Under the Cover of Darkness

Chapter 7 - Battle of the Champion

After his confrontation with the girl, Fitch had decided he had had enough of the festivities and went to his tent to rest the night. The next morning he woke up late, by his own standards. It was nine in the morning when Fitch arose from his cot on July 2. When he came to the tent the night before, none of his fellow tent mates were in there, even the Wedlen. His cot, which was situated in the back of the tent, was perfectly placed as no one disturbed him the whole night.

Bryce, who had realized Fitch was going back to the tent, had rushed back to the tent and pretended to be asleep on Fitch's cot. "Get up, Bryce," Fitch had solemnly said poking at the sleeping demon's head.

"What's the matter with you?" Bryce sluggishly replied as if he hadn't known about Fitch's evening.

"Nothing. Just tired, that's all. I want to be rested for tomorrow's fight," Fitch half lied.

Bryce then responded with a friendly punch to Fitch's shoulder, "Sounds good, kid. You're taking initiative. I like it. Well I'll be sleeping here too, just under the cot as a rat. So don't fret if you wake up to see a little rodent under your bed."

"I'd prefer if there wasn't a demon under my bed," Fitch replied weakly as he snuggled under the covers and floated into the darkness of his mind.

The next morning Fitch had noticed that the majority of the fellow fighters in his tent were up. Only the Wedlen was missing from the tent as everyone either tried to wake themselves up or get dressed. The majority of the time in the tent was filled by silence. No one spoke except for the occasional, "Can you pass me my shoe?" or other random request. The faces of all seven were fairly solemn and mundane.

"Look at the schedules, guys!" a voice yelled through the camp. "First hundred and twenty eight are fighting at ten. Hurry up if you're one of them." It was the voice of a guard walking through the camp yelling into each tent. He looked to be a highly ranked soldier among the Ardorian ranks as his bronze helmet was complete with a cream colored feather sticking up.

"Cmon slackers," he yelled into Fitch's tent. "We run by the clock. If you ain't there to jump into the Grand Master Wizard's portal on time, you're automatically disqualified. I'd bet one of you is in the ten o'clock fight." The tournament on the first day was supposed to work in intervals of three hours, so the first one hundred and twenty eight fighters went at ten o'clock, then one, then four, and lastly seven o'clock.

Fitch looked at the schedule, which contained the list of randomly generated fights for July 2, and saw that he was fighting at one o'clock against number 4. Bryce, who lay evenly breathing under Fitch's cot, slept unperturbed by the yelling guard. Fitch decided to leave him be as he dragged himself through the main city's gates. He hadn't changed out of his clothes from the day before, so Fitch slightly smelt of body odor.

As he walked through the streets, he saw guards sweeping and cleaning the streets of the outer ring. Vendors were spread thinly along the streets as people flocked to outside the south wall instead to marvel at the Grand Master Wizard Quanti who had apparently arrived earlier that morning from his home in the kingdom of Set. All morning, guards had set up thin metal boxes with glass screens on the densely spread out light posts of the streets that would project fights going on in the virtual reality.

Fitch headed for the south side of the outer ring, the same desolate streets from the night before. It had been at least fifteen minutes before Fitch found the same alley he had been at the night before, the same alley where love had struck him and was removed like a stake through the heart because of some mysterious girl. In the faint light of the sun that tried desperately to break away the cover of gray in the sky, Fitch could see clearly down the alley that he couldn't have the night before.