4 The Son of Soul Gear Part 4

After a week of rugged and brutal training, the competition rolled in.

"Welcome to the SPRING FESTIVAL TOURNAMENT!" The announcer blared, "This is the first of many matches that will declare the most talented SG user between the first and second Siberian SG school," He paused, "We have, for our first match, a total unknown, Victor Angelic, rank-f in the school system, fighting with the Soul Gear Tech, Lasgi!" Victor was in his SGT, in the arena, facing Catherine and her SGT, nobody clapped, "Next, we have Catherine Guntbert, a rank-a in the schooling system, we all remember her impaling victories during the rank-a tournament last year, when she pinned Julia Farfetch to the wall of the arena, forcing a surrender and giving her the rank of highest rank-a of the schooling systems, she is fighting with the Soul Gear Tech, Horned Bruiser 2.0, the judges will declare the beginning of the bout, good luck and give it your all, Victor and Catherine."

"Reminder to the two fighters, this is a 3x5 minute bout, this will be for a qualification to the next round, no destruction or illegal attacks, no targeting the pilot, only the SGT, if you go down, you have 25 seconds to get up or else you will be declared unable to continue, get ready, GO!"

Catherine's SGT was a large bulky SGT with a curved, spiked metal plate that protected her, it was very rare for an SGT to have a protection around the pilot that wasn't a SG suit, this was because of her heavy physical attacks and her bulkiness was backed up by her S- power core. A launcher formed extremely quickly and two nets fired and locked Victor's feet to the ground. She began laughing as he tried to get rid of the pinning nets.

"You are pathetic! With a B+ power core, good luck getting out of that, those nets break after Double A+," She had a wicked smile, "Come on, struggle, you are but a rank-f, ha, everyone!" She turned to the crowd, "Give him encouragement! Rank-F! Rank-F! Rank-F!"

"Rank-F! Rank-F! Rank-F! Rank-F! Rank-F!" The crowd chanted, Victor stared down Catherine as she laughed wickedly, "Rank-F! Rank-F! Rank-F! Rank-F! Rank-F!"

"Now, time to end you," She placed her SGT's hands on the floor and two massive horns emerged from her SGT's shoulders.

"Lasgi, can you get out of this?"

"If you allow me to, yes, and if you go full power you can completely stop her," Lasgi explained, "You can easily win the strength competition."

"Then do it," His SGT's metal plates separated a bit and steam flowed out of the cracks, "Is this full power?"

"Yes, focus on Catherine," Catherine began charging towards him, shoulders lowered and horns extended with extremely sharp ends aiming for the shoulder joints of his SGT. That was how she pinned Julia Farfetch, slamming her, after the hit, into the wall and snapping her horns to leave her pinned. She slowly gained speed as she rampaged across the arena towards him.

"Come on, Victor, come on, do something."

"Clara, who are you cheering?"

"Victor."

"The rank-f? Why?"

"Ja, Victor, I trained with him for a week before this tournament," Clara explained, "I think, Elizabeth, that if we pay attention, Catherine is about to get beaten by a rank-f."

"You're funny, Clara, a simple rank-f can't beat a rank-a."

"Shut up and watch."

Catherine closed in with her horns aiming at Victor's SGT. He activated as much power as he could just before the collision. He shot his arms up and jerked up Catherine's SGT and breaking out of the nets. Catherine was thrown backward violently. The crowd who was chanting 'rank-f' suddenly fell silent, they couldn't believe what had just happened. Victor walked forwards, towards Catherine's downed SGT. The count had started and was at 23, 22, 21, 20, 19, 18, she slowly rose to her feet and seemed absolutely shocked, just like the crowd. She couldn't believe he overpowered her. Victor smiled and leapt forwards as his boosters activated and projected him towards her at lightning speeds. She lifted her arms to protect her. Victor reacted to this and swiftly moved behind her and propelled himself back towards her, driving his right hand into the back of her SGT. She was hurled flying into the wall of the arena, some 20 meters further. The count started again. She wasn't moving. Her SGT was frozen, back leaning against the wall of the arena. 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, still no movement. Lasgi reactivated the limiters. The 25 seconds seemed like an eternity. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, the bell rang. Catherine hadn't moved. He deactivated his SGT and landed on the floor and ran towards her, she wasn't moving. He climbed onto her SGT and placed Lasgi's glove over her hairband. Her SGT deactivated and he moved her away from the wall. He pressed his ear against her chest.

"Get help! Come on!"

"What happened? Could it be? Catherine lost the bout in a major way, after taking a massive blow, she crashed into the wall and is still out against the wall, this could be bad, I hope she is okay," The announcer said as the medical team rushed to Catherine. Victor moved away from her and picked up her SGT activator, her headband, and walked with the medical team as they carried her out of the arena. He put the headband in his pocket and removed Lasgi's glove. He walked out of the arena and sat down for the post-fight interview with a single reporter.

"Victor, what happened out there? You are ranked as rank-f, one of the worst in the schooling system, how did you beat her?"

"I, I actually don't know, I trained hard and well, I did my best," He said as he took a drink of water, "I hope I didn't hurt Catherine too much."

"About her, I heard that you two never really got along, is that so?"

"Well, I can't deny it," He laughed, "But that doesn't mean that if I hurt her I don't care, she might have been a jerk but I think that everyone does that in their lives, especially when they feel powerful, I just fought my fight and ended up beating her."

"So, you are a total unknown in the fighting tournaments, you have never participated in one and on the first match, boom, you get a technical elimination after delivering a monstrous punch to Catherine's back, do you think your luck will continue?"

"Why does it have to be luck? I trained hard, I had help from some teachers at my school and I trained for a week, from 5 in the morning to 9 in the evening making sure that I can put up a fight in this tournament."

"Nice, you are aware that with your performance your ranking will go up, right?"

"Yes, but that doesn't matter, I have other things to take care about, I don't need to hide behind a rank and use it as a way to trash talk or insult someone, I think that what defines it all, is what goes on in the arena and only what goes on in the arena, trash talk and insults, well, I think they are pointless and only show that you aren't confident in yourself and that you try to gain that confidence off of someone else."

"I see, tomorrow, you enter the round of 16, against another elite fighter, Alex Belworth, are you prepared for that fight?"

"I don't really have a choice, I decided to win this tournament, now I need to."

"Nice finish, thank you, Victor, and good luck on your next bout."

"Thank you."

He got up after the interview and walked to the door. He left the room and let out a sigh of relief, just a week ago, he was one of the worst fighters in the world, now, here he was, moving on to the round of 16, but now he had to fight a high ranked rank-a, Alex Belworth, she was a top class sharpshooter. He knew exactly how she would try to fight him, keep her distance and shot to kill. That is what she would be thinking after seeing what he did to Catherine. He sat down on a bench with his hands in his pocket and felt the headband in his pocket, "I should probably give this back to Catherine," He noticed someone sit down next to him.

"Yo, Victor, impressive start, you weren't joking when you said you would take her on with brute strength, that was massive, you are going to go up in the rankings for sure," He slapped his back as Mr. Desportes always did, "Well, I'll leave you, good luck for tomorrow, Alex is a very good fighter, she is very quick and has deadly accuracy."

"Thanks," He put his headphones in his ears and turned on his music and began head banging to his music. He sat alone for a few minutes and looked around, spring was rolling in, green had taken over the gardens of the city and small flowers had begun to bloom around the city. Someone sat down next to him. He looked at them out of the corner of his eye and then removed his headphones and quickly turned to face her.

"Oh, hi Clara, how are you doing?"

"Gut, gut, are you happy you won?"

"Well, actually, I didn't think it had this much power, but thank you for everything."

"N-no problem," She said blushing, "D-do you w-want to go for a walk? The park looks amazing."

"Sure, why not."

"O-okay, l-let's go," She grabbed his hand and pulled him off of the bench then let go of it and walked next to him.

"Are you sure, like, about your dad?"

"No one has to know about it, and it is just a walk, come on, what is wrong about that?"

"I don't know, I was just asking."

"You were impressive, but that stupid trick you did made me super nervous."

"Which one? The net one?"

"Ja, I was tapping my foot nervously, Elizabeth noticed it."

"Did you tell her why?"

"I just said that I had trained with you and wanted you to win so that I could feel good about myself, but we both know why."

"Yeah, sorry about that," He scratched the back of his head, "I had to force her to do that, Horned Bruiser is very weak to overpower or faster opponents, I did both, but I hope she isn't too hurt," He said as he held her headband in his hand, "I'll go see her and give this back to her, I picked it up during the hassle with the medic team."

"How did you force her to exit her SGT? She was clearly unconscious, how did you do that?"

"Lasgi did it for me, she is a super-computer and all she had to do was have some contract with her activator and she could force the activation or deactivation," Victor explained, "She told me that, I would have never guessed it alone, but what do you want to talk about?"

"Well, nothing, I just wanted to find time to spend with you."

"I am fine with that, I didn't ask you about your fight, sorry, I was so focused on mine, how was it?"

"It was easy, first round, I forced a surrender," She smiled cheerfully, "Come here," She leaned in to whisper in his ear and kissed his cheek discreetly, "Did you like that?"

"What's not to like, I am hungry, do you, like, want to go eat something?"

"Ja, there is a Starbucks near here, we could go there."

"Sure, yeah that's fine, I'll pay," He said as he checked his checked his pocket, "Yeah, I have my wallet."

"Nien."

"No what?"

"I invite you, I'll pay."

"No, I said I would."

"Nien, I pay, I am inviting you."

"No."

"Ja."

"No."

"Ja!"

"Fine!"

"Okay!"

"Wait, why are we shouting?"

"I-I don't know, why don't we just go?"

"Yeah, let's stop shouting."