It was a gorgeous day in Baticul. The sky was devoid of even a single cloud, and the fon belt was glimmering clearly high above. The many levels of the city stood majestically against the crisp air, and the neatly polished cobblestone streets were filled with people on their weekend shopping trips. The moment was perfect, if you were just out shopping.
But the main attraction was the Coliseum. Citizens of all nations flocked to the biggest combat tournament in the world from as far away as Keterburg, and the very atmosphere resonated with the sound of their wild cheers. This weekend was special, as it was time for the annual Ragnarok, the most famous event of the year. Parties of six had trained for as long as two years for this fight, hoping to take home the grand prize of one hundred thousand gald, the sought-after World's End Trophy, and bragging rights for life.
"Look, guys! It's time for the Ragnarok! We gotta see it!" An overly eager Luke dashed ahead of the other five with which he'd been traveling, urging them to follow.
"Perfect timing," Jade smirked after the redhead.
"What do you mean, Colonel?" Anise looked up to the other soldier curiously.
"Why else would he have us make a spontaneous visit to Baticul while we were en route to Daath?"
"Oh, Luke!" Natalia grumbled, folding her arms. "This had nothing to do with seeing Father, did it?"
"Here's the sign-in sheet!" Luke dragged his friends to his side.
"Luke... they only allow parties of six. You can't enter by yourself," Tear leaned over to read the form stationed near the door to the arena.
"You don't mean you're making us join, too?!" Guy complained.
"Luke! You can't just enter us without asking!" Anise groaned.
"Oh, come on," Luke put his arms behind his head casually. "You know, there's a hundred thousand gald prize money."
"I'm in!" Anise snatched the pen out of Luke's hand and scribbled her name on the list under Luke's.
"Anise!" Natalia scolded the young Oracle Knight. "You can't be serious!"
Just as she was about to launch into a full-blown lecture about the evils of fighting for entertainment, the door opened behind them to admit six familiar figures.
"Oh, come on, Asch, it'll be fun!" a voice begged, almost girly in its plea. "You know who'll be here--"
"Shut up! Even if he did enter, he'd never make it past the elimination rounds!" Asch turned as if he were about to strangle the other God-General, but he caught sight of Luke and his party. "What are you doing here?" he quickly switched the focus of his rage.
"Oh, you know, it's time for the Ragnarok, so we thought we'd give it a shot," Luke answered nonchalantly.
"You mean you thought," Tear corrected him. "We thought we'd go to Daath."
"Ah, so you're here to fight," Asch grinned slyly. "You want to see how fast you can get your butt kicked all the way back to Daath so you can get there sooner, right?"
"What did you--?! We're going to win that tournament!" Luke gritted his teeth and shook his fists at his original. "You're just jealous you can't even hope to be that good!"
"You stupid dreck!" Asch advanced, his anger building rapidly. "I'll show you who can fight!"
"Asch! Save it for the arena!" Largo pulled the irate God-General back a few feet.
"We're actually going to fight?" Legretta looked up at the Black Lion, mildly shocked.
"Well, if Commander Asch wants to, then we should, too," Largo responded levelly. "We're in town now and we have time to kill, so why not?"
"I concur," Dist moved his chair to the front of the group, slurring his words heavily. "I have to beat that conniving, ugly--"
"It's nice to see you, too, Dist," Jade smiled pleasantly. "I look forward to meeting you in combat." he retrieved the pen from Anise, adding his flawless signature to the list.
"Jade?!" Natalia, Guy, and Tear looked at the Colonel with appalled expressions.
"It's only for fun," Jade said jovially. "Why not take it as it comes?"
"You're hopeless," Guy sighed. "Fine, if even you are fighting, I have to sign up, too, I guess..." He scrawled out three letters onto the form.
"Grr!" Dist flailed ridiculously in his chair. "Put me in, too, Asch! I can't let Jade get away with this!"
"That makes..." Sync read out the list they'd gotten as well. "Asch, Largo, me, Legretta, and Dist." he turned to the one whose name was missing. "I don't care what you say, you're in, too."
"I'll tear you to shreds, Anise! You won't get away with killing Mommy!" the beast-tamer in question pointed to the other girl.
"Sure, Gloomietta, go ahead and try it," Anise rolled her eyes. "You probably can't even spell your name to sign up, so leave it to Sync, okay?"
Arietta growled and moved toward her competition, but Largo pulled her back as well.
"I guess we have no choice now," Tear shrugged to Natalia. "They just kind of... decided."
"Yes, but maybe it won't be so bad..."
"That's everyone!" Luke dropped the slip of paper into the collection box.
"Likewise," Asch sneered, plopping his page down at the same time. "I can't wait to see you get destroyed out there."
"Welcome, one and all to the annual Ragnarok Baticul's number-one super-ultra-fun battle royale get ready to fight everyone cheer like crazy people I can't wait to see some action today..." The obnoxious emcee droned on in her high-pitched voice, speaking two dozen sentences in one. The crowd roared in anticipation, but they weren't listening to her any more than anyone else was.
Luke winced at her voice; it was almost as piercing as Mieu's. He was slightly tired from the past fights, but now was the final round, and he couldn't lag here. Choosing to wisely ignore the announcer to preserve his strength, he leaned back on the stone wall.
"Aaaaaaand here comes the first team to the final round everyone give a big round of applause for the Jade gang!"
They strode out, the audience even more excited than ever.
"And we have another team over here to challenge them because if they weren't here then there would be no challenge for the challengers to challenge and the final round would actually have been the semifinals and then we wouldn't be bothering with this and we wouldn't even have this competition if there weren't challengers ripe for the challenging get ready to face the God-Generals of the Order of Lorelei's Oracle Knights!" she called all in one breath as Asch led his group to the middle of the field. The two stone doors slammed shut behind both parties, and they faced each other grimly, trying to ignore the emcee and wait for the signal at the same time.
"And you two are probably dying to tear out every last beating organ in each other's bodies, but first we need some rules!"
"Ugh, just get it over with," Luke mumbled, but no one heard him.
"FIRST off no killing as usual no one wants to face lawsuits nope I sure don't want a lawsuit on my hands nosiree I'll pass on that thanks cuz lawsuits ask questions and--"
"SHUT UP!" a brave soul shouted from the audience, and he was given a hearty assortment of clapping, whistles, and praise from the other spectators.
"SECOND off there will be no others allowed to fight in any one fighter's place that includes ligers, hresvelgers, robots, floating chairs, and gigantic demented dolls."
"What?!" Anise, Arietta, and Dist exclaimed simultaneously.
"That's right that's what I said I said you can't--"
The three aforementioned rulebreakers returned their contraband to the sidelines and stomped back to their places. They muttered dark curses, some of which they had to make up to describe their feelings, but reluctantly accepted the rule, still hoping for cash, revenge on Anise, and revenge on Jade, respectively.
"THIRD off we are not responsible for any misplaced belongings, limbs or otherwise, and/or persons harmed in the course of this battle and we are not liable should any of the before stated rules be broken by idiots too eager to taste blood--"
Asch lost his all ready nonexistent patience and broke his position, running straight for the woman. She screeched and turned to seek help from the audience members, persuading them to lift her clear of the mad redhead below. The others weren't stupid; they had paid to watch a fight, so they'd just as soon see her decapitated, disemboweled, or otherwise torn apart by the fighters as anyone. They did so, to their hearts' content, as Asch was quick to give them the pleasure.
The other fighters just stared at him, his hands soaked in blood and a broken body hanging from them.
"What?" he shrugged easily. "She was getting on my nerves."
"No fair! I wanted to do that!" Luke pointed his sword at his counterpart angrily.
"Shut up, dreck," Asch scowled, sending painful headache vibes at his replica.
"No fair!" Luke whined, clutching his head.
Dist glanced around uncertainly. He was lonely without his chair, and he was worried he might contract some kind of deadly chair deficiency induced disease. He began to whimper and crawled into the fetal position, sucking his thumb. Arietta soon joined him, afraid of being away from her liger friends and decided Dist would suffice for now.
Legretta looked down at him strangely and then took a step away. She looked across at Tear and blinked once. Should they kill each other now?
"Come on, do something!" Sync yelled at the opposing team.
"We can't," Jade nodded to Luke. "Our team captain is receiving painful headache vibes and can't give orders to us now."
"Um, okay..." Natalia hesitantly notched an arrow and fired it meekly. It happened to pin one of the strips of cloth that stood out from Dist's collar to the dirt ground. He shrieked like a girl and jumped up, ripping the satin fabric.
"Eeeeeeeeek! My beautiful rose petal!" he danced around in awkward circles as though he were on fire, the others staring blankly.
This woke up Arietta, who began to cry and sob and carry on about "Mommy Liger".
"Eh..." Tear "eh"ed. "Pow Hammer!"
A red and yellow toy hammer plinked off of Dist's head. He gave one final screech before he passed out.
"Anise?..." Natalia stood over the little girl, looking down. "What are you doing?..."
"Well, you guys won't do anything so I'm just making a sand castle."
"Uh-huh..."
Little did they know, an eerily similar scene was playing out just across the battlefield.
"Largo, what are you doing?" Legretta raised an eyebrow at the huge man.
"Oh! No one was doing anything, so I decided to catch up on some knitting," the large-built man held up a half-finished sock that was decidedly too small for him and looked just the right size for a princess.
"Right then..." Legretta backed away from him, too. "Carry on..."
"Yes ma'am," the Black Lion said obediently. "If you would like, I can make a pair for you, too."
"That's quite all right," she stepped closer to the last sane member of their team. "So, what are we doing, Sync?"
"I'm waiting for an opportunity to arise in which I can do something cool and ninja-like that will get me killed."
"Don't you ever do anything else?"
"Sure," the green haired boy pulled a Nintendo DS out of his invisible pockets. "I kick butt at Harvest Moon."
Legretta "..."ed again and put distance between herself and the farming fanatic.
"Bet you've never seen a better cow brusher, huh? Like hell, you stupid Harvest Sprites!" he scrubbed at the tiny screen furiously for ten full seconds. "What the hell?! How can you pass out from brushing a cow?!" he slammed the handheld to the hard-packed dirt ground, grumbling about stamina and fatigue rates or something like that.
The crowd grew restless; they came here for fights, but these guys were crazy! They weren't killing each other! A few shouts quickly became a torrent of protests directed at the calm battlers, who weren't really battling anyway.
"Where's Guy?" Luke asked no one in particular, as Asch had finally given himself a headache and was forced to stop.
"Over there," Jade pointed with his forehead rather vaguely, his attention focused on Sync's discarded Harvest Moon game. "All right! I found a Harvest Sprite! Now I'll just make an army of replicas and there's all 101!"
Guy was drooling over the illegal weapons that had been placed near the door from which the God-Generals had come. He was fiddling with one thing almost violently.
"Guy, what's that?" Luke leaned over his shoulder.
"Ah! Luke! Don't scare me! I thought you were a girl for a second there!"
"..." Luke ellipsis-ed.
Guy went back to work turning sections of the colored cube he'd found in Dist's chair cushion energetically.
"Yeah, okay..." Luke walked back to the others, uninterested. "Can we fight all ready?! This is boring!"
"Oh yeah," Tear muttered. "I'm the only one who actually used an arte. That counts."
"Oh," Luke paused. "Steel! There, I fought, too."
"Come on, Natalia," Tear prompted. "They won't open the doors until we've all fought."
"Fine," Natalia grumbled, standing from where she was helping Anise recreate Chesedonia in the sand. "Star Embrace," she shot a few arrows up, not at all concerned they might hit someone she might not want to hit. Star Embrace never hit unless she was precisely six feet and three and seven eighths of an inch away from the target, her bow was strained at a perfectly consistent force, the arrows were a little shorter than usual, her Overlimit gauge was exactly one-twelfth of the way full, her luck was at or above 86, she was using the Full Metal Fang, she had previously shot 652 arrows that same day, her blood pressure was normal, and the planets were aligned at a right angle to the closest galaxy and the star, Rem.
Of course, just this one time, everything was perfectly in order except for the fact she had only fired 651 arrows that day, so all four projectiles wiggled out of the way of Largo, who would have been directly in her line of fire had she loosed one more arrow before. But she didn't, so he wasn't really concerned about that. He was deep into his knitting, and was also planning on embroidering a nice little purse for his daughter afterwards. And after that, maybe he could make her a cute little doll so she and Anise could play together.
Natalia sat back down to work on making the sand-Astor, but she saw Anise had all ready done so.
"Hey! I wanted to do Astor!"
"You can do the Ant Lion Man and that freaky little kid that's always bouncing around in front of the bar."
"Fine,"
Tear was watching Jade play the DS. She was fascinated by the prospect of tilling, sowing, watering, feeding, brushing, milking, shearing, harvesting, and repeating the same process over and over again.
"Ooooooooh! Look how cute the doggie is!" she squealed over his shoulder. "I want a doggie like that!"
"I don't," Jade frowned. "It doesn't do anything even when I hit it with my axe. It's stupid."
"You're so mean!"
"Yeah, well, It won't build me any fomicry machines. At least Dist always did when I hit him with axes."
"...!" Tear added exclamation point for spice.
"Hey, can I have my DS back?" Sync asked politely.
"No. Get lost you little emo freak," Jade's eyes never strayed from the screen. "Go commit suicide or something."
"I like genocide better," Sync griped. "It's more fun."
"You know what's even more fun?" Jade said out of the corner of his mouth.
"What?"
"Replicacide."
"Ooooh!" Sync grinned evilly. "Hey, Luke, cummere!"
"What?" Luke turned from the wall he'd been vandalizing by painting his name on it with the emcee's now-coagulated blood.
Asch, meanwhile was just sitting there, bored. He couldn't find a way out, and not even the spectators were there, having all grown bored with the "fight". Suddenly Guy ran up to him, holding the multicolored cube above his head triumphantly. Asch swung his sword out instinctively, and he knocked the noble/servant back a few paces.
"Asch! I'm telling!" Guy fussed at him. "You're not allowed to do that!"
"What the hell?..."
"Jade!" Guy screamed. "Asch wrote his name all over the wall!"
"What the--?!" Asch spun around to see the masses of graffiti slathered on the stone wall. "REPLICA!"
He charged at the discreetly retreating redhead, his sword ready.
"Wait, Asch!" Sync held him back. "I was gonna torture him first!"
"Let me help!" They restrained Luke between them and pulled him kicking and screaming to the door of the ring.
"Hey! They opened the doors!" Anise jumped up.
"Yes, let's get out of here!" Natalia stood delicately and dusted off her dress. She admired their sand-town and half of Engeve, and then she walked off behind the Fon Master Guardian.
Tear and Jade noticed the others' departure only after Jade had passed out from watering too many plants in one day. They left, slightly embarrassed.
And after the lights shut off, the doors were shut once more, and the entire building was deserted, did Mieu poke his head out of the item bag that had been left behind on accident.
"Mieu?"