Rise || Marvel

《48》Get Roasted

《 Tia's POV 》

For several seconds, neither Apollo nor I moved.

"Alright then, let's-" I began. Something bright and golden suddenly whizzed past my shoulder, so close I felt my hair move. I instinctively jerked to the side, nearly tripping over in my haste.

Apollo had drawn his bow and fired off a first warning shot the moment I took my eyes off of him. Apart from that, he hadn't moved.

"Woah, impressive!" I blurted out in surprise.

"Haha, thanks!"

Hmm. Okay then. This guy seems cool.

I bounced on the souls of my feet, venturing a little closer to the golden-eyed archer. In response, a trio of arrows sped in my direction, but I ducked under them, launching into a dive roll to get closer to my opponent. With an effort, I managed to summon my staff.

Instead of using it like a normal human being would, I lobbed the staff at Apollo, inexplicably reminding me of how I had done pretty much the same thing at Clint during the Leipzig battle. Of course, Apollo dodged (unlike Clint had).

"Not bad, but come on! Where are your flames!" Apollo raised his eyebrows at me.

"Behind you," I muttered. With that, the tip of my staff burst into flickering, amber flames. Apollo was caught off guard and spun on the spot to face the (pretty much) harmless staff. In its current state, it was essentially a glorified candlestick.

I exploited his moment of distraction to hurl myself forward in a 'round-off' (A/N: like a cartwheel, but with a more powerful 'jump' at the start and end :3). Using the momentum of the gymnastic move, I quickly spun into a flame-infused roundhouse kick at Apollo's unguarded chest. The male let out a loud grunt- mostly out of shock more than pain. He stumbled. To my disappointment, he didn't topple to the ground. Nearly, but not quite.

A stunned silence crashed over the arena. I scooped up my staff. The flames at the tip had vanished. Apollo straightened up, a playful light in his eyes.

"Huh, that's what I'm talking about!" He grinned, swiftly and smoothly notching another arrow against the string of his bow. Luckily, I had the proximity advantage. Just as he tried to fire, I spun my staff around in rapid succession to shove the bow to the side. This didn't seem to hinder Apollo. He brought his arm up in an attempt to elbow me.

Slapping the small button on my right hand combat glove expanded immediately over my wrist and hand, just in time to block the strike. A bright flash of golden light erupted from the point of contact, and the force pushed me back forcefully.

"Huh," I admitted in astonishment, "Okay, that was pretty awesome, too."

We continued to exchange attacks, each with varying degrees of success, until one of the watching group called out, "Hurry up! Some of us want to have a training match, too!"

"Shut it, Ares!" Apollo retorted, "But fine."

I panted, tapping both gloves back into the 'manipulate fire only' mode, backtracking a couple steps and muttering to myself, "He doesn't know about fwoofing yet, does he?"

Now, before we continue you must be wondering... 'Fwoofing, Tia? Really?'. And yes, really. It's a funny word and I like it. So, now it can be applied to whenever I summon fire or whenever I teleport.

(A/N: I just didn't like saying 'teleported' over and over again, hahaha =w= 'Fwoofed' will be used for the remainder of this fanfic, so just letting you guys know now!)

Let's freak 'em out and get this over with.

Apollo seemed to be thinking the same thing- the wanting to finish up quickly part. The arrow he was notching was glowing with an increasing intensity with each passing second.

With no warning whatsoever, the golden-haired male swung the bow upwards, aiming at me with ease.

"FWOOF!" I blurted out instinctively, at the exact same time Apollo shouted, "I promise it won't hurt too much!"

Roaring flames rapidly obscured my line of sight, only to dissipate moments later to reveal Apollo's back. I was in the air (no, I had not planned it that way. I'd aimed for the ground. It just happens like this sometimes).

"Sorry 'bout this!" I quipped. My hands ignited with flames, and I hurled a beam of the stuff at Apollo, who was only just realising what had happened.

It was over in a second. The swirling column of fire slammed into the archer, knocking him forward and off his feet. I sat down heavily, drawing in a deep breath of air.

I felt a bead of sweat trickle down my temple, and fiddled with my combat gloves so they slid back into their totally inconspicuous wristband forms.

"Well... Alright," Athena's voice broke through the silence, "Next match, shall we?"

"Where did you learn to fight like that? I always thought you would be the one to avoid conflict!" A cheery male voice asked curiously from behind me.

"So... Like, the opposite of what I'm actually like?" I clarified under my breath as I continued to stare down at the city, "Er, well, I guess I've had lots of practice...?"

Apollo flopped down on the stone railing beside me, beaming. I'd discovered that there was a rather spectacular view of the whole city from the top of the arena. The stone rail stretched around the whole rim of the stadium, displaying detailed paintings of all sorts of things- people, monsters, plants, animals, buildings and more. The city itself was bathed in a beautiful orange light from the slowly setting sun.

"If you're technically the Sun God, shouldn't you be riding your chariot to 'set the sun'?" I indicated the scene.

"I called in a favour," Apollo shrugged, waving his hand airily, "Anyway... Congratulations on the fight earlier. I didn't know you had it in you! You've definitely earned my respect, at any rate!"

"Uh... Thanks?" I said awkwardly, glancing at the archer. He appeared to be trying to find the most risky way to sit atop the railing without failing off, mumbling several curses in Latin as he tried (all of which, to my great surprise, I understood).

I turned my attention back to the city far below. Shadows were elongating in the sunset. A flash of movement on top of a series of houses caught my eye.

Frowning, I pointed towards the commotion, "What's going on over there?"

Apollo paused in his attempts to perch on the rail and squinted down in the direction I was pointing.

"Looks like someone broke the law. Those are the official guards chasing the guy," He said eventually, going back to his rail-sitting challenge, "I wouldn't worry about it if I were you. Probably just an apple thief or something similar."

As I peered closer at the rooftop chase, however, my stomach gave a nasty lurch, and I felt like I should be worrying about the situation.

"So, anyway-" Apollo began, but I didn't hear the rest of his sentence.

Why?

Because I had just vaulted over the rail.

-

guess who forgot to update this trash yesterday?? this gal