Cooperative

The Games We Play

Cooperative

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I rolled my eyes at my new friend's antics and stepped up onto the railing, allowing myself to fall down into the ring. I landed lightly and strode forward with confidence, drawing closer to the three-time champion. Pyrrha's eyes focused on the trio behind me for a moment—or perhaps just Kyanos, I didn't bother checking—and then shifted to me, watch me draw nearer. I meet her gaze and nodded in acknowledgement when I'd drawn near enough.

"Hello," I greeted, waving slightly. "Jaune Arc, at your service."

"Pyrrha Nikos," She replied, giving me a small smile. Her heart didn't seem to be in it, however, and it faded quickly. She glanced over my head again before looking at me, contemplatively. A tad belatedly, she added. "It's a pleasure to meet you."

I nodded in thanks and waited for her to continue. I could see the question in her eyes, but waited for her to give it voice.

"So," She finally asked, voice wryly. "How'd you get dragged into this? If they're making you fight…"

"Ah," I said, casting a look over my shoulder before explaining calmly. "It's nothing like that. I'm just looking to have a good time. It's my first night in Mistral and they're…showing me around? Well, something like that."

"You're here for the tournament?" She asked, looking at me a bit differently.

"Yeah, sort of," I said, shrugging a shoulder. "I'm not really the tournament type, but I was gonna be in town with my mom anyway and it seemed like fun, you know? But then they told me you were the champion the last three times and that you were accepting challenges. Aren't you?"

"I am," She confirmed, before hesitating. "If you understand what it means."

"That you're the champion for a reason?" I asked, shrugging. "I get it. Well, I only signed up for the tournament for the memories, you know? But if I could fight the champ instead, that'd be even better, is kind of what I was thinking."

She seemed to consider that for a moment before accepting it.

"I won't hold back," She warned. "Are you sure?"

"That's cool," I shrugged again, looking around before putting a hand to Crocea Mors, where it hung at my side. "It's just for fun, right? So let's have fun."

At that, she gave me an honest smile.

"Very well," She said. "I would be happy to be your opponent."

"Practice weapons or live?" I asked. Practice weapons were the norm for…well, practice, as they lacked the horrific lethality that tended to characterize the instruments of Hunters and combat schools—that is to say, they minimized the chances of someone dying if something went wrong. However, it wasn't uncommon for Hunters to spar against one another with their actual weapons; it was sort of the norm, even. To apply Kyanos' words, I suppose it worked for those who were strong enough not to be knocked out instantly and, hopefully, smart enough to surrender before running out of Aura. Kyanos, Melanie, Ulaan, and I could probably have spared that way, it was just that they'd come to meet me unarmed, so as not to seem threatening. I'd put aside Crocea Mors to make things a bit more even, but for a fight like this…

She opened a hand towards me, wordlessly giving me the choice.

I smiled a bit at that and drew Crocea Mors, letting the sheath unfold into a shield as she silently brought her own weapons to her hands. A gleaming Dipylon shield and a xiphos, if I recalled correctly, both colored red and gold. She held her shield between us, lifted high enough for her to be able to move it into a blocking position swiftly, but not high enough to impede her field of vision. Her sword was held…not at ease, per se, for it was obviously at the ready, but her stance…

If I had to guess from how she was standing, I'd say she'd probably lead with her shield, whether by defending to make an opening that her sword would exploit or using it to knock me back. In its own way, her stance was like a mirror of mine; I held my shield close, ready to defend if needed, but I lead with my sword—regardless of what jokes that probably left me open to. I could take a hit thanks to my layered defenses and healing ability, while Bai Hu's art had gotten me used to being on the offensive. I was better suited for it, besides.

So when she didn't make the first move, my instinctual reaction was to attack. Going by her stance, it seemed safe to assume she'd attempt to block instead of dodge, hoping to tie up my weapon for a moment and strike. But if I stacked enough skills behind a single attack, hit her hard enough to throw her off balance…

Assuming I could hit her hard enough to throw her off balance. It would be foolish to assume nobody had ever thought of that before, but here she was, three-time champ. If she'd built her fighting style at least partially around a shield, it seemed likely she'd probably invested some time and effort into actually using it. In fact, the simple fact that she wasn't going on the offensive implied a lot. It was possible—maybe even likely—that she was going easy on me despite her words, but I didn't think that'd make her fight stupidly. If she was doing this, there was a reason.

I took a step to the side, watching her react to the sound—or, rather, her lack of reaction to the sound. I relaxed as I walked a slow quarter-circle around her, lowering my shield slightly and shifting my grip on my sword. It was a confident stride, an inviting one, opening me to an attack.

But she didn't take it. She held her position for the slow seconds that I moved, ready to attack but not doing so. She wanted me to attack first. A trap? A test? I wasn't sure, but basic logic said that if your enemy wanted you to do something, it probably wasn't to your benefit to oblige her. It would be better to draw things out, to let minutes pass and force her to make the first move; if needed, I was pretty sure I had the patience to outlast pretty much anyone. Or perhaps I should try a ranged attack and see how she responded.

Instead, I attacked her, exactly how she wanted. Part of it was curiosity; if it was a trap, then springing it would probably reveal something about how she fought. Another part thought that it would be good to determine early on how much she could withstand, to build further plans off of. But the biggest part? It wanted to test my strength against hers, to see how I compared. Remembered that this was just a sparring match, just a game, and wanted to have fun.

Perhaps an instant after I started forward, she moved, rushing to meet me in the middle. I brought down Crocea Mors a bit earlier then I planned and the sword rang against her shield, a shockingly loud sound as my skills multiplied the force over and over again. I saw her arm sink slightly beneath the force of the blow, but I was moving before the blow even truly connected, senses crying out in warning. As she blocked the blow from above, Pyrrha herself had gone below, sliding under her shield to swing at my legs. I tried to step back, but the sword suddenly extended into a javelin that she used to sweep my feet out from under me.

Fortunately, my brain was moving faster than my body. A last minute adjustment with Levant turned a fall into a flip and I landed on my shield, rolled to one knee, and blocked a thrust of her javelin that sent me skidding back. As it did, I moved with the force, sliding to my feet as I came to a halt and immediately pressing forward as Pyrrha spun with the blow. I caught it on my shield again and spun with it myself, turning to bring a blow up at her head. She caught it on her shield and shrink her weapon back down to a sword she tried to stab me with, which I shielded against in turn.

For a moment, we strained against one another, a simple battle of strength. I thought her base physical strength was probably greater than my own, but was pretty sure my passive skills gave me better increases—whatever the case, I stalemated her long enough to brace myself with Levant and try to kick at her legs.

An instant later, my senses were screaming in warning again. I felt a sharp point and sudden weight on my thigh as she literally stepped onto me, but saw the true source of danger as her sword shifted neatly into a new shape—and it was only by all but falling backwards that I avoided looking down the barrel of a rifle. She fired a shot that chipped away at the floor a few feet from my head, but I lifted my shield to cover my head and chest before she could adjust her aim. Three shots rang out in such quick succession that I was only able to distinguish them by the impacts on my shield, even as I lifted my blade to stab at her leg.

By then, she was already in a flip of her own, an arc that I caught only a glimpse of as my danger sense gave me a moment's reprieve and I moved my shield. I pushed away from the ground with one arm, Levant all but pulling me to my feet in a motion that ended with me swinging down at Pyrrha as she landed in a crouch. She brought up her shield in another ringing block and swept her sword at my feet again—but this time I was prepared. I jumped the moment my senses alerted me, a short hop that used my blade as a pivot and the force behind her defense to flip neatly over her, turned midair to land facing her back, and swung down at her head.

Without even looking, she brought her shield up behind her head, but she was on one knee and defending from an awkward position—she had to brace herself against the ground with her sword arm, pommel of the blade against the floor.

She used that to steady it when the blade suddenly expanded back into a spear, length pushing it past her shield and towards the center of my chest. I caught it with my shield again, but with the floor on the other side she leveraged me back, rising with the action to push harder. I planted my feet, shifting to the side to angle the blow away. She didn't even bother pulling the spear back, simply shrinking the blade back to its sword form as she bashed her shield against mine. I spun, caught her blade on my own, and managed to plant my feet quickly enough to push against her while she was still extended, shoving her back. As she pulled her sword closer, I closed in myself and swung hard down at my head.

But what she did next surprised me.

As my sword came down, she raised her shield in an instant and caught my strike as I expected her to—but she blocked it with both arms, releasing her sword at her side in doing so. With my Clairvoyance, I saw it all—how she let go of the weapon, how it spun almost idle circles through the air, how her now free hand came up to grasp the inward curving edge of her shield and help force my attack aside, even how my reflection gleamed in the shield over the course of each passing moment. As steel brushed steel and I tried to pull back, I even saw the fingers of her free hand brush the flat of my blade. Light glimmered against steel, shining from a thousand sources throughout the arena yet seeming suspended as I focused.

Then the moment passed and she spun, using her shield to push away from my blade, retrieving her discarded sword before it even touched the ground and striding away.

I didn't follow. That maneuver had been…beautiful, certainly, and undeniably graceful, but…what surprised me was one simply thing, the moment when she'd let go of her sword to brace her shield with a hand. She'd let it spin through the air for a moment before drawing it back, but…there'd been no true need to let go of it, not really. She could have braced her defense with a sword in hand as easily as without, yet…

It was strange. Something tiny and without any apparent meaning, over in an instant, and yet it seemed so out of place. Pointless, compared to everything else; a needlessly showy addition that stood out starkly compared to the whole. Maybe it was only because I noticed everything in such vibrant detail—

Vibrant detail, I thought, noticing something. In the dozens of lights that glittered on the surface of my weapons, there were four out of place. Off-color, they stayed in the same place no matter how the blade moved, markings on the steel.

Four points of light on the flat of Crocea Mors, where Pyrrha's fingers had touched them.

"What…?" I whispered, but didn't have even a second to think about it because Pyrrha was suddenly on the attack. I raised my shield to counter a bash from hers, sliding back a pace as I readied my sword. She came at me shield first again, but I braced myself better this time and though I slide again, I wasn't pushed away. Shield to shield, we both raised our blades, striking around them even as we pulled back our defenses.

Again, I saw every moment—how she slid her shield across mine to raise a defense, the knuckles of her hand dragging across Crocea Mors' surface and leaving trails of light in their wake. How rippling patterns of light appeared in the air, spreading from her hands to the small space between us. Dim Aura marks flashed brightly at their touch.

She shouldn't have been able to bring her shield up quickly enough to block, but my sword seemed to shift ever so slightly as it passed through those waves and she did anyway, stopping the attack even as her own sank into my upper arm. There was a flash of pain before she jerked it back, sword extending into a spear again as she swept my legs out from under me, neither my sword nor shield moving precisely how I wanted them.

I landed flat on my back and I was thinking about it the whole way down. It was subtle—so subtle I couldn't even feel it—but I'd seen it with my Clairvoyance. Given the possibilities of my different forms of sight and what had been affected…

"Magnetism," I breathed quietly as she drew a step away, going back to a defensive stance. She stopped at my words, looking at me in surprise. "Right?"

I rose to my feet and she didn't stop me. I was breathing hard, I noticed absently. It wasn't important, not really, and it faded as I healed myself besides. As I recovered, though, I looked at her face. She didn't look upset or worried, merely…surprised. Even so…

"Did I see something I shouldn't have?" I asked quietly, leaning closer.

She seemed to consider that.

"No, no; it's not really a secret, I suppose," She mused aloud after a moment. "It's simply that its best uses are subtle and I don't talk about it much. You're simply the first to notice."

"Yeah, sorry," I said. "I have really good eyes. It's not a problem, is it? For you, I mean."

"I don't see why it would be," She said. "If you noticed here, you'd have noticed it later."

"I suppose so," I agreed. "Still, I only noticed outside the tournament because you were willing to fight me, so I feel a little bad? Well, if you want, I'll drop out of the tournament and we'll call it even."

"Oh?" She asked, looking surprised again. It was easy enough to guess why.

I shrugged and smiled.

"It doesn't really matter," I said. "I'm more interested in fighting you anyway."

"That's not necessary," She shook her head after a moment, frowning. "We're both learning things from this battle; if you've noticed more, than that's simply because you're more observant. There's no need to apologize for such a thing. Shall we continue?"

I shrugged, accepting her words, and then nodded. Glancing down at Crocea Mors, I considered my options. If her power was based on magnetism, there were several solutions. For a long time now, people had made jokes concerning how magnets work, but actually it's pretty simple. Generally speaking, it's a result of aligned magnetic dipoles, which meant there were several ways to demagnetize something that I could try. Whether they'd work or not would need testing, though, since Aura could work in strange ways. It was up in the air whether any of those methods would stop her, though I could try. With my Elementals and my powers, I could probably figure something out.

But for this…

I sheathed Crocea Mors and placed him back at my side, sending him an apology as I did so.

"I'm sorry, but since you've already marked him," I shrugged with a smile.

"Are you giving up?" She asked, sounding disappointed. "Or do you intend to fight unarmed?"

"Neither," I said. "Do you mind if I try something new?"

"By all means," She said.

I smiled at her gratefully—and then focused power in my hands.

I felt my Aura taking form in my thoughts even as it gathered before my eyes. The part that was visible, that glowed like a shaft of white light to the naked eye, was just a small part of it—most of the power I channeled into it spilt off in other ways, only visible to me because of my Clairvoyance. It was sloppy and wasteful—which really wasn't all that surprising from a first attempt, I suppose—but I peered through the shed energy and wasted power, glimpsing the core held within. The various forms of Clairvoyance came with different effects and benefits and this one, the basic ability to see Aura, gave bonuses to attempts to shape and work with the energy directly; presumably my abilities way of representing me being able to actually see what I was doing instead of grasping for it blindly.

And I saw. I started with something familiar, forming my Magic Missile, and then shrank it carefully into a more compact shape. I'd gotten the idea from Pyrrha's own weapon, but the leap from concept to practice was a tricky one. While I'd lengthened the energy within Magic Missile, I needed something different here and went a different direction. It was hard to describe what it was like to shape energy, but I compressed and folded the power, even if it may not have been obvious from the result, forming both an exterior matrix for the power to fill and an interior lattice of support. On its own, I knew it wouldn't remain in such a state for very long—I could literally see the energy seeping away, after all—but that's why I drew upon Crocea Mors help, matching the pattern of my sheathed blade with my own soul to reinforce the structures with the enduring stability of Metal.

A skill has been created through a special action! Continuous manipulation of mana has created the skill to form magical weapons, 'Vorpal Sword.'

I exhaled, allowing the somewhat misshaped creation to fade and crafted a new one as I took a breath. The result, as expected, was a much smoother length of pure white energy, if not precisely how I'd envisioned an energy sword—in the center of the wildly radiating energy around its length, it appeared more like a cylinder topped with a cone-like point then a flat plane, which didn't seem precisely optimal when it came to a blade. Nonetheless, I trusted my power not to lead me astray and promptly created a second one in my other hand. I'd never tried dual-wielding swords and there were many reasons why it wasn't a great choice in really life, but hell; I was a game character. If nothing else, I'd probably get a dual-wielding skill at some point, so there was no reason not to. I had MP to burn, after all.

Through it all, Pyrrha watched me closely, the barest hint of a furrow on her brow.

"I learn fast," I said, shrugging under her gaze before her words surprised me.

"You said you had good eyes, too," She mused. "What exactly is it that you see?"

"…Who knows?" I shrugged at last, giving her a flight smile. "Various things, I suppose."

She nodded once, seeming to accept that as…something, and lifted her weapon again.

"Shall we continue, then?" She asked.

I attacked her by way of reply, a slow, telegraphed move that she defended against with her sword even after moving her body out of the way, positioning it as a test we both wanted to see the results of. Her sword blocked the attack as if it were from any other blade, which was a bit pity. On the other hand, the blades themselves didn't shatter in the process or anything, which was nice. They seemed to function like normal blades, despite their appearance, though I'd need to read the profile later.

With that confirmed, we began in earnest. I swept my right sword in an arc, leaving a glowing flash through the space it traveled as I did. She came forward, shield pushing the blow aside even as she stabbed upwards with her sword, but I defended in turn by swiftly reversing my grip on the left blade by letting go of it and turning it around with a thought. Holding it backwards, it was close to the skin of my arm and I pushed her sword aside, evading the strike and the follow up when it turned back into a spear.

Even so, my senses cried out in warning and I was stepping back even as Pyrrha shifted her footing, drawing back her spear and thrusting it rapidly in a series of half a dozen strikes in a brief moment. I strode back a step, but it wasn't enough to fully counter the reach of her weapon so I took the hit and used its own force, assisted by Levant, to hurl myself out of the way of its fellows. Landing like a feather, I saw that she'd already shifted from spear to rifle and was aiming at me down the sights.

This time I returned in kind, extending the fingers of my left hand her way, releasing the nonexistent hilt of my new sword and leaving it to float by my forearm. We shot together and Pyrrha had to quickly leap to the side as the ground on which she'd been standing abruptly splintered under the force of my Cannonball. Her shots hit me in the chest, but with my defenses and Crocea Mors still hardening my armor I dismissed it as unimportant and remained focused on her as she rolled over her shield and to one knee, bringing up her rifle to rest the stock against one shoulder. She began firing in a steady, practiced rhythm that sent flashes of pain through me, but I raised a finger and returned fire with Magic Bullets. She immediately brought her shield up to cover almost the entirety of her body, rifle rested on the inward curving portion of the shield. Her body jerked slightly with each impact on the shield, but she didn't back down and she didn't stop shooting.

I switched to Cannonball again, trading ineffective penetration for impact to send her skidding back, releasing the sword in my right hand as well. With my blades hovering in easy reach but both hands free, I struck her again and again, my arms working steadily as if I were throwing the blasts at her—but credit where credit was do, Pyrrha took each blow with a jerk of her shield and little else, pumping bullets into me. I took the hits to my HP, letting them through my Aura now that I'd had time to figure out how, and let them chip away at it while I struck back. But even once Pyrrha had her back to a wall, she took the blows and pushed through them with her iron defense.

Pausing in my attack in annoyance, I healed myself and accepted that I wasn't simply hammering through that guard. I needed something else. Something bigger? Magic Missile might do the trick, but it was risky to use—partially because charging it would take a while, during which she'd probably take notice and either try to stop me or make it really hard to score a hit, but also because if it somehow did hit, I wasn't sure what would happen. I hadn't exactly designed it for use in friendly sparring matches or for upon opponents that I didn't want dead and it tended to punch through anything in its way. It wasn't so much a matter of its power, but…No, it too risky; I needed something different, new.

Or maybe…

Suryasta, I thought. You and I haven't had many opportunities to fight together. Do you want to have some fun now?

The Fire Elemental didn't reply with words, but his spiritual form flickered once, shifting from his place in the stands to right by my side in a fashion similar to looking at something with one eye and shifting to the other. In an instant, the flames I felt from him were calm, the image his presence against my mind invoked one of a beautiful, thriving forest full of potential.

Potential to burn. All it needed was a spark in the right place.

I smashed Pyrrha with another Cannonball, just to make it seem like I was sticking to the pattern, and then called one of my blades to my hand, swiping it at the stadium floor to send up a small wave of tiny, insignificant sparks.

They should have died immediately.

They didn't.

I released the sword in almost the same instant I'd drawn it, lifting a hand to gather power into an Elemental Bolt—but not one of Metal, not a Cannonball. Instead, it was a Fireball that slammed into Pyrrha's shield, the impact minute but scattering flames around her, heating metal. I saw surprise glimmer in her eyes and wasted no time in taking advantage of it. The same hand that I'd extended in her direction swept down in a half circle that left my palm face up and I thrust it upwards as Suryasta's eyes flashed, a column of fire rising in a sudden rush.

Pyrrha was already in the air, leaping away at the first sign of danger—and in doing so, left the literal frying pan for the metaphorical fire.

Levant.

I flipped my hand over so the palm faced the ground as my Air Elemental appeared out of…well, thin air. Another Elemental Bolt formed, an invisible gathering of force that rose above Pyrrha with little more than a shimmer of the air and then knocked her roughly back down to earth. The moment she slammed into the ground, my other hand came up, a sudden Cannonball throwing the off-balance warrior hard into the wall. I didn't let up or show mercy, but followed it immediately with a pair of Fireballs that set the area around her on fire.

My fingers curled as if grasping the air or pulling something invisible together. Flames brightened as air gathered, feeding them until—

Boom. The flames rose into an explosion in a flood of heat, light, and noise that I felt even ten meters away. For the person at the center of it, I could only imagine.

No sooner had that thought crossed my mind then a spear—Pyrrha's spear—flew from the flames. I reacted even before I saw it, senses alerting me to danger before I saw it, and in an instant my blades were in hand and rising to my defense.

It wasn't enough. As if to mock the attempt, the spear suddenly quickened in midflight, as if to remind me that being unable to affect my weapons didn't stop her from manipulating her own. It slid smoothly past my defenses, hammering into my chest hard enough to throw me from the center of the arena to the opposite wall and very nearly pound me into it. What seemed like mere moments after, the shield followed, thrown from the still fading smoke like a discus to hammer my head up to my ears in the stone behind me. I jerked once in pain and immediately tried to stand upright, knowing what was coming—

Pyrrha landed less than three meters in front of me, catching her shield as it rebounded even as her other hand snatched up her spear with a minor use of her power ensuring both returns to her. She spun as she grasped the weapon, twirling it quickly to slam it hard into the side of my head, sending me straight to the ground in pain.

But pain fades, especially for me. I hit the ground; I got right back up, weapons still in hand. As she came at me again, blows hastened by her power, I met her full force. Aware that her blows could change in speed and direction, I didn't bother to block, shifting completely to offense just to get some room. She ducked beneath a swing while my other hand released my sword, open hand extending towards her chest. Her shield arm came up so fast she must have dragged it with her control of the metal, slamming hard against my wrist as her spear came across my face and then back across my chest. She braced herself against a sudden wind I called, giving me only a fraction of a second to act, but when I sent a pair of Fireballs her way, she bounced her shield off my head as she leapt back, rifle coming up to shoot me in the face as well.

I fell backwards, knocked off my feet, but as I did so I kicked out with a leg and Pyrrha's trajectory abruptly shifted as she was knocked higher. My left hand moved as if to break my fall, but it never touched the floor and neither did I, buoying air gathering beneath me to raise me back to my feet in an instant. The same hand came up to smash Pyrrha even higher with a Cannonball and then another as I tried to juggle her, keep her off the ground. I went for a third strike, but she just twisted in the air—pulling herself by her armor, most likely—and threw her spear at me hard.

I knew I couldn't dodge, so I continued the attack and hit her one more time before I was thrown head over heels across the arena. I was stopped by a wall and rose immediately, pain fading thanks to the Gamer's Body; I healed myself as quickly as I could and refocused on my opponent as she landed a bit early then she should have. As she did, I struck her with another Cannonball but with her feet on the ground again, she just withstood it, and I had to Lunge away before she could retaliate. I left my swords hovering by my arms and leapt swiftly from point to point, pausing only long enough to attack once before moving again. In contrast, she stayed in position in the center, moving her shield to counter each time, unless I sent a Fireball her way. She quickly adapted to my movements in my pattern around the arena and began to strike back, rifle firing in short, controlled bursts each time I paused and before long, she was hitting more than she missed, bullets curving slightly in the air to strike me.

New plan, I thought, abruptly stopping to lift both hands. I gathered my power again and gave it shape, first in my thoughts and then in reality. Suryasta appeared without needing to be called, smiling serenely. He lifted his hands in a mirror to my own, guiding what I was creation. I remembered the first time I'd done something like this, on a whim beside a river, but this was different from Magic Missile—had to be different, because of its very nature. The control and structure I'd created with Metal wouldn't work with Fire, so I took a different approach.

It started as a sphere about the same size as any of my Fireballs and Pyrrha immediately dodged, but nothing came her way. Instead, it swelled, growing swiftly until it was as wide across as I was tall—and it kept growing, rising like the sun above my head. The lighting in the room changed in moments, shadows spiraling away from the massive new source of light as the temperature skyrocketed until even I began to sweat.

To my Clairvoyance, such a thing meant a rush of colors and shapes through swaths of the Electromagnetic Spectrum, but even through all that, I saw Pyrrha, face shocked and alarmed. She drew her rifle and shot me steadily, guiding the bullets towards me, but I ignored them now, dismissing the pain. Levant congealed in front of me, pleasant smile on her invisible face even as she rose to my defense. Suddenly, the bullets started missing me or hitting more defended areas, Crocea Mors working to shore up such defenses. A second passed, two, and then her rifle shifted into a spear again. She looked ready to throw it for a moment and Vulturnus joined my side, ready to aid my defense, but in the end she just glanced above me and mouthed something before charging right at me.

She probably thought I wouldn't risk using such a technique in close proximity.

I laughed at the very thought and brought it down on us both.

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