[Skell]
Frenzied electricity surged up and down Soleil's suspended body - replacing her cocky eye with a shocked one.
Eventually the haphazard magic was spent; the minstrel fell to the stage, spine to stone. Her once-green, undamaged ward now shined the orange of sunset, bordering on the edge of total destruction.
Up above, I and the other watching applicants were just as shocked. I mean, I was sure she had the upper hand: splitting Cirian from his Thunder Hawk, waiting for the perfect moment to unveil Pyro Lance, launching it at the construct when it couldn't dodge… everything was perfect.
Abyss, Soleil - what happened!? I thought you had this match in the bag? Though… I doubt anyone expected Cirian's construct to be able to shape itself around an attack. His Thunder Hawk might as well be an all-in-one package of everything you'd ever need in a fight.
At the site of the burst of electricity, the Thunder Hawk started to reform from faint strands of remaining lightning. Several seconds later and it was back to full proportions, swooping circles over Cirian before landing on the fulminated surface of his outstretched truncheon.
"Well?" the noble slowly approached, shaded under erratic wings. "Shall you lie on the ground forever? Or are you awestruck as well as thunderstruck?"
Soleil slowly rose to perch over a knee, sitting casually on the stage as if another solid hit from Cirian's hawk wouldn't take her out for good. "Just havin' a think. That art of yours got me good." She shrugged. "S'ppose that's the risk of brawlin' with someone new. Never know what tricks their magic might pull."
"Tricks? I prefer 'techniques'. And best believe, mademoiselle: I wield many."
"Too many."
His smile straightened a fraction. "…Excuse me?"
"Pyro Lance!"
Soleil pushed off the ground and hurled a fiery lance at the off-guard noble. But the construct took flight; the lance couldn't get close to Cirian before his hawk soared to eat the attack head-on.
The collision erupted into a stunning detonation of electricity and flame - stray static soaring even to the upper floors as the heat licked at our wincing faces.
Smoke and yellow veins eventually cleared from the stage, revealing burnt and broken tiles. Soleil and Cirian were far enough away to go unharmed. But somehow, the noble came out even better. Again, his hawk fully reformed, bellowing a thunderous caw as if taunting Soleil.
You've gotta be kidding… his Thunder Hawk can fly to his protection without him even willing it to? What can't it do?
"Aiming for me directly now, are we?" Cirian cocked a confident brow as if to add: nice try.
"Wrong. That was little test. See," she smirked, "you've already shown me how to beat ya."
His eyes narrowed. "You've quite the talent for fanciful claims, mademoiselle. Please, do tell."
Cirian's cautious interest went unanswered. All Soleil offered was a raised finger over silent, smug lips.
"…Very well," the noble's face turned serious for the first time. "Then en garde!"
Another barrage of truncheon and talon soared for Soleil. Every opening Cirian had was instantly covered up by the hawk's volatile form - electrical punishment he almost dared her to take.
But she didn't. She didn't even touch her flail. No. Soleil backstepped and eluded every single fatal strike without even pretending to consider counterattacking.
Cirian readied for another attack. Yet suddenly he came to a stop, letting Soleil trail a distance back.
"…Do not think House Montblanc raised a fool in me," he panted. "You're stalling."
Soleil cocked her head, catching her own breath with a grin. "Really? What makes you say so? Is it the fact that ya got a tickin' clock hangin' over your head?"
Determination thrust Cirian back into the battle. His attacks turned sharper, more aggressive. Something the minstrel seemed to expect as she shirked and spun away from each and every one.
"Flight. Self-reformation. Independence," she listed as electric sparked around her. Abyss, it even covers its owner's ass! Makes one wonder where all those neat perks come from…"
Cirian's dandy demeanor was eroding. Not into rage, but desperation. He knew exactly what she was on about.
She must be talking about mana! It'd make sense - all those advantages don't come from thin air. And the more his Thunder Hawk boasts…
The less time he can keep it flying by his side.
That wasn't the end of it, either. Cirian probably had a decent amount of mana left to power his construct for the rest of this match. But that was this match. If Soleil spent the rest of it playing cat-and-mouse, draining all of what Cirian had, then he'd be walking into his next matches with nothing but a measly stick.
"Hrah!" he came down, truncheon striking the tile Soleil stood on a moment ago and shattering it with electricity. His hawk shot over his back and threw a yellow wing at Soleil - who narrowly dove past and rushed across the stage.
"Whew - almost got me that time!" she waved mid-stride.
Cirian whipped back so fast that sweat leapt through his green ward. Eventually Soleil would slip up, he must've figured. He just needed to be swifter. Even the slightest touch would steal him the win.
So he crouched at one end of the stage, staring down Soleil as he extended his truncheon a final time. Thunder Hawk took perch, and between them, electricity charged and fired veins along the tiles. Certainty directed his gaze. Whatever he was planning, he knew Soleil couldn't dodge it.
As for the minstrel? She stood on the stage's other side. Motionless. Studying her nails with a daredevil's bluster.
Despite everything, her irreverence brought a small smile back to his face. But amusement wouldn't sway him off the path to victory.
"Hawk!" he roared. "Fly!"
The noble swung his truncheon with his entire body, every ounce of electricity supercharging the Hawk's blistering flight.
Though, his trump card came a second after Soleil's.
"Smokefront!"
Jetting from her lips came billowing blankets of grey smoke. By the time the hawk thundered toward her, she was obscured by a cloud wide enough to hide ten of her.
Cirian wasn't concerned. His hawk spread broad wings and slashed through the smoke at blinding speed. The cloud split in half. And inside…
Soleil was nowhere to be seen.
The noble's face sank. His hawk - meant to collide with Soleil - had nothing to stop its heightened momentum. Before its wings could course-correct, the hawk crashed into the walls surrounding the stage, bursting into violent electric strands.
Just as Soleil leapt high out of the cloud.
She hit the ground and blazed forward like an exhilarated demon. Her flail spun in such rapid revolutions I thought the ball would snap off the chain. Cirian stiffened. But engaged all the same.
Cirian lunged first with a thrust of his truncheon. Soleil's flail was longer and her arm quicker, nailing the noble in the wrist.
His now-yellow ward saved him from a pulverized hand, but the ball's meteoric force still swatted the truncheon into the sky.
That left him with no weapon and no construct. For the moment. Behind Soleil was the reforming body of the Thunder Hawk, hastily flying back to protect its owner.
Cirian hurried to make distance in that rush of desperate moments. Soleil didn't let him. Orange fingers flew to snatch him by the collar.
"Lights! Out!" her fiery eye clung to his, before she dragged them both to the ground.
He fell onto the bottom of her sandals as she rolled back into a powerful kick, sending him airborne behind her. Just in time for the Thunder Hawk to reach the two.
And crash inadvertently into its master.
Like before, electricity flashed around Cirian, seizing him mid-air. His ward immediately shifted from yellow.
To orange.
To red.
His ward threatened to shatter completely. The electricity fizzled out first, and he fell to the stage. He couldn't even regain his bearings before Soleil stood over him, flail whirling in a lethal rhythm. Finally striking the ground was the inert truncheon a stone's throw away, reverberating off the circular walls like a funeral bell.
"Well, monsieur?" her grin laced under an eye that watched for the slightest movement. "Any more 'techniques'?"
Cirian stared up at her for a time, words eluding him. Eventually, he chose to shake his head. "A gentleman knows when to throw in the towelette," he said. Strangely, he didn't look resentful, at least not of Soleil. With remarkable decorum, given the circumstances, he resigned himself to a respectful nod. "You win."
He snapped his fingers, and the budding electricity that would've recalled his hawk died out.
Wow… she actually pulled it off. And in that crazy way of hers, too.
"I did," she stated. "So let's make it official."
Soleil dropped her flail. And raised a fist to strike Cirian square in the chest. His ward cracked like glass, and with a snap, shattered into rising sparks of crimson light.
"And the victor is Soleil," Karthwyn announced, "by the shattering of her opponent's ward!"
Cirian, of course, was surprised. Doubly so when that fist turned to an open hand to lift him off his back.
"Not bad," she told him, her own ward flaking off at a gesture from Valérie. "You and that birdie of yours gave me more of a workout than those First Ordeal corpses."
With the fires of combat cooled, the noble found his usual, courtly demeanor. "High praise," he panted, "coming from a maiden of your talents."
"I'm no 'maiden'," Soleil spun on a heel and tossed up a hand. "But thanks."
The noble watched her leave in stunned silence, before eventually dusting himself off, yanking the wrinkles out of his blue-gold jacket, and turning back to his own escalift with a look of fascination.
While I can't exactly say I watched the match with bated breath - being dead and all - something inside me lightened when Soleil officially took the win. She was my only ally here, after all.
So if I were to root for anyone besides myself, it'd be that eccentric, lunatic minstrel.
—————————————————————————————————
Escalifts rose, and off one approached the minstrel, joining my otherwise lonely bend of the railing. Others looked to her in fear or astonishment. I looked to her with a cheeky grin.
"Congrats on the win. Though I gotta admit," I shifted to make room for her, "you had me thinking you weren't gonna make it."
She hunched over the rails. "So I duped the crowd too? Good to know I've still got my performance chops."
"I was more impressed with your stalling play, myself. It's something I probably would've thought up, if I was in your sandals."
"Stalling?" Soleil chuckled. "Ya really think that's what I was doing?"
"Of course not - that was just step one, wasn't it? Everything you said, everything you didn't say, it was all meant to nudge him into assuming you were stalling. Better he came to that conclusion himself, right? Made him all the more convinced."
"Can't deny that," she shrugged.
"Which leaves your real ploy: by making him feel the heat of a time limit, he'd get sloppy. Careless. So much that he'd go for broke and separate himself from the only thing keeping him in the match."
"…Close. But no cigar."
My face asked clarification for me.
"You're right that I wanted to fool him into goin' all helter-skelter, but there's somethin' you missed. See, pretty boy didn't have to rush me. Or let me wait him out. There's all kinds of options he had. Deactivate his arts to save on mana, for one. But I made him think he was stuck with a slim deck of bad cards."
She put on an innocently devilish face. "In other words, I rigged the match so that no matter what, I couldn't lose."
…Wow. I thought I had her number, but there was a whole other dimension I never even considered.
Words were no stranger to me when danger came knocking. They could demoralize or provoke or persuade. The right string of them saved my hide more than once, even. Yet that was all I ever used them for: survival. Escape.
But words are tools. Weapons as decisive as any blade. At least, that's how Soleil used them. Maybe she shouldn't be the only one…
"Yamui," Karthwyn announced, suddenly shifting me back to the moment.
The foreigner's distant gaze flicked to silent attention.
Ah, shade. Don't be me, don't be me, don't be-
"You shall face Ra'Kol," the Commandant finished.
Ra'Kol? I couldn't help but be amused. So there's justice in the world after all.
"Th-that runt?" A shaky grimace ran across the Ratfolk's face, wrinkling the healing cut on his cheek. An expression he quickly tossed away like balled-up trash. "Bah - bring it on then!"
Two starkly different expressions stepped up to Valérie. Ra'Kol stole unnerved glances at Yamui - barely standing over his waist. The Warden laid a hand on the applicant's shoulders, and with a quick incantation, enveloped them in the same green aura as before.
"Now," she said, "take to your respective escalifts."
As I watched them split off, quiet snickering came from beside me.
"Oh man, I wish I brought snacks," Soleil's whispers oozed with excitement. "This show's gonna be so great it oughta cost money."
"You wanna see Ra'Kol get squashed like a grape that badly?" I thought a moment. "…Actually, now that you mention it, I wish you'd brought snacks too."
Soleil and I scooted closer to the railing as escalifts descended underground.
Between blinks, Yamui appeared at the top of his set of stairs, impatience digging trenches in his otherwise young face. Much slower was Ra'Kol, trudging up each one like he secretly wished they'd last forever.
They didn't. Soon he hit the top. And pink fingers hesitated, before snatching up his spear in frustration.
Karthwyn moved closer, pale eyes cast over Yamui. "Three!"
Hungry smiles covered Soleil's face and mine, itching for a full-course meal of catharsis.
"Two!"
In one swift movement Yamui darted a hand to the wakizashi at his waist. Then he entered an all-too-familiar stance as lithe muscles tightened.
"One! Comme-"
"I forfeit!"
The room froze solid. Soleil's grin and mine fell off our faces and plummeted onto the stage. Even Karthwyn gazed down like a disappointed teacher.
Ra'Kol's beady eyes darted from below. "Eh - I mean, I'm skippin' out on this one! It's smart, ain't it? Savin' on mana and sweat so I can beat down the next two schmucks even easier?"
"…A forfeiture already?" The Commandant ignored him, massaging the ridge of his nose. "Very well. Ra'Kol forfeits the victory to Yamui!"
The foreigner let go of his blade and turned back the way he came. "I suppose I should be grateful you shortened matters. By seconds."
A vulgar glare bored into the back of Yamui's head, but the Ratfolk had enough wits to tear his eyes away and grind teeth all the way back to his escalift.
"Scratch the snacks," Soleil crossed her arms. "For this 'show', I should've brought tomatoes."
I slumped too. A loss for Ra'Kol means he's already on the chopping block, so at least there's that. One more and he's out of my hair for good. Though at the same time, Yamui took home a win. Basically for free. And it's not like anyone here's gonna be able to humble him next round.
But now wasn't the time to think too hard on future rounds. The first had just kicked off. And judging by the Commandant's eyes, I wouldn't like where it headed next.
"Skell," the Commandant named me like a curse.
Chills instantly stiffened my spine. I knew my time was coming, yet hearing my name still felt like being thrust onto a tightrope. So much would ride on this first match.
I turned, my eyes sifting through potential opponents. Come on, old man - give me someone who's a pushover.
There were frowns, and distaste, and disgust across the railing. And among them, one lone smile.
"Your opponent," he announced, "shall be Hyland!"