A Truly Heroic Tournament

Roxanne looked up at the gentleman above her and Julian, with Cassandra slowly walking off to the side. A bald shirtless man with a wonky left eye looking at her, with the working one fixated on Julian. The only thing we was wearing seemed to be very worn out black sweatpants, his shirtless body having a host of tattoos ranging from swords to skulls to…a horse with the tail circling his left nipple, for some reason? There was something about him that was oddly…attractive?

Nope. No way. Roxanne couldn't even indulge herself there. If she was even capable of actually liking people, he certainly was not what she was looking for.

"Okay, what gives there?" Julian screamed as he tried not to choke, pushing his glass eye back in.

"Sider it a small test." The man replied in his gruff voice. "And you two failed."

"Wait, what?" Roxanne asked as she scrambled to her feet. "What do you mean we failed?"

"You look like an idiot." He replied without looking at her. "You can enter, but you're almost deffo gonna hurt yourself."

"Don't listen to him, Luca and Gavin failed too."

Caoimhe helped Roxanne up and waited for her to dust herself off. "Not exactly the type of thing you'd expect, but…"

"If you can't expect one attack, how are you meant to expect the onslaught of the Legion?" She and The large guy said in unison.

"He's done this twice already."

"Do I not have a point?"

"Anyway, sign ups are that way?"

In contrast to the hotel, the basement looked like a mess. Wooden floors and a faded blue paintjob., with streamers and balloons dotted around the room. A couple circular wooden tables for registered teams to sit at. And at the end, a wooden desk that almost blended into the wall.

The three walked over to it, with all three writing their names down.

Name: Julian Torres. Ability: Life Transfer. Fighting Style: Bear reanimation.

Name: Cassandra Torres. Ability: Regeneration. Fighting Style: Relic Axe.

Name: Roxanne ?????. Ability: N/A. Fighting Style: Undecided.

The three sat at a table at the corner of the room. The battlestorms would need to sit front and centre to catch the attention of everyone else, so whatever unnecessary interactions could be avoided were all the better. Seeing as the large guy was approaching them with an annoyed look and the sign up book in his hand, that failed.

"Right." He started calmly. "Which one of you is Roxanne?"

"M-me?" Roxanne asked. He looked at her calmly, but Roxanne already felt his contempt quickly melt her insides.

"Mind asking why your fighting style is 'undecided?'"

"Well, I haven't made up my mind yet."

"You even got a fighting style?" I know about the axe girl, but I don't know much about you two."

"Mind explaining who you are, anyway?" an irritated Julian asked, clearly trying not to snap at this guy.

"Me? Name's Cutter, and I'm the one looking after you runts while Zach's with the corro squad."

"Corro?" Roxanne asked.

"Coronation." Julian answered. "Look, she hasn't made her mind up yet, why does that matter?"

"Because not being sure of something before a fight is how you get killed. We got people for injurs or limbs, but we got nothing for lives."

"She's probably boxing!"

Cutter looked over to see Caoimhe looking over the table with a flashy purple drink in her hand.

"Trained with her back in Saoloro, she at least knows the basics."

"You box?"

"I mean, I dabble in a couple things, and boxing is one of them." This was one of the biggest lies she's told yet. She had to get grieving kids off her a couple times back in Miracle, but she resorted to either calling someone else or pepper spraying them if she absolutely had to. She's never directly laid a hand on a kid outside a quick shove.

Cutter opened his mouth to question her, but some more people entered the basement. Cutter immediately leapt to slam them all to the ground. The first one ducked underneath his arms, cartwheeling into the crowd and leaping back onto her feet with a series of finger snaps. The second more muscular one actually managed to throw Cutter's arm back and get behind him. The last one merely got slammed into the ground like Roxanne and Julian did, only for him to chuckle and slowly get back up.

"Yo guys, I think your stairs are uneven. You might wanna look into that."

"No Gam, you just got…" The muscular guy started.

"We can let him figure it out." The girl said calmly. "Our introductions are more important."

"Oh hey, it's the clowns." Julian whispered.

The girl pointed towards the couple dozen people sitting down. Her hair was blonde in the centre but the ends were magenta as they stopped at her shoulders, the same magenta was used for her face paint, which had a spade on her left eye and an upside down one on her right. She wore neck ruffles and fingerless gloves, only the white gloves looked more like a cartoon character's. She wore a short magenta jacket, opened to reveal the cartoon frog on her purple shirt. The outfit ended with just ordinary jeans and skater shoes.

"Salutations, asshats!" She said loudly. "Now, I hope you are all prepared for the festivities!"

"We didn't set up any?"

The girl placed a gloved hand on Cutter's mouth.

"You invited us, that's good enough! So, I would like to introduce the third ranked hero group, the Kerobons! To my left is my buddy Zee, and behind us is Gam. And I am your immaculate Capri!"

She held for an applause that didn't come, and Zee casually picked up Gam and sat them both down at a table. Both were dressed more like traditional clowns instead of the streetwear type outfit Capri was rocking. Gam was a scrawny looking weirdo wearing a neon blue jester's outfit with the same cartoon frog on each sleeve, with neck ruffles and a neon blue top hat, with straight dark blue hair underneath that went down to his shoulders. Zee was an incredibly muscular guy with a green afro style haircut and green clown pants, with a plain white t-shirt. Gam had a blue heart painted on each eye while Zee had green diamonds.

"I am begging you, keep your heads down until the next team arrives." Julian asked the other two.

This didn't take long until the next two players emerged. Cutter did his thing, only for one of the girls to deflect his attack and move past him, carrying the other past him on her shoulder to the sign ups.

"Well well well, if it isn't Miss Stone herself." Julian asked from behind her.

The woman turned around with a contorted grin.

"Well well well, if it isn't Julian. How's the dead bear going?"

"Not bad." Julian grinned. "Still rocking the rocks?"

Roxanne got a good look at the two women in front of Julian. A short woman with blonde hair and some attempt at a royal demeanour, dressed in a black gown that looked more suited for mourning then fighting crime. The woman behind her was a hulking muscular figure in a cyan dress that clearly needed to be replaced with how worn out it was. her black hair was sorted into a ponytail, and her nostrils were flaring from behind her partner. Both wore ordinary rocks on their necks as if they were fancy necklaces.

"The rocks are great around here, I thought you'd know that in your infinite wisdom."

"What can I say, I know about it about as much as you know about not losing thieves in alleyways."

"At least I'm respected enough to stay in the hero business."

"At number two."

"Not if you wanna help me during the tournament."

"Oh, you know I'm ready."

The two had the backs of their hands hover by each other for a second, before clapping them together and quickly turning them and slapping their palms. The two girls were about to go to their tables, before noticing a woman in a pristine white dress sitting alone. The short one gave a knowing smirk to Julian, who smirked back, before they sat down.

"Short ones Fiorella, big ones Gisella. Second ranked hero group, they're a riot."

Over time, more people arrived. A lot failed at Cutter's impromptu exam and left holding their necks. The fifth ranked hero group didn't seem to turn up, but a lot of intimidating looking fighters arrived. After the room started to fill and one table was left unoccupied, cutter moved to the book, tossing it in the air in front of him and violently punching it to the other end of the room. Julian just looked at Cassandra with a look of complete bewilderment.

"Okay." Cutter started with his arms folded and a tilt of his head. "Two ninety six contestants have entered for today, with the last four already 'cided. Now, normally old Zach would explain how things work, specially this year. But he's out on 'portant Lux things. Luckily, the man managed to make a video and upload it through that internet thing, so here's that being shown to ya."

A sheet came down where the sign up book was, and Zach's face came from the projector.

"This on? 'Kay, thanks honey. Welcome, all my current competitors! Now, the Fightston games have, since the beginning of the Skyspace, the games have been a show of strength between each Grand. But now we need that more than ever. We have made the heavy decision to temporarily suspend the other aspects of the game besides the tournament, to show the Legion that we are not backing down, not when the new generation is preparing to fight as we speak! But now, for the main prize. Second, third and fourth get cash prizes, as per usual. But for first place deemed most worthy of wielding it…the Gauntlet of Fightston! Well, hopefully I'll be back soon to start everything. See you in a few days."

The assistant turned off the projector, leaving just Cutter in front of a horde of shocked faces.

"I hope you liked that. Anyway, there's the prize. Zach'll explain it when he gets back, I'm off to bed."