Disclaimer: I do not own Sword Art Online, nor do I own the works of H.P. Lovecraft.
Chapter 10: Lisbeth's Rage
Before the start of the tournament, Kirito and Yui had gone with Agil, Klein and Siune to one of the more upscale taverns in sylph territory to watch the coming battles. The establishment was already packed with other players wanting to watch the tournament fights by the time that Kirito and the others had arrived. Despite the crowds though, the gang had managed to get their own table in the corner by the window; a table that would allow them to stream more than one battle at once. Since all the fights in the tournament were taking place at the same time, Kirito and his friends were left with no other option but to divide the task of watching each fight between them. Klein and Siune got the job of watching Leafa's battle in the first round, while Agil had the task of watching Lisbeth's first fight.
This left Kirito and Yui able to watch Asuna's fight against Lurga, and ever since that battle started things had not been looking good for Asuna. Over six minutes had gone by in the fight, and the blunette hadn't even landed a single blow. At one point, Lurga had almost bashed Asuna in the side of the head with her giant, and while Asuna had been able to duck out of the way at the last second, the sight of it almost gave Kirito a heart attack. He knew that Asuna couldn't actually suffer any physical harm in the game, but the idea of his girlfriend getting her head pounded by the hammer of a muscular nine-foot giantess was something that the black swordsman did not wish the actually see.
"This is just brutal!" Kirito declared. "Hey Agil! Do you know if there's like a steroid potion in this game or something? Because I think Asuna's opponent shouldn't been tested for it before her fight started."
"Oh yeah. She's up against the one they call Iron Lurga, right?" Agil recalled with a slight chuckle. "I've heard Lurga's one of the best tank players around though. But don't worry man, I think Asuna has a pretty good shot against her."
"In the meantime Kirito, I've got some good news for you." Klein interjected. "Your sister's fight just ended, and she won."
"That's good to hear." Kirito replied with a heavy sigh. "Who was Sugu up against again?"
"A leprechaun player called Nix." Klein answered. "She was actually pretty good, but not quite a match for your sister. Leafa took Nix's HP to zero with twenty-two minutes still on the clock."
"It's too bad that Lisbeth's battle isn't going as well." Agil remarked. "She's up against Selene from that Order of Yig guild that Donis started… and they're fighting down in N'kai."
"Wait! Doesn't Selene have that power that lets her summon those duplicates of herself from that black ooze?" Siune recalled.
"That's right. And she's been using that power to totally pound Liz into the ground." Agil confirmed. "What's worse is that Liz isn't equipped with any of her tok'l-metal gear. She has Mjolnir, but that's about it. Right now, Liz is at a huge disadvantage."
"It's pretty much just bad luck, really." Kirito remarked. "The only thing tok'l-metal gear is good for is fighting the Cthulhu Mythos monsters that have been introduced to ALO. It's not the kind of weaponry that one would normally bring into a tournament like this. But with Liz up against a player with a hidden ability to command Mythos monsters in the only part of the game where that ability works… I'm afraid that the battle will probably end in Selene's favor."
"I hate to say it, but you're probably right." Klein agreed. "How's Asuna holding up in her battle?"
"Not good." Kirito answered. "She hasn't lost any more HP since that first time she got hit, but she hasn't been able to damage Lurga either. If Asuna can't do any damage before the time limit of the fight is up, she's out of the tournament."
There was less than twenty minutes on the clock as Asuna dashed around the cave trying to land a blow on Lurga. Every time the blunette would get close, Lurga would cast a spell that detonated parts of the ground around her to block Asuna's path. Then the giantess would emerge from the smoke to try and strike Asuna with her hammer. Asuna had managed to fall back just in time to avoid her opponent's strikes, but she knew that time was running out. Unless the blunette did something to change the current situation soon, she would lose because Lurga had more HP.
Fortunately, Asuna had an idea about how she could turn the battle back in her favor. It took a little while for Asuna to be sure, but after several of her repeated failed attacks she believed that she had found a major gap in Lurga's defenses. After making it to the other side of the cavern again, Asuna charged at Lurga from the front with her sword. Just as before when Asuna came within striking distance, Lurga chanted the spell that caused the ground around her to explode in four spots again. At the last moment, Asuna shifted direction and moved in between the explosions.
Before Lurga could swing her hammer, Asuna stabbed the giantess seven times in the side with her sword. Lurga stumbled back a step and her HP gauge went down by about fifteen percent. The giantess recovered and swung her hammer down at Asuna with all her strength. Asuna bent backward as the hammer's giant head came down towards her, causing Lurga's attack to completely miss. After the attack finished, Asuna stood all the way back up and struck Lurga nine times in the chest.
Lurga's HP gauge fell to half its original amount. Stunned, the giantess cried out as she swung her hammer, but Asuna was able to quickly fall back the cave wall to avoid the attack.
"Dammit!" Lurga cursed. "Nobody, at least not another player, has ever been able to take a point off my HP before! How the hell did you do that?"
"It took me a little bit, but I realized that the spell you use to blow up the ground and use the explosions as a shield isn't a perfect defense." Asuna explained. "The explosion doesn't occur as a complete circle, but as four separate spots; sort of like four landmines going off at once. It took you triggering the spell a few times for me to be sure, but that spell triggers the explosions in the exact same spots around you. So after I figured out exactly where those spots were, all I needed to do was run in between them."
Lurga smirked. "Not bad, beanpole. Most people don't catch onto that little weakness. You're fast and sharp."
"So now it looks like you're going to have to come up with a new strategy." Asuna remarked. "Of course the fact is that you're the one who's had the disadvantage in the fight from the very beginning. I'm guessing that while your strength, stamina and defensive stats are through the roof, your speed stat is extremely low. That's why you've been staying in that one spot and using a defensive strategy."
"You called it." Lurga admitted with a slight shrug. "Making myself this buff also shaved a lot off of my speed as a cost. So yeah, if I were to just chase you around in this fight, I wouldn't stand a chance."
"Wait. You weren't this muscular in the game to begin with?" a surprised Asuna asked.
"Nope. I was pretty muscular in the beginning when I started playing ALO, but I wasn't nearly at the place where I wanted to be." Lurga revealed. "So I put myself through a lot of intense skill training and even used certain stat enhancing potions on myself. There are a lot of ways for players in this game to get ripped."
"But why would you go through all that to make yourself so muscular at the cost of your speed?" Asuna asked.
"Trust me. If you knew who I was IRL, you'd totally understand why." Lurga replied. "Anyway, you're right that my original strategy to just block your attacks and wale on you from one spot isn't gonna work anymore. Too bad for you, that strategy wasn't the only way for me to win this. Now that I know I don't have to hold back against you, I can break out my secret weapon."
Lurga chanted another spell, and suddenly a circle of white light appeared in the center of the battlefield and expanded outward to cover the entire cavern floor. The light from the circle turned yellow, and suddenly Asuna felt some kind of force pulling against her. The force was so strong that Asuna couldn't help but drop to her knees. Meanwhile, Lurga was still standing as if everything was normal. The only thing that had changed about Lurga was that her MP gauge was now just a blue sliver.
"Not bad, huh?" Lurga asked as she took a few steps forward. "This is a little spell that let's me intensify the gravity in the area to about ten times what it normally is. The spell doesn't have any affect on me because of all my strength and stamina training, but one someone like you it should cut your speed by at least half… maybe more. Exactly just how much speed you actually lose depends on a lot of technical stuff involving your stats, but the bottom line is you can't outrun me anymore. Now this battle is just a test of your raw strength against mine."
Just as Asuna managed to get back to her feet, Lurga charged over and slammed her massive hammer into the blunette, knocking her back to the ground. Asuna's HP had fallen to half of what it originally had been.
"Not so easy to dodge my attacks now, is it?" Lurga remarked as Asuna started to get back up. "The drawback to this spell is that it costs a ton of MP to cast. That's why I only use it as a last resort. The beauty of this spell though is that its effects stay in play for about twenty minutes. That's a little more than the time we have left in this fight. And now your speed's no longer an issue, there's no way you can win this thing!"
With that, Lurga raised her hammer and swung it down back towards Asuna. Despite the gravity, Asuna managed to turn and move out of the hammer's path, causing it to strike the ground. The blunette then managed to strike Lurga a couple of times in the side with her rapier, taking off a small portion of her opponent's HP. Lurga quickly recovered and swung her hammer into Asuna, knocking the blunette back to the ground and dropping her HP into the yellow zone.
Asuna managed to pull herself back to her feet and faced Lurga. "You may have cranked up the gravity, but I'm not going to let this break me! One way or another, I'm winning this fight!"
The clock continued to tick away as Lisbeth continued to struggle against Selene's ooze clones. During the last thirteen minutes of the battle, Lisbeth had barely managed to take the HP gauges of the clones down into the yellow zone. Meanwhile the pinkette's own HP was already close to the red. The whole time, Selene had just been watching from the sidelines while all her clones did the work. At that moment as Lisbeth blocked the swords of two of the clones with her small arm shield, a third got behind her and slashed her across the back, finally taking her HP into the red.
Lisbeth was left with no choice but to fall back to the river of ooze to avoid getting surrounded by Selene's copies. The pinkette knew if that were to happen, she'd be toast.
"This really is pretty pathetic." Selene remarked. "But I guess I really shouldn't be surprised by how this battle's turning out. I mean out of everyone in our old guild, you were one of the weakest players. You were good at forging all of our weapons, but that was about it. Beyond that, you were totally worthless."
"What the hell did you just say?" Lisbeth asked.
"I just said you were weak." Selene restated. "In fact I'm sure the only reason why Donis kept you around was because of your blacksmith skills. Heck, he probably got bored with you in bed too. I mean when you think about it, Donis probably wanted to get it on with someone who was more of a real woman than with a child like you."
Upon hearing this, Lisbeth cried out and charged at Selene with her hammer raised. The of the clones got in the pinkette's path, but Lisbeth mercilessly knocked them aside with her weapon and plowed on through. When Lisbeth got in striking distance, she slammed the head of her divine hammer into Selene's stomach and took off another chunk of her HP. Suddenly two more of the clones began to charge at Lisbeth, but before they could land a blow the pinkette grabbed Selene by the arm and swung her around so that the two clone stabbed her in the back. Selene's HP went into the red, and suddenly all six of the clones popped like balloons, leaving behind only a strange odor.
"Well what do you know? It looks like those clones of yours short out when they attack their creator." Lisbeth observed. "Now this is more of a fair fight!"
Selene managed to break free of Lisbeth's grip and drew her sword. Lisbeth dodged the swing of Selene's blade and tripped her with her right foot, knocking the imp woman off balance. Selene ended up falling forward and her face hit the river of black ooze. Lisbeth quickly got on her knees and held Selene's face into the slime river for several moments with her left hand. Selene flailed her arms and legs but could not escape the fairy blacksmith's grip. Lisbeth eventually struck Selene in the back with her hammer, reducing her HP to zero.
Selene's body then became nothing more than a floating ball of purple flames. Suddenly the timer above the battlefield was replaced by another holographic screen with a message declaring Lisbeth the winner of the match. Soon after as Lisbeth stood back up, a beam of blue light shot up from the ground around her feet and teleported her out of the underground kingdom of N'kai.
With the gravity turned up, it was taking everything Asuna had to avoid the strikes from Lurga's hammer. What was worse was that Lurga was having a fairly easy time evading the strikes from Asuna's rapier. The gravity was also affecting the speed of Asuna's attacks as well as her ability to evade. There was just over a minute left in the battle, and Asuna's HP had fallen into the red while Lurga's was still in the very low yellow. Asuna knew that if she couldn't land a blow soon, she would be out of the tournament.
The clock hit fifty-nine seconds as Lurga raised her hammer into the air for another swing. As the giantess swung her weapon down towards Asuna's head, Asuna somehow managed to sidestep the attack. Then, in the space of those few seconds, Asuna saw an opening and used a Mother's Rosario attack to strike Lurga's side. The attack ended right when the timer hit zero. When it was over, Lurga's HP was nothing more than a red sliver. The timer vanished, and in its place was a large message declaring Asuna the winner of the match. Soon after, the floor of the cavern returned to normal.
"Not bad, short stuff." Lurga praised. "It was an honor fighting you."
"Same here." Asuna replied.
"Maybe sometime in the future we could go on a quest together." Lurga suggested.
"I'd like that." Asuna replied, and with that the two of them shook hands.
Soon after, two beams of blue light shot up from the ground around the competitors and teleported them out of the cave.
Right after Asuna reappeared on the teleport pad in the crystal arena, she began to stretch as she walked off the pad. It felt great being able to move around again like normal after having to fight against the pull of an intense gravity field. As Asuna looked around the room while stretching, she noticed Lisbeth leaning against the far wall with her arms crossed and a rather angry expression on her face. The blunette decided to go over and see how Lisbeth was doing.
"Hey Liz! How'd you do?" Asuna asked as she came over. "Did you win the first round?"
"Of course I did. What? Did you think I'd just get wiped out in round one?" Lisbeth asked in an irritated tone. "Just because I didn't make it into the top ten competitors like you, Little Ms. Perfect doesn't mean I'm a wimp!"
"I didn't say that!" Asuna told her.
"Just kiss off!" Lisbeth shot back. "Until this tournament is done, we're enemies! Got that?"
With that, Lisbeth stormed off. For a moment, Asuna thought about going after her, but realized that it wouldn't do any good.
"Asuna?" a familiar voice spoke. The blunette turned and saw Leafa standing before her. "Um, congrats on winning. I guess you and I both made it to the second round, huh?"
"Yeah. Looks that way." Asuna replied with a weak smile.
"I saw the rest of your fight from here." Leafa revealed. "You did really well. I was actually a little worried about you though when Lurga cast that gravity spell."
"You weren't the only one." Asuna replied.
"Leafa's right, Asuna. You did exceptionally well in your first battle." A familiar voice remarked. Asuna and Leafa turned to see Sakuya of the sylphs approaching them. "Of course now the real challenge for you begins, since in the next round you'll be facing me."
"I see." Asuna replied, her expression turning serious. "It'll be an honor to fight you."
At that moment, Lydia reappeared on the stage with a flash of blue light. "Congrats to everyone in Bracket A who made it to the second round! The second round matches for the Bracket A players will begin in five minutes, so you lucky players who've made it this far may want to take the time to change up your battle gear."
"That's not a bad idea." Sakuya spoke as she brought up her menu. "Against the Berserk Healer, I may need a little extra help."
In a flash of blue light, Sakuya's outfit completely transformed. The dark-haired woman now had on a shiny green skin-tight bodysuit along with a piece of ornate gold armor that covered her ample chest. Around her waist was a white belt with a gold buckle that had a symbol representing a cherry blossom engraved on the front. On her feet was a pair of gold metallic boots that went up almost to the knee, and covering her shoulders were two pieces of golden armor carved to look like leaves. A pair of white elbow-high fingerless gloves covered Sakuya's hands, and tied around her forehead was a golden headband with the symbol of the sylphs on the front in green. Hanging from Sakuya's waist was her usual katana.
"What do you think of my new battle regalia?" Sakuya asked, looking very smug. "You wouldn't believe the quests that I had to go on to get this forged."
"Wow! You look amazing, Lady Sakuya!" Leafa praised.
"I'll say. But it'll take more than just a new outfit to beat me." Asuna declared.
"Oh don't worry. This battle gear I'm wearing is more than just a simple costume." Sakuya told her. "Once our battle gets going, you'll see what I mean."
Author's Note: Sorry if this chapter wasn't my best work. Lisbeth's battle with Selene was supposed to take center stage, but in the end it seems I made it more about Asuna's battle with Lurga.
Please review and let me know what you think.