A/N: Sorry about the double post before!
Part Twenty-One: Round One
Voldemort could not help but to commend Malfoy for the impressive arena he had staged for the event. Everyone was present, sitting at dark-iron tables that surrounded the pit where the match would take place. Their tables were lit with soft green lanterns but the pit itself was brightly illuminated by some other means.
Voldemort had been afforded a seat in the center of the western wall of the square pit and the Malfoys sat next to him. Malfoy's son, Draco could hardly contain himself and Voldemort thought that perhaps Lucius had never looked so pleased with himself in all the years he had served Lord Voldemort.
Malfoy stood and addressed the crowd, amplifying his voice with the tip of his wand. "As you all know, we are here to commence the pre-wedding festivities of Our Lord, Voldemort and his Bride, Elizabeth Kappel. The main event will be divided into three separate nights."
Malfoy stood to one side to indicate Voldemort, who only sat quietly and waited for the match to begin. He had left Elizabeth with Snape who would be standing in her corner. Rodolphus LeStrange would be standing at his wife's ladder, serving the same purpose.
"Our Lord desires a personal body guard and these festivities will decide whether that personal protective servant will be Bellatrix LaStrange or the Dark Lord's new bride, Elizabeth Kappel!"
The crowd roared as Bellatrix approached the pit along a path through the gathering at the southern end of the pit that was lined with torches. She sauntered along the path with one confident hand planted on her hip and a devious smile on her face.
She entered the pit and began to speak, for the pit itself, below the protective shield, amplified sound and made her as clear to all of them as if she were standing just near them.
"I'll try not to finish her off too quickly!" Bellatrix shouted, raising her hands to rouse more applause. She pointed towards the guests on the Eastern wall. "Make sure your private bets are set on Bellatrix, for I'm the one that will win you your gold!" She teased loudly and was blasted with applause and laughter.
Bellatrix was dressed in a form-fitting black leotard and corset. She took up a provocative and ostentatious stance as she turned her attention towards the northern wall. Elizabeth was already standing at her ladder, dressed in white with her matching hair pulled into a tight horse tail near the top of her head. Snape was speaking to her but Voldemort was unable to guess from the movements of his lips what he was saying to her.
"C'mon little girl!" Bellatrix said, making a theatrical come-hither motioned in Elizabeth's direction. "Let's soil that snowy-white leotard!" Bellatrix began to cackle and was joined by the crowd.
Elizabeth did not turn her head but her eyes scanned the crowd until they met Voldemort's. It was only a moment's glance but it showed him her true anxiety. Despithe the fact that she surely knew she was the better fight, he saw real fear in her eyes. Snape said something to her and she gave him a curt nod before turning and sliding down the ladder.
"You're slippery for such a tall lank!" Bellatrix teased, bending at the waist as she laughed.
Elizabeth turned around to face her and approached the starting line where she casually responded to Bellatrix. The amplification charm made her words clear for all of them, despite her not speaking above a volume that should have been heard by anyone but her and Bellatrix. "It's called friction, or lack there-of-it; you stupid bitch."
A brief silence took over the crowd before it burst into cheers again. Elizabeth was kicking her feet as if trying to wipe something from her feet but he could see by how she was moving that she was loosening herself up. Bellatrix did not have a verbal response to Elizabeth's previous answer but instead looked around the crowd as if they should all be impressed at the misplaced audacity Elizabeth had had to speak to Bellatrix in such a manner.
Elizabeth became still at her starting line, assuming a stance in which her weight seemed almost wholly placed on her back leg with her knees bent and her hands up. She was as still as stone as she stared ahead at Bellatrix who was sauntering up to her own starting line.
"Begin!" Malfoy announced and the two women went immediately into motion. Bellatrix had short forward as if to close the gap between them but Elizabeth had side-stepped her and was circling Bellatrix, foot crossing over foot with her hands still held up in the same manner. She kept her gaze dead-set on Bellatrix but otherwise seemed un-afflicted by any other expression beyond a sort of intense watchfulness.
Bellatrix kept herself in line with a Elizabeth who had completed almost a full circle around the older, twitchier woman when Bellatrix shot forward to strike with a fist. She sealed the gap quickly but Elizabeth ducked as she too shot forward, avoiding Bellatrix's fist and coming up under Bellatrix's extended arm, wrapping her closest leg around Bellatrix's and wrapping her arms akwardky around the dark woman's small waist.
She hoisted Bellatrix up over her shoulder like a thin sack of grain and turned beneath Bellatrix's body as Elizabeth threw Bellatrix over her shoulder and slammed the small woman into the ground where the concrete itself cracked beneath Bella's petite form.
Elizabeth backed up to regain distance as Bellatrix arched her back in pain and rolled onto her side. She pointed one long-nailed finger accusatively at Elizabeth and shrieked. "She's got a wand!"
The crowed seemed to agree, for they had seen the ground break beneath Bellatrix and they all knew that neither woman had the strength to throw the other with such force. Voldemort only smiled, noting that as Elizabeth had done her circle of Bellatrix she had replaced herself to the quarter where her back was to the north, and thus he believed he had just seen what the power of the Earth element could do.
Elizabeth looked up at Voldemort as the crowd began to mirror Bellatrix's upset in their misplaced belief that Elizabeth was apparently guilty of cheating. She extended her arm and pointed to Snape who was holding a slender, fair-wooded wand between his hands. He held it up and proclaimed loudly that the wand he held was Elizabeth's. Snape then pointed across the pit to Rodolphus who followed suit and held up the wand that Bellatrix had surrendered.
"You're cheating. You can't even defeat me without magic! That little incident before was just a mishap, I knew it!" Bellatrix spat as she stood up and thumped herself in the chest.. The crowd was still negatively aroused but began to quiet as the stunned Bellatrix stood and faced Elizabeth. "Your nothing by a sneaky, fast-talking, trickster!" Bellatrix shrieked at Elizabeth.
"Unless Snape is holding a fake and my wand hass been hidden cleverly in one of my inhumanly long and accommodating orifices I did know I possessed...I have no wand." Elizabeth said as she turned in a circle with arms up to reveal that no wand-like shape of any kind could be seen tucked into any part of her white leotard.
Bellatrix screamed and launched herself at Elizabeth who side-stepped her again and placed her hands on Bellatrix's back as she shot past Elizabeth directing Ballatrix's face-on into the wall behind her.
Bellatrix managed to take the brunt of the collision on her right shoulder and turned with her back against the wall to face Elizabeth who was standing casually several feet away, her hands at her side.
"You think your really clever, don't you?" Bellatrix spat. Elizabeth said nothing, only retained her keen observatory gaze upon her enemy.
Bellatrix raised her fists and took another run toward Elizabeth, whom Voldemort had noticed had taken up her position with her back to the eastern wall. Elizabeth dropped and thrust out her arms as if she were a bird who had just landed. She pushed off her back leg, just as she had when she had first shown the powers of Wind to him in the ballroom and thrust forth a wave of harsh wind that hit Bellatrix like a wall just as Bellatrix came within reaching distance of Elizabeth. The gust carried her back to the opposite wall she had just pushed off. Elizabeth resumed a casual stance and waited.
"This is not fair! You possess magic that requires no wand!" Bellatrix shouted, as she stumbled toward Elizabeth.
"Stop bitching and hit me already." Elizabeth said, and since she was directly across from where sat he saw the corner of her mouth rise in a vicious and taunting grin.
Bellatrix marched towards Elizabeth and to Voldemort's surprise and that of the crowd, encountered no resistance when she walked directly up to Elizabeth and punched her in the side of the face.
Voldemort had seen Ballatrix's fist connect with Elizabeth's face but he also saw that she had twisted as she'd fallen, letting the direction of Bellatrix's right hook spin her in a one'eighty. She hit the ground and scuttled backwards between Bellatrix's widely'spread legs and popped up behind her, slipping one white-clad arm over Bellatrix's shoulder, under her chin and around her neck.
Elizabeth jerked Bellatrix against her as she choked the women who clawed desperately Elizabeth's arm that was clamped firmly around her neck. Even though Elizabeth's back was to Voldemort he could see the freely flowing blood from where Elizabeth had taken the punch spattering the concrete floor she was dragging Bellatrix across.
Bellatrix was choking but Elizabeth said nothing. She only held on as tightly a she could, pressing her head into Bellatrix's until finally Bellatrix's attempts to get out of the choke hold became weakened, at which point Elizabeth thrust the base of one foot into the back of one of Bella's knee's causing them both to kneel on the ground.
Bellatrix was still flailing when Elizabeth winced as she used the remainder of her strength to squeeze Bellatrix's neck as hard as she could. She then abruptly released the woman and stumbled backwards and up to her feet as Bellatrix crumpled to the ground, unconscious.
The crowd was silent as they peered over the edge of the pit. Voldemort wondered what they were more astonished by; Bellatrix losing to the unknown Elizabeth, the skill with which Elizabeth had fought, or - and he guessed this was most true - the strange wandless magic Elizabeth had used while in the fight.
"Match one..." Malfoy's announcement was flat, for he too seemed physically slapped by what he'd witnessed and surprise had just barely spared him his voice. "...goes to Elizabeth Kappel."
Elizabeth turned to face Malfoy and then Voldemort. She held before herself one flat palm and the other above it at a ninety degree angle and bowed, eyeing him exclusively. Blood was running out of her nose, over her chin, and had already stained the vast expanse of her leotard. Voldemort was quite sure that while Elizabeth had not seriously injured Balltrix, that she herself had sustained at least a broken nose.
She turned then to face the crowd with defiant eyes, gazing at each wall of spectators in turn as she wriggled her lips awkwardly and then spat out a thick clot of saliva and blood, which hit the floor with an audible thwack. She wiped her inner forearm across her mouth and headed silently for the ladder. When she had ascended Snape led her away quickly.
A reluctant applause began as Rodolphus dropped into the pit to tend to his fallen wife. As the applause began to grow and turn into genuine cheers of wonder and pleasure, Lucius Malfoy turned to face Voldemort who was clapping casually.
"Don't even bother to ask Lucius." Voldemort said without facing Malfoy. "Just trust now that I've brought the right woman into our fold." He said and began to laugh as the cheering grew in its intensity.