The Games We Play

DISCLAIMER: This story is NOT MINE IN ANY WAY. That honor has gone to the beautiful bastard Ryugii. This has been pulled from his Spacebattle publishment. Anyway on with the show...errr read.

Stage

The flames swept across the arena floor and surged up the walls, kept in the ring only by my will. They clung unnaturally to every surface, refusing to fade despite the lack of fuel, as I kept them burning on the lingering power of the spell and my Elementals. Maintaining such an enormous quantity of flames would have taken a massive amount of MP if I kept them going with Suryasta alone, but I didn't bother—instead, I kept the flames alive with Suryasta and set Levant to the task of fanning them higher, keeping the stadium floor a raging inferno.

Flare, I named it for old times' sake, like Magic Missile—a way of remembering the games I'd loved before. The flames roared around and over me as I walked through them, feeling their scorching heat but in a distant way—like touching a wall with fire on the side instead of actually burning. With my Elementalist title equipped and Elemental Mastery and Suryasta protecting me, I stood within the flames and was unburned.

The flames should have been blinding—and were, on several levels. Even with very little smoke rising from the stone, the sheer amount of fire, of light, left me unable to see with my normal eyes. The amount of heat cast off further reduced my thermal vision to uselessness. But I had other forms of sight, ones that did work, and used them to compensate. In the crowd around us, the people who'd come to watch the champion practice were on their feet, making enough noise to mess with my sonar vision as well. Shouting?

I reached out to Levant and the air shifted, sounds reaching me over the roar of the flames.

Not shouting, I realized then. Cheering.

They were cheering for me. My perspective shifted and I could make out faces, if with the colors all wrong. I scanned the crowd and heard the applause, saw their expressions, even Observed them to make sure what I was seeing was parsing correctly—but no matter how I looked at it, they were cheering for me, for us. Most of them were shocked, stunned, disbelieving, but they applauded the battle nonetheless, enjoying the scene they were being treated to. The stands were set high, to compensate for the sheer destruction battles between hunters could cause, and still very few people sat near the front rows of seats, but those few who did seemed all the more enthused by it. Hunters or trainees, they probably saw the fight for what it was, could watch and analyze the exchange of blows thanks to years of experience, and they cheered.

There were people recording the fight on their scrolls, as well, though a strangely excited part of me recalled what Grigio said, about the fights being broadcast. Would that apply to something like this, a simple training match? I had no idea, but maybe…

My hearing shifted and I heard different voices as Levant's attention was drawn to the only people in the crowd actually saying my name. Kyanos did most of the work, but his energy was infectious, enough so that he spread to the others around him and the people above him in the stands began to slowly use my name as well. Melanie and Ulaan stood beside him, expressions focused, and though neither seemed much like the cheering type, Levant carried whispers of support to me.

I laughed again, celebrating in the flames simple because they were celebrating for me. This fight wasn't over yet, I knew that, but this was…new. And nice.

Suddenly, the cheers increased in volume and I turned to see Pyrrha standing in the center of the flames, a figure of light and dark shades beneath my sight. She looked more than a bit ruffled now, her pony tail coming partially undone, but she appeared unharmed, thanks to the defensive effect of her Aura, but a quick Observe showed how much that blast had taken out of her. It'd taken a lot out of me, as well, to say nothing of maintaining it, but even beyond the attack's initial damage, I could see her Aura steadily, slowly declining in the flames.

Even so, she didn't back down. She could have run from the area, escaping to higher ground, but she stayed in the ring, prepared to fight.

"Shall we continue, Pyrrha?" I asked, stepping closer in the flames and letting them arc and lick around me. To my human eyes, she was nothing but a barely visible shadow and I doubted she could see me any better, but I didn't want to play keep away until her Aura ran out, not with this. I didn't even really care if I won or lost, but this fight…

Without a moment's hesitation, Pyrrha turned and cast her shield at me. Grinning fiercely, I didn't try to dodge or block—I attacked in turn. A Cannonball connected with the shield midair, sending it careening back towards its master, who caught it easily as she charged fearlessly towards me. I thrust my hand towards her, refusing to back down, and the flames before me suddenly intensified as a rush of wind streamed over them. The gust barely made her slowdown, but the flames crested over her like a wave, something she couldn't fully block with her shield. While her vision was even further obstructed, I hit her with a Cannonball, intending to push her back.

Instead, the ground beneath her feet cracked as she braced herself against the blow, halting for a minute before continuing her advance. Her spear came up and when she threw it, her aim was true for all that she could only barely see me. I saw her squint against the light of the flames, extend her arm with the throw, and knew that though she was all but blind, I still probably couldn't dodge.

Once again, I didn't even bother trying. With all of her strength behind it, the spear drove me off my feet, to the ground, and then carved a furrow in the arena's floor as it pushed me back. Her strength and control over magnetism became a force that even I couldn't stand against as I was now—I slammed full force into the back wall, barely slowing down on the way.

It didn't matter, I thought, quickly healing myself. She might have been trying to distract me, to keep me out of the fight until she could close in and try to end it, but if so, it wouldn't work. I wasn't alone in this fight—I was never alone.

Not bothering to cross the space in-between, Suryasta appeared to stand guard over me, gesturing with a hand. The flames right beneath Pyrrha's feet suddenly erupted upwards, throwing her into the air. Floating ten meters above the direct center of the arena, Levant started laughing, an echoing sound unheard by anyone but me. She extended her hands before her, as if reaching out for something, and the wind swirled on the ground below to catch the fire and send it swirling upwards in a storm that quickly took shape. In moments, two massive, burning hands extended from the ground below, Pyrrha hanging neatly between them.

Expression gleeful, the Air Elemental clapped her hands and the massive constructs followed suit.

Pyrrha mouthed something again, expression almost upset, and changed direction at the last second, falling faster than gravity alone should have allowed. She just barely fell below the hands, only to be thrown fiercely back to earth by the thunderous shockwave—a wave of wind and sound empowered by Levant. Pyrrha came quickly to her feet and started moving faster then I'd have expected from her—fast enough to surprise me until I noticed her skimming several inches off the ground as she 'ran.' Even so, Levant's fake hands did not fade, nor was my second spirit content to stop with something so small. From their base on the ground, the arms began to spiral up, into the still connected hands even as they began to loss shape and come together. In seconds, the arms had been absorbed into a massive sphere that hung above the arena like a giant star before suddenly falling towards Pyrrha, adjusting as she ran.

The warrior's expression tightened, but fear was evidentially a foreign concept to her, as she merely adjusted her stride slightly to keep ahead as she ran towards me. I rose as she came near, swords coming to hand once again and she drew back her spear and prepared to smash me into the ground. I knew my efforts wouldn't be quick enough to keep her from hammering me down, but I wasn't one to back down either. Before she could hit me though, Suryasta snarled—a strange, inhuman sound, between the roar of a tiger and of a massive fireplace. He reached out invisible to catch Pyrrha's face with an intangible hand, something that should have done nothing, yet which sent the redhead stumbling suddenly back.

As she moved, I was able to see why. Though he still had no form of his own, he'd formed a glove of sorts, overlapping the same space as his hand. He stepped forward as Pyrrha retreated, more flames rising up his legs, giving him a pseudo-manifestation. As it formed, it didn't look like him, though—or like a human, needless to say, though I thought I saw some subtle traces of myself in the design he chose. Instead, he chose to make something more impressive for his first real fight, rising into a form well over two meters in height, with four arms and a massive, bulky body as if he were someone wearing armor, though the flames all blended together. Mostly shapeless flames roared where his hair might have been, but some of it rose inconsistently into the shapes of horns, altering between those reminiscent of demons and animals. In each of his four hands, he formed a sword, each blade jutting straight out of a palm.

Barely hesitating, Pyrrha slammed her spear through his head, but with no material form to speak of, he wasn't the target. Dancing back a step, Pyrrha seemed to realize that, too, and attempted to dance around him and strike at me, Levant's burning orb getting closer.

In response, Suryasta…opened was the only word I could think of to describe it, lines across his body yawning wide as he opened straight down his body like a bizarre suit of armor waiting to be stepped into. Or maybe a mouth was a better example, as he lines the evidentially hollow interior of his shell with blow-torch like 'teeth.' He stepped closer to Pyrrha, trying to draw her in, and even she gave him a wide berth—and a rather ineffective blow to the head, of course.

Levant's sphere lowered, preparing to fall upon Pyrrha if she continued her advance and—having experienced firsthand my willingness to bring such a thing down upon myself—fell back a step with an aggrieved frown. As she did so, tube-like streams rose from Suryasta's back, rising up to connect with the sphere above him, causing both flames to brighten even as the effort on me lightened.

I exhaled quietly, rolling at last to my feet. I was pushing Pyrrha, I knew that—hell, I could see it, watch her MP bar slowly decrease—but doing so many things at once was a heavy strain on me, as well. I could just restore my MP with a Dust crystal, but I didn't really want too; I wanted to see how far I could get without such a thing, to know how far I could go purely on my own power and skills, as Jaune Arc.

Suryasta and Levant were doing an amazing job keeping her busy, but they couldn't get a decisive hit through her solid defense. I'd managed a few good hits here and there, but to win this without trying to draw this out, I'd need to be able to hit her for real—possibly several times. But how?

Levant lowered her sphere yet further, drawing it down to float only just above Suryasta's head as the Fire Elemental fought. Pyrrha kept her distance, edging around the sphere's motions and occasionally taking potshots at me. When she shot me in the face between a pair of rolls, Suryasta swung an arm at her, stretching it out to reach at her. She leapt over it, but Suryasta just extended his other arms as well, creating beams of flame out to the arena's wall and using them to chase Pyrrha.

It gave me an idea. Several, actually.

Releasing my swords again, I gathered power to my fingers. By this point, I had a lot of experience with manipulating Aura—gathering it, throwing it, compressing it, spinning it, changing it from one thing to another, the works.

Even so, this was new. I gathered the mana to my hands, forming a rough sphere above my palm. After quivering for a moment, it separated into three streamers of energy that I stretched and coiled tightly around one another, compressing it as I did.

A skill has been created through a special action! A skill to create a rope through application of mana, 'Mana Rope,' has been created!

I smiled fiercely as I dismissed the rope, glad that it had worked. And it that was possible…

I called my swords to my hands and took a deep breath.

And then I began to twist. I sank my thoughts and power both into the structure of the weapon, easing the Metal aura that gave it structure. As it loosened and became more fluid, I coiled the blades around one another, summoning another blade when I needed more. I gathered my power within the structure, causing it to grow even as I kept its image distinct. Once it had roughly the form I wanted, I reaffirmed its structural integrity with Metal, making it stable once more if in a bit of a…different way.

A skill has been created through a special action! A skill to cut down the enemy at range, 'Vorpal Lash,' has been created through the combination of Vorpal Sword and Mana Rope!

"Vorpal Lash, huh?" I smiled, releasing my creation and summoning my swords anew. The skill must have improved, because a single application summon a pair of blades. "Interesting. Let's try this again."

I extended a hand and my swords swiftly floating in front of it, spiraling together quickly into something new—a twisted, bladed chain leading up to a merged point. The chain floated casually in the air around my arm, looping around it many times over in a way that reminded me of Autumn. Who, thinking about it, I was glad wasn't here for this fight, given how everything was presently on fire.

I shook the thought away and focused my attention fully on Pyrrha as she ducked, rolled, bobbed, and weaved, doing her utmost to stay ahead of my pursuing Elementals. Credit where it was do, Pyrrha was amazing; I had all the advantages in this fight, with dozens of different powers and the ability to make more on the fly, Elementals to outnumber her with and assail her, healing, a huge amount of MP, battlefield control, and much more, but she fought on with nothing but her weapons and some subtle uses of Magnetism. Granted, I was holding a few things back because this was just a sparring match, but to stay this composed and fight on in the middle of a burning arena…

Because of that, even if I was wasting MP quickly, I didn't mind—I was just happy to be having this fight. I was glad I'd decided to follow Kyanos, because it had led to this. Whether I won or lost didn't matter, so long as I could see things through, I'd be satisfied.

So I stepped things up a notch. Pyrrha ran, slid, and rolled to avoid the horizontal pillars of fire, kept in constant motion to stay ahead of the pursuing sphere, skated around Suryasta's semi-materialized form, and still had both the time and thought to spare me a few potshots, so I knew she could take it. Casting my hand forward, I swept my arm counter to Suryasta's beams, cutting through them and his false form both. The burning figure he'd created didn't so much as pause as it was cut through, continuing its stomping approach towards Pyrrha, four beams arranged so that at least one was always harassing the warrior while keeping me out of the line of…well, fire. My Vorpal Lash extended almost fully across the arena in an instant, cutting across it almost as quickly when it kept pace with the swinging of my arm.

I saw Pyrrha's eyes widen in the brief instant of warning she had before she leapt into the air, curving in a way that couldn't have been possible without her control of magnetism to rise fully over the lash and immediately back to the ground. She barely missed a step, all told, but even that little pause was enough to give one of Suryasta's beams time to close in. She had to raise her shield against one, but the Fire Elemental immediately turned all four hands upon her, combining them into a massive, luminous column. For all the advantages Pyrrha's metal equipment gave her, I couldn't imagine it made that pleasant, especially when I sought to help matters with a hammering blow from above while she was pinned.

Nonetheless, Pyrrha handled such difficulties with grace, tossing her spear straight through Suryasta to strike me into a wall, rolling aside as she did to avoid my Vorpal Lash. She crouched as she evaded, using the nearly circular nature of her shield to her advantage to defend herself as she rolled, which proved necessary as Suryasta immediately refocused upon her. She was charging almost before she rose, nothing but her no doubt scalding shield between her and an oncoming tide of flames, and yet pushed through to beam towards Suryasta. When she stood face to face with his chosen form, she rolled again instead of charging through it as I nearly expected. Using proximity to her advantage, she stayed just ahead of Suryasta's hands and the blasts he extended from them. When I moved to make things even more interesting for her, she threw her shield at me as well and I was momentarily distracted by it slamming my head into a wall.

When I recovered a moment later, I saw my Elementals pressing their advantage against the now unarmed girl. Suryasta halted his beams and instead lifted thick walls of fire, leading up to Levant's now falling sphere, trying to trap her inside, dissolving into them as he did so. When Pyrrha came too close, parts of his crafted form would erupt and try to assail her, attempting to push her deeper into the cage, but with the only alternative being the descending sphere—

Pyrrha reached the same conclusion I did and charged through the wall, Suryasta and all. Perhaps even more impressively, she kept enough of her wits about her to charge in my direction, rushing straight towards me to try and end things. I didn't bother trying to keep her weapons away from her and she'd rather proven how well I did against her in close quarters when she brought her magnetism into play, but…

I was a game character, so this should work; it was part of my inspiration for the idea, after all. As Pyrrha drew near, I extended my Vorpal Lash—not at her, but at an angle away from her. It struck out across the arena, burying itself in the wall.

And then I reeled myself in, all but flying across the arena as I pulled myself towards the hook, instead of the other way around. I laughed, partially in wonder, partially in simple glee that it had worked. Well, of course there were things like this in all sorts of games, so there was no reason for it not to work, but…this wasn't Levant and it wasn't quite flying, but it was me doing this. I pulled myself out of Pyrrha's path before she could attempt to catch me in a series of blows, landing easily by a wall nearly a third of the arena's circumference away.

But I didn't stop there and neither did my Elementals. This time, Levant's sphere didn't follow Pyrrha, but fell upon the suddenly stationary Suryasta, expanding into a larger dome as its volume shifted. For a moment, there was nothing but a smooth looking hemisphere in the center of the ring, but I would have been shocked if Pyrrha was surprised when it didn't stay that way. The top suddenly shifted, like something was moving beneath the surface and then Suryasta rose from the flames anew.

His form had shifted again, becoming something at once closer to and further from human. Most of his inhuman features, such as the horns above his head, had faded away—along with his entire face, leaving nothing but a blank surface a bit too long to be a person's anyway. He was larger now, too; though only his upper body emerged from the hemisphere, he must have been a good four meters in height now, and his arms were much too large for his body and far too long. Though they were roughly human in shape, if he'd had a proportionally sized lower body, they still would have been able to touch the ground, at a guess. I was mildly surprised he'd abandoned a pair of them, though; had he had trouble coordinating four? And where was…?

Ah, I thought as the hemisphere stirred again, another massive shape rising from it. Back to back with Suryasta, the new form might have been a bit more feminine, but I might have been projecting Levant onto the image. Roughly the same base design as Suryasta, its form seemed more fluid—though they must have been coordinating on the maneuver, Suryasta's favored the flames a bit more while Levant favored the air, and it showed through though both seemed like burning storms in the rough shape of giants.

Really, those two. They were certainly spending my MP freely, though I'd kind of given them permission to do so. Still, I'd spent most of my MP already and something like four-fifth of it had been on them. Well, I suppose it was fine if they were having fun, though.

Pyrrha moved to follow me, but Suryasta lifted a gigantic hand and the flames around her exploded. She managed to dodge at the last second—probably used to the fact that anything my Elementals did meant trouble for her—but some of the blast still caught her, throwing her aside. Levant mimicked him, even facing away from Pyrrha, and little tornados of wind no more than a cubic meter in size began to form.

A lot of them.

Needless to say, they all made a beeline for Pyrrha, even as Suryasta and Levant tried to swat her with their massive hands.

The three-time champion tried to ignore both the attacks and the twin giants who made them—which must have been pretty damn hard, considering—and continue on her path towards me. I respected that; even with everything going on around her, she'd picked me out as the source of the threat and remained focused on dealing with me no matter what distractions arose. I thought that was kind of amazing.

Which is not to say I was having any of it.

I leapt as hard as I could and struck out above me with my Lash. Focusing slightly, I summoned another for my free hand, a pair of blades appearing with the casting and swimming together into a single shape. Sending my second weapon in the same direction as the first, I pulled myself higher and higher and then flipped over. Pulling against it with my arms and pushing with my feet, I 'stood' on the dome of the Coliseum and looked down at the sight below.

Now far beneath me, Pyrrha took a deep breath, nodded her head, and kept moving, shifting her focus to trying to stay ahead of both the seeker tornados and the explosions Suryasta would build beneath her while probably also attempting to come up with a plan. Even in a situation like this where she couldn't harm her main attackers and the entire arena was against her, she refused to surrender, kept looking for a way to win.

And maybe she'd find it, yet. Even moment in the flames, every defense and attack, everything she did below slowly ate away at her Aura—but every second of keeping this going did the same for my MP, draining it perhaps even faster. I had so much of it, we were still close, but…

I pushed harder. The chains that kept me latched onto the ceiling loosened just enough for me to raise my hands above—below?—me. I called power to my hands and rained attacks down on Pyrrha; more distractions, more things to deal with. I fired Cannonballs at her first, blasts of stone shattering force to add to her troubles, adding Fireballs and Magic Bullets shortly after. She raised her shield above her head like an umbrella, hiding her face from me as bore the assault. I called upon my Mana Rope next, casting it down to try and bind her limbs, succeeding for a moment before she tore through it with sheer strength. The moment's pause gave my Elementals a chance to draw nearer, though, and so I cast it again and again.

A skill has been created through a special action! A skill to tie the enemy up with rope, 'Bind,' has been created through continuous application of Mana Rope!

Switching instantly to the new technique, restrictive energy raced from my hands. I was curious as to how I might combine the skill with my Elements or with Vorpal Lash, but first—

The ropes pulled tight around Pyrrha, snaking around her arms, her legs, even around her throat and mouth, pulling tight in an instant. The Champion stumbled, but was on guard from my previous attempts and whether with skill or magnetism, managed to trap her blade between flesh and rope, and she used her power to cut the edge swiftly. Even something like that only bought a second against her.

But a second could be enough; a bunch of seconds, even more so. In that brief pause, wind and fire had drawn nearer and I could just hit her with it again and again until they caught her and ended it. Eventually, she wouldn't escape quickly enough, would take a hit or series of hits, and it'd be over. I knew that instantly from that one brief pause—and I knew that she knew as well.

The only question was how she'd deal with it—and it was a question.

Can you do it? I wondered. Can you push this even further? Or is it my win, Pyrrha?

I saw her look up at me for a second.

I saw her make her decision.

She changed directions suddenly, hurling herself towards a yet burning wall, surmounting it quickly and leaping from the top. In midair, she aimed her spear up towards me and I thought for a minute that she'd throw it again.

Instead, she did something much more impressive. As she planted a foot at the base of the spear, fire spurted from the end and she rose like a rocket, magnetism lightening her load. She flew towards me, surfing her spear high into the air, and if thoughts of giving up had ever crossed her mind, I couldn't tell.

I smiled, then—and laughed in joy, amazement, even a little astonishment. My Lashes released their hold on the ceiling and I began to fall, but it could have been in slow motion compared to her rise. I reached out and the Lash around one arm struck out at the arena wall far below, swiftly reeling me towards it.

It wouldn't be enough, I knew before I even saw her response—and sure enough, it wasn't. As I fell past her, Pyrrha pulled down, the spear arching high as it curved to follow me back down to earth. I'd known I couldn't escape her like this.

Or at least, not just like this. With the first shot having moved me enough to the side to escape her original trajectory, I pulled it back even as my other arm Lashed out. The second chain sank deeply into the burning sphere below and began pulling me into the inferno.

I looked above me at the woman on my tail and our eyes met.

She knew I wasn't bluffing.

I knew she wasn't running.

And in that moment, as we fell towards the flames, I was pretty sure I was smiling just as widely as she was. This was it. This would decide it. We—

"—That's enough."