Alkalians (51 page)

Matt blinks, still dumbstruck by what
Amelia says happened with her and Irene, before he gets out, “So,
that means Irene’s, um, isn’t there a word for it? Loving the same
gender, rather than the opposite?”

“
Yes.
Homosexual
.” Lyn growls, “But she’s
worse than that, Matt, she’s
bisexual
. Notice how she was with
James, over there? Remember when Amelia told us that she was
preying on weaker students in unfair fights, the other day? We
later found out that’s because she’s allied with James now, not
Cain, and they got their high scores in the royale because they
were snatching from the lower classmen. And knowing James’
reputation with his lady friends, you can be sure they’ve done it a
few times since they joined up.” She points to the corner of the
locker room, to the bathroom, adding, “I bet you they’re doing it
right now, back there, as we speak!”

Matt looks with shock at the mention
of it, then back to them. “Well, one could hope not, with all of us
here and a tournament about to start! But, does Dante know any of
this?”

The women consider that concern,
shrug, and Amelia answers, “Maybe, maybe not. Either way, we
probably shouldn’t tell him. He cares so much for that sister of
his, he could become quite upset if he learned about, ah, her and
me. And trust us, when you’ve seen Dante get upset, you never
forget it.”

“
Ah. Okay.” Matt settles
down, somehow, when he shakes his head and says, “Well, good luck
in the tournament, Amelia and Lyn. Let’s hope to see each other at
the end!”

Matt’s clearing head becomes clouded
again when Lyn says, “Yes, let’s hope!” before giving him a quick
kiss on the cheek and walking back to the other lockers, while
Amelia smiles, nods with a wink, and brushes back her lovely brown
hair when she turns and follows.

***

Matt stares after his two lady
friends, his hand rubbing the cheek Lyn left a kiss on, and wonders
about the kiss and the wink before he gets a sudden slug to his
shoulder. Jolting from the hit, he whirls to Buster glaring down at
him, getting out, “Hey, what was that for?”

“
Heh, what do ya think?
For cramming a cork down Nicholas’ blow hole without me being there
to see it!” He laughs while Rose steps into view from behind him,
claps Matt on the same shoulder, making him wince, and says, “Damn,
Matt, that’s amazing, how you beat Nicholas in a duel. Not even I
have pulled that off, yet! Come on, tell me what happened, how did
you do it?”

Stumbling for words to reply, Matt
glances to Rose, who shrugs, and answers, “Well, I, I guess I just
realized at some point I had to take him out with one shot. If I
had never attempted it or missed, then I’m sure I would have
lost.”

“
Hmm, a convenient moment
of desperate inspiration? Yeah, I get ya. Happens to the best of
us, sometimes. Hopefully, it will happen to some of us in this
tournament coming up!” Buster growls, his fingers anxiously
flexing. “Gah, I can’t wait anymore! I gotta have some smack talk
with my fellow blues before we start, and consider how each of them
could benefit me as a partner. Ah, there’s James, now! Hey,
James!!” He lunges away from Matt and Rose, yanking a surprised
Sean by the neck of his jacket, and crosses the locker room in big
strides towards James and Irene, who rolls her eyes and sulks out
of the way.

Watching a moment longer as Buster
shoves Sean into James, then whistles and beckons an amused Amelia
over to join them, Matt shakes his head, slightly frowning. “Wow,
he’s really excited about this, isn’t he?”

“
Yeah, he could barely
contain himself while talking to me.” Rose has a small smirk on her
as she watches Sean squirming in the company of three seniors
around him, and looks to Matt. “What about you? Are you
excited?”

“
Heheh, um, I suppose I
am, a little. And you?”

“
Well, to be honest, I’m
incredibly nervous. I’ve told myself to expect getting to this
point at some time in my career, but I wasn’t expecting to be here
in my first year at college!”

“
Hah, yeah, me too. Well,
about the whole being here part. Actually, I’m nervous, too. And
not just a little. A lot.”

Rose chuckles. “Of course.” She leans
back into a locker next to Matt, her arms hanging by her sides, and
suggests, “Wouldn’t it be nice if you and I were the two in the
finals, for our red division?”

“
Ah, yes. I guess.” He
glances in the direction of Lyn before turning back to Rose. “But I
could also wind up with Lyn, you know?”

“
Hmm. Yeah, that is
true.”

“
Yeah. Oh, wait. What if
it was me and
Tony
together in the finals!?”

“
Hah, now wouldn’t that
get everyone cawing like crows. The heroic freshman teaming up with
the tyrannical senior’s lackey!” She shakes her head and lets Matt
know, “I’m pretty sure between me, you, or Lyn that Tony won’t be
getting any further in this competition.”

Matt thinks about that, and then nods.
“Yeah, I guess you’re right, there.” He and Rose find themselves at
a loss for words, to either continue or change the subject, until
he says, “We’ve gone through a lot here in college, haven’t
we?”

“
Yeah, and we’re not even
half-way through our first year, yet.”

“
Mhmm. So, what have you
liked about it, so far?”

“
Hmm. Well, I guess making
new friends, advancing my studies, and improving on my fighting
abilities. What have you liked?”

“
Um, the same, more or
less. As to what I have
not
liked, this whole conflict between me and Cain.
When I came to college this year, it was the last thing I expected
myself to get caught up in.”

“
Yeah, same here. It’s all
drama, trauma, and pointless politics for us students when we are
supposed to be more concerned with our studies and building, not
corrupting, our relations with others.”

“
Right. But you know what
the one thing I don’t regret about college this year
is?”

“
What?”

Matt looks directly to her, smiling.
“Becoming friends with you, Rose.”

Rose deeply blushes, glancing away,
but is soon smiling, as well. “Yeah. You know what? I feel the same
way about you, Matt.” Before he could reply, her hand finds its way
to his and grasps it, causing him to blush in turn before they are
both smiling at each other, their joined hands squeezing another
sign of their bonding.

Chapter 13

Glory in the Arena: Brawling
Blues

***

Soon, the tournament finally begins as
the first two competitors enter the coliseum under a shower of
claps and cheers from all around them. James, wearing his rich suit
that seems woven from opal, his long hair a similar shade, strolls
out across the smooth, stone floor, well composed in the eyes of
many as he waves to them, smirking especially at some women while
sniping them with winks.

Sean, in his casual suit of rustic
brown, tries to follow James’ example, but is quite the opposite as
his grin is forced, his eyes are wide with imminent panic, and
every step he takes augments the trembling in his figure. The two
walk in opposite directions, putting distance between them, until
they are about thirty yards apart within the center of the arena,
and they turn back to face each other, sizing up the other in their
silent stares.

James is the one to break the silence
between them while the audience around them calms down, sharpening
his smirk and saying, “Alas, we meet each other as foes again, Sean
Wyseinburg. It seems fate agrees that I should get another chance
to put you back in your place, as a failed freshman.”

Sean, gulping and scratching his neck,
sputters, “Heheh, you sound awfully confident, James. James
Iroshen! How are we to know what fate wants?”

“
Because, as fate would
have it, Dante won’t be here to help you. If I remember correctly,
in fact, you sacrificed your own morph just to weaken me so Dante,
not
you
, could
defeat me. Therefore, that means
you
cannot defeat me
alone.”

“
Meh, that’s true, I
wasn’t good enough to outmatch you alone. But that was before, and
this is now!
Now
,
I’m going to prove how much stronger and skilled I’ve become, by
taking your classy,
crassy
, casanova character and
beating it into the ground!” That’s what Sean hopes he would be
able to do, trying to convince himself with how boldly he declares
it.

James, his long hair swaying as he
shakes his head, isn’t convinced. “And I’m the one who’s awfully
confident, hah. I will admit, you must have improved somewhat
significantly, getting into these semifinals and such, but there’s
one significant detail you seem to have forgotten.”

“
Oh? And what’s
that?”

“
You see, that first time
we fought, my battle morph was split into two forms, and thus my
power was halved. This time, you will be fighting my
true
battle morph, in
one piece and with full power.”

Sean’s face pales as that fact tears
apart some of his optimism. “Ah, I see. Um, I, uh, oh, wait! You
seem to be forgetting something, too!”

“
Really? What?”

“
Well, if you claim that
you’ve got fate on your side, then I’ve got
luck
on mine!”

James can’t help but chuckle, a palm
meeting his forehead. “And just how does that make a difference
here?”

“
Easily, actually! See,
lately I’ve come to notice that the same kind of luck I have in my
gambling has been showing up in my battles. That, or I’m just so
crazy with my combos that nobody’s prepared for them. Which, in a
way, makes me lucky! That’s how it’s gonna make a difference, I’m
sure.”

“
Right. Then we’ll just
put this ‘luck’ of yours to the test.” The overhead speaker above
them begins the loud countdown to the fight, and the crowd hushes
while the fighters prepare themselves, a cold demeanor on James’
face and Sean grimacing under squinting eyes. The countdown’s end
coincides with the blast of an air horn, and the duelists
morph.

***

Sean looks on at the true form of
James’ morph, and what he sees makes him sure that his luck just
crumpled up and died. It was the archetype of his twin morphs. The
gray wings are massive in span and feathers, unfurling like mighty
sails off his back. His amethyst-colored armor has a gothic design
to it, thick and heavy with curved edges and trim and sinister
shapes flavoring his gauntlets and spaulders. The raptor talons for
his feet are armored, as well, the claws long and razor sharp, and
his weapon, the scythe, consists of an iron rod rather than a
wooden pole, with a monstrous, wickedly-shaped sickle set on its
end.

There’s another big difference in this
single morph that Sean notices. All over his armor, on his scythe’s
blade, and even on his face, James is painted with runes, those on
his face like tattoos and the rest on his armor and weapon being
daunting designs. Compared to his meager, mud brown,
lamellar-and-mail battle suit, Sean is sure he must look small and
inferior compared to the Reaper in the eyes of their
audience.

James makes the first move, hefting
and swinging his weapon up and forward, the tip of his blade
scraping the floor to send a splitting, spitting trail of sparks
towards his foe. Sean doesn’t know what those sparks are, but he
has sense enough to get out of the way when he reverses and flips
on a burst of air balance, avoiding the sparks. In the vicinity of
where he had stood, the magical sparks suddenly condense, then
explode, in a fierce flash of flames.

For the next several seconds, Sean
finds himself on the run with James continuing to fling magical
attacks at him as he spins past thunderbolts, dives under arcane
cannonballs, and leaps over more fiery eruptions. As he does so,
however, he is preparing a counterattack in his acrobatic dodging.
Once he has suppressed enough energy through air balance, he then
takes aim and fires himself at James like a rocket, closing the
great distance in his insane speed.

Despite Sean’s sudden air thrust at
him, James is ready for him, smirking devilishly. He makes another
slash with his scythe before him, and the tear in the air becomes
manifest by a suspended surge of crackling black energy. Having no
time to alter his approach, Sean flies right into this energy, and
in the next instance, with his expression gone stupefied, crashes
into a wall of the arena far away from James. A moment later, he
falls back out of the crater left from the impact, not harmed since
he hit it with his armored shoulder instead of his head, but
nonetheless dazed, not just from the impact but also the wonder of
what just happened.

The audience shares in Sean’s sense of
surprise, but neither would get an answer to what happened when he
hears the distinct sounds of large wings in flight behind him. He
whirls to see James swooping upon him, his huge talons reaching for
his face. With a twist of his body, backwards and down, Sean barely
dodges the claws, closing on nothing but air, and springs himself
away on air balance to avoid the sweep of James’ scythe.