The imposingly tall, strong jawed Squire smirked as Ed approached, before speaking with a derisive snort.
“I’m gonna enjoy puttin’ you in the ground, boy.”
Keep it together, Ed. Keep it together.
Do you really want to?
Growing up as the only black kid for miles around, Ed had faced discrimination all his life. The people in his area knew him by now, and afforded him the acknowledgement and respect given to a local, but London was a big place and he’d constantly meet people who looked down on him simply for being a different shade than they. In one of Croydon’s rare compassionate moments, he’d fired two workers outright when he happened upon them pushing the young Ed around. He’d justified it by saying he couldn’t have his employees deciding their own hierarchies, everyone on his payroll was equally low in his eyes. But Ed had seen the flash of anger cross his face when he came upon them. As odious a person as he was, he at least understood that people of all colours were equally exploitable.
Bradley on the other hand was still going on in the background.
“-oo white for the fields, I’d probably have you serving me dinner, if you could even learn that much.”
Yes, I do. He’s baiting me. He wants me angry and unfocused.
Of course he’s baiting you. The question is what are you going to do about it? Will you turn the other cheek every time someone decides to disrespect you?
Ed knew what his answer was. This was one area in which his past and current selves agreed. Your reputation was all you had, letting someone disrespect you signalled to others that you were the type of person who could be disrespected. Either he crushed this now, or dealt with snide jokes and whispered comments for the entire school year.
Instead of responding, he readied himself for the match. He’d let his actions do the talking here, as he didn’t trust himself not to escalate the situation until one of them, probably him, got disqualified. Grantham had taught him that instant retaliation was nice, but the best revenge was planned.
The two Squires locked eyes, fair-haired Bradley with an easy-going confident gaze, Ed with his dark, piercing stare. They didn’t even look at the referee, who simply shrugged and started the fight.
The two boys both whipped their hands out to summon their Arms. Sa’ar’s red-and-black form materialised in Ed’s grip as a black gauntlet that constantly belched smoke appeared on Bradley’s right hand.
Wasting no time, Ed unleashed his full fury on the American, firing all six shots in succession. Bradley jumped, twisting in the air to try and dodge the bullets. He positioned his gauntlet to block a shot, then used the force of its impact to twist in the opposite direction. All but one of the bullets missed, a lone shot impacting his trailing left hand and taking it completely off halfway to the elbow. Blood fountained out as he landed, glancing down at his stump and giving Ed a small nod.
Son of a bitch!
Wow. Hate to say it, but this guy is fucking competent.
Shut up, Abe.
Now at the mercy of his reload timer, Ed launched himself forward, entering his sandstorm mode. He sped towards Bradley as quickly as possible but not fast enough.
With another smirk, Bradley snapped his fingers in the gauntlet. The whole thing lengthened on his arm, dark metal plates forming out of nothingness to lay themselves on the gleeful boy’s shoulders, chest and back. After just a few moments, Bradley was covered head-to-toe in gunmetal dark plate armour that leaked smoke from every joint and orifice. With a triumphant shout, the now fully protected American started running forward to meet Ed’s sandstorm.
Seeing the change in attire, Ed whirled away, falling back to re-evaluate the threat. He couldn’t keep up his storm forever, but without its mobility, he had no advantage over his foe. He ended the ability and turned to see Bradley bearing down on him. Trusting his internal clock, Ed held his position, gun pointed directly at the sprinting Squire.
Bradley got close enough for Ed to see his odd, flickering irises before Sa’ar finally reloaded. Standing his ground, Ed aimed at the centre chest piece. He unleashed hell.
Five more accelerated bullets smacked into Bradley’s armour, all thudding into the same spot. The force completely arrested the Squire’s progress and sent him flying back to the other side of the arena, landing heavily in the sand. Ed chased him there in storm form, aiming to put the last bullet in the crack he’d hopefully opened up in the breastplate.
As he got within 10 metres, Bradley sat up from the ground. His chest piece had a hairline fracture running down it, haemorrhaging smoke and Numen both. Ed leapt out of his storm, vortex winds reforming around his arm as he pointed the gun at Bradley’s chest one more time.
Bang! Fshh-CRAKK!
The sound of Ed’s wind was cut short as the boy put one in Bradley’s chest from near point-blank range, stoving in half of the chest piece and knocking him flat once more. Out of bullets now, Ed jumped back out of reach, seeing that the tough American was somehow still moving. The blond boy coughed wetly, with what had to be half his ribcage collapsed, turning it into a heaving cackle.
“I didn’t think you had it in you, mutt. I was hoping to keep this a secret, but that six-gun of yours is a real motherfucker.”
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At that, Bradley got up to his feet, stretched once, then burst into flames.
A shock rippled through the arena as the boy’s armour erupted in the centre of a conflagration. A heat haze spread outwards as the sand around him quickly reached searing temperatures. Holding out his one useful arm, flame swirled and coalesced into a sword of pure fire, which he grabbed and pointed at Ed.
Shite.
Indeed.
Reinvigorated and somehow ignoring the fact that he only had one hand and one usable lung, Bradley roared, a sound which came out as more of a wheeze, and took off after Ed. Still about twenty seconds away from a reload, Ed activated his sandstorm and sped away from the burning figure. Behind him, Bradley stopped, reshaping the fire sword into a fire spear and, with an agonised grunt, launching it right at Ed’s particulate form.
The spear flashed forwards and just barely grazed the cloud of sand that constituted his opponent. With a scream, Ed fell out of his storm, the ability forcibly cancelled. A deep, stinging pain shot up his leg and back. He looked down at his left foot, which was now red-hot, and made of glass. It was steaming, fused to his flesh by the heat melting the glass and muscle together.
He tried to activate his storm again but nothing happened. Bradley now painfully loped towards him, leaving a trail of glass footsteps in the sand as Ed tried to limp away.
Abe, what the shite? I will not lose to a bloody racist.
You need both feet touching sand for it to work. Being completely honest, now that your mobility is fucked, I don’t see how you can win this.
Shut the fuck up if you’re not going to be helpful.
Bradley wasn’t summoning another weapon of flame, so either he was just dragging this out for his own pleasure or he was on a timer like Ed’s reload interval. Ed knew he couldn’t get away, and assuming Bradley was just running out the seconds until he could summon another spear, the boy knew what he had to do.
Stopping in his tracks, Ed turned around and faced the approaching Squire. Ed himself was only crippled, but Bradley looked on the verge of keeling over. If you looked past the intimidating blaze, his chest plate was caved in on one side, the armour’s left hand lay limp, his gorget was stained with dried blood from his hacking coughs and he moved with a deliberate gait, avoiding scraping against his wounds. Still, the tough bastard was right in front of him and Ed was ten seconds away from a reload.
Fuck it.
He attacked.
Ignoring the searing heat on his face and the smell of charring flesh in the air, Ed powered off one leg and leapt towards the suit of armour, pistol in hand. Bradley hesitated for a split second, clearly surprised by Ed’s boldness. He recovered almost immediately but it was already too late.
A glass foot shattered across Bradley’s helmet, doing little damage but staggering him for the follow-up. Slamming into him bodily, Ed pushed the American further off balance. Catching himself, Bradley retaliated, sending a burning right hook at Ed’s face.
Ed dropped to his knees, just barely missing a flaming kick, brought Sa’ar around and activated its blade for the first time in front of others. Still extended from the kick, Ed grabbed Bradley’s greave, wincing at his skin blackening and burning from the contact. With a mighty thrust, he drove the blade through the back of the armour’s knee joint, punching through the mail covering. Through the blinding pain, Ed grinned.
His injector blade, as he called it, had a small hollow tube running up the spine of the knife. Bradley was the first to feel it earn its name as, with a pneumatic hiss, the blade injected a roomful of air into his knee cavity.
The influx instantly blew the blond boy’s leg off, who only reacted with a grunt. Turning towards Ed, Bradley knocked him over with the bloody stump of his leg and fell towards him, aiming to smother him under the burning suit of armour.
Is it too late to switch Pacts? This kid is relentless, a true warrior’s spirit.
Ed ignored him and rolled away, pushing off the scorching hot sand. Bradley grabbed him, both of them now on the ground wrestling. He felt Sa’ar reload in his hand and, smiling sadistically, turned and fired two shots point blank at Bradley’s helmet before the gun got slapped away. The boy's helmet flew off his head, revealing a similar crazed grin hiding under the visor.
Now both fighting for control of the pistol, Bradley wrapped his one remaining leg around Ed’s waist, immolating him further. The stench of burning meat, a sickly-sweet miasma, filled the air in those few moments Ed could breathe something other than smoke. Squire bodies were enhanced by their Pact but even Ed could feel he was taxing his to its limit. Something like 60% of his body had to be burned by this point. Nonetheless, he had to win.
It had moved beyond a contest of skill. Both combatants’ bodies were ruined, and they could barely fight, scrabbling about in the sand. Now, they were competing to see who’s will would give out first. Who would yield as the weaker man. Who would forever have to hang their head in shame at the knowl-
----------------------------------------
Ed awoke with a gasp. His eyes darted around wildly, only to see himself in the infirmary, deep within the arena. Gus, Songbird and Viper were sat around his bed, watching him expectantly. He looked at them, confused.
“Soo.. I won?”
The group erupted with chatter, Gus and Songbird high-fiving and Viper laying his head in his hands. Gus turned to Ed triumphantly.
“You, my beautiful friend, just won Songbird and I free drinks for half the semester.”
Ed furrowed his brow.
“Can someone explain what’s going on?? I was fighting Bradley, I blinked and now I’m here.”
Songbird chimed in happily, a beaming smile on her face.
“You two monsters wouldn’t quit, so the referee decided to stop the match before you both died. He made the right call I think, I’ve never seen anything like that before. Bradley’s infernal Arm is a whole bag of tricks! Imagine the possibilities! Who would’ve thought of pairing a standard fire dominion with armour! And the punishment he could tak-“
Viper smoothly cut in.
“What my starstruck friend over there is trying to say, is that your clash was so intense the judges feared you would both sustain such injuries as to be unable to be healed fully. There are some things only God can heal and you two were edging much too close to that line.”
Gus snorted.
“More like you put up too much of a fight and the school officials had to make sure their golden boy didn’t lose. Don’t get me wrong, Bradley is terrifying in his own right, but his family’s reputation means he was always guaranteed a spot in the Games. People would question why he’s there if he lost to you, so they prevented that from being a possibility. I bet you anything Bradley moves on by default.”
Maybe it was the aftereffects of being healed, but Ed didn’t understand the selection process at all. If Scholomance wanted the best, why restrict the advanced course to already known elites? Why give some of these elites guaranteed passes, while purposefully acting against others? It made no sense.
Your problem is that you’re taking the school’s stated goal at face-value. If you think their aims are to win the Games, their actions don’t make sense. If they have other goals or if individuals within the structure have their own agendas, it’s all perfectly coherent. You just don’t have the full picture.
The demon was right. He was a fount of wisdom when he wanted to be, however his moods usually swung between slightly adversarial to downright mean. And Ed could never get a break from his opinions. A casualty of his fake Pact. Still, that didn’t change Ed’s core sentiment about this whole situation.
Something was up. And he’d find out what.