For the second time in less than two hours, Jay followed his friends into the Celestial Swords. There were no congratulations awaiting him this time. The boisterous crowd quietened the moment Lyra entered the room.
As much as they craved violence, it was hard to scream for a bloodbath with the fighter’s sister nearby.
The trio nestled in the same corner booth as before, away from the eager crowd.
Florian glanced in their direction, not meeting Lyra’s eyes. As Jay sat down, he noticed one of the floating screens shift in their direction, giving them a better view of the current fight. Lyra and Akira joined him in silence. They each sat down and anxiously waited for Vega’s fight to start.
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Finally some fucking peace and quiet.
Vega watched her friends peel off into the Celestial Swords while she continued towards the coliseum. She knew they meant well, but that didn’t make it any easier to deal with. She should’ve known that Lyra would find others similar to her. Her little sister had always been better at that stuff.
Two of them was already tough, although Akira usually caved if she pushed hard enough.
But now there was three of them.
Strategy, analysis, game planning. Fucking hell are you fighters or a scientists?
Vega respected their style of fighting, but that didn’t mean she had to like it.
Where’s the fun in that?
A civilian cried her name from the opposite side of Reveller’s. Vega waved back, squinting and trying to remind herself of his face. No use, he was too far away. Another man nodded her direction as she neared the pavilion. She returned his smile and walked amidst the stone gladiators; her chest lifted with renewed purpose.
Being the number one fighter had its perks, especially during arguments with a lower ranked twin sister, but that wasn’t why Vega fought.
She looped her way around the coliseum, clicking her fingers against the statues towering beside her.
Sparks skittered off her glossy fingers. A reminder of why she was here in the first place.
As much as they argued, Vega knew that her twin would always be there for her. But there was something more important than their bond. Something they’d immortalized the moment they stepped foot in the coliseum.
Their promise.
“Nobody is taking this life away from us. Not again.”
Vega still remembered her sister’s words. She remembered the severity etched on her newly cursed face. She remembered the venom behind them, the icy cold anger tempering Lyra’s every word.
She’d never seen her sister so mad.
As much as she disapproved of Lyra’s Harmony. Vega would never take it away from her.
But what was she to do when her own place in the world differed so much from her twin’s? Vega couldn’t just leave her sister. Not after everything they’d been through together.
A pair of giddy children pointed in her direction and giggled to each other. She gave them a giant smile and waved. Their excitement dragged Vega out of her past, and one look at the statue of the unnamed gladiator locked her in the present.
When she entered that arena, the rankings didn’t matter. Her opponents didn’t matter. Her sister didn’t matter.
Everyone watching her fights, from the patrons at the Celestial Swords to those two children who she’d never seen before. They mattered.
Forget Harmony.
Forget the coliseum.
She was these people’s champion.
And she’d give them a show.
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Vega had never bothered to buy any furniture for her waiting room. She didn’t see the point.
Why bother decking out a single room that you’ll only ever spend about ten minutes a week inside?
Akira’s insistent pleas about comfort, familiarity, and routine fell on deaf ears the one and only time he’d tried to convince her. She’d never feel comfortable in here. Not a chance.
How could she when every bone in her body screamed to start the damn fight already.
She’d feel comfortable the second the golden timer ticked to zero.
The soulbound curse of a gladiator wasn’t as insidious as the Dreamweaver’s. But it was far more restrictive. They couldn’t even leave the island for more than a week.
When Vega had tried, she’d teleported right back into this stupid room the moment her visa ran out.
She didn’t even win any points for that fight.
Still better than being back home.
The first licks of heat rolled down the cracks in Vega’s arm. She looked down at her cursed body and curled her hand into a fist. Her fingers clinked into each other. No matter how hard she pressed against her palm, she barely felt a thing.
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Stupid fucking glass body.
“Not a scratch to ever draw blood on my daughters’ bodies.”
What a fucking idiot.
Vega rapped her knuckles against the wall. She’d gotten used to her new body, but getting used to something and liking it were very different.
Dying couldn’t have come a moment sooner for Vega, the curse was just the final straw. A part of her wished her sister had stayed in the Obsidian Pass though. In a way, Vega had cursed her just as much as their father had.
Vega had chosen this life. Or at least, she’d chosen to end her last one.
Lyra had just jumped in to help.
Vega had never had the heart to tell her she didn’t want any.
“It’s my job to look out for you. My fucking job.”
It doesn’t have to be, Lyra.
I can fight on my own.
Watch me.
A golden screen covered the entire beige wall, its appearance a welcome distraction.
Vega watched the numbers tick down with anticipation.
Not long now.
The gentle warmth intensified. Wisps of orange light emerged from the blistering furnace that was Vega Twinstrike.
Stoked by the scorching flames of wrath.
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This arena was larger than any she’d fought in before. The three gladiators stood in a triangle, each hugging the invisible barrier wall.
To Vega’s left stood Amaya Ironglove. The puppeteer already had a hand inside her satchel. Her obscured face looked directly at Vega, completely shrouded other than her arrogant sneer.
A flicker of movement on the other side of the arena drew Vega’s attention away from Amaya.
Confined to one spot until the timer ticked to zero, Ezekiel swung a gigantic sword through the air while he waited.
Vega had taken a good look at Ezekiel’s old sword inside the Celestial Swords. She had no idea how he’d ever fought with the unwieldy thing. Even if he only needed one hit to finish a fight, swinging a person-sized hunk of metal around can’t have been easy.
Instead of switching up his style, Ezekiel the Soulsnatcher had doubled down. His new weapon stretched even longer than the last one, and whereas his old sword was a thin sliver of metal, this one almost had more in common with a slab of marble than a sword.
The paddle-like sword stretched wider than Ezekiel’s forearm, it had flat edges instead of blades and was at least two inches thick. Crimson streaks dripped off two freshly painted runes on one side of the strange weapon. Occasionally swinging globs of red into the gravel.
Must be some fancy lightweight rich-people metal. No way he’s swinging it like that otherwise.
Just means it’ll be easier to break.
10…9…8…
All three fighters looked at the golden screen in the sky. Potentially counting down their final seconds of peace.
7…6…5…
The inferno burning within Vega’s heart roared once more. She held her hands behind her as they began to glow bright white.
4…
Vega looked at both her opponents.
3…
She looked at the sky-like expanse beyond the newbie arena’s shimmering barrier wall.
2…
If she looked hard enough, she could almost see the crowd watching her.
Waiting.
1…
Hoping.
FIGHT.
Vega’s palms erupted in a violent inferno. Her explosive blast propelled her towards Amaya.
Amaya backed away. She rushed towards her partner.
Vega stretched her left hand to the side. She fired another explosion, weaker than the last but enough to shift her trajectory. The gap shortened. Amaya pulled a cloudy brown crystal from the satchel and slammed it into the ground.
The crystal burrowed into the ground, dragging the earth down with it. A whirlpool of gravel collapsed into the arena floor.
Vega brought her foot down. She hopped off the ground, shifting her arms down and launching herself into the air.
Her eyes flicked towards Ezekiel. He’s not close enough to block. Vega contorted her body. She twisted until her arms faced away from Amaya. Another blast flung her towards her opponent.
A spurt of gravel erupted from the whirlpool’s centre. Soaring into the air like an earthy geyser and blocking Vega’s view of the puppeteer.
Fucking rocks.
The tiny pebbles clumped together, conjoining to form a solid column of stone.
Fucking mountains.
Vega launched a tiny marble at the column. It punched a small crater in the stone.
She tucked in her arms and legs. Her body burned with unrelenting heat.
Her first shot had barely damaged the mountain.
It wasn’t supposed to.
It was supposed to give her a target.
Vega’s body glowed brilliant white as it slammed into the column.
Then she detonated.
Stone shards whirred past Vega’s ears as Amaya’s stone barrier shattered in every direction. Pebbles shot towards Ezekiel and Amaya, the splintered remains of the mountain’s corpse. A dust cloud blotted out Vega’s entire world as she dropped to the ground.
She couldn’t see her opponents. She couldn’t see anything.
Fucking dust.
But Vega didn’t need to see anything. Since she’d left the pits, she’d been consumed by thoughts of the insufferable mountain cunt and how she’d blast him to pieces the next time she saw him.
What was a little bit of dust in her eyes?
Vega dragged both of her hands against the ground, combing through the gravel. She raised two fistfuls of grit into the air. Orange heat surged from her hands.
She tossed the tiny rocks in the air, closing her fists and focusing on the essence of explosivity.
In the split second before she released her attack, Vega didn’t think about simply exploding. She didn’t think about creating a shockwave that would devastate her opponents’ bodies by rupturing their internal organs, churning their guts to paste.
It was pretty fucking hard not to. But she focused on something else.
Most people see explosions as raw power, a sudden shockwave of uncontainable energy.
Most people are fucking right.
But explosives are far more than just a shockwave.
They’re far more brutal.
Vega focused on the miniature rocks she’d thrown in the air in front of her. She focused on the dust cloud her last attack had created. She focused on the air itself.
And she pushed.
This explosion didn’t attack like any of her last.
It had an army of shrapnel to do that for it.
It pressed against the airborne rocks. Enforcing its will upon them as they became shrapnel hurtling towards its enemies.
It pressed against the dust cloud, pushing all the miniscule particles away. Dispersing the cloud, clearing the battlefield.
It pressed against the air itself, compressing the particles closer. Forcing them together, forcing pure energy inside them. Superheating them, and firing them at its enemies too.
It pressed against Vega, for not even its creator was immune from its indiscriminate scourge.
Vega stood unyielding. The wave of hot air rushed over her, but she was used to far worse. Gravel peppered her body, but her obsidian skin was far tougher.
Vega’s pummelling blast had cleared the dust from the air, staining the nearest barrier wall brown. Able to see again, Vega quickly located her opponents.
A clay golem knelt next to a crater in the ground. Its now hardened skin singed and cracked from the kiln of battle. Stone shards pierced its spine and its entire back was littered with lacerations.
It collapsed to the floor, legs crumbling beneath its weight.
But it had already served its purpose.
Amaya Ironglove stood unharmed. She batted her dust covered cloak and stared at Vega. A grimace replacing her once cocky smile.
Beside her, Ezekiel’s now dust caked sword stood upright. Embedded in the ground. Ezekiel the Soulsnatcher emerged from behind his colossal weapon. He yanked it from the ground and waved it around in a sweeping flourish. While one side was completely coated, the other side shone silver and pristine, the runes had barely smudged.
Vega’s opponents weren’t going down without a fight.
Good.
Because they’re gonna fucking get one.