The first week of school was perfectly fine, no slip ups or anything, the second was similar. But now... the tournament week has finally arrived, much to my worries.
Professor Callum and Professor Rivera have both given my selected team a proper briefing of the tournament, and we listened carefully. There was another team from our Academy heading there as well, lead by Charles, surprisingly. His team was our secret backup, to some extent, I guess.
Violetta was going be riding her terrifyingly fast superbike to provide me with transport and support. She could ride with at most 3 people including herself, which mean both Raan and I could ride. Raven could easily fly around disguised as a bird, so she didn't need it. (Partially because she didn't like losing her hat and she didn't like riding the bike either.) Honestly, I can drive a car like any normal person, at least.
In this tournament, all participants were given shields, as in the barrier type shields, not the metal ones. The shields will absorb all damage received to a fixed amount before it saturates and has to release all the energy it absorbed before it recharges. If, during the fight, we brought down the shields of an opponent, and make him unable to fight, he is out. Sounds easy, but the shields all have high capacity and can allow the users to receive quite a lot of damage before it depletes. No doubt an Elite tournament.... I heard that these shields can withstand even a direct grenade explosion.
The tournament grounds was at Ifen's largest city, Sylphornia, Altris. The city itself was so big that one needed an hour to drive from one end to another, without traffic. The city's
buildings were all protected with
military-grade shields that were strong enough to withstand the force of up to one kiloton of dynamite exploding (around 4.184 terajoules of energy), so it was safe from all the damage we could deal.
The aim was to sought out and take out the opponents, last man standing wins. Simple goal, just that everyone fighting in it were like, super strong.
Underestimating yourself much?
What?
I mean, come on, you can fight with the power of a dragon. You don't mean to say that winning is impossible, do you?
Um....
As we got to Sylphornia, I was absolutely amazed at how big the city was. It was like... huge. As expected of the largest city...
All participating teams were going to start at different points of the city, and we had to fight anyone we found along the way. Violetta's bike was in the centre of the city, along with all the other vehicles, so we had to get to that area first. We didn't have to worry about people destroying another's vehicle at least, since the rules only allowed for it to be destroyed during battle, not while it was unused.
The four of us started to make our way to the city's centre once the countdown reached '0'. That is, we planned to do so. While we were dropped in randomly, we seemed to have been dropped in a place close to an enemy team....
As a bullet seared past my face as I just barely dodged it, we all leapt away and got into defensive positions.
The bullet wasn't as fast as Lily's, I sensed it faster and had more time to react... so someone must've fired it out of a submachine gun or an assault rifle, definitely not a sniper rifle...
I told everyone to split up and head towards where the opponents were. I however used my wings to fly up. No, I wasn't showing off or anything, but I was trying to direct the opponents' attention to me as my teammates progressed. Besides, tanking damage was in my field.
As I expected, there was gunfire as soon as I showed up in the air. I burst to the side and looked at him. A submachine gun... I was right. His teammates were nearby too... Time for action.
Two of them were gunners, one was a dual blade wielder and the remaining was a-
"What the-?!" I grunted as she suddenly appeared before me, striking against my sword with a blade. The sound from the blade itself... it was made of a highly sturdy steel for sure.
"Ho..? You blocked it pretty well, as expected from someone from a Millennia," she smiled and pushed me away. "Ruria Einsheim, Runic Witch of the Royal Atlia Academy."
"Rosaria Reed of the Millennium Academy, nice to meet you. You aren't bad yourself... nearly got me there."
"That so?"
Great, a fight with someone from the second strongest academy in all of Altris. Neat-o.
She was flying, she had a type of wing ability herself... But before I could finish, she threw soon talismans at me, which exploded once they were close to me. I immediately flew back to avoid them.
Heads up, she's using fire attacks. Make her think she has an advantage, then catch her off guard.
Right!
Your friends are holding up well down there at least, Raan and Yun are doing pretty well. Oh, looks like this kid is their main, just like you.
Got it. I'll handle her quickly.
She threw more talismans towards me, and I flew around her to avoid them as they blew up. I needed to wait for an opening. The explosions weren't affecting my shields, which she must've noticed, as she switched styles and went back to her blade. This was my first time fighting someone in the air like this... with nothing to step on... wait, what if..?
"You're gonna lose if you space out!" She shouted and slashed at me from below.
I waited for it until her blade was just millimetres away from me, and I used my powers to repel her blade from me before I slashed at her. She blocked it and flew back before raising her arm at me and six circles appeared around me.
This can't be good.
All the circles then shot out a stream of talismans that surrounded me and all exploded at once, chipping away at my shields. It wasn't the fire damage... but the sheer force from the explosion that was doing it.
"Tch..," I grunted and burst forwards rammed against with my shields. "How about this!" I yelled and ejected her backwards, making her crash into a nearby building, halving her shield.
She flew back towards me and struck against my blade, and we were doing a dance of chaining attacks and parrying. All of a sudden, there were bullets flying my way. One of them was shooting at me, I had to break away from
the attack. She managed to hit me several times and brought my shields down to half as well before I dropped down and raised a circle above her and dropped it down against her, launching her into the ground. I may have hit her a tad too hard though... since I actually eliminated the remaining shields with that hit.
As for the gunner, he was still shooting at me before suddenly shooting a rocket and throwing some grenades at me. I raised a shield and burst towards him, storing the energy from the bullets before ramming into him and sending him flying with the extra energy from the bullets.
There was the sound of a horn as a screen popped up above the eight of us.
Fight Over
Win :Team Millennium
Loss : Team Atlia
We... won?
Yep, good job.
Yay!
Runia walked towards me, with a happy smile.
"Ahaha... I may have gotten too cocky. You're strong, Rosaria."
"You're amazing yourself, Runia. I don't find a lot of people who can actually do damage to me like that," I laughed.
"You're pretty interesting, that skill of yours... never seen anything like it. Your name's pretty unique too. I mean sure, you're popular on the Net, but you don't see that name that often."
"W-Wait, what do you mean I'm popular?"
"What, you don't know?" Her teammate popped up. "You're kinda famous online from saving so many cities and towns as well as your crazy fights."
Since when...
A long time ago. You never check the Net much, so you don't know.
I'm gonna check that out soon.
"Anyways, it's been great fighting your team. Good luck with the rest of the tournament. There's another team from my Academy here, and they're way stronger."
"Hey!! Sis?! Let's go!"
"You better hurry."
I waved them walked towards my team,y Comm vibrated.
"Got your number!" It was a message from Runia, apparently. Must've forgotten about the auto-exchange function.
---Au---
"Brother, over here! We saved you a seat."
"Oh, thanks sis. How's the competition so far?"
"Hm... one team was eliminated by Rosaria's. There's still 96 teams left though. Got the snacks?"
"Heya Goldilocks! Gimme that too!" Nana giggled. "Thanks for buying that for me."
"Even though you have someone else to ask...," Arthe sighed.
"Eh? I need you to be with me!"
"Oh for.. get a room, you two...," Este shook her head. "
"That's a little tough..," Elliot pouted. "Will Rosaria be okay? She's depending on this tournament to stay in the Academy..."
"She'll win it, I'm positive. Rosaria's sharp. She can plot the fights," Victoria smiled, looking at the big screens. "If any case, she's working on a plan to win this very moment."
---Rosaria---
"This is totally not going according to plan!!!" I complained to myself.
"Ahahahaha! I know your abilities Rosaria! You can't hide from me!!"
"How do you even have that suit!?!" I shouted as I flew about, dodging his blaster attacks. "Are you sure that's not against the rules?!"
"Yep. It's basically a vehicle anyways."
"As expected of someone from the Tecnolis Academy. How good is your tech anyway...?"
My opponents were in an Mecha-like suit, one was a melee, the other was a sniper. Both capable of flying. The other two seemed to be taking on my teammates pretty well. There was a buffer and a tank huh....? They had their team very well thought out.
Need me to take over? I am better than you at ability usage.
I'll save it for later.
Aww. Not fair.
"Come on Rosaria! Let's get this over with!" He shouted and swung his beam sword at me, narrowly missing.
"This is unfair..."