Next Time

"Walter!" Ajax cried out as he saw the man's form go flying through the air at a ridiculous speed, limbs flailing wildly. "Fuck."

Ajax sprang from his seat within the small private seating area that they allowed for the teams to watch, racing down the stairs only a few metres away and bursting through the doors in the waiting room leading into the Arena itself.

As Ajax barrelled through the doors, he found the section of the Arena's wall sliding open, inviting him inside as a booming voice assailed his ears.

"Team A, disqualified by death blow rule infraction." As Willems words radiated throughout the arena, reverberating teeth in the heads of all present, Ajax's mind went wild. Had he just witnessed someone be killed in front of him? His own teammate? Ajax pulled subconsciously on the power of his axe, who was all too willing to grant it to him. His legs rocketed him forth towards the cloud of sand where Walter had been thrown.

"Walt!" Ajax called out as he reached the cloud, pushing through the unsettles sand, somehow capable of sitting in the air and getting into every nook and cranny as soon as you submerged yourself in it. Ajax frantically dug through the cloud to find Walter's form within in, laid on the ground at the foot of the wall; crushed in every sense of the word.

Ajax's first aid training kicked in, allowing him to immediately get the man to the recovery position, observing for breathing and any other signs of life. Though, Ajax wasn't hung in suspense for long, as the light movement made Walter groan with pain—a strange thing to be relieved by, but it was better than no response at all.

"Walter, you've just been hit really hard." Ajax said, his tone warm and comforting, "Can you tell me what just happened?" Walter responded with a groan that was a mush of seven different words, coming across as completely incomprehensible so Ajax. He was about to ask the boy another question, but a strong hand gripped him on his powerful shoulder.

"Good effort, kid. Time to let me do my job though, yeah?" Ajax whipped around to see a bedraggled looking man somewhere in his late twenties, though he looked much older because of the pure essence of exhaustion Ajax found on his face. The man was dressed in a general uniform that much of the staff can be seen in unless they are trainers or other personnel. However, instead of the neutral blue or green that the other uniforms came in, this was a white and red uniform—the symbolism obvious.

Ajax quickly moved away, not dumb enough to deny the medic his space. The older man gave Ajax a succinct nod, then moved in on Walter and looked him over quickly. In a few moments, the man grabbed at Walter's right arm, the one that had been crushed by his opponent's telekinetic force. The bone of Walter's forearm was totally shattered, sitting oddly at a fraction of its normal length, much of the splintered bone sticking from the skin at odd angles.

"Alright kiddo, this is gonna fuckin' hurt. On three." The man didn't even get to one. All in a single movement, the man pulled on Walter's wrist. Ajax could barely force himself to look, but as the medic pulled, there was a strange suctioning sound as Walter's bone pieces were pulled back into his flesh easily, sealing over as the obstruction was removed. Only a second after, you could hear a terrible grating and crunching noise from within Walter's arm, hearable even over the man's pained howls.

Ajax winced at the screaming, but sustained through it, watching the Linked medic work whatever he was doing on Walter's body. In only another moment, Walter's arm was totally fine, and in the next few moments the medic managed to clear up some other injuries like a few terrible looking impact wounds, another broken bone or two, and finally a patch of skin that had the equivalent of a terrible carpet burn.

"Good stuff." The man said with a small hint of satisfaction as he looked down at his patient's form. Walter was hardly looking good, but it was the difference between looking like a broken doll and having been beat up pretty bad.

"Alright, you're his teammate, right?" The medic turned to Ajax with a questioningly look.

"Uh, yeah. Ajax." Ajax said quickly, putting out a hand which was promptly shaken.

"Tom," he said, introducing himself, "now, you're going to need to keep an eye on him for a little while. He can sleep just fine now, I've reset his concussion, but his body is going to be in a really weird state for a good two days. You'll need to help feed him and help him throw up whatever gunk his body wants to get rid of now that I've gone in and messed around, alright?"

Ajax recoiled from the blast of instruction the medic had given him but ended up nodding once his brain managed to find its stride.

"Yeah, sure. Anything else I need to think about?" Tom hummed with though for a second before his eyes lit up, clapping his hands together in a moment of remembrance.

"Right! You'll also need to feed him twice his energy sachets a day. He'll barely be able to stomach it, but they absorb in fifteen minutes, so make sure he doesn't throw up until after that or you'll have to give him another." Tom gave Ajax a pat on the shoulder before starting his trip back to a small service door in a different side of the Arena.

"Stay safe, kid."

Ajax watched the man go, eventually deciding to take Walter back to the waiting room to rest, seeing as his match was up next. He scanned the Arena angrily but was unable to catch a glimpse of the other man who'd hurt Walter this bad. Though, right next to where Walter had been laying after being released from the telekinetic's grip, there was a massive hand imprinted into the sand. It made a lot of sense that the telekinetic's manifestation of his link was a hand, but it somehow made the act even more eerie.

"I've got Walter." Ajax said as he used his shoulder to push open the door to the waiting room, finding Mira, Aaliyah, and Willem inside.

"Is he alright?" Willem said quietly, his voice sounding a little constricted. Ajax almost wanted to be angry at the man, for letting this happen to one of his own trainees but couldn't find it within himself. Willem had told the team that his hands were tied, and that he could only be so helpful in the match, especially with the other trainer, Domain, breathing down his neck the entire time.

"Tom, the medic, fixed him up and said he needs to be looked after for a few days." Willem nodded severely.

"Tom does good work; Walter will be feeling much better in a few hours. The question is whether we want to call the match now." Ajax looked up from Walter's body with a little shock, Aaliyah and Mirah doing the same. Willem stared at each of them quietly before continuing, "I have grounds to stop the matches now. It wouldn't look good on your rap sheets, and the AASAU might even be able to penalise you if they really want to." Aaliyah scoffed loudly.

"Which they will, because the gang freaks have a hate boner for us." As inelegant as the phrasing might be, she wasn't wrong. Ajax didn't know what the AASAU would be able to penalise them with, but if Willem was bringing it up at all, it was probably nothing nice. Willem closed his eyes, scrunching his bushy brows with consternation for a few moments.

"I'll continue." Ajax said finally, making the trainer look up at him solidly. Willem was shorter than Ajax by a few inches more than a foot, but Ajax couldn't help but feel that the man could always look at him levelly.

"I will." Mirah's quiet voice concurred, almost frightening the other two teammates. She was always so passive and silent that whenever she spoke, it was if their minds here completely re-instituting her existence into their perception. Willem went quiet as he looked between the two willing combatants.

"Fine then." He said stoically, but quickly turned to Ajax, "Your fight will be in five minutes. Prepare."

The stocky man strode out of the room faster than his frame would have you believe possible, walking out towards the corridors rather than the Arena itself. Ajax wondered how the referees even got up onto that massive balcony that stretched over top of the Arena itself.

"I wonder if it has fingerprints." Aaliyah's voice mused, startling Ajax and Mirah out of their own thoughts, Mirah previously looking down at the quietly snoring form of Walter who was twitching restlessly.

"What?" Ajax said dumbly as he stared at the tall blonde girl, expression incredulous.

"The hand." She said thoughtfully, even going to far as to place a hand on her chin, "I wonder if it has fingerprints." Ajax looked at Aaliyah in dumbstruck silence for a few moments, before rubbing his face over with his hand, unable to stop the chuckles from leaking out of his lips.

"Seriously?" He asked, poignantly, "That's what you're focusing on right now? Whether the telekinetic hand has fingerprints or not?"

"Yeah, why not?" Aaliyah said, eyebrow raised, "It's interesting!"

After a long moment of silence, Ajax raised his hands to his cheeks and slapped against his face, letting a loud bark of laughter fill the room. He grabbed at the axe at his side, reassuring himself that it was still there, and then began to walk out of the room towards the Arena's doors.

"Aaliyah, you take care of Walter. I'll be back in a bit." There was a squawk of indignation from Aaliyah, who had been spontaneously laden with responsibility for her crimes, but Ajax walked out of the room too fast for her to truly respond to him.

He walked out into the centre of the Arena, lumbering forward through the wide area of sand. He found himself on the starting spot, a piece of the arena that was made of more compact material than sand, allowing for a small painted on black circle. Ajax sat heavily on top of it, releasing the axe from its holster at his side and placing it across his lap, letting time pass by—preparing himself for the fight to come.

"The fight begins in thirty seconds!" Domain's voice called, but Ajax ignored it, knowing that only now would his opponent be walking through their own doors. Ajax wasn't a fool, he knew who his opponent would be, the other man too proud to pick anyone other than himself. When Ajax looked up towards the light steps, he could hear approaching, it only confirmed his surety.

Before him stood a tall blonde, his blue eyes burning with a malice that only his predatory grin could do any justice.

"Good to see you again, Axe idiot." The man called, Jeremy Baxter being his name, "Have you been enjoying the effects of your little scuffle so far?"

Ajax didn't respond, letting the time trickle by as the beeping began.

"Ten seconds remain until the match begins!" Domain called again, though the voice was completely ignored by both of the men in the Arena, Ajax staring into the other man's eyes with his own coal black eyes. The beeping counted down till the last moment, yet before the final, long beep sounded, Ajax's voice rang out in the Arena.

"I'm going to slap you." Jeremy Baxter's face scrunched in immediate confusion, but as soon as the long beep sounded, Ajax's hand flew.

Ajax's axe was a simple thing, only caring so much about how many it was protecting, but sometimes the rules could be bent. So as Ajax's mind was absolutely set on retribution, on a clear counterattack to the vicious mauling that Jeremy Baxter had brought upon his teammate, his axe responded in kind.

With a dep thrum of power, Ajax's hand burst forward at superhuman speed, connecting with Jeremy Baxter's face with a mighty crack. However, that was hardly the end of Ajax's supplied power. Baxter's tall but skinny form was sent flying at a sharp angle, parallel to the ground, skimming against the sand like you would skip a flat stone across water.

Ajax had felt something crack underneath his glorified palm-strike, likely the other man's jaw. But Ajax didn't care. He had accomplished what he'd wanted to, and as Jeremy Baxter's body slammed into the Arena's wall, much like Walter had, the axe's power ebbed away from Ajax's grasp.

Ajax didn't have to wait long for the reaction to his blow as the crowd at the edges of the Arena, who had almost stayed silent throughout the matches, sucked in a collective breath.

However, even as that breath was being taken, Ajax spotted a quick flash of movement out of the corner of his eye. Ajax tried to make himself move quick enough, but the fist was already embedded into his gut, then three others in immediate succession. Ajax counted eight more blows, kicks, and punches, all of which he had no capability of blocking, any power he'd possessed leaking from his hands like water.

"That hurt." The menacing voice called out from behind Ajax, yet even as Ajax whipped around to stare at the boy, Jeremy's form blurred into a streak of black and blonde—the next indication of his whereabouts only being a knee slamming into Ajax's chin.

Ajax had no time to react, only capable of shielding himself from the blows as each subsequent blow forced him to his knees, then finally forcing him to shield over his head. Jeremy Baxter could move faster than Ajax could see, each blow feeling as if he were being hit with a sledgehammer, multiple times a second.

A few times, Ajax tried to grab out at the other man's leg, but only resulted in having his fingers attacked by the ludicrously fast man. Ajax was simply waiting now, allowing each blow to hit without contest. His axe only gave him enough power to protect himself from his ribs and breaking, but if the man had anything more than his limbs to work with as weapons, Ajax's flex would be rendered off his bone within moments.

It was then that the beep sounded, the same one that Aaliyah had surrendered to, despite being inside a ball of limbs, and the same one that Walt had never made it to. If Ajax could be called anything, it was resilient.

"I surrender." Ajax called, his voice booming against the searing pain that burnt in seemingly every muscle his body had to spare, and thus the match was called with Willem's own voice booming out afterwards, forcing Ajax's opponent to stop senselessly pummelling him.

"Well then." The malice filled voice said, his voice only a little impeded by a breathiness you'd expect from a light jog, "That was a good bit of stress release. Maybe next time I'll knock you out, if I'm bored."