—As the counter fades, the door which separates Jay from the playing field starts to open up slowly. Jay stands impatient as the sounds from the locks and gears from the door start to give him an anxious tone.
The door eventually stops rising and locks in place, waiting for Jay to exit. Taking one last deep breath in and exhaling, Jay rushes into the arena.
As soon as he exits his waiting room, he immediately scans his surroundings. He was slightly confused and shocked as he started to view the field.
Buildings and streets lined up every corner in his vision. The tallest building he could see was only four stories, but the same four-story building was everywhere. This was a change of scenery from Axel and Ivy's matches, as they had more natural arena spawns. Some cars were even littered across the streets, giving the impression of some post-apocalyptic environment Jay recalls from a book series he's recently read.
The air wasn't cold, but it wasn't warm either. It was closer to lukewarm, and there was a slight breeze shifting around the cement and asphalt around Jay. His hair flowed nicely in it.
'I've gotta stay alive at all costs. I should get somewhere high and recon...' Jay thinks, looking around himself for a way up onto one of the four-story buildings.
The eerie part of this environment was the sounds. As Jay looks around, peering into the windows of nearby buildings, shouts and weaponry colliding with each other were faint in the distance but loud enough for Jay to hear. The battle had begun for some prospects already, which probably meant Tide was looking for him.
Trying not to think of the worst outcome already, Jay opens the front door to a shop he just peeked inside of. After confirming no one is there, he walks inside, closing the door behind him.
As much as Jay hated playing the role of a 'rat'—someone who hides and waits for others to fight to kill whoever wins when they're at their weakest—He couldn't risk anything. Kira had made a point, which was to survive as long as possible.
Running up the building's stairwell, Jay comes across a door at the top. He cracks it open, feeling the same breeze as before. He had made it to the rooftop already.
Jay's sword was rocking violently as he paced around, which was uncomfortable for him. His sword's sheath was very bland and not easy to wear compared to his own. Jay wishes he could've brought his own gear but continues to play as smart as he can. Moving over to the edge of the rooftop, Jay peeks his head over to once again assess his nearby area.
At first glance, he couldn't see anything. The streets around were just as silent with nothing going on as the street he first walked on once the match started. The sounds of distant skirmish were still present, but nothing close by.
'...!' Jay is startled as a player appears below him, running across the street.
He had recognized them from sitting around the waiting room but never got their name or even talked to them in any matter. They had a basic loadout on and were carrying a generic mace weapon. Jay observed them as they made their way down the runway.
One thing Jay noted was their expression. This player seemed frightened by something or someone. They were most likely running away from a fight, but a fight with who? If it were someone like Sandra, who had a very versatile and mobile Aspect, Jay would need to get out of their crosshairs. He would be spotted easily from up here.
'Ok, time to hide inside for now.' Jay thinks, turning around to head back inside of the building he was camped on top of.
Pacing back towards the stairwell entrance, Jay thinks back to his interactions with his opposition. Talking to them wouldn't be viable if he met any enemy players, as evident by talking with Blaze and Sandra. He didn't have the same safety net Axel, Ivy, Dillan, and Kira had in their matchups. This caused Jay to have more pressure to perform.
Suddenly a concentrated glow flows from the stairwell.
Jay's first reaction was to squint his eyes from the bright light coming towards him, but his eyes widened in shock as he heard a low hum start to rise in the light's direction. The hum gets higher in pitch gradually, and the light begins to shine brighter and brighter at a fixed point. Then, for a moment, The buzz fades away, and the light flashes violently.
'MOVE!' Jay screams in his head as a pink aura flows in his direction.
In less than a second, Jay feels a force that is denser than most attacks he's been hit with. It felt like a wall or a solid surface was pushing against him at a moderate speed. The pink light is distinguishable more and more as Jay's arms get weaker from resisting the tremendous force. It's too much to handle, and Jay is forced off of the roof entirely.
A loud blast sounds across the arena, not as intense as an explosion but as loud as a car impacting a wall. As Jay free falls to the street below, He sees that part of the roof was scraped off in the light's wake. He didn't even have enough time to draw his sword or even to react defensively at all, not realizing another player had entered his building.
Jay stares at the road below with focus and flips his body perfectly to land with minimal damage. Debris and other roof parts fell past him and were already painting the street below with their guts. As his feet hit the floor, he rolls instinctively to break his fall. He dodges a nasty faceplant, but Jay scuffed up his knees and hands after landing.
Before looking up to see who his attacker was, Jay realizes that something was surrounding the area, which looked identical to the light from the stairwell. In fact, it was all over him!
"Fire?!" Jay exclaims, noticing the pink flames envelop his clothes and the debris around him.
Jay rushes and starts to roll around before he gets burned. Oddly enough, Jay would've realized by now that he had fire around him, but after trying to put himself out, he discovers something odd about the fire's property. It had actual weight to it, but even stranger...
"I-it's not burning my clothes! ~It doesn't even hurt~!" Jay thinks out loud.
This strange pink fire was very peculiar, having solid mass properties and not painful to the touch. Jay looks up at the rooftop he was just standing on top of and sees exactly what the pink light was from earlier. It was fire, just like the kind Jay was extinguishing from his body.
It was floating in the air and shaped in the form of a giant hand. That must've been what forced Jay off of his vantage point and scraped part of the building away with him. He estimates the fire-hand was about five feet tall and three feet wide.
What was even more shocking than the fire amalgamation was the user behind it. Jay is once again surprised at the sight before him. The enemy player stared down at Jay and smiled, shifting their shield to an attack position.
"Funny that you're the first player I've seen so far..." Blaze announces from atop the building, sequentially jumping off of it, "Time to arrest you, I guess!"
—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-
Jay rolls over to his right to evade Blaze's impact. As Blaze contacts the ground—shield first—He misses Jay's head by only a hair. The street shakes as Blaze leaves a mini crater where he lands. He looks to his left to see Jay standing straight up, reaching for his sword.
Jay draws his sword quickly, arming himself and locking himself into a defensive position. The two players start to pace around each other as the duel progresses.
"So I was right! You *are* a fire Aspect user!" Jay explains.
"Hmph!" Blaze chuckles to himself, "I mean, my hero-name gave it away, so don't think your some kind of genius or something!"
Jay looks his enemy up and down once more to make sure he isn't preparing another move as he did before. Blaze's cape swayed gracefully in the wind, and his shield—although it was the property of the Decimation—looked like it matched his outfit.
"Your fire, why doesn't it hurt?" Jay inquires
"That's for me to know and for you to figure out!" Blaze says, charging towards Jay.
Anticipating Blaze to send some sort of attack his way, Jay dodges Blaze's sudden charge. He readies his sword and swings it upwards at Blaze in one quick motion. From Blaze's stance, he had enough time to block with his shield still, which ends up happening. Sparks fall off Blaze's shield as Jay forces his blade to contact it with attack after attack.
Jay aimed to see how defensive Blaze really was. From this point, all Blaze has done was throw attacks with it, which made Jay believe that's all he knew how to do. He was wrong, seeing how Blaze blocked each attack he threw at him. It was time for a change of plans.
Jay backs off from Blaze, who is still guarding himself with his shield. Jay's biggest pet peeve in the Nexus was shield users since they usually cower behind their weapon, but Blaze was the first player Jay's seen use it offensively and make it work.
"I've never seen someone use a shield like you do," Jay says, holding his sword up in case Blaze attacked again, "But I still think your fire is cooler."
"Shut up and fight, criminal!" Blaze says, charging at Jay once more.
Not having enough time to dodge this one, Jay guards himself using his sword. Blaze's weight and shield slam were heavy but not as bad as the fire-hand move he used earlier. Jay grunts as the two players try to outbalance the other.
In this exchange, Jay notices his sword starting to lose its balance under pressure. The sound of the sword and shield clanking against each other started to sound more like his sword was cracking. Hearing this change, Jay knows he has to get out of this pin. He takes a step back and then lets the full force of Blaze overpower his current position. He then drops his body weight to his left, making Blaze charge past him in one fail-swoop.
Inspecting his blade in fear that it was cracked or something worse, Jay wasn't too happy to see a long thin crack at the top portion of his weapon. It wasn't deep at all, which meant Jay could still use the blade without fear of it shattering, but he couldn't challenge Blaze's shield bash like the again.
Blaze quickly turns around after rushing past Jay and sees him inspecting his sword.
"What? Did I break it already?" Blaze taunts, "Do you want to surrender now?"
"Oh, you didn't do anything to it. I was just making sure it was sharp enough to slice through that thin outfit of yours!" Jay quickly quips.
"What?! Ok, that's it!" Blaze says frustratingly, preparing another move.
From where Jay was, he wanted Blaze to show off some of his more decisive moves, like that move Blaze used earlier to knock him off of his rooftop. As Jay waits for Blaze to use another fiery action, he starts to grip his sword tightly, bringing it above his head. Blaze stares Jsy down as he extends his hand towards Jay.
Then, Blaze snaps his fingers.
In a flash, his gloves light up with the pink fire from before. Jay is surprised, to say the least, as the same overflowing light enters his vision. It overlaps Blaze's shield, and Blaze starts to run towards Jay once again. Jay practically had his back against the wall of a much bigger building than any around, which meant he would have to dodge this attack or feel the full blow.
"«Burning Palm»!!" Blaze announces, forcing his shield forward as he runs up to Jay, creating a large open hand made of pink fire.
Jay rolls to his left as Blaze gets closer to him, near dodging another attack. Jay has enough time to witness the sizeable flaming hand break a hole into the wall of the building nearby, causing another loud impact to emit from the area.
The building Blaze charges right through wasn't as tall as the others nearby, but it appeared to be some sort of warehouse, being very wide and stretching across the street father down than Jay had previously thought. He turns his attention back on Blaze and jumps into the building. Expecting Blaze to be at the ready, Jay guards himself with his sword.
Jay lowers his guard and sees Blaze slumped over with his back to Jay upon jumping into the building through the hole Blaze created. He was mumbling something to himself in the middle of the open warehouse.
"Why are you throwing random strong moves against him?! It's like he's making you mad on purpose, so you'll waste your AP!" Blaze mumbles under his breath.
"Uh, are you ok?" Jay asks, seeing Blaze crouched over.
"No! I-i mean yes! Just gimme a second..."
Blaze stands back up from being down on the floor and turns to Jay with his shield resting on his hand to his side. Jay sees this and also puts his sword at his side instead of keeping an offensive stature.
"So, do you wanna talk now?" Jay asks calmly.
"...no, I'm just taking a breather until I get some AP back so I can use my Aspect again!" Blaze responds.
"Alright, well, I have some questions while you do that," Jay says.
'Why not just kill me, you idiot?! I'm weak right now!' Blaze thinks.
"Sure..." Blaze agrees half-heartedly.
At this point, Jay could easily take this moment to his advantage, killing Blaze without taking names or making small talk. However, he had questions he wanted to be answered, as well as keeping the clock going. The longer the match continues, the less competition will be alive.
"first off, your gloves. They created your fire earlier when you snapped. What was all that about?" Jay asks.
"...well, it's pretty simple actually. My glove has flint embedded onto my thumb and steel on every other finger," Blaze says, pointing out the implications on his gloves as he spoke, "which means when I snap my fingers, I can summon my Aspect quicker."
"Wait! Isn't that technically personal gear?" Jay asks, confused.
"Maybe, but Stan said I was allowed to bring them since It's part of my *hero uniform*!"
'More like *hero costume*...' Jay thinks.
"Ok, but another thing," Jay says, "Why did you come after me?"
"Huh? What do you mean? I saw you! Am I supposed to just overlook you cause we chatted before the match?" Blaze questions Jay.
"No! That's not what I meant," Jay continues, "Aren't you the one who was chasing that other player?"
'I saw another player running down the street earlier while on top of my vantage point. They were running away from someone, which should be Blaze!' Jay thinks
Blaze came up his building right after, which meant he had to be the one who chased the player down. What made no sense to Jay was why Blaze left that weak player alone just to mess with him in particular. Blaze just looked at Jay with a blank expression, which made Jay upset.
"There was another player who was running away from you!" Jay reiterates, "Why'd you stop chasing them to go after me? Am I that much of a nuisance?"
"Huh? Another player?" Blaze mumbles.
Jay's confused manner continues to spiral into the abyss. What was Blaze trying to pull here? Is he lying, or does he not know?
"T-there was a player on the street next to the building you pushed me off. They were so close, and it had to be you..." Jay says to Blaze.
"No," Blaze says, finally starting to take Jay seriously, "I wasn't chasing anyone before I saw you."
The warehouse grows quiet. The two players take a second to check their surroundings. If Blaze was telling the truth, and Jay recalls his memory correctly, that meant someone else was in the area that they hadn't seen yet.
As they check around them, the empty and cold warehouse starts to pick up a breeze.
"Then..." Jay starts
The breeze picks up ever slightly, becoming harsher.
"Who..." Blaze
The breeze turns into a gale, making things inside the hollow warehouse move around in its wake. Jay and Blaze shield themselves from the torrent. It seemed to be emerging into the building from above them, and they both tilted their heads to the sky.
"Was it...?" They both say at the same time.
Above them in the sky was a silhouette, gaining speed towards Jay and Blaze's exact position. For a player to be flying in the first place, the two players immediately know who was nearby; and the person most likely chasing down that other player from earlier.
Their suspicions were finally answered when the figure above them announced themselves.
"Hello, boys!" Sandra calls out, diving down to Jay and Blaze from the sky, "Miss me?"