A New Star Chapter 43

Everyone made their way out back to the training grounds, which had the facilities to accommodate a duel in a more professional fashion, though it hadn't been used in a long while. When the Count had challenged me to a fight, we had simply used one of the sparring areas to duel, but the grounds did have a proper dueling ring, which had seating and waiting areas for any contestants around it. The area had already been setup, I noted, likely in anticipation of such challenges happening during the course of this 'birthday' celebration. In a bit of an ironic turn, it would be me, the birthday girl herself, that spilled the first blood on the arena floor. The stands were two sets of bleachers, essentially, that could hold about a hundred and fifty people at most on each side, west and east, of the dueling field, and an observation area on the north for any judges or important people to sit. The area to the south was for duelists to gather and wait for their turn, and the Adelain boy and his followers took up one of the blocked out areas therein.  

I climbed onto the stage, walking to the north end and watching as a very large crowd filed in, over a hundred people having either been in the room or gotten word that the duel was happening. This was going to be a pretty poor show for them, for which I felt a bit bad, but maybe some of the other youths' blood would be stirred and they could put on a better performance afterwards. I glanced around to see the stands fill in what felt like only a moment, though there were open spaces in several places and clear delineations between different groups and sub-groups of people. I felt a very subtle presence and glanced up using just a tilt of my eyes to see the Silver Lady and several figures I didn't recognize on the roof of the barracks buildings surrounding the training area looking down at us. I wondered if Rod, or whatever his name was, would shit his pants if he knew that a Y-ranker was the referee and several X-, Y-, and Z-rankers, unless my guess was entirely wrong, were standing on the roof, or hiding the shadows, watching our duel.  

He would probably be even more mortified after this, as I had no intention of going easy on him, standing in my dress and without a weapon, though Gungnir was always with me now. I wondered how many of those high-rankers could sense the spear's presence; idle thoughts to be examined later. The Count had entered the ring and stood between Rodrick and myself, looking at us both for a long minute before speaking to the assembled crowd, explaining the duel and the rules. We would, apparently, be going to first blood, a knockout, the Count's interference, or until one of us surrendered. Well, we would be going until option two, but nobody else knew that for a fact just yet. The Count addressed us afterwards, asking if we were ready. 

"She's not going to use a weapon?" Rodrick more demanded than asked, and with a voice crack at the end. Hey, puberty was always tough, but if one put oneself out into the limelight like he did, I felt it was alright to chuckle a bit at the lack of vocal control. 

"You think I need one?" I asked with a single, perfectly arched brow. 

"I'll bring you low. I'll-" Rodrick started blathering. 

"Enough!" the Count stopped him before he could really get rolling. A fortunate thing, as I was just about to stop him myself before the duel even started.  

"Duelists, ready?!" the Count called out then. We both acknowledge the Count, myself with a nod, Rodrick with a bow. "Good! Bow to the audience!" We then did so. "Good! Bow to each other!"  

I gave Rodrick a very, very shallow bow, and he didn't deign to return it at all, which caused a good bit of a stir. Any good will he might have been building was torn away right then and there; if he had been a bit older, he might have realized that following the rules to the letter and doing so with poise would make he look like the bigger person and more respectable, but he still had the maturity and mentality of a spoiled child. I just sighed and shook my head, glancing at the Count, who was frowning, but he still prepared to signal the bout. 

When the count dropped his arm and shouted for us to begin, Rodrick drew his blade and charged across the stones of the dueling arena towards me, taking two of the large pavers used to tile the ring in each of his too-large strides. If I wanted to teach him a different lesson, I could have easily taken apart his stance and movements, the sloppiness of his balance almost unreal. While he was still a child, he was a noble child that had access to some of the best tutors and training anywhere and had clearly been paying attention for some of it, as his grip on his sword was rather good, but he had not absorbed some of the most important lessons. Footwork. It was always footwork.  

I simply walked forward, slow and calm, waiting for the young fool to get close. One of the things about fighting with a weapon is that a person really gets a sense for how that weapon operates, how people use it, and what it can do. That comes in especially handy when facing off against someone wielding that weapon, especially if that person should still be on their mother's apron strings rather than in a dueling arena. As Rodrick drew near to me, he moved into a textbook lunge, and I mean it was very textbook. Such a thing is good, in that he had clearly had the very basics of the basics drilled into him, but it was bad, in that anyone with a lot of actual, in-field fighting experience was going to devour someone like him without any effort. He also wasn't the most brilliant young prodigy with the blade, either, and he was rather sloppy in many respects, including the movement of his hips and shoulders. 

I stepped into the thrust, moving forward and to the side while lightly tapping the extended blade with my left hand, not even bothering to use any affinity. As the sword passed by my side, I sent a very light, short, sharp jab into Rodrick's jaw with my right hand, the kind of blow with just enough power and more than enough precision to knock the young fool unconscious. It was a full knockout, as well, meaning he fully lost conscious and fell over, his body having stiffened as a result of the blow. I didn't slow down at all, neither in the exchange nor afterwards, continuing to walk to the southern end of the dueling arena as the Count called out my victory.  

Looking down at Rodrick's lackeys, who seemed to have multiplied since I last checked, I said, "If you want to dispense with the games, I'm more than happy to fight you all at once. At least that would be a little entertaining." 

"You harlot-" started one of the several people in the group in what looked like a uniform before a voice I was unfamiliar with thundered over him. 

"You will watch your language, or you will be ejected from this gathering!" A man with graying hair and a thick, close-cropped beard thundered as he walked over to Rodrick's party. He was wearing the same sort of uniform many of the people in Rodrick's group were, though Rodrick himself had been wearing a suit with far too much ornamentation, in my opinion. 

"An excellent knockout, young lady," the man then said to me, giving me a small nod. I was neither impressed by the man nor his attempt at a commanding presence and merely raised an eyebrow at him. He cleared his throat and continued, "While I admire your verve, I would suggest fighting all the students of our academy gathered here might tire you out. It would also not be particularly sporting for us to fight against a young lady that hasn't even entered the academies yet." 

"You seem to be under a misapprehension, sir…" I replied, letting my voice trail off. 

"How rude of me! I am Sir Reginald Buckworth, the dean of combat arts at Veridium Royal Academy," the man said, giving me a bow. 

"Well, Reginald," I said, seeing his eye twitch at me using his first name without his appellation, "you are under a misapprehension. I was not suggesting I fight all your students gathered here." 

"Well, of course not," he interrupted in the second I paused to take a breath. 

I held up my hand, interrupting his interruption before continuing, saying, "I intended to fight all of your students at once, however many wish to join in against me. If that's one, five, ten, twenty, it doesn't matter to me. The more the merrier, as they say, and I feel like we need to put on rather a better show." 

I had said the last part with scorn in my voice as Rodrick had been resuscitated and had walked back over to join his group, giving me a bit of a death glare. Well, if one case of concussive recalibration didn't change his attitude, I was more than happy to provide as many as the little shit needed to straighten himself out. Old Reginald, meanwhile, was sputtering and blustering and turning a rather interesting shade of red I wasn't sure was entirely healthy for a man of his advanced years. I held up a hand again to stop his conniption, looking calmly over his students, who would likely range in age from thirteen to eighteen at the most, though I didn't think any older students were part of this little clique. 

"I will walk back over to the north end of the field. When I do, you are welcome to climb up onto the stage and get ready for a fight. If nobody does, well, I'll assume this fine young man," and at this point I pointed to Rodrick, "is the best representation you can field. Don't worry about numbers or strength; I doubt this will take long regardless." 

Having said so, I turned on my heel and walked back by the Count, who had been listening in and was now glowering at me. Well, whatever, he could be content with refereeing one more match, despite his glorious credentials of raising emperors and defeating the Wilds or whatever he always prattled at people when his introduction really got rolling. I planted myself at the end of the dueling field and watched and waited as there was some kind of heated argument, one with Rodrick shrilling out complaints loud enough that I'm pretty sure people still back in Veridium heard him. I looked around at the gathered nobles and their scions, sticking a pinky in an ear and wiggling it around while wincing as if to show his annoying voice was physically damaging me. There were rather a few laughs at that; I had to remember that not only was there no internet as of yet, nor television, that radio wasn't even a thing. In this days, entertaining people was a much simpler affair than what it would be even a hundred years from now, possibly quite a bit less if I had any say.  

Eventually, a group of ten climbed up onto the stage and took up positions across from me. I had to say, I was not particularly impressed; the numbers weren't enough to really make a showing of it, and they hadn't exactly picked the most skilled among their number. They had likely done it based on some arbitrary rules of honor and peerage and standing and all that daftness; things that never survived the heat of a proper battlefield, but this was just a friendly duel. The Count had taken up position again and make us go through all the same motions, none of my opponents bowing, which once again got the crowd talking, and not in a good way. Reginald reprimanded them from the sidelines, though lightly, but it was enough that they all at least gave shallow bows, more dips of the head, before the Count got us started.  

The group wasn't going to make the same mistake as Rodrick, and they approached more cautiously, attempting to surround me before attacking. Well, that was fine, I wasn't necessarily going to impress the more tactical minds by letting myself get pincered, but I wasn't here for the current or future generals. This was for entertainment purposes, and I intended to give the crowd a bit of a show.  

I let the leader of this new unit approach all the way to sword-swinging distance before engaging, easily moving around his blade, I kicked him in the knee before grabbing his wrist and twisting him around, using his blade to block one of his classmate's attacks. I then continued the turn, flinging him up and over my shoulder as I rolled under a spear thrust before sending him flying into two of his classmates. I then got the second sword wielder in an armlock and twisted him around, disarming him before knocking him down directly in the path of another student who tripped over him. I was a bit unintentionally making this a comedy routine, but these were only students, and not particularly skilled ones at that.  

I caught one of the two spear-wielder's weapons on a thrust, twisting the haft of the spear in a way that put a lot of pressure and stress on his hand. When he foolishly let go, I continued the twist and smacked him in the chin with the pommel nut of his own weapon, knocking him out before dropping it as I had the sword from earlier. I danced around several more attacks, marveling at how sloppy some of the older kids were, but then again, they were in Rodrick's little clique. If they were sixteen or seventeen and had been at the academy several years and couldn't find a better group than trailing after a soon-to-be student, then they were not the top brass.  

I crossed two of the students up, making them punch each other at the end of their sword swings, which the group highly favored. In fact, they were seven sword users, two spear users, and one archer that hadn't done all that much. I leaned around an arrow, having enough speed and strength to react to the relatively slow projectiles, at least slow from my perspective, before knocking the second spear-wielder's weapon aside and continuing the motion by lifting them off the ground and twisting around, throwing them across the field and into the archer. The poor boy was too stunned to react properly, not expecting I was strong enough to throw his tall friend so far, and they both went down in an inglorious heap. 

The fight wasn't really much from there, as I danced around the other kids, kicking knees and twisting wrists. I disarmed all of them, several multiple times before throwing the weapons out of the ring; none of them were foolish enough to ring-out themselves going after the swords, but that left them unarmed against myself, and they hadn't been doing all that well armed. I thoroughly trounced the whole lot of them, knocking all but three out, those three I had tripped and made stumble out of the ring. Well, two I had tripped, a third I had picked up in show of strength that had the crowd gasping and talking animatedly, lifting her from the ground by the scruff of the neck and hurling her out of the ring. That put an end to the fight, and I saw the shocked looks, as well as Reginald doing quite a good impression of a boiled lobster, steam and all.  

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