The place chosen for the NOC-AEO tournament was one of the enormous skyship hangars on the lower levels of the base. Since it was unused, it proved ideal for organizing sport events of almost any kind, and Zuckeroff had enthusiastically marshaled the services of a small army of robots, drones, and nanoswarms to restructure the entire hangar into a modular stadium. Rows of seats were arranged on several dozen elevations, spotlights were mounted strategically to bathe every possible centimeter in thousands of lumens if needed, and myriad data sensors were installed to broadcast full-immersion 3D or VR for those who couldn't or didn't want to watch the games physically. Additionally, the repair bays servicing the former hangar were converted into dressing rooms and team planning centers, which spoke volumes about how far Zuckeroff's passion went.

When Veralla arrived at the hangar-turned-stadium, the place was already teeming with people who had come to see the tournament. As a Radiant Knight-in-training, she was reserved a seat in a special section, whose rows were variformable in order to accommodate either humans or dragons. She went and sat down beside two human Knights who were already busily discussing the upcoming matches.

"Can you believe it? Tehalix is going to participate! She did like, what, Awaken last year?"

"I wouldn't be so quick to write her off. She's a swift learner, and has tenacity and sharp reflexes which can give an edge on the field."

"Hi there!" Veralla said.

"Oh, hello," said the nearer Knight, turning to face her. He was a straight-faced Coastlander. "You're that dragon named after the Goddess. Veralla, right?"

"Yes, that is my name," she said.

"Well, pleasure to meet you personally," the Coastlander Knight said. "I'm Boyd, and this here is my wife, Merryl."

"Hello, Veralla," Merryl greeted her warmly. She was a Corelander, whose freckled features made her appearance cute and soft-natured.

"What were you talking about?" Veralla asked, eager to strike a conversation.

"I was pointing out to Merryl the reasons why this so-called 'sport' is a complete waste of one's energy and talent," Boyd replied.

"You know, dear, that's precisely why your progress as an aethereal is so slow," Merryl said. "You keep your nose firmly buried in the books, searching for the answers in theories and formulas, while the truth shines amidst the vibrant resonance that is life, and the resulting cascading moments of joy from participating in it."

"Combating my hermetic approach with your own arcane insights? I reject your methods!" Boyd said loudly, but with an easy expression.

"And I told you, I'm going to sign on the next tournament. Seems fun."

"Yes, fun for the masses, no doubt," Boyd grumbled, folding his arms. "It gives the wrong impression about what real Æther combat is!"

"Because it is not combat in the first place, my dear. It's sport."

"What is the difference between the two?" Veralla asked. "I have seen people who can use the Æther fight, but they moved too fast for me to follow them."

"You mean, people who can access the Æther," Boyd corrected. "The Great Cosmos bows to no one, young dragon."

"In combat, the most important factor is speed," Merryl explained. Her mouth quirked with distaste. "If you can strike first, and hard enough, your opponent will not be able to strike back. That's why battle-trained aethereals always focus on learning to timeshift above all else. If you can make moments last longer for you, and shorter for your opponent, it gives you the opportunity to act more. All the power in the universe cannot help you, if you are unable to leverage it, or if you aren't fast enough to do so. Thus every other form of channeling the Æther comes secondary in warfare."

"While here," Boyd cut in, "everything is showmanship! Pure, bamboozling performance! They don't even use real, practical invocations, like the tried-and-true exothermic globular pyrokinetic offensive energy discharge!"

It took a second for Veralla to puzzle out that. "You mean a fireball?" she asked.

"Lightshow! Completely hollow lightshow!" Boyd continued. "Entertainment only, with zero sensible application. At most, such flaunted 'talent' can merely secure you a stint or two in some trideo or XP production, provided you catch the right media fad at the time!"

"And yet, you love absolutely every second of it," Merryl said airily.

"And I love absolutely every second of it!" Boyd agreed loudly. "But that doesn't mean I take it seriously."

In that moment, the lights around the hangar dimmed, leaving only the central arena illuminated. Zuckeroff appeared on a levitating platform, dressed in ridiculously gaudy clothes, which made Veralla let out a hrrr–ing giggle. The gathered crowd began to quiet down, and a second later, the astrior's voice boomed over the scattered din.

"Fellow Solarians, brothers and sisters, humans and dragons, carbon- and silicon-based lifeforms, and, uh... how was that again?... quantum-vortexed beings! Welcome tonight to the first, official, planetary Æther Omega tournament on Terra Para!" Zuckeroff said solemnly. "Uh, well, at least I think it's the first one. I checked the Viirt though, so must be right, eh?"

The crowd burst into laughter. Zuckeroff cleared his throat and continued, "Anyway, tonight's event is based on the non-contact variant ruleset! Which means, contestants are forbidden to use any physical means to, ah, interact with their opponents, and this includes conjured melee-range Æther constructs. However, everything else about this awesome sport is as it should be! Force waves! Prismatic shields! Elemental golems! Everything!!!

"Tonight we shall witness the best our thirty-two contestants can offer, uh, in their pursuit for the winning place! The tournament ladder is organized on an elimination scheme, which are distributed in five main rounds. To eliminate their opponent, a contestant has to push them three times into one of the exclusion zones. Um, now, for those certain young dragons among the crowd, 'eliminations' in this case means 'losing the tournament', not 'being killed'. Just to clarify, ha-ha!"

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The crowd laughed again. One of the dragons, Teyalinar, rumbled loudly, "What's the prize?"

"The prize, you ask? Well!! Uh...The prize, um... The prize is a personal copy of Epistle 3, re-developed by Point Zero ultracorporation!!!"

Silence drifted over the hangar-stadium.

"Uh, nobody gets it? No?... Ok, lets start the tournament then!"

The crowd cheered. There was a short opening ceremony, presented in the form of AR graphics of stylized fighters blasting each other with Æther powers, and then the matches went underway. Several AR screens hovered above the arena, displaying the tournament progress, remaining participants, currently matched opponents, and other trivia stats. The first two fighters entered the arena, and the games began.

Just as Zuckeroff had promised, there were all kinds of invocations used by the fighters; and just as Boyd had ridiculed, it was an incredibly colorful lightshow. Fighters blasted each other with blue force waves, spectral creatures clashed together as directed by their masters, amber barriers strained against lashing green beams, ominous red clouds denied advantageous spaces, and viridian sparks scintillated around the aethereals as they teleported around or channeled other awesome effects. The spectacle was not confined only to the visible spectrum: manifesting powers were accompanied by thundering booms, conflicting interferences produced piercing whines or high-pitched whooshes, and particularly intense invocations resonated with basso hums.

Veralla was completely mesmerized by the fantastic display. She was still as a statue, her breath halted, her slit-pupiled eyes wide open, her webbed ears spread to their fullest, her head twitching in microscopic motions as she sought to capture each moment in its best perspective. Most tournament participants were Radiant Knights, though she noticed the leaderboards indicating a few outside people also. All contestants were dressed in the same loose-fitting dueling garbs, whose pearlescent fabric was either sapphire or gold in color to distinguish opponents easily from one another, and give clear markers for the live commentary provided by Yeoman Cloud and Zuckeroff.

"Oooh, what a solid telekinetic punch! Sapphire likes skirting the rules, eh, Cloud?"

"Well, the NOC definition framework says nothing about fist-shaped ranged invocations, Lieutenant Zuckeroff! And it looks like Gold is ready to strike back!"

"Void damn, what a fantastic recovery! Gold re-asserts control, and pins their opponent at the edge of the X-Zone!"

"Counterattack! Sapphire uses obfuscating invocation and disappears! Gold looks around in panic–"

"There it is! A double force wave! Gold teeters–"

"Sapphire pushes again–"

"Aaand score! Gold went over into the X-Zone!"

The stadium itself was designed to provide active opposition, with cutting-edge Æther technology harnessed into a host of challenging obstacles. The terrain variformed every half-minute, changing elevation, creating walls or pits, extending or retracting platforms and walkways, and designing set-pieces in real-time to maximize the dramatic potential of matches. The game field also featured nanoclimates, able to designate zones with distinct environmental conditions, alternating between blistering heat or chilling cold, rain, blizzard, raging wind, darkness, light, each zone as large as the whole game field, or as small as a few centimeters; sometimes two or more zones with extreme differences existed besides one another, which, combined with the variforming terrain, created completely ingenious fighting arenas.

Some matches were over quickly, one participant clearly superior; others featured fighters of equal skill, and those lasted longer, filled with tension and exciting anticipation, both released through the roaring cheers of the crowd when the match reached its inevitable climatic conclusion. Veralla rawr–ed with joy when Kiana and Tehalix each in turn entered the arena. The two of them displayed stylish skill in the fights against their opponents, Kiana focusing on mobility and sudden maneuvers, while Tehalix preferred defensive tactics and trickery. The crowd was also impressed by their audacious panache, shouting encouragements, and they quickly became tournament favorites.

The first round of the tournament took a couple of hours to resolve, though time flew by as each match was unique and presented new contestants. The second round was just as interesting, because the remaining participants were those who had proven themselves, and the resulting matches were longer and more debated affairs. Veralla gazed at the arena with exuberant abandon, oblivious to her surroundings, her whole being invested in the moment-to-moment victories and defeats which happened at the heart of the stadium.

When the third round was about to begin, she sensed a familiar aura. Craning her neck slightly, she saw an intimately-known armor-clad figure sitting beside her, his steel-grey eyes piercing with darkness that revealed a deeply-anguished spirit.

"Airo!" she rawr-ed with joy and reared in her seat, wings and foreclaws spreading out in greeting.

"Veralla," he nodded, and shifted subtly, which she knew was his way to express denial to any embracing contact. She folded back her claws and wings, her enthusiasm slightly dampened, yet she beamed as happiness filled her being like a day dawning over a cold night.

"Have you come to see the tournament too?" she asked. "It is amazingly marvelous, yes?"

"No, I am just waiting," Airo said. "The skyship needs to resupply and do some minor repairs. Until these are done, I have nothing better to do."

"Oh, please stay!" she said, lashing her tail energetically. "Kiana and Tehalix both have reached the third round! They are very good fighters! And the others, too! It is very interesting and engaging to watch them!"

"As I said, at the moment I am to wait," he replied. "I will stay for the duration of this delay."

"Yay!"

She and Airo watched the third round together. She wanted to snuggle beside him, yet she was afraid he would reject her doing so. Nay, she was certain he would reject her, and it made her a tiny bit sad, despite her happiness for his presence. She focused on the tournament to push those unwanted thoughts out of her mind. The first match was between a Radiant Knight and one of the refugee contestants who had managed to reach this far. The two of them fought on an arena set with zero gravity and riddled with exclusion zones. Both fighters favored aggressive combat styles, using mainly force waves to try and push their opponent into an exclusion zone. After a tense half-hour, the Knight made a risky maneuver, and managed to blast the refugee into the golden halo of an exclusion zone for the third and final time.

The second match was more varied in terms of combat techniques. The fighters had to keep balance on high, narrow pillars during high winds, while the ground below was one large exclusion zone. The contestants were very inventive, luring one another with conjured illusions or delayed invocations, and one of them finally won after overwhelming the opponent with a swarm of tiny lime-colored orbs with oozing tentacles.

Next followed Kiana and Tehalix, both of whom had garnered considerable fandom by now. Their match was just starting, when Airo spoke quietly with someone over the commlink and then rose.

"Are you leaving?" Veralla asked him in dismay.

"Yes," he said evenly, and turned to go.

"Airo, please stay! I do not want to sleep alone tonight!"

"I have work to do. If Ferrtau wins, you will not be able to sleep, alone or otherwise. I will go now."

"Airo!" she pleaded him, but he was already leaving the stadium. She extended her claw in his direction, feeling completely powerless, and hrrr–ed in misery. He had not been in her company for many days now. She missed the times when they were always together, like in Dragon Retreat or while they crossed the frozen wilderness of Terra Para. She had promised herself she would make Airo stop feeling alone, yet now she wondered if it was not in fact she who needed someone in order to not feel alone.

She turned her attention back to the game, yet its splendor had become all but lost to her.