Points of Authority Chapter 3: You take away if i give in, an escaflowne fanfic

Points of Authority

Forfeit the game

Before somebody else

Takes you out of the frame

Ayanna Naqiy glared, sweat glistening on her brow. To the other side of her, on the other side of a pole, Larissa Periyts smiled. "Problem, Aya?"

With one smooth movement, Ayanna swept Larissa's pole from her, and had hit a rather hard strike to the back of Larissa's head.

Larissa didn't cry out, just returned the glare. "You would have sliced my head in half if that were a real blade, Aya!"

Ayanna calmly picked up the fallen pole, and placed it against her own. "Then you should be glad Zaibach hasn't accepted us yet, if you can't defend yourself from your best friend."

Larissa's harsh glower dissipated as she sighed. "You're right—partly. But they don't accept us for another reason."

Ayanna nodded, replacing the poles with the other training equipment. "We're females." She shook her hair out of the restraining clutches of the leather thong hair tie, and pulled her forest green shirt over her white exercise cover which covered precious little. As she fiddled with the ties on the shoulders, she tossed her hair over her shoulder, and smiled.

Larissa was tugging viciously at the ties on her own red shirt, her black shirt showing where it wasn't. She looked up as Ayanna tied it for her. "You don't have to do that."

Ayanna shrugged, smoothing wrinkles from her cream colored pants, and tugging on the ones on Larissa's black pair. "Better than everyone seeing your black undershirt, Liss."

Larissa sighed. "Can we at least try signing up again?"

Ayanna rolled her eyes. "Fine. As long as you're willing to endure the cat-calls without knocking teeth out."

Larissa's eyes flashed fire. "If they mock me, I will stand it. I will not have them describing what they'd do to you if we entered."

Ayanna laughed. "You know as well as I what we'd do if they tried to even start."

Larissa laughed along. "If you can still beat me after three years of training, I'd hate to see what would happen if one of them got you mad."

Ayanna's eyes carried Larissa's flame for a moment. "You would be terrified if they angered me, Liss," she said quietly.

Larissa smiled. "Let's go kick some slayer butt, then! Better than nothing."

Ayanna nodded. "Let's."

Walking down the path, into the village, the two girls laughed amongst themselves at the various bits of gossip they'd heard of themselves.

"And besides calling me a demon wrapped in a beautiful mortal skin, he called you an angel of light!"

Ayanna laughed at that. "I think he got our parts mixed."

Larissa stopped laughing, and looked at Ayanna seriously. "No. Most of the time, they don't see your devilish ways."

Ayanna smiled. "Now, if the slayers were taking rumors of us, there'd be tales of you keeping me in line, as it usually is."

Larissa nodded, then suddenly pounced on her.

Ayanna was surprised, but fought calmly, rolling over, and pinching the thin scar that ran down one side of her neck.

Larissa leapt off, squealing. "That hurt! Besides, that's breaking the rules, touching that."

Ayanna nodded, bored. "If we ever get into Zaibach, they'll be doing that a lot more, Liss. You've got to get used to it. Besides, they usually go for it, there's not too many weak points they can see on us without breaking rules."

Larissa folded her arms across her chest. "They have their ways, and we have ours."

Ayanna carefully flipped her hair back over, onto her back, and dusted herself off. "Why did you tackle me, just now." She didn't ask, she demanded an answer, but her voice was gentle enough that only Larissa could tell the difference.

Larissa swallowed. "We need to surprise them, find some way to impress them. Strategos certainly will never accept us if we are only at the slayers' level, we must exceed them enough to note his attention."

Ayanna nodded, somewhat distractedly. "Well, let's go make them scared of us again. And let's see if there's any old ones left from last year."

Larissa giggled.

In town, boys from ten to twenty were eagerly awaiting their turn to fight Zaibach's dragon slayers, to see if they could earn Folken Strategos' approval, and go for a test before Dilandau Albatou, and if they met his expectations, be granted the title of Dragon Slayer. They would fight for the glory of Zaibach, though secretly hoping to someday be one of Dilandau's own fourteen slayers.

Ayanna smiled innocently at Strategos. "What a turn-out. I'm sure you'll find lots of slayers today."

Larissa popped up behind her. "Too bad you'll have to report they were beaten by mere girls!"

Folken glared at both of them. "This is the last year you will be allowed to compete. I had planned on not letting you in this year even, but was prohibited from doing so."

A man in true Zaibachian uniform stood from behind Folken. "I prohibited him, because I wished to see you two beaten by my slayers before banishing you from appearing before Zaibach ever again."

Ayanna and the man's eyes met, and sparks were exchanged. Larissa and Folken watched them with interest.

Ayanna's voice finally reached a level where she wouldn't be hissing, and she answered in a deadly calm voice, "Then I apologize ahead of time for the pain I will inflict on the elite slayers."

Dilandau's eyes widened, and he reached out to backhand her, but she caught his wrist, and bent his arm back. "We have trained for five years to be worthy enough to face you, general, and we will not be judged unfairly because of how we were born." She released his arm with a shove, and turned on her heel, and walked away with Larissa, who had turned her head and was smirking.

Dilandau watched them go with a glare. Without turning, he addressed the slayer at his side. "Migel, you have my permission to take the green's head." The brown haired slayer nodded. "As you say, Lord Dilandau."

Ayanna smiled to herself. Even if Zaibach refused to recognize them, the Naqiy and Periyts families were highly respected. She left Larissa up on stage, with explicit directions.

As she pulled on the dirt brown tight shorts, she practiced swinging the pole a few more times.

"We have been elected to lighten the mood, as we have the general himself here. So the combatants will have music mixed while they battle, all the way from the Mystic Moon's most powerful country, America!"

Ayanna smiled as The Benjamin Gate came out, mixed to perfection. Adrienne Liesching couldn't have done it better herself. With one last breath, Ayanna straightened her exercise cover, and grabbed the pole of Ayun wood, three times as hard as the practice Hen poles.

On the field stood the first combatant, a twelve year old boy. Ayanna put away her feelings of pity as to what she was about to do. She'd only been training a few months when she was his age. She ducked her head down from viewing the ground at eye level, and in one backflip, was on the field, and racing with her pole forward toward him. She swung her pole ride, and easily knocked his pole from him without giving him more than a couple of bruises.

As the next combatant, a seventeen year old clambered up, she hit him harder, lacing a few cuts on his bare chest and back, and twisted around him to avoid any cuts at all. When he finally fell, she found that the rules were once again bent when she fought, and three heavily trained combatants were nearly upon her.

Fighting backwards was mildly challenging, but she'd prefer not to tax herself too much until she got into those she'd been training with since she was three. So she tripped one of them, stepped on his back, and fought them from behind. Needless to say, it was more than challenging for them backwards, and she made short work of them.

Larissa watched Ayanna worriedly, biting her lip. She finally put the music on a mixed album from CSJ, and jumped down to join her friend.

Abruptly, the slayers came onto the field. Larissa looked worriedly to Ayanna, but all Aya did was smile. "Finally, Liss."

Larissa forced a smile back while swallowing her fear. "Finally."

Ayanna took a deep breath, and stood still, though Larissa could tell she was tensed. Larissa did likewise, unsure why.

"Our real fight begins."

The fourteen slayers circled the two girls, and wore confident smiles. When they were matched with equally confident glares, they worried slightly. What reason would two girls have to be confident?

Larissa giggled: No Doubt had popped on somehow. She smiled coyly at Migel. "Now I'm stuck in the web you're spinning."

Ayanna grinned at Dillan. "You've got me for your prey."

As the chorus started, the enclosed circle came close enough to strike. The second they did, they were easily evaded, and slashed back. They blinked, but closed in again.

Ayanna smiled. "I don't like our position. What do you say to reversing it?" she asked Larissa without taking her playful glare from Dillan.

Larissa slashed Miguel's legs. "Yeah. On the count of three."

Three seconds later, six slayers were down, and the remaining force was cornered by devilish spinning girls whirling around them, jabbing in where they least expected it.

Dillan finally managed to time them, and sliced Ayanna's leg from knee to ankle.

Abruptly, they went slower, in time to the music. Ayanna's face had winced, but she whispered, "Now it's gone too deep.." and slashed through his armor to give him a smaller scratch on the same leg. She then lifted her severely blood covered foot and smashed it into his face, the blood phasing him more than anything.

As Migel aimed a slash at the back of Ayanna's neck, and take her out of the contest, he was tackled to the ground, and got half a dozen cracks to the head from Larissa's pole. She yanked his head back by the hair, and hissed into his bleeding ear, "Don't you dare EVER try that again, or I won't leave you alive." Migel swallowed, and welcomed Larissa's kick which took him from the painful conciousness.

Dillan winced, touching his wound lightly, but kept his glare on Ayanna. She had it out for him now. And from what he heard of Migel and Larissa's fight behind him, he wouldn't be on his feet long.

Abruptly, the odds seemed to change. Gatti had slipped his pole in front of Ayanna's throat, and had jerked back on it, forcing her to lean against him. He smirked at Dillan. "Want to give the baiata some payback?"

As Dillan advanced to do just that, the two she-demons reacted instantaneously. Gatti blanched at Ayanna's mule kick and had his own pole and Ayanna's pole crossed over his throat, and was rhythmically beating them over his head. Dillan meanwhile had been slammed to the ground as Larissa had jumped onto his back, knocking him down.

When Ayanna turned her glare to Chesta, she hesitated a split second, her eyes widening, but still slapped him, except to the side of the head, instead of other painful places she had intended for her next attacker. Chesta slipped into blissful unconciousness, feeling she had spared him for some reason.

When the two had knocked the slayers down, two were dead, and every other injured in some way. Dillan, Gatti, and Migel had revived as the lesser slayers had gone down, and fought; somewhat disorientedly, but still with fierceness.

Ayanna wiped the sweat from her face, and, eyes closed, mouthed the words to Linkin Park's Points of Authority, "You love the way I look at you, while taking pleasure in the awful things you put me through. You take away if I give in: my life, my pride is broken." Her face contorted as the voice deepened, her eyes closing tighter. Dillan, looking at her, pondered. He mouthed the next words with her. "You love the things I say I'll do. The way I'll hurt myself again just to get back at you. You take away if I give in: my life, my pride is broken." He had a feeling that was what their relationship was like if they were accepted.

Larissa wiped a mix of blood, sweat, and hair from her forehead. She wondered how much was hers, and how much was theirs.

They both turned at Dilandau's voice.

"You have killed two of the Dragon Slayers of the elite class. This town will be expected to supply replacements." His glare spoke the words he knew better to speak. It would not be them.

Ayanna glared at him, but said nothing.

Larissa, on the other hand, refused to be silent.

"How dare you! We fought sixteen to one, and when we take down the weakest, we are told to go home, as if we hadn't done anything? I will not stand for it!"

Ayanna glared at him. "We've had our fight, Liss. You don't want to serve under him. All he will do is look down at us, never accepting who we are. Besides, if you don't stand for it, I'm sure anyone here would be glad to have our heads to try pleasing the general." Again she emphasized his name, before turning on him again.

Dilandau strode down, grabbed her by the shoulders, to make her face him, and slapped her with as much force as he dared give a lady. "You are a woman. You would do well to get that through your heads before I inspect this town again, or I may have your head to keep others from following your example."

Ayanna pried his hands off her shoulder with her nails. "Then you would be better off taking it here, if you can."

Dilandau's eyes narrowed at the threat. "You think you would stand up to me in an even fight? That is where you are wrong. I have been trained for the last four years under the general above me until I was strong enough to kill him, and take his place."

Ayanna waved his words away. "Then I am a year your elder, as is Larissa Periyts. We have been training for five years. True, our instructor died three years ago, but training to fight for the right to join Zaibach every year since we turned nine counts for nothing either, correct general?"

Dilandau's eyes widened, and he turned to Strategos. "They have been here every year?"

Folken avoided Dilandau's gaze, not out of fear, but out of being caught in a lie he could be reported for. "And defeated every combatant, tying only in position to each other one year when I let it go that far."

Dillan forced his eyes to stay open. He felt that there would be girls in the ranks, more as blackmail against Strategos than anything.

Larissa exchanged an excited glance with Ayanna. Ayanna returned it coolly, smiling slightly. Dilandau was screaming at Strategos of the protocol broken.

His hidden respect had broken through to the surface.

A/N: Oh…so how horrible is it? Even if there isn't too many of these fics on FFN, I've seen dozens of them on Escaflowne fic sites. So the idea's not original, though I am very proud of Ayanna and Larissa, and spent an hour coming up with their name and costumes(not to mention could play either of them…yes, I take cosplay too far I know.)

Review if you'd like more.