Section 4

  part VI The main attraction/1st Round of the tournament

  Draxson's first match

  My first match of the tournament was against a woman who looked like she was in her early 20s; her skin was an intricate pattern of deep blue scales covering her arms and the few other visible parts of her, like her hands and neck, her face was only different in the way that her face wasn't covered in scales like the rest of her visible body sported. Still, her skin was the same Deep sea blue of her scales, and she had long, droopy ears that ended at a rounded point. She carried a short bow in her left hand, and with her right, she reached for an arrow to notch her bow. When the signal was given, she snatched an arrow and lined it on the string of her bow, and to finish the motion, she drew the string of her bow to its maximum stretch before she shot an arrow my way; I tried dodging to the left, but before I could move more than an inch her arrow traveled the 10 or so meters between in an instant burying itself in my arm, right below the shoulder, my arm screamed back at me from the wound the arrow had caused; I nearly went blind to my opponent's actions as I focused on the damage her arrow had done to my arm, I was helpfully reminded of the current threat as the arrow bearly swooshed past my head, and I dropped to the floor in a roll. The fight continued like this for another 3 minutes, and I thought, "If it continues like this for much longer, I'll be sporting enough arrows that I'll look like a human-shaped pincushion."

  I had five arrows stuck in my body, 1 in each arm 2, two in my left leg, and one buried in my right shoulder; the wounds weren't bleeding that bad, but still hurt when they flew at me from my opponent, Sojah Koi's short bow with incredible speed. I was finally Fed up with this dance of dodging an arrow and my fire bolts being snuffed out by splashes of water that Sojah derived from the large floating bubbles of water she summoned early into the fight to combat my flames.

  I needed to end this fight desperately, so I flicked back a wave of fire directly in front of me to slow the arrow down, allowing me to catch it spinning around until it was pointed at Sojah. I tossed it at her leading foot, which she used when changing positions as I attempted to rush her. I summoned a wall of flames to conceal my movement as I sprinted behind Sojah Koi, using my dark jacket to blend in with the smoke that enveloped Sojah. Sojah didn't seem troubled by my actions as she calmly directed 2 of the three water bubbles to smother my flames. I gritted my teeth as I watched her turn her head with a relaxed composure like this was nothing to her. I was angered by this blatant lack of interest in taking me seriously; I know I'm not that important, but I would have felt a lot better if I was treated like an actual threat…" without fully paying attention to what my rage was making me do, I realized That I had charged headlong enveloped in flames and I tackled Sojah not even caring about the arrows she launched that found their way into my leather jacket and deeply pierced the skin of my chest; when I looked into her eyes as we were flying off the stage due to my tackle, and I saw genuine fear in her eyes as the water that surrounded her and her scales where being deprived of moisture thanks to the flames that carried me and by extension her off the stage a few feet of the ground. Before we both fell, I dropped Sojah and ripped out the arrow she stuck in me to hold on to in a futile attempt to switch the tables on me.

  But she fell at the 5 feet we were from the ground and landed on her back, while I landed in a crouch before standing up and ripping another arrow from my chest, holding it above my head in my right hand as I smiled in joy at my victory. And that was how I concluded my fight with a stronger opponent with sheer tenacity and grit.

  As I was thinking over how brutal that fight had been, my victory announcement was repeated since I was in a daze. Shelltri announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, beast kin and humanoids alike, we have a winner for the first fight of bracket A, and our winner is Draxson ChoasWing. The spectators and onlooking contestants cheered and shouted my name. From behind me, I heard dirt being disturbed as Sojah picked herself off the floor, turned around, and watched her dust herself off as I approached, offering her my outstretched hand to acknowledge her efforts. Sojah Koi took my hand, and we exchanged formal acknowledgments.

  "That was a good match, Sojah Koi. I was afraid our match was going to be boring, but you're really good with that short bow of yours; you even got past my scales,” I said, revealing a hole where an arrow pierced my scaled chest. “ I admit, I sorta went overboard at the end because you were worrying me that you weren't interested in this fight at all; I think if I didn't end the fight as I did, you would have certainly won that battle,” I said, giving a chuckle and smiling as I looked up at my nearly half-a-head taller opponent while shaking her hand before we both drew our hands back at the generally accepted interval. Sojah Koi, in turn, responded to me, smiling back at me, and in her eyes, I could see she was examining my wounds with remorseful eyes. “Yeah, you really gave me a hard time, I was scared out of my mind when you summoned those flames; I tried to hide it the best I could in hopes that you'd let up and lose motivation, and I was planning to use that opportunity to force you off the stage with well-placed arrows that would barely graze you delivering the final nudge off the stage. I'm really sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you so badly. My training and my people have nurtured me to retain a stoic composure and show no mercy to an opponent until they surrender or otherwise are defeated without killing them.” Sojah said with apologetic tones in her voice as she offered an apology.

  “Sorry for all that, Draxson. I'm glad you came out mostly unharmed, and congratulations on winning the fight.” She raised her short bow in her left hand. And stretched it out to me as she said, “Promise me you'll do your best to represent and honor the archers of the world and the sacred art of Archery,” she said as I took my bow from my back and we tapped out bows together, observing the timeless tradition of archers. We each took a tiny fiber of our bows and traded them, placing them between the bow’s fibers. She also placed a hand to steady my bow as she put her bow on her belt. She then, with a small knife, carved her name into the column of archers I’ve bested in my brief time practicing the art of archery, making the count now 2. With her marking, she brought my tally to two victories. The two names on my bow already were Sopheia and now “Sojah Koi”; Sojah’s engraving had a deep blue water majic glow to it, making it unique from Sopheia’s engraving, which had wispy tendrils of frost radiating from it. We said our farewells, and Sojah walked to where the non-contestants watched the fights. I went searching for Phantom to ask her to recount the parts of Sopheia's fight that I missed and watch her fight's ending.

  Sopheia’s First Match

  Sopheias first fight was later recounted to me by Phaz and goes like this :

  Sopheia stepped onto the stage with a determined smile, standing with a strong

  foothold.

  Sopheia's first round was against the same fighter she collaborated with in her qualifier's match. I think her name was Doff Halt, from what I remember. Sopheia started her fight, finding a good perchance in the ground, her left foot forward stretched and her right leg bent at a 45-degree angle, all while holding her sword over her right shoulder, blade pointing at her adversary on the other side of the stage. Her opponent, Doff, stood with her hand on the hilt of the majic blade she wore on her hip. Doff, if I forgot to mention or didn't mention because I was focused on Sopheia the entire time of her qualifiers, Doff looked like a fox Beast kin but with the face of a cat. Both Sopheia and Doff waited on each other to make the first move, but not wanting to wait any further, Sopheia charged, running low to the ground like a cat, her tail swishing in the air as she ran with her sword in her right hand, and she prepared herself for a roll. She started the movement by swinging her sword diagonally, being met with a thin light extending about a Meter from the sword that Doff swung in front of her to stop Sopheia's attack. Sopheia stepped to the left to get out of the range of her adversary, before lightly tossing her sword, causing it to slide about a Meter to her left. Her sword preceded her as she tucked her arms to her body and rolled to the left, and in one motion, she grabbed the sword with her left as she came out of her roll, swinging her sword, turning it so the blade's side would hit her opponent's neck as she swung her sword, aiming for Doff's neck. Sophiea whacked Doff in the back of the neck, the side of her blade hitting her in between the shoulder blades, knocking Doff to the ground.

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  When Doff hit the ground, she turned herself around to swing her sword at Sopheia, that faint blue line meeting Sopheia's oncoming blade long before Doffs sword would be able to defend Doff got up from the ground into a crouch before she swung her sword again that line that at first only looked like it reached a few inches from the blade now looked like it reached about a foot past her blade with the same direction and speed of her sword. Sopheia defended against Doff with the edge of her blade. The majic extension blade made a high-pitched ring upon contact with Sopheia's metal sword. Doff rose from a crouch, swinging her sword at Sopheia at a greater distance than her blade would enable, but the thin blade shaped conjugation that mimicked the actions of the host blade made ot easy to swing her blade at Sopheia and keep her on the defensive while Doff herself was unreachable by normal means. As the fight raged on blue tendrils of majic escaped from Doff's Armour, she was wearing a breastplate that coverd to mid stomach, along with some sectioned metal plates shaped like a skirt that reached from halfway up her lower torso to 3 quarters of the way down her thighs that clanked together and when they hit her belt holding up her thick loosely form fitting pants she wore under her armored skirt. Doff also wore metal plates under her knee, covering her boots, along with thin and small metal pieces on the edge, supposedly for a stronger kick. The reason what she was wearing was important was because sections of her Armour were losing their color with long and cross-hatched blue lines spread across all her Armour except her boots and the bottom of her leg Armour. I guess that was the cost of the majic extension of her blade. I wasn't the only one who noticed this because the next thing Sopheia did was charge Doff, dragging her blade an inch off the ground behind her, poised to deliver a heavy blow. And that's what Sopheia did.

  Next, her tail swishing in broad strokes as she raised her blade from her tight side to above her head, and finishing the attack by slashing horizontally across Doff's chest plate with a loud clang, leaving a massive line of ice blue, one of the signs of Frost majic. The frost spread rapidly across the chest plate and numbed Doff's shoulders, leaving her unable to properly swing her blade, slashing out at Sopheia’s legs but barely catching on the fabric, tearing away only a small portion of Sopheia's khaki shorts. The cut was only the width of her tail. Doff's fading blade extension barely scratches the thick swatch of fur protruding from her shorts all the way to mid thigh, leaving a shallow knick on her pale skin on the lower portion of her thigh. With a decisive blow, Sopheia knocked Doff Halt off the stage with a forward thrust of her sword, which cut shallowly into Doff's chest plate. As she fell off the stage, she tried and regained her balance, keeping herself on the stage only a mere inch from falling and being eliminated. Sopheia dove into a crouch and swiped at Doff's legs, giving the last nudge she needed to eliminate her opponent from the playing field. With that, Sopheia won, with Doff hitting the ground on her back. Halpalin's voice boomed, announcing the victor of the round. "AND the winner is…Sopheia Ne-Ko" " now that signals the end of the first round."

  Match 2A of the tournament round one

  Fennib Flynn swiftly took down her opponent, well, more like her opponent was swiftly worn down. Her opponent was Sof Halt -Doff’s sister, Fennib covered Sof in spirit arrows all going in separate directions, binding Sof to where she stood. Sof, stuck though she tried as she might, was unable to move from where she was bound. Sof Halt surrendered the match to Fennib. With that, the match on the left side of the stage was announced over as the excited crowd cheered for the splendid display of skill.

  Match 2B

  The crowd settled down from the exciting fight on the left stage while Phaz and her opponent, Rwarg, studied each other, walking in circles. When the crowd was calm again, they intently watched Phaz and Rwarg, a large bear beast man with tight-fitting robes of a fist fighter and the signature long baggy pants and wool slippers with a headband wrapped around his forehead and his wrists. The two circled the stage, continuing to study each other before any of them made a move at their opponent. I watched Phaz circle around the stage with the bear beast like they were engaged in some strange dance, trying to get into each other's heads and thinking of all the outcomes to decide the best course of action to deal with their opponent. Phaz wasted another precious minute, which she only had six left by now, started gathering her colorful mists from her inner core, and began displaying them as she radiated with thin wisps of bright-color shifting lights like gusts of wind.

  The breeze of colors flowed around her like she was the center of a storm of iridescent lights as they swirled around her. Suddenly, a full-on tsunami of colorful waves flowed from Phaz and began enveloping her like a blanket of bright liquid, in the same fashion in which she transported us a day ago. And behold, she appeared a few steps behind her opponent as a colorful duplicate took her spot and ran towards Rwarg head-on, causing him to charge and meet the duplicate halfway, as Rwarg approached the duplicate, it began to come apart as Phaz crept closely behind her opponent, when Rwarg struck out at the illusionary duplicate the colorful gathering of lights completely dispersed into the atmosphere leaving no trace of the duplicate. When Rwarg noticed that he had been deceived, he turned around a moment too late, finding Phaz holding a knife that barely missed his throat.

  Rwarg laughed a loud and amused laugh at Phaz’s efforts to get him to submit to her. He abruptly ended his laughter when his face contorted in a serious expression right before he swiftly caught Phaz’s arm by the wrist and squeezed it tight enough to cause her grip to loosen and ultimately drop the knife she wielded. As Phaz struggled to pull back her arm, even though she had a good stance, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't pry her arm free. In a swift motion, Rwarg kicked out his right leg, sweeping Phaz’s legs from underneath her, causing her to stumble to the ground. Phaz struggled to pick herself off where she lay prone on the semi-rough stage surface, and before she found any purchase in her disoriented and hurt state with her arm throbbing in pain, Phaz was grabbed by the arm, and her whole body was twisted as she was slammed into the ground on her back, breaking some of the stone beneath her. She lay on the ground breathless, struggling to inhale and exhale as Rwarg prepared to deliver another attack.

  Just as she was about to be struck, Phaz desperately tried to use her spatial shifting power, but was only able to muster enough to execute a slow and inadequate phase out that barely avoided a crushing stomp aimed at her arm. When Rwarg’s left foot broke through about a half foot into the ground, Phaz, in one final attempt to defeat her opponent with the opportunity her narrow dodge had provided, rolled over on her back and kicked Rwarg in the thigh, knocking him back and losing the grip he had on her arm that he previously twisted. This gave Phaz the opportunity to roll over to her right and finally stand as her opponent rushed her after his swift recovery. “At this rate, she's not going to last much longer.” Said Rebekah as we watched the fight unfold, standing a few feet from the edge of the stage, as the other onlooking contestants did. I thought about what Rebekah said, and what she said was true. Phaz was losing energy every moment she struggled against her opponent; she was already losing the color her body hosted; she was turning a dull grey in some parts of her skin as the color left her with every blow that was dealt to her previously. No longer able to draw upon further color light majic tendrils, she used for casting. Phaz expended what seemed to be the last of her energy; if her fur and skin going a pale white and her fur turning jet black was any indicator that she was out of majic.

  The last of the majic she used appeared to be a phaze out that allowed her to briefly phase down into the stage a few feet to avoid the rapid punches and broad kicks that her rival was delivering. But once her energy was spent, she couldn't move anymore, and as a mercy, she was lifted off the stage to be thrown to the edge of the stage. From the way Rwarg smiled and looked upon Phaz as if studying her to deduce the best way to deal with her. Rwarg widened his smile and tossed Phaz to the edge of the stage. Phaz landed with a loud “thump,” scratching at the edge of the stage frantically searching for purchase to hold onto. Rwarg stomped the stage in an attempt to loosen Phaz’s grip, but Phaz held onto the edge of the platform for dear life. Her hands only came free when Rwarg himself clawed through the stone stage’s surface. He dug his paws under Phaz’s claws and swiftly ripped them up and out of the stage. He picked her up by her left arm with his right, the rest of her body dangling like a doll under Rwarg’s grip.

  He brought her left ear to his face and whispered something in her ear, before she was promptly removed from the stage via Rwarg letting her hand go, and before she could climb to her feet and run off. Rwarg stomped the ground, which, by the substantial force, sent her a foot off the ground. Phantom rising in the air, her legs tucked under her. Then, Rwarg punched out, and the shockwave of his strike launched her a couple of meters with a backward trajectory to the ground on the outside of the stage. Phaz fell rapidly from the 5-foot-tall stage, and with the additional foot that Rwarg raised her off the stage, she was bound to have a rough impact. Phaz was mere inches from hitting the ground when a winged bird beast man swooped down from the sky. He had flown from the crowd, and in a wing-aided arc dive, he caught her before she landed face-first in the dirt. The Bird beastkin shouted up to Rwarg, "Squak, what in the world was that for me, matey? Did you really need to hit the girl that hard?" Rwarg replied, " I thought she would phase out and become a phantom of energy to avoid taking damage. I guess it's really just a skill issue-" From the movements of his lips, he seemed to whisper, "but she did fight well for a dog, and I can respect that." Rwarg stepped off the stage and walked towards a group that consisted of more beastkin, a cat, and a dog. The bird beastkin set Phantom gently on her feet, then walked off to follow after Rwarg.