"Today is going to be better." Kaos whispered to himself, while wandering around the arena entrance, trying to find his teammates, "It's going to be a team scrimmage and it's going to be against mediocre Sen students."
He finally saw Vasai and Nolly, and began walking towards them.
"Gilt not coming?" He asked, only partially hiding the fact that he was very on edge.
"Oh yeah, he's way over there," Vasai replied, pointing to a place where two walls ran slightly opposite each other, "he's doing some last minute practicing on that new technique he's been working on."
He glanced over at the wall, "I'm gonna go get him, you guys meet me at the registration desk in a second."
Vasai gave a salute, as he turned and walked towards where Gilt was practicing. He saw Gilt, bouncing between the walls at an incredible pace. It was similar to what he had seen yesterday, but it already looked a little more controlled.
"Wearing yourself out before the game huh?" Kaos said sarcastically as the bounces slowed to a stop, before Gilt dropped to the ground.
"Whatever man, I got plenty more where that came from."
"Well, we're meeting at the registration desk now, so let's go. You have your weapon's right?"
Gilt pulled two daggers out from behind his back and raised an eyebrow, "You don't have to babysit me, I've done this before."
Kaos thought about snapping back at him with something about how he was the first one to die in the previous arena game, but held his tongue and started walking towards the registration desk.
"Team name?" The woman at the desk asked.
"Showstopper" Kaos replied, looking around at his teammates.
"Everyone sign your name here."
After they had completed registration they entered the arena. It was smaller again, but still about the same size as the last scrimmage.
Kaos glanced at his quickly improving teammates with mild envy, "Let's just rush 'em down and hope for the best."
He dropped beneath the sand and found himself in the cubic sandy room. He felt like giving up at this point. Everyone else was growing their abilities quickly, and outpacing him. He had even helped speed up their growth by letting them try new techniques recklessly. But he had already reached the peak of what he could do. His ladder was just shorter than everyone else's.
[WILL YOU QUIT?], "WILL YOU QUIT?"
The golden sand and voice in his head had spoken synonymously. He knew neither could actually hear him, but out of frustration he yelled back anyway.
"Maybe I will! I got nothin else I can do!"
[NO], "NO"
"Well if you have any bright ideas then start snitching!"
[HALO], "HALO"
"It doesn't work on me you stupid sand bucket!"
[NO], "NO"
A sentient pile of sand back-talking him was the last thing he needed right now, and was so angry at it, he didn't realize just how strange this was. He was ready to shut the golden sand up, so he flicked his wrist and tried to target himself with his wish. "Oh yeah? Watch this then!" The halo didn't appear, and the wings never glimmered behind him. He waited a few more seconds, before yelling at the wall of sand again.
"See! Now what do you have to say?"
[WEAK], "WEAK"
"If you don't have any advice, then just shut up."
He turned away from the glowing sand, and sat down. This didn't help though, as the glowing sand rushed to the wall in front of him and kept writing letters along with the voice in his head.
[TAKE WHAT IS YOURS], "TAKE WHAT IS YOURS"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Then the arena's golden letters spoke alone and the voice in his head went silent.
[BEGINNING THE GAME]
"Oh. It's just another one of your inspirational-"
Before he could finish, he was shot above the sand, unprepared. Much like the first time, he didn't land on his feet, and instead flopped onto his stomach. While the glowing sand hadn't exactly been encouraging, yelling at something did help him vent a bit of his frustration. He hopped back on his feet and shook his head as if shaking the bad mentality out of his hair like droplets of water.
"We've had problems before, but if we just focus on what's right in front of us and do things one step at a time, it'll be fine."
After giving himself this mildly helpful pep-talk, he took a short, but deep breath, and glanced around for his teammates, but found none. Normally he would have been fearful of getting ambushed by himself, but after his screaming match with the arena and voice in his head, he felt strangely calm from the emotional exhaustion.
It was a sandstone town, similar to the previous ones, but without the watchtowers. He worked his way to the center of the town, and found himself facing a massive ravine that stretched from one end of the arena to the other. The only structure that bridged the gap was a very thin rectangle of sandstone with no railings. It looked like it could maybe hold one person, but it was definitely breakable.
The voice of Nolly came from behind him, "There you are! We thought that you somehow didn't get in the arena game!"
He pushed his brain back into combat mode, "you guys all got spit out at the same spot then?"
"Yeah, we fanned out looking for you, but from the look of this chasm, the enemy probably started in that half and hasn't gotten to Vasai or Gilt yet."
Eventually they heard the whooshing of Gilt's wish, and watched as he sped through two buildings and clumsily tripped in a frantic attempt to not fall in the ravine he found suddenly in front of him. Kaos quickly flicked his wrist, and in the same moment, Angel's Halo flashed around him, leaving him hovering above the gorge.
He gave a nervous chuckle and waved at Kaos, who he was just now noticing. Kaos made a flapping motion with his arms, in an attempt to help Gilt figure out how to get back to land. After a moment of clumsily flailing in all directions, he was able to maneuver himself back to Kaos and Nolly.
"Nice." Kaos said with a smile, feeling a little better after seeing Gilt wasn't quite the battle fiend his subconscious was making him out to be.
"Heads up, there's a cliff there…" Gilt replied with a slightly sheepish chuckle.
Vasai's voice came from behind them, "Nice catch, Kaos!"
That was right. His wish wasn't a combat wish, but it still worked as a support wish. Sure he didn't want to be a support, but it was useful enough to get him into the Dek class, and maybe even buy enough time for him to figure out his own method of fighting.
Vasai noted Kaos's smile, "You seem a bit better than earlier."
He didn't feel like now was the best time to talk about why he had been so sulky that morning, so he lied instead.
"Yeah, I had a headache, but it's gone now! By the way, it's just the one bridge, so if it gets broken, then whoever can't cross that ravine on their own is screwed."
"So just me then?" Gilt raised an eyebrow.
"I mean I can fly people over one at a time, but if you can confidently jump it, then go for it."
"Oh yeah," Gilt sputtered sarcastically, "I'm very confident that I could 'maybe' jump that gorge."
This got a few chuckles from the other three, and they quickly continued discussing strategies, eventually deciding to leave the bridge intact, but have Nolly break it with her halberd if someone gave the signal.
They crossed the bridge one by one into the enemy's territory. Gilt hopped up on top of a building to survey their surroundings but came back down after not seeing any enemies.
He shook his head, "I would have thought they would have gotten here by now, there's no telling where they are."
Vasai pointed at a group of four individuals slowly turning the corner, bunched together in a strange and slow moving battle formation. "Found 'em! What's the plan?"
"Let's just have fun with it!" Kaos yelled, enjoying this uncharacteristic, brief moment of happiness.
Although he seemed and felt better, he truly hadn't healed his fracturing mental state. This timely venting of his frustration was merely a bandaid over a bullet wound, and it was only a matter of time before he would break.