Star Born | Featured

FOUR || Swoons & So-long's

Soundtrack: Victory from Two Steps from Hell

Metal bleachers towered over the gleaming dueling circle, marking out a circle no more than ten feet in diameter. The judges' table stood near one end of the circle, three steel chairs poking out from the metal legs.

Carmen stumbled into the dueling circle as the crowd surged forwards, suffocating her in a cloud of sweat and muscle, thundering up the bleachers with deafening shrieks and roars. Stretching two-hundred feet in both length and width, the hall glared with harsh white light, black lines severing the floor into halves and quarters.

"Don't tell anyone I said this." Carmen yelped as Casper's warm breath brushed her ear. "But I hope you win."

She whipped around, staring at him.

"Don't take it easy on me."

"Oh, don't worry," said Casper, eyes gleaming. "I won't."

"Are you ready?" Juvia crossed into the circle, and Casper stepped away from Carmen. "The first person to pin down his opponent wins."

Carmen and Casper nodded, eyes honing in on one another.

Juvia strode out of the ring, joining Gavin at the judges' table. "Then you may begin."

Immediately, Carmen charged forwards, Juvia's blade clashing with Casper's as he swung his rapier upwards. She gasped as his blade struck hers, sending her stumbling backwards.

He's strong. But not very fast.

Feinting to her right, Carmen darted forwards, her blade clanging off Casper's as he ducked to meet her sword. This time, prepared for his strength, she lunged back to her right, her rapier cutting clean through his cotton trousers. Blood splattered the polished floor of the circle as the crowd rumbled, gasps punctuating hisses of anger.

Carmen ducked as Casper stabbed at her, grinning as energy swept through her body. With a series of blinding slashes, she pressed forwards. Casper parried each one; she dodged his blade and aimed for his legs again but with a vicious kick, his foot struck the hilt of her sword, wrenching it from her grasp.

Carmen gasped as she hurtled backwards with the blade, rolling over her shoulder as she dodged Casper's next attack. His blade whirled through the air as he lunged at her; she dodged him, scrabbling across the floor, the nauseating tang of blood suffocating her senses.

Casper lunged forwards and she rolled away, one hand closing over the hilt of her rapier before slashing it upwards. He dodged her strike and kicked downwards, catching her in the right shoulder. The crowd roared as she hissed, barely dodging Casper's next merciless slashes.

Her breaths came in gasps as her muscles throbbed with fatigue; she was tiring. With a desperate blur of metal, she slashed forwards, catching the cotton of his tunic before his own blade shot downwards, steel burning through blood.

Carmen hissed, jerking back from Casper as he lunged forwards. Warmth stained the left leg of her pants, blood a gruesome ink across the fabric. She spun forwards on her right leg, blade clashing off Casper's. A gasp burst from her lips as he pressed against her side, twisting his leg around hers, and corkscrewed his hilt around her pommel. Too late, she realized what he was doing.

Her rapier glinted as it hurled into the air; the crowd screamed as it clanged to the ground. Carmen whipped around—two hands shoved against her chest—the world spun away in a blur of black and gray and white and—

Pain exploded through her mouth as blood, warm and thick, spewed from her lips. She gasped as she rolled away, lunging towards her blade. With one stroke, Casper struck it out of the circle, sending it spinning below the bleachers.

Hissing, Carmen scrambled to her feet, the room spinning in nauseating circles around her. She lunged directly at his legs as his eyes widened, a splutter of shock escaping his lips. The crowd roared, the sound more savage than the jungle outside, as she tackled him to the ground.

He kneed her in the chin; gasping, she spewed out a mouthful of blood as she tore the blade away from his hands, metal flashing through the air as she staggered backwards. The crowd shrieked as Casper rolled backwards over his shoulder into an upright position, as Carmen stumbled to her feet, hands clutching Casper's rapier.

A grin shot across Casper's lips as his eyes flickered to the sword in her hands. Scarlet speckles of blood foamed around his mouth, mottled bruises welling up near his jaw.

"Nice."

She smiled. "I try."

He shot forwards, and she lunged to the side, shoving him away. Casper staggered to the ground as she lunged forwards, pinning him down.

But before the blade could touch his throat, Casper's hands closed around its handle, his eyes flashing. Carmen hissed, wrenching it away; the rapier slashed through the air, ripping through Casper's skin as he collapsed, hands flying to his cheek.

A thin scarlet streak ran from the base of his neck to his collarbone, blood miniscule ruby beads shimmering atop white skin.

And Carmen pressed the rapier against his throat.

The crowd roared, deafening her with its cheers.

"She wins!" Juvia's voice rang out above all others. "Carmen Esmaier wins!"

Carmen staggered away from Casper, nausea serving her two blows in the stomach as her fingers probed the reopened cut on her cheek.

"Congratulations." Casper lurched to his feet, wincing as he touched the wound on his neck.

Carmen grinned, pain shooting up her jaw. "Were you taking it easy on me?"

"No. But you still have much to learn, Carmen. Almost too much."

The crowd's cheers and roars drowned out the ominous echoes of his words. A gasp fluttered from Carmen's lips as his fingers found hers, strong and steady, as he lifted her hand into the air.

"Citizens of Terra, here is your champion!"

Screams. Shrieks. Hoots. Her eyes searched the crowd, and more than one hostile gaze returned them.

A woman. A sixteen-year-old who showed up late to the tournament.

Some of them hated her. No, not just some.

Most.

Right now, trapped within the adoring cheers of the crowd, she was in more danger than she'd been in a half hour previously.

Right now, she was the object of admiration, of envy, of hatred.

But right now, she had a planet to serve.

She turned to Casper, allowing herself a slight grin as she realized how often she'd dreamed about this in her youth, about her childhood hero clasping her hand, hoisting it into the air.

"When are we leaving?" she asked. "For Astra?"

Casper raised an eyebrow, returning her grin with an equally excited one. One of a friend, an admirer. The best type of hero.

"We depart tomorrow," he said. "That is, if your guardian will sign the release papers."

Carmen blinked.

Guardian.

She had no time to address the dread curdling within her stomach, thick and sour.

She yelped as, with a bang, the main door slammed open, revealing a daintily-clad blonde atop the threshold, hands curled into fists, steely eyes stabbing straight through Carmen.

"Carmen Esmaier," hissed Aunt Esther. "You are coming home right now."