IMPORTANT

I would like to dedicate this chapter to my wonderful reviewers!

Firecat21870, SR1120, Bmurd3rf4c3 and Beard Boy for reviewing once

Luine Mercury LWG, Chaosconetic (hope I got that right) and Tsyi sin for all reviewing twice

And last but not least the amazing guests who have left some of the best reviews I have on this story, if you are a guest that reviews more than once, leave a constant name at the bottom of your review so I know who it is, that would be amazing.

Thank you all so much, I want you to know that your reviews mean the world to me and I know each and every one of them by heart because I've read them so many times! Thank you all again.

Now on to the chapter!

Chapter 10

Loosing

After that, things were different. Many people stopped ignoring me and those who used to look down on me started to look up as I ranked above the majority of them. The new attention I was getting was strange, but I couldn't say that I didn't enjoy it. For the first time in a very long time I liked where I was in life.

When Roman got back the day I'd won the fight, he grinned at me and said, "I knew you'd be up to it." Then we went and practiced for the rest of the day, Roman didn't land a hit on me, no one really did anymore.

Training soon changed from simple sparing to semblance training. I'd had my semblance for years now but had never quite perfected how it works. We started small, I worked on changing my hair and eye color and worked leaving my images behind, perfecting the method I'd used to beat Jasper.

I was in the practice room one day, sparing with Justin, Roman was out on another trip, when I noticed a small crowd accumulated around me, watching. If they saw me practice my semblance they would know my tricks and it would be harder to beat them.

It was with that though that I realized it, I liked the people who now looked up at me, 87th, well that just wasn't high enough. I wanted more, I needed more. So, I got what I wanted. I was going to rise to the top. By the end of the week. I was 70th in two more, I was 60th but it was never good enough. Nothing is ever good enough.

By the time I reached 64th things began to get harder, the duels were no longer easy, I actually had to put effort into them and that made it far less enjoyable. So, I trained, I was rarely given missions and the few times I did, they were small. I spend my time training every free second of everyday was spent making sure I was the best. I would be the best.

When you are the best, people can't look down on you and I never wanted another person to look down on me ever again. I was going to be the best.

"Hey Pinky, wanna fight?"

I looked away from the weapons rack I was examining and over to Justin, I gave him a short nod and stepped away. We walked towards one of the sparring mats in the back of the room, the one we usually dueled on and started.

Justin counted down and I waited for the fight to start.

The second he one, Justin lunged at me, far faster than I'd previously though he could go. Surprised by the attack, I stumbled quickly regaining my balance and dodging his next blow.

Justin continued to come at me with a furious speed that never failed to surprise me. I'd always know Justin was never going all out while sparring me, but this was a whole new level of surprising, he completely switched fighting styles.

While fighting Justin before, he tended to have a more outright fighting style, one that was more brawn then brain. But the style he had now assumed was just the opposite. He dodged every attack of mine, he slid around with more agility than I'd though possible and continued to land hits on me.

Though the fights had recently gotten harder, this was the first time in months that someone had landed a hit on me.

When Justin landed the first hit on me, I was shocked, unable to comprehend what had just happened, but I adjusted. If I wanted to beat my opponent this time, it was going to be a lot harder than the other recent fights.

I generally avoided using my semblance while fighting, I used it when I felt necessary, but I liked to give my opponents a fighting chance. Today was different.

After taking a few more blows I jumped to the side, leaving a shadow of myself there for Justin's fist to collide into. The second his fist met "me" the illusion shattered into what seemed like hundreds of shards of glass. He'd seen this once before in my fight with Jasper, but it seemed to catch him off guard anyways. I smiled, maybe I had a chance

Justin instantly pivoted on his heel and looked behind him, preventing me from pulling the same trick on him that I had on Jasper to win that fight.

I ducked, his hand just missing my head. I left another image of myself a by his side, yet another distraction. Justin looked passed it this time, "Don't expect me to fall for the same trick twice," he said grinning.

I rolled me eyes; he had no idea how many people would have.

The fight continued like that for some time, me throwing out images of myself to distract him as much as possible and Justin continued to dodge everything, throwing rapid punches at me. I dodged most of them, occasionally being hit.

After about the seventh time that Justin hit me, I had an idea. It was something small, but it just might work. Next time Justin threw a punch, I ducked low and as he was looking down, I turned his shoes red.

It was small, but the sudden change from brown to red caught him off guard, and while Justin was looking at his shoes, I punched him right in the face. He stumbled back and I landed another hit, this time on his arm.

Just as I thought I had gotten the upper hand, Justin swept my legs right out from under me. I hit the ground, hard.

The wind was instantly knocked out of me and I sat there for a moment desperately trying to regain my breath. When I could breathe again, I sat up, Justin was sitting on the floor beside me, the fight was obviously over. He stood up and offered me a hand, which I took, he pulled me up.

To my surprise, Justin grinned at me, and said, "That was fun, just wanted to know what my competition would be if you ever decided you wanted to be higher than me. I think I've got my spot secured. You better watch out Pinky, once you start dueling the higher ups, well, things aren't going to be as pretty as they have been for you."

With that, Justin walked away humming something to himself and smiling, me staring blankly after him.

The rest of that day there was only one thing on my mind, it wasn't Justin's warning it was the one thing I found most important.

Today, I had lost.

Authors Note:

Well ummm hi? It's been a really long time huh... sorry? There honestly isn't a lot I can say, life comes before fanfiction and as I may have mentioned in previous authors notes for the past year or so my life has been out of whack.

I'm back though and I'm here to stay! I will NEVER give up on this story, this time It may have looked like I had huh.

Thank you all so much for reading this story, it means more to this little girl than you could have possibly known. I'm an aspiring author and have 10ish original stories I would like to get out there, this is really just practice, but I love it. My characters are my children and Neo and Roman just get to be my adopted children for a while.

Love you all so much! Thank you!

Remember to Review/Favorite/follow!

Your very apologetic author,

Anna-Mae1242