Chapter Fourteen Sadie
Fourteen
Sadie
It seemed unfair to me to give one fighter a big sword and another a tiny staff, while the third had a shock weapon.
I wondered if the fighters had chosen those, or if they were drawn at random, or assigned by some league leader who liked to play favorites.
When I thought about it, I wasn’t sure what these tournament skills were for.
The DDF had never fought a land war—all our combat was performed by pilots in starfighters.
Were these people preparing for some epic battle between humans and scions? And if so…why was Ivy in the middle of it?
The three fighters moved toward the center of the arena.
I didn’t like the idea of them attacking the scion—and cutting off its branches?
Was that where the worker trees came from?
—but the energy of the crowd was contagious.
If humanity really was at war with the trees, maybe I shouldn’t feel bad for it.
For all I knew, it had a habit of butchering human children and eating them for breakfast.
“You’re rooting for Kalia to win?” I asked Nedd.
“Sure,” Nedd said. “She has the best weapon.”
“I don’t know,” Arturo said. “I wouldn’t mind getting my hands on that sword.”
“Yeah, but Kalia’s the hottest,” Nedd said.
Oh. I watched Kalia stalk toward the scion with her shock spear out in front of her. Her physique was that of a warrior woman—tall with slim muscle, basically the opposite of me in every way.
“I don’t think the scion discriminates based on attractiveness,” Arturo said.
Kalia and Timon had almost reached the scion, but Dayan hung back. They climbed up on one of the fallen trees, held their staff aloft, and then flicked their wrist in a whipping motion. Three light-lines shot out of the end of the weapon, cracking through the air.
Oh.
“Wait, wait,” Nedd said. “One of them gets a metal sword and the other gets a light-whip? I want to change my vote.”
Neither of those weapons would be first on my list when facing a tree, but what did I know?
The cheering died down as the crowd focused on the action, and the man in front of us turned around. “They choose their own weapons,” he said in accented English. “Timon is trying to get a preponderance of severed branches for the bonus. Can’t sever a limb with a light-whip.”
“Oh,” Nedd said. “Thanks.”
Arturo shot him a look. We weren’t supposed to draw attention, but the guy in front of us didn’t seem to think anything of it.
I never watched digball back home, but it seemed asking stupid questions about sports wasn’t a dead giveaway that we were from another planet.
Besides, Arturo had said back on the street that I was allowed to ask questions.
“Hey,” I said, tapping the guy on the shoulder. “Can you tell me why Kalia chose her weapon?”
“I think you’re about to see,” the man said, turning back to the match.
Kalia approached the scion, parrying branches as the thing reached for her. The thick bases of the branches moved slowly where they connected to the trunk, so the scion flung them in a whipping motion, lashing the thinner tips at Kalia, pummeling the flat handle of her spear.
While she distracted it, Timon approached from the other side with his sword, swinging it with both hands at the rear branches, lopping off one as thick as his arm with one swipe.
The crowd cheered, and the scion twisted, flinging more branches at Timon, who stumbled backward to avoid being tossed.
His smaller weapon was clipped to the waistband of his shorts, though he hadn’t used it yet.
Kalia took that opportunity to duck close to the trunk and stab her shock spear through the bark.
The area around her erupted in sparks, and the scion convulsed, momentarily stunned.
Timon rallied, driving forward with his sword, but Kalia grabbed the branch he’d severed and threw it at him, forcing him to dodge back again.
“It seems like they’d be more effective if they worked together,” Nedd said.
Alanik gave him a horrified look. “They are competing. They can’t help each other win.”
“Sure,” Nedd said, “but which is most important? Beating each other or surviving the scion?”
Dayan appeared to prioritize survival. They worked their way closer, letting Kalia and Timon fight it out, until the scion, fleeing Timon’s blows, tumbled over to the carcass where they were perched.
Then Dayan drew back their light-whip and lashed it toward the base of the top branches.
The strands of light tangled there, anchoring the whip, and Dayan pulled on it, launching themself onto the scion’s branches and holding on for dear life.
Oh—Dayan wasn’t a conservative fighter after all. They’d only been waiting for an opportunity. The scion bucked and tossed, flailing at Dayan in an attempt to dislodge them. They crouched low to avoid being whacked, rolling with the shifting center of gravity and trying to stay on.
The crowd began to chant, counting the seconds that Dayan remained on top of the writhing tree. Meanwhile Timon cut off three more branches on the scion’s left side, and Kalia stabbed toward the trunk again.
Her spear connected, and the scion trembled as another current of energy ran through it. Dayan’s body jerked back as the shock hit them, and they flew from the top of the scion, landing in the dirt.
Wow. The competitors really weren’t worried about hurting each other.
The scion dragged itself backward by its branches, then lifted its trunk into the air. It stabbed toward Dayan, and they rolled to the side, barely avoiding being impaled.
“Stars,” Arturo said, “one of them is going to get killed.”
That seemed pretty likely. The competitors didn’t appear to be out to kill each other, but the scion wasn’t holding back.
“Is this what the games are like where you’re from?” Arturo whispered to Alanik.
“No,” she said. “People die sometimes, but it is very rare. We have rules to protect our athletes.”
That made sense. The sports leagues on ReDawn flew starfighters through complicated maneuvers.
If they tried to kill each other, they’d lose a lot of skilled pilots and valuable spacecraft.
Our sports leagues used hoverbikes with small acclivity rings.
The competitors weren’t as protected as pilots in starships, but they also didn’t go nearly as fast.
Dayan was back on their feet, circling the scion, clearly searching for an opening to jump back on top.
They weren’t going to kill the scion that way, so there must be some kind of point system that rewarded riding the scion for long periods of time.
Dayan found a gap and jumped on top again.
They lasted longer this time before the scion dislodged them with a flung branch.
They used the light-whip to pull themself to safety on a nearby log.
“That looks like fun,” I said.
“Sadie,” Arturo said, “if we encounter another of those things in the wild, you are specifically ordered not to try to ride it.”
“Aw,” Nedd said. “That could be fun to watch.”
I pretended to pout, though honestly I didn’t have any desire to be murdered by a giant tree. I also didn’t have any desire to hurt the things—even if these people were at war with them, I still hadn’t seen evidence that they were evil trees, just defending themselves against unprovoked attacks.
Timon, by this point, had racked up a total of ten severed branches, and the crowd went wild as he sent an eleventh one flying. The scion struck back, knocking the sword from Timon’s hand, and he jumped out of the way to avoid taking a full-body blow to his right side.
The crowd grew quiet for a moment, then cheered loudly as he pulled his other weapon from his belt, held it in front of him, and turned it on. A shining laser sword emerged from the small, unassuming handle.
“Okay,” Nedd said. “Now there’s a weapon.”
The stadium erupted in chaos as Timon ran after the scion, cutting off three more branches, and Kalia dodged back to avoid being sliced up by the laser sword.
Neither Kalia nor Dayan was trying to remove branches, so there must be lots of viable strategies for advancing toward ascension, whatever that meant.
Kalia continued her tactic of ducking in close to the trunk while keeping it between her and Timon to fend off the fury of his laser sword.
The scion flailed wildly, trying to get its branches close enough to whip her, occasionally connecting with a stray whack.
She shocked the scion for a third time, and this time Dayan struck forward with their light-whip, catching several branches and binding them all together, then climbed on top.
When the scion got over the momentary stun, it lifted its branches into the air, trying to shake off the light-whip. Dayan clung to the end of the whip and braced their feet against the branches, letting the scion swing them aloft, waving them wildly through the air.
The crowd went crazy, then began counting again, seven seconds, then eight—beating Dayan’s previous record for this match—and kept on counting.
Yes, I definitely liked this method of accruing points better than the others. Dayan didn’t seem to be hurting the scion, though they were seriously annoying it. Timon took advantage of the distraction, cutting branches off with abandon.
The scion started to move more sluggishly.
Whether it was in pain or not, sustaining so many attacks was taking its toll.
I was torn. On one hand, this sport was awesome: Light-whips!
Laser swords! People riding on top of thrashing trees!
And on the other…it certainly looked like they were hurting the creature.