Competitive

The Games We Play

Competitive

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Kyanos laughed, obviously enjoying every second of this, and even Ulaan had a fierce grin on his face. They honestly thought this was fun.

In fairness, so did I. We were at the Cyber Coliseum, a reconstruction of one of Mistral's ancient landmarks with a new and modern twist. Fighter's would compete year round for people's entertainment, battling in dozens of leagues and tournaments for prizes and sponsorships and more, stemming back from an ancient Mistral tradition meant to keep people's spirits up in dark times and ward away the Grimm. The fights were broadcast on several channels but tickets could be bought to see it in person for major fight—most notably the ones in the Olympia Games. Generally speaking, however, fighting within the Coliseum itself was restricted to those who were supposed to be there.

Which apparently included us, because we'd been allowed into a private arena with nary a word. There, we played our game—and I'd say I was surprised that it descended immediately into outright violence, but I really wasn't. The games my sisters and I played growing up had pretty much always turned into fights, if ones that I'd been mostly left out of as the youngest; I figured the other Families of Mistral probably grew up in similar conditions.

I blocked Ulaan's sabre with one hand, even as I forced his spear away with my shield, planting my feet to strain against the larger man. It was a battle of strength, a simple struggle to see who had more physical power, and I fought against him without using any tricks.

Well. Without any tricks he could see, that is. For the sake of fairness, we were all using practice weapons provided by the arena, for what little that meant—well, 'practice weapons'; they were still sharp, but they didn't transform into rocket launchers or machineguns or have the crafting of a Hunter's weapons. Which really wasn't fair as it did nothing to affect me, but which was a handicap on their part which I was more than willing to exploit. Besides which, Crocea Mors was always by my side, in whichever weapon I chose to wield. That gave me a fierce edge from the very beginning, though I was happy to take advantage of whatever I could.

After a moment of struggle, my senses alerted me of danger and I broke off, dancing quickly to the side as another spear flashed through the space I'd inhabited moments before, thrusting into Ulaan hard enough to draw a grunt from the boy. I spun, lashing out with my shield to smash it into Kyanos's chest, boosting my strength with both Power and Double Strike to send him skidding several meters back. Ulaan swung his spear in an arc that ducked neatly under before forcing me to parry a sword strike as I rose. Held briefly still, he thrust his spear forward that even bracing myself and blocking with my shield I was sent sliding back.

He didn't stop there, of course, but continued with a series of mighty blows, never even allowing me to stop. He lashed out so quickly with each attack that the sound of one impact slide right into the sound of the next and if not for Crocea Mors, each strike would have left dents deep in the steel of my shield.

In the end, I cheated, sliding just a bit further with the help of Levant, such that his next blow had to reach ever so slightly further, took a fraction of a second longer—and yet, it was enough. I turned aside the spear head by angling me shield, pushing it aside even as I turned the motion into a spin and slammed the edge of my sword hard into his upper arm, sending him into the ground a meter away. To his credit, he turned what should have been an uncontrolled fall into a well-practiced roll and kept ahold of his weapons.

To my credit, I kept on him and didn't give him time to get up. I came down on him from a high leap, sword arcing down with thunderous force behind a magically sharpened edge. He lifted his weapons to block, crossing sword and spear to try and halt my blade—and if he'd been using his actual weapons, it probably would have worked. But these practice weapons?

I had an Elemental to make even cheap steel hard as diamond.

He didn't.

The haft and blade of his weapons splintered and shattered and my sword continued down the smash into his chest. The Coliseum floor around him cracked slightly as he gave a coughing exhalation and I lifted my sword to strike again—

And leapt up, out of the way of a sudden blue-green blur as Kyanos raced across the arena in shroud of his own Aura. Flashing towards the opposite wall, he seemed to rebound off something invisible before hitting it, bouncing away at an angle to change position and come back my way. Once again alerted by Sense Danger, I'd moved before the second ricochet, striding neatly out of the way of his advance. He drew passed me, changing direction again before returning my way, only to find me once again out of his path. Even if he could move fast enough to seem like a blur to normal eyes, he still traveled in a straight line, so an early warning was all I needed to get out of that line.

Except…the second attack had been faster than the first and the third faster still. When he came my way again, he continued the trend and got that much closer, the time between Sense Danger's warning smaller and smaller until it turned into a steady alarm between the tenth and eleventh. I continued my evasion, never stopping for even a moment, but he came closer and closer as his speed increased. Would he just keep getting faster until he hit me?

No, I thought, Observing him. His MP was dropping quickly with each attack, the rate of descent rising alongside his speed. This ability—Chariot—wasn't something he could keep up forever.

The question was if he could keep it up longer then I could evade it?

I wanted to find out. I already had Haste activated, the skill I'd drawn from yellow Dust giving a more muted increase in speed in exchange for a vastly increased duration, as well as the White Tiger's Tread. I could still go faster if I had to, but before I did that…

I took a chance and stepped aside, turning neatly to take another step and another and another still. Sense Danger gave me an advanced warning, but here I needed something else, something to gauge the individual strikes not just the fact that I was in the line of fire.

Luckily, I had just the thing. I watched him closely, turning to keep him always in sight, and focused on him with my Clairvoyance. With my clear sight, even his steadily increasing speed wasn't enough to escape my eyes—it was just a matter of keeping pace with my body. I could see every moment of his approach, I just needed to dodge early enough to get out of the way, to compensate for his acceleration, to move early enough to avoid danger but also late enough to keep him from reacting.

The opening for doing so shrank steadily as he raced across the area like lightning, leaving cyan streaks in the air as a mark of his passing, but I dodged and danced between the blows, using the smallest possible movements to evade, centimeters to his meters—and through it all, I waited for his MP to drop.

But apparently, they had been waiting, too. All of a sudden, the world around me shifted, like a screen had fallen over my eyes and darkened my sight. Melanie, I realized as I saw her in the periphery, using her power to block the lights. She wasn't making darkness, per se, because the lights were still there, still glowing where they had been positioned.

I knew, because I could see them. Whatever she was doing, it didn't stop my Clairvoyance—or rather, it didn't stop all of it. Even cut off from visible light, I could clearly see everything around me with just a slight shift in perspective—and as I did, I saw what they were trying to do.

Kyanos couldn't see in the dark, but he didn't need to. Moving as fast as he was and in straight lines, all it would take was a moment's hesitation on my part, a sudden uncertainty, and he'd crash right into me. And that's what this darkness was meant to do, to make me uncertain, to interfere at a crucial moment even if it meant sacrificing Kyanos' own sight. It struck me as a trained maneuver, something practiced extensively and which had probably worked many times.

But it didn't work here, because I wasn't uncertain and I didn't hesitate. I saw him coming, moving as fast as he could—for what better time for this trick then near his top speed—and at the very last moment, Lunged aside. Just a meter or so; enough to get out of the way and continue my turn, but enough to send him by me one last time.

To his credit, even blind he stopped before hitting the wall, rebounding one last to skid to a halt before crashing.

To mine, I Lunged after him the moment I was out of the way, smashing into his back like a cannonball and shoving him part of the way into the wall.

"Kyanos!" Melanie shouted, apparently still able to see in the darkness. I glanced at her and saw her running towards me, a pair of knives in her hands.

Well, 'running.' Compared to what Kyanos had done, to what I could do, she might as well have been walking. I could see, both with my eyes and Observe, that she was a skilled fighter—as expected of anyone at level thirty-one, really—but fighting a face to face confrontation wasn't her role; she was more suited to darkening an area and picking off enemies one by one. As someone who'd done the same before, I could acknowledge and respect that, as well as recognize its power.

But that just wasn't gonna work here.

I stepped away from Kyanos and another Lunge took me to Melanie. I landed slightly crouched but already swinging my sword up at her, my closeness to the ground causing it to carve a furrow in the stadium floor as I slammed her with a power attack that sent her flying into the air. She landed some five meters away and stayed on the ground, the darkness fading around us as she went still, though a quick Observation said she was okay. I'd heal her afterwards.

"Melanie!" Kyanos shouted, rising from the dirt as he panted hard. He still had his spear in hand, but he glanced at it once and threw it away. "Ulaan!"

The Khagan boy fell from the air right in the path of the spear, snatching it out of midair even as he tossed what looked like another short sword—probably plucked from the nearby armories—towards Kyanos. The pair turned to me as one and rushed at me, blue-green and violet-red.

I stood still and welcomed their charge. My shield came up and met the spear's haft, my sword parrying its mirror. They drew back and struck again, barely a moment between blows, and I still didn't retreat. I pushed aside the force of Ulaan's strikes, met those of Kyanos with yet greater force, and refused to budge—and then I started to push back. I ducked under a strike toward my eyes and used my shield to push aside the spear again, this time using it as a pivot, turning to shove a shoulder into Ulaan, sending him a grunting step back. I completed my turn to face Kyanos fully and struck his defending sword aside to send him sprawling with a bash from my shield.

I turned again to face Ulaan and, instead of pushing his spear aside, surprised him by letting it pass under my arm and then caught it against my side. A moment later, I cut through the shaft of the weapon with another Doubled Power Attack. Even with his Aura reinforcing it, these weapons were fragile compared to a Hunter's, and the wood cut easily.

Our eyes met and I saw him sigh slightly before I smacked him across the face with my shield, sending him prone. I turned again and strode quickly closer to Kyanos as he rose, blade going to his throat.

He looked up at me for a moment and laughed.

"Okay, okay, we get it," He said. "You're a beast. I give."

I smiled a bit at that and lowered the sword, giving him a hand up, healing him as I did.

"Oh, that's a neat trick," He said, glancing down. "We haven't had a healer in the blood for a while now. You mind?"

He nodded in the direction of the other two who I went to heal with a nod.

"I guess your grandmother must have ridden you hard, huh?" Kyanos asked, absently rubbing an arm. "All the families do, but I guess your gran has a reputation for a reason."

"Oh?" I asked, looking at him.

"Your mom and all, I mean," He said, as if that should explain it. Which I guess it did, honestly.

"Ah," I nodded. "I see. I actually trained with my mom, though."

"God, it's a family thing?" He shook his head. "We'll compare notes some time on the awful things our parents do to us, yeah?"

"Sure," I said, watching Melanie's eyes open. Kyanos moved to stand over us, shaking his head.

"Some bodyguard you turned out to be," He said. "I got my ass kicked, Mel."

"It's not my fault he can see in the dark, you idiot," She said bitterly, but accepted my offered hand. When Kyanos glanced my way, I shrugged and said nothing, moving to heal Ulaan next. The heir and his friend bickered behind me, but I fixed the damage to the Khagan easily and waited for his eyes to open.

He glanced at me and frowned slightly before nodding.

"You fight well," He said.

"Thank you," I replied, helping him rise. "You do, too."

"It's my loss," He sighed. "Even three-on-one, you won…your grandmother will be pleased. My father will not."

I wasn't really sure how to respond to that.

"I'm sorry," I said at last, a bit awkwardly.

"Don't be," He said, shaking his head. "You should never be sorry for proving yourself. I look forward to working with you in the future, Jaune Roma."

He turned to leave solemnly before Kyanos ruined it.

"Hey, Ulaan, where are you going?" He shouted.

"Home," He answered with another sigh. "It's getting late."

"No, it isn't," Kyanos disagreed. "It's not even seven."

"True," Ulaan nodded in acceptance before looking over his shoulder. "Allow me to rephrase; I find you annoying, Kyanos."

"Aw, dude," The Alexandrian replied. "Is that anyway to speak to your friend?"

Ulaan just kept walking, making Kyanos laugh again.

"You're lucky I'm so nice, Ulaan," He said. "I guess that blow to the head knocked something loose. Did you forget what day it is?"

Ulaan stopped.

"Oh," He said.

"What?" I asked, looking at Kyanos, who only grinned.

"Since you're new in town and you won the fight, why don't I show you something cool?" He asked. "We've got a special guest in Arena Three. If you want, I'll get you her autograph."

"If you ask her, she'll break your face again," Ulaan said, but didn't seem interested in leaving anymore. He eyed me for a moment, ponderingly. "Are you tired?"

"Not really," I shrugged after a moment's hesitation, wondering if that was rude to say after a fight. "Why? Who's there?"

XxXXxX

​

"Pyrrha Nikos." Kyanos said, nodding his head towards the fighter sparring in the arena. "Three time winner of the Mistral Regional Tournament looking to break the record with a fourth. She's an old friend of mine."

"Old friend?" I asked Melanie without taking my eyes off the fight. She fought several opponents at once, much as I had, but for her it was four against one, rather than three.

"She hates him," She explained, sounding bored.

"Why?"

"I honestly don't remember," Kyanos mused, frowning. "It was something about…something?"

"Informative," Ulaan grunted.

"You hurt one of her friends in her first tournament," Melanie reminded, though Kyanos' face was blank. "Third round? That one guy?"

"Need I remind you who made it to the finals?" He asked, shrugging at my look. "There were a lot of guys who got their asses kicked."

"You…" Melanie waved her hand irritated, going quiet for a moment. At last, she suggested. "Broke his arms? Or maybe his legs?"

"You're gonna need to be more specific," He said, again shrugging under my gaze. "You fight in the big league tournaments, that type of thing happens. You lose when your Aura drops into the red, right? Because that means its low enough that you might get hurt if you continue, you see?"

"Yeah," I said when he seemed to be waiting for a reply.

"But the thing is, all that stuff's relative," He continued. "It's based on percentage—how much of your total Aura you have and all that. And that's all well and good if it's between two equals and such, but if it's between someone on their way to Haven and some newbie…well, it's not that hard to knock someone from half-full to empty in one hit. Nikos down there knocked, like, three—"

"Four," Melanie corrected, pursing her lips.

"Four people out of her first tournament like that," Kyanos corrected before pausing to consider it. "Though they were kind of losers, from what I remember. Still, if you knock someone to empty, the rest of the force hits their bodies, so injuries aren't uncommon, even if they suck. You're expected not to hurt anyone too badly, but nobody makes a fuss over some broken arms."

"They made a fuss over this," She shook her head. "There was a lot of news about the Champion's injured friend for a while, remember?"

"No, I don't remember," Kyanos sounded annoyed. "How is it you remember what happened to…whoever, but don't remember what she did to me? You don't see me holding a grudge."

"Well, your father called in a healer to put you back together. Even with the delays, you were up and walking again in a week," Melanie shrugged. "He wasn't. There were complications because of…something and he took a while to heal. I think he might have missed a year?"

"Yeah?" He frowned to himself, looking down before shaking his head in irritation. "God, I still don't remember."

"That's probably why she hates you," I noted and Melanie nodded in agreement.

"It was one guy," He said. "Just some dude from the third round of one tournament I competed in four years ago! And I had a concussion by the time that thing was over! Hell, do either of you remember his name? Or who you fought in the third round?"

"No," Ulaan said, doing his best to ignore the conversation and watch the fight. Kyanos looked vindicated by his words nonetheless.

"Of course I do," Melanie said—probably just to be contradictory, as she fell silent immediately after. Under Kyanos' expectant gaze, her mouth twitched once, twice, before she blurted. "It started with a 'P.'"

Kyanos snickered at that, before looking back at the area and sighing.

"So something like that happened, huh?" He sighed. "God, I feel old saying it, but four years seems like so long ago now. Four years ago, I hadn't even gotten into Sanctum."

Four years ago, I hadn't even failed to get into Signal. He was right; four years did seem like a long time ago. Hell, four months seemed like a long time ago, now, but back then…most of my sisters had still come by home from time to time—checking in on me, they said, though in hindsight they'd probably just been worried that I would be starting Mom's training soon. Of course, that had never happened, because I wasn't…I hadn't been…

God, the memories were so vivid, the feelings they invoked so real, yet that could have been another life it felt so far away. Not even four months and look how much I'd changed, how far I'd come, what I'd done…

Maybe that was why I nudged Kyanos.

"If it bothers you, why don't you apologize?" I asked, the words at once optimistic and vaguely sad. "Even if it's just words and she doesn't forgive you, you can still try, right?"

He sighed, leaning against the railing.

"I guess," He mused. "I'm not used to apologizing for kicking ass, though."

"Think of it as apologizing for making her kick your ass," Ulaan suggested. "Repeatedly. In front of thousands of people. Being in such close proximity to the embarrassment you made of yourself must have been agonizing for her."

"Patty…" Melanie murmured. "No, not…Patrick? Pre…per…? Damn it, I know this!"

"Wow," Kyanos shook his head. "Sometimes I forget how horrible all my friends are. You guy's suck. In fact, you know what? Screw both of you. Jaune, you're my new friend, okay?"

"Uh," I said. "Sure?"

"Cool," He said, even as he frowned to himself, looking concerned. "Also, you can just heal me if she breaks my arm again, so it's fine, right?"

"I suppose," I nodded hesitantly as I looked at him. "Although, you…might want to wait until you remember the guy's name."

"Yeah," He nodded slowly. "It's waited four years, it can wait another day or two. Right? Right."

"Prasino!" Melanie blurted. "His name was Prasino, I'm sure of it!"

She furrowed her eyebrows, frowning.

"Probably."

"Probably?" Kyanos asked, lifting an eyebrow.

Melanie's expression shifted to one of annoyance almost instantly.

"It was four goddamn years ago and I never even met the guy," She sniffed. "I'm pretty sure his name was Prasino and you don't remember a damn thing, so you can go fuck yourself. Go get the shit kicked out of you by Nikos again for all I care."

He nodded quietly, considering her.

"Yeah," He said, drawing the word out. "I think I'll wait to look it up. But speaking of getting broken by Nikos!"

He turned to face me with a smile, pointing at me with a lazy gesture.

"You want to try your luck against the reigning champ, Roma?" He asked, wiggling his eyebrows.

"What?" I asked, blinking.

He nodded at the arena. In the time it had taken us to finish talking, the red haired girl had finished off her opponents without taking a scratch and looked no different than she had when she first entered the ring.

"I figured, hey, you're a pretty good fighter; want to try your luck against the champ?"

"Here?" I wondered, though Kyanos just waved the concerns away.

"Everyone knows Pyrrha will take on all comers—if you're brave or stupid enough to want to fight her, she'll gladly kick your ass."

"Even when her tournament's so soon?" I asked. "If she's going for four in a row, wouldn't she want to be fresh?"

He snorted.

"Who knows?" He said. "Personally, I doubt she really cares one way or another. What about you?"

I looked down at the ring. Even though I'd been a bit distracted by the conversation, I'd seen enough of the battle—if you could even call such a one-sided fight a battle—to know she was good. In fact, if she'd won three times, it was safe to assume she'd be the strongest fighter in the tournament. So really…there was no point wasting time, when I could just fight the champion. Winning the tournament didn't mean anything to me, apart from the fun it could bring—but if I could just skip to the best part…

"Sure," I said, leaning forward to rest my elbows on the railing. I nodded to myself after a moment, deciding. "Yeah, sounds like fun. It's really okay, right?"

"Um," Said Kyanos, smiling brightly before looking suddenly uncertain even as Ulaan just smirked, unsurprised. "…You sure, dude? Because, like…I want to see this. A lot. But as your newly appointed friend, I feel like I should warn you before letting you run headlong into danger. Because I got my ass kicked by both of you, but she kicked it a lot harder."

"So you were gonna just throw him to the wolves before?" Melanie asked, rolling her eyes.

"Nah, I like him," Kyanos said, punching my shoulder. "I'd have given him fair warning before setting up the camera and placing bets—but you've gotta get pounded into the ground by Nikos at least once. It's tradition."

Ulaan and Melanie both frowned at the apparent reminder.

"Besides, I can't very well throw a wolf to the wolves, can I, Roma?" He asked, looking at my again and glancing me up and down. "Yeah—you're a healer; you'll be fine. And you were holding back some, right?"

I shrugged.

"Maybe a little bit," I said.

"That's the spirit," He nudged me again. "The sons of the Families can't coast through life on our stunning good looks alone, right?"

"That is sadly true," Ulaan admitted, lifting a hand in concession.

I smiled a bit at that, even while Melanie rolled her eyes.

"But you're sure?" Kyanos asked me.

I looked out into the area, contemplatively.

The Invincible Girl

LV47

Pyrrha Nikos

"Yeah," I said. "I'm sure."

He looked me over one more time and nodded sharply.

"Hey, Nikos!" He suddenly shouted before extending his hands as if to present me. "A challenger has appeared!"

XxXXxX