Fracture - Book One of the Glass Galaxy Trilogy

Chapter 23: Trial

May 1st
11:07 AM

The challenger -whose name had been inaudible over the crowd's cheers for Kalas- started the battle by hefting their gatling cannon and simply filling the air with bullets, the hailstorm tearing apart all the brush between the two combatants.

Kalas calmly stepped to the side, walking towards her opponent with all the haste and concern of someone picking their pen up off the floor.

The gatling cannon shifted to follow her movement.

She simply moved slightly faster. Then she disappeared among a large grove of trees to one side of the arena, the camera drone rushing to locate her again.

The hulking combatant hesitated, letting up with their fire, and then took one of their many grenades and tossed it into the trees. It burst into flaming life, quickly igniting a large swathe of the grove, and then they readied their gatling cannon again.

They were going to flush Kalas out with fire.

Riolahan clicked his tongue disapprovingly, "The very first step to victory is knowing your opponent, and they've failed. Watch, children, and learn the might of a master psychic."

Suddenly the fire twisted, flying up off the tree branches and dancing in the sky in a conflagration so large that I had to shield my eyes from the heat. Kalas strode out of the scorched forest as calmly as when the battle had started, unmarred by the fire, and pointed her stun baton at her challenger. "Surrender!" she shouted, the crowd's cheering reaching a crescendo.

The challenger's response was to open fire at her, but their spray of bullets simply melted into slag mid-air, falling to the ground in tiny glowing pools, and they stopped and stared at her in disbelief.

She reached them in the blink of an eye and smacked them with her stun baton, sending them to the ground in a fit of convulsion, and then turned the fireball hovering in the air into nothingness. She kicked her challenger, seemingly checking if they were still conscious, and then held up her baton victoriously.

The crowd cheered thunderously.

Riolahan clicked his tongue again. "She remains far too merciful," he growled, the air seeming to vibrate with every word he spoke. "A fool like that has no place in my army."

"If mercy is disqualifying," came a gentle voice from behind us, "then I don't think that either of us deserve to be in your army either, Riolahan."

We turned to see a tall, young-looking woman stepping up beside Riolahan's throne. Her long void-black hair was pulled back into a simple ponytail, and the long, ungarneshed robe she wore was a harsh contrast to Riolahan's excessively opulent armor. She didn't look at any of us in particular, yet a prickling sensation in  the back of my mind told me that she was observing us thoroughly in a less mundane manner, and the hairs on the back of my neck rose again.

She set off my instincts no less than Riolahan.

"So you've decided to show up," Riolahan grumbled to the woman, not even glancing at her.

She rested her right hand on his throne, continuing to stare off into the distance, "I found myself with some time, and I figured that I should pay our visitors a visit." Finally she looked down at us, her gaze surprisingly fierce and piercing. "Have they enjoyed the show?" she asked nobody in particular.

We mumbled out a chorus of varying confirmations, and she nodded, seemingly satisfied with our meagre response.

I mustered up all my courage, genuinely worried that I was about to get us all killed, and rose from my seat and turned to looked up at the two powerful psychics, looking them each in the eyes. "I appreciate the show," I said firmly, "but I'm afraid that we are here on a time-sensitive mission, and we really do need to pick up our delivery and head home. I would appreciate it if we could skip the displays of grandeur."