Alkalians (55 page)

“
Oh, yeah. I guess that’s
true.” He looks to the crowd, then back to her, and shrugs. “I
still don’t think I’m going to like this.”

“
Just relax, Matt! It’s
all supposed to be friendly competition and sport, after all.
Imagine it’s just us, you and I, having a full-out sparring. And,
don’t even think about going easy on me…” Lyn grins, her diamond
eyes twinkling. “Because I won’t be going easy on you.”

That seems to be enough for Matt as he
smiles in return and then hardens his expression, preparing himself
for the fight as the speaker counts down above the
arena.

***

As the siren goes off, each of them
morph, Matt into the black-armored Paladin and Lyn into the
white-furred Wolf, and open with the same technique, summoning
clones of themselves that charge forward and clash. An eclipse of
energies, black-and-white shifting and dissipating, the most of
them are destroyed from massive swords, fangs, and claws before the
true Paladin and Wolf meet in the middle of the massacre. Matt
thrusts with his blade, but Lyn, with lupine grace on air balance,
leaps past him, spins, and then pounces at his exposed back.
Luckily for her, she was not aiming to directly lunge at him as he
whips back around with a lash of his sword, and instead of getting
cut open flies over it and pass Matt again, her claws scraping his
scalp to leave a green scar.

Wincing at the first blood being his,
Matt turns back to her while backing off on a thrust of air
balance, his sword vanishing and his left arm molding into a rifle,
and takes a shot at her. Lyn side-leaps to dodge the bullet,
disperses among another pack of her clones, and they rush at Matt
in a wide arc. He summons more clones to meet them, this time even
more than before, and as their blades chop through the Wolves he
keeps his gun ready, waiting to shoot at Lyn once she is
exposed.

Rather than seeing her through the
congregation of clones, he hears her when a loud, enchanting howl
rings over the battle. A moment later, when his clones have
vanquished hers, he is startled to see lightning bolts strike them
from above. Looking up, he finds a miniature thundercloud hovering
above the arena, crackling with energy before it rains bolts at
him.

Matt retreats on air balance, his
attention on the thundercloud to avoid its thunderbolts, but pays
for it when two things from either side collide into him, their
powerful jaws clamping to and twisting his arms about. Dragged down
and bent back by Lyn and another of her clones, Matt is stunned
before he looks with dread at the cloud as a final thunderbolt hits
him, piercing his armor to leave a jagged yellow wound in his
chest.

With the thundercloud dissipating and
two Wolves tugging at him, ripping and snapping through his arms
with snarls, Matt grimaces before countering them. With a
combination of air balance and a spell, all three spiral into the
air within a gale of black magic, and the twister yanks them off
him, erasing the clone and flinging Lyn away with bright green
stripes contrasting the blue streaks of her fur. Like a cat, she
twists her body in mid-fall to land on her feet, but when she looks
back sees a Blastion spell cast from Matt coming at her. In another
leap through air balance, she escapes a direct, devastating hit,
but the blast brushes by her to bruise her right flank, getting a
growl of pain out of her.

After she rolls across the floor and
onto her feet, the battle pauses with Lyn and Matt looking at each
other, assessing each other’s damage done to them. Matt’s forehead,
chest, and arms glow amber from his wounds, his arms so torn that
the core of his left rifle was disabled and he can’t form one for
his right. With him no longer able to use his guns, and the vital
wound pulsing in his chest, Lyn has a great advantage against
him.

At the same time, however, with her
right leg and ribs glowing yellow, Lyn knows her agility would be
hindered from being near crippled. Glancing between her wounds and
Matt as he resumes the fight by summoning more clones with swords,
she shows a wolf’s grin while her pack returns and clashes once
again with Matt’s clones.

With both sides each having the most
clones yet, Matt takes a breath as he waits, his big black
broadsword ready in his right hand, watching for a gap in the
clones’ skirmish to rush through and reach Lyn. When he hears her
howl again, though, he knows he’ll need a different plan before a
sudden crash of thunder demolishes the clones, both his and hers,
and there Lyn stands, her body lit up by an electric blue
aura.

Fangs gleaming while
lightning dances across her, Lyn lopes and lunges at him, knowing
her aura will zap and stun him when she’ll take him down and go for
the throat to finish him. As she reaches him, her static sparks
making contact first, she is stunned to find herself stopped in
mid-air with Matt’s arm raised between them. Seeing the volts
bending around him without harming him, she realizes the mistake
she’s made before he cries, “
Voltzon
Reversal
!” and the lightning backlashes as
he uses it against her, slamming her down and rolling her across
the floor with dark orange wounds on her.

With her in similar shape to him,
despite his vital wound pumping with more lost energy, Matt begins
to approach her, his sword between both hands to be larger and
ready for execution, before she howls a third time, this one longer
and more haunting, and a whirlwind of ice and snow suddenly forms
around her. Watching tensely, he worries when she vanishes within
the blizzard before it expands and blows over him, consuming and
blinding him as the shards of snow and ice, sharp like shrapnel,
sting and slice at him, red wounds stitching him all
over.

Rather than panicking within the
blizzard, Matt remains calm, his sword fading out to leave his arms
at his side, and closes his eyes. He understands this is the same
tactic Rose had once used on him, with her blizzard of leaves, and
he has trained himself on how to counteract such a tactic. With his
eyes closed, his sense of vision gone, he focuses upon the sense of
touch, extended through air balance, and feels the cold winds
swirling around him, waiting for either him or her to make the next
move. When he feels a sudden shift in the winds, off to his right,
he knows Lyn is making it, and he responds with his right arm
moving up and brandishing his black sword once more, pointing it in
the same direction he felt the disturbance.

***

From within the blizzard, having
concealed both fighters from the audience’s view, the sickening
sound of torn flesh cuts through the howling winds, and they die
down with the blizzard ending, revealing an incredible sight. Lyn
herself is just as amazed as the audience, finding herself impaled
upon Matt’s sword in mid-leap, the blade having entered through her
neck and chest and stuck its point out by her hind leg. Time seems
to have stopped as she blinks at Matt, his black armor fractured
with red wounds and eyes closed, and can’t help but be impressed
before time flows again when red energy bursts out of her, followed
by her demorph flash and her falling upon the ground, sprawled and
motionless with her face down.

It was a big gamble, his response to
her final lunge within the blizzard, when he could have more
logically dodged with an air thrust, then lashed out with a blast
of magic. On the spur of the moment, though, Matt went with his
sword, and it had paid off when he hears the announcer above say,
“The winner is Matthew Calamos.” Then, he opens his eyes, and
further spurred by the moment raises his mighty black sword to the
thunderous applause from the audience, coming to have a smile break
his stern expression as the feeling of victory washes over
him.

After the long moment of absorbing the
praise for him, the warning pound of pain from the vital wound in
his chest reminds him to demorph, and he almost wishes he doesn’t
when he buckles from the trauma through his human body. Noticing
Lyn stir by him, he looks down to her, shaking his head, and says,
“So much for us knowing our limits.”

“
Heh, yeah. That went
right out the window at some point, didn’t it?” After a wracking
cough, Lyn struggles to try getting up, but fails, and lays where
she is while looking back to Matt, her pale eyes sparkling. “But
that was an excellent match, and a well-deserved win for you,
Matt.”

“
Thanks, Lyn. You did
well, also, but I’m sorry only one of us could win.”

“
Yeah, that’s too bad.
But, oh well. It’s all in good sport.” As medics arrive to gently
move her onto a cot, she adds with a wearied smile, “Now, it’s you
and Rose in the finals. If Cain, Irene, or both get there, too,
give them hell for me. For all of us.”

“
You got it, Lyn. I’ll do
that.” After a quick check from one of the medics, he watches them
leave with Lyn before looking back to the audience of his peers yet
cheering at him. The smile from his face fades as odd thoughts come
over him. Sure, he had won the fight, but by doing so put a friend
in critical condition and taken away her last chance to prevail in
the competition. No longer feeling glad in his victory, Matt
instead feels numb, his face blank as he looks beyond the colors
and sounds of the crowd.

Chapter 15

Glory in the Arena: Grudging
Greens

***

With the red division of the
tournament finished, the green division takes off next. Compared to
the two previous divisions, this one turns out to be the most
anticipated for the audience as the students are the most restless
and loud they’ve been yet. The first pair to face-off that appears
in the arena brings a blending wave of cheering and booing from the
stands.

In his brilliant suit of green and
white, a smug look on his face despite the students making clear
their hatred of him, Cain strides in as the villain of the student
community. In contrast, with her dazzling red dress and hair,
flowing freely in her movement, and bronze-tanned skin, Cynthia is
the heroine of the students, a goddess of beauty and desire as many
men in the stands go wild at the sight of her.

The two come to stand about thirty
feet apart at the center of the gym, where Cynthia looks anywhere
but directly at Cain, waving and blowing kisses to her adoring
fans. It isn’t long before Cain’s snide tone reaches her with her
back to him. “How cruel of you, to give them all false hopes like
that, Cynthia. If my sources are correct, aren’t you now hitched to
that freshman scum, Sean?”

Cynthia’s only response is turning
back to face him, rage and hatred burning like furnaces in her
eyes, the same eyes that had held passionate, mesmerizing candles
for the crowd a moment before.

Cain smirks before going on, “Oh, come
now, you don’t need to look so mad. I’m not trying to criticize
you. In fact, I should be congratulating you! By falling hopelessly
in love with the roommate of that devil Matt, you’ve put yourself
on his side and avoided being stuck where I am. Really, I commend
you, Cynthia, for being as cruel as ever and stabbing me in the
back.”

Cynthia, in a vicious
tone, replies, “In case you’ve forgotten,
you
are the one who stabbed
me
in the back. I risk
my reputation, my
health
, for your damned plans and
schemes, and you snatch Irene and use her for one of the most
despicable things I’ve ever thought one of us could do. I know
you’ve been capable of terrible things, Cain, but not even I would
have guessed you capable of
murder
.”

Bewildered by her accusation, Cain
asks, “Whatever are you talking about? I’m not foolish enough to
actually kill another person!”

“
Yeah, you’re not foolish
enough. But you’re
insane
enough. You had told Irene to frame Matt Calamos
for murder by shooting Rose Alamence after Matt beat
her.”

“
Wha-what? Shoot one
freshman, to frame the other? Now that’s just
ridiculous…”

“
Don’t you try to deny it!
Irene herself had the gull to tell me it all. She was on a rooftop,
watching them fight, waiting to put a bullet in Rose when she
demorphed, as you had requested her to!”

His eyes darting about as if he hears
other things around him, Cain does a little laugh before saying,
“Matt’s prescription must have really messed with your head,
Cynthia dear. It makes sense, you flirting with the failed freshman
and this absurd story you concocted about me. Who would have
thought someone could remain out of her mind from a few sleeping
pills?”

“
I am completely sober and
sensible!” Cynthia shrieks back at him. “Irene confessed your plan
to me as soon as I left the infirmary, and when I told Matt, the
way he paled made it clear he knew what I was talking about. How,
Cain? How could you think other people’s lives are disposable, just
to maintain some stupid sense of superiority over the others? How
could you try to get away with murder?”

“
Enough!” Cain snaps at
her, his eyes twitching. “I will have no more of you accusing me of
wanting to murder the stupid bitch! All we, no, all I wanted was to
make it look like Matt had
tried
to kill her, and combining that with the rumors
that he could be a Shadow Core terrorist would have sealed his
demise! But, if, and I do mean
if
, the case became she did die, it
would have been all the better for securing the just punishment of
Matt and my just victory.”