Trails - Chapter 15

Ace hadn’t felt this happy in what felt like an eternity.

Not only had he advanced in the tournament and defeated Alexis who had wiped the floor with him time and time again, but he was also going to go on a date with her once the Tournament was over.

In his waiting room, he was grinning like an idiot and felt like he was invincible, that he could actually win the entire thing.

No, Ace, He cried in his head, shaking it furiously from side to side. Don’t start getting arrogant and overly confident again!

He had to focus on his next match against Ajax.

It wasn’t just a problem of Ace not being able to meet his own expectations. If he let his win go over his head, then he would lose his focus and he could start making stupid mistakes and lose.

Usually, Ace would have just thought ‘Hah, it will be an easy win against Ajax’ and not bother thinking of a strategy and being careful in his approach. Ajax knew a lot of Ace’s abilities and, chances were, that he would have countermeasures for some or all of them.

“Come on, Ace,” He whispered, hitting his cheeks a few times. “You can do this.”

***

“Ah man, I was hoping to fight you next rather than Ace,” Ajax admitted.

Alexis laughed. “What? Scared you’ll lose?”

“What? Against him? Never.”

“Someone’s cocky.”

“No, just confident. Besides.” He tapped his bracelet. “I’ve got something special for him.”

“Eh, is that right?”

“Why don’t you sound like you believe I’ll win?” Ajax asked sadly.

“I mean, I lost against him and I’m stronger than you are,” Alexis bluntly stated.

“No, you’re not.”

“I am.”

“Hmm, is that so? Say, who’s still in the Tournament?”

She turned her head to the side, a forced dejected look on her face. “…You.”

“And who always used to get their arse handed to them when we were kids?”

“…I did. But I’ve beaten you a good number of times before!”

“Nah, I let you win.”

“You did not.”

“Oh, I did.”

“Hey! Don’t undermine my victories!”

The two of them burst into laughter.

“You’re awfully happy for someone who just got defeated,” Ajax mused.

She nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah, why wouldn’t I be? After all.” She grinned. “I got what I wanted out of it.”

“Huh? You wanted to be defeated? Wait, what did you want?”

Alexis giggled and spun away from him; then turned around, winked, and said, “It’s a secret.”

While Ajax found her behaviour strange, he let out a small sigh and smiled.

Well, I don’t really get it but it’s good that she’s happy and not upset, He thought.

“Oh, you’d best get going,” Alexis said, gently pushing him towards the entrance. “You don’t want to keep everyone waiting, do you?”

“Right. Well, wish me luck.”

“Good luck out there, Ajax.”

He nodded and ran off down to the arena.

Sorry, Ajax, but you’d try to kill Ace for real, Alexis thought, smirking to herself.

***

Even though Ajax had been told to walk out into the arena, he stopped just before the entrance and tested the new implement on his armour, deploying it along his arm.

After the God Team fight, Ajax had decided to add the crossbow implement he had been working on to his suit, even though it was still a prototype after realising that it was because of his lack of ranged weaponry that he was limited in his fighting ability.

While he was never going to be as good of a shot as Jasmine or Dead Eye, he was confident that he could hit a target within fifty metres of him and, against Ace, that would be enough.

He deployed it above his right forearm, testing to see if it deployed properly, and then dismissed it and then unequipped his armour.

It deploys at least, He mused, grinning at it. He took a deep breath, lost his grin and continued to walk into the arena. Even if Ace beat Alexis, I know I can do this.

From the East Side, we have the mechanised Greek warrior himself whose sister was defeated by his opponent in the previous round; Ajax Amory! On the West, the man who beat Ajax’s sister and who has the unique power to use magic from Tarot Cards; Fiddah ‘Ace’ Darpa!

Will I ever get an introduction that doesn’t put me down in some respect? Ajax wondered, slumping his shoulders.

“Oh, giving up already?” Ace taunted, his arrogant smile on his lips.

“Heh, far from it,” Ajax replied, grinning back at Ace. “You might have beaten Alexis, but you won’t defeat me.”

“Someone’s confident.”

“Rich coming from you.”

“What did you say?” Ace demanded.

“Nothing, nothing at all, Mr. Arrogant.”

The two glared at one another and Kasmine gently coughed into the microphone.

If you two are done, can we begin? She asked. Good, well then, on my mark.

3.

2.

1.

Fight!

Ace struck first.

He threw up an entire deck of death cards which shot at Ajax at the speed of bullets.

Ajax thrust both of his arms forwards, deploying shields along both of them, and he took the brunt of the attack head on. It hurt his arms to block them with his shields, but they hadn’t damaged anything else other than them. He lowered his shields and saw a chariot riding towards him, mere metres away from him. He retracted his shields and rolled to the side of it, narrowly avoiding the chariot. As he exited his roll, eight fireballs came soaring towards him.

He leapt out of the way of the first three, narrowly spun around the next two and then the remaining three hit him in the back, sending him rolling across the ground. Ajax landed on his front roughly and had to quickly get back up as Ace sent six swords at him. He ran away from them, deployed two of his own swords, one in each hand, and slashed Ace’s out of the air.

Ace cursed under his breath and threw up two knight cards, followed by a dozen death cards following with them.

From where Ajax was standing, the two knights were on both of his flanks and the death bolts were coming right for him.

Because of the knights, Ajax had no choice but to take the death bolts head on. He redeployed the shield along his left arm; blocking all the bolts with it which chipped away a few pieces of it. Once the bolts had stopped, the knights were practically right next to him. He waited until the very last second where they were about to hit before rolling forwards, causing the two knights to plunge their lances into one another.

As Ajax recovered from his roll, he deployed his crossbow along his right arm and fired a single, explosive bolt at Ace.

Ace hadn’t anticipated or expected Ajax to have a ranged weapon and so he was caught off guard by it.

He only just managed to raise his Moon before him to block the bolt, saving his life, but the impact launched him through the air a dozen metres. Ace landed roughly on his feet, almost falling over, and then placed a Tower card beneath him. A pillar of rock shot up beneath him and raised him fifty metres into the air. Once there, Ace threw a dozen sword cards into the air, spawning his magically controlled swords, and he thrust his palm towards Ajax, launching them towards him.

Got you! Ajax thought, smiling beneath his helmet.

He reached to his waist, two small silver spheres materialising to meet him, and he threw them forwards, thick, white smoke bursting from them. The area around Ajax quickly became consumed by the smoke and Ace frowned, digging his toes into his shoes. The swords zoomed into the smoke and missed Ajax by a long shot.

“Damn, he noticed,” Ace mumbled, reaching to a deck of Devil Cards in his jacket pocket.

While Ace’s remote control swords were powerful and gave him a tremendous advantage in battle, they had one critical problem; they only worked as long as Ace could see who he wanted them to attack.

As the smoke had hidden Ajax from him, the swords had, essentially, fallen out of the air and lifelessly onto the ground, rendering them useless.

Even if you hide in there, the smoke has to disperse at some point and, when it does, I’ll get you! Ace thought. He took out the deck of cards and got ready to throw them.

Two more spheres came flying out of the mist and increased the size of the smoke, reducing the distance between it and Ace. Annoyed at his inability to see Ajax in the smoke, Ace threw the Devil cards into the sky and sent countless fireballs all across the smoke, hoping that one or more of them would hit Ajax.

Even if he had hit Ajax, there would be no way for him to know that until the smoke cleared away.

After the balls had smashed into the smoke, two more smoke grenades came rolling out of the smoke, followed quickly by two more, and the smoke had reached all the way to the base of Ace’s tower.

“You’re right there!” Ace cried, sending twenty death bolts at the smoke closest to the tower.

However, like before, there was no sign that he had hit Ajax.

Suddenly, another explosive bolt came flying at Ace but, this time, he was ready for it.

He quickly threw his Moon before him and blocked the shot.

However, the bolt didn’t explode; it crumpled against the Moon as two other bolts smashed into the side of Ace’s head.

…Huh? Ace thought. He slumped forward and fell off his tower, his life quickly fading. When did he…?

It worked! Ajax screamed in his head.

While the crossbow had only been in its prototype stages, Ajax had already made two different kinds of bolts for it.

One of them was the explosive bolt which he had tried to use against Ace earlier in the fight and the second was a bolt which he had gotten the idea from Evony to create; a bolt that split into three and travelled at the same speed towards a target.

Ajax had locked onto Ace’s head as the target, fired, and the bolt had split into three within the smoke and circled to Ace from the front, left and right. Even if he blocked one, the other two would hit and kill him regardless.

Evony had an identical type of arrow and had helped Ajax create his just for this tournament.

When Ace’s body landed on the ground, Teeq dismissed the arena and the entire crowd was speechless.

Winner; Ajax Amory!

After that brief moment of shock, the crowd burst into a gigantic applause and deafening cheer, giving him a standing ovation.

Even Eric and the others in the booth were on their feet.

Ace groggily tried to get back up and Ajax offered him a hand. Ace smiled sadly at it, took the hand and Ajax hauled him onto his feet.

“Damn, you got me,” Ace muttered, sighing sadly. “Although, if I’d known you had tricks like that I would’ve won.”

Ajax smiled. “Yeah, maybe you would’ve.”

“Don’t you mean ‘Of course you would’ve?’”

“No, I don’t.”

“You won’t even humour me when I’m down.”

“Hey, we Amory’s don’t lie, even when someone’s down in the ditches.”

Ace laughed a little and rubbed the back of his head, putting on a dejected smile. “I swear that’s the best and worst thing about you two,” He said.

“Yeah, I guess it is,” Ajax chuckled. He extended his hand to Ace. “Still, you were a great opponent and, honestly, I’m happy that we got to fight one another.”

“Hmm, I don’t know if I believe that.”

“Huh? Why?”

“Because your sister texted me right before we came in and said you were terrified of fighting me and wished that you were fighting her because she’d go easy on you?”

Ajax growled and shook his fist angrily to the side. “Alexis! You liar.”

“Oh? I didn’t think you Amory’s lied.”

“She does if she thinks it’s funny!”

Ace smiled and shook Ajax’s hand. “Yeah, I know. Still, even though I lost, I’m happy with what I did and what I’ve gotten out of it.”

“Oh? Why’s that?”

Ace smiled and stared out into the crowd, before saying, “It’s a secret.”

Ajax raised an eyebrow but didn’t press any further and then they both left the arena.