Chapter 51: Chapter 51: Dance of Blades! II
"And welcome back everybody! To the second event of UA's Sports Festival! How are we feeling?!" Midnight asked the crowd, getting thunderous cheers and roars in response.
Man, did his head hurt right now.
At least he made it out into the field, though! Not like he really wanted to be there right now, but whatever.
It wasn't like he had a choice, anyway.
Why did it feel like that was gonna be a recurring theme for today?
It was now time for the second event of the festival, all 42 students who passed the first event stood before the stage that Midnight was on.
Peter himself was feeling a bit better now, with his time sitting with Nejire, smoothies with his friends, a much-needed visit to Recovery Girl along with a 15-minute power nap helped him out.
So now, he was ready to go!
Not really, but he was still gonna try his best!
But whatever, the show must go on, right?
Even if you really, really don't want it to.
"That's what I like to hear! Some of that youthful excitement!~"
Midnight announced into the mic, licking her lips in a way that made Peter's skin crawl. "Now, I bet you're curious as to our next event, huh?" Just like before, her only answer was the thunderous roars and cheers that echoed around the stadium.
"Let's see what we got, shall we?" She said, cracking her whip to bring attention to the giant screen on the stadium that has begun to show a spinning roulette wheel.
Oh, so they did random events every time?
Man, maybe he should've looked more into how the festival actually went down beforehand.
A few seconds passed, everyone watching the screen intensely as the wheel continued to spin rapidly, too fast to actually make out anything written.
Soon enough, it began to slow down enough for some words to be visible, Peter seeing a few different options pass by until the wheel finally stopped after a few dramatic fakeouts as to what it would land on.
"And here is it, ladies and gentlemen! The next event in UA's Sports Festival will be… the Dance of Blades!" Midnight announcement, the crowd roaring back.
The lenses of his goggles mimicked the confused expression on his face.
The dance of what now?
Wait, were they getting swords?
Like before, the stage slid back from where it stood to reveal a gaping hole beneath, a platform carrying a pile of brightly colored foam swords rising from out of the ground.
...
That was a bit more lame but understandable!
"Now, the rules for the game! You will all form teams of between 2-4 people, and then grab one sword per person! Do so now!" She motioned to the pile of foam swords. The 42 students all shuffled over to the pile and grabbed a sword each, with Peter getting a hold of one with a red hilt and blue blade.
Huh.
Talk about fitting.
It felt light in his hand but not too much, Peter swinging it for a second and flipping it in his hand. When touching the blade of it, it was understandably dull given how it was foam but still sturdy.
If anything, they just gave him a stick to hit people with.
Just as the last person grabbed a sword and stepped off of the platform, it began to sink back into the ground, leaving that same gaping hole.
Suddenly, a loud rumbling was heard throughout the stadium as a new structure rose from the ground.
Before them now stood what Peter could only describe as some sort of huge battle arena with a twist.
Several blocky pillars and structures were scattered about, some even resembling small houses, and were all made of the same brightly colored materials that the swords were.
Random bridges and sets of cover were around the leftover empty space, giving them a lot of mobility and cover to work with.
It looked like a child-safe version of the most hardcore Airsoft field Peter had ever seen.
For real, Peter could see literal furniture through the hole that represented a window of one of the houses!
Why would they even add that? No one would see it!
Either way, this whole thing should serve as a pretty good distraction from… yeah.
At least he hopes.
"And this will be your battlefield! Listen well to this next part, for only 16 of you will pass on to the tournament!" Midnight cracked her whip to bring attention back to her.
Taking a dramatic pause, she readjusted her glasses before continuing.
"The point of the game will be to be one of the last team's standing! You will only be disqualified if that sword in your hand ever touches the ground without also being in contact with your body or is stolen from you by someone else! Use your quirk however you see fit to eliminate others, but any villainous action will result in disqualification! We will continue until at least 16 people are left! Understood?"
She cracked her whip again to reinforce the statement, the crowd of students voicing out that they understood.
This was literally just a foam sword fight with quirks, huh?
That was cool and all, but why call it the dance of blades? Wasn't that an over-exaggeration?
"Very well! Now, you have one minute to form your teams before we begin! Get to it!"
And just like that, everyone went in a panic to find teammates, with Peter being avoided by the plague even if he hadn't even tried approaching everyone.
Man.
It wasn't like he was gonna actually try to team with any of them, but it still hurt!
Guess that public pity he got from the endeavor fight ran out already, huh?
Well, he just needed to go find his friends a-
In a flash, Nejire and Togata appeared from literally nowhere and stood next to him, smiling so brightly that Peter's eyes actually hurt for a moment.
Close behind, Amajiki jogged up to them at a more reasonable pace before standing there awkwardly but without as much anxiety as usual.
"Uh, hey! You guys wa-" Before Peter could even get a full sentence out, Nejire got incredibly close to him while Togata put an arm around him.
"Of course!" They both said, still smiling wide while Amajiki gave a small nod.
Wait, just like that?
Like, it was literally so easy he didn't even have to do anything?
He looked over to Amajiki, the boy simply shrugging.
Having friends was weird, man.
"So, what's the plan?" Nejire asked, bouncing up and down while gripping her pink and mint-colored sword tightly.
Peter thought for a moment, trying to put together some sort of smart strategy.
For a few seconds, he simply stayed thinking in silence while cupping his chin, looking at his friends at the arena every now and then.
Every time he tried to put something together, some sort of coherent thought his mind always wandered back to Tony Stark's smirking face.
'You're in this now whether you like it or not, you can't take back that spider bite, that's just how it is.'
He sighed, lifting his goggles and rubbing his eyes for a moment as he tried to push that recent memory away for just a little bit longer.
"Yeah I, uh, got nothing. What if we… I don't know, just try to get high ground at the start? Make it harder for people to get to us, you know?" He offered, watching as his friends thought for a moment before nodding.
It wasn't that thought out, but it was the best he could come up with right now.
The four of them stood by for a bit longer, every team having walked a decent distance away from others.
After a few moments passed, a loud buzzer went off throughout the stadium to signal the end of their prep time; Midnight motioned for the teams to walk onto the center of the arena.
She spoke into an earpiece, nodding before taking the mic once again.
"Alright, have we all got teams?" She asked, the teens in the brightly colored arena nodding. "Wonderful! Let's start the countdown!"
Peter shifted a bit anxiously, gripping the hilt of his sword a bit tighter as he felt nearly every other student glare at him.
Great, just what he needed!
Up on the screen, a giant timer for ten seconds appeared, the crowd roared at the approaching start of the event.
"Alright! Ten! Nin-Go! Real heroes don't get countdowns!" Midnight laughed, sending everyone in a mad sprint to disqualify other people.
Damn it, this was just like the entrance exam!
As his spider-sense blared all around him, Peter placed Togata under his free arm before shooting a web and swinging up to a nearby pink rooftop.
"Sorry man, couldn't waste any time, you know? Man, this feels like the hunger games!" He said, placing the boy down onto the ground as Nejire flew in with an embarrassed-looking Amajiki.
Peter sighed, checking to see everyone had their swords in hand.
"So, what now?" Amajiki asked, transforming the hand holding his sword into a tentacle and wrapping it around the hilt.
Huh, that was smart!
The masked teen shrugged, taking a peek over the edge of the roof and into the center of the arena.
It was an outright battle royale down there! Everyone either running away to hide or in the middle of a fight with someone else.
It was like the hunger games!
Surprisingly intense for a foam sword battle.
"Well, best case scenario we just stay here and wait it out! It's most likely that not a lot of people down there can actually reach us s-"
Mid-sentence, his spider-sense blared in his ears, making him whip around to face his friends.
"Crap, move!"
Thankfully, everyone on the roof scattered in different directions as a giant series of silver spikes cut Peter off from the rest of his team.
Because of course, he was the one to get cut off from the rest of his team.
The jagged, shiny spikes had created a sort of barrier around him that probably stretched at least a dozen feet in the air. Peter stuck his fingers to the hilt of his sword in preparation for whatever would happen.
From the other side of the barrier of spikes, Peter could clearly hear what sounded like a fight between his friends and another group of people.
The shine from Nejire's quirk poked over the barrier, and he could hear what also sounded like occasional bonking sounds and pained grunts.
Yeah, maybe he should go over there.
Even if they probably had it handled, just to be safe.
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