The Son of Soul Gear Part 6

"Welcome to the second day of the Spring Festival Tournament!" The announcer begun, "This is the fourth match of the round of 16! This is a match between Alex Belworth, an elite rank-a sharpshooter, she has a near 100% accuracy in all her matches, shooting to kill, and she will be fighting with her SGT, Deadshot!" She rose her arm and the crowd cheered for her. She had a serious face and she was staring right through him, "The next fighter is Victor Angelic, a rank-d fighter who was a total unknown to the tournament game until yesterday when he proved his heart against Catherine Guntbert, beating her in the first round via technical knockout with a single massive punch, decimating Horned Bruiser and earning him a spot in today's match," The crowd cheered a little, he returned the stare down but staring dead in her eyes, she suddenly seemed a little less confident, "Judges, to you."

"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!"

"I'll use five rounds to end you."

"Bring it," He put his hands on the ground, "Lasgi, full power, no limiter," The plates on his SGT's arm moved and blue electricity sparked from the ground into his SGT. He lifted his eyes and looked at her dead in the eyes. She aimed and fired a round from her railgun, a massive blue beam sped towards him. But before hitting him he dodged, creating a blur of himself. Lasgi's maximum speed surpassed bullet speed, giving him the possibility to dodge them. She flipped down a visor and scanned the arena.

"Incredible! Victor was able to dodge Deadshot's round, he is really packing monstrous power and speed in that SGT!" He began running around her. He turned in towards her and shoulder bashed her as he passed her, sending her off balance to the floor. He stopped and was hopping around on the spot as she got up. He shrugged and dodged her round again as it whizzed past his head. He appeared behind her and grabbed her SGT under its shoulders. He bridged backwards and slammed her down into the ground behind her. Instead of letting go, he flipped back over and repeated it several times, and then moved his arms down to her waist and picked her up and slammed her backwards to the ground. She didn't have time to dodge or shoot. He spun onto his knees and picked her up before flipping her and slamming her onto her shoulders on the floor in front of him. He rolled backwards and got up. The count started, 25, 24, 23, she rose up quickly. He held out his hand and showed her 3 fingers, she had said she would end him with five rounds, she had fired two of them. She gritted her teeth and fired another round slightly to the left, it wasn't a beam round this time, she use the three seconds to change ammunition in her gun. He grabbed the bullet and held it in his hand.

"It's an explosive round, maybe you could use it against her, since the explosive trigger hasn't registered yet."

"How would I do that?"

"Hit her back with it and boom, it would activate."

"Okay, if you say so, add a limiter."

"What output do you want?"

"Double S."

"Okay, you will lose a lot of speed."

"I am going airborne."

"Okay, I activate the boosters," He felt himself slow down and the boosters on the back of his shoulders activated and the boosters on his feet lifted him into the air. He saw her take aim and the barrel of the gun charge up, "Focus my armor on my left arm," The plates focus on his left arm and created a shield. The bullet fired. It flew towards him, she had predicted the place he would be during the flight of the bullet and where to hit. The bullet slammed into the side of his shield, but nothing pierced through. The plates moved back to their original spot and he dived bombed towards her. She pulled a smaller gun and fired several rounds at him. His speed increased, aided by gravity and four booster. He slammed into her, shoulder first and the explosion detonated. The impact flung her back, landing hard on the floor. She rolled a few meters and then stopped. The explosion had flung him back. He stood up quickly and stood near her. The count started, 25, 24, 23, 22, 21, 20, she got to her hands and knees. He ran forwards and slammed a kick into the side of her SGT, projecting her against the wall of the arena. The crowd gasped at the violence of his attack. The count restarted, 25, 24, 23, 22, 21, 20, 19, she started getting up again. He gritted his teeth and moved over her and slammed his foot down on her SGT. The crowd hesitated to react, whether to cheer or to boo his attacks. He picked her up by her waist and slammed her backwards, shoulders to the floor and got up afterwards. A bell rang.

"End of round 1! Fighters return to your sides," She wasn't moving from the ground. He kneeled down next to her and saw that she had passed out entirely, he deactivated his SGT and walked onto her SGT and placed Lasgi's glove against her eyepatch's metallic decoration. Her SGT deactivated and he caught her as she fell to the floor. He sat her down against the wall of the arena and placed his hand against her neck. He was shoved to the side by the medic team. He shrugged and got back into his SGT and rose his arm. The crowd cheered.

"I have just been informed, due to Alex's inability to continue the fight, the winner is Victor Angelic!" The crowd cheered louder. It was only Victor's second win, yet the crowd enjoyed seeing him win and show that the elites that had been set the years prior, weren't as strong as they thought. He displayed speed, power and timing, nothing that all the elites combined, or at least, none that he had seen yet. He walked with his SGT to his side of the arena, he dismounted and landed on the floor and walked out of the arena.

Like the day before, there was an interviewer waiting for him. He walked into the room and sat down in front of the reporter. He grabbed the bottle of water that was on the table and took a drink, weirdly, the battle had made him extremely tired.

"Hello Victor, before we dive into the questions, how do you feel? You just knocked off the ace shooter, Deadshot, making her miss several shots."

"Well, I am happy that I won, and um."

"Are you tired? Are you happy for your own pride or are you happy because you are proving to the world that a rank-f can't be underestimated?"

"Well, yeah, I am tired, like really tired, I didn't think that the battle would have taken out so much of me," He laughed, "But yeah, I am happy that I am winning, I am proving that I am not what my rank says, and that I am more than that, and that people who think that the rank if important, I think that those people should watch a fight before thinking about that, like I said yesterday, I think that the most important isn't the rank, but what goes on in the arena and the heart or the will to win someone has."

"Do you think Alex deserved her rank?"

"Oh, wow, um, I don't think I can judge that, since I literally just insulted the ranking system, by calling it inaccurate but I think she has heart, she is really, really amazing with her shots, coming from me, people at my school would think that it is a worthless complement but I hope that, if she is fine and if she is watching this, well, I did have to push my SGT and myself to dodge and beat her, and I kinda pushed my aggressiveness a little high as well to keep her down."

"Was it demoralizing to see her push off the floor every time she went down?"

"No, it was actually encouraging me to do more, hit harder and find other ways to stop her."

"So now you are moving to the round of 8, here is a hypothetical question, if you were to make it to the finals, you would be a total underdog, and the favorite in the other group is Clara Kaiser, do you think you would be able to surpass her?"

"I don't know, I prefer not to imagine too many things, I prefer to think of the present before the future, I now want to get into the quarter finals right now, and maybe get something to eat and get a little rest."

"One last question, some reports say that your SGT is an unofficial model, if it is true, what does that mean?"

"I built it myself, I didn't have the money to buy one or have someone build it for me, as you saw, no wings and no ranged weapons, I wasn't good enough for that type of building, at least, when I built it."

"So you are telling me you have no range or hovering possibilities?"

"More or less."

"Yet you are able to beat high power and long range opponents, that is impressive," The reporter said, "This performance will make you rank raise again, you were a rank-f yesterday, now you are a rank-d, how do you feel about that?"

"I honestly don't care, I think that after this competition, other competitions will be pointless for me, and a main part of competitions are the rankings, therefore, I don't care about my ranking, I could remain rank-f and win this competition, or if I do beat Clara and my rank goes up to rank-s, I wouldn't care, nothing against her, but I don't care about ranks."

"Tomorrow, you are going to be facing off against Bella Victoria and her SGT, Iron Tyrant, are you ready for that match?"

"I don't have a choice, so I think I am."

"Thank you very much, Victor, good luck for your fight tomorrow."

"Thank you," Victor got up after the camera stopped filming and walked out of the room, it was the same room as the day before.

He sat down on the same bench, at the same spot, and he did the same thing as the day before. He leaned back and sighed. He was exhausted, even if Lasgi removed 99.9% of weight, he still had to apply a force to move his own Soul Gear Tech's body and add the weight of his opponent and their SGT. He closed his eyes for a little bit and stopped thinking, he listened to each beat of his heart. Tomorrow he was going to face Bella, with Iron Tyrant. He opened his eyes and lifted his glove.

"Lasgi, can you give me some info on Bella and Iron Tyrant?"

"Give me a few seconds to find some information, do you want combat style? Rank? Reason behind her nickname? Details about her SGT?"

"Sure, all of that."

"Okay, give me a few seconds."

"Thanks," He leaned back and sighed, he wasn't used to so much attention, nor so much fighting and such high-level opponents. He noticed someone sit down next to him, "Hey Clara."

"Hi Victor, nice fight."

"Thanks," He turned his head and noticed that she was still in her SGT combat clothes, with a loose pair of pants over her legs, "You fought well as well."

"Do you really not care about ranks?"

"Not really," She looked down at the floor when he said that, "That's not what I meant, I mean that MINE is unimportant to me, I think you being rank-s and being the second best in the world, I think that is impressive, but I don't care about mine, do you get what I mean?"

"Ja, a little, tomorrow you are going to fight Bella," Clara sighed, "Her main strength is her resistance and endurance, all her fights go to decision or last round knockout or submission, never in the first round."

"Yeah, thank you, like, for everything."

"Y-you don't have to thank me, it-it is normal," She blushed and tapped her fingers together. He moved nearer to her, "Can, can you move a little further away from me? You are really close to me."

"Sorry, do you want to go eat something?"

"Ja, ja, sure, it is just past 1, I am starving."

"Then let's go, I'll pay."

"Are you sure?"

"You know I am not poor, right? I might not be as high-class as you but I am not poor," Victor laughed as they got up, "And anyways, why wouldn't I offer to pay, for you?"

"Victor, stop making me nervous like that, it annoys me."

"Does it only annoy you?"

"Not-not entirely, I just don't like it too much."

"Okay, if you say so, do you know where we can go eat? Like are there any good places around here?"

"Ja, follow me," She smiled and skipped ahead of him. He rolled his eyes and caught up with her.