Chapter 215: Top sixteen?
We wandered our way to the tournament hall. Not caring about the rest of the world for a little while as we chatted while walking. It was mostly me discussing stupid stuff like how stupid Luke, and Baron were. We walked into the prep room, and the other twenty three were already there. Along with a teacher.
Anything I might have been thinking about saying stopped as soon as I saw Baron. Just smirking at him before focusing on the teacher.
"This round is going to be a little different than the last one," the teacher I didn't recognize started speaking, "This round had an uneven number of opponents so we will be allowing three losers or three draws to continue into the final rounds."
Angry grumbling.
"That's enough," the teacher snapped, "Those that make the top ten will be receiving credits as prizes. Only the top ten. Tenth place receives one hundred credits. Ninth five hundred. Eight a thousand. Seventh five thousand. Sixth ten thousand. Fifth one hundred thousand. Fourth one million. Third five million. Second ten million. And finally first place will be receiving one hundred million credits."
"What the hell?" Baron shouted causing the people next to him to flinch, "That's double what we got last year."
"We profited more this year than we did last year," the teacher answered, "With Mr. Nix upsetting the projected statistics we've seen a huge increase in subscriptions to this years tournament profits as well as a surge in purchases for tournament highlight films. Turns out people like having a dark horse to root for. Which is why we announce the prizes to the students at the end of the tournament each year instead of the beginning." he waited for Baron to object again, "Now we have four first years in the room. Raise your hands."
Ethan, and I looked at each other in confusion before doing as asked. Two other students in the room raised their hands as well.
"There's the easy targets for you second years," the teacher smirked, "Oh, and someone from the first round will be fighting twice. The first person to finish. Don't worry too much though. You'll have secured your spot in the top sixteen with your victory, and won't be required to win in your second fight. Your second fight will be at the end of the day so you will have time to rest."
"Easy targets," I narrowed my eyes as I stared at the teacher, "What an asshole?"
Ethan nodded in agreement next to me. The teacher selected eight students, including us, and paired us up before sending us out. They'd only be running four fights at a time today. Luckily I wasn't paired up with Ethan. Unluckily Baron wasn't in our round.
I wanted to knock him out of the running as soon as possible. I would have been happier if I could knock him out of the running myself. I would have loved it if that jackass didn't get anything from the tournament. I was face to face with someone else I didn't know. He was a second year.
"Sweet," he bounced on his feet like a boxer, "Easy win."
I snorted as the start sound went off. Easy win. Yeah right. He rushed me with super speed. Striking my three times before I could think it over.
None of his hits hurt, but he'd slid me back a few feet. I started walking forward slowly. I wanted to get to the center of the arena, but he kept pushing me back slowly. Seemed like his plan was to knock me out of the arena. I hunkered down.
Trying to stay away from the edge best I could, and slowly memorizing his attack pattern. I could see his attacks, but I couldn't react to them. Not without knowing where they would be hitting before hand. I was struck hard about forty times in less then thirty seconds, but I managed to keep myself from being thrown out of the arena. I was slowly forced back to the edge of the arena.
I waited for him to come in for that last showy strike so he could win. He rushed in. Going for a gut punch to thrown me out of the arena only for his strike to land in my open waiting hand. I gripped his fist, and yanked. Trading places with him so now he was on the edge of the arena, and I was the one forcing him out.
He was surprised by the sudden change, and off balance. Desperately trying not to fall off the edge of the arena. I kicked him in the ass. Tipping his delicate balance, and making him fall off the edge.
"Ah shit," he shouted as he fell.
"Easy win my ass stupid speedster," I shouted down at him.
The arena slowly lowered to level out with the ground. The speedster grumbled at me when we were back on the same level, but he didn't say anything else. I'd won fair, and square. He was just one of those decent types of guys that took a loss well. I nodded to him, and headed towards the prep room so I could get examined before I got out of here.
I wasn't injured so I was let out pretty quickly. Ethan wasn't far behind me.
"Just tossed him out of the arena?" I glanced at him as we walked.
"Yeah," Ethan smiled nervously, "It was easy."
"I don't think they'll let us do that anymore," I walked over to the elevator slowly.
"Me neither," Ethan smirked.
Luckily we hadn't been the ones to finish first so we wouldn't be fighting again. We rode the elevator up to my room, and decided to watch the matches on the hollo screen while we relaxed in the room. The commentary afterward was comical to listen to. Apparently Ethan making it this far was something they hadn't predicted either. My wings twitched as I chuckled to myself.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone