With two fists, she bundled his shirt at the collar and forearm, ripping him sideways and attempting a trip. Sidestepping, Mason avoided her swinging foot, breaking the grip on his collar by rolling his arm around hers and popping it away. Brianna fought for the grip back, leaping forward with her power into him, and he deflected to let her momentum carry her past him.
“Look, their powers are so weak, they’re fighting like Regulars!” jeered Blake from the Upper stands. The students clustered around him laughed. But below, Brianna and Mason continued to struggle, their actions seeming to flow from memory rather than from panic. From the outer edge of the arena, Instructor Cane watched, nodding in approval once Brianna secured a hold on Mason’s collar again.
And this time, he had no chance to break it.
Brianna sidestepped once, then turned, swinging her hip into him as she dragged his leg over her own outstretched thigh, forcing his front heel to leave the ground for an instant. Dropping, she twisted, pulling his body over hers in a throw that arced his ankles high above until they smacked against the dirt, following his back, which struck just a fraction of a second earlier. He gasped as the breath left his lungs and Brianna oriented herself on top on him, her hand forming a fist and descending in a punch that carried her entire weight.
Without hesitation, she struck the center of his throat, her aim to cut off his windpipe in the kill stroke.
But the fist never made it to the target – instead, it glanced away against a shimmer of light as the guard keeping her score outstretched a hand. There, just above Mason’s throat, a tiny force field had formed, existing just at the edge of our vision from where we sat in the bleachers. Then her guard reached a hand to the score, flipping the number from zero to one.
The force field dissipated just as Siri’s finger pressed the buzzer once more, causing Brianna to roll away. Then they both made their way back to their sides of the arena, their chests rising and falling with exertion, and prepared to start again.
Chapter 42
The score was three to one when Brianna dealt her last blow, a strike to the back of Mason’s spine as he stumbled over in a mixture of exhaustion and defeat, wincing away from the assault instead of raising an arm to block. When she stepped away, he gasped on the dirt, mud sliding down the right side of his face, his shirt torn from Brianna’s whirling throws. His hair was plastered down not from sweat, but from where Brianna had held him underwater, her fingers clasped directly behind his head as bubbles surged up around him in the stream in the center of the arena.
That had been more powerful than any physical blow – for an Aquatic, water was home, a sanctuary. In higher powers, some even had working gills. But for Mason, his power was so weak that, even in his element, he faced defeat – and in the final round, it was more embarrassment than lack of skill that finished him off.
When they returned to their section, the next bout started, populated with two more Bottoms with equally as weak powers and resorting to the same Regular-based tactics as Brianna. I frowned as one reenacted the same motion as when she earned her first point, performing a perfect mirror of her twisting throw and following up with a similar strike to the throat.
In the Upper section, Blake’s jeers grew louder until one in particular caught on in a chant that erupted every time a Bottom started to form an advantage, the sound surprisingly loud for the few students occupying the stands around him.
“Who needs a Regular when you have a good Ass!” they shouted as the nearest Averages smiled, though the expression appeared on none who had an upcoming bout with a Bottom. Then the second Bottom match finished with a score of three to two, the final point more luck than skill, and both left equally as ragged from the encounter. The third Bottom match began, lasting only half as long as the previous, the two attacking each other in a flurry with such ferocity that all powers were forgotten and animalistic instincts took over. And when that fight finished, bite marks and scratches were as visible from the stands as the light behind Siri’s eyes.
“Bout four!” announced Siri. Quiet rushed over the stands as dozens of eyes turned to the Average waiting below and several hands clapped against the Bottom’s back who rose to meet him. They were both the same: same tall body type and size, both male and lanky, and both walked stiffly to their positions at the opposite ends of the arena.
But only one of the faces showed fear. Anthony, the Average, with the power of wind.
Against Slugger, the Momentive.
“I’m pretty surprised they made him a Bottom initially,” whispered Lucio, careful not to shatter the silence as Anthony and Slugger looked to Siri, who was conversing with the guards. “Used to play pick up baseball with him in the old lot behind the train station – with a swing like his, we used to joke that he could hit the ball farther than the next stop. I was never any good, but people seemed to forget that when picking teams.”
“It’s because for a Momentive, he’s pretty low-powered,” answered Darian, his whisper doing little to conceal his own voice. “From what I’ve seen, he has to have direct contact with objects to affect them. Takes away a lot of possibilities.”
“You haven’t seen enough of him yet, then,” countered Lucio, barely containing the excitement in his voice. “His nickname applies to more than baseball. My bet is he probably gave some lip to Siri and she sandbagged him.”
Siri turned from the judges, and Slugger spoke up from his end of the arena, shaking out curls of red hair as he leaned against a foot-thick concrete pole obstacle, one similar to those found in parking garages to prevent cars from entering certain sections.
“Oi!” he shouted, straightening and bouncing back and forth inside his circle, holding up his fists in a mock fighting stance. “We about to get started here? I’m through with cleaning the jacks, and this is going to be good craic! Anthony, don’t look so nervous, lad! Yer lookin’ like you’ve never traded fists! Only hurts bad for a second.”
Anthony turned bright red, rolling his neck as he avoided eye contact, and Siri pursed her lips at Slugger. The crowd leaned forward as her hand hovered above the buzzer, particularly Wendy, who had moved to the front of the Average section, her knees bouncing in anticipation and sending rhythmic waves throughout the stands. From across the aisle in the Upper section, Connor looked from her to Anthony, and a chorus of boos sounded as Anthony managed to wave to the bystanders.
Then the buzzer sounded, and the fight began.
In all fights up until this point, powers had acted as accents to physical techniques. Brianna, with her jumping ability, had been able to enhance her throwing skills, but the finishing strikes had always been the result of a more Regular-style fighting. In other Bottom fights, the same pattern had occurred where powers helped the combatants but never seemed to play a major role.
But for this fight, the dynamics shifted, made apparent in the first ten seconds as Slugger pushed against the pole obstacle he had been leaning against, likely testing its rigidity, and yanked it from the earth as if it was a twig. He swung the metal and concrete pylon above his head, laughing with each revolution, the whooshing sound reaching us in the stands as it carved a path through the air.
“Slugger O’Sullivan steps up to the plate!” he shouted, dancing forward with short stuttering steps. “The fans have been waiting for this stink all off-season, for the prodigy of the playoffs to return! And the pitcher winds up, it’s gonna a fast one, a real fireball, and Slugger swings!”
He whipped the concrete pole forward, stepping forward and throwing his weight into the motion.
“And it’s a hit outta the park!” he bellowed, launching the pole forwards as he released it, the rotating mass whirling directly towards a wide-eyed and frozen Anthony, who had yet to move at the arena's opposite end.
Chapter 43
Anthony reacted when the pole was halfway across the arena, as the collective audience was holding their breath. Raising both his hands, he screamed, the sound more fitting for someone several years
younger, and a blast of wind coursed past him to pummel the flying object.
It was a desperate move, one of instinct rather than thought. For no matter how powerful his wind was, the pole was concrete, and its course would only be altered a few inches. The action should have been ineffective, like trying to stop a semi truck with a ping pong ball.
But instead, the wind caught the pole like a leaf, throwing it off course and slamming it into a far wall, where it fell to the ground without even chipping the paint.
“What the Hell?” said Lucio as the crowd gasped, and Anthony’s face showed the same level of disbelief.
“Don’t you ever study?” huffed Darian.
“I consider the ripest fruits of knowledge to be delivered by life, not books.”
“Or you can’t read,” countered Darian. “Did you plant the idea you can tell vowels from consonants in my head too?”
“If you had studied,” I said, cutting them off, “you would know that Momentives can change the mass of objects. Slugger made the pole lighter to throw it – if he had been a higher power, he would be able to change the mass back after the throw. But since he can’t, it looks like it just reverts back over time.”
“So what was the point of throwing it, then?” persisted Lucio, his eyebrows scrunching together. “Wouldn’t it just feel like getting hit with a twig, or—”
“That,” interrupted Darian, pointing below.
Anthony had stumbled back with the force of his torrent and had nearly recovered by squaring his feet. But racing down the left of the field at full speed was Slugger, tossing obstacles from his path as if they were made of paper, dirt spraying up from behind him with each step, and streaking like a bullet towards Anthony.
Anthony shrieked when he looked upwards, seeing Slugger’s fists raised, and ducked under an initial blow before sprinting down the left side. Slugger was faster, but Anthony’s head start carried him halfway to the other side before he could turn to pursue.
“Get back here, ya gimp!” Slugger shouted when Anthony zig-zagged around him again and took off back towards his original starting point. “I’ll make it quick!”
“Don’t you come closer!” yelled Anthony, stopping, the two facing each other with twenty feet between them, and the crowd booed again.
“Oh, that’s grand, just grand,” laughed Slugger, and launched himself forward. “We’re not here to chat, lad.”
Anthony raised his hands, directing a torrent of wind to blast against Slugger and pushing himself backwards. But Slugger plowed forward, his feet creating trenches in the soil, lowering his head as strands of red hair whipped around his ears. He grit his teeth, his progress slow but controlled as Anthony retreated toward the back of the arena, and Slugger was careful to box him in this time from the center to prevent an escape.
Then Anthony’s back foot reached the painted line that was at the edge of the arena and he balked, pinwheeling his arms to maintain balance, while Slugger launched himself into an attack to take advantage of the momentary weakness.
But as soon as Slugger’s feet left the ground, Anthony panicked, changing the direction of the torrent in a sideswipe that caught Slugger in midair, buffeting his body left before he could recover traction. The wind howled and Slugger cartwheeled over the row of granite stones, trying to catch one as a handhold, but his fingernails only left smudges against the rock, and he toppled out of the arena, onto the gym floor.
The buzzer sounded as Slugger stood and shook the dirt off of him, and Anthony released a smile mixed with relief and disbelief.
“Point one for fleeing the arena!” announced Siri as one of the guards adjusted the score.
“Come on, you’re going to let that pass?” Slugger retorted to Siri, and her eyes flashed as the crowd booed.
“Competitors will return to the starting position,” she said, the ice in her voice cutting off the crowd's reaction. “Or forfeit the next point.”
“Grand, just grand,” he exclaimed, his voice exasperated as he threw his hands in the air but walked around the outside of the arena to his original end, and twisted his torso in a stretch as he waited for the buzzer. And this time, when Anthony took up his position, the fear had left his expression.
Then round two began, and Slugger started to walk towards the center while Anthony maintained his ground, waiting, rolling his wrists as Slugger advanced. And once Slugger reached halfway, Anthony struck.
First the wind howled from the right, but Slugger dug in, refusing to let it drag him outside the arena again, bracing his muscles against the force as his shirt flapped around him like a sail. Then the direction of the wind changed, crashing in from the left and nearly toppling Slugger, halting his advance but failing to knock him off balance and outside the arena once more.
For a full minute, Anthony pummeled him with currents and Slugger absorbed them, his muscles bulging while sweat poured down Anthony’s forehead, both of them wearing down but neither letting up ground. Then Slugger shouted, his voice carrying above the wind, frustration biting into his words.
“Oi, so that’s how you’ll play?” he yelled, the spittle from his mouth flying back into his face. “Fleeing instead of fighting? Might as well get this over with, then. Last I remembered, only two of the three points can be scored from leaving the arena.”
He darted left and jumped, sailing past the out-of-the-bounds line and landing in a crouch.
“And now that that’s done,” he continued, his voice calm now that the wind had died away, and Anthony’s mouth hung slightly open. “Let’s begin.”
Then he turned to the guard at the table and tilted an imaginary hat.
“Two to zero, lad; you’ll be wanting to fix that.”
Chapter 44
When the buzzer sounded, Slugger reached down and gathered two fistfuls of dirt, holding each at waist height. The muscles in his arms strained when he moved forwards, the steps short and deliberate instead of the running leaps from earlier, his feet sinking deeper into the earth.
And when Anthony started building up currents of wind once more, Slugger gripped the dirt tighter before continuing to walk through the storm.
“Clever,” said Lucio, his two feet resting on the bleacher in front of him, the student ahead of him casting back an annoyed look. “Weighing himself down with the dirt. Why doesn’t he just make his body heavier or something? That’s easy enough for me at lunch!”
“When you can’t pass Linns’ class, don’t try to cheat off me,” remarked Darian, speaking over the howl. “That was literally the first thing we learned about Momentives, that they can’t change the mass of their own body. It’s how you can tell one is approaching you – they’ll often have on knuckle wraps or gloves to make their punches land, or be holding a non-traditional weapon.”
“See? That’s interesting. You should try that more often, Darian! We need to find a good Comic for you to mimic. I could use some laughs. In the meantime, you and SC need to pick up the slack on the joke telling.”
“SC is already busy plan making,” Darian said, turning his eyes back to the fight. “Or he should be. There will be plenty of time for jokes when we get out.”
“That’s right,” I mumbled as the fight below progressed. “But one step at a time. Let’s get to Upper first.”
I swallowed, watching as Slugger cornered Anthony, packed the dirt in his hand into a ball of mud, and wound up like a pitcher on the mound. Then he threw the makeshift baseball directly at Anthony, stumbling over with the force of the fastball, but managing to create a trajectory that ended with Anthony’s solar plexus. And thrown just hard enough to sting, had it been a regular mud ball.
“Ooooomph,” gasped Anthony when the projectile connected, driving the wind from his lungs as he flew backwards, his gangly arms and legs struggling to keep up with his torso that appeared to be hit with a wrecking ball. Ten feet he flew backwards, easily clearing the edge of the arena, and toppling onto the ground as a heaving and crumpled mass, a hand clutched
over his heart as he stared upwards.
The buzzer sounded and Slugger walked forward, extending a hand to Anthony from above.
“Lad, get up. This has gone on long enough, dontcha think? Come on, t’was just a bit of dirt.”
“Contestants will return to their starting positions,” commanded Siri, pursing her lips, but Slugger ignored her.
Anthony shook his head, and Slugger reached down to take his wrist, pulling him to his feet and clapping him on the back once.
“Lighten up; let’s either make this quick or fun, shall we?”
“Contestants will return to their starting positions,” repeated Siri, this time in a singsong voice that made the crowd above stir, but Slugger rolled his eyes.
“Cut that out, Miss!” he retorted, shaking out his hair and cracking his neck. “Going as fast as my wee legs will take me, and they’re longer than most!”
Shock flashed over Siri’s face, then was gone in an instant, her expression turning as conservative as the blue suit she wore, and the muscles in her neck tightening. Then the next round started and was over in under a minute, Slugger aiming a punch at Anthony’s face that was so strong that the protective force field lit up with a flash sparks when it connected to his fist. And when he prepared for the final round, the final strike to end the match, Siri turned to whisper in one of the guard’s ears.
“And now, for the grand finale, the bottom of the ninth!” shouted Slugger when the buzzer sounded, and he picked up one of the car door obstacles, holding it above his head. “Truly a one-sided game, but Slugger will not let his fans down! No, he’ll leave with a grand slam, a nail in the coffin! And a warning to future challengers!”
Star Child: Places of Power Page 14
