Chapter Three
Inside the arena, Lystra was ushered towards a high-rise tower, where she sat on a velvet seat alone, the clear center of attention for the crowd. The purple-clad announcer paced around the arena, yelling through a sound amplifier.
“Today, we have a princess from Porak Kingdom! And I must say, the lineup this year for the brawl’s looking fantastic! We have no less than eighteen competitors this year!” Cheers rang out from his speech. “Just as well we have the room for it! It might get messy!”
The crowd cheered again, with some of the monsters on the stands jumping up and down. Now that Lystra got a better view of the crowd, she spotted a disproportionate amount of monsters, from ogres to goblins to trolls, all sitting next to dragon shifters, all of them clearly happy to be there. Witch servers went from row to row, giving out snacks and beverages, keeping morale strong.
Eighteen dragons strolled out from a dark, portcullis-shadowed corridor in the arena, all of them in their full dragon attires. Colors ranged from all shades of the rainbow, along with mud and monotone combinations. Rarer still were the two- and three-shaded dragon color palettes. Only one dragon displayed this palette – pink and purple and white, and the crowd gave this one an extra loud cheer.
“We even have a female competitor this year! Take a look at Karley, what a beautiful set of colors on her, wow…” The commentator was clearly besotted with Karley’s color pattern, and the crowd laughed as he danced up in front of Karley, who blew him a kiss through her teeth. The announcer let out a shy chuckle, puffing his chest out impressively and preening his dark brown hair.
Lystra spotted Tarek fourth from the end, the deepest red color out of all the dragons, as if dipped in blood, or bathed in the rays of a dying sun. He wasn’t even originally going to enter this competition. He would have quite cheerfully dumped her here and left her to be fought over by the other dragons. Why didn’t I keep my big mouth shut? I’m an idiot. I don’t want to be with a perverted dragon!
The dragons all faced each other in a wide circle, a ten-meter gap between each one. Their tails swished in calculation. Lystra wondered what would happen if they all started blasting fire. Would the stands melt? Or did they have some kind of enchantment that protected the audience? Probably that. Most of the dragons glanced up to her as they waited, and she noticed the disturbingly long stare from Tarek, and a possible smirk on his scaly lips. Please lose. Please lose.
The announcer crawled into a tower of his own, lower than Lystra’s, and he wiped sweat off his nose before taking a deep, air-snatching breath, and bellowing into the amplifier, “You all know the rules! When your health bracelet breaks, that means you’ve lost the fight. On my count of three, the match will begin! May the best dragon win, and claim his or her reward of our riveting princess, waiting demurely in the tower!”
Demurely? Lystra didn’t feel very demure, but at the thousands of eyes feasting upon her once more, she figured she may as well put on a show. That was what she’d been trained for. She stood up from her seat, and gave a royal curtsy. The crowd burst into tumultuous cheers.
“One. Two. THREE! GO!” The commentator screeched hoarsely into the amplifier, and the dragons charged at one another. Several tried sideways charges instead, tripping their opponents off balance. Three, like Tarek, loitered on the outside of the brawl, not bothering to fight.
Eighteen health bars flashed on a magical screen, maintained by a bored illusion mage above them. Everyone in the arena could see the bars if they glanced up to the sky, where the screen obscured the clouds, fully black with green health bars that ticked away with each accumulated damage.
Immediately, the personalities and fighting styles of the dragons became clear. You had the reckless, strong and fiery ones who had launched themselves straight into battle, either fighting several opponents at once, or deliberately seeking out opponents. Then there were the exploiters, who only fought when they saw another dragon had engaged, making it two-on-one fights. Others picked on smaller dragons, and the three on the outskirts merely watched the battle, keeping themselves at a far enough distance to not make it worthwhile to charge at, lest their attackers got harassed from behind.
There were cheers and boos, and the announcer spoke so fast into his amplifier, Lystra had a hard time following, so instead made her own observations of the match. She should have expected that Tarek wouldn’t be reckless. His original choice to stay out of the match confirmed that mentality.
The health bracelets were a clean, safe way to fight. It seemed that every slash, bite and pillar of fire that bathed the dragons was instead inflicted upon the health bracelet – a buffer against damage. When a bracelet broke, it made an audible clang sound, like cymbals clashing, and the loser trailed out of the arena in shame, dejection, or pride for having lasted so long.
As expected, the super aggressive ones fell first. Unfortunately, the exploiters survived longer, until some of the dragons formed temporary alliances to ring out the exploiters. A few chose to chase after a dragon creeping on the outside, who merely ran from them. Finally, Tarek needed to engage with someone who had already had most of his health battered down, so it only took him a few swipes to shatter it. He barely sustained any damage. To Lystra’s horror, she realized that Tarek might actually win if he kept this up.
Seven dragons now existed on the field. All but one of the super aggressive ones had been cleaned out – and the last reckless charger had aligned himself with a yellow-scaled exploiter. Tarek kept moving himself out of the field of vision of the fighters, before launching himself at a weakened dragon who had tried to flee combat. Taking him down, he then reared up and gestured furiously to the aggressive fighter, grabbing the attention of the dragons advancing on him. A moment later, Tarek had two allies, and they tore into the aggressor and exploiter, who were battering down Karley by attacking her from two sides.
Despite herself, Lystra had to admire Tarek’s cool combat acumen, even though she saw the crowd acted less favourably to that style of fighting, and instead roared their approval of the reckless, powerful fighters.
He’s improving his chances of victory. He’s accessing threats. He’s not an exploiter like the others. He’s a lurker. A late game contender. Drat. She was really getting into this, wasn’t she? She hated herself for it, but still watched on the edge of her seat anyway, her heart pounding the blood around her body as the brawl unfolded.
The four versus two fight turned into a three versus two as Karley’s bracelet broke, then two versus two as one of Tarek’s allies was forced out of the battle. Now Tarek’s patience proved strong, because he collectively had the most health out of all of them there – and his ally seemed unwilling to switch sides against him, perhaps not registering this fact.
One versus two. The yellow exploiter snarled his annoyance as the bracelet broke.
Finally, the black-scaled, reckless dragon’s bracelet broke, much to the groans of the crowd. Karley’s damage from earlier came in handy – she had managed to chip off a fifth of the reckless one’s health by herself before being ousted.
Now Tarek faced his former ally, who had taken the brunt of the damage against the aggressor. The blue dragon let out a snarl and charged at Tarek, and the red dragon smashed into him with brutal ferocity.
The blue dragon’s bracelet shattered with the sound of cymbals.
When it was just down to two versus one, he should have switched sides and gone on Tarek. Idiot, Lystra thought. Tarek still had around half of his health bracelet left, and he stood up on his hind legs, basking in the cheers of the crowd as the announcer screamed his victory.
Meanwhile, Lystra sat frozen in her seat, her heart having braked to an ungainly stop. The bastard had actually won.
She groaned and placed her head in her hands.