The two experienced sunburn users ran toward one another like wild beasts attempting to maul each other.
Sam grins, "Let's who's really washed up…"
He produces multiple pockets in space where pressurized water seeped out quickly.
Ivory's eyes had gone wide while whispering under her breath, "How is this drunk man from the bar able to use his abilities so well?"
Lyra didn't even bother trying to dodge each and every one of the attacks.
The older woman's body dissipates into the ground, transforming into a shadow.
The shadow moves quickly throughout the arena and maneuvers its way toward Sam.
She changes her appearance back into a regular human, narrowly dodging a burst of pressurized water produced right in front of her.
Lyra holds out both of her hands as the shadows produced by them enlarge and become three dimensional.
Her hands became larger and larger until they were the size of a fully grown adult.
The two shadows worked together in unison to grab Sam and crush his suit.
The strategy was surprisingly very clever.
If the two hands had crushed the suit until the point value at the top reached ten thousand.
Sam would lose.
Ivory placed her elbow on the table and leaned forward with interest.
The older man's instincts were far too sharp to be bested by this cheap trick however.
He instinctively rolled out of the path of the floating shadows.
Both of them took a moment to catch their breath.
Sam says in a low voice, "Do you really think this training camp is a good idea, Lyra?"
Lyra doesn't reply and only breathes heavily.
Sam laughs aloud, "Out there, any one of these students of yours would be torn apart by a faceless in seconds. How many stories have ended at the mercy of those creatures?"
Lyra doesn't reply and lowers her head toward the ground like she was deep in thought.
Sam stares toward her with a blank expression on his face, "What possible reality could a suicide mission such as this, end up bettering our world?"
Lyra looks up toward Sam with conviction, "In every reality, Sam. Living underground and living in fear isn't freedom. It's a birdcage or in other words a prison."
Lyra shakes her head from bewilderment, "Giving up, removes your agency. It's the act of praying that the government doesn't decide to systematically slaughter every one of us that lives underground similar to the surface."
Sam creates a condensed water-like blade and sprints toward Lyra.
Lyra creates a shadow-like blade and recomposes it to become three dimensional.
The older man tried to perform an overhead slice but the older woman had quickly parried it.
Sam smiles with a gleam of wickedness in his eyes, "Is that why that kid Vincent died? For the sake of the underground city?"
Lyra's hand shook slightly as her concentration drifted. The shadowy blade in her hands slowly started to disappear.
Sam sliced through her three dimensional shadow-like blade and toward Lyra without a hint of difficulty.
The point total at the top recalculated Lyra's score while she was sent flying away.
The point value changed from zero to 2500.
Ivory watched with apprehension.
Shit. Shit.
Lyra, don't lose your nerves now.
Sam laughs again with a more sinister undertone, "Struck you physically and mentally there. Didn't I?"
The older man dragged his blade on the ground toward the older woman.
Lyra slowly arose from the ground and received cheers from the students who had placed bets that she would win.
Sam stopped in his tracks and took a second to look around, "How cute. Do any one of these students of yours know that you decided not to step in to save Vincent? That you wanted to normalize the idea of death on the field to them…"
The cheers stopped.
Sam laughs to himself again and covers his face with one of his hands, "Maybe the smarter individuals here figured it out but for the ones struggling to put everything together. I just did it for you. Let's get to the point. This woman doesn't care about any one of you."
He propels himself with multiple bursts of pressurized water seeping from different points in space, with his blade in hand.
Lyra doesn't fight back almost like the will to fight had been taken from her.
Sam strikes and launches her toward the opposite end of the arena.
A cloud of dust concealed the ring.
Her point total however recalculated again. The total changed from 2500 to 5000.
Ivory felt herself losing her sanity slowly but surely.
She was at the edge of her seat and biting her nails.
This couldn't all end here. Ivory needed a chance to speak to Abigail again and the only way for the two of them to speak again in the near future is through the training camp.
Faye mentioned the two camps might at one point overlap which is one reason she took a gamble to come here.
This couldn't be the end.
The dust cleared and Lyra disappeared.
Sam looked around himself with caution.
No person could be seen in sight. Behind himself, Lyra reconfigured herself from her two dimensional shadow on the ground and delivered a powerful slash that landed on Sam.
Lyra grits her teeth, "This is as far as you will get."
Lyra rapidly started delivering blows toward Sam without giving him a chance to recover.
Ivory watched the scene unfold and reminisced of her father beating her at a fighting arcade game.
Her father spammed punches and kicks that would make her unable to move in the game.
Similarly Sam ate every single punch and kick.
In a flash, a shield composed of water protected him.
The moment no other attacks landed on Sam. His point total was recalculated to 5000.
Lyra didn't give up on her pursuit. She was determined to break his shield.
She rapidly struck from any and every direction.
The shield was approaching its limit and began to blink signaling its weakened state.
Lyra struck him again persistently with inexorable perseverance.
Sam quickly altered his composition before the blade made contact with him.
The man had become entirely made of water.
The skin on his body was replaced with a deep blue culmination of water.
His two eyes had been replaced with two white ovals and his mouth looked like it was a white line drawn onto his face.
The blade passed right through his body.
A few drops of water sprinkled on the floor before he leapt away.
Sam's mouth transformed from a straight line to a curved line, "Not that easy to catch, am I?"
Lyra grinds her teeth, "Shifting your composition won't save you. Get back here!"
Lyra sprints toward Sam and maintains a steady pace toward him.
The older man stumbled in place before kneeling on the ground.
Sam seemingly tried to maintain his composition but his control of his ability seemed to be whinging.
Ivory theorized he must have been exhausted from maintaining this new composition to his body.
This meant he couldn't last in this form forever.
In fact, maybe not even for the next few minutes.
Sam awoke from his dazed state after sensing Lyra's presence nearby.
He quickly put his hands together, concentrating very deeply.
A series of open spaces were created once again.
Nothing leaked out immediately.
Everyone was perplexed.
Wasn't he going to attack?
Sam didn't rise and remained kneeled on the ground.
Lyra didn't stop her pursuit.
This was her chance.
Ivory theorized that Lyra would most likely attempt to weaken his body though forcing him to overexert his strength.
His composition would return to normal then and she would have a clear shot at beating him.
Lyra was nearly a few breaths away from him.
This would be the end of this fight.
Shortly after she got in range, large icicles were released from the small empty pockets of space surrounding him.
Lyra moved left as one of the icicles barely missed her left foot.
She moved right next and another icicle nearly struck her right foot.
Lyra says with apparent exhaustion, "Sam, give up already. This is straining your body tremendously. You really want me to send someone to throw your corpse into the incinerator too?"
Sam's body returned to normal.
He rose from the ground and his legs shook from exhaustion.
The look in his eyes screamed that this retired veteran gave it everything he had.
Lyra stood only footsteps away from him now with a newly composed shadow-like blade in her hands.
Sam quickly generated small droplets of water in the air.
Each of the droplets culminated together such as rain drops racing down the side of a windshield to reach the edge.
The water droplets formed into a gigantic blade of condensed water.
Sam held onto the blade tightly and held the weapon over his shoulders.
Lyra walks toward him slowly, "Don't know when to give up, do you?"
Sam tried to weakly thrust the blade through Lyra but she quickly responded by side stepping away from the blade.
Lyra says, "Had enough yet?"
Sam shakes his head.
Lyra holds out both of her hands with the shadows taking three dimensional shape once more and reaches before herself to grab Sam's exhausted body.
Sam slams the handle of his blade onto the shadowy hands.
The hands quickly began to crush his suit.
The point total was slowly being recalculated.
The audience watched with anticipation while some of Lyra's students were in anguish.
The older man kept slamming the handle of his blade onto the hand out of desperation but it was no use.
Sam's point total reached 10,000.
Lyra was the winner.
The majority of the audience cheered and a couple students held somber expressions on their faces.
Ivory sighed.
Didn't any of these people care about what was at stake? About the resources they could have lost if Lyra lost this match?
Did the only things some of these "comrades" of hers care about were childish bets?
Ivory shook her head and used her two index fingers to rub her temple.
That wasn't what was important right now.
She could relax at the fact that Lyra won.
Lyra drops Sam onto the floor where he stared with open eyes toward the blinking led lights on the ceiling.
His white cowboy hat had danced around in the air before slowly covering his eyes
Sam murmurs, "I failed. All of these people are going to die because of me. I couldn't save you all."
Sam screamed from the top of his lungs, "I'm so sorry. I say this to each and every one of you. I'm so sorry."
The older woman looked quite displeased seeing Sam screaming on the floor.
Lyra rubs her neck, "Look Sam, I'll try to keep them safe out there."
Sam chuckles before breaking out into hysterical laughter.
Sam wipes his eyes, "You couldn't even save these students inside the training camp. You're telling me you'll magically be able to protect all of them once they're outside of the underground city on one of your missions?"
Lyra pauses before speaking.
Sam says, "Exactly as I thought. Do everyone a favor will you? End this training camp. It may be the only way for the sunburn users of the future to survive by not getting in the council's way at all."
Lyra shakes her head, "You lost Sam. A deal's a deal."
Lyra's eyes light up, "You know what, Sam? I'll let you in on a secret."
Sam was curious.
He must've been wondering what Lyra would say to him like all of us were in the crowd.
Lyra says, "Icarus predicts that in an unknown amount of time as more and more sunburn users escape to our underground city. Moles will be in abundance or more specifically individuals who will feed info to the council."
Moles? What did Icarus know that the rest of them didn't?
Lyra fixed the collar of her orange and white mechanical suit, "Times are changing, Sam. The council, after receiving enough info on the layout of our city, could launch a mass extermination project on the sunburn users that live here."
Sam pauses.
Lyra says, "On a disgusting day like that one. We will all fight until our dying breaths. This life is one to be fought for Sam and I'm afraid you've forgotten this."
Sam nods his head absentmindedly and looks toward each person in the crowd.
His eyes held a sadness that could only be described as utter misery.
Sam says with an eerie emptiness, "A city remade and painted in different shades of red. The stores and homes will be destroyed, carrying the aroma of corpses. The likely future of this city. Wouldn't you agree, Lyra?"
Lyra tapped a few buttons on her glass display and Sam was transported outside of the arena.
The older woman desperately tried to compose herself.
Lyra gives a disingenuous smile toward her students, "I apologize for that impolite intrusion from my former colleague. Let's go with our next contestants on our roster. Ronan and Ivory."
Ivory instinctively rose from her seat and approached the arena.
Ronan walked toward the arena from the opposite side of the ring.
The mysterious man wore his suit under his cloak and mask.
Ivory rolls her eyes.
This guy was fully committed to his role it seemed.
She felt her heart begin pounding, feeling the stares of the audience around her.
This would be her first match.
She couldn't help but feel a sense of unease.
The suits would hopefully keep them safe right?
The backpacks failed to protect Vincent so how would it protect her?
Ivory sighed.
The two of them slowly entered the ring.
The first match would begin any minute now.