Chapter 50: FAVORITES VS UNDERDOGS 3
Lysandra reached the enemy base.
The core crystal pulsed in its cradle, undefended. The gates were open. The control points were hers. She walked toward it, rods raised, blood still dripping from her arms. One hit was all she needed.
Baines stepped out of the base entrance.
He’d respawned again. His axe was in both hands, his eyes wild, his chest heaving. Trent stood behind him, lightning flickering weakly between his fingers. He was shaken, his hands trembled, his face was pale, but he was still here. Still fighting.
"You keep matching don’t you?" Baines growled. "You don’t know when to quit."
"Neither do you," Lysandra said. Her voice was cold. The switch was fully active, but beneath it, the exhaustion pulled at her limbs like weights. The gash on her back screamed with every movement. Her forearm was still bleeding where his blade had opened it. Her shoulder was a knot of fire from the last exchange. Her vision blurred at the edges. She was running on fumes.
But the switch wouldn’t let her stop.
Baines charged. His axe came around in a brutal horizontal arc. She ducked under it, drove a rod into his knee. He stumbled but didn’t fall, he’d learned, bracing for the impacts now, trading pain for position. His backhand caught her across the ribs. She felt something crack. Pain flared white-hot. She spun with the hit, used the momentum, brought the other rod around and caught him across the jaw. Blood sprayed from his mouth. He grinned through it, teeth red.
Trent fired from behind him. A bolt of lightning arced through the air. She caught it on one rod, the electricity crackling down the iron, and hurled it back. He dodged, barely, the bolt singeing his hair. He was slower than before. Shakier. But he was still forcing her to split her attention, still buying Baines the openings he needed.
She couldn’t keep this up. She was bleeding from a dozen wounds. Her body was failing. But she was still faster.
She feinted left, drew Baines’s axe wide, then pivoted and drove both rods into Trent’s chest. The lightning mage folded with a choked gasp and dissolved into white light. One down. She didn’t wait to watch him fade. She was already turning, already bringing the rods around, as Baines’s axe came down toward her skull.
She caught it on both rods. The impact jarred her arms, drove her to one knee. Her shoulder screamed. He pressed down, all his weight behind the blade, and she felt something give. Pain exploded through her. She screamed, not in fear, in fury, and drove her forehead into his nose. Cartilage crunched. Blood sheeted down his face. He reeled back, and she was on him, rods rising and falling, each impact a wet, brutal sound. His axe clattered to the stone. His hands came up, too slow. She hit him again. Again. He dissolved into white light.
She stood over the fading light, gasping. Blood ran from her shoulder, her back, her forearm, her forehead. Her tunic was a ruin. Her vision swam. But the core was right there. Twenty feet away. Pulsing. Waiting.
She raised her rod, ready to bring it down on the crystal, ready to end this.
The core shattered.
Not the enemy core. Hers.
The sound rang through the arena like a bell tolling. Lysandra froze, her rod inches from the enemy crystal. The displays flickered. The match was over. Reyes and Aldis had destroyed her core a fraction of a second before she could destroy theirs.
She stood there, rod still raised, breathing hard. The switch began to fade. The cold left her eyes. The shy girl came back, and she was shaking. From exhaustion. From the knowledge that she’d come within a heartbeat of winning the match alone.
She lowered the rod. The enemy core pulsed in front of her, untouched. She’d been so close.
She turned and walked toward the tunnel. She didn’t look back.
***
Kellan dissolved into white light a moment before the core shattered. His left arm was gone. His short blade was still in his right hand. Aldis’s shield had come down, and he hadn’t been fast enough to block it. But he’d bought seconds. He and Seira, working together, harassing, delaying, refusing to let Reyes and Aldis have a clean shot at the core. Every second they’d bought had been a second Lysandra could use.
It hadn’t been enough. But it had been close.
Seira fell a breath after him, her healing glow flickering out as Aldis’s shield caught her across the chest. She’d died twice in this match.
Reyes drove his spear into the core crystal. It shattered. Light flooded the arena. The match was over.
***
Dorian Hale’s voice cut through the sudden silence. "The core is shattered! Team Two wins! But by the narrowest of margins, a fraction of a second! Lysandra Li was inches from destroying their core! Inches! I have never seen a match this close!"
The arena erupted. Eighty thousand people who’d just watched a C-rank Summoner stall an S-rank the entire match, a shy girl fight two opponents alone and nearly win the entire match by herself, a healer and a scout refuse to surrender against impossible odds. The black and gold in the stands was a sea now, and it was screaming. KANE. KANE. KANE.
Dominic stood in the middle lane, barely upright. His shield was gone. His sword arm hung at his side, numb and useless. A cut above his eye poured blood into his vision. His ribs were cracked, multiple, he could feel them grinding with every breath. The Wobbly trait had kept him alive, absorbing impacts that should have caved in his chest, but his body was a map of damage.
Blood dripped from his mouth, his forearm, his shoulder where Victor’s blade had found gaps in his defense. His left eye was swollen half-shut. His right hand couldn’t close around his sword grip anymore, the fingers wouldn’t obey. He’d taken hits that would have killed a normal C-rank a dozen times over, and he was still standing.
Victor stood across from him, breathing hard. His forearm was bleeding where Dominic’s sword had caught him. It was the only wound on him. But it was there. And the crowd had seen it.
"You’re still standing," Victor said. His voice was flat. The easy smile was gone.
"I’m still standing," Dominic said. "But you weren’t going all out were you? You were holding back. Saving something for the individual phase." He wiped blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. "Too bad victor, seems you will need to try much harder to take me down."
Victor’s jaw tightened. "You keep trash talk even though you’re the one looking half dead."
"See you in the individual phase, Victor. When there’s no team to carry you. Bring everything. You’ll need it."
"Sounds like a lot of empty talk."
Dominic turned and walked toward the edge of the platform. His legs shook with every step. His vision blurred and cleared, blurred and cleared. Wobbly was on his shoulder, its glow dimmer than usual. The creature strengthen the use of its trait anytime Dominic tapped into it. It too was exhausted.
Victor watched him go, his knuckles white on his blade. He’d won the match. But eighty thousand people were chanting a different name.
***
In the tunnel, Lysandra was waiting.
She stood with her back against the wall, both rods planted on the stone, her head down. The switch was fully gone now. The cold had left her eyes. What was left was a girl in a torn tunic, covered in blood that was already fading as the match’s magic reset her body. The wounds were gone. The exhaustion was not.
Dominic stopped in front of her. She didn’t look up.
"We lost," she said. Her voice was barely a whisper. "I was right there. Inches away. I could have—"
"I know," Dominic said.
"If I’d been faster. If I’d pushed harder. If I hadn’t let Baines slow me down the second time—"
"Lysandra."
She looked up. Her eyes were red. The tears hadn’t started yet, but they were close. Her hands were shaking on the rods.
"You fought two opponents, one of them an A-rank, alone," Dominic said. "You beat them multiple times. You pushed into the enemy base by yourself. You nearly won the entire match with no one left but you."
"It wasn’t enough."
"No. It wasn’t." He stepped closer. "But it was more than anyone expected. More than anyone thought possible. You did that."
Her face crumpled. The tears came, real ones, the kind that shook her shoulders and made her gasp for breath. She let go of the rods. They clattered to the stone. And Dominic pulled her into a hug.
She buried her face in his chest and sobbed. The shy girl who couldn’t meet anyone’s eyes, who’d watched him for two years without speaking, she clung to him like he was the only solid thing in the world.
"You did good," he said quietly. "We all did. It wasn’t enough today. But it will be next time."
She didn’t answer. She just held on, her tears soaking into his jacket, and after a moment, her breathing started to slow. The shaking didn’t stop. But it lessened.
***
In the respawn chamber, the mood was different.
Kellan was slumped against the wall, his legs stretched out in front of him, his chest heaving. His left arm was working again, the respawn had fixed it, but he kept flexing the fingers, remembering what it felt like to be broken. His face was pale. His eyes were half-closed. He’d run across half the map, held the core against impossible odds.
Seira stood over Greer.
Her shoulder was healed, the respawn erasing Reyes’s spear wound, but her expression was raw. Her hands were shaking from anger.
"What the hell was that?" she said. Her voice cracked on the last word. "I was shouting at you. I was calling your name. And you just stood there. He killed me right in front of you, and you didn’t even move."
Greer sat on the bench, his axe across his knees. His hands were shaking worse than hers. He didn’t look up.
"Kellan had to run across the entire map because you didn’t respawn. Lysandra almost won the match by herself while you sat here. I died twice because of you."
"I know," Greer said. His voice was hollow.
"Do you? Do you know what that cost us? What it cost the team?" Her voice rose. "We could have won! If you’d just swung your axe once, just once, we could have won!"
"I know!" Greer’s voice cracked. He looked up at her, and his eyes were wet. "I know! I froze! He got in my head and I froze and I let you die! I know what it cost! I know!"
The chamber went quiet. Kellan stopped flexing his fingers. Lysandra, still in the doorway with Dominic, went still. Seira stared at Greer, her chest heaving, her fists clenched.
"Then do better," she said. Her voice was quieter now. But harder.
She turned and walked to the far side of the chamber.
Dominic stepped into the room. Lysandra was beside him, her face still wet with tears, but her breathing was steady now. She didn’t look at Greer. She walked past him, and sat down without a word.
Kellan raised a tired hand in greeting. "Hey, captain. We almost had them."
"Almost," Dominic said.
"That was the most terrifying thing I’ve ever done. Can we not do it again?"
"It’s a good thing the phase is over then, eh?."
Kellan let out a breath that was almost a laugh. He closed his eyes and let his head fall back against the wall.
Dominic walked past Greer. The axe fighter was still sitting on the bench, his axe across his knees, staring at nothing. Dominic didn’t stop. He didn’t offer reassurance. Greer wasn’t ready for it. Whatever was going to happen with him, whatever choice he was going to make about Harwick, about himself, it had to come from him, not from anyone else.
***
The crystal displays flickered above the arena. The final standings of Phase Three blazed across the screens.
Team One (UNTOUCHABLES): 4-0
Team Two (FAVORITES): 3-1
Team Three (UNDERDOGS): 2-2
Team Four (GATEKEEPERS): 1-3
Team Five (VETERANS): 0-4
Top three teams advance to Phase Four. The individual elimination round.
Dorian Hale’s voice carried across the stands, tired but electric. "Ladies and gentlemen, Phase Three is complete. The top fifteen fighters will advance to the individual phase. One day of rest. Then we return for the final stage of the Grand Trials. The bracket will be drawn at random. Anyone can face anyone. And after what we’ve seen these past days, the untouchable Pembroke dominating, the C-rank Summoner who stalled an S-rank for the entire match, the shy girl who fought two A rankers alone and beat them twice, I don’t think anyone can predict what happens next."
The crowd was still chanting as the displays shifted. The Phase Four bracket materialized on the screens, names spinning, settling into place. First round matchups. The crowd roared as they read the pairings.
Dominic stood in the tunnel, watching the board. Wobbly was on his shoulder, the pink bow slightly askew. The names were still settling, but he could already see the path ahead.
The screens above the battlefield flickered with the final standings, and then shifted to something new. Highlights. The match’s most brutal moments, replayed for eighty thousand people who had just witnessed them live.
Lysandra’s rods came down on Baines again and again. The crowd in the replay gasped. The real crowd, watching themselves watch the violence, roared.
The charge of electricity as she caught Trent’s lightning and hurled it back. The headbutt that broke Baines’s nose. The final stand at the enemy core, her rod raised, inches from victory.
Dominic stood in the tunnel, watching the screen. Wobbly was on his shoulder, the pink bow slightly askew. The highlights played on. His own face appeared, bloodied, grinning, telling Victor he’d been waiting seven minutes for an opening. The crowd in the replay chanted his name. Kane. Kane. Kane.
Lysandra stood beside him. The shy girl was back, her shoulders curled inward, her eyes on the floor. But she was standing close to him. Closer than she’d ever stood before.
"You fought well," Dominic said.
She didn’t look up. "Thank you. For before. In the tunnel."
"You needed it."
"I did." She paused. Her voice dropped to barely a whisper. "I scared myself out there. The way I was. The things I said. The way I felt."
"I thought as much."
"Do you think I can ever get rid of it? Don’t you think it’s weird?"
Dominic was quiet for a moment. On the screen above them, Lysandra’s own face appeared, cold, smiling, blood running down her chin. "You’re not even good enough to be warm-ups." The crowd roared. Lysandra flinched.
"No," Dominic said. "I don’t think it’s weird. And I don’t think you can get rid of it. Not without cutting out a part of who you are." He paused. "My advice? Don’t suppress it. Don’t be ashamed of it. Lean into it. Make it serve you, the way it did out there. It kept you alive. It nearly won us the match."
Lysandra’s fingers were twisted together in front of her, knuckles pale.
"I scare myself," she whispered. "The things I say. The way I feel. It’s like I’m someone else."
"You’re you. All of it. The shy girl who can’t meet anyone’s eyes," Dominic said quietly. "The fighter who beat a berserker to death. Both of them are you. Both of them are real. You don’t have to choose one and bury the other."
She looked up. Just for a second. Her eyes were red, her cheeks still damp.
Dominic smiled. "I’ve only known you a few weeks. But I’ve seen enough to know you’re one of the strongest people in this tournament. You just spent years hiding it. I’m glad you finally letting people see it."
Her face flushed crimson. She opened her mouth, closed it, looked away. Her hands were shaking.
"I should go," she whispered.
"Yeah, get some rest. You’ve earned it."
She nodded. A tiny, almost invisible motion. Then she turned and walked toward the exit, her rods slung across her back, her footsteps quiet on the stone. At the door, she paused. She didn’t turn around. But her voice, barely above a whisper, carried back to him.
"Thank you."
Then she was gone.
Dominic watched the empty doorway for a moment. The highlights were still playing above the arena. His own voice echoed through the speakers. "You’ve been trying to end this for seven minutes. And I’m still standing." The crowd chanted. Wobbly burbled on his shoulder.
He turned toward the apartment. Tomorrow, he would rest. The day after, he would fight. And somewhere across, Victor Harwick was staring at the same highlights, touching the wound on his forearm, wondering how a C-rank Summoner had stalled him for seven minutes and walked away smiling.