Author's Note: I deeply apologize for not updating this story in weeks. The main reason for this story suddenly going dead is because last month my grandfather went into the hospital and died over a week later. Needless to say, I was really thrown off my game where this story was concerned. It's not that I haven't been writing though. I recently started a one-shot collection for my Pokemon AU called The Legends of Amber Drei, if anyone reading is interested. Anyway, I'm now back to work on this story, so on with the next chapter!
Disclaimer: I do not own Sword Art Online.
Chapter 18: The Phantom Black Dragon
The second batch of quarterfinal matches had begun, and Alicia Rue had been beamed down in the middle of a vast rocky canyon of grey stone. The blonde cait sithe leader smirked upon seeing her surroundings, for she recognized the place as canyon in her own territory known as Dragon's Belly Ravine. This meant that Alicia had the home field advantage, as well as the perfect place to unleash her secret weapon. Alicia had been hiding an ace up her sleeve for several months, and a battle against a player of Nytokris's level seemed like the perfect time to use it. In fact it seemed to Alicia like it was her only shot at winning, for she knew that Nytokris had to be pretty powerful to take down players as powerful as Sinon.
Another beam of blue light hit the ground a few feet away from where Alicia was standing, fading moments later to reveal Nytokris. The silver-haired imp approached Alicia with a confident smirk on her face.
"I wouldn't be so confident, if I were you." Alicia told Nytokris. "I admit you're probably one of the strongest players I've seen in this game in ages, but your winning streak ends with me."
Nytokris snickered. "You know… it really is cute seeing a little kitten like you trying to roar like a lion. You may be the leader of the cait sithes, but you're out of your league here."
A holographic timer appeared in the air and the two of them took a fighting stance. When the timer hit zero and signaled the start of the fight though, Alicia suddenly turned on her heel and dashed off down the canyon floor away from her opponent. Nytokris merely raised an eyebrow before raising her hand forward and chanting a spell. A blast of purple energy shot from the palm of Nytokris's hand and zoomed after Alicia. As the attack came close to its target, the head of it changed into a skull with an open mouth. The blonde catigirl rolled to the ground just as the attack was about to strike, causing the strange blast to strike a large bolder that was in her path. The boulder then turned black and suddenly crumbled to ash.
"Being in something of an expert in dark magic, I'm sure you recognized the attack spell I tried to use against you." Nytokris spoke.
"The Death's Head Drainer spell." Alicia identified as she got back to her feet. "If I had been hit with that, I would've lost at least half my MP and have been hit with a random status condition like paralysis. It's a powerful spell, but I'm just fast enough to dodge it. The fact that you tried using it though just confirms what I already figured out about you. You like to toy with your opponents before you finally finish them."
"Well of course. These battles would be no fun if I didn't make my opponents suffer a bit." Nytokris replied. "Now let's get on with this."
Alicia dashed off to her left towards the canyon wall. Nytorkis fired off another skull-shaped blast of energy, but the blonde managed to duck out of its path by diving to the ground. Alicia quickly got back to her feet and continued to run. When she came near the base of the canyon wall, Alicia quickly chanted a spell and fired a ball of yellow light from the palm of her hand at the ground. Upon striking, the ball of light carved a strange symbol into the canyon floor.
Nytokris fired off another skull blast, only for Alicia to dodge it and dash off towards the opposite wall of the canyon. Scowling, Nytokris ran up a bit closer and threw a dagger towards Alicia's head. Alicia ducked out of the way of the thrown blade and continued running. When the blonde catgirl got close enough to the base of the other canyon wall, she chanted the same spell from before and fired another ball of light at the ground. The projectile left another strange symbol in the canyon floor.
"You're starting to annoy me a little, you know." Nytokris told her. "This is supposed to be a battle, but all you're doing is running around the field like a chicken with its head cut off!"
"Oh don't worry. We're going to have a battle alright." Alicia told her. "But for you, it's going to be a bloodbath."
Kirito and the others had been watching Alicia Rue's battle with Nytokris at the tavern since it had started. Alicia was the only one of the Bracket B players left that most of the gang really knew, and a few of them were even hoping that Alicia had what it took to beat Nytokris so that Asuna or Leafa wouldn't have to go up against her.
"I don't really get what Alicia's strategy is supposed to be." Kirito remarked. "She has to be doing more than just running around at random, it doesn't seem like she's really accomplishing anything."
"Neither one of them has taken any damage yet so far." Klein pointed out. "Do you think Alicia is just hoping for a draw? I mean if the timer ran out and they still both had full HP…"
"That wouldn't help." Agil told him. "In the event of a draw, they'd just hold a special match between them in a different venue before getting to the semifinal round."
"It looked like your friend, Alicia fired something at the ground a couple of times." Nikita recalled. "Could that have something to do with her strategy?"
"Wait a sec! She couldn't be trying to do what I think she is, could she?" Silica spoke.
"You think you know what she's up to, kid?" Lurga asked.
"Well… maybe." Silica answered. "In one of the last updates, special summoning spells were added to the game; spells that can only be used by high level cait sithes. Some of the more powerful spells use dark magic to work."
"Wait! You're saying that Alicia is trying to summon the monster I think you're talking about?" Sinon asked. "I thought that monster was just a rumor."
"What sort of monster are you guys talking about?" Kirito asked.
"A powerful dark dragon that some people say is as strong as the second floor boss of New Aincrad." Silica answered. "But it's supposed to be incredibly hard to summon. As far as I know, no cait sithe player has been able to summon it successfully. That's why most people think that it's just a rumor."
"It's pretty bold for Alicia to try summoning a dragon like that in a battle like this." Sinon remarked. "Then again, it could be her only shot against a ridiculously powerful opponent like Nytokris."
"Well if Alicia really is trying to summon this dragon you're talking about, she had better do it soon." Kirito told them. "I don't think she can keep dodging Nytokris's attacks for very much longer."
As the timer for the battle ticked away, Alicia had managed to place two more marks on the ground a certain points a few feet behind the first two. The whole time, the blonde catgirl had narrowly managed to dodge Nytokris's attacks. Such a feat had become easier since Nytokris had switched to using throwing knives. Unfortunately, there was still one last mark Alicia needed to place on the ground for her plan to work, and the spot where she needed to place it was right behind where Nytokris was standing. Alicia was going to have to get very close to her opponent in order to finish what she had started, which was no easy task.
With nothing to lose, Alicia dashed towards the silver-haired imp, ducking every now and then to avoid one of her knives. When she came near enough, Alicia curved around to the left and dashed towards Nytokris from behind. Nytokris saw her coming and drew her sword. Once Alicia got near enough, Nytokris swung her blade to take off her head. Alicia quickly crouched down before the blade could even cut into a lock of her head and shot another ball of light at the ground, placing the final mark where it needed to be. Once her task was done, Alicia quickly got back up and jumped back to avoid another swing from Nytokris's sword.
Alicia curved back around her opponent and went to a position that was in the very center of the five marks as Nytokris sheathed her sword.
"Now I've got you right where I want you!" Alicia declared. "This is as far as you go, Nytokris!"
Alicia then began chanting another very long spell. Suddenly all the marks that she had placed on the ground began to give off a brilliant purple light. Nytokris jumped backward just as a straight line of purple energy erupted up from where the mark behind her was and traveled to one of the marks behind Alicia. Once the energy had reached its destination and drew a line in the ground between the first and second marks, another line of energy traveled from the second mark to the third mark that was on Alicia's right. In moments, all five of the marks became connected and formed a giant pentagram. When the symbol became complete, a gigantic beam of purple light shot up from the ground around Alicia and radiated outward.
When the pillar of light finally faded, Alicia was standing atop the long neck of a gigantic bipedal dragon covered in black scales. It had four muscular arms and two pairs of gigantic membranous wings. The creature's head had a long pointed snout, and the top of its head along with the back of its neck was covered in thick silver armor. On the sides of its head were two large curled brown horns, and its eyes glowed with a red light.
"How do ya like that?" Alicia asked with a triumphant smirk. "This is Tarterros, the Black Dragon of the Underworld. It took me over two months to learn the proper technique to summon him, but he's well worth it. With the help of this beg fella, I'm about to move on to the next round."
All of the remaining competitors back at the crystal stadium who were watching the battle were totally stunned when Alicia summoned Tarterrors. Asuna wasn't stunned though, for she hadn't been paying that much attention to the fight. The whole time her mind had been on her impending battle with Leafa.
"So all the rumors are true." Lisbeth spoke. "That black dragon really does exist. Pretty wild that Alicia was able to summon it, huh?"
"Wha?" Asuna responded. She looked up at the screen and finally saw what her friend was talking about. "Oh… yeah. Pretty impressive."
"Where the heck have you been this whole time?" Lisbeth asked.
"I've just got a lot on my mind." Asuna explained. "Pretty soon Leafa and I will be facing each other in the next round. I'm worried that my fight with her will be like the one we just had. In fact it might even be worse. If that's true…"
"You're worried about how it might affect your relationship with Kirito." Lisbeth realized.
Asuna nodded. "Leafa is Kirito's family, and I know how she felt about him. Plus there's what happened with Donis. If Leafa can't move past all that, I'm not sure how Kirito and I can move forward… how all three of us can move forward."
"Don't worry about it." Lisbeth told Asuna as she put a hand on her shoulder. "I'm pretty sure Leafa's accepted your relationship with Kirito. I think she's even accepted what happened with Donis. You probably don't have anything to worry about."
"I hope you're right." Asuna responded. "Guess we'll all find out soon enough though."
"This battle ends now, Nytokris!" Alicia declared. "Tarterros, end this now!"
Just as black flames began to form inside the dragon's fanged mouth, the sound of an ear-splitting noise like a whistle cut through the air. Suddenly Tarterros thrashed his neck and flung Alicia off. The blonde catgirl used her wings to stay airborne and keep from crashing to the ground, but Taterros had moved to hover behind Nytokris. It was then that Alicia saw that Nytokris had some kind of flute to her lips. The head of the flute was shaped like the head of a dragon.
"Nice try, little kitten. But I'm afraid your strategy was painfully obvious." Nytokris told her. "I knew from the beginning you were trying to set up some kind of summoning ritual with the way you were running around the battlefield. Moves like that are only truly ever good in situations when you've got an entire squad covering you. Of course I wasn't expecting that you'd summon the fabled black dragon, Tarterros, but the plan I had to counter your strategy still worked. You do know what this is I'm holding, don't you?"
"That's a… dragon charmer's flute." Alicia identified. "It can cause dragons under the control of a cait sithe to turn against their masters for a few minutes."
"That's right." Nytokris confirmed. "And this particular flute is extremely rare, which means it can cause even high level dragons like Tarterros to betray their masters. You were right, little kitten. The battle is over, but I'm the one moving onto the next round. Tarterros! Burn her to cinders!"
Tarterros opened his jaws and spewed out a stream of black flames. Alicia tried to fly away to avoid the attack, but was quickly enveloped by the inferno. The blonde's HP dropped like a stone, and when her dragon's attack ended Alicia's body had been reduced to a ball of yellow flames.
"A pity." Nytokris remarked as Tarterros vanished from the battlefield. "You may have been strong enough to become the leader of the cait sithes, but you're hardly strong enough to fulfill my needs."
Soon after Nytokris's comment, the timer for the battle vanished and was replaced by a holographic message declaring Nytokris the winner. A beam of blue light then came down from the sky and teleported Nytokris back to the stadium.
Asuna got back to her feet when she saw Nytokris arrived back in the stadium. The silver-haired woman shot Asuna an arrogant sneer just as Lydia reappeared in the chamber with her signature swarm of blue butterflies.
"Congrats to all four of our quarterfinal round winners!" Lydia announced. "Now we come to the very exciting semifinal round of our tournament! For our first battle, we have Asuna the Berserk Healer facing the pride of the sylphs, Leafa! Will both competitors please step onto the teleport pads?"
Asuna and Leafa exchanged a look before heading over to the pads. Leafa got onto her pad first and was quickly teleported away. Asuna took a deep breath before stepping onto her pad. In moments, a blue light washed out everything around her as she was taken away to the venue for what would be her most difficult fight yet.
Author's Note: I'm sorry if this chapter wasn't my best work. I was admittedly having problems with writing it even before my grandfather passed away. Hopefully I'll do much better with the next one. On that note though, I think I should mention that updates to this story might be slowing down just a bit. For one thing, I'm probably going to try and do some more work on that one-shot collection I mentioned in the last Author's Note. I am going to do my best to get this story done by next month though, if not sooner.
Please review and let me know what you think.