Heo's point of view
As I ran fighting monsters I saw Lynix again. She was surrounded on all sides. The strong skeleton that was on a horse that Baydí, Angel, Lynix, Stella and I captured was leading a horde of skeletons. I remember grabbing Stella and pulling her out of the way. Lynix looked calm, they lunged at her and she dodged. She slipped perfectly between attacks, randomly flinging her scythe around. Eventually she was outside all of them, her back turned to them.
The strong skeleton ran at her swinging his decapitating sword. Lynix scythe moved up and blocked the attack. The tremor from the blow shook the skeleton horde and they all fell into a pile of bones with new severing cuts separating bones. They rattled to the ground like a tribal anthem.
The fights finished up. There really weren't a whole lot of people passing onto the next stage. In group one it was just me, Lynix and Angel. Herika's group it was just her and another person. The last group had more people but I didn't know any of them.
The next rounds were one on ones. The total number of people was ten making it uneven after the first round. Lynix and Angel, both being the best here, currently went against each other and would fight the last person. Herika fought someone from the third group, and I fought the only other person from her group.
The great arena walls fell creating one big arean, instead of the three way split we were just in. I glanced at mine and Stella's messages, sending a read receipt and becoming more fearful. I looked away and at the two contestants entering the arena. Angel walked in his sword in his sheath. Lynix followed on the opposite side. Her scythe twirled around her back and hit the ground leaving a trail in it.
Ezree and Herika sat close to me. On the other side of Ezree was a group of people paying her for commentary. She must be famous enough here to have these guys just following along.
"Of course it looks like a little trash talking is going on down there. Let me bring us what they're saying."
Ezree went quiet before she began to repeat what they were saying and mimicking their voices. She did very well too. It sounded exactly like them.
"It's not that big of a problem. I know you're a cheater, just admit it before I put my foot in your ass."
"Why do you say such things? You reek of evil."
"Oh do I?" Lynix got louder. "Is he really calling us evil? No way. Power is evil then?"
"Thats the nature of it."
"Oh shut him up already. Yeah, let's kick his ass."
"Wait for the bell..."
They both stopped talking just staring at each other. The wind picked up and blew the frigid air up to the stands also. Everyone, even the commentating Ezree, held their mouths. Then a bell rang, starting their fight.
Lynix fell on top of Angel, faster than I've ever seen anyone go in real life, besides Rex's teleportation. Angel unsheathed his sword parrying the attack. A second blade appeared on the other end of Lynix's scythe. Her body flipped off and spun, delivering a round of follow up slashes. A purple hue radiated off her scythe and face. Water coiled around her weapon and she slashed out with boiling hot water attacks.
Horns shot up from Angel's face. He blocked the slashes and dodged the water. He was entirely focused. When the burning water hit him he didn't react to it. He couldn't have been that much older than me but he acted like he had done nothing but fight for hundreds of years. The way he moved was intentional and perfected.
Angel sword shot out straight in the middle of an attack from Lynix. The sword's guard perfectly caught the scythe right as it would have gone down into her face. Lynix's face crumbled up and she grappled her own scythe and punched into Angel's face, making him dodge back. Angel wasn't done though, he stepped right back in close to Lynix and slashed across her stomach. A charging up sound resounded from the blade. High pressure water shot down and pushed his blade just slightly off to not cut her skin.
They both spun back staring each other down.
"That was one of my favorite shirts, you cockroach."
The ground around Angel shook and reached out for him. Out of all the things he could have been too slow to react to, I'm surprised that got him because she poured so much useless magic out to make the attack and the arena. He was gobbled up by the sand and then pillars formed on the surface and shot down at him. The ref jumped to end the fight, but a silly looking ghost crawled out of the sand. Then another and another until the entire ground was swarming with spirits ranging from laughing ones to angry pissed ones. Then his hand reached out of the ground and he crawled up.
Lynix spun around twirling her scythe and throwing down a conjured pond of water. Angel was holding a scythe now. The same black one from before, now the silly ghosts were raging off of it. He was barely out but the scythe moved to perfectly parry Lynix. And carved the water to the left. It rushed and hit the side of the arena and bounced up to the spectator seats. When it fell, Lynix was on her back with her hands raised in defeat.
"And the winner is, ANGEL AREITIE!"
The crowd erupted in applause. It had Ezree and Herika all jumping. I felt like the alleyway got longer. Wow, Stella would have loved to see Angel do that. Stella…
"Hey, I'm going to go down there and talk to her." I said.
"K, I'm going to head down with you. I'm up next, I don't know how well I'll do in comparison to that, hehe." Herika hopped over the back of her seat and followed me down.
When we got down there we saw Lynix and Angel. Angel was drying off and Lynix was talking to herself.
"Hiyo." Herika said.
"Um.." Angel said.
"Another bug?"
"It's just my friend Herika, she's in this competition too."
"You're not up yet, bug, why are you down here?"
"I wanted to ask you a favor, if you're free?" Angel and Lynix both looked at me. "If you're out of the competition now, do you mind going and checking up on Stella for me?"
"Why should I?"
"I'm worried for her."
"Why didn't you bring her then?" Angel asked.
I shivered and looked at Herika. She shook her head and crossed her arms.
"Today, it is unsafe to be in this city, and I just have a really bad feeling about Stella being out, but also alone." Lynix's eyebrows raised.
"Sure, I guess I can." She patted me on the back and walked out of the prep room.
"Wow, she agreed." Angel said.
"Aren't you two friends?" I asked.
"Oh absolutely not. She scares me." He pointed a finger in her direction. "Are you two friends?"
"I just said that."
"It's just surprising you know last year's winner of the competition."
"WHAT!"
"Oop."
"Herika you won last year?"
"Ok technically. You know that ability that holds all that damage. Well I didn't use it once throughout the competition, I just kept charging it. Before I passed out from the pain I knocked out the lower bracket and got a single round with the winner of the competition. There was no reward, just a tradition from when losers all fought each other until one was crowned from them. The winner that year thought it was a good idea and challenged the loser. They were more than beaten to a pulp, but they became best friends and the loser was seen and another winner. That year alone had two winners. Anyways, that tradition still happens every year, besides this one obviously."
"Yup then Herika walked up dazed and punched lights out of the winner who was actually a Mila guard."
"Who was it?"
"I don't know his name but it wasn't the president's guard or I'd talk about it nonstop."
We laughed and eventually heard the intercom telling Herika to walk out.