New Age

Trials

*Max's point of view, three days later*

I watched as she defeated all of her opponents throughout the training trials. Eventually, I will be her last opponent. If she makes it that far. As she sweeps her way across the arena, I can't help but notice how beautiful she is, and how much I'm dreading fighting her. She looks up at me from below, smiling. Her smile is the best part of her. It lights up a room, and makes my heart leap out of my chest. I smile back, she doesn't know I'm her last opponent.

The officers tested us for the past three days, determining what team we would work best in. All of the tests resulted in today, a competition of sorts. They took a random person and pitted them against every other Tracker in our year. The person's opponents were ranked in order from weakest to strongest. I was ranked last, Will was ranked second to last. Lyla was the one who had to fight every other Tracker. So far, all her opponents went down easily. There's around nine more people until Will's turn. If she makes it that far, I'm sure she'll be too exhausted to fight off Will. I'm almost positive all three of us will be on the same team, if not, Will won't be with us. We can run for a long time, but he's only comfortable with long distance weapons. He might be sorted into a more fitting group. I turn away to get a bottle of water, but a loud chorus of cheering brings me back to the railing. Lyla just defeated another person, who is writhing on the ground as if she were being tortured. Lyla was just standing there, looking down at the girl, her expression unreadable. Officers rush into the arena and carry the girl away. One escorts Lyla away.

A few minutes later, she's back again with six opponents to go until Will. He said she was beating the girl so bad, she fell to the ground and started the weird convulsing. I wasn't surprised to learn that the girl was Alice. Will leaves to get ready for the fight, it's his turn after the current girl. She goes down, barely putting up a fight, and Will walks out into the arena. The whistle is blown and they immediately start to wrestle each other. They were the perfect match, weaving around each other, dodging and hitting. I can't watch any more since an officer comes to take me to the arena. I sit to wait on a bench in the small adjoining room. I have no clue who will be waiting for me when the door slides open.

The fight was lasting a ridiculously long amount of time. I've been waiting for at least five minutes. Some of the fights before this lasted even longer. The door finally slides open and I walk into the arena. The ground is covered in blood you can't see from up in the stands, and Lyla was standing in the middle of it all. I can see as I get closer that her nose, lips, forehead, arms, and legs are all scratched and bloodied. A big gash is reaching across her side, but it looks like it was healed enough to stop bleeding. She smiled and started to walk towards me. I put my arms up to defend myself, hoping to weaken her some more before taking an offense. She raises her hands and whispers, "I'm not going easy on you. Don't go easy on me." She put her hands down, and I put mine down, too. She lunged at me, about to kick, but I pushed her away. I ran at her, and as she swung at me I dodged under her extended arm. Her foot was waiting there to trip me, and in order to dodge it I had to fall on my hands and knees. I went to flip myself back over but she was already on top of me. One foot was pushing me down between the shoulder blades and her elbow had me in a headlock. She kept putting more and more weight down, but I was trying to stay off the ground as much as possible. When she realizes I'm not going to fall to the ground with that little pressure, she climbs onto my back so she's crouching on my shoulder blades. I roll to the side as she's changing positions to throw her off balance. The elbow that was around my neck is now twisted to the side as if it were broken. I panic, knowing that she'll never forgive me if it doesn't heal right. In the split second where I'd hesitated, she flips me back over and climbs on top of me, furiously punching at me with the arm I thought was broken. Her fist catches me in the mouth and the eye, but I realized my arms were free. I grab her ankle and twist it. She yelps in pain and leaps off of me, standing up. This time she waits for me to attack first. I sit up and wipe the blood from my mouth, wincing at the amount. My eye's slightly swollen already and I can barely see straight. I run towards her and fake left, spinning on my heal to push her down from behind. It works, but her foot catches on mine and I fall too. We punch and hit each other for a while, neither of us willing to give up.

After a while of hitting, she's able to lock both my arms in place and yank me to my feet. She stands across from me, ready to defend herself, but I do something unexpected. I grab her and pull her into me, wrapping my arms to restrain hers. She thrashes violently, but it doesn't last long since I bring my knee up and shove it into her stomach. She gags and falls to the ground, and I start to kick at her side with the gash. She yells in pain and I can't hurt her anymore so I stop. She stops moving, too, and looks up at me. She coughs and blood splatters out of her mouth onto the ground. I see I've opened the wound again, and it's bleeding. She raises her hand and taps the ground with it twice before fully crumpling to the ground.