Don't know if it's coming Friday or Monday, but this is a fun chapter so far! Enjoy!
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The slaughter was immediate.
Rei had clearly deduced his situation as accurately as Chris, because the moment the Arena started the fight he was nothing but a trail of blue. He struck almost before the poor Mauler that was his first target had taken two steps out of her starting ring towards him, the fists of his Brawler Mode flashing. The girl started to scream, dropping her hammer as Rei ‘severed’ both her hands below the elbows, but the sounded ended sharply when a trio of claws slammed through her throat before the weapon had even hit the ground. He whirled, moving even as he faced the other 5 that came charging at him as one.
One went down before they’d all so much as gotten a good bearing on him. A second as they pivoted to face his new position. A third didn’t get their shield up in time as Rei switched to a surprise Saber Mode. The longer reach of his sword extended over the poor Phalanx’s defenses to cleave into the boy’s neck before he could react.
The remaining pair put up a valiant effort, but at a recently-hit B9, Rei was officially light-years ahead of anything any other first year in his class could hope to catch up to.
Anywhere, Chris corrected himself silently. Any other first year anywhere…
“What was that?” Dice asked with a snort as they watched Rei leave behind the FDAed bodies of his classmates, the first of which hadn’t even slipped all the way through the floor yet. “7 seconds? 8?”
“Less.” Chris answered, carefully tracking the streak of black, white, and glowing blue.
Rei’s Breaker-Type was still a secret Chris and Dice were under gag order not to speak about, and he hadn’t used Temporal Step in a month as far as either of them knew—not that that particular Ability had been shown to the public yet. Still, even without access to the entirity of his arsenal, Rei cut through every opponent he came across as easily as fire through a dry field.
And almost never one-at-a-time.
It seemed an unspoke agreement between everyone in the first-year class that when the Iron Prince showed up, all other infighting was put on pause. They’d even seen the other members of Firesong take part in the ganging up—and one time when Aria, Logan, and Catcher had actually managed to win by doing so. It was understandable, and Chris seriously doubted there was any bad blood there. It was just the smartest thing to do with a B9 fighting on a field averaging closer to the mid-Cs.
“Wonder when they’ll bounce him up…” Chris wondered out loud, watching Rei encounter a trio of Duelists who all stopped dancing around each other to face him together.
“Think they’re gonna?” Dice asked. One of the group was down before she finished the sentence, another before Chris could answer.
“They’ve gotta, right?” A shield appeared between the third’s sword and Rei’s heart as though by magic, slamming out to instantly FDA the Duelist—and sending his limp body flying 30 yards over the volcanic earth. “At least for some things. Team Combat I get—he needs to stay locked in with Firesong for coordination and stuff. Most Wargames, too. But this?” Chris pointed his stylus down at the Battle Royal as Rei ripped over a ledge to take a battling pair by surprised, neither the Lancer or Brawler having time to react as he came at them through the smoke. “What does he get out of this?”
“Confidence?” Dice suggested with a shrug. “Movement and agility practice? Some degree of multi-opponent training?”
Chris shook his head as Rei moved on as both bodies fell to the ground nearly in unison. “Dice… He’s ranked higher than most of the second-years. What’s the point…?”
“I don’t knoooow…” Dice continued to hedge, her eyes on the north side of the field. “That’s certainly an interesting challenge, don’t you think?”
Following her gaze, Chris paused.
“Huh… You know… You might be right about that.”
The volcano that provided most of the light and annoying soot for the field was a projection far beyond the walls of the combat area itself, but the north end still angled upward sharply, creating an incline of unsteady shale footing. Thin lines of magma trailed slowly down the base of the mountain, the heat emanating from them casting shimmering waves in the air.
And through that haze, they gathered.