Chapter Twenty-Eight

Damian awoke in a cold sweat, he felt like he was going to vomit. He rushed to the sink and rinsed out his mouth and let cold water run over his head. Now that he was awake and alert he was unsure as to what actually gave him such a start. He looked around, the room was pitch black with only a faint ray of moonlight coming in through the window. He took his scroll out of his pocket, it was five am. Every second he put into trying to remember what he saw seemed to make him remember less and forget more of what was already there. He looked out, back to the room, rather than into his mind and got a shock when he saw Ryu sitting bolt upright. He held in a gasp.

"Ryu? What are you doing?" He whispered loudly.

"I should be asking you that," Ryu replied, "you're the one making all the noise."

"Oh sorry about that."

"That doesn't answer my question but okay."

"Look in just gonna go out for a walk."

"Whatever you say." Ryu said before flopping back into bed. Damian pulled his hoodie over his bare chest and kicked on his slippers, even though he didn't expect to bump into anyone he still didn't like the notion of walking around in just his pyjama bottoms. He opened the door and it slid in silently as always and closed in the same way. He walked down the corridor until he reached the common room. As he approached the door he heard voices. He tapped on the door before entering. Inside he found Scarlet and Maya huddled around the artificial fire place on a sofa.

"Can't sleep?" Damian asked casual as he entered the room.

"No, not exactly." Scarlet replied. As Damian walked over Scarlet patted the space next to her. It was odd seeing Scarlet without her hat, Damian though as he gave her a quick glance. She was wearing a simple set of pink pyjamas with short sleeves and legs. Maya on the other hand was wearing what looked to be a blue onesie with a fur lining and details, Damian thought it looked very comfy.

"So what brings you here?" Maya asked airily.

"Had a bad dream I think."

"You think?" Scarlet asked.

"Well I woke up feeling awful and upset but the more I tried to remember the less I could remember. You know?" Damian said and realised how silly he sounded the longer he spoke.

"Interesting." Maya responded, "We are here because Scarlet was sleep walking and crashed into me as I was leaving for a morning jog."

"A morning jog. At five am?" Damian said now realising the world was full of different crazy people.

"Yes I find a little jog helps wake me up and get my blood pumping."

"Well yes I imagine it would." Damian said lost for anything else to say turned to Scarlet.

"Do you sleep walk a lot?"

"It happens from time to time, usually I make it back to bed and nobody, myself included notices but other times I wake up in these odd predicaments." She replied then took a sip of her drink. Damian made a non-committal noise of acceptance. After a short pause Scarlet spoke again.

"Maybe its nerves?"

"What now?" Damian asked, he had been staring off into the distance and had zoned out of the conversation.

"The reason you and I couldn't sleep. We're clearly nervous about the tournament, maybe got a little stage fright." Damian hadn't put much thought into the tournament since the last time it was brought up but he decided to humour Scarlet who clearly was nervous but probably didn't want to strait up saying it.

"Yeah that's probably it, even at the training academy we only trained in front of our class at maximum so the whole of Atlas City is quite a jump." Scarlet gave a sigh of relief,

"I'm glad we're all thinking the same thing." The two then turned to Maya.

"I'm not perfectly happy ether." She as they looked at her.

"I feel like that's as close to a reaction as you're gonna get Scarlet." Damian said to her.

"I'm not quite emotionless." Maya said with a hint of defiance. "It's my semblance, it makes me unable to act, I'm sure I told you that."

"Oh I assumed that meant physically." Scarlet said sounding enthralled. Maya started to count on her fingers.

"If someone were to attack me, I couldn't defend myself by, say tripping them or blocking them as I would be interfering with them, but I could dodge them. Same applies to emotional and non-physical encounters. If someone makes a point, I can't openly disprove it or counter it but I can go around it."

"That sure is an inhibiting power you have there; does it have any upsides?" Scarlet asked. Maya let out a little laugh.

"You could say that."

"Should I be scared?" Damian asked.

"As long as you remain a person of good heart and soul we will never cross paths."

"That doesn't put me at ease but okay reaper girl." Maya looked down to her scroll.

"I really should be going, thank you for your company." She said as she got up and headed off.

"Maybe Yuki was right." Damian said once Maya had left.

"What'd he say?"

"That they are all crazy." He said with a hollow laugh.

"That's a bit rude."

"It's okay I'm just paraphrasing, there was more to it." The two of them sat there talking for a while until.

"Scarlet and Damian sitting on a seat, why does it smell like someone's in heat! First comes Lust then comes-."

"Mary are you quite done!" scarlet shouted at Mary who had just entered the room and started singing.

"How long where you sitting around the door way to come up with that?" Damian asked.

"Longer then I'd like to admit, I'm actually glad you cut me off because I wasn't sure where I was gonna go after that." She said with a large grin.

"I'm glad I could help." Scarlet said with a scowl. "Why are you even up?"

"Why are you up?" Mary asked mimicking Scarlet.

"I can be up at any time, doing whatever I wish." Scarlet replied.

"So can I." Mary replied. "Anyhow, how's you Damian."

"Oh you know just couldn't sleep." Damian replied trying to bring the conversation down a decibel or ten.

"So how long have you too been snuggled up in here?" Mary asked.

"That depends what time it is?"

"It's half seven, we should go get the others."

"Oh, okay."

"I'll take that as you've been here a while." She replied.

"Yea I guess." Damian said, then he got up and headed for his dorm. When he entered he found that his team was unsurprisingly still asleep.

"Hey guys, come on we need to think about getting up." Gagana and Nathan made grumbling noises and Ryu bolted up unnaturally again. Within twenty minutes they were all in their combat gear, opposed to their uniforms, and walking down to the main show arena which was located off site. As they walked outside they were confronted by Lafayette who funnelled them into a transport ship. Inside they sat as more and more students joined them and secured themselves for take-off. Once all the students were on board, Gwynn walked up the ramp and closed the door behind him, causing the loud drown of the engines to be muffled.

"Good morning students, I hope your all bright eyed and bushy tailed." He said to the students, most looked like they could have used another hour's sleep.

"Today you are here to show the people of atlas why you are now a part of this prestigious academy, what you will face today will be nothing you can't handle so have fun and enjoy yourself." He said with a shift in tone - militant to care free -.

A voice then crackled from the speakers.

"Grey one, we are ready for take-off, I repeat grey one is ready for take-off."

"This is grey leader," a familiar voice boomed, "All transport ships are good to go, ETA two minutes." With that Gwynn took his seat next to the students as the ship prepared for take-off. The flight was quick and smooth. Damian barely had time to think before the rear entrance of the ship opened again to a new sight. The students walked out and where told to stand formally in a line. Damian peered around. They stadium sure looked the part with its two tiers of seating and its large holographic displays, not as impressive as the Vital tournament stadium though, he thought. He also noticed that the stadium was completely empty. He guessed that the public weren't allowed in yet as he could hear the low rumble of thousands of voices nearby.

Damian looked around to his fellow first years. First his own team where Nathan and Gagana still looked tired though Ryu looked pretty content. Scarlet seemed to be fidgeting nervously, in contrast Maya stood their arms folded behind her back making this look very routine. Ulrik and Cheshire sighed boredom plastered across their faces. BRRO were doing some stretches and BLNC were having a heated whisper based argument. Really nothing had changed.

"Hey kidos!" A voice called out breaking the relative silence. They all turned to seem Marcus Flint, a news anchor for the Atlas Agenda, the local network. He was a short man who made up for his stature with a loud booming voice. The kidos murmured a joint hello. The jovial man walked from one end of the line of them to the other shacking each students hand.

"Boy am I glad to see so many new faces this year. It seems like we have a large turnout compared to last year!" He said with a laugh.

"I guess it just means that most of last year's contenders must have sucked." Ryu said as he was shacking Marcos's hand.

"Yea they really must have!" He replied taking Ryu a little by surprise. He moved along to Damian, who towered over him.

"Well I see someone drank all the milk!"

"Yeah, sure" Damian said forcing a smile as large as Marcus's. He continued his banter as he walked down the line, until he looped back around the centre of the group.

"Now folks, I'd just like to inform you there has been a last minute change to the roster, I'd like to introduce you one of our military teams who will also be participating in today's events!"

With that a team of three soldiers walked forward from on of the stadiums gates, two in blue and one in red who was leading the way. The red marine took off his helmet, and introduced himself, he looked like a someone had attached a child's head to an adults' body.

"Hello I'm Sargent Pine, nice to meet you. These two are Nick and Cerulean." He said pointing to his left and right, "We'll be representing the military side of atlas, we aren't as flashy as you hunters and huntress so we only get one team." He said sounding a little disheartened.

"Great now that introductions are out of the way we can proceed with the events!" Marcus said before he walked off.

"Is your team really only the tree of you?" Damian asked after he left.

"Nah it's not, normally we function in a group of seven, the other four will arrive later actually." Pine replied.

"Is that really al you use?" Ryu asked pointing to his rifle he had by his side.

"It's not that bad. It kills Grimm. Some of us do carry custom melee weapons for when it gets a bit close." He replied. The sounds of voices grew louder as people started to funnel into the stadium. Damian was now feeling a little nervous as he saw all these people looking down to him. Within a few minutes the stadium was packed to the brim, every person in Atlas must be here. Screens lit up on each side of the stadium showing a quick advert before the camera switched to Ironwood and Marcus who were sat at a desk overlooking the arena.

"G'd morning ladies and gents! T'day we'll be showing off the spectacle that is Atlas's newest, hunters and guardians in training. I hope you can give them all a big round o' applause just for showing up!" Marcus said bombastically into his microphone, stirring up the crowd into a frenzy of cheering and clapping.

"Thank you for the introductions Marcus." Ironwood said in an unusually jovially manor.

"Yes I am proud to see how this year's crop of initiates has proven themselves! From the academy we have no less than twenty-four new huntsmen and huntresses, and from the military core we have taken over fifty eager civilians into the armed forces, guardian program. Our top team of guardians will be representing their entire unit so they better preform!" The three soldiers all bowed low then resumed their alert stance.

"So no pressure guys!" Marcus said with a hearty laugh.

"Shall we start with the first event?" Marcus asked the crowed who cheered in response.

"'Kay can all of you head off to the sides until we call out who will be first." The students and soldiers walked to the side-lines and looked up to the screens which were now showing an animated lottery slot. There were thirty odd multi coloured balls all flying around their cage. Each to Damian's amusement had a cartoonish picture of one of the stunners faces on one side and their symbol on the other. Damian turned to see Nathan laughing at Ryu. "Look at Nathan's ball. He said turning to his leader. Damian concentrated closely and finally spotted the dark green ball. He stopped himself from laughing at the sight of the balls interpretation of Ryu, it had his hair drooped over his face and wore a pout that would normally be seen on an angry child. One of the balls eventually smashed out of the cage with a display of practical effects. The red ball rolled until it consumed the whole screen and spun round to revival Damian's smug face.

"Damian you'll be today's first contestant I hope your prepared to set a record!"

"No pressure." Damian said as he walked to the centre of the arena, causing the crowd to laugh. As he did Marcus stated to interview Ironwood.

"So what sort of student is he?"

"Oh Damian, he's the sort of student who uses their head and doesn't get into trouble." He replied quickly.

Well that's a fat lie, Damian thought. Then it hit him that it may have been a warning. He whipped around and looked up to the commentator's box and managed to make eye contact with Ironwood. The look he received assured his suspicions.

"So I see he's a leader of his own team… DRGN, I assume you think he is deserving of this title?" Marcus asked, continuing his interview.

"It's his Indignity and character that set him apart." Ironwood said. The words hit Damian like spears of malice. Clearly Ironwood was trying to tell him something. Damian stood in the centre of the arena, Fenrir armed and loaded, he was ready to go.

"And let's go! Let's see how many bots you can take down in your time limit!" Marcus shouted. The crowd exploded with anticipation. A ring of robots emerged from the ground and charged Damian. He took a breath looked Ironwood in the eye and pointed his weapon at his feet as the swarm of robots engaged him. Ironwood's eyes rolled and he got up to grab a drink and not watch Damian embarrassing himself.

-kaboom-

Damian propelled himself into the air taking out twenty robots as he did. Still airborne he launched a salvo of fire and shrapnel to the ground, decimating the robots' ranks. As he landed punched one of the robots into the ground, it's legs flailed in the air as its head meet the floor. It occurred to Damian that these robots were barely fighting fit, they were merely made to put on a show and put on a show he would. He grabbed the end of his weapon and batted away the robots closest to him. He quickly holstered his weapon on his back and braces himself for a wave of robots. They piled on top of him forming a dome.

"Is that it for Damian?!" Marcus cried out, causing shock in the crowd. Don't even think about it. Damian thought before letting out a tremendous roar which dissipated the surrounding robots. The crowd Oohed and exclaimed at the sight of his glowing red form. He bared his claws and cleaved through wave after wave unit a siren sounded, ending Damian's time.

"Well if that wasn't a great way to start the event I don't know what is!" Marcus exclaimed. "Now let's look at the results." The screens now showed an empty graph. Damian's ball rolled onto it then rose up until it hit a point and the number four hundred and thirty-six flashes above it. The Damian on the ball put on a massive grin, clearly impressed with his three dimensional self.

"That will be hard to beat, not impossible." Marcus added, "for those who don't know the creator and master of this style of event is Miss Lafayette Meragin, a teacher at Atlas academy who holds the record at six hundred kills in three minutes or over three kills a second for those who are math inclined." Damian walked to the side lines with cheers from the crowd.

"So guys. How was I?" Damian asked pretending to be a lot vainer then he actually was.

"No matter how many times I see it. Your semblance always looks cool." Brett replied.

"I guess that is what separates the hunters from the guardians." Pine said sounding somewhat depressed. Damian walked over to pine and punched him lightly on the chest.

"We may be flashy but we won't always be here for these people the moment they need them, that's your job and that is a very respectable job indeed."

"Preach it!" Nathan chorused behind him.

"For a hunter with all your flashy aura and semblance, you're actually a cool guy. I'd be happy to support you out on the field." Pine replied. Punching him back.

"Since red was such a good start how about we have some more! Next up will be Scarlet Sky, Crimson Heartfilia and Ross Undergrove." Scarlet walked to the centre of the arena while Ross and Crimson milled about near the edge. Scarlet unholstered her pistols, clipped in some fresh magazines and pulled back the slides. She then pulled out a fresh lollipop and began to suck on it, the whole event clearly getting to her.

"So Anything you can tell us about this beauty?"

"Miss Sky is a fine student who follows the rules and has a smile that warms hearts."

"Didn't know you could judge things like that."

"What?"

"Let's begin the match, Scarlet your time starts now!" Scarlet didn't hesitate for a second, immediately unloading both her weapons as she spun round scoring head shots on everything running her way. Damian noticed he was fixated on scarlet, every move she made was elegant yet calculated, each shot had a purpose. I wish I could react that fast in combat, he thought as he watched her fight. As the robots ran over their fallen comrades she bashed her magazines together. The robots were flung into the air, as the defeated robots exploded. She ejected her magazines, they flew far and exploded on impact, each taking out a dozen robots.

"Is there any part of this girl or her weapons that don't exploded!?" Marcus screamed along with an excitable crowd.

"I think she might be in trouble now, without any ammo." He continued. Damian felt himself tense up in anticipation. Scarlet chucked two fresh magazines into the air and began a melee frenzy. She punched and kicked the robots away as they surrounded her. As she thought she caught her magazines in her pistols and smashed her weapons on two of the robot's heads to lock them in place. Now able to shoot again she mowed through their ranks, this repeated until the siren sounded. She quickly walked away from the centre of attention while everyone's gaze was taken by the score screen.

"Four hundred and fourth eight!" The screen announced as a red ball in a Stetson rose just above Damian's ball on the graph.

"I would have liked to have the high score for at least one round." Damian scoffed to scarlet who had returned to the other participants.

"Oh sorry about that." She blushed and let out a big smile.

"Why so happy?" Mary asked.

"Because I kicked ass!" Scarlet shouted, still on a bit of a buzz high.

"Excuse me Miss Sky and Mr Carmine." The two turned to see a little girl in a standard grey, Atlas uniform holding a bundle of white towels and grey flasks, Damian was surprised that she could actually see where she was going.

"I was told by Mr Flint to give you and the other competitors towels and refreshments."

"Ah thank you." Damian said taking the pile off the assistant.

"Heads up." He said as he passed a towel to scarlet.

"Thanks I needed that." she said as she dried her neck. "Oh it's nice and cool." She added rubbing her face with it. Damian up from his towel to see that Ross had started to fight, he was unsurprisingly fast and agile as he unloaded tens of rounds of, pumping his rifle furiously and when they got close he quickly flipped out the blade of his weapon and sliced through them. Damian downed his water and regretted the fact that he didn't have any food.

"I'm not some ballerina who's working on their figure, I need some protein." He said and turned to Scarlet for some back up. She was in a daze just sucking on her lollipop.

"Remnant to Scarlet." He said trying to coax her back to the real world.

"Oh sorry I zoned out." She said, eyes still a little glazed.

"I see.", seeing nothing productive coming out of her he turned to his team who were watching the fight intently.

The siren screamed signalling the end of the match. "Four hundred and twenty-seven!" Ross walked over to his team, got a big hug from Amber then headed over to sit next to Damian and Scarlet.

"Nice job!" Damian said as he arrived and was handed his items.

"You too." He said with a nod as he sat down.

"So next it's Crimson." Damian said to nobody in particular.

"I don't like her team." Ross said bluntly.

"I don't think anyone does." Scarlet said, now looking more alive.

"They're just a bunch of bullies, racists and psychos." Ross added, sounding like he wanted to retch.

"Don't worry they don't like humans much ether." Scarlet said reassuringly. Crimson's match started and psychotic would easily describe the way she fought. She sprayed bullets in all directions frequently hitting near the other competitors and the crowd, saved only by the shields. In melee she was equally reckless, swinging her ace wildly until she was eventually over run and the three-minute mark.

"How unfortunate," Marcus called out, "only lasted three minutes, and a score of three hundred and seventy." Crimson bumbled of the stage awkwardly, all her manic energy seemed sapped from her body. She sat dejectedly next to her team.

"let's move on shall we." Marcus announced to the crowd. The randomisation process began again. The next person to be picked was Nathan. He dragged himself silently to the centre, his head low and his shoulders slumped.

"Is he okay?" Marcus asked over the speaker. Ryu sprinted over to him and the two of them stated a rapid exchange of words but nobody could hear them. After a quick back and forth Ryu shook Nathan by the shoulders and pointed to his face.

"What ya thank is wrong with him?" Scarlet asked.

"I guess he's still asleep, not much of a morning person." Damian replied. Nathan slapped his cheeks in an effort to wake up and Ryu walked back to the other students.

"Your thoughts?" Marcus asked Ironwood.

"Nathan is a strong boy with great endurance." Ruaridh said as he appeared behind Ironwood. Lafayette, Marian and Gwynn following behind. They took up seats around and behind their boss.

"Nice that you could join us." Marcus said with flick of his hands. He turned back to his microphone and continued to commentate. Nathan drew Thaw Hammer and loaded in two fresh magazines as he prepared for the onslaught. A siren sounded and his match began. Damian tried to take the opportunity to examine how Nathan thought, as he was still unsure of his team's and to an extent his own potential. Nathan seemed to have favoured gravity dust in his shells. As his shotgun ejected a wall of pellets, each would explode in a wave of purple energy knocking the robots back crashing into their ranks. Damian also noticed that as good as Nathan was at crowd control he wasn't actually killing that many. Nathan ejected his magazine pulled a bolt and started to fire again. This time lightning leapt from his barrel. Thaw Hammer's design allowed Nathan to constantly reload even while firing. Damian thought about maybe customising Fenrir to implement a similar feature then sighed at the thought of how big that would make his weapon. Nathan continued fighting, only once or twice did enemies manage to get into melee with him at which point his weapon transformed into a hammer, swung and transformed back before the stunned robots could even notice the wall of ammo had stopped. When he finished he was cheered by the crowd even tho some of them looked a little bored by his controlling approach.

"That was I nice show of control and suppression, good job, three hundred and ninety-seven isn't a score to sniff at ether." Marcus said trying to liven the crowd.

He walked over to Damian, Scarlet & Ross.

"Sup." He said as he sat down a row of seats below Damian and Scarlet.

"Good job." Damian said patting him on the shoulder.

"You did really great." Scarlet added.

"No I didn't," he said waving them off, "I barely even tried."

"Okay." Scarlet said awkwardly.

"I'm not the biggest fan of competing for others." He said then turned and picked up a drink from the girl patiently standing next to her. He must be telling the truth, he didn't even brake a sweet, Damian thought.

"Next up is-." Marcus began. Ryu fired off a shot from his riffle propelling himself high into the air and landing the centre of the arena. He looked back to Damian and Nathan and gave them a thumbs up.

"You can just feel this one's energy! oh it's Ryu Lu fighting now, just in case you were wondering." Ryu took a wide stance and extended his weapon to its maximum size.

"Fight!"

Ryu didn't hesitate for a moment, the instant his opponents entered the ring. He propelled himself with the force of his shots. Transforming his weapon, Zang Jisuh, into a long bladed staff. He spun and cleaved through ranks of robots at a time and with each attack he made he increased in speed. Darting from one edge of the arena to the other. Damian caught a glimpse of his face as he dashed around, his eyes were on fire and he sported a huge grin. Eventually Ryu devolved form dashing to simply becoming a spinning typhoon, eviscerating all that came near. When the siren sounded it took Ryu a while to slow done, he was shaking and bouncing on the spot, clearly excited.

"Well that was an impressive show of skill." Marcus announced. Lafayette pushed in-between him and Ironwood and lent into the microphone.

"Ryu you ain't beat me yet stop looking so cocky!" The speakers then went silent for a moment. Damian and the other contestants looked up to the commentator's box where Lafayette had been removed from the scene by Ruaridh.

"SOoooo, Ryu let's take a look at that score of yours." Marcus said awkwardly. As before Ryu's avatar rolled along to the other competitors and skyrocketed up to Five hundred and seventy-two.

"Quite the score is it not!"

Ryu clenched his fist and cursed quietly before raising his head to see the crowd cheering. He walked over and plopped himself down next to Nathan.

"Ryu that was brilliant!" Scarlet said, beaming at him. He put on a smile then turned stony.

"What's up?" Nathan asked. Ryu didn't respond but gazed off into the distance.

"You can't be serious!" Nathan said, now agitated, "are you seriously surprised that you didn't beat Lafayette?"

"I wouldn't say I'm surprised, but that doesn't stop me being disappointed." He said in his normal composed manor. Damian and Nathan rolled their eyes.

"Competitors we will be having a ten-minute brake so feel free to grab some food or stretch out legs." Marcus said over the speaker.

"Okay guys let's get some food, I'm starving!" Damian announced.