Arena Beatdown

The first light turned green. Chizuru's hover skates whirred as she zipped past Izumi, the air warping iridescently around the three flat propulsion crystals inlaid in the soles of her footwear. Her arm was outstretched, the markings on her palm her opening gambit. They had to be, since any runes anywhere except for your arms were banned after the 10-second mark. The rune pulsed a deep green before the markings smoldered away like burning paper, leaving her hand bare.

Facing her down was some twerp. He was dressed in a loose-fitting muscle shirt, had piercings all over, and his hair was spikier than anything I'd ever seen. Classic beginner mistakes. If you're playing to win, or even just to look as cool as possible, you've gotta leave that stuff at the entrance to the arena. That and the cocky grin on his face indicated he hadn't lost a game yet. There's a first time for everything though. Izumi smirked as she watched on, propelling herself forward as the second light flashed green, her opponent, Riko, mirroring her on the other side of the field.

Izumi and Chizuru's team, team Jadebrand, had been on something of a winning streak recently, and they weren't planning on giving away a free win to team Hummingrose, especially since they had to replace a member at the last minute.

In the few seconds that had passed, it seemed like Chizuru's gambit had paid off. The twerp was looking confused as his movements betrayed his confusion. Everything moving too slowly. Chizuru took advantage of his obvious confusion to slip in, grabbing his upper arms and throwing him into the nearest goalpoint, its rune morphing to indicate the point they had acquired.

Meanwhile, Riko and Izumi were at each others' throats. A manic grin was spread across Riko's face as they traded blows, each trying to get ahold of the other. Izumi was doing her best to conserve the runes spread across her forearms, keeping to basic spells that she didn't need runes for, but Riko had no such qualms. She was firing off rune after rune, lightning, blinding light, binding vines, the works. And it was working. Izumi was losing ground, keenly aware of the goalpoint slowly creeping up behind her.

It sucks to use this one this early, but I guess I could take a page out of Chizuru's book, Izumi thought, tapping a rune near her right elbow, causing it to glow a deep green. Her body was suffused with energy as she felt herself become lighter, faster. She took off behind Riko, planting herself on the side of a nearby structure before launching off of it as Riko turned around, Izumi planting her foot in a wonderfully unguarded torso, activating the propulsion crystals once she did, sending Riko rocketing backwards into the goalpoint, leaving a small crater, the rune indicating the point only barely visible amongst the rubble.

Basking in her victory for even a moment proved to be a mistake, as Izumi found her shoulder becoming very well acquainted with a foot—followed by an awful lot of ground in quick succession—as the twerp, now freed from the sluggishness imposed on him by Chizuru, had managed to outskate her on his way over. He was proving to be more of a nuisance than they had planned.

"Izumi!!!!"

Letting out a cry of anger, Chizuru rushed at the twerp, his cocky grin occasionally interrupted by flashes of anger as he deftly dodged Chizuru's strikes. Swooping in after a missed hit, he grabbed Chizuru, pivoting and throwing her over his shoulder, sending her flying. Mid-flight, Riko flew out from her crater, delivering a kick that probably would've broken a bone or five if Chizuru hadn't spent her time mid-flight activating a barrier rune just in case Riko decided to lay a beatdown on her.

As all this was happening, Izumi was lying, battered and bruised, where she had been knocked to. As she set to healing herself—the regular way of course, couldn't be wasting any of her runes—she noticed that the ground she was on was showing a symbol. They had lost a goalpoint.

Just as Izumi noticed this, Riko used up her last rune, her once-covered arms now bare for the world to see, and sent Chizuru flying with a blast of force. The commentators were surely having a field day with this game, given both its speed and intensity. The only real problem was the one-sidedness of it. We're kind of crushing them, Izumi thought. A game like this isn't nearly cool enough. It needs to be closer. As she was thinking that, the dust of Chizuru's landing parted, revealing the goalpoint she had landed on, morphed to indicate a point for Riko and the twerp. The game was 2-2.

Dammit

Cursing both mentally and verbally as she stood up. Her healing was nothing more than a patch job, but it was good enough to move. Izumi's hover skates pushed her up off the ground, back into that comfortable not-quite-weightlessness that had drawn her to this sport in the first place.

"Well, might as well make it a hell of a show" she mumbled to herself.

She activated three different runes , blasting forwards, jumping up onto a rail, her skates locking into a grind, hovering closer to the rail than they did to the ground, but still not touching. As she approached, she disengaged the grind, her skates now repelling at full force, launching her off the rail. It was always a bit unwieldly doing this, but she had found that she could stabilize by transferring the weird momentum it gave into a backflip. She passed Riko mid-flip, bringing her foot down in a nasty kick on her shoulder, turning Riko into the world's least enthusiastic piledriver as the kick left shockwaves that reverberated within the barrier that kept the contestants from leaving or being knocked out of the arena.

And that just left the twerp.

"You two think you're such bigshots, but I'll show them all. You're just a pair of losers with inflated egos!" the twerp spat. "You'll never make it big time"

"If you're so heated about inflated egos, you should check a mirror" Chizuru said, her arms slithering into a full nelson on the twerp.

"Grrah! Chizuru! Let me go!" the twerp said, flipping from condescending to petulant alarmingly quickly. Chizuru wrangled him, making her way towards the final goalpoint. Team Jadebrand's victory was all but assured.

From behind her, Izumi heard Riko muttering something. This can't be good, Izumi thought. It seemed like she'd been at it for a few seconds. Not enough to cause major damage, but enough to turn the tides. Can I make it in time? Probably not. Which only leaves one option.

Kicking off a nearby structure, Izumi barreled towards Chizuru and the twerp, her foot connecting with Chizuru's back, sending her lurching forwards towards the last goalpoint. As she did, a bolt of lightning arced down from the sky into Izumi. It was a piddly little thing, but it didn't feel that way to Izumi, whose healing patch-job came undone collapsed, the accumulated wounds from the battle leaving her unable to stand.

Chizuru, on the other hand, lurched forward from the kick, falling on the goalpoint, cushioned by the twerp.

The barrier came down, the crowd's cheers enveloped them, and the commentators' voices boomed over the speakers.

"And the winners are team Jadebrand!"