Ouch, that looked like it hurt, Rozanne cringed as she saw Lloyd fall to the ground after Yasmin hit him with that giant blade. She jumps from her seat and vaults over the railing to see if Lloyd is even alive, not caring that she might not be allowed in the arena.
"That's the match! Yasmin wins!" The administrator announces; she presses a button on the pseudo-podium behind which she stands. Stairs immediately push out of the wall under the railing; a small gate opens to allow passage down into the battleground. The announcer quickly descends the stairs, "One of you should take this young man to the infirmary," the announcer firmly states, pointing at Yasmin and Rozanne.
Rozanne picks up the still-unconscious Lloyd and throws him onto her shoulder. She marches toward the exit until she hears footsteps behind her and feels a tug at her cloak.
"Yo, let me go with you; it's kind of my fault that he's out cold," Yasmin says, slowing her pace to match the shorter girl's speed. "I'm kind of surprised he's not missing half of his head; he must have some aura, huh?"
Rozanne glances at the pale-yellow clad girl, "Yeah, I think he's used to getting hit; he fought in the Atlas regional tournaments for several years. That was a nice fight by the way; I like your sword-thingy." Yasmin looks surprised when she hears that Lloyd is a career fighter.
"Thanks, I'm not really used to fighting people; Grimm are more my style," Yasmin states with a shrug. "Sorry for knocking out your friend; have you known each other long?"
"Nope," Rozanne says with a pop. The two push through the double doors leading to campus. As they head outside, they are met by a cold wind and a light dusting of snow. It's always snowing in this damn country.
"Oh, you guys seem pretty close for recent friends," Yasmin says questioningly.
"We met on the airship that brought us here," Rozanne states simply. "He's a pretty cool guy, if you can actually get him to talk. You should stay at the infirmary so you can actually meet him; I think he'd like to know the person who beat his ass with a giant sword, that's usually his thing.
"Where are you from? You said that you're mainly used to fighting Grimm, so I know you're not from an academy," Rozanne questions the white-haired girl.
"I'm from the outskirts of Atlas; it's mostly safe, but my father is a sheriff so I've learned how to fight from him and a couple of his friends," Yasmin shrugs. "He went to Siren Academy to become a hunter, but he thought he could do more good protecting a community than running around everywhere. What about you, where are you from?"
"I grew up in Atlas proper; I went to Torch Academy before coming here," Rozanne states. "Let's hurry up and get to the infirmary; I'm not a fan of the idea of getting stuck in a blizzard."
The two quicken their pace to the infirmary, only to remember that they have no idea where the infirmary is. They walk around looking for a directory until Rozanne receives a message on her scroll. Her match is in arena 7 against Lierre Kartal.
"Oh, I am going to destroy her!" Rozanne yells as she drops Lloyd to the ground and begins running back to the stadium. She stops and looks back, "Could you take care of Sleepy over there? Thanks, bye!"
Yasmin simply stands in place for several seconds as she attempts to process what just happened.
Rozanne bursts through the doors of the arena, eager to finally bring green-clad oppressor to justice. Maybe I'm taking the whole 'tyrant' thing a bit too far, she thinks, frowning.
She glances around the arena and notices her opponent sitting peacefully, her eyes lightly shut. The girl doesn't even acknowledge Rozanne's loud entrance, she simply continues to meditate.
Rozanne frowns slightly as she grabs Slagge and releases it from its strap; she sits lazily against the wall with Slagge partially resting in her lap. She gives the instrument several loving plucks before adjusting the strings. She promptly begins to play and loses herself in her own music.
"Are the competitors ready to begin?" A nervous voice breaks Rozanne from her trance. She takes a long glance around the arena and sees the voice emanating from a scraggly ruddy-haired boy at the podium; she extends her right hand towards the boy and throws him a thumbs-up. She then turns her eyes towards to her opponent; Lierre is standing now, right hand on her longer blade.
"Ready, sir," Rozanne's competitor shouts at the announcer. Rozanne notices Lierre's grip on her blade tighten slightly as she calls out. The announcer's hands fly to the console in front of him and a screen lights up with a count-down.
5
4
3
2
As the timer strikes one, Rozanne activates her semblance. She notices just how loud the stadium is; there are students behind her murmuring and some even shouting as the match readies, the screen constantly lets out a quiet buzz, and the whole stadium sucks in a short breath as the screen flashes 'Fight.'
She can't hear all of these things, but she can sure feel most of them; she rapidly struggles to organize all of the new information even as she begins to pluck her instrument. She feels the sound exit the instrument, but she pulls it into a tight orbit around her as she notices Lierre drop to one knee with her now-transformed rifle.
A shot rings out.
Rozanne can feel the bullet as it reaches the maelstrom of sound around her and she forces the bullet just barely off of its intended course; she moves her head slightly to the left as the bullet impacts the wall behind where she was just holding her head. She feels another bullet sailing towards her and rolls away; she quickly jumps to her feet and swaggers towards her green-covered opposition, all while plucking at her instrument.
She easily redirects and dodges Lierre's final shots in her long-rifle; Lierre unsheathes her other blade and rapidly closes the distance between herself and her charge. Let's go offense, let's go, Rozanne thinks with a smug smirk on her face. She blasts several waves of sound at the deadly dual-wielder; Lierre's expression shifts from determination to surprise as the faint ripple in the air impacts her. Lierre barely has enough time to assume a suitable stance and the first impact throws her off-balance, the next two waves easily knock the girl off her feet.
Rozanne presses her advantage and rushes towards Lierre while she separates Slagge into hammer and shield. Lierre regains her footing just in time to see a discomfortingly-large hammer barreling towards her. As Rozanne's hammer makes impact, the Faunus girl notices something very wrong with the outcome.
The hammer struck the ground.
Lierre is gone. She didn't roll away; she's just not where she was. Confusion spreads throughout Rozanne's face just as she sent stumbling forward by a slash to the back. She turns mid-stumble and makes a valiant attempt to raise her shield, but she's not quick enough and Lierre punishes with a quick jab with her shorter sword.
Rozanne is forced onto her back, now at the mercy of the dual-wielder; Lierre wastes no time in taking advantage of the situation and begins a heavy downward thrust with her left-hand sword. Rozanne, noticing the heavily-telegraphed strike, slams her shield upwards and brings it, along with Lierre's sword, down to the ground; she launches a vicious kick to Lierre's midsection and scrambles to her feet.
Lierre lands on her feet and sheathes Grace; Fury rapidly changes into rifle form and Lierre begins to unload the magazine straight at Rozanne.
She's a pretty damn good shot, I'll give her that, thinks Rozanne as bullets rapidly impact her now-raised shield. The hail of gunfire soon stops and Rozanne peeks over her shield to see nothing but empty arena.
Too late, Rozanne turns around and she is soon met with a slash to her left side. Lierre launches several strikes, only to disappear and reappear behind Rozanne. Rozanne can barely keep up with the teleporting girl, but she soon picks up on a pattern, a rhythm.
Lierre strikes in a predictable fashion: she strikes and then always teleports behind Rozanne to repeat her onslaught. Rozanne knows that both of her opponent's weapons are out of ammunition; reloading is a risk the armored girl is obviously unwilling to take.
Lierre thrusts with her off-hand sword and teleports, but Rozanne is ready; Rozanne spins to her right and slams her shield into the shoulder of her competitor, sending the girl reeling. Rozanne swings her hammer and manages to land another hit, launching Lierre straight into the ground.
"That is enough! Ms. Kartal's aura has gone into the red; the match goes to Rozanne Sund," the announcer booms with newly-surfaced authority. Rozanne reconnects Slagge and rests it on her shoulder.
"Need a hand?" Rozanne asks, extending a helping hand to Lierre.
"Give me a minute," Lierre pants. "I kind of just want to lie down here for a while." The girl does just that, but she soon accepts Rozanne's hand and sheathes her weapons, "You don't pull punches do you?"
"Nope!" Rozanne exclaims with a pop. The two girls share a smirk and head towards the exit.
All Lloyd sees are pies for miles. He can see cherry, blueberry, raspberry, and any other pie he could ever possibly imagine. The road he's standing on, mouth agape, is even made of pie, the sides of the road adorned with whipped cream.
Lloyd runs down the road sampling the pecan pie trees, devouring the apple pie flowers. Oh dust, these are better than my own pies. I need to ask someone for these recipes!
As Lloyd practically prances down the road, he notices a castle coming into view in the distance. The castle, of course, appears to be made of a variety of different pies. Lloyd unleashes a mighty 'squee' and increases his pace towards the castle.
As he arrives he sees pastry guardsman wielding what appeared to be candy canes topped with ice cream cones.
"Halt! Only the queen can grant permission to enter the castle!" A giant croissant exclaims, pointing his spear as menacingly as a croissant holding a candy spear can.
"Wait! Let him in; he has to be the mysterious stranger the queen described!" A cupcake standing atop the battlements yelled. The croissant-guard hesitates for a moment, but grudgingly lowers the spear.
"You may pass."
Lloyd is escorted into what appears to be a library made of gorgeous white chocolate. Lloyd struggles to keep his mouth from watering.
"Is this the man? The one who seemingly appeared outside our gates from thin air?" A square of tiramisu walking towards Lloyd questions.
"Yes, my queen! He just walked up to the gates a moment ago," the croissant guard says. "But I don't trust him, I've never seen anything that looked like him," the guard whispers to the queen conspiratorially.
The queen brushes off the guard's paranoia. "You look exactly as I imagined. You must help us!" The queen says to Lloyd. "A monstrous creature has terrorized us for months! It flies in and devours our guardsmen, no matter how we attempt to fend it off!
"It resides to the north of our castle, but do not have the pastry-power to launch a raid ourselves. Please help us!" The queen exclaims, practically pushing Lloyd towards the door.
"Of course I'll fight this monster, my queen!" Lloyd affirms unquestioningly. This all makes perfect sense to him. These people needed his help, who was he to deny them?
Lloyd sprinted out of the castle and began his trek north.
The trek is more like a short stroll, he realizes as he reaches the cavern. Lloyd enters the cave free of hesitation.
Lloyd soon hears a low growling and he extends Eisen to its full length. As he enters a massive filled to the brim with golden foil-wrapped chocolate coins, he notices a massive winged beast made of chocolate cake.
The beast unleashes an unholy roar and it spews molten chocolate at Lloyd, which he deftly avoids. The beast swipes at Lloyd with a massive chocolate claw, but Lloyd is much too quick for the sluggish beast.
Lloyd brings his mighty blade down on the leg of the beast as it attempts to smash him. The blade cuts through the cake as only a massive knife could. The beast loses its balance and falls to its belly.
Lloyd rushes towards the beast's head with a mighty roar. He leaps and stabs the full length of Eisen into the sugary skull of the beast, chocolate frosting spewing from the mortal wound. The beast collapses in earnest, and Lloyd sits to bask in his glorious victory.
That was rather anti-climactic, Lloyd frowns, disappointed. He quickly regains his previous chipper attitude, however, as he sees the cake sprawled out before him, just begging to be devoured.
Before he can begin, he hears a rather obnoxious beeping. Whatever could that be?
Lloyd bolts upright in the hospital bed he is currently on. He frantically searches the room attempting to discern where he may be.
The memories from the fight flood back to him; he remembers getting hit on the head and nothing after that.
Yasmin must have knocked me out, Lloyd looks around, slightly disappointed.
Man, that was a really nice dream.
Notes:
Thanks again for reading!
Tell me what you think!