Page 46 of Xeda

"Look, there he goes!" said Cristan's brother Drake, nearly spilling his drink on to the monitor as he pointed Xeda out. "Dad, do you see?"

Sal said nothing as he sipped from his glass, his black eyes scrutinizing the board. His silence only made Ophilia more nervous, and she wondered how much he'd already had to drink. He was an angry, vicious drunk, and the last thing she needed was him making a scene if Xeda made a wrong move.

She tried to keep her focus on Xeda instead. He weaved across the course with the beast on his tail. She dug her nails into her palm as it snapped at him. Before it could grab him, Xeda leapt into the air and flipped onto the bear's back. He shot his tail down into its skull in one fell swoop, splitting the skull, killing it instantly.

The beast went down, but before Xeda could recover, one of the tigers leapt at him. It missed him by a hair as Xeda jumped out of the way. He ran toward one of the metal trees, and the tiger followed. He was agile like the cat and just as fast. As he passed the tree, he made a sharp turn, using his tail to swing himself around the trunk. The tiger skidded, trying to catch up. As it straightened itself and leapt at Xeda, he kicked it back into the tree just as an electric current struck it down from above, simultaneously hitting the beast and cooking it, its fur catching on fire.

The beast dropped to the ground dead, and Xeda continued on without pausing.

Cristan and his brother whooped in excitement. Ophilia let out a slow breath. As Xeda was left alone for a moment, she checked on the other fighters, looking for Xeda's biggest threats. Tazyn was just pulling his two-handed weapon from the chest of a fallen beast. The male fyrien, Aeriz, was watching two other fighters caught in battle. He waited for a victor so that he could swoop in and kill them when their guard was down. The female fyrien, Vyn, was stalking another fighter she had caught sight of who was searching for someone or something to take down.

Ophilia searched all over for Kaxek and finally found him at the edge. He had found the grex with the four arms and ripped off the metal limbs before slitting their throat. Her stomach turned as he left the body and casually slipped away as if it had been nothing. He was in no hurry. He'd do the same to whoever he ran into.

Whenever a fighter perished, a picture of them would pop up and hover over where they died. In fifteen minutes, six of them were gone. There were twenty fighters all together. This is what she’d tried to explain to Xeda. As she expected, these games weren't going to last more than a week.

Her eyes flicked over to the clock above the monitor. They had two hours. She fidgeted where she stood, feeling so tense she could hardly speak. She wished she’d had more time with him before they started. Hell, she wished she’d had more time with him in general. More time to train, more time to talk, to understand one another. Maybe even to have another moment like they had last night.

There will be more time for that when he survives, a little voice said.Because he has to."Oh, damn, look at that!" Drake shouted. "He just destroyed him!"

Her heart leaped as her eyes followed where Drake was looking, panic tearing through her chest, immediately thinking of Xeda. She caught sight of what he was shouting about, and saw it wasn't Xeda but the fyrien male. Aeriz had waited for the fight to end after all and had slit the lygin victor's belly open. The lygin collapsed, and the fyrien disappeared once more.

The boys hollered. They cheered and shouted at the monitor every time a fighter made a fatal blow or died some awful way. Whether by another's hand or by a beast or by some other misfortune. By the time the half-hour mark came, four more fighters were gone. And Xeda had his first fight. The feral corax showed himself, his jaw wide, ready to take a limb.

They fought for five minutes, dodging each other's blows until Xeda found an opening and snapped the corax's jaw in half.

Even that got a slow clap from Sal. He was watching just as intensely as she. He wanted this win badly, House Salimar being one of the few to ever win.

But she wanted it more. So much more.

Bodies covered the arena, a true bloodbath. And it was hardly over. Only half remained, but that meant they were the half that would survive longer.

Thankfully, many of them scattered after the next half hour as another wave of beasts were set loose to chase them. Their focus was no longer on each other but on killing every spliced beast that stood in their way. In that time, the female fyrien, Vyn, also got her mark and killed the fighter she had been hunting, a fighter that looked like a mangy wolf or dog, not unlike the animal he had been trying to take down before he was assassinated.

At the end of the first hour, two more fighters perished.

At this point, the arena began to change, walls moving, pitfalls appearing and reappearing. There was so much chaos it was hard to follow more than one person or thing, but her eyes were locked on only one person now and that was Xeda.

He was doing his best to keep up with the changing scene like everyone else. When the arena finally stopped moving, he continued on without hesitation, going toward the center now that the arena had also shrunk, a brilliant green forcefield shimmering to life and pushing the surviving fighters in.

Xeda prowled along the edge of the forcefield as did the two fyrien who finally found one another. Just as Zachary had predicted, they didn't fight but, as a team, quickly began to scout around for the others, moving parallel to the forcefield. As for the rest, they moved toward the center. Kaxek got to the platform first. The second fighter to appear—an amphibious-looking female with jet black eyes and shiny green skin called a skra—saw him and turned away, either too scared or too smart to know they couldn't win.

Tazyn was close to the center now too. He fought another corax similar to the one Xeda had fought, only this one was slimmer with dark blue skin unlike the gray she had seen on the others. The corax was quick but Tazyn was quicker. The only thing keeping the corax from dying was the weapon they wielded, a staff with one end like a trident, the other end a pointed blade.

Tazyn showed his true skill with his bladed weapon along with his ability as a champion to not only dodge attacks but block them with ease. The corax fought him off for several minutes before it became clear Tazyn was only playing with them. He let the fight go on until the corax began to tire. They tried to flee at one point to regain their strength, but Tazyn wouldn't let them.

They continued fighting until eventually Tazyn got bored of his little game and lopped off the corax's head with one clean swoop.

The last hour was slowly drawing to an end. There were only seven left. Kaxek, the two fyriens, Tazyn, and Xeda were the true contenders. The feral lygin that had been genetically altered to be larger and meaner than his kind had been too busy tearing the remaining beasts to shreds to go looking for the others. The skra had somehow managed to keep hidden even more than the fyrien. Ophilia realized it was because she wore a special suit that made her invisible, only seen by spectators. Ophilia watched as the skra passed by the last lygin fighter without his knowing, but she didn't yet attack, likely assessing his weak points, trying to consider if it was worth taking him on.

As the forcefield got smaller, Ophilia noticed the fyrien pair turn inward as did Xeda. The fyriens crept for the platform. They were going to try to take on Kaxek.

Ophilia's pulse throbbed in her ears. Sal clapped his hands, this time with impatience. "Come on, come on," he snapped, eyes growing wild. "Let's finish this."

The fyriens were only a few walls away when one of the bear-like beasts cut in their path, flying toward the platform, trying to get to Kaxek first. Kaxek wasn't unprepared. He slashed at the beast's side, but it didn't go down. Instead, it tackled him, sending him off the platform and into a wall. The only way he could free himself was to climb and so he did. The beast followed, and they disappeared to finish their fight on the other side.

It was then Xeda finally reached the platform, only to find it empty. At least he thought so. But from Ophilia's vantage point, she could see the fyriens slowly approaching. They peeked past one wall and saw him. They seemed to be discussing their next move when Vyn suddenly broke off and began to circle behind Xeda with her blade unsheathed. Aeriz started around his front.

Ophilia's heart leapt to her throat, her blood going cold. "No," she whispered. They’d changed their plans. With Kaxek disappeared from their sight, they were going to try to take Xeda out instead. "Please, notice them, Xeda!" she cried softly.

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