The next ring Titanyana and company went to was new, therefore Titanyana naturally expected the crowd to be new as well, totally unaware of the match she had just taken part of. Instead, the crowd was louder than the one before. Maybe if there was another levee, her opponent's levee, on the opposite side of the ring then she could calm herself with the thought that it was because of them, but another levee hadn't even started to come over. These cheers were for her.
"I've only seen Lord Trebar make such waves," The old butler came to stand beside her as they waited. His eyes looking off into the distance, as if he was watching some fond memory. "I see you have done quite well for yourself."
"It's so embarrassing. . ." Titanyana shriveled up to Donovan. She wasn't touching him, but his body blocked some of the noise and hid her from the eyes of the crowd. "Why does it feel like they saw my match. . ."
"They did."
Donovan and Titanyana alike perked up. "What?" "Hm!?"
"Ah, yes. This is your first tournament. You made it so far I had almost forgotten." The butler shook his head, somewhat ashamed of himself. "The final four rounds of the victor's bracket are made visible to the entirety of the crowd, and they are done sequentially so as not to interfere." He gestured to where the other levee should be. "That is the reason your opponent is yet to arrive."
"Wait, how does that even happen? The people on the other side of the stadium are practically miles away."
The butler frowned. "I am sorry to say I don't quite understand it myself. I don't think anyone does - such is the mystery of the Veil. I'm sure you would understand what I have said if you were in the stands like the rest, but alas. . ."
Donovan chalked it up to some more nonsense involving split, probably something to do with magnification of light.
"S-so they saw me do that?" Titanyana's face lost a bit of color. She was still supremely embarrassed that she had to resort to such a tactic to win. To imagine that it wasn't just a single section of the audience, but the entire stadium? She might just faint.
"Yes, and they seem to have loved it. It was an upset, one of mighty proportions if I may be so inclined, so naturally the audience is quite enamored with you at the moment. I suspect they will watch you very closely from this point forward."
Titanyana started shaking. She was going to be watched? WHY?!
"C-can I get something to calm my nerves? P-please?"
The butler looked down on the shivering Nekh, terrified of the thought that the crowd on the opposite side of Donovan might be watching her as well. "I shall put something together. Should you feel like it, you may take a nap. There will be some time until your next fight."
- - - - -
"Good luck baby~"
Cholst received the kiss from his short-term lover with confidence and poise. The women in the crowd did not take it quite as well.
"As if I'll need it. You should be saving that for my duel with Trebar." He playfully admonished the girl he was keeping around as an accessory alongside the fusillade of insults headed her way. They were a temporary couple. More accurately, she was a disposable toy.
It didn't mean she wasn't getting anything out of it though. This was very much a consensual agreement. He got to 'play' with a beautiful woman for a period of time while she (her family) would (hopefully) receive a child with a strong affinity for split. A few more days and he would have another woman, a few more months and he would have another child he wasn't going to have to care for.
To the Terrans, a race with culture who held monogamy and faithfulness to your partner as barely short of law on account of the social and familial stability it provided, this was absolutely awful. Only a scumbag father would willingly abandon their child, and only a desperate woman would be taken advantage of in such a manner.
To everybody else, this was a very common occurrence. In fact, it might be more accurate to call it a ritual. This was a way to increase your physical power, sure, but it had another benefit. Over time, this would reduce the effects of incestuous relationships. Nobles were at high risk of incest owing to their relatively small number, only having a large population when multiple stars were counted. Therefore it was common for lesser nobles to send their daughters to interplanetary mingling locations, primarily the Sanctum, with the single goal of getting pregnant with a stranger's child.
It wasn't like their daughters were particularly powerful bargaining chips, especially not for the families weak enough to resort to this sort of thing, and they could absolutely afford to care for the child. It really was a win-win.
Cholst, given his fame, prowess, and pedigree, had forgotten just how many gentlewomen he had slept with, but he didn't care. If he had hundreds of children, so what? It wasn't like they were going to inherit anything from him. He'd just punt the little (literal) bastards if they tried.
Only when he was off the levee and heading towards the ring did he see who he was set to fight.
"The brat!?"
He blurted it out loud, an instinctual panic because he understood who was going to be on the levee behind her.
- - - - -
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
"Titanyana, h-he isn't going to come down here if I rough you up, is he?" As they got into position to fight, Cholst asked Titanyana a very strange question. It wasn't strange because that would be against the rules, that could be excused of banter, it was strange because there wasn't anyone capable of that in the first place. Titanyana tilted her head to convey her confusion. "D-Donovan. He's not gonna headbutt me?"
Titanyana was incredulous. He was still afraid of him for that? "He wouldn't do something like that." She didn't add the 'I think' at the end.
"Heuh!" He wiped his brow, relieved. "Still, I've gotta say I'm surprised they really decided to forgo the 'no army pairing rule'. I shouldn't have had to fight ya under normal circumstances." His grip on his lance hardened substantially. "You wanna go all out?"
"Mm." Titanyana sunk into her starting position, trying her hardest to ignore the crowd.
"Well, sorry if I can't quite oblige you from the start. I've got orders - gotta please the crowd, so don't hate me for matching your tempo." Cholst smiled. He didn't have to follow those orders, but being a crowd pleaser was fun.
"Are both of you ready?" One of the enforcers, a woman this time, brought them back to the task at hand.
"Mhm."
"Only if we can get drinks after."
"Keep your extremities inside the ring, dick in your pants too, and prepare to fight on my mark. All good. Ready?"
Cholst raised his eyebrows and blew the enforcer a kiss, something that made her roll her eyes. It was probably as close to an audible eye-roll as was physically possible.
"Three, two, one, GO!"
As the two of them shot from their respective circles, Titanyana immediately realized something was very wrong.
Cholst was faster than her.
"I'll let you get the first strike." His voice, practically a whisper, was all she needed to know that her suspicion was right. The slower party didn't 'let' their opponent get the first attack off, that was reserved for the faster individual.
Titanyana wasn't going to refuse the advantage though. For someone like her, who's most reliable weapon was speed, being slower than your opponent meant a loss. She had already accepted the fact that her victory and defeat was in Cholst's hands, so if he was going to give her an opportunity to win she was going to take advantage of it.
A suicide strike, a desperate move she used to at minimum damage an opponent that outclasses her, was her first option. Her preferred attack type? A stab. It would be hardest for him to dodge or deflect, and it could be chained into a slash if she was obstructed somehow.
Within moments she was in range, dodging a "stab" from Cholst. It was lazy, sloppy even, but the crowd wouldn't be able to tell that. From that distance even an expert would be hard-pressed to see through his ruse. Titanyana's stab on the other hand. . .
It didn't land, batted aside by the 'butt' of Cholst's lance, but it was absolutely meant to kill. She quickly turned about to keep up the 'pressure'. Her effort was real, the results were naught but a façade. Sure, he was being cut, he would even let some of them get deep enough to bleed, but he was also cutting her.
It was a 'close' battle, blatantly fraudulent but 'close' nonetheless. Titanyana's biggest concern did begin to shift though.
"Stop cutting my clothes." She wasn't going to stop fighting, but she had accepted her role. She didn't want to be harassed though.
"But your skin-"
"-will be restored, pervert!" Cholst's face screwed up as she said that. He wasn't really trying to be lewd here, he really was concerned about the young maiden's skin. He also didn't want to disgrace her, though he supposed stripping her piece by piece wasn't much better.
Suddenly, a stern face crossed his mind and he steeled himself to treat her like a warrior instead of a woman. He really didn't want to get laid out by Donovan again. He 'broke' their prolonged engagement by slamming the pole of his lance into her gut. It made a nice dividing line in their fight, one where he went from the defensive to the offensive, and the fact he was bleeding more than Titanyana would sell that.
"My apologies."
"So now you act like a gentleman." Titanyana's clothes were close to ribbons, they were pretty tight for loose fitting clothes, and he had to admit that revealing some of her body in this way was definitely crossed the line into erotic. In fact, if it wasn't for a few of the later cuts he applied to her it would seem like he was toying with her.
No, he was toying with her, just not like that.
". . . sorry."
"Grr."
She charged again, suicidal just to give herself a chance. She was starting to run low on split.
"I'll make this quick."
It was his way of apologizing. The crowd seemed adequately pleased by the duel thus far, and it wouldn't do to win by attrition, so he had to get it done now.
Deflect stab, dodge slash, block slash. Three moves more and he was in a position to kill, bringing his lance around to the back of her head. He was going to sever her spinal chord.
kuff
Forget cutting her back open, Cholst didn't even draw blood. Titanyana didn't get off without consequence, that was still the full force of a lance landing squarely between her shoulder blades, but the only armor she had ever known to work did its job. Falling forward and grimacing in pain, Titanyana tried her hardest to get outside of his range.
She didn't have time to do that though. Cholst might have been surprised, but he was a top-tier fighter. He recognized he failed to land a killing blow instantly and followed up with a stab through the back of her ribcage.
- - - - -
The vibrations generated by the crowd upon the conclusion of that fight could have been recorded on the Richter scale. Man, woman, and child alike were up and jumping, cheering, and screaming as much as their bodies could handle. Much to Cholst's chagrin, they were screaming Titanyana's name.
"Ha, you'd think I lost that fight if you didn't see that last part!"
He took it in stride though. It was actually a little refreshing, hearing the crowd cheer for someone other than him or Trebar. Looking back and his victim, he felt a twinge of guilt. Titanyana very clearly did not want this attention. She was the opposite of him, shy, and reserved, and modest, and chaste, and honorable, and female, and just an overall good person. Wearing a wry smile, he nodded to her. Hopefully he didn't come off as too much of a douchebag.
- - - - -
"So. . ." Donovan started to say something as Titanyana ran up the ramp. Both Len and Wall were covering their ears to drown out the noise, so it followed that Titanyana would be trying something similar. He gave up on trying to talk to her before he even started.
Titanyana was panicking though, and immediately plopped her head into his chest to protect herself from the noise. Donovan understood the assignment he had been unwittingly given and assisted in covering her ears up, her hands were just too small to cover it all. This, of course, left Donovan's own ears open to assault, so he concentrated on something else to take his mind off of the cacophony.
The only sensation he had to work off of was the ears, Titanyana's ears. The fur, soft like velvet but smooth like silk, was a pleasant sensation on its own, but it was the delicate construction of those ears that really sold it. Donovan convinced himself this is what it was like to pet a cat, and he couldn't stop himself from lightly scratching the back of her ears like he would Mercedes'. It wasn't appropriate, he would never go out and fondle the ears of someone, but he had lost himself. He was, at the very least, looking away.
At least he was looking away until Titanyana turned her head up to look at him, tears forming in her eyes.