And now, for the first round of the tournament. Place your bets (figuratively; I don't want actual money being thrown away for this) on who you think will win.

As everyone filed into the sparring room, Crystal searched for Storm and Faye. She wondered where they were, since Azura and Rusti had already arrived. It was getting crowded, so she wanted to save a couple seats for them.

Since coming to Haven, she'd come to find friends in both of them. Storm with his witty remarks, and Faye with her more intellectual side that was rarely seen, had become very dear to her, dearer than anyone else—even her fellow heirs, Solana and Nixie. She wondered where they were.

She wanted to ask Azura and Rusti, but they were across the room, and she wanted to make sure Storm and Faye had seats. Eventually, she gave up waiting, figuring that the two of them were doing something completely different. Taline Ironskin and her partner Raye Custer took the seats she was reserving.

Then it began. Mrs. Sapphire walked onto the arena floor and said, "Alright, this is a schoolwide tournament, and I won't be going by school year, though both sides of the fights should have a good chance of winning. Now, everyone, who will be representing which team?"

Hands rose, including Crystal's, and one by one she went through each one. They would say who was representing the team, and lower their hand. Some of them were Sun Wukong of SSSN; Gaia Katsaros of GRDN; Athena Polias of AWLH; Reese Chloris of ABRN; Cardin Winchester of team CRDL; and Redell Sapphire of team SFRN. There were a lot of team leaders.

Eventually, Azura said, "Azura Eastwood, representing team SAFR." Crystal was surprised. She expected Storm or Faye to represent their team. What were they doing?

Then Jayana got to Crystal. "I, Crystal Taryn, will represent my team, team CCRE."

"Alrighty," she said.

Jayana then pointed to Taline. "I'll be representing team TRCS, ma'am." Jayana narrowed her gaze, urging something more. Taline soon caught on. "Right, my name's Taline Ironskin, Ma'am."

"Good, good. And don't call me ma'am." Crystal grinned.

Then another team announced their representative. "My teammates have decided that I, Jasper Ironwill of team JSPR, should represent my team." Taline seemed angered at the speaker, though why she wasn't sure. She tried remembering where she had heard the name Jasper before.

"Alright then. That's not confusing at all," Jayana said. "Now that everyone's been chosen, let's fight. Could you, Jasper Ironwill, and Azura Eastwood come down?"

As the two combatants came down, Crystal could get a good look at Jasper. He was a tallish man, about her age, with red hair in a pony tail—as if that wasn't unmanly—, a long maroon coat, and armor on in the standard chest, forearms, and shins arrangement. He didn't carry a weapon, which reminded her of where she had heard that name before. He was handsome too, though that was irrelevant to the match. He took a place beside Jayana and Azura, and stood waiting for the match.

"Alright, whoever gets their enemy's aura down to the red zone first wins. If you get hurt after I call the match, it's your own fault. I don't care what goes on in Vale; I say you'll get what's coming to you at some point." She stepped back to the edge of the arena to a wall computer console, and put up the force field that kept bullets and the like from hitting spectators. "Other than that, no rules. Just fight." There was an electronic ding, and the fight started.

Jasper quickly took off coat, and threw it at Azura. She drew her pistol and fired two shot through it, both of which hit him dead on. However, his aura didn't take as much damage than she would have thought it would. He then rushed Azura, putting his forearms up in front of him. Azura hit what should have been weak points, but he didn't fall. His aura was holding up better than it should have.

Jasper reached Azura, and she turned her pistol shifted forms. It went from a gun to a sword handle of sorts, and a long blade form made of blue Dust energy. She swung it at Jasper, and he blocked with his forearms. She then stabbed, and the blade exploded. It produced a bright blue light that nearly blinded Crystal. Jasper was knocked back, but just fine.

Jasper did a roundhouse kick, knocking Azura's weapon out of her hand. It skidded along the floor to the edge of the arena. Instead of going for it, they both started fist fighting.
They exchange punches, and both of them were pretty good. Azura was strong, and she went for weak points. Jasper was tough though, and hit hard too. They were almost equally matched, with a slight edge—in Crystal's opinion—on Azura's side.

To prove her opinion right, when Jasper threw a punch, Azura grabbed it and pulled him over her head, and slammed into the ground. It sounded like it hurt a lot. His aura level was only about three quarters damaged though—not quite in the red zone—even if it should have done a bit more.

He rolled away from Azura, and quickly got to his feet. What no one else noticed was that he had picked up Azura's weapon, and turned it into its pistol form. He fired a single shot, and once it hit Azura's aura it took it down from half to the red zone. The bell sounded, signaling the match was over.

How did he…? How tough was his aura?

"You see, everyone," Jayana said as she shut down the force field. "I chose Jasper because I believed he had the best chance of beating Azura. Let this be a lesson to you all—have more than one strategy for fighting, just in case it doesn't work. And also, just because you don't have a weapon doesn't mean you're disarmed."

As Azura and Jasper left, and Jayana called for the next two fighters to come down, Crystal got up to ask Jasper a few questions.

When she caught up to him, he was with his team. Jasper sat next to an orange haired man in battered combat gear who had a shield on his back. Along with them were a couple of girls. One of them had green hair and eyes, a pink combat vest with a black shirt, pink cargo pants, black boots, and an energize smile. The other girl was had light blonde hair and blue-green eyes, and wore a strange yellow-green jumpsuit, with armor on her left arm, but not on her right where she wore a glove that didn't have a twin on her left, and had look of contentment on her face. But her main focus was with Jasper.

"Excuse me," Crystal said and Jasper looked at her along with the rest of his team. "Could I ask you a question?"

"Sure, but not if it's 'am I single?', cause I'm really tired of that," Jasper said.

"Hey, you never get asked that," the orange haired man next to him said.

Jasper wacked him lightly over the head and turned back to Crystal. "What is it?"

"If you don't mind me asking, how can you have so much aura?" Crystal asked.

"Well, if promise not to spread it around, I'll tell you."

"Of course." What reason would she have to spread it around?

"My aura can adapt to things so that they don't do as much damage. Really, most bullet casings are made of the same materials, and the Dust type she used was similar enough to the ones used in my home of Southern Mistral, so her rounds didn't do much damage." Jasper looked thoughtful for a moment. "I wonder how Mrs. Sapphire knew that."

"I don't know," the orange haired one said.

"What I don't know is how anyone can stand your talking," the green haired one added.

"Who are you three?" Crystal asked, pointing to the rest his team.

"I'm Sakura," the green haired on said. "Sakura Hayashi."

"My name's Rowan Arbore," the orange haired man stated.

"And my name's Peri Forst," the blonde girl said. Peri and Jasper shared a glance. "And just so you know, me and Jasper aren't exactly on the best terms right now."

"Why?" Crystal asked.

"She's just so stubborn," Jasper said tiredly. "She always thinks she's right, especially when she's wrong."

"You're the same way," Peri shot back. "And you're always wrong."

"Just in case you thought they went through a bad breakup," Sakura said, "they didn't. They're just like this." She turned to each of them. "You know, you two bicker like an old married couple."

"If you say that about them one more time," Rowan said, "and I'll make sure to dance on your grave after you're dead, which I'll probably have nothing to do with."

"Thanks, I'm really touched," Sakura said, completely honestly. What was with these people?

Oh, JSPR. I really like this team. I hope you guys like them too.