Matt blinks, almost not hearing her as he glanced at her cleavage moving with her stretch, and asks, “Wait, you mean you’ve never gotten into this tournament, before?”
“Nope, sadly. With people like Cain, Buster, and Nicholas around, I never made much of an effort to try scoring as many points as them to move up. But this year, with our whole conflict against Cain, I figured I should go for it, to help out further in case he winds up in the final match.”
“Ah. Well, uh, then how about I just let you win this match?”
Lyn, startled to hear Matt say that, asks, “What? Why would you forfeit our fight?”
“Well, since I’m a freshman, I can have another chance in this tournament next year, or even the next few. But with you being a senior, this is your last chance to compete in it, so I don’t want to feel bad taking it away from you.”
Lyn blinks, and then shakes her head with a smile. “You’re really being too kind here, Matt. I have no problem with how well I do in this tournament, as long as Cain doesn’t win it, and I won’t mind if it’s you or I who moves on to potentially fight him. In fact, you really can’t afford to drop out, or it will hurt our campaign against Cain and his kind, so close to the end of it, when they can use it as a way to belittle your resolve.”
“Oh, yeah. I guess that’s true.” He looks to the crowd, then back to her, and shrugs. “I still don’t think I’m going to like this.”
“Just relax, Matt! It’s all supposed to be friendly competition and sport, after all. Imagine it’s just us, you and I, having a full-out sparring. And, don’t even think about going easy on me…” Lyn grins, her diamond eyes twinkling. “Because I won’t be going easy on you.”
That seems to be enough for Matt as he smiles in return and then hardens his expression, preparing himself for the fight as the speaker counts down above the arena.
***
As the siren goes off, each of them morph, Matt into the black-armored Paladin and Lyn into the white-furred Wolf, and open with the same technique, summoning clones of themselves that charge forward and clash. An eclipse of energies, black-and-white shifting and dissipating, the most of them are destroyed from massive swords, fangs, and claws before the true Paladin and Wolf meet in the middle of the massacre. Matt thrusts with his blade, but Lyn, with lupine grace on air balance, leaps past him, spins, and then pounces at his exposed back. Luckily for her, she was not aiming to directly lunge at him as he whips back around with a lash of his sword, and instead of getting cut open flies over it and pass Matt again, her claws scraping his scalp to leave a green scar.
Wincing at the first blood being his, Matt turns back to her while backing off on a thrust of air balance, his sword vanishing and his left arm molding into a rifle, and takes a shot at her. Lyn side-leaps to dodge the bullet, disperses among another pack of her clones, and they rush at Matt in a wide arc. He summons more clones to meet them, this time even more than before, and as their blades chop through the Wolves he keeps his gun ready, waiting to shoot at Lyn once she is exposed.
Rather than seeing her through the congregation of clones, he hears her when a loud, enchanting howl rings over the battle. A moment later, when his clones have vanquished hers, he is startled to see lightning bolts strike them from above. Looking up, he finds a miniature thundercloud hovering above the arena, crackling with energy before it rains bolts at him.
Matt retreats on air balance, his attention on the thundercloud to avoid its thunderbolts, but pays for it when two things from either side collide into him, their powerful jaws clamping to and twisting his arms about. Dragged down and bent back by Lyn and another of her clones, Matt is stunned before he looks with dread at the cloud as a final thunderbolt hits him, piercing his armor to leave a jagged yellow wound in his chest.
With the thundercloud dissipating and two Wolves tugging at him, ripping and snapping through his arms with snarls, Matt grimaces before countering them. With a combination of air balance and a spell, all three spiral into the air within a gale of black magic, and the twister yanks them off him, erasing the clone and flinging Lyn away with bright green stripes contrasting the blue streaks of her fur. Like a cat, she twists her body in mid-fall to land on her feet, but when she looks back sees a Blastion spell cast from Matt coming at her. In another leap through air balance, she escapes a direct, devastating hit, but the blast brushes by her to bruise her right flank, getting a growl of pain out of her.
After she rolls across the floor and onto her feet, the battle pauses with Lyn and Matt looking at each other, assessing each other’s damage done to them. Matt’s forehead, chest, and arms glow amber from his wounds, his arms so torn that the core of his left rifle was disabled and he can’t form one for his right. With him no longer able to use his guns, and the vital wound pulsing in his chest, Lyn has a great advantage against him.
At the same time, however, with her right leg and ribs glowing yellow, Lyn knows her agility would be hindered from being near crippled. Glancing between her wounds and Matt as he resumes the fight by summoning more clones with swords, she shows a wolf’s grin while her pack returns and clashes once again with Matt’s clones.
With both sides each having the most clones yet, Matt takes a breath as he waits, his big black broadsword ready in his right hand, watching for a gap in the clones’ skirmish to rush through and reach Lyn. When he hears her howl again, though, he knows he’ll need a different plan before a sudden crash of thunder demolishes the clones, both his and hers, and there Lyn stands, her body lit up by an electric blue aura.
Fangs gleaming while lightning dances across her, Lyn lopes and lunges at him, knowing her aura will zap and stun him when she’ll take him down and go for the throat to finish him. As she reaches him, her static sparks making contact first, she is stunned to find herself stopped in mid-air with Matt’s arm raised between them. Seeing the volts bending around him without harming him, she realizes the mistake she’s made before he cries, “Voltzon Reversal!” and the lightning backlashes as he uses it against her, slamming her down and rolling her across the floor with dark orange wounds on her.
With her in similar shape to him, despite his vital wound pumping with more lost energy, Matt begins to approach her, his sword between both hands to be larger and ready for execution, before she howls a third time, this one longer and more haunting, and a whirlwind of ice and snow suddenly forms around her. Watching tensely, he worries when she vanishes within the blizzard before it expands and blows over him, consuming and blinding him as the shards of snow and ice, sharp like shrapnel, sting and slice at him, red wounds stitching him all over.
Rather than panicking within the blizzard, Matt remains calm, his sword fading out to leave his arms at his side, and closes his eyes. He understands this is the same tactic Rose had once used on him, with her blizzard of leaves, and he has trained himself on how to counteract such a tactic. With his eyes closed, his sense of vision gone, he focuses upon the sense of touch, extended through air balance, and feels the cold winds swirling around him, waiting for either him or her to make the next move. When he feels a sudden shift in the winds, off to his right, he knows Lyn is making it, and he responds with his right arm moving up and brandishing his black sword once more, pointing it in the same direction he felt the disturbance.
***
From within the blizzard, having concealed both fighters from the audience’s view, the sickening sound of torn flesh cuts through the howling winds, and they die down with the blizzard ending, revealing an incredible sight. Lyn herself is just as amazed as the audience, finding herself impaled upon Matt’s sword in mid-leap, the blade having entered through her neck and chest and stuck its point out by her hind leg. Time seems to have stopped as she blinks at Matt, his black armor fractured with red wounds and eyes closed, and can’t help but be impressed before time flows again when red energy bursts out of her, followed by her demorph flash and her falling upon the ground, sprawled and motionless with her face down.
It was a big gamble, his
response to her final lunge within the blizzard, when he could have more logically dodged with an air thrust, then lashed out with a blast of magic. On the spur of the moment, though, Matt went with his sword, and it had paid off when he hears the announcer above say, “The winner is Matthew Calamos.” Then, he opens his eyes, and further spurred by the moment raises his mighty black sword to the thunderous applause from the audience, coming to have a smile break his stern expression as the feeling of victory washes over him.
After the long moment of absorbing the praise for him, the warning pound of pain from the vital wound in his chest reminds him to demorph, and he almost wishes he doesn’t when he buckles from the trauma through his human body. Noticing Lyn stir by him, he looks down to her, shaking his head, and says, “So much for us knowing our limits.”
“Heh, yeah. That went right out the window at some point, didn’t it?” After a wracking cough, Lyn struggles to try getting up, but fails, and lays where she is while looking back to Matt, her pale eyes sparkling. “But that was an excellent match, and a well-deserved win for you, Matt.”
“Thanks, Lyn. You did well, also, but I’m sorry only one of us could win.”
“Yeah, that’s too bad. But, oh well. It’s all in good sport.” As medics arrive to gently move her onto a cot, she adds with a wearied smile, “Now, it’s you and Rose in the finals. If Cain, Irene, or both get there, too, give them hell for me. For all of us.”
“You got it, Lyn. I’ll do that.” After a quick check from one of the medics, he watches them leave with Lyn before looking back to the audience of his peers yet cheering at him. The smile from his face fades as odd thoughts come over him. Sure, he had won the fight, but by doing so put a friend in critical condition and taken away her last chance to prevail in the competition. No longer feeling glad in his victory, Matt instead feels numb, his face blank as he looks beyond the colors and sounds of the crowd.
Chapter 15
Glory in the Arena: Grudging Greens
***
With the red division of the tournament finished, the green division takes off next. Compared to the two previous divisions, this one turns out to be the most anticipated for the audience as the students are the most restless and loud they’ve been yet. The first pair to face-off that appears in the arena brings a blending wave of cheering and booing from the stands.
In his brilliant suit of green and white, a smug look on his face despite the students making clear their hatred of him, Cain strides in as the villain of the student community. In contrast, with her dazzling red dress and hair, flowing freely in her movement, and bronze-tanned skin, Cynthia is the heroine of the students, a goddess of beauty and desire as many men in the stands go wild at the sight of her.
The two come to stand about thirty feet apart at the center of the gym, where Cynthia looks anywhere but directly at Cain, waving and blowing kisses to her adoring fans. It isn’t long before Cain’s snide tone reaches her with her back to him. “How cruel of you, to give them all false hopes like that, Cynthia. If my sources are correct, aren’t you now hitched to that freshman scum, Sean?”
Cynthia’s only response is turning back to face him, rage and hatred burning like furnaces in her eyes, the same eyes that had held passionate, mesmerizing candles for the crowd a moment before.
Cain smirks before going on, “Oh, come now, you don’t need to look so mad. I’m not trying to criticize you. In fact, I should be congratulating you! By falling hopelessly in love with the roommate of that devil Matt, you’ve put yourself on his side and avoided being stuck where I am. Really, I commend you, Cynthia, for being as cruel as ever and stabbing me in the back.”
Cynthia, in a vicious tone, replies, “In case you’ve forgotten, you are the one who stabbed me in the back. I risk my reputation, my health, for your damned plans and schemes, and you snatch Irene and use her for one of the most despicable things I’ve ever thought one of us could do. I know you’ve been capable of terrible things, Cain, but not even I would have guessed you capable of murder.”
Bewildered by her accusation, Cain asks, “Whatever are you talking about? I’m not foolish enough to actually kill another person!”
“Yeah, you’re not foolish enough. But you’re insane enough. You had told Irene to frame Matt Calamos for murder by shooting Rose Alamence after Matt beat her.”
“Wha-what? Shoot one freshman, to frame the other? Now that’s just ridiculous…”
“Don’t you try to deny it! Irene herself had the gull to tell me it all. She was on a rooftop, watching them fight, waiting to put a bullet in Rose when she demorphed, as you had requested her to!”
His eyes darting about as if he hears other things around him, Cain does a little laugh before saying, “Matt’s prescription must have really messed with your head, Cynthia dear. It makes sense, you flirting with the failed freshman and this absurd story you concocted about me. Who would have thought someone could remain out of her mind from a few sleeping pills?”
“I am completely sober and sensible!” Cynthia shrieks back at him. “Irene confessed your plan to me as soon as I left the infirmary, and when I told Matt, the way he paled made it clear he knew what I was talking about. How, Cain? How could you think other people’s lives are disposable, just to maintain some stupid sense of superiority over the others? How could you try to get away with murder?”
“Enough!” Cain snaps at her, his eyes twitching. “I will have no more of you accusing me of wanting to murder the stupid bitch! All we, no, all I wanted was to make it look like Matt had tried to kill her, and combining that with the rumors that he could be a Shadow Core terrorist would have sealed his demise! But, if, and I do mean if, the case became she did die, it would have been all the better for securing the just punishment of Matt and my just victory.”
Cynthia looks aghast at him for a moment, shocked to have heard his view toward Rose dying, and then lowers her gaze, hands clenched while she speaks in a deceptively calm tone. “You know, Rose and I are in the same music performing class.”
“Oh, really? How unfortunate for you. Has she been competition for you in there? In ways besides playing with your silly instruments?”
She ignores his taunts and says, “Not too long ago, I pulled her aside and told her what I knew of her fight with Matt, and Irene watching and waiting to shoot her. She understood, as she was already aware of it. But then, I asked her about the scars on Matt’s neck. Where did they come from, and why had they not healed yet? She hesitated, and then she explained that in the fight, she and Matt had been so misled about the other, so full of doubt and fear, that they were intending to fight to the death. Only when Matt demorphed did the fight stop, with her daggers just reaching his neck. That is where the scars came from. That is why they are still there, wounds unable to heal because of the mental trauma tied to them.”
Cynthia raises her gaze to him, glaring as she concludes, “Matt, and likely Rose, are mentally traumatized from fighting each other for their lives. They fought for their lives because James had deceived them both, filling them with doubt about the other. And James had deceived them because you had him do so.”
Cain blinks before saying, “They were trying to kill each other? Wow, I didn’t know that. But, they were trying to kill each other?” He mumbles something to himself, his head nodding, until an eager expression crosses him. “Ah hah! Then that means they have committed the crime here, not I! All I have to do is go to the officers, tell them what they did, and the two will be seized and locked away, and my victory will be swift and complete!”
“Don’t even think about it, Cain,” rebukes Cynthia, “because the only reason they did so is because you, through James, manipulated them to do so. You are the criminal here, they are the victims! And Irene and James are also at fault for being involved by doing the dirty work for you!”
Cain snickers, laughs, and remarks, “You can’t prove that! You have no evidence, no witnesses, to prove I am at any fault here.”
“Hav
e you been listening to anything I’ve said? I told you that Irene herself told me what she did, that she was working for you, and Rose told me how James was involved. Plus, Buster was aware of the plan, and even Sean and Dante know, from what James and Matt have told them. So I have plenty of witnesses against you!”
Cain flinches, a weird panic in his eyes, and after some more mumbling sneers back at her, “And how do you know, that those two know, hmm?”
“Because Sean told me, obviously. One of the things about Sean is he likes to talk, a lot, and at one point he mentioned to me Dante and his run in with James, and how Matt told them what James did to him and Rose. And how it all comes back to you.”
Grinding his teeth with frustration and anxiety as the countdown to their match begins, Cain exclaims, “Enough of this nonsense. I have done nothing wrong, they are the guilty ones, all of them, I am the innocent one! They are all conspiring against me, traitors and rebels alike, but I will not take it anymore, I shall expose them for their lies and conceit! I will turn them all in to the officials, after my glorious victory over you, and neither you, nor them, nor nothing shall stop me!!”
***
Cain and Cynthia both morph at the sound of the siren. Cain is in his green-and-white colored armor with sword and shield, his helm slightly obscuring the scowl on his face. Cynthia’s morph stands opposite him, covered from the neck down in a skin-tight, bright red suit with no armor, her long hair changed into living flames. She is a special kind of Magician, her element obviously fire.
Cynthia’s hair, and temper, flares as she leers back at her foe, magic already burning in her clenched fists, before she attacks first, casting a large fireball from her left hand at Cain. Cain, his scowl turning to a smirk, doesn’t bother trying to dodge it. When the fireball hits him, its blast shrinks and vanishes within him, the only trace of it left being a heated glow across his armor.
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