Rift Arena Round 1 Part 3

Amy and Sainfoin tumbled down onto the sandy arena, both entirely disoriented from their sudden teleportation. Amy massaged her forehead with her fingers, trying her best to get herself back together after the horribly confusing entry that Fred had forced onto her. Sainfoin, likewise,  was still attempting to adjust his eyes to the sudden lack of a blinding light.

The sand they both felt underneath their feet signaled that they were both back inside the Arena. When they had finally come to, they heard Fred shouting loudly from some sort of invisible speakers.

"Ladies! Gentlemen! Various other beings! Welcome to RIFT ARENA!" A low murmur came from all directions, from some sort of crowd that they couldn't see. Amy simply stood in place and looked around. Even though this was her second time here, she doubted she would ever get used to being here.

"And now, for today's contestants!" Fred continued. "He's Sainfoin, she's Amy Tolson, he has a shield, she has a vibro-shiv, that's all we need to know, betting period is over, so LET'S GET THIS STARTED!"

Again, the murmur occurred, only slightly louder and more eager.  Amy turned to her opponent, and saw that he had fastened the shield to his right arm, leaving his left hand free to use. "Left-handed, huh?" she asked.

"Miss…Amy, he said it was?" Sainfoin said, ignoring her question entirely. "You do realize we can avoid all this entirely. You seem like a nice girl, I'll give you that. So, if you don't want me to break you like a crappy piece of furniture, I suggest that you surrender. Immediately."

"Is this supposed to be some kind of joke?" Amy pointed her vibro-shank or whatever it was that Fred had called it at Sainfoin. "In case you haven't noticed, I have a knife here. You, however, have a glorified hunk of wood and your left hand. What are you going to do? Poke me to death?"

Sainfoin raised his pointer finger and covered it and his entire left hand in a hot flame. He charged at Amy, a furious and determined look in his eye. Amy was barely able to get out of the way before Sainfoin attacked, furiously slashing at her with a blade of fire that seemed to engulf his whole arm.

"And a VICIOUS attack by Sainfoin!" Fred yelled into his microphone. "He's throwing his stuff around! Amy looks like she's surprised by that fire attack! Pretty funny coming from a redhead!"

Amy slowly backed away, crouched down in a defensive position, prepared to strike at any second and terrified at what she had just seen. "How did you…what did you…." She might have finished her statement if Sainfoin had not launched three fireballs at her. Amy dodged the first one, but the second hit her right in the left knee, and the third heavily grazed the right side of her stomach. She screamed in pain and crumpled onto the sand.

"Oh, and Amy is reeling from that! Sainfoin is really going hard and fast here! Looks like our match up will be over soon, folks. Hope everyone who bet on this lady didn't lose too much money. I know I didn't!"

I swear to God, I am going to kill that bastard when I get out of here, Amy said. Fred had already reached her last nerve, and the charging fire-sword wielding Musketeer didn't help matters. He rushed in on her, lifting his shield up to slam it down on her face. Amy avoided the attack with a combination of brilliant maneuvering and letting gravity bring her down to rest. She kicked Sainfoin in his left shin, causing him to topple down right next to her.

As she lifted up her vibro-shiv to use against him, Sainfoin spread his right arm in front of him to soften the blow. It got the blade stuck in the wooden shield. The odd runes that had been painted on it suddenly swirled around, causing the shield to become a confusing, psychedelic  mixture of colors, eventually causing an explosion of light around the two of them.

"And here we go, folks! The shield's magic effect has been enacted! What will it do? Even I don't know!" Fred shouted into his microphone. As the light finally dimmed down back to normal, Amy looked around and quickly realized both she and Sainfoin were floating in midair. "Oh! An anti-gravity bubble spell! This looks like an interesting development!"

"What the crap is this?" Sainfoin yelled out, wildly flailing his arms about in confusion. "Get me down from here, damn it!"

Oh God, Oh God, what is happening, what the hell is going on???? Amy thought. When she tried to open her mouth, she threw up from the disorientation and lack of balance. The vomit eventually landed on Sainfoin's clothes. Sainfoin proceeded to freak out about his ruined clothing, using the shield to try and scrape it off. Amy, fighting to focus on getting her knife back, pawed at the sand long enough to get a semi-solid hold on it. She flipped herself forward, barely holding back the sickening feeling in her stomach, and eventually got her feet down on the ground. She pushed off the ground and bull rushed Sainfoin, grabbing the vibro-shiv in the confusion.

Before Sainfoin could raise a defensive shield, Amy stabbed him directly in the gut. The pain made him lose focus even more and he screamed out in pain.

At this point, as Amy was drawing out the blade, she accidentally hit the switch that made the vibro-shiv turn on.

The edges of the weapon buzzed louder than a chainsaw as they tore at Sainfoin's body. Blood spewed out, covering everything close by and hanging limply in the air if it hit nothing. Even Amy was surprised, getting a full blast of blood in her face before she had the chance to block her face. Sainfoin screamed loudly until, finally, his voice petered off to a low moan, and finally, a low, harsh breathing.

Amy, fumbling with the hilt of the shiv until she figured out how to turn it off, casually kicked Sainfoin's barely live body away from her, generating enough force to knock both of them outside of the bubble and back into regular gravity, in time for her to throw up again from disorientation.

"And….our…winner, oh my goodness, that looks nasty, someone clean that up," Fred said, a mixture of disappointment and disgust in his tone. "Amy Tolson, everyone. ARi, cut my mike. Get them-"

Fred's voice cut out, and Amy could not have been happier. Not only did she not have to hear that smug little jerk speak anymore, but she was once step closer to her sister. The knife had been messier than she wanted it to be, yes, but at least she didn't have to do multiple stabs like she normally did. It always gave the person being attacked time to do something unexpected, like pull out a knife of their own.

Once the sudden beam of light shined down and transported her and the heavily bleeding Sainfoin back to the room they had started in, robots hurrying to rush her opponent to the infirmary, Amy calmly cleaned off the knife, making sure she didn't turn it back on again, casually dropped it to the floor, and walked back to her room.

She was going to win this. For the first time since Amy had arrived in the Rift Arena, she smiled. There was no way she could lose.




"CALCULATIONS COMPLETED. LEVEL E PARADOX IMMINENT GIVEN PARAMETERS. NEUTRALIZATION OF TARGET REQUIRED."

"No. No, this can't be right. Fred said he had checked everything." ARi ran through the calculations a fourth time, even though a part of her highly logical brain knew it wouldn't matter. "There must be something I missed."

"ALL VARIABLES HAVE BEEN IDENTIFIED. LEVEL E PARADOX IMMINENT. NEUTRALIZATION OF TARGET REQUIRED," the machine repeated. ARi used her hologram hand to rub the imaginary headache on her hologram head away. Like the calculations, she knew at some point that none of that was actually making a difference. But it made her feel better.

"Are we absolutely sure it's level E? Not even just a B? We can handle B. Just say it's a B!"

"Say what's a B, ARi?" Fred asked, suddenly appearing in the room behind ARi's hologram. She quickly turned around, still shocked even after all these years she had known him that he could be so sneaky. He looked around, taking in all of the highly advanced technical equipment around the two of them. "So…whatcha doin'?"

"No…nothing, Sir," ARi dutifully replied, closing down all the files she had had open concerning Amy Tolson. "Just…running some stress tests concerning the hypotheticals of your time lock systems, Sir."

Fred simply smiled. "You're lying, ARi. We both know that, don't we?" He took a remote out of his pants and pressed a small, green button on it. ARi screamed and her hologram image writhed in pain. "I thought I told you no lying anymore, ARi!" he shouted over her wailing.

When he finally stopped, ARi was on her knees and crying. "I-I-I-I am sorry, Master Fred. Please, I never meant….I only want to help you. I…I-"

"Oh, who CARES? Come on now," he said, a manic, earnest grin on his face, already forgetting the punishment he put ARi through, "I just found a new planet! Everyone there is like a piece of celery. I'm going to introduce some ranch dipping sauce into their culture and see what happens. Come along ARi! I need someone to document all the boring, science things." He skipped out of the room, leaving ARi be for a few seconds.

She brought back up the information about Amy and Sarah Tolson. The Level E Paradox that these two could cause, if Fred remained completely honest like ARi knew he would since that was the wonderful type of man he was, would be catastrophic.

They had to be stopped. Amy had to lose the tournament.