[Skell]
Never had I seen Soleil so thrilled. The second her name was called, itchy fingers snapped to the dangling flail at her side.
And why wouldn't they?
Rusty scabs still streaked across her arm from the other day, courtesy of Ra'Kol's claws. Her second-rate healing magic barely boosted the recovery process. But of course, anybody who knew Soleil, knew it wasn't healing that was her forte.
"Me? Against the rat?" her grin flashed at the Ratfolk across the chamber. "We sure he won't just scurry off with his tail 'tween his legs again?"
Ra'Kol's tail - for the record - rose high, standing as spiked as the rest of his fur. "The foreigner weren't worth my time! Youse? You're easy prey!"
Soleil moved to cut down the gap between them. "I'm the prey? Forget my ballad already?"
"Didja forget this?" a glint sparked upon the approaching point of his lengthy spear.
Tension heated the room as the two powder kegs met. Others stared nervously.
Valérie inserted herself between them before anyone could go off. "Settle down," she barred a gauntlet before each of them.
"Indeed," Karthwyn stood by, watching keenly. "Animosity will be wasted here. Let it serve you below."
Ra'Kol sneered down at Soleil. "Lucky girl. Was it up to me, you wouldn't even be in a state to walk outta here."
The minstrel carelessly cracked her neck. "It's always the little men who talk big. Lessee if you can back it up when we're under the limelight."
Gauntlets fell on both their shoulders. "Chromatic Ward," Valérie incanted over their flying taunts. Green light flared around the applicant's bodies. Before they could spit more venom, the Warden pointed past them. "To your escalifts. With haste."
"Oy, Warden Valérie?" one towering figure turned to the other. "This ward's nice and all - but it covers up my claws. Could ya do me a favor and peel it back some 'round the fingers?"
Valérie didn't hesitate to defer to the Commandant behind her.
"Do it," Karthwyn gestured. "A Wildfolk's natural implements are weapons like any other."
Valérie nodded and returned a palm to his shoulder. Another moment and the ward receded at his fingertips to unsheathe pointed claws. While Ra'Kol grinned at his set of ten new weapons, Soleil yawned and wheeled around, heading for the western escalift.
I stood in her path. And as she passed me, I whispered into her ear.
"Soleil? Blast him to kingdom come."
A crooked grin crept along her face. "Watch me."
Best believe I won't blink. Ra'Kol's standing on the edge of ejection. You win this and neither of us will have to ever deal with his ugly mug again.
But something more occurred to me as Soleil and her opponent set foot on the enchanted platforms.
You win this… and you'll be a Templar.
That thought I wasn't so sure about. Don't get me wrong, I liked Soleil. The darker facets of me I hesitated to show others, I could unveil to her and she wouldn't flinch. In a weird way, she made me feel safer. Accepted. So after all this was over, I wanted to stick with her. Besides Amara, she'd be my only friend in the entire Templar Order.
But then, the armor? The oaths? The high ideals and sparkling image? My mind refused to picture Soleil in any of it. It'd be like stuffing a feral cat into a tailored suit.
That said, just because I couldn't imagine it, didn't mean it wouldn't happen. A bright splotch of color drew my eyes below: Soleil exiting her hallway. Ra'Kol soon did the same. Both brandished their weapons as they rose steps toward the intense radiance of the two hanging chandeliers.
"Three," Karthwyn counted down.
A gleam danced onstage as Soleil twirled her flail. "Y'know, we've never formally introduced ourselves."
Ra'Kol cocked a furry brow.
"Two."
"My name's Soleil," she winked.
"One."
"Now it's your turn."
"Commence!"
Ra'Kol landed on all fours, letting his tail take up the spear as he blazed for Soleil in a streak of dark fur. Soleil didn't react - she didn't even budge. Instead she pointed at the massive rushing man and spoke with faux-innocence.
"You're Ra'Kol. Twenty-six years old, and-"
"Quit blabbin' and fight!" His spear - ended in the sharpened white tooth of some beast - flew back into his arms and sprung for Soleil's smile.
The minstrel swatted the head aside with a backhand.
"…an orphan," she finished.
Ra'Kol flinched back. "Wh-what!? How'd ya know that!?
"You told me. Remember?"
Based on the Ratfolk's face, he evidently didn't.
"You told everyone," she tossed up a finger. "In the commons, you just went on and on about yourself. All I did was listen."
He snarled. "I never said that."
"But ya said everything else. The few blanks you left weren't hard to fill in."
"Rghh! You don't know a damned thing!"
Ra'Kol drove a barrage of thrusts at Soleil. Quick flicks from her flail deflected each with ease. Frustrated veins surged like lightning across his forehead as he stepped back. Muscles tensed at his arms and legs.
"Skewer!" he spat.
An ethereal energy emitted from Ra'Kol's spear - the point extending and sharpening to a supernatural edge. I didn't doubt it could puncture steel.
But Soleil didn't shirk away. Instead she rushed toward his maddened thrust. Lifted a foot high.
Then stomped Ra'Kol's spear to the ground.
Events moved so quickly I barely registered what happened. Other applicants blinked in a similar off-kilter confusion. The Ratfolk had to quickly bury his own disbelief, jerking and jostling at the grounded weapon to no effect. Soleil's sandal effectively fastened it to the stage. She smirked. Leaned smugly over the weapon.
Then uppercut her flail straight into his chin.
A massive shadow soared over the stage, hovering for frozen seconds before finally colliding against the tiles. Lucky for him, his weapon flew along for the ride. Unluckily for him, his ward was an Abyss of a lot less green.
Rage twisted his features as he shook off the disorientation and bolted upright. Just to find empty space where Soleil used to be.
"Raised in the town of Eversummer," a voice lazed behind him. "Nice, rural, toasty place."
A heavy hand hit the stage as Ra'Kol thrust himself off the floor. "Shut up!"
"I performed up there 'bout a year back. But… weird. Can't remember seein' any Ratfolk. No Wildfolk of any kind, come to think of it. 'Cept for you."
Surprise lit his eyes. That's where I know your scent from, was written all over his face.
She placed a curious finger on a poked-out lip. "Something tells me there wasn't some mass exodus of Wildfolk. Nah, I think it's more likely they were never there."
A roar split through her words; spear fell into the grip of his prehensile tail again as Ra'Kol thundered at Soleil. Frenzied claws and spear slashes crosshatched the air around the minstrel. But never the minstrel herself. Expert footwork cavorted her past a thrust then under a claw and when Soleil next popped up she was behind him. He spun to get eyes on her but she spun with him in perfect harmony, pressing spine-to-spine as Ra'Kol twisted back and forth in vain.
Sense finally hit him and he thought to curl his tail around to stab her. The tip plunged through air to hit nothing. Because Soleil wasn't onstage any longer. She'd flipped…
And now perched on his head.
One foot balanced on the crown of his skull, forcing down brows before they ever got the chance to rise. The other swung back… to nail him right in the eye.
Of course, striking ward against ward damaged both. Soleil was too invested in watching the Ratfolk fall to care.
But he caught himself. Just in time to eat a flail to the face.
Ra'Kol impacted the stage like a flicked domino. Soleil snatched up his orange-warded leg with both hands, swerved, and slung the man aside like a folded napkin. He crashed and tumbled across the stage. Sure, his battered ward absorbed that along with everything else. But Soleil aimed deeper.
"No parents? No one in your entire home that's quite like you?" Her face scrunched. "Must've stung. Most people nowadays got the sense to treat Wildfolk right. But there must've been exceptions?"
Furious panting spilled from the Ratfolk's mouth as he rose. Those around me muttered to themselves, wondering what exactly was Soleil doing.
"Kids pointin' at you 'cause ya look different? Adults whisperin' just out of earshot, maybe about somethin' else, maybe not? Old folks just starin'? Am I ringin' any bells?"
"You. Don't. Know me!" he roared.
"But I do," Soleil didn't miss a beat. "You puff yourself up, dumb yourself down. Act exactly like what the idiots think you to be. 'Cause it's easy. 'Cause that way, ya got a say in it all. And that leads us to this stage. Win here and you'll be a Templar. Even the most hard-headed, backwards people respect them. And at the end of the day, ain't that all ya really want?"
She smirked arrogantly. "A little sunforsaken respect?"
Enough debate. Enough being read like a book. Ra'Kol had enough of it all. He lifted his spear overhead as veins fired up his arms. "Burrower!"
Ethereal energy bathed his weapon, morphing it again. But not into a sharper spear. Instead the head widened and spun, quicker and quicker into a blurred edge, becoming something else entirely.
A "something else" he extended toward Soleil as he closed the gap between them. This time he didn't thrust the whirring weapon at the minstrel; he plunged it in the ground before her. The head drilled through stone like fingers into sand. Tiles split and ruptured and, as he wrested the weapon back above ground, all that he destroyed came with.
An upheaval of stone and debris leapt from the ground in weighty chunks, flying toward Soleil's ward. Her casual expression shifted ever so slightly. A sidestep pushed her past the first chunk - into the path of the next several. Soleil's flail swung in speeding arcs around the debris small enough to be ignored to beat aside the larger masses.
But as she focused, the biggest threat suddenly shadowed her.
Soleil spun around in the span of a blink. She palmed her flail and lifted it in defense as Ra'Kol's rotating weapon bored down upon her. An ear-bleeding blare of shrieking weapons filled the arena. Sparks flit in all directions with pebbles and dust flying past. The minstrel was strong. But this Burrower art matched up against her strength.
And surpassed it.
A boisterous roar and Ra'Kol's weapon drove Soleil back, the woman grinding sandals against tile after tile to keep upright. Force eventually let her go near the edge of the stage.
"Ha! Ha ha!" the Ratfolk's laugh started unsure, before delving deep into confidence. "Awful quiet now, ain'tcha? What happened to all that talk, huh?"
Shaky fingers still held the flail ball over Soleil's face - her orange hair almost draped around it. An inch-deep groove gouged into the metal, smoke streaming from the heated interior.
Shade, that's some wild power. I was sure Soleil had this win in the bag. But with that art, this might get competitive.
"…Nothin' could be funnier," Soleil muttered, voice near-masked by the constant whirring. "So close to feelin' accepted. Like you're more, instead of less. But ya had to get matched with the one person who'll burn your dream to cinders! Smokefront!"
Smoke vented from the minstrel's lips at startling speed. One second and she was fully obscured in white clouds. Two and that cloud quadrupled in size. Four, and massive curtains of smoke submerged half the stage.
Thankfully for Ra'Kol, that's where it ended, though he still stood like an ant in the face of Soleil's art. Hatred burned away whatever fear he would've normally had, but sense kept him back, to consider his next move.
That kept his body at bay. But not his mouth.
"Hidin' away now? You little orange coward!" he accused. Fury magnified his voice when he didn't receive another smug response. "Drop that blanket of yers' and come out!"
A look of realization flashed over his face. "You… you think yer so smart! Ya think keepin' up this art'll tire me out while you lie low. Bad news, girl - it won't work!"
Ra'Kol sniffed at the air. Chills suddenly seized me.
The Ratfolk slipped the shaft of the spinning weapon into his tail's grip. A vindictive sneer took over his face as he dropped to all fours and dove headlong into the smoke.
My palm turned purple before I noticed how hard I gripped the railing. To the Abyss with sight; with his honed nose, he'd effectively have a red carpet laid out on his path to the minstrel, while Soleil was as blind as a bat.
"Not as clever as she likes to feign, is she?" Hyland chuckled to himself, catching on at the same time I did. "Any moment now, and-"
First came the noise. Reverberations tunneled up the arena and burst outward like a volcanic eruption. And that word? Eruption?
Nothing could better describe the ensuing detonation.
A pillar of flame pierced through the massive cloud effortlessly. All heads - even a normally disinterested Yamui's - instantly shot to the rising gout as it soared past the upper floor and even over our heads. Like a phoenix it blazed in our eyes.
Before it crashed into the huge eastern chandelier and reduced to ashes.
Ornamental lights shattered on impact in a cacophony of broken glass. The enchanted luminescence inside dissipated as the fire did… revealing a wardless, charred Ra'Kol. Gasps rose high as applicants gazed upon him. There was nothing in his empty eyes. And nothing at the end of his wrists.
Time seemed to slow as it all came to me.
That booming noise, that unbelievable power… I know it. From the First Ordeal, when Soleil saved me from that mummy. Sulfuric Mine.
But if time slowed to a crawl then, what came next flew by at accelerated speed. Nothing attached Ra'Kol to the damaged light fixture, and he plummeted. Only a hundred feet of empty air separated him from the unforgiving stage below.
"Merriline!" shouted Valérie, gaze darting between the falling applicant and her partner.
The Paladin gathered her gauntlets in a circle. "Air Cushion!"
Inside her hands appeared an expanding orb of green wind. She quickly shot it at the spot where his shadow imprinted on the stage. It hit the ground moments before he did and grew large enough to completely envelop the Ratfolk, cushioning his fall completely.
He still wasn't safe.
Shards of glass snapped against the ground around him, drawing my attention back up. The chandelier swayed precariously by its smashed arm. I could sense what'd come next.
But I wasn't the only one.
"Val!" Merriline stabbed a finger overhead.
The Warden turned rigid. Not because of fear. But purpose. All that moved was the gauntlet she shot toward the sky. "Earthen Hand!"
Chunks of broken stone from the stage quickly levitated and gathered above Ra'Kol's wind-swaddled body. There must've been dozens of rocks of varying size at her command, and with a solid fist the Warden willed them into a single mass. Five thick stretches of stone extended from a table of rock, creating the rough shape of a massive open palm.
Soon as the hand was formed, the eastern chandelier finally snapped and fell. With a clenched fist, Valérie snatched up the object, rotated the hand, and dropped it onto the stage alongside innumerable glass fragments.
"Stand back everyone!" Merriline shut her eyes. "Wind Current!"
A large strand of green wind came through to carry Ra'Kol's body out of the Air Cushion. Flowy, pulling motions from the Paladin lifted the Ratfolk high, over the railing and carefully onto the floor.
Without magical gales and flames surrounding him, we could see his body in full. There wasn't a single bone of mine that didn't despise Ra'Kol. But as I approached the ring of bodies for a closer look…
I found a number of faces just as pale as mine.
Horror dragged Ryzza's eyes wide. She stifled a scream and seemed to be fighting off a rush of bile. Niles' hand moved to her back for reassurance. But that very same hand quivered ever so slightly; so did the lip under his frozen stare.
Cirian flicked his head aside so he could see no more. Yamui winced at the sight as if it sickened him. Even Hyland blanched at Ra'Kol.
Reactions like these weren't because of a few bad burns. Most of his body was either dark fur torched to an even deeper blackness, or lacked fur completely - having singed away and leaving behind red-blotched, charred flesh.
But even those parts of him still came out comparatively lucky. They still existed.
At the end of his arms… were cauterized stumps. Not a single finger - or claw - left.
His claws…! The ward was damaged, but it still must've partially protected him from the explosion. But… not all of him.
A humming noise pulled at my attention.
The sound of an escalift rising to its destination. Or so I thought. 'Til the whirring ended, and the woman standing atop it stepped off. Humming her own guiltless tune.
She didn't look back at me as I broke away from the others. She looked past me.
Fiery eyes beheld their flame-scourged work. For a moment, I thought I'd see regret. Or Abyss, just neutrality; the grim acceptance that it was Ra'Kol against her and that wards weren't a foolproof defense.
I saw neither.
Instead I found the only smile in the room.
Smug. Satisfied. Devilish.