Episode 17: Flag on the Play

The ManaWell was at maximum capacity. Arson looked around from the even more lavish viewing box than those he’d experienced alone previously. Only now he was with Jade and the rest of the now named Builders.

He couldn’t get the conversation he’d had with Troy moments earlier out of his head, and he grew nervous about the fight. An intangible energy seemed to cloud his mind and left him with a sense of impending danger.

Troy had told him her own fears about the fight. How many times in her youth she’d been beaten by the same young man she was about to face, and why she’d began to run. Run from everything that made her feel the slightest bit of struggle or annoyance. Eventually she ended up always in flight, from everything, which included matters of her own health and longevity.

After Arson’s poisonings, however, Troy no longer felt she could run. What she’d seen him do had changed him, as well as her.

So much in fact that Troy worried she may be flagged for sandbagging. Unlicensed individuals in the areas of strength, speed, and mana would only be forgiven once in the regard for facing a weaker opponent, and then would be forced to receive a license.

This insured that opponents were of similar rank and overall skill… or at least it was supposed to. Arson saw the truth being almost the complete opposite over the past few weeks of Troy’s fights.

Maybe the fights are less crooked in the professional fighting divisions?

He’d originally rolled his eyes at Troy’s worries over being too strong for the intro divisions set up, but with the intensity of Troy’s gaze, he began to wonder how far she would take her planned vengeance. As someone who had been her practice dummy for what she intended that night, Arson prayed she didn’t kill her opponent.

“You did say that the division was rigged, so what if their arenas are only set up for one power house at a time?” mumbled Arson to himself. He cursed at the thought, and decided to trust that his friend had the situation under control.

“Welcome to the stage, Troy, the Queen of Light, and founding member of the newly formed, Builders of Godhood!” The announcer didn’t dare say anything but what had been prepared about Troy after the last time she’d gotten a hand on him, but Arson still smiled at the fear in his voice each time he announced her.

“And last but not least is the champion of the outer city, he without name or origin, the undertaker of Maelstrom—The Demon!” The crowd erupted and a young man only slightly larger than Arson entered the cage and joined the seven others within. Only this time, it was he who walked into the center of the ring even before the match had a chance to begin.

“It seems The Demon is out for blood, people! Let’s see where this goes!”

“I don’t know about this one folks,” said Lane in a whispered announcer’s voice of her own. She’d taken on a contract with Arson and Troy to begin with, but Arson felt that the girl would change her mind quickly about the inclusion of all the guild members.

With what he and Xani had planned for the Builders in the next few days, he would be surprised if they didn’t shake the foundation of the city. From what Arson suspected, things like what they had planned had been done before, but not to the same scale as they intended, nor for the group that his guild and businesses intended to service.

He had to force his mind to focus on the match. The night was about Troy, and Arson wanted to be as supportive as he could be. He’d begun to feel that his own accomplishments had left his friends slightly jealous. Jade had told him it was fine, so long as the jealousy didn’t grow into envy, and Arson agreed.

“Place your final bets now, folks. There are only a handful of moments until the match will begin.” Arson came to his feet and paced in the aisle way behind everyone’s seats. Jade gave him a look, but she left him to himself after he shrugged at her—unable to escape his restlessness.

He found it more and more difficult to sit still the stronger he became, and wondered if that would ever change. He didn’t mind always being in motion, but it did seem to bother others in his presence in settings that required more civilized behaviors.

Before he could once again find himself distracted, the match began and Arson stopped pacing as he took in the fight below. The blonde-haired boy named The Demon looked around with pure black eyes and his arms crossed he slowly rotated in the cage and stopped when he faced a random individual.

“I can’t believe that you made it this far, Troy,” said the Demon. He lifted his hand toward the young man in front of himself and the teen shrieked in terror as he was yanked off his feet.

“I mean… wow. You signed up for this even after what I did to you the last time. I mean it, you’re brave, child.” The young man’s throat slid directly into the Demon’s grasp, before he was choke slammed.

Arson hadn’t known the use of telekinesis was even legal in the division Troy fought in, but he moved past it as Troy and the Demon moved.

“Sorry, Lucas,” said Troy before she vanished and reappeared nearly on the other side of the cage and took her first rival out of the match with a single punch. The blow was performed so quickly that only a dozen or so people in the audience could even perceive what occurred.

Troy grabbed the unconscious young man before his body hit the floor and his elemental flames sputtered out. She set him down gently and smiled at the face the Demon made.

She knew her new speed was absurd compared to what it had been, but the silence of the crowd confirmed that she was no longer the same Troy they all were used to.

The Troy that had run from every roadblock. The Troy who needed no one. The same person who now felt completely different—and knew why.

“I’m going to slap the sparking 1s and 0s out of your genetic code, kid, for myself and the honor of my guild,” said Troy with a point toward The Demon. She didn’t take her eyes off of him for a moment. Even as she managed to blur past two other opponents and knock them out cold; she stared him down.

The Demon stood his ground and pulled more targets toward himself . Some were slammed overhead by The Demon unnecessarily, their ankles caught in his incredible grip. He simply pointed a palm toward his target, and like magic, he held another limb or person he felt to be just another toy in his hand. A plaything to be tossed around or destroyed.

While a few were literally either flung toward Troy or directly onto the cage, others felt like mere weapons when their own bodies were used like clubs made of meat and bone.

The Demon swung a winged girl who tried to swoop toward him into another challenger by her wing. The crowd winced at the girl’s shock and scream of pain and terror.

The match changed from a battle of many into a duel while The Demon’s one-sided punishment continued further. Troy tried to keep her smile to herself once she realized that she would truly be given the chance to get revenge on her long-term tormentor this day.

Her smile ended up so big the crowd even cheered when they saw it displayed across the screens above the cage. She hadn’t stopped moving for a single breath since the match started, and it was then that Arson understood that The Demon, too, had noted that Troy was not tired now, nor did it seem that she would ever be.

Let’s hope your natural absorption doesn’t cause any unforeseen problems Troy, otherwise you’ve got this, come on, I know you do, thought Arson.

“Thought you would have hit me by now,” yelled Troy across the ring.

“You really are faster now,” said The Demon, then he reached a hand out toward Troy in a direct threat. She slowed through the air, arm extended in a Superman punch toward her foe, a breath before she came to a complete stop.

It was like she’d been wrapped up in an invisible grip mid-air that held her there, but just as The Demon opened his mouth to speak, she vanished. With a roar and a burst of light, she reappeared as if she’d teleported directly behind The Demon.

Arson knew she couldn’t teleport yet, but the flashy movements still mimicked teleportation, flawlessly. The head kick she attempted was also blocked by an unseen force, but Troy continued to vanish and appear elsewhere in a rapid blur of movements and attacks.

When that wasn’t enough, she would summon HardLight clones of herself that copied her movements entirely. The flurry of attacks rang with every blow as Troy beat the barrier at the speed of an erratic drum solo.

The clones were full-bodied and dazzled the eye with their constant change of color and illumination. Some made it hard to see with how bright they were, while others were hard to see, with how deep their vibrancy was. Often the clones made it impossible to discern where attacks from other clones would come from, which only helped Troy further distract her opponent.

At first The Demon seemed unaffected, but after a few dozen breaths and even more failed strikes in Troy’s direction, his anger could be seen as it rippled off him in waves of power and force. Then Troy landed the first punch of many.

The Demon was lifted off the ground momentarily by an uppercut to his mid section. Troy blurred before she wrapped her arms around his thighs from behind and suplexed the young man onto his neck. Even before he could realize what occurred, two HardLight clones appeared above them both, and heel-dropped The Demon in the face, all before Troy let him go.

Their bodies had created an arc in the instance before The Demon had eaten two heels and Troy vanished yet again to let him flop onto the arena floor. The crowd boomed with celebration as Troy flickered through the cage, and The Demon slowly tried to rise.

“By the sparks of the maiden! This is a literal first, folks! I don’t believe we at the ManaWell have ever seen The Demon be treated in this manner!”

The crowd exploded in another uproar of cheers and booing. Arson’s eyes took in the match for its entirety. He’d slowed his perception down as much as he could, as the high mana cost wasn’t as bad when he wasn’t also using conductive waters.

“You dare!” yelled The Demon as he came to his feet without the use of his own body. Only, telekinesis, and raw power were used to move him like a puppet, and left his movements far from natural.

You see Troy, he couldn’t even stand up without the use of mana just then, kick this rust bucket in the spark plug, Arson roared in his mind.

Now that Arson looked at him, he wondered if his physique had been crafted by the continual use of telekinesis on his own body, and what sort of weaknesses would result through the action.

Jade had explained it in one of her many random lectures, but when Arson faced his very next challenge, the lesson seemed to fit perfectly nearly every time. Why he now felt he should be aware of the potential weakness—that disturbed him.

He wasn’t in the ring, nor did he plan to join. Troy was apparently incredibly angry, and had just been loosed on a worthy target.

The Demon sent out a dome of pressure in a pulse over and over as he chuckled. He stared Troy down and beat his chest as if to proclaim himself king of the jungle. The apex predator.

“What now, Queen? You really think you’re fast enough to stop me?”

Troy bobbed in place and for the first time her pores began to visibly drink in the light around her. Her skin glowed as if backlit by sunlight, and her veins pulsed with multi colored flares. The rainbow spread across all her visible skin, and then she vanished once more.

The Demon had assumed that basic forms of combat known to Cultivators would be able to defeat Troy, as it would honestly have done so with most speed-based Cultivators.

The problem with that assumption for Troy, was that most normal speed traps wouldn’t work on her. When infused with light properly, Troy wasn’t just fast. She was strong, and had a perception possibly higher than Arson even after he slowed things down to the maximum of his current abilities.

All of that paled in comparison to one thing. The actual use of her own light affinity.

The first kick she tried was again aimed directly toward the mid-section as her starting attack normally was, but wasn’t well enough timed, so she was blasted backward.

“You see? Doesn’t matter—” his words were cut off by another kick in the back from a HardLight clone that was timed in-between the pulse, slightly off as Troy had been. It mimicked her kick exactly, only a breath later.

She moved again and again, each time closer to being unaffected by the pulses. Each strike made more of an impact, which caused the clones she summoned to hit harder as well.

The Demon was barely able to defend himself, as Troy once again increased her speed and number of attacks.

It was at this point that The Demon began to lash out in random directions in an attempt to catch Troy off-guard. The only thing he managed to do was damage the cage that surrounded the arena floor.

The situation was made worse by the barrier that surrounded the cage being drained unknowingly by Troy. The normally perfectly stable cage was being moved by The Demon’s blasts of power and the magical backup used to anchor the cage in place now flickered as it weakened.

The cage itself became uprooted in sections, lifted off the ground by The Demon’s attacks. He’d even blasted the bodies of their other opponents to the edge of the cage, but paid for each unnecessary attack against the defenseless.

Troy was only enraged by his actions, as she’d once been one of the many opponents The Demon had done similar things to. Arson smiled as the first flurry kick landed. He was happy for his friend and her abilities, and that he was now not the only person to suffer through three to seven kicks in a matter of a breath by Troy.

The move was painful, to experience at the least, and so were the two HardLight clones mimicry that followed. Arson flinched at the sight and had to force down a chuckle when Lane smashed her face up against the glass of the viewing box.

The Demon cursed as he was bounced between two HardLight clones, while Troy took aim.

“She’s going to do her new favorite, guys,” said Arson.

“Bull,” said a few in his group.

“Do what?” Lane looked around and almost missed what happened but her camera caught everything in slow motion as Arson did.

The viewers of her channel watched as Troy appeared before the Demon the instant he was struck by the final two HardLight clone’s kicks. He blinked in a daze only to receive a rising heel kick to the chin.

He lifted decently high off the ground before Troy moved again. She appeared beneath his now-horizontal body in an upside-down crouch. She then rode his body like a surfboard through the air, and used the momentum left in his body to turn upright as he spun.

The crowd gasped as she kicked off The Demon like a spring board and shot toward the roof of the cage. When a HardLight clone appeared and mimicked her springboard action only inverted, the crowd was stunned to silence.

The HardLight clone materialized in a crouch of its own above the Demon and rode his still in motion body and ended up beneath the young man as he fell like a boulder dropped from a mountain top.

A breath before he struck the ground, the clone both kicked upward and exploded with the collision into the arena floor.

The Demon was sent like a rocket up and toward Troy. Arson feared for the young man’s life by that point, as Troy seemed to be holding nothing back in that moment. She kicked off the roof of the cage so hard that the entire frame came free of the remaining weights in place to hold it down.

HardLight clones filled the inside of the cage as Troy drank in even more fuel to perform her attack from practically every angle her mind could fathom all at once. Yet in that same instance, the mana shield’s energy sputtered out.

The frame tipped toward the crowd and panic ensued within the front row on the opposing side of the audience from Arson as the cage itself smashed into seats and stunned frozen audience members alike.

Before Troy could truly reveal her new skills. The Demon retaliated. He roared as he took control of his body in the air even as Troy dove full speed toward him. Arson knew she may not be able to overwhelm a telekinetic of a higher tier, but one ranked at her own tier, should have been easy to defeat in a versus. The corruption Troy had hinted at had been a joke to Arson until it was displayed before his very eyes.

“Force!” The Demon yelled the word and a physical presence could be felt as everything in the arena froze temporarily—the near-dozen summoned projections of hardened light that dove toward the Demon from various angles, and the cage that had begun to roll.

Even Troy who glimmered like a near rainbow streak of deep and rich colors far beyond the speed easily captured by a non-Cultivator’s eye was paused mid air like a streaking star. Her entire image stretched behind herself in a multi colored streak of light. Once again caught in an unseen grip; one she couldn’t easily escape as she had prior.

The Demon flew without the need of wings and closed the gap between him and Troy. He managed to grab her by the neck before she could regain the use of her own limbs.

The back-and-forth between The Demon and Troy grew, as he threw her into the inside of the still-in-motion cage and chased after her through the air. The two brawled in a bare-knuckled slug fest and caused even more damage to the night club as the cage rolled and destroyed more seats.

Panicked patrons fled in many directions, while others continued to eat and watch the fight from above or further in the audience.

Lane watched, drop-jawed from their viewing box, unable to respond to the explosion of comments that rained in from her viewership.

“Come on Troy, you got this,” mumbled Arson as the fight went in either direction in a seemingly endless cycle of punches and devastating kicks.

Arson was confused on how The Demon hadn’t been disqualified for using an ability that marked him for a more advanced tier of combat, but his next actions ended any hope of him leaving unscathed.

The blonde-haired boy managed to suppress Troy’s movements in a pivotal moment. The girl had been a breath away from a complete dodge, but instead, The Demon ripped his hand through her Torso.

Silence ensued after the Demon dropped Troy’s body outside the cage and left her bleeding on the arena floor.

Arson looked to his mother in that moment, shock apparent on his face. Jade shook her head at Arson as the stars in his eyes began to spin in a violent cyclone. A trait that would one day invoke fear in all who witnessed the sight.

Arson roared and the air shook. Some of the already damaged walls caused by the cage’s movements crumbled further. While Arson’s vision went red.

“Arson, no!”