Ravens of Eternity

134 Orsethii Reborn, Pt Cries of victory and loud cheers erupted from all around the arena. The anti-human section was especially celebratory after seeing Eva take the massive hit. Some were already ecstatically chanting “Crush The Ape” in absolute unison, over and over.

Eva’s vision blurred as she fought to stay conscious. Her mind raced as she tried to push her body to stand up. She felt her blood pounding all around her skull as her head throbbed with pain.

She did her best to focus on her opponent, but she was far too frazzled. All that she could tell was that Orsethii was severely out of breath, but was slowly advancing towards her many meters away.

Her right eye stung, and when she reached to ease it, found it slick with some sort of viscous liquid. So she kept it squinted, though it was painful to do.

Blood, she reasoned. Left’s okay, at least.

As her wits slowly spun back into place, she realized that the Drogar had performed what Pelli did to her long ago. That quick speed-up he and his friends had discovered that he was so adamant about keeping secret...

Eva had since come to realize that it was merely the rough version of her Ascendant Form, uncontrolled and uncoordinated. Just a massive push of energy into every part of the body. It was a great attack, but expended every bit of stamina to do it.

And it was a waste. Self-control was the key. Not everything needed full power, only some systems. Musculature, eyesight, respiration, balance, nerves.

Everything else in her body could simply wait.

.....

Regardless, she realized this was her only chance to end the fight. If she didn’t get up, Orsethii was going to break her in half. She might’ve been well over a dozen meters away, but right now every second counted. Eva screamed at herself to push past the dizziness, but both her mind and body were uncooperative.

Get up, get up, getthefuckup! No... Breathe.

She calmed herself down and slowed her heart on purpose, then breathed in slowly. The stale arena air was heavy with the scent of fresh blood. The particles of raw iron embedded within the blood swam through her system, and invigorated her just a little. Then with a hard exhale, she heaved herself up off the ground.

And with breaths hot and heavy, Eva slowly pulled herself together.

Orsethii stumbled back slightly when she saw Eva push herself off the ground. With breaths hard and ragged, she pushed herself towards Eva. With her stamina at rock-bottom, it was tough for her to gain any kind of speed.

But she was recovering. And with Eva teetering on the edge, she didn’t need much to score the win. She took step after step towards her opponent, each one a little faster than the last.

Eva clambered to her feet and attempted to get into a defensive stance, but her body simply wouldn’t listen. She felt as though she had been on a bender, and was too drunk to stay upright. Her limbs seemed heavy as lead and impossible to keep steady.

She had suffered a hell of a hit. All she saw was red, and her DI’s warnings flashed to match. It said something about lacerations, blood loss, cranial damage, and so on. But it was too much for Eva, and she waved off all the alerts. She had bigger problems to deal with.

Then she realized that her blade had fallen out of her hand.

Eva scanned the sand for her blade and spotted it roughly five meters away. Just beyond it was Orsethii and her ever-increasing charge. Equally problematic was the fact that the ring’s edge was right behind her. She knew that the next move she had to make needed to be the right one.

If she didn’t... well, she preferred not to think about that.

Her mind was still reeling, and her body was uncooperative. She knew deep down that she had suffered a massive concussion. How could she not? That Drogar put everything she had into that strike.

How she was still even alive was a goddamn miracle.

She could simply step backwards, concede the fight, and live another day. That would’ve been easy as hell. Just try again next cycle. Nothing lost, nothing gained, right?

Her detractors would’ve certainly been happy to see her fall, but the rest of the team would have to eat that loss.

Eva realized there was only one thing to do. She stepped forward and knelt down on one knee. Then she closed her eyes, began her meditation, and activated her Ascendant Form.

She looked deep within herself and immediately went to see what she could do about her head. No way could she fight if she was concussed.

All her systems were blaring at her in high alert – entire sectors of her operating intelligence was damaged, and a few million neurons were knocked out of sync with the rest of her body. Internal communications network disrupted. Bone armor fractured. Blood loss. Contusions. Failure imminent.

“Focus!” she screamed at herself.

Eva’s whole body stood still for a sliver of a moment and soft-rebooted her systems. Her mind flashed as it quickly reset and recalibrated itself. And in the next few slivers of time, the world cleared up once again. At least for now. But all she needed was just a few moments.

And as she meditated, Orsethii’s stumbles turned into a sprint, then increased into a run.

Eva then used a good chunk of her energy to very quickly stitch together any parts of her fractured skull and lacerated brain. Not that she dwelled on it – she quickly set her repair to auto through her subconscious processes and tossed a little power to take care of it.

Then, with little under a third of her stamina left, she poured everything she had through her musculature and shot forward with blinding speed.

She didn’t have time for dances or fancy footwork. She needed to take down her opponent quickly and efficiently and without hesitation. So she sped across and closed the distance in the blink of an eye. She grabbed her blade along the way, then rushed straight towards her opponent.

Orsethii looked like she was taking a light jog in comparison to Eva’s overwhelming speed. Because of the disparity, the Drogar’s vitals were wide open and ripe for exploitation. And because her stamina was still recovering, there was little she could do to defend herself.

With breaths heavy and hard but even, Eva used up the very last ounce of her stamina to spin all around Orsethii with a devastating dance. With every step she took, she slashed and severed her opponent’s most critical tendons – inner elbow, armpits, behind her knees, and both of her achilles tendons.

She had even gone for her wrists as well, but Orsethii’s gauntlets were ridiculously thick, so her blades only left scratches.

For everyone else, Eva was little more than a blur of glowing lavender light. In one moment, she was kneeling down at the edge of the ring, and in the next, she was next to Orsethii over half a dozen meters away. But with a blade in her hand.

The entire arena was stunned in absolute silence. They were unable to process what they just saw, not even in the slightest. Everyone’s eyes were wide and their jaws were agape.

Orsethii screamed into the air as the pain of her new cuts hit her all at once. And with all of her tendons cut, she was unable to support her own weight. She fell with a pained groan onto the sand, and was almost completely helpless against Eva.

Drained of all her stamina, an utterly exhausted Eva fell to one knee. Her breathing was extremely rough, and she visibly heaved with each breath. She planted a trembling arm on the sand and supported herself with it as she recovered.

“That’s how it’s done,” she said, barely.

After a few moments, Eva’s breathing became a little more manageable, and she was able to pull herself back up on her feet. Albeit with shaky legs. She sheathed her beltknife and stumbled over to Orsethii, whose face was filled with awe, anger, despair, humiliation, you name it.

“Gods-damned ape!” yelled Orsethii. “Stop your dawdling and end the duel already!”

“I’m tired,” Eva replied. “Gimme a break.”

Though her opponent was livid, Eva tried not to anger her any further. She knelt down in front of her opponent and panted between phrases as she spoke.

“I’m sorry for calling you a coward,” she continued. “I only said it to rile you up. Death doesn’t scare you, I see that. But something out there terrifies you, I see that, too. And whatever it is, I hope you get over it. You didn’t get Reborn to fear a damned thing.”

Orsethii was taken aback, and her eyes grew wide. The surprise abated almost immediately, but some of the anger still remained.

“Just kill me and get it over with, human,” she said, her voice sullen. “You’ve humiliated me enough.”

“No,” replied Eva. “Who cares about being humiliated? Neither of us, that’s who. If we’re gonna die – it’s gonna be up there, as pilots. If you wanna prove to me you’re better than me, find me out there. And bring your best mecha.”

~

Alevos cheered and whooped and hollered as he ran around inside his box seats. Everyone was rather surprised at his nimbleness, despite his age. And his gut.

“Will you calm down?” said Szereth. “You’re causing my arterial clots to jam up just by watching you.”

“Calm down?!” replied Alevos. “Are you serious? Didn’t you just see what happened down there?”

“We all did, dammit. We came this gods-damned close to losing everything!”

“Ah, but we didn’t! What did happen was a 68 to 1 win!”

Alevos spun away and continued laughing and cheering and dancing in celebration. If the aged bladesmith died right then and there, Szereth was sure he had no regrets.

The Machinefather sighed deeply, then chuckled to himself.

Down below, Eva dragged Orsethii towards the edge, then rolled her out of the ring. As she did so, the announcer came back over the air and spoke as exuberantly as she could. But it was clear she was as frazzled as everyone else.

“W-wow!” she stammered. “Ra’ventrii wins by Ring Out! Th-that definitely adds a few points to the pot... Anyway! She has de-defeated the Reborn duelist Orsethii, and confirmed her position as the Second Seed of the Fifth Tier. Congratulations!”

The coliseum’s spectators had been incredibly silent since Orsethii’s fall. Even those who had been rooting for Eva were utterly surprised. Almost no-one believed she could have won.

But then someone started clapping. Others joined in. Then more. Soon cheering began to swell, and the celebration of her win spread all around.

Eva spun slowly and waved at the crowd. As she did so, whatever section she waved at cheered louder for her. Then, at the height of the coliseum’s celebrations, she blew a kiss to the anti-human Drogar up in the stands.

Their fury was palpable.

~

All of the Drogar who had gathered around Colviss were utterly dumbfounded by what they watched. If any of them doubted what she had said – about Eva being a Reborn Human, they no longer did.

They all saw irrefutable proof right in front of them.

A human defeated a Reborn – if normal Drogar couldn’t, then how could an inferior species possibly do that? They muttered amongst themselves in search of an absurd explanation they could find themselves believing.

But in the end, they had to accept that Eva was a Reborn Human.

The old Drogar was so shocked that he fell on the floor, right on his tail. His mouth hung open as his eyes went wide. He was so transfixed by what he had seen that he was rendered speechless.

Unlike everyone else however, Colviss was completely amazed by what she had seen, and didn’t take any steps to hide it.

“Incredible,” she said. “Absolutely incredible.”

“Y-you could’ve beaten the ape, right?” asked one of the others.

Colviss shook her head resolutely.

“I don’t think I could beat Orsethii,” she responded. “At least, not in a ring. But outside of one? Well, I suppose we’d have to see to find out.”

“It’s insanity,” said the old Drogar. “H-how are we going to deal with this? If they are making an army, and they’ve got a Reborn leading them...”

He couldn’t finish the thought. None of them wanted to.

“Calm down,” said Colviss. “Sound out a call to the tribes. Nothing crazy, don’t get them riled up and on the streets. We just want them fully kitted out and ready to go and waiting...”

She held out a finger, as though to punctuate herself.

“Waiting for my word,” she continued. “And not one moment before.”

“We’re with you Colviss,” said one of them.

The rest muttered in agreement.

.....