Cage Number One

[Christina Bredith]

Christina couldn’t help but curl her lip a little when she saw Damion elegantly leap right over her Sonic Sable. She should have expected such a maneuver from someone with a weapon like a halberd, but without having fought any opponents who wielded such weapons before, it would have been difficult for her to know its exact capabilities. Even so, the woman didn’t look terribly dismayed. Her prediction was very quickly coming true: this was turning out to be a lot of fun. The only thing better than being wrapped up in a chaotic battle was being wrapped up in a chaotic battle with people watching and cheering from the sidelines. How cool was that?

Not cool enough to break Christina’s focus, at least. Even as her energy blast whipped up a sandstorm in its wake, her silver eyes were aimed much higher than that, locked on the armoured Damion as he soared through the air. His suit of mail glinted in the light, but not nearly enough to divert Christina’s determined gaze. In the span of a few moments he was up, over the blast, and on his way back down again. His taunt merely caused the woman to smirk; she planted the tip of her blade against the ground, seeming to let down her guard, and responded to him by imitating a very obvious, very snobby British accent: “Oh, don’t you, now? Well that is a terrible shame! I had rather hoped it would last more than one minute. Maybe even two!”

To all ears, it would have sounded like Christina was enjoying this way too much. Her battle stance was lax, her expression was amused and unfocused, and her grip on Rosebite’s hilt was practically nonexistent. These mistakes would have cost any normal warrior the battle in an instant, especially against an opponent as superior as Damion. Christina, however, was no normal warrior. She didn’t need a very clear view of her foe’s movements, because she already knew how she would dodge them. The only thing she needed was a rough idea of where the attack was coming from, and then she would be able to react appropriately. Speed was no obstacle, nor was direction. Despite her lackadaisical attitude, she had actually planned her escape down to the very last muscular twitch.

Damion closed that last few feet between them, and Christina blew him a kiss through the swirling sands, accompanied by a wink. “Better luck next time, babe.” As soon as he lunged forward with a thrust of his halberd, the woman was already in motion. However, there was no movement to either side when she dodged, nor did she step back. For that matter, she didn’t parry the halberd by forcing it to one side or the other, either. Those would have been the obvious counters, but Christina knew that Damion would have prepared for them all, as any seasoned knight would. Instead, there was only the tell-tale flash of silver, orange, and then blue, followed by a screeching sonic boom that rumbled forth in all directions from where she once stood. Christina herself was already high in the air, soaring towards the cage’s roof as a result of the sonic blast: she had used its exploding force to propel her skyward by pointing it down at the ground, and at a slight angle to provide more distance from her foe. Within moments, she was hanging from the roof of the cage with one hand, the rest of her body dangling like a child on a set of monkey bars. A grin of thrilled amusement turned up her lips and revealed the white teeth behind them.

But Christina was not content to just avoid Damion all day. This was a battle, not a dance contest! From her lofty vantage point, she locked her gaze upon the silhouette of her foe, still caught in what little remained of the sandstorm her energy blasts had summoned. Widening her grin, Christina swung Rosebite again, shouted the command, and watched a blade of concussive energy scream through the warm air as it chased its target.