Rising from the Ashes

Dad?!

3rd Person POV with Thor and Ash

After being taken to the pre-fight holding area where all the weapons racks were at, Korg, Miek, and Thor were all browsing the weapon selections and Ash was sorting through and pulling on whatever intact armor scraps were leftover from other fallen competitors when Korg called out,

"Yuck! There's still someone's hair and blood all over this. Guys, can you clean up the weapons once you finish your fight? Disgusting slobs."

"That's why I never use them." Ash pointed out as she tightened the laces on some arm guards she found in the pile before pulling out a staff from a holder on her belt that had previously been hidden behind her.

"A wooden staff?" Thor questioned a bit critically.

The staff was indeed wooden with a clawed bottom that looked like it could have been ripped from the ground while the top was fancily grown to surround an opalescence jewel and had leather cords tied around just underneath the jewel niche with clear beads strung on them along with a torn-up red ribbon and the shaft was mostly smooth with small niches and scratches here and there to show the battles it had been involved in.

"It's a staff made from Zephamore wood, it comes from my homeworld and it can channel Chrysinthean abilities while repelling other powerful energies and it's strong enough to withstand almost any attack. It's like the staffs that Zaruk uses back on Earth."

"Ahh..." Thor nodded in understanding as he remembered them from the battle against Ultron before he asked, "How did it get here then?"

"Apparently other Chrysintheans have been trapped here before me, but I'm the first Fire wielder to have been stuck here, another reason why the Grandmaster wants me to battle so badly, fire is much more destructive than the other 'common' elements of my homeworld."

"What are all those carvings?"

"They're the names of all the other Chrysintheans who've been stranded on this planet... at least the ones that came after the warrior who owned this staff." She pointed to a large symbol that was surrounded by a raised ridge of wood to emphasize its translation to 'warrior'.

"That's a lot of names..." Thor looked more closely at the wooden shaft to see the countless number of names etched in the wood in Chrysinthean script.

"27 to be exact... not counting me..." Ash whispered as she lightly fingered her name addition that looked to have been freshly carved.

"And that's where it's going to end." Thor assured her as he saw the look of fear and doubt in her eyes and snapped her out of it with a hand on her shoulder.

"Hey Thor, wanna match Pyre and use a big wooden fork?" Korg asked him as he held up the aforementioned weapon that he had pulled from one of the weapons racks.

"No." Thor shook his head as he continued to browse the selection of weapons on the racks with no clear opinion of what to look for.

"Yeah, not really useful unless you're fighting off three vampires that were huddled together." Korg admitted before he and Thor started a conversation about his hammer that Ash didn't really pay attention to as she gripped the staff in a death grip and breathed deeply to calm her nerves as she tried to think positively,

I can do this, I'm not alone this time... we're gonna defeat the Champion and find a way back home... I wonder how long it's been for them...?

Her thoughts were interrupted when she heard a familiar voice sharply snap,

"I said they're mine." And she opened her eyes to see Scrapper 142 on the other side of the electric barrier that separated the holding area from the spectator's bar where she was opening no doubt her millionth bottle of booze that day.