Clink-clink
Clink
CLANG!
“YEAOWW!”
Arlie’s pained shriek awoke Jay. Cold metal pressed into his cheekbone; he noticed himself drooling onto his shield. Jay’s eyelids desperately clung to each other but he wrestled them apart and forced himself upright.
Arlie stopped rummaging. His head slowly twisted to face Jay. The Raccoon’s beady black eye squinted from behind a cracked, tinted lens.
“You lucked out with her kid.” he said, walking towards Jay. “I couldn’t take her off your hands even if I wanted to. She likes you far too much.”
Jay nodded, mumbling a meaningless response as he got back to grips with reality.
The fuck was in that tea?
“But don’t go calling her a stupid name like Zeus! It’s unbecoming for such a fine piece of craftsmanship.” said Arlie, gazing wistfully at the shield.
“Well, what am I supposed to call it then?” Jay replied.
Arlie stretched out a knuckle from his mechanical arm and held it above the shield.
“You can call her…”
He rapped his steel knuckle against the shield.
PING!
The sound enveloped the room. The reverberations echoing through each and every shred of metal piling up inside Arlie’s basement.
Jay reached forward and touched the shield. Some of the vibrations dampened down as he made contact, but he felt the traces of a ringing echo.
I can’t quite pronounce that, but I can call you Ping. Hopefully that’ll do.
Jay almost couldn’t believe he was talking to a shield like it was a living, breathing, person. But he’d just witnessed the shield’s journey firsthand. It didn’t matter what he thought was weird or not, Ping deserved respect.
Besides, was a sentient shield that much crazier than a talking raccoon with a mechanical arm?
Ping didn’t reply to Jay, but Jay knew she’d heard him. Ben had spoken with her inside her memories, so maybe one day he could too. Until then, he just had to hope she’d hear him.
“Now if you aint buyin’ or sellin’ it’s time to leave. Unless you got anything else with a good story?”
“Well…”
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Jay waded his way out of Arlie’s Antique emporium with two free hands and a shield floating behind him. Although Ping was the main reason he’d come here, Davad had given him a mysterious dagger too.
Arlie didn’t seem as enthused about the dagger, but he agreed to take a look at it on the condition that Jay returned and let him speak to Ping again.
Jay was fine with that, although he’d be giving the tea a hard pass next time. He left the dagger with the eccentric raccoon and entered the alleys of Scholar’s with a killer headache and the drone of ringing metal lodged in the back of his mind.
He was in no state to be fighting until tomorrow, but that didn’t mean the day was a write off.
Jay silently walked back to the tramline. For someone who was supposed to be searching for his brother, Jay hadn’t been doing much searching.
Unease pooled within his stomach, a deep pit that he desperately tried to ignore.
He tried to stay hopeful, to tell himself it’d all be fine, but it didn't help much. Because while Jay suspected that Julian had entered the Second Chance Coliseum, he had no clue whether he’d made it out alive.
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Although Jay felt confident he could find a training room somewhere in Scholar’s, he still took the tram back to Reveller’s. He wanted to exit Arenara Fortunis’ ‘I’m better than you’ district as soon as possible.
Back on the avant-garde streets near Reveller’s, Jay asked around until he found a training room reasonably near the Celestial Swords. A place to bunker down and watch every second of Jules’ fights.
This room didn’t mimic the outdoors as well as the ones in the coliseum did, but it had a seat, a door, and a lock. Jay didn’t need much else.
He took a deep breath to ground himself, before opening the system’s fight interface.
Jay stared at the golden screen for almost a minute.
The last fight he’d watched played idly in front of him while he built up the courage to search for another. Every time he mentally probed out to start typing, he stopped.
What if Jules wasn’t really a gladiator? What if he’d gotten his hopes up for nothing? Did he really want to find out?
Even worse, what if he’d came to the coliseum and died? Again. Six years at the coliseum meant staring down death far too often.
Cold metal pressed into Jay’s back. Ping had drifted closer, and now rested some of her weight on him. Almost like a hand on his shoulder. Jay couldn’t hear his shield speak; he couldn’t tell what she was feeling. But her touch calmed him. It pushed him forward.
He had to find Julian. Worrying about ifs buts or maybes wouldn’t help him with that.
If Jay was going to find his brother, he had to start somewhere.
He focused his intent on the search bar and wondered what parameters to use. Searching for Flash or Golden Boy yielded thousands of results, it was probably a common alias, so he had to narrow it down somehow. Dagger User cut down most of the numbers, but there was still far too many.
Jay thought back to when he’d fought his brother, wondering if there was anything else specific he could use to narrow down the search.
Don’t suppose wears golden shorts is a category? How about comes from Earth?
Related to Lightning Leonard?
Flash. Comes From Earth. Related to Lightning Leonard…
Over thirty fights showed up.
Jay clicked on the first.
The thumbnail expanded. A close-up shot of a terrified teenage Jules filled the screen.
The camera zoomed out. Jay couldn’t see the liminal, sky-like walls or gravel floor of the newbie arena behind his older brother. The young boxer jerked his head from side to side, desperately searching for familiarity. Wearing simple jeans and a T shirt, Julian was even less prepared for a fight than his younger brother was.
Maybe if you’d ju-
Focus!
Rolling sand dunes stretched over the horizon behind Julian. Never-ending, and shifting with the winds. They baked underneath a radiant red sun that lorded over a cloudless sky.
Jay could almost feel the heat himself. He clenched his fist and focused on his big brother.
Beads of sweat rolled down the anxious teenager’s temples. Julian’s eyes flitted side to side, restlessly darting across the desert hellscape surrounding him.
Then they stopped.
Julian’s eyes locked onto something. Jay spun the camera and got his first look at his brother’s first opponent.
It seemed the coliseum hadn’t pulled its punches for either Leonard brother. Jay didn’t know if the man in front of him looked scarier than Valorus, the Relentless Champion, but he was pretty fucking close.
Julian’s opponent towered over the young boxer, his imposing figure wrapped in layers of leather and steel armour. A golden helmet, forged in the image of a dragon, covered the man’s face. He tilted his head back, knocking the dragon’s top lip above his forehead, and glowered at Jules behind squinted eyes that smouldered like glowing coals.
He didn’t share Julian’s confusion, didn’t gawk at the landscape surrounding him. He only had eyes for the unfortunate boxer standing opposite him.
The announcer introduced Julian’s opponent as Harridan, the Unburning Flame. He flourished his weapon, a polished steel glaive that seemed to ignite the very air it cut through. Jay watched it leave a shimmering haze in its wake as Harridan whirled it around him, warping the air like a mirage.
Jay cut back to Julian, hyperventilating as he stared, wide-eyed, at his opponent.
He’s got no chance.
Jay wondered how the hell his brother had gotten through his debut. Did he have someone whispering in his ear during the fight too? Was there a golden dagger hiding within the sands waiting for him?
The countdown began.
When the timer hit zero, the Unburning Flame rushed forward behind his glaive. Jules tried to back away, but his foot sank into the sand.
He scrambled upright, only to find his opponent there waiting.
Jules raised a fist, but the glaive sliced through flesh and bone like paper. Blood spurted out of the wound for a split second, but the mirage-like trail attacked Julian’s raised hand next. Instantly searing his cleaved fingertips and cauterizing the wound.
A split second was enough though, and the blood shot directly into Harridan’s face. He called off the attack, stepping back to wipe off the blood, giving Jules a few precious seconds to breathe.
Jules kept backpedalling, but it would never be enough. He couldn’t run forever.
The Unburning Flame renewed his attack, effortlessly gliding above the sands that Julian’s trainers sank into. He entered his gigantic range and swept his weapon towards Jules.
The glaive sliced through the air, it’s burning trail passing right in front of Julian’s nose. Harridan instantly stopped the sweep, twirling his glaive and sliding into his next attack. A lancing thrust directed at Julian’s torso.
The poor kid didn’t even raise a fist this time.
The steel blade rushed forwards.
Nothing could stop it from piercing Julian’s chest. Stabbing him though the heart and skewering right through his body.