Episode 11: The Cage

Arson watched the octagon from an elevated box. He would have stayed ringside, but Troy didn’t want the inside scoop on any of the seven fighters in the ring with her. So Arson took the opportunity to see everything from a higher vantage point.

Troy stood in place. Far unlike her normal, active persona in the ring, she held herself entirely different.

Most in the ring either faced her directly or looked in her direction.

“It seems our princess has made a mess of things and angered some real opponents, people. Let’s see how this one works out.” The announcer played with the crowd and before Arson knew it, the match began.

“Come on, Troy, can’t be any sparking worse than the dump at night, right?” Arson didn’t know how exactly on the nose he hit the situation at hand. Troy was completely in her element.

A group of up and coming fighters chose this arena as a way to knock Troy out of the current winning streak she held. It was anyone’s last chance to stop Troy’s rematch with her rival, The Demon, her last hurdle before the upcoming city tournament. They were unaware of the terrible choice they had made.

Troy’s body slowly began to fill with light and two opponents charged her at once. She performed the near-exact punch and kick that the style 7 armor had executed on the two of them in the dump, which sent her first two enemies into the cage wall, hard.

In a blur of motion, she stood in the center of the ring. This was known to be a direct challenge to all fighters in the cage. A mark against the honor of anyone who allowed for the action to even occur. For what person believed they could survive in such a position? Only the mighty.

Most in the ring hadn’t seen her move in her more recent matches. With her low status in the professional arena, most in the crowd were also what Arson considered to be unaware. A category that, oddly enough, also included Arson.

“You’ve kept your top speed a secret for a reason, right? So show us what you got, Troy.”

She waited and at first none came. They looked at one another to make the first move. Then Troy spoke.

“Let’s hurry this up. I got a hot meal waiting for me, and I gotta go show someone upstairs what happens when you call a queen, princess…” They all charged. How dare she. Mock them all. They would show her, all seven of them thought.

What occurred was far from simple. Troy combined a pressure point technique, a rotation fist technique, and a burst of light infusion for speed.

To most onlookers, the bodies of the seven young men and women in the ring with Troy just dropped. Limp forms slumped over instantly.

To Arson who knew what to look for, he’d counted maybe 6 or 7 of the 13 strikes Troy threw.

The crowd erupted, and Troy walked straight out of the ring to the shock of everyone there. The exit was thought to be that of a new elite fighter’s bravado, until…

“Excuse me. You’re not allowed to be in here, young lady,” said the announcer. His voice came through the intercom system far more shaken than it had been.

“Oh, now it’s ‘young lady.’ I’ll show you, princess,” said Troy before a muffled sound was heard, followed by shrieking, and laughter from the crowd.

Arson rolled his eyes and exited the viewing booth he’d rented and looked for his friend before she was arrested.

“Looks like I got to apply for at least what like a mach 1. Naw I’m not that fast yet but damn I feel fast, maybe a 3.5, I could definitely hit 0 to 60 in 3.5. Am I rambling? I think I’m rambling,” said Troy.

“You’re fine. It’s fun to listen to you when you get excited about your fights. It motivates me to do more at the dump, and I honestly believe you’ll be able to get your mach 1 speed license in no time.”

Troy stopped. They were almost back to the dump and Troy seemed to have a serious question on her mind.

“Arson, can I work with you, or for you? I promise I won’t mind working for a kid like Jasmine does. I just think I would enjoy getting to help you turn that place around is all,” declared Troy.

“Jasmine does hate working for me, doesn’t she?” said Arson. He felt slightly defeated about how things were going with Jasmine. They seemed to clash often, and Arson needed to show her that they were undoubtedly a team.

They were friends, and work associates. It was obviously hard for Jasmine not to see Arson as a child, which wasn’t a problem for Arson.

He needed Jasmine’s respect for his plan to work. The problem was their environment taught them not to trust. To her, Arson was a fluke and moments away from disintegration.

“Sorry, I don’t mean to divert from what you asked. I honestly already assumed we were partners in this, and I know you’re probably seeing something I’m missing.”

“I wouldn’t say she hates working for you. She just finds it difficult. Intelligence is intimidating to most, kid, you gotta remember that,” said Troy as she started to walk again. She wore a huge smile, which Arson hoped meant she shared in his view of them being equals. He felt he needed that from his friends more than anything else.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever, heard it all before. As for you working with me, like I said, I already assumed you were. Jade kind of hinted at something like that anyway. She’s probably the one who put the idea in your head for all we know. Keeper magic feels unreal sometimes.”

“Don’t play like that, man, Her magic already spooks me sometimes… ooh what house shall we live in today? Poof! New house!” Troy shook her head.

“Look, if it wasn’t for the fact that I have seen her cook, I’d believe it was some sort of magic because of how good it tastes,” said Arson.

“You don’t think she’s fattening us up for some immortal Cultivation ritual that makes her look all young and beautiful like she does, do you?” asked Troy. Arson burst into laughter.

“No, but I’ll ask just in case. I mean they never found the last team who worked here,” said Arson. They both went silent and shared a look. Then burst into laughter again.

Dinner was fantastic, and Arson had managed to pick out not one, but two presents for Almarine. One he restored slowly in his inventory, and the other he’d bought.

Now all he had to do was survive the night, dark poison, and a handful of other semi reasonable yet dangerous situations and give her the presents tomorrow.

“Are you sure you can handle all that poison at once, kid?” asked Jade over dinner.

“To be honest, no. I was actually going to ask you if there was any way to ensure that I could maximize the chances of surviving all the elements.”

Jade smiled and shook her head. “No. This is literally a test of how much pain you can endure, kid. It’s why some Cultivators don’t make it far in their paths, and others excel.” Arson’s gaze dropped to the floor as he realized the implication of what Jade meant.

“My entire path starts here,” mumbled Arson under his breath.

“Yes, yet you must know your breaking point and not exceed that. If you aren’t meant for all the elements, you aren’t meant for all the elements, but so far, you’re doing very well. I honestly don’t know that you won’t complete the remainder with ease. Your focus grows strong. I see you fidget less and less against the pain as time passes,” said Jade as she lifted Arson’s chin to look him in the eyes.

“Yes, Momma Jade.” The woman smiled and gestured for him to finish his food.

“Hey Arson, I think we should talk. I’m getting a lot of questions from the other groups at the orphanage every time I stop by to pay dues, “ said Jasmine as she set down her utensils.

“What kind of questions?” Arson and Troy were almost saying the same things as often as the twins and didn’t seem to mind, while others did. They merely shared a look and a smile.

“Well, I bought the twins new clothes of course. I guess I should say fixed expensive clothes from the dump and gave them to the twins I mean, and now I’m being hounded for job requests, permission to talk to you about other services you may need, all that kind of stuff.”

“Services I may need?”

“Well, the kitchen staff heard from Troy that she found a better place to eat, and now believe she’s being cooked for by a professional, which she is,” said Jasmine with a gesture at Jade.

“Then you have the research assistants who saw Arson carrying a Cultivation manual as if they aren’t expensive, and they have further spread rumors,” continued Jasmine.

“Yeah, and we might have slipped up and been excited to talk about Troy’s fight. Apparently a lot of the orphans came to her cage match and saw Arson in an expensive viewing room,” said one of the twins. Arson looked over at them and they both smiled as innocently as possible.

“So how much of my plans have been spilled in the orphanage? Do all the groups know I’m interested in them, or just some?”

“From what I can tell, just some for now, but that will change and fast,” said Jasmine. Arson frowned and placed his elbows on the table before he steepled his fingers and rested his chin on them.

“Looks like I may have to increase the speed of my plans if I don’t want to either lose the opportunity, or create competition in my peers. We orphans can’t see money and not get involved sometimes. I’ll have to think on this, but I do have to visit tomorrow morning anyway. I have my first formal work review,” said Arson.

“Sparks and embers! Is that tomorrow? I have to be there, don’t I?” asked Jade who sighed heavily at Arson’s nod, but he also noted that she wore a sneer-like smile. He had learned a lot about the woman recently, and the smile filled Arson with a sense of mischief and excitement, even though she expressed annoyance at her required attendance.

She’d only previously smiled like that when she was enthusiastic about one of Arson’s many suggested changes to the dump and junkyard. Or when he asked her for suggestions on how to further his training.

“Ok, we shall leave after breakfast,” said Jade, and the conversation continued.

Arson would have to figure out a way to keep his own people in the loop while keeping any new ideas or plans secret.

Yes, the orphans were taught community over individuality, but that was merely on the surface. What happens in the orphanage stays in the orphanage.

“You ready?” Arson nodded at Troy, and the two rose. They said their goodbyes for the night and made their way to the dump.

“What’s on your mind, dude? You’re never this quiet. You’re making me nervous. We about to go into a red zone or something crazy?”

“What? No. I’m just wondering if Dark is the best option I can choose is all,” said Arson.

“Jade didn’t seem to think it was a bad idea,” responded Troy.

“That’s the thing. She did break from her standard pattern. Normally I state an absurd idea and she hears my plans out without a word, but today, she asked about my state of wellbeing. Not in a way that made me concerned about what I’d done, but what I was about to do,” said Arson.

“Damn, that is deep. Are you sure you aren’t reading too much into her every word, though?”

Arson shook his head before he responded. “Not at all. Normally with others in my past I would have said you’re probably right, but Jade seems to scheme even more than I do, believe it or not.”

“Hmmm… well, maybe she has reason to. From the way it seems, you don’t have very much time to get through this process now that you started it, which makes me wonder what kind of and how many other elements I could have been attuned to, if I would have known about the process you are going through.”

“I agree. I honestly think it’s why Jasmine wants the twins to come out with us, but I don’t know if I can handle worrying about more orphans in the dump. I have a feeling that Jade will only respect those I bring, or who can survive in the dump overnight. I’m stubborn and you’re naturally talented, but you know how some of us are.” Arson rambled, but felt listened to. He often felt he talked too much, but couldn’t help himself. So Troy’s open ear, regardless of his youth and physical demeanor, in a society that only respected power, was nice.

He was able to quickly gain a lot of opportunities in his recent days, but Troy joined him in his adventure as he joined in hers. It was different to Arson.

That perspective alone he knew was shared. Troy now gave him all the mana cores she had, and he didn’t charge her a single credit to manage her. They were partners and they knew it instinctively.

The duo separated and Arson let loose. Loose in a way he’d never felt he could before. It was an odd sensation of freedom while he fought, a freedom only rivaled by the power that rose in his chest.

He felt a flow. A buildup of energy that made his body thrum, and begin to spark with twisted sun-like tendrils.

This brought more and more enemies toward Arson, but he ignored the number and squared his feet.

“Come on!” he roared and did his best to use the combat maneuvers used on him by the armor within The Valley of the First styles. He was sloppy, and undisciplined, but he practiced and practiced until the pain he felt was far in the background of his mind, and he was calm enough to contemplate his next choice of element.

With each punch thrown and kick landed, there was less tension in the choice that rang true to Arson.

After a while he met up with Troy and they ventured once again toward another self-propelled torture of sorts.

“All in the name of power, right?” said Arson as he stepped into the boundary for the third time. Arson intuited that Dark would be the wrong choice, and chose the odd metal orb instead.

Another figure asked if he was sure, he read over the prompt that told him it was precious metals, and Arson selected “yes.”

What occurred next would haunt Arson for weeks to come, longer even. Neither his wildest dream nor any moment of fear-filled imagination could have prepared him for it.

Metals, gems, stones, and even strange crystals, shot from the earth. The different materials formed a trident, a weapon so beautiful Arson gasped at the mere sight of its creation before the instrument took him completely off his feet.

The diamond-tipped war trident pierced straight through his chest with a spurt of blood mirrored across three exit points. The death instrument shattered inside his torso and Arson wailed in instant agony.

Troy screamed, but Arson lost so much of his life force in a single second that he also lost consciousness. Then the weapon began to break itself down further and tear through Arson’s body piece by piece.

Massive shards caused the young boy to scream in his sleep. The only thing that kept him alive was the energy of the dump, and his increased regeneration from being under starlight.

Troy tried not to vomit as his bones twisted and popped out of place and foreign metals wrapped around his bones and entire skeletal frame. She could see the entire process and truly wondered if Arson would survive with every fragment’s movement.

He’d stopped crying, and even his whimpers had died, but all that remained to give her hope was the slight rise and fall of his chest as he breathed.

When Arson woke up it was to more pain than he ever thought could be possible for a single person to experience.

For fire, the constant burn had been something Arson easily compared to the sensation caused by an intense workout. So, he easily pushed it into the back of his mind. Even though he could still feel it now.

Earth left him with the uncomfortable feeling of being covered in sand from head to toe perpetually, and Arson honestly hoped his future water poisoning would fix that symptom. If he made it any further. This new pain was almost indescribable.

He felt as if his body had been opened, twisted inside out, scraped raw; all before his bones were framed in glass shards. A breath before he’d been stitched closed.

There was no way he held as much blood as he had on him inside his body. At some point he’d had to have produced more blood to bleed.

“Ow,” said Arson. He sat up. Slowly. So slowly that Troy began to pace in place. Her obvious discomfort written in her panicked features.

“What?”

“Don’t ‘what?’ me! That thing tried to kill you, man, like for real. I don’t think you’re supposed to survive these encounters anymore after that show of absurdity,” said Troy.

“Nope, probably not, but I got my next stack of poison, and wow, does this sparking suck. I don’t know what kind of benefits all this will lead to, but man, I better end up being a Keeper or something cool like that,” said Arson with a laugh. Then Troy looked at him and around at the area that surrounded them and then back at him once more.

“What if that is exactly what you are signing up for, kid?” stated Troy.

“Naw. No way. That would probably take a lot more than these—what—11 tortures. It’s gotta be way harder than that,” said Arson.

“Ok, but what about all those other things she said about the Omni? Spirit, magical kingdoms, forms, all kinds of stuff? What if Jade is just letting you follow a path similar to her own? All Keepers are obligated to raise prominent youths, aren’t they?”

“Yeah, but she wouldn’t pick an orphan, Troy. That’s way too political a position for someone without a prominent name,” said Arson.

“Arson, you are the perfect candidate. You’re a literal Omni—of the bloodline! If she makes you her next to lead, you’d be named if you became a Keeper. Maybe not the same name as the royal family, but you’d be named.”

Arson stopped. His mind drifted momentarily as he began to wonder.

Why was Jade so nice to him? She didn’t really need the mana cores, and from what Arson could tell, the only benefit she gained from his work at the dump was that she could report the work to the city.

Keepers could have as much or as little company as they wanted, and Jade wasn’t the extroverted type from what Arson could tell. She was reserved, quiet (until she needed to be otherwise), and graceful to an unrivaled level.

He felt suddenly smothered, not only by responsibility, but by a potential legacy. He was no Keeper. He was thrown away by the royal family for being too much. He couldn’t ascend to a station that could rival that same family, could he?

Arson felt like he was surrounded by enemies. He felt fear unlike Troy at being caged. He was shackled by a crown that was his, yet to him seemed like nothing more than a decoration.

He was so sure that Jade was his way out. A wall to hide behind, a place to grow in silence. Then he realized all she’d done for him and it hit him all at once. Thoughts of terror flooded his mind alongside the sneer of his newest mentor.

“Am I the disciple of a sparking Keeper?”