The arena

Chapter nine

When Molly finally woke up, it was only a few hours after midnight, when you could only see a sliver of light from the later rising sun. I had stayed awake for most of the night, not wanting to fall back to sleep, not wanting to dream. That may be a strange thought to some but for me I think one could understand. Molly must have noticed how tired I looked. "Sleep well?" she asked, sarcastically.

"As a matter of fact, I slept just fine for a little while." I responded, trying my hardest not to yawn.

She chuckled, "Well I feel refreshed." she replied, "You should probably get dressed."

I looked down and remembered that she had somehow stolen my shirt in the middle of the night, "Nah, I think I'll just go shirtless for today."

This made her laugh, "Suit yourself, but it might not go so well during your fight today."

"I have a fight today?" I asked, it seemed like forever since my last fight.

"Yep," Molly responded, "And I figured that you could use the practice for the tournament at the end of this week."

"The tournament is this week?!" I asked, alarmed.

She seemed taken aback, "Yes, didn't I already tell you?"

"No," I responded, angrily, "You only told me that the tournament existed."

"Well, how about I make you a deal," she said, trying to calm me down, "If you can win your fight, I will make you Tetrazzini for dinner."

My eyes lit up, "I'll take that deal." I responded before being teleported out.

After I got teleported to the training room, I felt like something was off today. I knew that there was only a couple days of training before the tournament but I felt like there was something missing, something important, but I couldn't place my finger on it if you had a knife to my throat. I looked around the room and saw nothing out of place. A breeze came by and it felt unnaturally cold. I looked down at myself, suddenly realizing what was wrong. Molly still had my shirt. "God dammit Molly!" I half shouted, half whispered to myself. But as they say, the show must go on. So when the door opened and I walked out,I looked at Molly just to see if she was still wearing my shirt, and she was, even though it is way too big on her. "She is going to pay for this" I muttered to myself.

To my surprise when I walked out, the crowd only cheered louder. There was however a strange lack of female cheering. I looked at Molly for an answer but she just looked angry, I guess whatever she was planning backfired. I got to the middle and saw the person who challenged Molly for her position as leader of the Arena or, whatever she is. "Hey look, it's the newbie. Listen if I were you, I would help me take over this place." I sighed, heavily. It was exactly what I expected he would say when I met him. He got serious then, "Don't mock me! And if you won't help me, then you are in my way." He got into a fighting stance, it looked weak and sloppy. Much like his ability to be subtle. I rolled my eyes but just stood there, waiting for the fight to start. The announcer counted us down and immediately the other guy threw a punch at my face, supposedly backed my huge amounts of magic enhancements, but I suspected he would do this and easily dodged. He tried again and this time when I dodged I pulled out my knife and fired through his wrist. He roared in pain and I quickly made a stun bullet and fired at his face. Instead of getting knocked out he just stumbled back a bit dazed, I guess that magic was helping him more than I thought. He jumped up and started throwing spells like a mad man, they didn't have coordination so I easily dodged them, then, I jumped up at high speeds at him and delivered a punch so hard he cratered the wall he was thrown into.

He got up and looked at me with murder in his eyes. As I landed, I said, "I've faced imps harder to beat than this." just to see what would happen. He got even more angry, which in fairness was what I wanted. "I'm getting bored with this." Then making a bow, I shot a non lethal arrow at his face which made him stumble again. He generated a ball of energy and fired a beam made of lightning at me. I side stepped it and looked back at him, smugly.