Catherine ran her hands across the myriad names that were carved into the wood of her door. Each one a new beginning, a new hope. She'd drawn stars around the first few, and decorated others. When they had left, it was only another opportunity. Before she had become an orphan, her parents had always thought like that. Righteousness and opportunity were neighbors, they had told her. Loss was just the path to gain. You couldn't have one without the other.
And so she had lost. Again, and again she had lost. Friends came and went, and eventually they weren't friends anymore. Only roommates. And then there was justice. She had stood so confidently, in the beginning. She had cried right and wrong like an arrogant school girl. Bullying, she had called it. And just like an arrogant little schoolgirl, she had turned to the priest to get the others in the first hall to stop picking on all of the lost orphans. They had solved the issue for her by cutting off the head of the lost for 'offending her sensibilities', and had smiled to her as they had done it. They left, patting her on the head with a bloodied hand as they did. She had thrown up for almost two bells after that.
She still held on to her justice. Confidently asserting right from wrong. She had screamed right and wrong as though it was a chant that could change the world all by itself. She was determined that, if the priests wouldn't help, then she would do it herself.
That had lasted until the fifth beating.
After that the shaking had begun, and she started keeping her sense of justice for the bigger things in life. A beating here or there was nothing to a lost. They would more than likely walk away from that kind of thing, especially if it was the first or second hall giving the beating.
If it was the third hall, than she might have had to intercede.
Murders were common as well, and she did her best with those. The other orphans didn't seem to mind her intervention very much at all.
These days, the shaking was almost all there was. It whispered to her that she had tried and failed, and that it was time to give up. It was only a matter of time before Pip saw it too. Her justice was paper-thin. She had executed the boy in that arena, simply because she had no other choice. It had been Pip that had to step over a human liver to pull her out of that mess, nearly catatonic.
She would go soon. Catherine was only grateful that it wouldn't be another name carved off of her door. It had been all that she could manage to draw a line through Steven's.
“Hello, Catherine,” the smooth voice of Pip drew her attention away from the carved wood of her door, as her face took on the smile that had become her natural state. She hadn't even thought about applying it anymore. She wondered if that was going to become a problem.
“Hey Pip!” She shouted, finding for the briefest of moments her optimism, long thought dead. It was familiar and terrifying all at once, as it had been each and every time she found herself with the purple-skinned girl.
“So what brings you around here already? We've got until third bell to start training for the day,” she said to Pip.
The purple skinned girl looked on in confusion for a moment, before replying. “Catherine, its already third bell,”
Catherine practically jolted in shock. It wasn't already that late, was it? Exactly how long had she looked at the names on her door? “Ah... I see,” she replied, losing the chipper tone of voice that she usually kept with a vice-grip. “Time gets away from you sometimes, I guess,”
And with that her optimism vanished as quickly as it had come, going back to wherever it came from. Even the girl in front of her wasn't enough to bring it out for the day.
“I suppose it does,” Pip hedged. She seemed unsure of what to say to that, which was fair enough, she figured. It wasn't Pip's fault she had been such a mess lately. It was hers.
The training session progressed as it usually did from there. Pip was certainly progressing athletically, but not nearly as much as she should have been. Admittedly, Catherine had been going a little hard on the girl, but not more than any other chosen should have been able to handle.
With the physical exercise and daily prayer, she should have been well on her way to reaching the end of bone, and from there they might both be able to move on to earth. Catherine had never quite figured out the trick to bonding with her apostle properly, and it had plagued her ever since her parents had died.
Reaching the peak of bone with enough prayer and dedication was easy enough when you were desperate for power, but insight? Insight was something that you just couldn't fake, not even when it was for yourself.
But new things were filled with insight, and there wasn't anything more new or exotic than winning a tournament. And if Pip could join her as well? Surely they would be able to gain some insight between the two of them, and with that they might actually make it through the tournament. they would need at least one earth ranker if they were going to survive, after all.
Even still Catherine refused to push Pip further. She knew that it was not her physical training that was the problem, which meant it was either prayer or determination that was the concern, neither of which she would be able to help the girl with by being a task master. More of a taskmaster than she already was, anyhow.
Pip fell to her knees, exhausted after another hour of training under Catherine's gaze. It had been another day of purely physical training, mainly so that she could get used to her new strength. Whenever Catherine made a particularly big jump in power it had always helped to get accustomed to it after the fact, so she made a point to include them for Pip as well, in spite of her lacking progress.
It was also funny to watch Pip being so lethargic after the fact, which was its own reward.
Pip gasped in bouts of air as she attempted to catch her breath. All the while Catherine watched with a smile. It was nice having someone around again, no matter how fleeting the moment might be.
“It doesn't seem fair to me that you manage this with such ease,” the girl complained, causing a genuine laughter to bubble up in Catherine's stomach. It was foreign, after so long without, but it was nice.
“With enough practice and dedication in your prayer, you should be able to manage this as well as I can,” she said haughtily to the girl, playing up her arrogance just a little bit. Pip seemed to shrink into herself a little bit at that, nearly imperceptibly so. She was clearly a little shy at her lack of progress as well.
“Don't worry too much about it, Pip. Without the right catalyst determination can be difficult to find,” she reassured, dropping the faux arrogance form her voice in favor of her usual tone. It was strange to feel the pull of kindness so strongly after the last few years.
Catherine had felt like it had been driven out of her alongside everything else, but somehow it kept coming back, Even when she wasn't entirely sure she still wanted it.
Pip had made her want it again.
“I trust your judgement, Catherine,” the horned girl said in her usual formality. It was endlessly cute to see the naïve girl try her hand at proper formality. Even more so was the fact that she looked every inch the spoilt noble girl. If not for her orphans clothes and complete lack of knowledge of anything to do with any of the continents, she would have assumed exactly that. Truthfully, the girl was an enigma. All Catherine knew was that she probably came from Rhezket and had become the chosen of a very stylish lesser God.
Pip moved shyly from her place on the floor, sitting up on the second bed in Catherine's room, as had become tradition after their training.
Pip just seemed to sit in silence, content to enjoy the quiet presence of Catherine. Catherine anguished at the polite silence, hating it with everything. She couldn't help but wonder what Pip was thinking behind that absent stare of hers. Exactly what did she think about in these moments between words?
Catherine knew what she was thinking about at times like these. The only thoughts that raced through her mind. Her fears that Pip would finally realize the fraud that she was. That the other first hall orphans would finally figure out exactly what kind of girl she really was. Truthfully, she was petrified of the silence.
She knew that at any moment, Pip might finally break the balancing act that they had so carefully built up in the weeks following their duel to the death.
Plastering on her smile as hours of practice had taught her, Catherine spoke up, breaking the reverie of the two of them.
“Do you want to train some more?” She asked the girl, still silently breathing a little harder than was strictly necessary.
Pip looked at her as if she was out of her mind, and Catherine's face split into yet another genuine grin. It was sometimes difficult to stop them in front of Pip. She was just too cute to help it.
With a sigh of resignation, Pip nodded in agreement, and Catherine sent her a beaming smile in exchange. It would drive away the quiet for the time being.
_________________________________
Catherine and Pip arrived at the same training hall where they had been forced to kill two people for the sake of a noble's entertainment. Neither of them acknowledged any of that, but the fact hung heavy in the air. It was only held back by a silent agreement between the two of them; one that neither would be fool enough to break.
Pip knew that Catherine was avoiding the topic. No matter how naïve she was to the ways of mortals, she was not that foolish. Still, she left the topic where it lay.
Pip had already accepted Catherine for what she might be, and it would take time for Catherine to do the same for herself. Besides, it wasn't exactly as if Pip was being honest either. They both had things they wanted to avoid, so it was better if they left things for the time being. All that she would do is reassure her only friend as best she could, and hope to the Elder Gods that she might see it for what it was.
Catherine was her friend, no matter what lies she might have told herself, and she would prove it to her no matter what. Even if it meant keeping her secret for a long while to do it.
“So, are we spectating or participating today,” Catherine asked.
“I have the urge to fight something, if you're up for it,” she replied.
“Should we test our teamwork a little bit then?” Catherine said with that smile she used when she wanted Pip to do extra work, to which she immediately winced. Already the day had proven to be a difficult one.
“And what exactly do you mean by that?” Pip asked the still smiling girl.
“Well, we haven't done many team-fights as of yet, and we'll need to be prepared if we want to fight together in the tournament,”
“Well, I suppose I can't fault your logic,”
“Great! Let's go in now and start looking for some opponents!”
And just like that Catherine was charging head first into the training hall that had become Pip's symbol of doubt.
They agreed to split up to look for opponents in the various halls since two people looking would be far faster than one. Catherine took halls 1-5 on the left, and Pip took halls 6-10 on the right. They avoided the hall meant for earth-rankers entirely, knowing full-well that neither of them were fit to punch above their rank like that.
In a fair fight, Pip barely placed herself within the middle of bone, and truthfully even a minor beast would be able to take her out if it was determined enough. Even a goblin could probably injure her enough to kill a mortal, and they were barely bone rank.
It was only Pip's skill with her apostle that made her strong enough to fight on equal terms up to the middle of bone. Of course, outside of a fair fight was a different matter altogether. Outsmarting Gods was something that Pip had become practically a professional at in her time, and humans, even chosen, could hardly compare to that.
What that meant was that she looked for someone that would put up a fight for her and Catherine together. Catherine was a master when it came to her skill in a fight, but she seldom used her apostle. Truthfully, Pip had no idea what her apostle even was.
Catherine had still yet to show it to Pip, and had entirely refused to until she was ready for it. Pip wasn't stupid enough to not know why that was. Clearly it was her apostle that had allowed her to destroy that earth-ranker so thoroughly, and clearly she was not very happy about that fact.
Even in spite of that fact Pip still put Catherine above almost every bone-ranker that she had seen, with scant few exceptions. She was that good when it came to martial skill and attributes.
Using her body alone she was far stronger and faster than almost any bone-ranker had any right to be, which probably spoke well of her brutal training regime. Another part of that was the way she practically played with other chosen's apostles, and the way she could predict what they were and what they were capable of with seeming ease. It was nearly terrifying.
The only concern was the fact that she still remained in bone even now.
Bone rank was the lowest ranking for chosen, and mostly relied on the physical body of the chosen for power, hence the name. That was a large reason the first great divider was a revelation of understanding for the users apostle. The fact that Catherine still hadn't moved on from that point despite her obvious skill and knowledge in almost every aspect spoke loudly about her relationship with her apostle.
That was why Pip decided to find a pair that would be an appropriate challenge for the pair of them.
An earth ranker would destroy them outright unless Catherine were to make use of her apostle, and Pip was unwilling to force the girl to do that.
A bone ranker was far too weak for Catherine unless they were very, very good. However, this would be bad for Pip, who could only take on a bone-ranker that was roughly mid-range in power, and only if they were only reasonably skilled. If they knew how to properly utilise their apostle, it would be game over for her.
With that in mind, she did the only thing that would come to mind. She mindlessly approached watching pairs and asked them how strong they were.
She had not been in the mortal plain, safely, for long enough to figure out the proper way to do things as of yet, it would seem. She reminded herself to ask Catherine exactly how something like that should be done for future reference.
“And how would you rate yourself on the charts?” She asked another waiting pair. This one was well armored, despite looking quite weak. In Pip's experience that meant they were probably rich and arrogant. At least, that was how people like that had been when she watched them from her place in the Hall of the Gods.
“Huh? What kind of question is that,” the one on the left asked. He was a bulky looking boy in his late teens, maybe only sixteen. The baby face made it a little difficult to tell for her.
“The rankings. Where would you place yourself? Higher or lower than 1,000th place?” She asked, perhaps a little too quickly for politeness' sake. In her viewing of world-priests, this would have been considered a grave insult, but the boy seemed not too offended.
“And what business of it is yours, peasant?” The smaller boy of the two asked. He looked similar enough to the other boy that he was probably his younger brother, and if the jab to the stomach was any indication, they were quite close.
“Sorry about him, young lady. He doesn't quite know his tongue when addressing non-nobles or merchants, so he can be a little rude,” the larger boy said, bowing his head in respect to her.
Why someone her own age or younger bothered calling her young lady proved to be a mystery.
“As for where we would put ourselves, there's no need for that. They have me at 3,021 and the idiot at 10,461. We just checked earlier,” He said with a face beaming with pride, and with good reason.
The training hall had some sort of ranking based on the win rate and power of the chosen, and it served to rank the rough power of all of them. At just over 3,000, the boy was easily within the top 10% of the rankings, which meant he was one of the best bone-rankers around.
From what Catherine had told Pip on the way, any one at 1,000 or below was more than likely an earth-ranker, and should be left alone.
That meant that a ranking of 3,000 for someone that looked fairly weak was quite impressive.
“3,000, eh? That's pretty good,” she muttered to herself, causing the younger of the two to shoot her an indignant look.
“Pretty good?! That's better than almost 30,000 other participants, and that's only pretty good? It's amazing, but its no wonder peasant trash like you can't see it,” the boy said.
Even to Pip's relatively naïve social skills she could only judge the boy as petulant. It made her want to take him down a peg. So as his brother turned to once more apologize to Pip for his rude behavior, Pip interrupted him, holding up her hand.
“No need for apologies on his behalf, good sir. There is a simple way of resolving this disrespect,” she said, obviously leading to her challenging them to a duel.
“And what exactly is that, hmm?” The younger brother asked, causing the exasperated looks of both Pip and the older brother, who looked to him in unison.
“She was obviously looking for some sparring partners, Theo,” he said, a very tired look appearing on his face.
The two of them were perfect. The older brother was more than likely a decent enough to prove interesting for Catherine, and Pip wouldn't have much trouble with someone ranked as lowly as 10,000. He was pretty middle of the road, as far as ranking should have told her.
Of course, that might only be a half-way accurate assessment, but they would see soon enough. By the way the younger brother seemed to emphatically gesticulate in her direction, he would convince his older brother quickly enough. All she would need to do is ensure that she didn't accidently agree to fight to the death again. For it to happen twice would be quite the embarrassment.