Daaaamn! It's been forever, hasn't it, minna-san? In the last several months (yes, it's been several months. I suck, I know) I've gone to prom, gone to the AnimeNorth anime con (I even had a costume as a Ruroni Kenshin crowd extra! Seriously!), got into university, studied my ass off, passed with honours, went to California, came back, went to university and am now sitting in my dorm wondering why the hell i let this story get left on the shelf, not that that's an excuse for leaving you guys hanging (what little of you may still be left, anyway). I also handed in Alaryan's Keep as a Writer's Craft assignment. Printed out, it was 182 pages and I got a 92% on it! Yaay! Anyhoo, I should be updating more, and if I should grow lax, don't hesitate to mail me and tell me so! (But be gentle. Not only am I a human being, I'm now a human being with an ungodly amount of homework. Time is hard to come by sometimes) Enjoy! –Lady Phoenixdagger *//.^*
*****
Mira could feel her hands ball themselves into fists of rage as she and the wizards watched spectators file into their seats with what looked to be bovine disinterest on the giant screen above the Ring. A few waved and cheered as they came on, but mainly they did not even bother to look up, too busy with trying to find their place in the crowd. From their box seat, she could see the odd participant wandering about the Ring, trying to find his or her place for the opening ceremonies. The dark-haired telekinetic allowed herself a sardonic smile. Her friends down below were probably not having such a problem. The whole place had been converted into an exact replica of the Ring back on Black Hood property, familiar turf for the survivors right down to the almost invisible microphones to pick up and amplify every crunch and scream. All it needed was a warm, sticky, scarlet christening and the place would be just like home.
Mira bit her lip. Soon it will begin. All too soon.
Beside her, Talon absently played with the metal collar the Black Hood officials had fastened around his neck and the necks of the other wizards as well as Mira. Apparently they found it simply would not do for them to use magic and cheat to help their side win. Slender hands found their own collar as Mira fingered the clasp that would not open, noting that while Black Hood knew she and the wizards would not cheat, they had no way of knowing whether or not Black Hood would cheat them.
"How much longer must we wait?" Talon was now tugging at his collar, anxiety tingeing his voice. "The longer they take to start this thing, the longer it'll take for us to win!" Despite his words, his voice was wooden with only the faintest wisps of his true despair passing through. As soon as the collars had been put in place any power Mira and the wizards might have had was gone, leaving them naked in the face of all-too-possible treachery, and painfully aware of it.
Tentatively Mira reached out with her mind –a trick she had learned from Belle- and brushed against Talon's, almost laughing out loud in bitter glee at what she found. Even under his despair, a scrap of cockiness still stubbornly nested, stroked by a desperate sense of pride. How sure he was, deep, deep in the crevasses of his mind! Such hubris was almost sad to witness. There was no surety in a Black Hood death match. Mira bit her lip, almost feeling Quatre's breath in her ear, murmuring to her not to be such a pessimist. It was slow torture, waiting to see him and the others, longing to free the innocents caught in the middle, but not wanting to see what horrors Black Hood had done to them. Wanting to see them alive again, but knowing the chances were slim to none. Black Hood was too careful to allow themselves to be the victims of fair chance. Alone in their box seat, tugging collars and wrestling errant imaginations, Mira and the wizards sat, trying to convince themselves that the captives weren't doomed.
"LADEEEEEEZ AND GENTLEMEN!" The sound system suddenly boomed, sending wave after wave of screaming feedback into the herds of people. As one body, the wizards stiffened. It was to begin.
There came a slight tap-tapping as a questioning finger rapped the mic. Once satisfied that the sound system had been set to right, the announcer went on:
"WELCOME TO THE BEST-OF-THE-BEST TOURNAMENT OF CHAMPIONS, SPONSORED BY THE GOOD PEOPLE AT BLACK HOOD!"
Not caring about the plush carpet below her feet, Mira spat, then watched it soak in. Good people. The irony of it was simply disgusting. In the Ring below, the participants were parading in front of the masses, twenty fighters in all to be pitted against Black Hood's finest. Of them, only four truly knew what would befall them. Beside him, Gil sat in terrified silence, his fear for his children washing over Mira's consciousness in a shocking wave. Below, a Black Hood official, a deceptively normal-looking man, was giving a speech that no one in the private box even attempted to listen to. The gentle old wizard had just been handed the news that if their four lost, not only would he lose his niece and his wards, his daughter would be sacrificed as well. For him the fight would be excruciatingly hard to bear. To the right of Gil and next to Nat, Zach sat, one hand worriedly clenched around an ancient-looking rosary, the other knotting his good robe, his lips busily murmuring soothing prayers.
O, salutaris hostia
Quae caeli pandis ostium
Bella premunt hostila
Da robur, fer auxilium.
Mira's outer calm betrayed her then and she broke down into tears as the contestants below milled back out of the Ring to ready themselves for the first fight. Brokenly, she spoke the helpless pleas to God along with the elderly man, praying that He would intercede, that victory would find them that day:
O, Saviour, saving victim
Who opens the gate of Heaven
Our enemies besiege us
Give us strength, bring us aid.
*****
Under the buzzing fluorescent lights of the Ring's underchamber, Ryu sat moodily re-taping his knuckles, waiting patiently for his next fight. The room was chilly and he could feel his muscles begin to tighten as they cooled down. There were others in the chamber, fighters who had time still to waste before they had to go up. There was less and less of them after each fight, the losers either being sent home in disgrace or sent home in ambulances. No body bags as of yet, but the tournament was still young. What was once a herd of twenty was now a mere cluster of eight, including the Alaryan's Keep fighters. Even as the normal humans stood, clustered around the radio, listening to the current fight with what looked to be nonchalance, Ryu could almost taste their awkwardness as they tried not to let their animal apprehension show. Presently Walker was going up against a Fighter by the name of Aruviel. Ryu knew him well, a foolish engineered semi-organic Fighter whose technique was to fight hard, fast and low to the ground. He was foolish that way, allowing his back to be completely unguarded as he lunged at legs and ankles. Even now Ryu could see him cutting furiously away at Walker's feet, tiring himself out, and ultimately allowing Walker to pick him off. Still, it was only the middle of the tournament. Black Hood was probably saving their best treachery for last.
A shared cry rose up from around the radio when the match ended in Walker's favour, as Ryu knew it would. He looked up from his knuckles to glance at Darien, who lounged in a chair with a magazine open in his lap while his fingers played with the collar around his throat, and Kari, who was sitting motionlessly at his feet. The elder Broman twin cocked his head and glared at a pair of contestants who were trading money.
A bet. Ryu growled. The idiots have no idea what's really at stake here.
The public address system in the room crackled then, announcing the next fight between another Black Hood fighter and a normal human contestant. Nervously trying not to look at anyone else in the room, he trooped out just as Walker sauntered in, a gauze pad over one eye to soak up his blood as the skin healed swiftly over. Even in light of his recent triumph he looked agitated. The fluorescent light reflected off the collar around his neck as he sat heavily down on the couch next to Ryu and crumpled the pad in his hands. Darien and Kari sat casually by them as the rest of the room's inhabitants slowly moved away.
The Lord of Alaryan's Keep shot a black look around the room. "We're being mocked here," he said shortly. There came a sharp tearing sound as his hands rent the gauze pad without him realising. "There are only weaklings to be challenged here." He shot another look at an overly-muscular girl who stared openly at him, making her blush and turn away. "The fights are too easy. We look like barbarians, kicking the shit out of children, or it seems so, the way these green Fighters go at it. The crowd will pick up on it soon."
"I don't like it either." Darien shifted uneasily on the floor. "There's no opposition. I've won my last three in less than five minutes each."
They want us to get comfortable, Kari signed quickly, her speechdrop having been confiscated upon their arrival. They have the prisoners and will do anything to keep us from getting them. Her hands became urgent as she flicked out the words. They'll pull out the big guns soon.
"Yeah."
Walker tossed the mangled gauze wad into the air, looking surprised as it came back down. Sub-space pockets were taken away as well with the introduction of the collars. Remembering this, Walker shrugged and stuffed the wad into the hip pocket of his training gi, not daring to trust Black Hood with a discarded sample of his blood. "We'll be okay," he decided firmly. "Whatever Black Hood throws at us, we can handle it."
Nearby the radio spat out that the match was over, sealed with a KO that sent sirens blaring over the announcer's excited voice. The preliminaries were over with. The finals were to begin.
*****
More to come, folks!
LPD *//.^*