2.2.4 Literary adventure - Training Days Pt 5 - End

<div id="i4c-draggable-container" style="position: fixed; z-index: 1499; width: 0px; height: 0px;"><div data-reactroot="" class="resolved" style="all: initial;"></div></div>Errai parries with her dagger.

It's a small thing, barely a foot long and more than short enough to weave inside the reach of her main arm as she flows like a professional dancer around her opponent.

Right here right now in Coruscant it's tournament time, the Three Thousand and eighty fifth planetary close combat tournament, catchment area fifty eight, final heat, it's hardly a quiet affair.

I watch as Errais opponent makes a amazingly fast lunge inside her reach with his backsword, she manages to parry in narrowly with her main hand blade before shoulder checking the smaller Felinid. Her opponent rolls with the blow and comes up to his feet easily in time to dodge Errai's own swipe and parry her dagger before reaching out with a clawed hand.

The crowd roars as the man draws a short lived first blood. The enormous woman, unable to slash at the man inside her reach knees him in the solar plexus, punting the little blighter a meter and a half backwards.

He wheezes for a moment before standing straight with a flourish, Errai wipes the crimson blood off her cheek and against the bright white branded singlet she's wearing for the bout, three shallow parallel lines under her right eye gripping crimson fluid will need tending after the battle but for now it's all part of the performance.

Theatrics are part of the tournament. Some would say theatrics are the entire point, particularly given the amount of baby oil some competitors go through. For Errai the theatrics mean that the children watching look to her in awe and adoration. Adoring fans mean students and students means that she will be able to make rent next month.

That at least is the official reason that she competes here.

The real reason is that she loves it, even the bleeding, even the pain.

The two warriors tangle again, the tips of their tournament blades sparking off each other as they attempt to manuver against each other. Neither willing to give ground.

I close my eyes.

You see, there is a rarely acknowledged secret of these kinds of tournaments and in the end it comes down to demographics. This heat is inter sectional, competitors can enter from up to two sections away, total catchment area is twenty five sections, given that each section has somewhere around ten billion people in it this means that only a certain kind of person can make it past the heats to actually get into the finals.

I sense the energy around me and feel the ebb and flow of power as the emotions of the crowd shift from excitement to uncertainty, to fear, to tension and back to excitement. Beside me is a small ball of emotional turmoil, a being which distorts the emotional fabric wildly just by being there but in the middle of the arena there are two people who feel and draw on the ebb and flow of the life of the city with their very movements.

The only way to make it into the finals of any of the Coruscant Martial arts tournaments is to be force sensitive. Perhaps not Jedi level force sensitive, but it has to be there, that instinctual awareness which transcends time and space and allows a person to react and respond before the reasons are entirely clear is, at this level of skill the difference between victory and defeat.

Errai isn't as sensitive as her opponent, only about four standard deviations from the norm instead of the almost five he has on the other hand she does have about two foot and twenty five kilos on the Felinid but his excessive raw bullshit is still making this an even match.

I watch the force as the two clash again, the small man able to lock both of Errais blades with his own for a faint moment before springing clean over the womans head. Errai ducks and slides into the place once occupied by the man, his counterstrike shaving a few hairs from her head as she impossibly changes direction, rear leg kicking out further and faster than she has any right to and nailing the guy between the legs with a crushing blow.

The crowd collectively whimpers as the man slides to the mats in a chaotic pile.

I don't think anyone else spotted what happened there, the momentary distortion of reality around her feet and legs.

Errai hasn't just been practising her swordplay, she's been learning something entirely different. The way of the Ansei does have a few tricks before you hit the magical bullshit superlightsabers. One of which is perfect footwork. The effect can be replicated with formal magic fairly easily but formal magic doesn't give the instinctive activation at just the right moment or the the skill to make sure that your feet are in the right location at the right time.

The man tries to drag himself to his feet but Errai has him dead to rights, her blade held at his neck level as he manages to stand.

He says something to the woman and slowly slides his sword back into its scabbard.

She won. Fuck yeah..

The crowd roars and I'm on my feet cheering with them.

I watch as the both of them maintain their composure as Errai stows her weapons and they bow to one another.

Errai's opponent turns and hobbles away and woman instantly bounces on the balls of her feet with a girlish squeal.

I have about half a second of warning before she glomps me, her long fit form pulling me into an estatic hug and I stagger to keep standing as she wraps herself around me.

"Haaaaaaaaaa! I won I won I won I'm in the finals. Oshit oshit. I won."

"Murrmph." I respond eloquently.

"Errai You're smothering him." Chanim says quietly.

"Am I?" She asks, leaning back in my arms.

I gasp for air and my heart does a little flippy thing.

"You alright Alex?" she asks quizzically and all I can do is grin

"Never better. You won!"

"I won!"

"Fuck yes. Time for finals?"

"Not for two weeks. Now where is my shiftless brother?" She asks, still cradled in my arms.

"He's still fighting." Chanim says informatively.

"Really? He got into a third match?" Errai asks, Chanim only nods.

"This is fantastic, we need to catch the end of it." Errai untangles herself from me grabs her light jacket, zips it up and a moment later I feel her jump onto me for a piggy back, my heart does the flippy thing again.

"Onwards!!" She cheers and I have to suppress a laugh as I lumber into motion. I do a lap of the small martial arts arena, Errai waving to the crowd before the two of us leave through the competitors exit with Chanim following behind lugging Errai's duffel bag. If I remember correctly Djingos final heat is in arena E, we pass the other doors as I lumber with my ecstatic passenger down the hallway. Errai High fives several people as we go past and I careen around the arena E corner.

Djingo's opponent is a Utapaun almost as big as he is. Unlike his sister Djingo hasn't moved to a blade and dagger style, instead continuing to favour only a single backsword at any given time. He does however now carry a secondary weapon, a shortsword variant of the traditional old republic weapon sits in the small of his back. Partially as a backup and partially because Chanim keeps getting inside his guard when they spar and he needs a short light blade to keep up with the small feline.

This isn't an issue in this bout. I watch as the two warriors circle each other carefully, the tips of their blades only a scant few centimetres apart.

Errai gasps and covers her mouth quickly at the spectacle and my face splits into an even wider grin as we stand there.

The two test each other with a series of tiny feints and parries, each attempting to bypass the other and land a wining blow. the crowd is silent as the two jockey for position.

Despite the lovely weight on my back I close my eyes and feel the atmosphere. The Utapaun is the stronger sensitive, not my as large a margin as in Errai's match but still comfortably more powerfull than my friend. We watch with bated breath as the two jockey for position.

There's a spark, a shift and a lunge.

Djingo misses as the other man parries and brings his blade down on the other mans back. Djingos singlet falls away as the sharp durasteel edge is drawn across his back, the blade only bites a couple of millimetres deep, barely enough to pierce the skin and draw blood. It's by design, part of this sports long popularity is the fact that it is a bloodsport, and blood is a fundamental part of it. By the same measure the organisers cannot let their valuable competitors actually get hurt so tournament weapons are all built specifically for tournaments and carefully calibrated for cosmetic damage. Regardless a killing blow is still a killing blow.

The crowd erupts into cheers as Djingo slumps and the other man pulls back.

The each stand, looking each other in the eye, sheathe their blades in unison and bow to one another.

The Utapaun says something I don't catch and Djingo chuckles warmly at the man who gives him a soft punch in the arm. Both turn on their heels and leave the arena to the roar of the crowd.

Errai gives me a nudge and I trot out to the competitors box as Djingo casually lopes up and takes a drink bottle from Ryan, guzzling down the dilute potion.

"You made it to the final heat!" Errai shouts at her brother he spins on his heel and takes us in with a large smile on his face.

"Yeah, I made it." He says with a tired smile.

"EEEEEEEEEEE!" Errai lunges to hug her brother almost pulling me over.

"Hey hey. What gotten into you." Djingo asks.

"Guess who's in the finals?" I say to the bemused man.

"No!"

"Yes!" Errai cheers.

"No! You beat Caltrel?"

"Uh Huh." She says with enthusiasm.

"No Way. That's awesome!"

"Yeah, it is." She agrees.

"You know you should probably give Alex a rest." He says slyly.

"Nope! He's mine." She releases her brother and wraps her arms back around my shoulders.

"Am I now?" I ask coyly.

"Yes, yes you are."

"Hoh, I thought it was the other way around." I scoff.

"Nuh uh."

"Of course you know this means War." I quip and she gust wraps her overlong arms around my shoulders and kisses me on the cheek.

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Today's the day. I grab my coat, backpack, double check that my twin camelbaks for both magika/stamina and health/stamina and the pouches of smaller single shot utility potions lining the inside of my longcoat and the bandolier of exciting throwables across my chest.

I double check my helmet, it's various service tubes (oxygen, water/potion, food slot, etc), radio and the thin films of glass enchanted with various useful things sitting inside the helmets own outer visor.

My undersuit is sealed and tight and each other bit of my clothing is properly prepared for a trip to the depths.

I hear a hum from outside as a Speederbike lands outside. The door pulses purple once and swings open soundlessly as my apprentice enters.

The small feline cuts a relatively dashing figure in her adventuring gear. A pistol is holstered on her chest and another in an undershoulder harness on her right side for guns akimbo jedi action which is something the brat can actually pull off. On her left hand side she has a harness where she keeps her throwables, half a dozen stacks of noisemakers, holo emitters, monitors and even a few Screamers which are guaranteed to ruin everyone's day, she's wearing a longcoat similar to mine save for the fact that it doesn't have the extensive collection of potion pockets sown into the lapels or quite as many single shot amulets sown into it's structure, it does however have her collection of bulky grenades in a series of pockets around the waist. Chanim doesn't quite have the outer real estate I have and it's almost guaranteed that she's going to be crawling through tight spaces at some point during our trip, letting her remove and re-equip her more bulky gear on the fly is a pretty important consideration. the coat also has more pockets than is strictly plausible which makes the compulsive hoarder in my apprentice quite happy.

"You ready to go?" She asks from the door.

"Almost, Just gotta get the box of goodies loaded for our friends. DQ if you could." I call out as I slide on my bracers and flex my hands as their internal systems activate and seal themselves to my undersuit.

My robot assistant lowers the book he's still processing and rolls over to the goody box. It's filled with the usual, throwables, rations and large backpacks for looting convenience. His thin, spindly arms latch to the sides of the box and he lifts it without visible effort. Chanim steps out of the doorway as the machine rolls past and lowers the box onto the back of my speeder, with a twitch he straightens it on it's mount and gives me a mechanical salute.

"You know I thought that that box was too heavy for you?" Chanim asks the robot.

"The mass of the container was well within manufacturers specifications." DQ answers formally.

"Reeeeallly?" She says suspiciously.

"The mass of the container was well within manufacturers specifications." DQ answers again.

"You're asking the wrong question kiddo." I say ruffling the longer fur atop her head and sliding on my helmet.

"Well what question should I be asking?" She huffs.

I check the seals on my helmet and that all of my services are coming through properly as I take my seat on the speeder. I nod towards my robotic companion.

"What I believe Master Alexander is referring to Apprentice Chanim, is that the correct question is Which Manufacturer?"

"That doesn't make.... Alex is the manufacturer, aren't you?"

"Close, but no cigar." I say with a smirk. "DQ we expect to be back within a week, make sure that the dead drops are kept up to date and keep an eye on the comms. Recall point is at Tom's Shuttles so that's how I'll let you know when I'm back. If I don't call first assume that anyone trying to get in is hostile and take appropriate action. Cool."

"The thermal detonator has been integrated Sir, they shall not take me alive."

"Outstanding!" I bellow and salute the robot. He wheels back to the door, swings it closed and I watch as the machine seals it with a flash of purple.

"You're teaching the machine magic!?" Chanim asks.

"He's more self taught really." I mutter.

"Alex!"

"It's gonna happen anyway kiddo, sooner or later. Better that it happens on my terms than the Empires. Can't digitise those books without droid assistance anyway, might as well do both at the same time."

The teenager harrumphs at me in annoyance an I just shrug at her, some things can't be helped.

"If this bites you in the arse I'm going to say I told you so." She grumbles.

"Duly Noted. Put your helmet on, we've got places to be." I command, the young woman puts on her helmet and jumps on her bike, it starts with and electric hum and we shoot off into the Coruscant morning.

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