It was just a coincidence that Sync happened to stumble upon the nearly deserted arena, located to the far end of the courtyard, during one of his stroll and saw one of the God Generals- the Beast Tamer Arietta training. He had already planned to walk by as it was normal for them to train to always be prepared, but the thought of just endlessly strolling around the Headquarter without anything to do since the low activities of that replica's group made his body feel restless. Might as well humour himself with this performance.
Sync observed as his body leaned against a pillar, his gazed focusing on the sole human figure standing in the arena, surrounded by a bunch of practice dummies.
She wasn't alone though. Anywhere she went, the intimidating Liger which she named Leo would follow closely on her heels. Sync didn't understand why the beast would need a name when she could just call it by its breed, such a hassle.
Right now, the said beast was accompanied its mistress in her training session as it prowled the circle of dummies then suddenly pounced on one while its powerful tail made a sweeping motion which immediately knocked down a dummy a two, such force would have definitely broken a grown man's neck. The Liger's jaw unhinged, revealing sharp canines, then bit down upon the dummy's throat in the place where the carotid artery should be and yanked.
While her beast was destroying the target, Arietta aided it by casting several Fon Artes which resulted in the wipe out of most dummies. All in all, it was impressive to watch the demonstration of her abilities, she sure did live up to her title of a God General after all. But by far, it was just immobile targets that she was practicing on, what would happen if the enemies were to move.
Pulling himself up straight, Sync walked towards the arena to approach the unaware girl. As he got closer, which he sure was already within her sensing range, Sync saw Arietta had snapped her head up from its downcast position and her nose sniffled around to take in the scent, just like a hound, he amusedly thought.
The Liger had long ago noticed his presence and was growling lowly in its throat, ready to pounce upon him any given moments just by the order of its mistress. Arietta spun around until she was facing him and he could see her pink tresses had turned matted, some of them clung to her face while beads of sweat ran down from her cheek to her throat, then finally disappeared under the collar of her shirt. But the most captivating feature had to be her eyes, as those normally gloomy ruby orbs was shining brightly with a touch of silver lining at the edge which gave her a slight feral look, just like an untamed beast.
Sync felt his heart suddenly quicken its pace and his stomach churned a little like something was crawling around his insides. It was weird and he didn't like them, so he forcibly addressed them to the scorching heat that was beating down upon him. Focusing back on the Beast Tamer, Sync blurted out the thing that was on his mind: "Let's spar".
He watched as Arietta's widened as if she couldn't believe what she just hear. Sync couldn't blame her though,for normally he would have sought out other soldiers or even the other God General, minus Dist, whenever they were free to trained himself and reassessing their abilities to later put into strategy. The Beast Tamer was never his option as her body was frail and she lacked severely in the offensive department, without her beasts and Fon Artes, she was nothing but a hindrance on the battlefield so Sync had always just put her in charge of defensing the castle whenever he strategized. But something in her appearance and ability had changed a little today,he couldn't pinpoint exactly on the difference and that annoyed and intrigued Sync at the same time. The only way to find out was to see it for himself by sparring.
After contemplating it for a moment, Arietta hesitantly nodded her head as he explained the rules: " You can use Fon Artes and the Liger to aid you. If you fall out of the arena or was rendered useless, you are out. The same rule apply to me also and that's all. If you don't have any questions, we will start.".
Seeing there wasn't any questions being thrown, Sync took his fighting position as he immediately kept his guard on. He had seen the change in her and it thrilled him to be fighting again a potential opponent. Without breaking his gaze from Arietta, he charged first.
The Tempest first priority was to take out the Liger for it would definitely created an opening for the girl to attack him. Racing towards the beast with Fon Artes aiding his every steps, Sync dodged its powerful sweeping tail by squated down and ramped his knuckle straight to the its jaw, resulting in a loud thumping as the beast's body laid sprawl on the ground.
It must had happened all so fast for the petite God General as it took her nearly a second to comprehend that her Liger was down. Turning to her, Sync could see her whole body had coiled up with agitation as she sprang towards him. He could feel dark energy being gathered and crackled violently in the air as one of Arietta's trademark attack- Negative Gate was performed. Sync had already seen the move several times and quickly calculated the distance needed to avoid it. Just as he was about to perform his next move, all his senses went alarmed as he twisted his body away just in time to avoid the heat that nearly sizzled his body. That caught him by surprise and amused him to see that her attack range had widen.
Slipping his guard for just a moment had soon proved to be a mistake as a silhouette appeared out of thin air and ready to ram into him as he was already standing at the edge. Thanks to his quick reflex, the Tempest managed to roll out of the way and somersaulted back to put some distance. But his triumph was short as something ramped into him and knocked the breath out of his chest. Damn it, he should have taken in account that the Liger was tougher than its look and put more force in knocking it out cold.
The motion flied him out of the arena but the Tempest took pride in his cat liked reflex. Picking his thoughts together, Sync gathered the fonic energy into his knuckle and punched directly into the ground to create a force that propelled him backward onto the arena. Though was enhanced by the Fon Artes, his arm still sustained some damage due to the strain which was putted on it, Sync cursed inwardly as he landed on the tiles.
So she had gotten stronger. Although he was formerly amused by that, Sync would be damned if he was to be beaten around by some girls. He steeled his gaze underneath the mask as he calculated all the possible outcomes, he would take this more serious.
After finalizing his thought, surprisingly that neither Arietta or the Beast had made a move, Sync bulleted straight to the Liger while activated ' Dragon Shot' underneath his breath, then shot right into the side of its face, making sure this time that the monster would be out cold by watching the its entire body crashed down and out of the arena.
Turning his direction once again to the Beast Tamer, Sync locked his gazed into her bewilderment one while striding forward as quickly as he could ( which was pretty fast thanks to the aid of his Artes), and before she could even chanted, he swept his leg underneath her then put all his weight onto her petite body.
Counting out loud from one to ten, Sync made sure to lock both her hands into one of his while the other covered her mouth, subsequently restraining her ability. After he had reached the number ten, Sync let go of both her hands and mouth but remained the position due to his exhaustion.
Now that the adrenaline had worn out, Sync wearily focused his gaze onto the girl underneath as his eyes took into account her features. Slick, messy pink hair fanning on the ground like halo; ruby eyes held a subtle crazed look while her small, delicate mouth was panting heavily. Feeling drawn in, Sync unconsciously leaned down,regardless of his mask, until there was a small yelp of pain that suddenly jolted him out of his trance.
Quickly registering the closeness and certain body parts of Arietta he was leaning on, the Tempest immediately disconnected their body as he stood up so sudden which made him a little dizzy. Million thoughts ran in his brain but most of them was: Shit. Shit. What was that? Why did I do that? as he tumbled off the arena then broke into quick strides just to put some distance between them.
After Sync was sure he was far enough, he leaned his back against a wall and took his mask off. Putting one hand upon his eyes, he could faintly felt the heat that was radiating off his face. What just happened was so weird and so out of character of him, Sync thought as he rubbed his face just to put off some heat.
Why did his stomach felt like a hundred moths was squirming inside it? And what was the erractic beating of his heart indicated? He racked his brain for a logical answer but none came up close to satisfy him. Raking his hair viciously, Sync definitely knew he didn't like these feelings,at all. In the end, he concluded that Arietta might have learned some handy witchcraft and that he would never ever sparred with her again.