Locked Tempo

Tournament Day

17 year old, Jett Mundus, had gone out for a brisk jog in the park near his isolated cabin. He often wore his medium to long hair tied back in loose bun. He also often wore skin tight long sleeve shirts with a medium sized black hood over them. He mainly wore medium sized black boots with white lining at theirs bottoms, and mostly wore loose, sweatpants-like pants made of soft cloth. He jogged as training for the tournament he had waited 9 years for: The Neko Tournament. The Neko Tournament was a tournament which was specifically made for aura martial artists, a different kind of martial art that consists of martial artists who use their own born-given gift of aura to fight others martial artists who used their auras as well. Jett always loved martial arts and wanted to become a professional martial artist for most of his life, so, of course, his ultimate goal was to enter into The Neko Tournament. Although, there was a bit of a problem. Jett still had not awoken his aura. The spiritual, and sometimes physical, manifestation of ones own internal energy. He had no clue what his aura was or if he even had one, considering nothing weird or supernatural had happened to him throughout his life, or rather none that he could remember. Speaking of which, his life was a very rough one. His father abandoned him when he was a young boy and his mother died shortly after of accidental drowning in the lake by his house. His grief pushed him away from others and because of it, he began accepting his solitude. He felt that when he was alone, nothing bad could happen to him. Consequentially, that is how he found his love for martial arts. Long ago, as Jett walked alone, engulfed in his own grief and solitude, he found a peculiar looking tent and decided to go inside of it. He walked in and found himself in one of the greatest underground tournaments, known as The Neko Tournament. He looked on in awe as the relatively small, but very roomy, tent began to crowd with hundreds of people who all gathered to watch the best of the underground duke it out in a set of 1 on 1 fights. Jett, at that moment, realized that his own feelings and his thoughts weren't the only things in the world and that he could instead focus his soul into tournaments, real, tangible things that could bring happiness to him. Although, there was something or rather SOMEONE else that he could find happiness in. His best friend, Young Rosea, an intelligent young woman who although she doesn't seem it, loves martial arts as much as Jett does. Her peculiar name led to Jett referring to her as Rose as opposed to Young, as he found it quite confusing during conversation. Speaking of, Jett had planned to invite Rosea to the tournament. When he proposed it to her, she said that she love to would join, but only if she could participate in Duo rounds with Jett. She never explained why but he went along with it. Jett accepted but explained that Duos aren't until two days after the initial matches. The tournament was not until a few weeks after he invited her, so he had lots of time to train for the tournament, or at least that what Jett thought. Before he knew it, it was only a few hours until the tournament started. Jett was nervous, really nervous. It was natural, considering the fact that Jett was going to join a tournament meant for people who had already awoken their auras, but he was not going to back down, not today. He wasn't weak though. He had sparred against energy users before and had even fought some on the street and won against most of them. The others were either draws or he would flee in order to survive. As the hour approached, Jett and Rosea walked together to the Neko Stadium as The Neko Tournament had risen above underground and had become a real sport with hundreds of thousands of fans around the world. The pair walked through the thick forest around his isolated cabin. The light entering the dark green foliage around them, through the thick trees above them, hitting the beige path that they walked on gave Jett a sense of joy that entered him every time he walked through here. This sense of joy was intensified by the fact that his lifelong crush was walking right beside him. He could never tell her how he felt about her, because he was afraid she would reject him, which would lead to her distancing himself from him and one half of his whole world would leave him, leaving him with only his love of martial arts to cling onto as his will to live slipped away. At least, that's what he thought would happen but he did not want to roll the dice. They approached the massive stadium and were given backstage passages and were registered as participants. When they walked backstage, they began going down a long hallway filled with fighters of different shapes and sizes. The fighters kept their auras hidden because they did not want to reveal their special aura ability to the other participants. Jett had not yet told Rosea about what energy battles consisted of and decided that this would be the best time to explain it to her. As they walked down a corridor that was packed with a whole lot of different people ranging of tall slim guys with bandanas on their head, to giant buff men with muscles the size Jett's own head, he explained "So, energy fights are a bit different than normal martial arts bouts. Each person here has different colored auras that each have different abilities that can range from technical and situational auras to auras that simply boost one of their attributes to extreme lengths. That's what makes energy bouts so much more entertaining to both participate in and watch." After this giant info bomb that Jett had just dropped on Rosea sinked in, she asked "So then if everyone has their own unique color, what's yours?" Jett put his hand behind his head and said "Oh yeah...about that. Umm, I don't really know." "What do you mean? Can you not see your own...or?" Rosea asked. "What? No...No...That's not it at all it. I just haven't awoken my own color yet." He awkwardly chuckled. "Oh...so how do you awaken it anyway?" She asked him. "Well...there's a lot of ways to do so, like maybe you were born with it already awoken or maybe something snapped inside you and your body awakens it in a fight or flight situation." Jett explains. "Ohhhh," Rosea begins, "so kinda like this." As she spoke, Rosea's beautiful, dark eyes began to change their color. They began to change from a deep dark black, to a glowing, neon, pink color. Her face began to blush, making her cheeks more pink than her eyes. "Woah, you already awoke your aura? When did this happen?" Jett asks. "Like, yesterday or something. I was just cleaning my room when I felt a little jolt of numbing electricity in my finger tips. I looked at it and nothing seemed to change until I looked in my mirror and I saw myself, more pink than I've ever been before." She explained. "Wow, that's incredible. You were just able to tap into it that easily? Man, you really are something special." He added. She blushed as he said that, but her eyes were so pink that it was hard to see a change in the color of her cheeks. They walked into Jett's dressing room as he prepared for his first fight. His nervousness began to get to him. His palms began to sweat and his knees felt heavier. Rosea reassured that he was going to do fine, for she had seen how determined he could be in a fight. Although he appreciated her compliment, his nervousness persisted. The alarm for the tournaments initiation rang, and the main stage began flooding in with fighters as the thousands of fans in attendance cheered them on. The fighters were divided into the sectors of the city they were from, and were introduced accordingly. The city Estor Ava was an enormous metropolitan city that had six sections, which varied in economic stability and status for each section. Although the sections each had their own name, most people numbered them from 1 to 6 depending on how safe and thriving the section was. Each sections number would fluctuate each few decades depending on how rich and powerful it was. All but two fighters left the main stage for the first match. A giant, dark, muscular man with a shiny bald head and the other fighter was Jett, who seemed like he would puke from sheer nervousness had Rosea not been watching from backstage. He tried to not look intimated, even though he most definitely was. The large man's smirk said it all. His ego was the only thing bigger than his enormous muscles. The announcer introduced this giant as 'Caligo Sombrus'. "Oh great, what a non-intimidating name" Jett thought to himself. Caligo began glowing a deep dark black color. "Oh great, what a non-intimidating color." The match was about to begin and Jett was trying to figure out how he, a close range brawler, could ever beat a such big dude with what seemed like a status inducing aura, though the nature of which he did not yet know. "Dammit. I can't think of anything." The bell had already rung, and the match had started. "This won't take too long." The man said with his shit eating smirk. He started approaching Jett, slowly. "Get the hell away from me." Jett said as he shifted to the right. The match had barely started and Jett was already sweating. Caligo began walking faster and faster, and began getting closer and closer to Jett. "Shit shit shit...If I let him get to close....I'm done." Jett thought. Caligo could see that he was distracted and decided to jump into the sky, trying to get close to and stomp on Jett. "It's over boy!!! I win!" Jett looked up to the sky and saw a giant, ready to crush him like a bug. There was nowhere he could run to and nowhere he could hide. "Fuck." He thought, as he accepted his loss. "Really is this how I lose? How disappointing.." Jett thought to himself as he awaited his defeat. He closed his eyes and held his head down. Curiously, he felt his legs forward after a few seconds he opened his eyes. His anticipation turned to confusion when he heard a loud crash behind him. He had been in the corner of the ring when the man jumped, and if he heard the crash behind him, that means he had landed outside of the ring, which would result in a disqualification. Jett looked back and saw that the man had landed on the corner where Jett had been, not outside. Jett looked around and saw that he was instead in the center of the ring. "How did I-" Jett asked himself. He then looked to Caligo, who was just as confused as Jett. This was his chance. He sprinted a towards the giant and jumped up. He put his body in a horizontal stance and used both of his legs to drop kick Caligo off of the stage. Although he stumbled a bit, Caligo was far from falling out of the ring. "Now way! There's no one that stead fast!" Jett thought. "That was a good magic trick boy, now tell me how you did it." Caligo roared. "A magician never reveals his secrets." Jett replied, commiting the hardest bluff he had ever made. "You think you're funny? Let's see who'll be laughing when you're on the floor throwing up because of my apex black aura!" Caligo said as he sprinted towards Jett. "Throwing up? Is he talking about his aura?....so that's it!" Jett thought. The floor rumbled as Caligo's feet stomped down with each step he took, which caused Jett to lose his balance and fall to his knees. "Heavy!" Jett yelled. Caligo reached Jett and grabbed his neck. His black aura began infecting Jett with loads and loads of ill effects and diseases. His eyes began oozing out blood, and his vision began doubling even though he only had one eye open. Jett winced in pain as his head began feeling as if someone was continuously driving an axe into his brain. Caligo began laughing maniacally as Jett began losing consciousness. Caligo, knowing he had already won, let go of Jett to pose for the thousands of fans in attendance and the millions watching on TV. He began flexing his giant muscles and because he did not want his ugly black aura to ruin his moment of glory, he hid it, deactivating it. Jett, while on the floor unconscious, heard a voice. His best friend Young Rosea began talking to him. "Hey! What are you doing on the ground? Get up and go beat that bastard!" Jett's vision returned to him and although he still felt nauseous, he slowly got up using every ounce of strength he still had. The fans cheered even louder as they saw that Jett had not lost yet. Caligo took notice but thought that they were applauding his giant muscles, so he began flexing even more. Caligo's laugh and the sound of the applause masked Jett's already soft footsteps behind Caligo as jet began approaching him. As his nausea faded, his strength returned and he crouched down. As he crouched, some fans began telling Caligo to turn around. Confused, Caligo turned around and saw that Jett's unconscious body was no longer where he left it. What he did not see, though, was Jett already behind him. Jett jumped up and wrapped his legs around Caligo's huge neck, restricting Caligo's brain blood flow from going down to his body. Because of this, his aura could not be transferred throughout his body, and this mixed with the fact that Caligo did not expect to be attacked after thinking he had just won, rendered his strong close range aura useless. Caligo's vision began to fade just like Jett's, and he began to lose his balance, which caused him to fall down to his knees. Caligo's oxygen deprivation was starting to really to get him and in only a few seconds, Caligo slapped the floor three times, signaling a tap out. Jett was the victor. Jett mercifully let go of Caligo, and began trudging off the stage with sigh of relief and his hand on his neck. As he walked, the stadium erupted into cheers. When entered the backstage area, he was met with giant hug from behind him. Their arms felt warm, and familiar. He looked back to Rosea smiling and hugging him. "You won! I knew you would! See? There was nothing to worry about." She said with her warm comforting smile. "Yeah, but that was only one opponent. I've still got two more to go, if i even manage to beat the next one." Jett replied. "I know you will" Rose said, with her a smile.