Her alarm chirped. And chirped. And chirped.
"Moon, for the love of fuck, shut up." Calder slurred, rolling over in her bed and folding the pillow over her ears.
The chirping continued. Calder released her head from the pillow taco and stared straight up at the ceiling. It was just as bland as every other day, except for the room being a little darker.
She turned her head to the source of the noise, mom glare ready. But instead of the troublesome juvenile dragon warming up his vocals for a day of screaming, the bedside table was occupied by her phone.
Huh, okay. Apparently it took a month for her to consider the useless brick hers.
She reached for it, blinking blearily. The alarm was still going. Calder's eyes had to refocus a number of times before her vision cleared up enough for her to read the alarm label.
Tryout?
Oh.
Oh, FUCK!
Calder was on her feet in a flash. She'd slept through both morning tryouts last week. She would not allow another encore.
Her phone's clock read 7:04. Okay, okay. Calder forced herself to calm down as she hastily dressed and tied her shoes.
7:10
FUCK!
***
"Supposed to be over there already, hm?" Benjamin taunted her as she grabbed a bagel on the drive-by and took off sprinting again.
"Slept through my first alarm!" She yelled over her shoulder. "Gold, I want you waiting for me on the runway," she said at a normal volume to herself. Gold was generally punctual. She could trust him to actually be there.
Calder burst through a set of double doors and into the bright rising sunlight. Gold was indeed waiting just outside, full sized, crouched and waiting to spring into the air. She chomped down on the bagel and grabbed hold of Gold's neck with both hands. He wasted no time, launching upwards and leaving Calder to fully mount mid-air.
She tore off a bite of her breakfast now that her hands were free, sighing as the wind made a total mess of her hair. This time of morning was genuinely beautiful. The sky hugging the horizon was still gold, though by now the sun was mostly risen. Light was reflected off the clouds, painting them pale oranges and pinks. Why did she never appreciate sunrises very often?
Oh yeah, because she sucked at waking up.
The coliseum had been in sight from the beginning, but now it filled her vision. Gold coasted close to the ground, then firmly sprinted along the grass as he tucked in his wings and slowed first to a trot, then to a walk and then a full stop. Every dragon had their favorite way of landing. That was his.
Calder stuck the last bite of her bagel in her mouth and hopped from her mount's back. She nodded her head in the direction of the door and he disappeared into a portal, reappearing from a smaller one as the perfect size to perch on his foster mom's shoulder. They disappeared into the coliseum, only to run into a wall of other people.
Calder stopped suddenly, swallowing her breakfast and nerves. This was a large group, and in the hurry to get out the door she'd left her hat somewhere in her room. Okay. This was gonna have to work.
Upon further observation, they weren't in line. Most of the people here were holding a manilla folder with a name written on it in someone's semi-neat handwriting. Calder squeezed her way to the front of the room and found a desk.
"Here for tryouts?"
Calder's hair all stood on end. She composed herself rapidly and nodded.
"Name please," the man asked, swiveling around to face a filing cabinet.
"Calder McKaye."
He opened a drawer, leafed through a couple folders, and pulled one out. Then he handed it to her and noted something down on the tablet sitting upon his desk.
Calder nodded in thanks when he looked back up at her. He returned a friendly smile and she stepped away, opening the folder as she found a vacant space to stand in. Gold crept down her arm to see better.
"You can't read, dumbass." she muttered, keeping her volume in check. One or two sets of eyes glanced up, but no more and never again.
The contents of the folder included a photocopy of her duelist application, more photocopies of various documents such as her criminal record, old Galenian citizenship, post-altered birth certificate, and the new Aegisian citizenship Jade had presented while Calder was still bedridden. Then there were a number of papers with informal notes, both typed and handwritten. The work of the evaluators, she figured. There were a number of questions about the whole 'dragon summoning' thing, and Calder knew it was going to be frowned upon. But in the end, what could she do about it?
The man at the desk spoke up, addressing the crowd.
"Okay, we've got two live evaluators present today, so things are going to run kinda slow. When I call your last name, go to the instructor I tell you. Directory is up on the scoreboard. Neton, go to Kibret. Joi, go to Lewell."
"Alright, we might be here for a while," Calder muttered to the tiny passenger on her shoulder. Gold chirped, the unease present in the sound and his expression.
***
"McKaye, go to Kibret."
Calder pushed off of the wall she'd been leaning against and made a beeline for the open door. The exiting applicant held it open for her. She made sure she thanked him loud enough to actually be heard.
People had been staggering in and out at their own intervals all morning. It was going slow, all right. Some were here for a second referral, but the latter half of the participants were brand new. Each applicant spent approximately nine minutes with the evaluator, and there were about forty-five people waiting to be evaluated. Getting through everyone would take three and a half hours.
And Calder, because she got here late, was at the end of the line. So she finally set foot in the coliseum at 11:04, and the awe and accomplishment she felt upon imagining a roaring crowd up in the stands washed away the discomfort of running on 300 calories thus far.
The massive screen reserved for keeping score on Saturday was used now to point to each end of the slightly ovaline ring. To the right was Lewell. To the left, Kibret. She needed to go left.
"Folder?" He asked. She handed over the file, giving her instructor a good once-over. He was late middle aged, his hair was dark grey and thin, but he held himself tall and proud and she figured he'd been doing this for a while. Behind him a few paces was another man, with dark skin and leaning on a bamboo staff. He gave Calder a two-finger salute. She nodded up at him.
"Galena..." Kibret grumbled, first looking at her exposed horns and then vertical pupils.
"Whatever problems you have with them, I have more," Calder spoke up.
"Your family's full of hot air and nothing else, Eileen McKaye. Aegis doesn't have a spot open for you." He closed the folder and shoved it against her chest, forcing Calder to catch it before all of the papers fell out. "Go take your seat on their council."
Calder's ears rang. She hadn't expected this type of opposition, much less from someone meant to be an objective observer. She looked at the nameless staff wielder, who gave her a confused look, and then directed the look towards Kibret.
Who tried to walk past her.
"I read up on the evaluators," she said. "They're supposed to view things pretty objectively. And I bet that usually you've got a handle on things, which makes me wonder... why get so riled up when the K-D is handling their own bullshit on the other side of the globe? Like I said, I was born there, so whatever problem you have with my family, I can raise you quite a few points."
"Oh, so you think you're better than the rest of us too?" Kibret challenged, turning to tower over her.
"Only because I actually put in the work to be better at something. I'm a better fighter. I started training when I was twelve. More than half my goddamn life ago." She paused. "Is their stupid superiority complex really your only issue?"
He frowned deeply and grabbed the folder out of her hands. "Prove that fighting skill of yours, karryd."
She gave him a thoroughly unimpressed look following his use of the slur and turned on her heel. The man with the staff nodded to her, and readied up. Calder nudged Gold from her shoulder, who was growling at Kibret, and waved him off in a way that meant 'wait for my call.' Her evaluation opponent watched as the tiny dragon disappeared through a portal.
She didn't even bother forming a stance. She just sprinted, full tilt, towards her opponent. He'd been prepared for the sudden movement, somehow, and readied a swing at wherever she would soon be.
She threw all of her weight backwards and limbo-slid underneath the swing at the last second, ground-roundhousing his legs out from under him at the laster second. He flailed and dropped the stick in exchange for catching himself on the way down. He regained his footing, snatched up the staff from where it lay in the dirt, and swung it at Calder's legs. She hopped completely over it and wound up behind him, in the perfect position to land two swift strikes to his shoulder blades. He whipped around in record time and slammed a fist into her jaw.
She stumbled backwards and wound up lying on her back in the dust. Kibret's glare leveled to her and she returned the favor before rolling back and jumping to her feet again.
It was time to step back and think about this. While her opponent wasn't meant to defeat her, she still wanted to best him. He was light on his feet with swift reactions, a wide area of attack, and plenty of experience if he'd been at this post for even a month.
She guessed that surprising him was out of the question. She'd need to overpower him some way or another. A couple methods came to mind.
A couple sprinting steps preceded a fake-out, a dive roll, a deep breath and a particularly large bloom of red-orange fire. The man had to stumble to a halt and jog backwards to avoid getting singed. And then, as he trained his eyes on the curtain of heat, Calder burst from within and landed a dropkick square on his chest. They both toppled but Calder made it to her feet first, lashing out with another kick to the shoulder. The bamboo staff smacked her hard in the shin--the only one she was currently balanced on--and it sent her down again.
"Backup!" Calder squawked, a knee-jerk reaction to a surprise strike. She got a good look at the confusion on the faces of both Kibret and her opponent before the shockwave hit and the portal formed. It was hard to see against the shade of the sky until a golden airstrike shot from within the mouth of the Farplane and circled once around the stadium. He was waiting for an order.
Calder scrambled to her feet and waved him over. Not to attack, just... over to land. He immediately changed course and hurried to the opposite side of the coliseum. Calder dropped her arms and slouched in annoyance as Gold tried to land in his preferred gradual style along the length of the coliseum floor.
It clearly wasn't long enough. Gold was halfway across the floor and he had just barely put his feet down in the dust, pitching backwards and scrabbling all four feet in an attempt to shed his momentum. Calder stiffened up, dove out of the way, rolled to her feet, and grabbed Kibret's arm in time to drag him out of the worst of the dust. There was a thud as the dragon's armored body collided with the adjacent wall. All three humans were safe. Their airways, however, were not. Dust rose into the air in huge plumes before settling back down again. Calder sneezed hard enough to go lightheaded and glared into the settling cloud, where a sheepish pair of red eyes were timidly peering back.
"And as you can see," she ground out as the shiny perp became visible once again, "They nerf themselves."
"They?" Kibret echoed.
"I have more."
"How many?" He somehow had a pen and was scribbling his own notes on a mostly empty piece of paper from within the depths of the folder.
"Fif...teen, total? But like, half of them are babies and I don't call them to the scene. So I guess eight that I use as backup and transport on the regular."
"Is it a psychic connection between you and your lizards that allows that connection to exist?"
Calder scrunched up her nose at the noun he chose. Gold snorted, nostrils expelling spouts of smoke, which half disappeared back into his nose when he caught sight of his foster mom's warning glance.
"Far as I know," she answered flatly.
"Anything that bars the frequency of summon, or any side effects that could act as barriers or limits?"
Oh. That's where this was headed. Calder huffed, knowing there wasn't any way to honestly give the evaluators the answer they wanted.
"No. No limitations."
Kibret scribbled something down on his paper. The combatant evaluator leaned on his staff and gave Calder a thumbs-up. She looked at him funny. How was that a good thing?
"What about the dragons themselves? Any... mental limitations or other factors to limit their capabilities on the battlefield?" Calder almost snorted at how Kibret's tactful choice of words had been mental limitations.
"Six outta eight of 'em are juveniles, all male, which means their default setting is retarded as fuck. One of 'em has his brain split into three pieces but still can't use more than one third at a time. Long story short nobody ever does anything right without blatant, clear orders. So it's easy to just say 'don't do anything without orders.'"
"Do those orders come in the form of verbal commands?"
"Sometimes. Other times we use hand signals. Like this one--" she held up her hand like an offer for a high five and waved in a circle that pointed to the sky before pointing at the back of her neck with her index finger. "--means 'shrink down and perch. Doing the opposite motion with a small guy perched up means 'size up and get ready.'" Gold was already obeying the command before Calder had started talking again. His red eyes followed the sign immediately, and he leapt into action. The arrowhead-shaped end of his tail was disappearing through a large Farplane portal one instant and he had resurfaced from the mouth of a small one the next. By the time Calder finished her explanation, he was balanced delicately on her shoulder, being mindful of his needle claws and the holes they might punch in the fabric of her tee shirt.
"And when I call on them verbally, they react faster if I yell louder." she added.
"He doesn't seem that dumb," the staff fighter offered as Kibret scribbled more notes on his paper.
"You watched him land, right?" Calder asked, not quite sure if she heard correctly.
Kibret closed the folder in an abrupt fashion and clicked his pen closed. "You're done for today. Hand this in to the desk on your way out. Don't be here any earlier than next week for generalized assessments. Nerfing and buffing, as you kids say it." He handed the folder to Calder and she nodded.
Without another word, she turned and made for the entrance lobby. Gold chittered from his perch on her shoulder.
"Could've gone worse," she agreed, running her finger along the edge of the file. "Wonder what kinda nerfs they think you idiots need."
The artificial light of the lobby only illuminated her steps long enough to leave the folder with the desk manager again. From then on, she was back out in the daylight, blinking against the harsh glare of an almost-noonday sun and wishing she'd woken up early enough to remember her hat. Her shoulders moved congruently with the deep breath that entered her lungs and exited as a heavy sigh. She just stood there, ten feet away from the side entrance of the coliseum, with her eyes closed and uneven bangs gently tickling her eyelashes as they danced in the breeze.
"Hey, are you all right?" A man piped up from behind her. Gold perked up with a squawk and Calder's eyes fluttered open, pupils constricting again in the harsh light. She slowly turned around, expression contorted in confusion and a hint of annoyance.
"I'm... fine?" she ventured as he approached. He was pretty tall, maybe an inch shy of six feet, with gleaming yellow irises obscured a little by stray strands of inky black hair. He wore an expensive looking three-piece suit in shades of black and grey, complete with a vibrant red necktie.
"Are you sure? I've gotten to talk to people who had Kibret on their first day. He's not friendly."
"No, he wasn't. But I can stand up for myself, thanks." Calder dismissed smoothly.
"I thought so. I can tell you've been working towards a spot on this roster for a while." Calder stopped mid-turn, giving him a curious look from the corner of her eye. "There's a lot of determined people who want the same thing as you."
"Is there a point here?" Calder pressed.
"You want tips on how to breeze past the checkpoints?" He said abruptly. "I can help with that. And I'm meeting up with a friend for lunch. She bounced around in tryouts for less time than I did."
"You can't honestly tell me you're a fully-fledged duelist."
"I am! Have been for about three months. Khir got accepted about a month before me, but our tryout periods overlapped a bit."
"Huh."
There was suddenly a very valid reason to follow him. And if he was lying, then at least Calder had perpetual backup. Gold seemed to get the idea. He crawled down Calder's back and disappeared into a tiny, silent portal before the stranger could notice.
"Lead the way then, I guess." she conceded.
"Great! My name's Oblisk, by the way. You are..."
"Calder."
"Pleasure to meet you. Khireas will eventually warm up too, though she's distant at first." He shrugged as they walked.
"Can't say I'm unfamiliar with distant. How long have you known her?"
"Since I moved to Aegis, so..." his gaze turned skywards as he thought about it. "Five or six months. That's enough time to get to know anyone."
Calder considered this. In her experience, six months was an unmanageable length of time to spend learning about any one person. The last time she'd bothered to put that much effort into a relationship with any new person was Fay, all the way back in elementary school. She didn't actually know how much time and effort it took to understand someone else.
"I wouldn't know," she chose to say out loud. "I'm intent on staying single."
"Sure, but you can't not have friends."
"I have friends."
She felt the dubious look more than saw it.
"I do. They just don't live here, and I just find it easier to walk alone most of the time."
He seemed to consider that, nodding slowly as if conversing with another self in his head.
"Alright," he conceded. "I just personally find it important for everyone to have someone they can turn to for help, whenever they may need it." Calder pursed her lips but otherwise said nothing. Oblisk, after glancing at her, seemed to understand her silence. He didn't press any further.
The last few minutes of walking were spent in silence. Oblisk scanned the rows of tightly-packed buildings for their destination while Calder walked beside him and tried to follow his eyeline. Eventually though, he did find the place he was looking for. A small cafe, with plenty of space on the sidewalk for tables. Sitting at one was a young woman with silvery-blue hair, ghostly pale skin, and a navy blue overcoat. Oblisk walked right up to the table, and the other girl looked up and smiled softly.
Calder slowed her pace until Oblisk had finished saying whatever it was he needed. He turned around and beckoned her over. The pale girl stood up and waved shyly as the draconic approached, and Calder waved back.
"Calder, this is Khireas." Oblisk said. "Khir, this is Calder. She just finished dealing with Kibret on her initial evaluation trial."
"Crap, you got him on the first day? Rough." Khireas almost whispered, lowering her hand.
"I managed," Calder shrugged as Oblisk ducked away to grab a nearby unoccupied chair. He sat down in it, leaving the one already at the table for Calder.
She sat, too.
"So," Oblisk spoke up again, not even bothering to open his menu while Khireas more or less buried her face in hers. "Everyone has to adjust at least one of their powers between the initial tryout and their first sparring one. And knowing Kibret, he found something for you to nerf. What was it?"
"The dragons."
Oblisk smirked just a little bit. Khireas' eyes reappeared from above the menu.
"Elaborate," She ordered.
"I have a flock of dragons. Sometimes they do my bidding. Sometimes they're too stupid to. Kibret was worried about, uhhh, frequency. I think. Like, how often I can call them to me."
"How do you do that?" Khireas asked.
"Do what?"
"Summon dragons. Aren't they ancient creatures?"
"Not always. The ones I have were injured wild animals that never left me alone. I just yell really loud and they come to where I am."
Khireas looked like she was going to pass out.
"And there's no limit to that?" Oblisk asked, wide-eyed. "Time, spacial, nothing?"
"Nope. Which was the entire problem."
"Yeah, that would be it. As someone who had to nerf like half of his powers-"
"Narcissist." Khireas interrupted him.
"-I recommend aiming for time constraints first." He punctuated the drawn-out end of the statement with a glare at his old companion. Khireas just barely concealed her smile. Oblisk turned back to Calder with a more amicable tone. "They're just easier to create, extend, and enforce. Especially if you're trying to enact constraints on multiple intelligent beings."
"Semi-intelligent. They're juvenile males, most of them."
"I can't tell if that's a jab at me or not." Their faces got a little closer, both brandishing a contemptuous smirk.
"Why is that girl looking at us funny?" Khireas piped up. Her uneasy brown gaze flicked from a point just down the road to her companions and back to the road.
As Khireas hid behind her menu again, Calder and Oblisk turned around in their seats. Calder chuckled dryly as she locked eyes with a really unamused pair of indigo orbs. As their owner made her final approach, Oblisk looked long and hard at Calder's cheeky grin.
"Afternoon, Parrisol," Calder droned. "I didn't forget about the deadline, I just chose to ignore it."
"Hm. Interesting. I hope it was worth it?"
"Yeah, it was. These two are both recently-inducted duelists, and had some good advice to share." She gestured at Oblisk, who nodded amicably, and Khireas, who barely glanced up at all.
Parrisol plucked her glasses from her face and wiped at the lenses with a ruffle on her blouse. She looked incredibly bored as she threatened, "You better hope Jade sees it the same way."
"Who am I to care?" Calder shrugged as she stood. "She's not my boss."
"She's the boss of everyone in this town. If you're getting employees sent after you for missing a meeting point, you oughta care." Oblisk broke in. He looked to Parrisol, holding up surrender hands. "I didn't know. She said her schedule was empty."
Parrisol nodded and replaced her glasses. "She's been doing it for a month. We won't hold it against you." She shoved Calder with her elbow. "Come on. Let's go convince her not to kill you."
"I'd like to see her try," Calder muttered as they retreated. Upon reaching the edge of the street, a hole opened up in the ground and Calder hopped in, followed a moment later by the Nemesis valet.
Only a few gazes lingered on the spot they'd just occupied. Khireas dropped her menu on the table and sighed. "She's terrifying," she decreed of the blonde.
Oblisk sat and thought before answering.
"I watched her yell at Kibret today during her tryout. She wants into the Dojo, and badly."
"I hope it's not for any dangerous reason."
Oblisk sighed and paused again. "If Nemesis is watching her, they're wary. But they don't think she's an outright threat so far." He drummed his fingers on the table, just letting them both think in silence, until a server showed up to take their order.