Chapter11: The Winning Streak

Dante' reached the room where Lyss was being held over night for treatment. When he walked in Lyss sat up and stared at him. "I want to thank you for what you did inside Abby. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you. I just have one question, how did get in there?" Lyss' eyes were a mixture of curiosity and gratitude.

"I meditated in the corner of the stadium. I used my telepathy to form a copy of myself and send it to help. Unlike how I beat Halifax, that was an extremely complicated telepathic maneuver." Dante' sat in a chair next to her bed. "You should rest, the third round is tomorrow"

"Ok, I'll meet you in the drawing room tomorrow, goodnight." Lyss forced a smile even though her body was in agony.

"Goodnight." Dante' walked back to the room and sat on the bed. He cossed hid legs and levitated 2 feet above the mattress. He meditated on his fight with Akeo again and again. He also meditated on Tenomas' training offer. "Was it right to accept his offer. Will Lyss get upset that I'm not going back to earth with her during the break." These questions boomed in his head he sat back down on the bed. His head fell on the pillow and he drifted to sleep. His dreams were haunted of visions of Akeo. He awoke the next morning and went to the closet. He put on his fighting tunic again and went down to the drawing room. He met Lyss in the back as the judges drew numbers from a large glass bin.

The next rounds were the easiest fights Dante' and Lyss had fought. The third round for Dante' was against a fish-like man from Neptune. Dante' ended it in 12 seconds with a flip kick and a quick sword stroke that cut him vertically in two. Lyss fought his wife, who was a mermaid with a large bluish-green whip. Lyss flipped over her and grabbed the whip. She noticed a sharp blade at the tip. Lyss dodged a tail-whip and flick the bladed tip through the mermaid's chest.

The fourth round pitted Dante' and Lyss against rock-people from Boulgar. Dante' used his speed to dodge all of the rock's attack and sent several telepathic shockwaves directly at the beast torso. The large rock-man crumbled from the power of the blasts. Dante' left the ring and whispered to Lyss, "Aim for the abdomen." Lyss understood. She saw the female rock-person ad a large crack running from her chest to her waist. Lyss dodged the slower opponent and kept up a barrage of kicks to the large crack on its stomach. When the rock-woman was stunned from all the kick Lyss jumped on the wall that the day before she hit her head on. She jumped off and landed a spinning corkscrew dropkick to the crumbling abdomen. The rock-women tumbled back and fell. The large rocky body shattered on impact to the concrete ring floor.

All this time Dante' paid close attention to Akeo fights. There wasn't much to watch, though. Akeo ended all his fights with a telepathic blow that shattered most of his opponents' entire bodies. Dante' searched for any weakness, but found none. The only thing that gave him comfort was the fact that if Tenomas could beat him, so could he. He watched as opponent after opponent fall in under 5 seconds. "Well I guess Tenomas' training is my only hope at this point", said Dante' to himself as after he wached Akeo destroy his fourth round opponent. Dante' also noticed Akeo had no partner. All the teams he faced fought him in two matches, the man, and then the woman. This posed a great fear for Dante'. "If I lose, he'll fight Lyss." Dante' knew Lyss was a good fighter, but in his eyes, couldn't beat Akeo on her best day. Dante' didn't think about that, he had to get to the finals before he could worry.

The fifth round was quick as Dante' fought two dwarfs from a planet stuck in medieval times. Both dwarfs fell with little effort. Dante sliced his opponent in half as soon as the match began. Lyss kick the much lighter dwarf-lady high into the air. The poor women died on impact to the ground. Although it was the fifth round, Lyss still felt bad about killing all these living creatures.

The sixth round gave them a little workout. They fought two very fast fighters. Dante' held his own against the speedy little boy. Dante' eventually just gave up chasing him, so he sent out a shockwave that knock him off his line of running. The momentum of his speed sent him headfirst into the wall, killing him on impact. Lyss chased the little girl around the ring, but never got close enough to attack. She also gave up on her chase and simply put out her fist when the girl came at her at full speed. The impact killed the opponent, but broke Lyss' hand. The cast on her hand didn't slow her down a bit.

The next fighter was a vampire whose male opponent died in the third round. Dante' let Lyss fight her first. Lyss used the vampire's clumsy style against her. She waited for her to throw a hard left punch. As Lyss dodged, the vampire lost balance and fell forward into a shot to the face by Lyss' right foot. She then threw her hands at the vampire with an endless barrage of punches. To Lyss' relief, she didn't have to kill her; she simply gave up after 3 straight minutes of being beaten on.

The eighth round wasn't much of a threat to anyone. Dante' and Lyss wondered how their opponents even got this far. Dante' ended his fight quickly by kicking his opponent in the stomach and raising his sword above his head. At the site of this his opponent surrendered to Dante'. Lyss' fight wasn't much different. She landed one kick and her opponent began to cry. The fight was stopped by the judges when she refused to get up and fight.

Dante' and Lyss were one fight from the finals and couldn't be happier. Lyss showed her happiness with a large smile, but Dante' hid his as always. The ninth round was cut short when Dante' realized that there was no female opponent. So Dante' took to the only ninth round fight. This was going to be Dante's hardest fights yet. He walked into the ring and was faced by a dark, blue haze. The haze swirled as it saw him. The haze compacted into a circle, which formed into a person. Dante' was face-to-face with a dark copy of himself.

Swords clashed as a war was brewing in the ring. Sweat trickled down Dante' face as his clone matched each of his moves. Dante' made one final attempt. He jumped high in to the air and launched himself, blade first, at his copy like a bullet. The attacked worked, but with a price. The clone vanished when the blade connected with its chest. The crowd shrieked as Dante' fell to the ground. The dark blade of the clone was sticking out of his abdomen. Dante's eyes rolled back in his as he fell to the ground. The paramedics ran out with a stretcher. It took a few days, but Dante' was up and walking. "You ok?" Lyss asked him as she packed her bag to o back to earth for the six month vacation.

"I'll be fine." Dante sat on his bed staring at the ceiling.

"Why aren't you packing?" The question hit Dante' hard. He hadn't told Lyss yet that he'd be staying. Dante' mind wondered how she would react.

"Umm….well…" Dante's eyes met hers. "I'm staying." Lyss eyes widened and her mouth fell open

"WHAT!"