Found Out
"Ooohhh and the south side of the arena is a forest biome!" The announcer roared as the arena finished configuring around them.
"Nice," Bronzine commented, looking behind them into the trees. "That helps me a lot," he said confidently, slamming the butt of his dual swords together, transforming the pair into its bow state.
The foursome had been paired up against Team SFRN, saffron, and their side of the arena had been changed to a very barren grassy plane. It seemed to be an incredible disadvantage, like the arena had possibly even picked favorites but hey, they weren't about to complain. Ambur and Mydnight stood out in front of Bronzine and Rosa, who had slowly fallen in behind them. "Don't get overconfident. We got this but that doesn't mean we should take them lightly," Ambur encouraged as she lowered herself into a ready stance to start sprinting. "Y'all remember the plan?"
"Don't let them get set," Bronzine nodded, pulling an arrow from his quiver and knocking it. "And cover Rosa."
"Keep them shielded in the dome where Ambur and Mydnight will have the advantage with their long reach," Rosa confirmed haughtily, concentrating her aura into the palms of her hands.
"Rush them and let Ambur tank the hits," Mydnight answered with a smirk and positioned his long scythe behind him so it wouldn't be a burden while sprinting forward.
"Good, be ready," Ambur encouraged before positioning her long sword in much the same way Mydnight had positioned his weapon to run with the least labor.
They watched as the other team seemed to ready themselves but could tell they were a bit put off by the sight of them. They didn't look nearly as ready for this as AMBR did. Of course, they had no way to know what teams they would be facing prior to this moment but they had tried to come up with a scheme for the first round to get it over with as soon as possible and that plan was only enhanced by the fact that most of these students didn't look to have long-range melee weapons or anyone with a shield. Their weapons could clearly transform into ranged weapons but that wouldn't help them much if Rosa could succeed in her role.
Olivier watched from the stands giddy with anticipation. Ambur had told her about the plan they were going to use to win the first round but she wasn't confident that it would go as smoothly as Ambur wanted it to. It relied far too heavily on Rosaria's semblance to work properly and with how awful she had treated her teammates in the past who knew if she was going to actually work willingly with them now. Liv could see the benefits of only relying on Rosaria's semblance to get them out of the first round for sure but she felt the risk was far too high for the reward. If all went as planned the round would be over in little more than a minute. Her hands were balled in nervous fists as the crowd cheered around her. "Come on you guys have to win," she breathed out. "Please just work together...just let this work..."
"Let the match begin!" They all heard before the arena let out a loud horn, signifying the beginning of the match. Ambur and Mydnight had nearly begun to move before the horn sounded, and by the time it faded into the roar of the crowd the two were nearly running full out. No pleasantries, no banter with the other team, no time to argue amongst themselves. Two arrows flew between Ambur and Mydnight's heads, headed for the ground near the other team's feet. As they struck the grass they popped and released a gray gas from within, forcing the other team to jump back a step. They hadn't even begun to move really, most of them deciding that the best course of action would be to meet Ambur and Mydnight head-on and stop their charge. It was essentially four on two in this situation, wasn't it? It only made sense to stop their overconfident advance.
This, of course, was what the partners wanted but how could the other team know that? The students weren't told each other's semblances before the matches so they could use that to their advantage. With any luck, only Rosa's semblance would be revealed in this fight and then they wouldn't have to worry about the other teams knowing about it since she wouldn't be in the second round pairing. If Ambur could hold back just enough to keep the announcers from revealing her semblance to the crowd then that was another advantage they would have in the second round. In slow matches, the announcers would have more time to reveal the intricacies of the match because there was more time for the combatants to reveal their abilities to turn the tides.
Soon Ambur and Mydnight were upon them, striking forward at two of the team member's guards while the other two stepped aside and behind them to surround them. Mydnight, however, stopped his attack at the last moment, faking out his target and using the momentum of swinging his scythe to spin on his heels and guard against the two slashes coming in at their backs, his long weapon able to catch both of attacks at once. As he did he saw the blue glow of an energy dome fly up from the ground and begin encircling them, catching a glimpse of Rosa raising her hands outside the dome between the two members of team SFRN. Ambur took one extra step to her right during her attack, but rather than keep her heavy blade horizontal with the ground to slice at their opponents, she flipped it up and the wide flat side collided with both of the opponents guards, their weapons clanging together as Ambur put some extra oomph from her semblance into the strike. The extra effort sent the pair flying backward and they collided with the other side of the dome just as it finished sealing the six combatants inside.
The two Ambur had slammed against the wall were disoriented for several seconds, and she glanced up at the monitor displaying all their stats to see that they had each lost a good amount of their aura from how hard they had hit the dome. As she spun around to join Mydnight, two arrows flew past on either side of her head through a small hole Rosa had put into the shield at just the right angle. Ambur saw Bronzine up in the tree he had selected to shoot from and heard as the two arrows exploded behind her right on target. They had to cause as much blunt damage as they could. Not only was explosive and blunt damage good at bringing down Aura, but it also meant that in theory if they dealt too much damage they wouldn't accidentally end up permanently injuring any of their opponents with a piercing blow. This tournament was for sport, after all. They weren't trying to kill each other.
Ambur heard the noise she had wanted to come of this maneuver, the monitor beeping twice to signify that the two opponents behind her were out of steam already and she heard the announcer begin to comment on their tactics. "A brilliant use of miss Avalon's Aura manipulation semblance! A bit cocky to choose to fight two on four but it seems to have worked out for team AMBR quite nicely!"
Ambur sighed in relief before joining Mydnight in dueling with the other two as all he could manage to do alone was parry their attacks. That's all he was meant to do anyway. If the other two were still in the fight then the plan had been for Mydnight to distract these two long enough for Ambur to bring the others down gradually, but that hadn't been necessary. "Their leader's semblance came in handy as well, being able to incapacitate two opponents with a single blow with her immense strength!"
'Well, there goes that,' Ambur rolled her eyes before pinning one of the remaining enemies to the dome and looked over to see that her partner had done the same, only a foot or two away. A pair of pale white hands and arms came through the barrier behind their heads, the dome of energy forming around them and making Rosa's skin glow blue as she placed her hands on their shoulders and the two began to struggle. They quickly grew more and more docile against Ambur and Mydnight's blades. Ambur looked back up to the board to see that the pair's aura levels were slowly but steadily draining as they should be, smirking to herself and nodding to Rosa. Rosa rolled her eyes but all the same, she did seem to be proud of what she was accomplishing.
"Wha...what's..happening," the male combatant struggled to ask.
"She's...she's draining our aura's..." the other, a girl, replied as she dropped her weapon and Mydnight backed off of her to let Rosa finish the job. Ambur soon followed suit and before Rosa could completely drain them the bell sounded to call the match in their favor.
"In an overwhelming and quick victory team AMBR of beacon Academy takes the match!"
Ambur and Mydnight stood up straight and listened to the crowd begin to cheer them on as Rosa let the pair go and dropped the dome of energy, Bronzine running up behind her. "Now that is what we can do as a team!" Ambur said happily, ecstatic that her plan had worked. Each of them offered a hand down to each of their opponents and they all accepted, surprised by their offer.
"You guys are amazing," the students marveled as they stood up and the eight of them headed out of the arena together. "That was some serious planning."
"Well thank you," Ambur blushed. "I worked hard on it," she laughed. "We wanted a quick win so we wouldn't have to reveal too much about our fighting styles and I figure that was the best way to do it."
"We didn't even get to use our semblances you were so ready and fast," one of them laughed along with her. "And you guys didn't even need to," the girl gestured to Bronzine, Mydnight, and Ambur.
"I did actually," Ambur admitted, "But I'm glad you didn't notice," she smirked. She was truly flattered to think that these students at least thought that she was just THAT strong that she could swing her giant blade like a toothpick without a super strength semblance helping her out. As the students walked down the corridor toward the locker rooms of the arena they heard the broadcasters announce the next match over their chatter.
"The next match will be Team Xanadu from Atlas Academy versus Team Turquoise from Shade Academy!"
/
"Wait did you not go to the dance?" Bronzine asked his partner as they walked along the corridors of the bunkhouse the students from abroad were staying in. She had found him wandering around on his own and fallen in line with him. Almost none of the few friends she had had actually come to watch the tournament or were in it and busy with their matches today. Ambur and Mydnight weren't set to fight in the second round until later that afternoon so all morning she had found herself bored. The last person on earth, except maybe Ambur, that she wanted to spend her morning with was her wise-cracking partner but he would have to do. "Like not at all?"
"No," Rosa huffed out. "What did you not notice the pink hair not being there?" She scoffed.
"Jeez sorry I wasn't exactly looking for you," he smirked, glad to be getting on her nerves. "Why didn't you go?"
"Why would I...wanna go to some stupid dance. We are here to fight. That's all," she replied but Bronzine could tell that she wasn't telling the truth.
"You..." he blinked in feigned shock, "Nobody asked you to the dance?" He asked sarcastically and placed his hand over his mouth.
"Fuck you," she growled back at him and punched him in the arm, giving him a dead arm.
"Ow dude shit," he recoiled from her and rubbed his other hand against his arm. "All the times you piss me off I don't ever fuckin hit you," he grumbled.
Rosa rolled her eyes and continued to walk, "That's because you're afraid of what I'll do to you if you do...but yes," she sighed. "Nobody asked me to go so I didn't go. Besides, who would I even wanna go with?"
"Yeah I guess that's fair," he sighed at her second comment. It wasn't hard to see that Rosa had been taking her and Mydnight's break up pretty poorly. She had been a little more tolerable here and there but she still wasn't pleasant to be around. Now instead of spewing hurtful comments all day and all night she instead just moped around and complained about being alone. "Well, maybe you'd meet another guy if you were nicer and a little less mopey."
"Eeerrr," she growled toward him and grit her teeth, raising her fist again. She stopped herself however and let her hands fall back to her sides, still balled in fists. "Are you trying to piss me off? Is that all you want out of life? To rub it in that Mydnight doesn't wanna be with me?"
"Nooooooo," he smirked. "Why would I ever want the completely toxic bitch away from my best friend?" he shrugged. "Never," he laughed and watched her sulk. "Do you really not think that what you say to people is wrong? It really doesn't make you feel like shit at the end of the day when you call Ambur a barbie or a bimbo? You can't just burn all your bridges and then complain when you end up alone. That's not how this shit works Rosa," he shook his head.
He knew he was being a little harsh but it didn't matter. He deserved this. She had treated the rest of them so horribly for over a year and a half and now it seemed likes she actually wanted them to feel bad for her. Maybe Ambur could find it somewhere in her far too big heart to forgive somebody like Rosa but not Bronzine. As soon as they were done with school this partnership was over and if he never saw her again after that then he'd be perfectly okay with it. Sure Ambur wasn't so outspoken or harsh with her opinions but he knew that deep down she felt the same and eventually Mydnight would join them in sharing the opinion.
"Whatever," she quietly grumbled, seemingly trying to avoid conflict and he silently blessed Mydnight for making her try to be nicer. "I don't have the energy to argue with you about this crap."
"Good," he shrugged. "Peace and quiet works for me."
The pair came to their room and Bronzine turned the door handle, throwing it open casually, not expecting the scene he found on the other side. There, on one of the bunk beds were their teammates, stunned and as still as stone looking back at them, Mydnight pinned to the bed, Ambur holding his wrists against the pillow above his head. Neither of them had anything more than a few stragglers of their clothes left on. Thankfully for Bronzine's eyes, Mydnight still had his boxers on and Ambur had only removed her shirt, but their lips were puffy and red from being locked together and each of them was breathing very hard.
"Wooaahhh kayyy bad timing," Bronzine said bringing his arm up to shield his eyes and spun on his heels to leave. However, he felt himself being shoved to one side while off balance and he tripped backward, staggering into the wall of the hallway.
"What the fuck!?" Rosa screamed into the room. "This is why you dumped me?! I told you I'd try to be nicer to everybody and this what you've been doing the whole time!?" She yelled.
Ambur rolled off of Mydnight and he sat up, giving Ambur the blankets from the bed to cover herself. She took them gladly and pulled them up over her bra. "Look Rosa we have only been-" he began calmly before she cut him off.
"ONLY?! Only what? Cheating on me with the whore that walks around all day half-naked! The girl who's been trying to steal you from me since day one? I knew you two were sneaking around behind my back! You kept disappearing in the middle of the night every other day last semester! You've been cheating on me the whole time haven't you!" She said, the words falling from her mouth with no hesitation like she had been waiting to say them. Waiting for the moment that this finally happened and she could take out all of her frustration at once.
"No we haven't," Ambur said timidly, not really sure if she should speak at all. This was an issue between Mydnight and Rosa but Ambur felt that she did at least owe it to Mydnight to try and stand up for him. But Rosa knew what she wanted to hear and any deviation from a confession just wasn't going to be heard. Ambur knew that this had been coming. It was only a matter of time until Rosa found out they were dating but she had hoped that they wouldn't be caught until they got home from the tournament. "We've only been...together for a few days." She hated the way her voice sounded. Nervous and shaky was the way that old Ambur used to speak and it made her feel like all of her efforts had been for nothing if she couldn't speak up and defend herself now, of all times. She had fought long and hard to be with Mydnight and she shouldn't be letting Rosa push her around right now.
"Shut up you fucking bimbo!" Rosa yelled to Ambur before she felt Brozine's hand on her shoulder, pulling her around to face him.
"Stop talking to her like that!" he yelled, but as she spun around to face him her hand came up with her the momentum and slapped him across the face.
"Don't tell me what to do!" She yelled back into his recoiling face but was shocked when she once again found someone's hand on her. This time she spun around to find Mydnight staring down at her. She threw her arm up and knocked his hand from her shoulder, balled her fist and threw a punch at his cheek.
"Stop," was all he said, catching her fist in his palm and yanking it down to her side. She gritted her teeth in anger and tried to use her other hand to hit him but he caught that one too, yanking her hand behind her back and turning her toward the door. He shoved her, not so hard as to shove her to the floor but enough so that she was sent out of the room. Once she stumbled to a stop she turned back to face him and found him in the doorway looking back at her. "I told you we were done and I never cheated on you. You call Ambur one more name and you're going to find yourself punching at something that's going to punch back. Got it?" he said flatly. He had tolerated all the awful things she had said to Ambur before. Even when he had told her off at the train station he hadn't punctuated it with a threat. But it was different now. Now that he found himself with a real connection to Ambur he wasn't going to let someone bad mouth her right in front of him. Now it was his business and he wouldn't leave her hanging.
Rosa fell silent, searching his face for any amount of sarcasm or mercy but she found nothing there to latch on to. Unable to come up with a response she watched as he finally turned back and slammed the door in her face, leaving her alone in the hallway. She only lingered for a moment though, before storming off down the empty corridor back toward the Colosseum.
"Well, that went well," Bronzine sighed, turning back to his teammates. "Want me to leave?"
Ambur was silent, Mydnight watched as she hugged the blanket around herself and stared down into her lap. Mydnight walked past his friend to the bed and sat down beside her, taking her hand into his before she leaned her head down into his shoulder. "You don't have to the uh...moods a bit ruined I should think," he sighed.
"Ya a bit," She finally spoke softly. Bronzine shrugged his shoulders and walked to the bed he'd been using in the room and sat down.
"If I knew y'all were in here I'd have steered her in a different direction. Sorry," he shrugged. "You guys gotta warn me about this shit," he laughed.
"Yeah well, unlike SOMEBODY," Ambur began, "I don't think it's right to have sex while your other teammates are sleeping right across the room."
"Yeah that wasn't...really great of us was it," he said as he raised his hand to run his fingers through his hair. "Sorry..."
"Well it's not really your fault," Ambur let out softly before thinking better of her statement and quieting down, not wanting to accidentally tip Bronzine off about their extracurricular activities.
Mydnight understood that she hadn't meant to say it and could feel her heart beating a little faster in her chest, nervous because of her lapse in judgment. "Even still it was a shitty thing to do..."
After a long silence, Bronzine cleared his throat and changed the subject. "So you two got a plan for your match later."
The pair sighed together and Ambur used her free hand to wipe her face. "Win," she shrugged. "Unfortunately now the easy competition has been knocked out and we can't really do much in the way of planning with just the two of us."
"Well you two are the ones for the job," Bronzine reassured them. "Rosa, especially now, is far too unstable to rely on and you guys are much better fighters than I am. You'll do fine."
/
"Go right!" Ambur shouted over to her partner. They were smack in the middle of their doubles match and this time it wasn't an easy fight. They hadn't been able to come up with a solid plan over the last few hours and decided to just wing it. Their opponents were two members of team CLDN who came from Shade Academy and they had seen what the pair was capable of during the first round. Both of their weapons could be used from a distance and the pair seemed to be kiting them around the arena, trying to stay out of their long reach. Mydnight's ears twinged slightly at Ambur's words, able to tell that his partner was getting frustrated with their lack of progress in the fight.
He did as he was told and aimed for the enemy to his right, turning slightly in his sprint and jumping towards them. His scythe came down hard into the artificial battlefield, sinking into the sand on the desert side of the arena. Another dodged attack from their targets of course. They were lightly equipped and very quick on their feet. Not to mention it seemed that the one Mydnight had been tasked with going after could conceal her movements slightly. Celedon herself, the namesake for her team, was capable of tricking his eyes with her movements somehow. He couldn't tell if it was some form of illusion or just straight-up messing with his sight, but it always seemed she would move in a different direction than her body language suggested. He had deduced that she couldn't move straight through an object however or she wouldn't be going to so much trouble to dodge him. He figured if she could simply move behind him with ease then she would have done so by now and taken him out of the fight.
This truly was a game of who would run out of aura first it seemed. Either Mydnight using all his strength to keep his attacks up, or Celedon using all of her aura up to keep dodging them. Ambur, on the other hand, had seemingly met her match. The two were so evenly matched in fact that Mydnight couldn't help but wonder if Ambur had felt she had something to prove, choosing to only focus on him when Mydnight would really be a better matchup against the boy. He carried a large tower shield with two small retracting gun barrels mounted within it. They shot large grenade style slugs whenever he pulled a trigger within the handle of the shield. The shield glowed with all kinds of different energies, clearly being infused with dust to shrug off even the heaviest of blows. Mydnight was sure he had been announced as Nickle, and his semblance, like Ambur's, seemed to work in great conjunction with his weapon.
He was able to dash forward at great speeds, but only over extremely short distances, about a foot or two. It was decently effective for traveling but the purpose that Mydnight had found him using it for most was to bash his shield forward with incredible speed. Mydnight had been formulating a plan for them to take him out of the match once he saw what he was capable of when Celedon had forced Mydnight to leave Ambur to her own devices. Mydnight knew if he didn't stay on her them she may be able to get some clean shots off on Ambur and land Mydnight in a whole new world of trouble.
Every time he stole a glance at his partner he found her locked in close combat with Nickle, whether it be with her heavy blade in one piece or divided into two, she didn't seem capable of getting around his defense. He would go sliding backward, boots digging up dirt as he went, with every one of her incredibly hard strikes, but his semblance would have him back on her in moments. He wanted to keep watch over her but he knew the more he concentrated on what Ambur was doing the easier it would be for Celedon to get around him and make a fool out of him.
He needed to find a way to stop this constant dodging, to use his other senses to pick up where she was really going to be, rather than where it looked like she would be. But what was he supposed to do with the information? His scythe was only built for close quarters and had no ranged capabilities. It didn't matter if he could track her by scent or by sound if he couldn't do anything with the information other than follow her until one of them ran out of stamina. He stole another glance at Ambur as he wheeled around on his heels, readying himself to make another jump at his target when he saw her fire a round from one of her dual long gun-blades and it finally hit him what he needed. The round collided with the boy's shield but the idea had already bloomed in Mydnight's mind.
"Ambur!" He yelled, before jumping at where Celedon stood. He struck his scythe at where she had been, hitting nothing once again but this time he closed his eyes and let his nose track her scent up into the air rather than his eyes. "I need to borrow one of those!" he yelled to his partner. In seconds he heard Ambur grunt as she threw one of the halves of her heavy blade toward him.
At the same moment, he opened his eyes and threw his scythe upward at where he smelled Celedon's scent before looking back toward Ambur and catching the blade she had thrown him. He caught it by the hilt, barely able to stop the incredibly heavy sword's momentum, hoisted it up as best he could before slipping his finger over the trigger and resting the bladed edge in the elbow of his thick leather coat. He counted himself lucky that he wore it all the time, for if he hadn't had it on the weight of the sword alone could take his arm off in this position.
He heard a pair of loud clangs, one coming from Ambur blocking a shield bash, and the other from Celedon having to parry his thrown scythe, the heavy weapon causing her arm to have to recoil greatly to stop it. As his scythe began to fall back down toward the sand he gazed down the barreled flat edge of Ambur's long sword and squeezed, the round flying straight into Celedon's shoulder, causing her green aura to flicker several times as she ungracefully fell into the sand, kicking up a small cloud of dust.
Mydnight couldn't let up now, this was his chance to take her out of the fight. He sprinted as best he could with the heavy sword through the sand, his boots digging in and slowing him down some but he was relieved when he reached her and she was completely unprepared for his strike. He dropped the sword quickly and sent a punch right into her gut, dissipating the last of her aura and left her gasping for air on the sand. He turned back to find Ambur parrying another bash from Nickle and he quickly rose the sword again, lined up the shot, and unloaded two rounds into Nickles' back. His aura flashed gray for a moment and as he became unstable Ambur pushed back against him and sent him to the ground, flat on his back, her half of the blade quickly coming to rest right above his throat, causing the announcers to call the fight even though Nickle hadn't quite run out of Aura.
As the end of the match bell rang she looked over to Mydnight, finding him admiring her weapon in his hands before they both dropped their halves of the blade into the sand and ran toward each other.
Ambur had had every intention of lifting him up once they had embraced, but to her surprise, he did so first. She felt his arms go around her back and soon she was a few inches off the ground and her face was bright red. "Oh my god I'm too heavy for this stop," she giggled before she felt him press a kiss to her cheek.
"Don't even start with that," he scolded sarcastically. "I'll live," he smiled up to her before she buried her face into his neck in embarrassment.
"God why are you so perfect," she whispered and hugged him tightly. She had always dreamed of being with Mydnight but she never dreamed that he would be strong enough to make her feel like she was a normal person. Like she was one of those perfectly shaped thin girls who's boyfriends picked them up and twirled them around. But here was her wolf boy, showing her yet again that he really could give her everything a girl could ever want. "Don't ever put me down," she whispered with a smile on her lips.
"I'll do my best," he smirked.