but it was too late. I slammed his sword to the side and cut the tendons in his wrist that let him grip his sword, then body slammed him. He went down.
As I stood up, the crowd was quiet. Not silent, but murmuring, unsure how they were supposed to react. Even Gregorious Morgan was speechless for the moment. I began to smile, proud of my victory, proud that I had proved them wrong-
I saw a shadow on the ground in front of me. I quickly turned, but I was too late to stop the sword held by the last teammate that had begun arcing down towards my back. I had completely forgotten him in the moment, and I cursed my carelessness. Though I was nearly out of marks, I risked putting one more callous on my right shoulder to intercept the sword. The edge of the sword, slightly dulled from lack of care and maintenance, still cut deep into the callous, then began going into my shoulder, but stopped after about an inch. No longer willing to use Sights, I grabbed the man's arm, drew back my left fist, and punched him with all the natural strength I could on the right side of his jaw. His eyes watered, then crossed, and he hit the sand.
I grabbed the sword and started to work on getting it out. The callouses I make don't feel pain, but my shoulder sure as hell did. As I wrenched it out, I heard a gasp from the crowd. I didn't think it was that big a deal. I'm sure they saw even more gruesome things and cheered, so why would they gasp at someone pulling a sword out of their shoulder? Answer: They wouldn't.
My knees were kicked out from under me, and a hand grabbed my hair. I looked up to see Ventos standing behind me, holding his sword across my throat. I was able to see the wrist that I had cut, and it seemed that he had healed it somehow, maybe with a Morph like me. Seeing him so close, that feeling of familiarity was returning, though I couldn't quite place it still…
"WELL… W-WELL!" Stuttered Gregorious Morgan, "THAT WAS CERTAINLY AN INCREDIBLE MATCH, BUT OF COURSE THE ONE TO EMERGE VICTORIOUS IS VENTOS OF THE OLORIUS FAMILY!" The light above me turned white, and Ventos' light turned golden and started shining brightly. His name was spelled in large golden letters in the air, making it obvious to everyone even on the top floors who the victor was.
The crowd, after a moment more of confusion, slowly began to clap, then cheer raucously for their champion. And unsurprisingly, I could hear many calling for my death.
"Kill the trit!"
"I saw him cheating!"
"We're better off without his kind anyway!"
"AS IS CUSTOM, THE VICTOR MAY CHOOSE WHETHER TO LET HIS OPPONENT LIVE OR TAKE HIS LIFE!" Morgan stated dramatically. "THIS IS TRUE COMPETITION! PARTICIPANTS RISK THEIR LIVES IN A CHANCE FOR GLORY, BUT AT THE RISK OF LOSING EVERYTHING!"
That was bullshit. I wasn't trying to get glory, and I never wanted to risk my life. I was brought here on a bogus charge, beaten and abused, and thrown in the ring with nothing, yet they wanted to talk about glory? I wanted to destroy this entire arena, this crowd, Ventos, Gregorious Morgan, everything. I hated this country and all the hypocrites that lived in it.
Tear it all down.
But there was nothing I could do. I had a sword to my throat, and despite how angry I was, my fear of what I had done before kept me from using any more Sights. My life was out of my hands, and it was being held at sword point by a man I had just stabbed.
The crowd had stopped cheering and were now stomping in rhythm with each other. I had never seen or heard this before, but I'd be a fool not to know what was happening. It was a death cadence. The crowd was calling for Ventos to kill me, and he had no reason not to do so. I felt the sword rise slowly up my throat until the point was resting at the base of my neck. At the very least, it seemed he intended to finish me quickly with a strike to the heart. I steeled myself for the end. But before it could come, something worse arrived.
"STOP!" Called out a shrill female voice. "Don't kill him Ventos!"
I looked up at the audience in front of me and saw a woman trying to climb down from the stands, which were a good twenty feet above the sand. She dropped down and landed flat on her butt, yelping somewhat comically. Immediately Ventos released me and sprinted to her side, saying a few words to her that I couldn't hear. After getting up and dusting herself off, she walked quickly towards me.
"U-UMM, MADAM, YOU CANNOT GO ONTO THE ARENA FLOOR, IT IS NOT SAFE-" Morgan spluttered helplessly, and the woman paid him no mind.
As she walked towards me and I could see her better I recognized her as the girl from the shop who had bought all those styluses and blowstones and was with the short man and the tall swordsman…
I looked to Ventos and finally realized why I recognized him. He had been with her that day as her bodyguard! That made sense now, but why did she save me, and even more pressing, why was she coming towards me?
She came up and stood right above me, who was still kneeling, and looked me over, hand pinching her chin like she was appraising a horse. Then she kneeled so that our faces were just inches apart. I looked at her steadily, and she looked at me for a moment- then her ears turned red and she glanced away.
"I've decided." She declared, standing up and turning to Ventos.
"Decided what, lady Opia?" Ventos said, bowing slightly and with obvious pain from his injuries.
"I love him." She said flatly.
…
…
EEHHH???
"I love him, and I want him." She stated matter-of-factly, turning back to me and smiling toothily, "So he's mine now."
And that sentence right there is the cause of all the headache I'm in now.