Rex and I had found our way back in the Warriors' Keep.
As we entered, we were met with the bickering of our teams…
"Look who finally decided to show back up," Nash commented.
"Where the hell were you, GG? Not cool… absolutely not cool…" Jo said with a hail of reprimand.
"You should have heard her. She was like, 'Where's my GG?', 'Why did GG leave me?', 'Did GG go back up?', 'Did he run off with Belle?'" Nash snorted. Enjoying the look on her face as he mocked her.
"Shut up, you oaf… or shall I freeze your mouth shut?" Jo threatened.
"You'd have to freeze me nine times, chick, but even then I'd still talk."
"We'll see about that."
I clapped my hands once with a bored look on my face, stopping the both of them, "Was I really gone that long? I swear, Rex and I only stepped out for a moment… look, the third match is barely gonna start…"
Both Nash and Jo looked at me with an incredulous look. Like what I had just said utterly baffled them.
"I knew you were dense, but not that dense, bro…" Nash said.
"What?"
Right then, I heard a male scream. It was an obnoxious scream like he had lost a bet… again…
"SAY WHAT!?" Rex yelled. "You mean to say I missed both your guys' matches!?" speaking to both his subordinates that entered the Tournament with him: Maine and Rowen… "How is this possible!? We were only gone for minutes at best!"
I looked over at him in confusion, then looked back to Nash and Jo. "Okay, what the fuck is going on."
Jo sighed and then pointed to one of the screens that displayed throughout the Keep. It was a tournament bracket that displayed all the current matches and the winners of each.
My eyes widened when I saw it.
"No fuckin way… we were gone that long!?" To my surprise, a total of three matches had already occurred since Rex and I left.
After Goro and Zeke's match:
Cecillia, Head of Forest Guard vs. Marley, 1st Executive of the Silver Sharks. The winner… Cecillia.
Maine, 1st Executive of the Green Owls vs. Lance, 1st Vice Captain of the Golden Roses. The winner… Lance.
Zeno, Vice Captain of the Purple Panthers vs. Rowen, 2nd Executive of the Green Owls. The winner… Zeno.
"Fuck… I missed Zeno's match?" I said, thoroughly disappointed.
"You did indeed!" That friendly, calm voice entered between my group and Rex's.
"Zeno! I feel like a horrible friend… How did it go?" I asked him.
"You are a horrible friend! First you steal my girl, and then you don't even watch my match… man… what am I to you?" he jested, but it just made me feel even more like an ass.
Then, from Rex's side, he shouted, "I feel like a horrible friend too!!" he sobbed. "Did Rowen at least give you a run for your money?" he asked like he had just gotten over his cry.
"He sure did! You have a fine 2nd Exec! Once again, Rowen, good match."
Rowen nodded as he lay in his bed being tended to by one of the healer mages. Judging by his injuries, that match seemed anything but good for him… he seemed grateful either way. I would have loved to have Zeno as my opponent.
Next to him, however, Maine seemed to have sustained heavier injuries… he looked like he had just woken up after Rex's shouting. His opponent, Lance, seemed to have shown no mercy…
"My dude," Rex spoke to him, "You good? I am so sorry I missed your match, bro… You looked like you took a beating…"
"It was my honor, Vice Captain…" Maine said hoarsely.
It was my honor? I was starting to be more surprised at how formal everyone from the Forest had addressed him—while he's over here calling everyone bro and giving them fist bumps.
"Truth be told…" Maine said, "it was your name that was called next, but I showed up in your stead in the ring. And after the announcer had finished introducing you to the Valley, I stood proud there with the Green Owls salute. The crowd murmured and booed, but I stood tall as I shouted with all my lungs, 'VICE CAPTAIN REX HAD A DUTY COME UP, SO PLEASE DO NOT DISQUALIFY HIM! I MAINE OF THE GREEN OWL KNIGHTS WILL PARTICIPATE IN HIS STEAD! PLEASE ACCEPT ME AS I BATTLE ON BEHALF OF MY VICE CAPTAIN!'… and against my meekness, they allowed me to battle for you. Please forgive me, Vice Captain, for stepping in where I was not supposed to! I realized when you had left that it had to be because of something important! Even if it were just the case of the shits, I would have done the same! I would have stepped up and defended your rightful place!"
As Maine told his story, both Rex and Rowen sobbed tears like they had been touched by the Keeper. His story moved them as they all embraced each other gayly. The most uncontrolled out of them all, Rex, sobbed tears of gratefulness to his subordinates.
"You both…" Rex said with shadows over his eyes, "YOU BOTH ARE SO FREAKING AWESOME! I LOVE YOU GUYS!"
"WE LOVE YOU TOO, VICE CAPTAIN! HUUU!" they all sobbed, eyes bugging out of their sockets.
It was comical to watch them, but I had almost envied the utter respect his subordinates gave him. As I looked back to both Nash and Jo, the turn of my head was right on time to receive Nash's booger flick to my forehead, and Jo's popsicle shoved right into my mouth…
Yeah, you two bozos would have never done that for me.
Jokes aside, though… the difference in damage Maine had received compared to Rowen's was dramatic. The guy was almost crippled from that match; his injuries seemed borderline fatal. Had it not been for the professional healer mages here with us, he'd be…
I scanned the room to find Lance. How was this even allowed? I thought.
"Apparently," Zeno spoke as if he had somehow read my mind. "There was no murderous intent in his actions during his battle with Maine. Plus Maine forfeited in time to receive any further injuries. Had Lance acted upon a heavily injured foe, he most likely would no longer be in this Tournament."
"I see."
"Yeah," Nash said to me, "What that Maine guy had to go through in that battle with Lance—though he forfeited—I commend him for valuing his life. You don't need to prove you're strong by enduring unnecessary pain, unless you know you can survive until the end. You choose your battles, and he did exactly that. The fact that his spirits are still high after that… that is the mark of a real man. But that guy…"—he looked at Lance across the room as well—"that's the look of a guy with a vendetta. It was like he was angry at someone who was not there. And poor Maine got the brunt of it."
I pocketed the thought as Nash ended and I observed Golden Boy. He hadn't got a scratch on that proud gold armor of his from their match.
When I looked back at the screen above us, I noticed that we were in the same bracket. After this first round, the second round would be:
Me vs. Goro
Cecillia vs. Lance
And the first match of the third round in the same bracket, if I had won my battle and he had won his, would be me versus him.
I was going to simply forfeit at the start of mine and Goro's match, but that would be anticlimactic. After remembering what Belle had told me about the statue he had made 'in her honor', and now what he did to Rex's subordinate… I had a better idea…
Rex and his two Execs were still sobbing with each other when I had made my way over to them. He looked me in the eyes and went for a snot-nosed hug, but I dodged him effortlessly and went straight over to Maine… "Hey, if I get the chance to face that guy…" I said to him, his eyes glittered as he sniffed back the snot in his nose, "I'll get him for you. It's a promise."
As meek as the guy was, when he heard my words, he began sobbing harder. Rex appeared out of nowhere and snuck a hug with his slobbered face to my back, "AHHH! I KNEW YOU HAD A SOFT HEART TOO, GREED! YOU'RE SUCH A GREAT GUY! I LOVE YOU!"
"Fuckin' Keeper, Rex! Get off me!"
***
Back up in the arena, the Tournament had taken a quick intermission after completing the first bracket of matches. In the section where the Black Wolves were sitting, the crew was up to their usual shenanigans.
Star had lost her patience with being good and started shouting at the nearby audience members again. Content with the idea that, despite Code's warning, she would just get her Choco Bars from Greed regardless by 'other means'. Havoc and Ophelia, once again arguing if he truly had a girlfriend or if it was just some mix-animal, Code trying to contain Star, Brand passed out with half-eaten food on his lap, and Belle and Alice to their own devices.
Alice observed her sister, looking her up and down… she seemed visibly sad about something. "Okay, out with it, what's on your mind, sis?"
Belle looked at her nervously and tried to come up with some kind of answer, "Oh… it's, uh… It's nothing really, Alice…"
Alice rolled her eyes and sighed, "I don't know who's worse at lying: you or your fucking boyfriend."
Belle sighed as well, realizing she could not best her sister's observation skills, "Okay, fine… it was about Lance's match."
"Oh, your 1st Vice Captain?" she asked.
"Yes… Do you think that battle was… overly cruel?"
Alice recalled the match and then responded swiftly, "Yeah, it was. I was gonna ask, but you were lookin' kinda sad, so I just didn't. But it's already been well over, plus another match, and you still look that way. It's honestly annoying me, so that's why I'm asking about it."
"Sorry…" Belle said meekly.
"Again, sis, don't apologize if you don't mean it."
"Sorry…"
"Ugh… you're hopeless… to any case, I hope the other two Vice Captains of yours aren't like that as well… I get that you were just putting up a tough front when you were building the Golden Rose Knights, but now that the cat's out of the bag and you're openly dating Greed. Don't you think certain people are starting to lose respect for you?"
"Respect?" Belle retorted unashamedly, "Why would I care about such a thing when I have my Greed?"
"See, it's that right there. Ever since you got everything you could ever ask for, you gave everything else a total lack of regard. You don't even know why your 1st Vice Captain lashed out in his last match… I mean, Keeper, the sensory mages even began to step in; the only reason they didn't was because his opponent chose to surrender. I've seen Lance fight, too; he's not like that." Alice said.
"I just don't understand. The way he's been acting… It's like he wants me to be someone I'm not. And then forces, imposes praise onto me from the people of the Desert, and then that match…"
"Well… to the eyes of many, sis… You are the savior of the Valley. Period." Alice glanced off into the empty ring now as the ruckus of the Black Wolves filled the background noise. "And until Greed is ready for the Valley to know of his deeds, it's just something you're going to have to suck up."
Her ears perked at the words of her sister.
"At first," Alice went on, "I thought he was just making things complicated. That he was asking for too much by not taking the credit. But in reality, what's the struggle? You sit in the limelight like you always have, receiving praise and admiration, while he continues to eat blasphemy and have his name dragged in the mud. All so that the Valley's princess doesn't lose face… It's quite sweet actually."—her eyes shifted to Belle—"Then here you are making it complicated again, by proclaiming your love for him to the whole Valley… and he didn't even get mad at you for it. Of course, people are mad. Of course, your subordinates don't understand… It's like thinking you know someone your whole life, just for them to turn out to be someone completely different. The people don't know you anymore, and their eyes aren't just on you—they're on Greed as well. Asking 'why him?' Your proclamation of love was sweet to some, but without a story or basis for people to go with, it just doesn't make any sense to them. If anything, you just made his and your reputations more complicated than it has to be."
Belle was surprised by Alice's answer; she was usually disapproving and even complained about the way Greed was. But it seemed that ever since he saved her, again, from the Nightbanes—from Drakthor, her view of him was anything short of full allegiance to him.
"I'm impressed," Belle replied. "For once, you've bested me in a topic. And I have no words to say to you."
"For once?" Alice retorted. "For the record, I've wanted to say that to you since a month ago after you went out and said it, but I didn't know the right time. Now you're sitting there wondering what you did wrong, expecting the world to be perfect around you just because you changed. It doesn't work that way."
Belle smiled at her sister and patted her on the head, "You're right. Thank you my dear baby sister."
Alice blushed and smacked her hand off her head, "D-D-Don't think that sort of thing is gonna work on me! I-I'm just saying it how it is, is all…" she nervously said.
Belle giggled, then asked with a dainty index finger to her bottom lip, "So, if I'm understanding you correctly, the way Lance is acting is the result of my poor awareness of the situation at hand?"
"More or less," Alice replied after composing herself. "I also think he's got a major crush on you, and he's jealous of Greed."
Belle blinked and paused for but a moment, letting it sink in before responding, "He what!?"
"Oh, Keeper… don't tell me you were oblivious of that, too? Why else is he so bothered all the time with you? I'm with you almost all the time, sis. I don't just observe you and Captain, I observe how others act around you, too. And he is obviously head-over-heels for you since the beginning of the Golden Rose Knights' debut."
Alice went on, listing the facts as Belle tried to catch up. "That Zeno guy, too, one of Greed's close friends… in his last match, he kept looking at you almost the whole time."
"Uh… they're pretty far down, he could have been looking at anyone, or just in this general direction…"
"No." Alice said sternly, "He was looking at you. Do you not remember him? That's the guy who professed his love for you, and you turned him down like it was nothing! You were like 'Sorry… but my eyes are on someone else…' you said that, I was there!"
"Hmm… it doesn't ring a bell…" Belle said innocently.
"How heartless can you get!? At least remember the moment!"
"Also, why are you always spying on me? Are you some kind of creep?" Belle teased.
At this time, the sisters went back and forth with banter as the intermission had come up on its final minutes.
The announcer called out the names for the next match, "Thank you, Valley for your patience! With intermissions coming to a close, and the 2nd bracket about to commence, I would like to bring to the stage the next set of participants in this Valley Tournament!" everyone's ears perked, "Our first set of matches have ended for the 1st bracket of the three. Let's recap…"
Right then, the projection screens changed channels, and a recapped video of the previous matches came into view. But during this time, unbeknownst at the time, in different sections of the audience, quiet vanishings were taking place…
When Brand had woken up, he had witnessed one of these vanishings happen just next to him. His eyes glowed, marking the instance. What happened there? He thought.
The same had occurred with the Golden Rose Section. One of Belle's five Execs, Metal, had noticed a vanishing as well with his keen senses.
Across from them, on the other side of the colosseum, another vanishing occurred by the Purple Panthers. Captain Tubolt was the one who noticed.
All of it seemed to be a coincidence, as it happened near just about every Guild present…
***
Back in the hallways of the Warriors' Keep, a female of the Silver Sharks, Marley, was panting after having slipped away from her team. She lurked in the shadows as her Vice Captain, Snow, was searching for her after finding the bed she had been recovering in, empty…
"Marley?" Snow shouted. But she didn't respond as she hid behind a pillar in the hallway.
"Otto, have you seen Marley? I turn my back for one minute, and she's gone."
"No idea," Otto said flatly. He wore a coat-jacket like Snow's, but his whole body was wrapped in bandages. The only part of him that wasn't was his eyes and brown, medium messy hair.
Marley's blue bob-cut bounced as she turned away and proceeded into the dark.
***
Within the dark hallways, a slender figure appeared from the light of the few torches that were spaced out evenly ahead of her. The blue mock-neck bodysuit she wore stopped at her mid-thigh and was sleeveless, revealing a touch of her breasts from both sides. Her oversized Silver Sharks coat-jacket hung just off her shoulders, carried by her arms as her black combat boots buckled with each step she took.
She stopped just as the shadows at her feet split into four different angles around her. Her soft, pink colored eyes stared intensely into the darkness before her.
"I had a feeling it was you… but I wanted to confirm for myself before I pull my team with me and they end up missing their matches…" she said as her dangling silver shark earrings chimed and sparkled from the crackle of flames.
There was no response from the darkness as she spoke into it.
She spoke again, "No answer, huh? You know I can read minds, right?"
Marley was a Clairvoyant mage. Her magic—otherwise known as Mindwave magic—can only read one mind at a time and within a thirty yard radius. If she needed to go from one target to the other, her magic needed at least a four minute rest time in order to jump from one mind to the next. Though, once the rest has been applied, she was able to hop back to the minds she previously entered at will; she can do this as many times as needed once per day. And even if she was to enter their mind, she needed to be able to overpower their mental shields without being noticed. If she could not, then she was kicked out. Much like over a month ago at the Kingdom's Guild Meeting, she had attempted to enter all the minds in the room as precaution, but she was only able to enter less than half the room—Snow's and Greed's included. When she tried to enter Syemore's and his subordinates' she was instantly rejected—perhaps due to some form of Forbidden magic auto-cast to protect their minds. It was a handy ability if the enemy was not actively protecting their thoughts or on weaker foes, and during battle against an opponent that already knew her abilities, she needed to resort to other methods.
"Your thoughts are louder here than back there. Whether you answer or not. I got what I came here for. I just wanted to catch you red-handed." She said as she pulled out two taser-like guns from behind her; the guns cackled wickedly as the sparks traced the ground from release.
"I wasn't fighting seriously in the last round… I don't care to impress others, but I do care about integrity. These guns are infused with Paralysis magic and when they fire they cover a wide range as well as travel up to thirty-two-point-two kilometers in less than four seconds—just one of these is an S rank magic weapon… and I have two. We're also in a hallway…"—she whipped both guns in front of her and the surrounding area ignited with spark flashes, reaching the walls and ceiling of this hallway—"there's absolutely nowhere for you to run—"
Marley was interrupted by a loud scream. She grimaced unpleasantly, refusing to shift away from her target, and she only closed her eyes for a second, but that was all that was needed for whoever she was talking to, to rush over to her and catch her off guard…
The only sound that followed was the flutter of flames from the torches on the walls. And Marley… gone entirely.
***
Back up in the colosseum, the announcer had just finished his recap from the 1st bracket of matches.
"Now continuing on, we will be commencing the 2nd bracket of matches! Picking up where Zeno of the Purple Panthers," cheers from all except his Guild… "and Rowen of the Green Owls left off! Our first contender will be, Polaris from the Forest Kingdom!" a wide, renowned applause for this established man from all across the colosseum, "and his opponent…"
Her emerald eyes hid as she yawned excessively; squeezed-out tears formed from behind her eyelids at her stretch. Her short black hair waiving as the green ombre revealed for but a short moment from within her fur hood, and she hunched over afterward. Her thick green dragon tail whipped once at the delight of finally cracking that knot in her back.
The announcer's voice echoed through as he finally called her name to the ring, "JoAnne of the Black Wolves!"
When she heard her name, she felt nothing but animosity at the sound and completion of it in her heavily pierced ears,
"Fucking Keeper… why did he have to say my full name…"