"For our next round," Alexander pointed to the bracket. "Thomas Virility against Roth Guiler."

Thomas jumped from the bench to his feet: "Present!" The outburst earned laughs from the nobles and facepalms from Eugene and Jackal. Even his opponent, Roth, could not help but smirk as they both walked through the doorway. Thomas facepalmed and wished that he was back home, back in his comfortable bed. The crowd clapped and whistled for the two, oblivious to Thomas's embarrassing moment.

Thomas took a step back. 'I didn't realize it yesterday, but there are hundreds if not thousands of people up there. And they're all watching me.' He willed himself forward, yet his body only shook. Roth was already halfway to the stage.

"Thomas," someone called from the room, Jackal. Thomas whipped around to see both Eugene and Jackal within an arm's length away. "Go on, we'll be cheering you on." They both pushed him out. "And don't look back."

Thomas turned back towards the stage. His feet moved according to his will now. Roth and the stage got larger the closer he moved. He stepped on the stage, still covered in blood, sweat and sand from the earlier battles. Roth might have been fat, but he was bigger than Thomas. It seemed like he had grown just from walking out to the stage.

"Shake hands," Alexander said when the two got to the center. As the two shook, Roth squeezed harder than any handshake in Thomas's life, to where he thought his bones would break. Before he could recover from the shock of the pain, Roth turned around and went to his mark. Thomas did the same, facing away from his opponent to prepare himself. "Virility!" Thomas whipped around, nearly jumping out of his shoes. "Equip your weapon," Alexander said, although it was more like an order.

Thomas looked over at his opponent, Roth, who had pulled a simple metal club out of his spatial ring. His armor was almost part for part what Reginald had wanted Thomas to wear: big, bulky, and strong.

"Yes sir," Thomas said as he pulled out his spear from his spatial ring. The Darkwood shaft, which was painted with a mix of green and blue in order to represent a rose, seemed silly when compared to Roth's simple gray metal club. Thomas looked at the bump in his spear just under the top in shame, but he knew it was a necessary design, which suited his fighting style.

"A rose?" Roth laughed. "I thought you would have brought some amazing weapon seeing as your family is so famous, but it seems that the apple fell far from the tree with you. So far, in fact, that I wonder if you are even worth my time. You don't look like a warrior; you look like a joke. Go back home and bring that girly rose spear with you. I can even see a bump in its shaft. Who made that, your bitch of a mother?"

'Oh,' Thomas thought as some of the crowd laughed. 'This isn't just a fight. It's a show,' he glanced at the other crowd members. 'That's why this is so different from the commoner tournament. Banter is allowed and glorified because it should boost the noble's image.' He smiled and looked back to Roth. 'Unfortunately for you, compared to Doevm's insults, which cut into one's heart, your insults are just plain annoying.'

"My mother," Thomas felt his face flush, "I think I'll break your mouth so you can never speak of her again. Your mouth and chin are like a flapping bag of fat." Thomas stood straight up as he recalled one of Doevm's many, many, many, provocations. "I bet that club is the only thing you know how to swing around, which is why you didn't bring a real weapon you ogre-looking, unintelligent, waste of human skin. I pity your poor parents who had to bear with your ugly face, which even the goddess wouldn't love, for years only to watch you get beaten into a bloody pulp."

He made a dramatic motion to scan the crowd. "Are your parents watching? I don't see any other ogres here. Maybe the guards thought they were monsters and kicked them out of the capital. Allow me to do the world a favor with this girly spear of mine, by shoving it up your ass. I think I'll have you stuffed over my mantle."

'Too much?' Thomas thought as the crowd went silent except for Molly, who was rolling on the floor and hugging her sides.

Her laughter echoed through the stadium: "Stop, I can't breathe!" She wobbled back to her seat, face flushed red and coughing up a storm. "Thomas, I decided I don't hate you for that precious gift you've given me. Oh goddess how I love breathing again."

Her face wasn't the only one who was bright red. Roth raised his club: "Alexander, start the match." Like that, Thomas knew that the banter was over. Roth went from a stuck up noble, having a couple of laughs, to a warrior, like Doevm or Frey.

Thomas wasn't sure how he could tell the change in atmosphere. It could have been Roth's eyes, which narrowed in on Thomas, or the posture, which got into a fighting stance, or the grip on his club tightening a little. Above all, however, was the air around him and Alexander. If before it was fresh air, now it was suffocating, like four walls were closing in.

"Begin!" Alexander announced.

Thomas's fake confidence crumbled like the part of the arena under Roth's club. He ran around the edges, which were being smashed from the force of Roth's combination attack. "What's the matter Virility?" Roth called out. "You can bark, but you don't have any bite, do you?" Blue life essence surged around his entire body, letting him gain on Thomas, who was running out of room to run on.

"Go Roth!" Most called out, like Thomas was some kind of villain for defending himself. Jackal and his group were cheering, but they were drowned out by the others.

'What should I do?' Thomas asked. 'I can't even stop or he'll crush me.' He rolled out of the way of another hit. 'I know I asked for light armor but it feels like I'm wearing paper.'

"Use your life essence you idiot!" A voice called out from the crowd. Thomas cursed at himself and activated it. When the next blow came, he was gone. He got into a stance with his spear and a cloud of blue life essence enveloped him. "Now kick his ass! Don't you dare lose after using my insults!"

'Doevm?' Thomas glanced up to the crowd, finding two hooded figures next to Wade, who had his fist in the air and a smile on his face. 'They're watching me. My friends are watching me!'

"Watch your opponent!" Doevm called just a second too late as the air left Thomas's lungs. Pain erupted from his side as the club crashed into his side, cracking several segments of his armor's plating and several ribs and sending him several feet back.

"After that round of insults," Roth said. "I thought you would at least be able to fight." He brought his bloody club up for another swing.

'I got distracted,' Thomas thought back to Jameson's teachings and his bad habits that he never fixed in harmless sparring sessions. Before, he would just get hit after making a mistake like that. Now, if he looked away again, he could get killed. 'I could die.' The thought hit him harder than the club and cracked his already wavering confidence.

"Dodge!" Frey's voice prompted Thomas to parry another one of Roth's swings. The club screeched off his spear and into the ground. "Now fight. Remember why you're here!"

'I'm here to get away.' Thomas tightened his grip on his spear and did his best to ignore the pain. 'I want to live, but more than that, I don't want to be stuck in that mansion. I want to fight.' He hadn't thought with words, but body movements. He twitched around as the intangible thoughts ran through his spine to his limbs, ordering them to get into the places they had been a thousand times over. The crowd, the broken arena, Alexander, all faded into blackness. It was only him and Roth.

Thomas's breathing, the amount of pain he experienced, the weariness of his limbs, they all became just factors which told him how he should fight. Roth ran at him. Thomas raised his spear.

The club met the spear's tip, which directed the strength just to the side of Thomas. 'He's open,' He raised the spear faster than Roth raised the club, barely managing to scrape that round face. As he retreated, Roth felt his cheek, where a tiny slit had opened up.

"Is that all you can do?" he asked. "Pathetic-" His hand didn't come back down from his cut. The rest of him stopped as the poison seeped in.

"I don't know what rose you've ever seen," Thomas ran in. "but at the Virility household, just a prick can kill you, a single thorn." He brought his spear up, the lump just under its sharp tip leaking the very liquid now coursing in Roth's veins. Thomas brough his spear to Roth's throat. "Surrender or die. Your choice."

"I" Roth choked up. The wound on his cheek closed up. "won't be taken down by something like this!" He grabbed the spear's tip and he raised his club. "I can heal that pathetic poison away!" Thomas didn't have time to block with his spear, so he used his arm instead. A soft, dull thud rang out as the two met, followed by the crack of Thomas's arm, a searing pain, and his wails.

He grabbed onto Roth's armor with his one good arm, spat in his face, and shoved him back. "That's dirty!" The crowd booed while Roth wiped the spit off. "I'll kill you!" he raised his club and Thomas held his arms up and mentally preparing himself for what was to come, but it never came. He peeked an eye open.

Alexander held onto Roth's club. "What are you doing?" Roth asked. "The fight is still going. He hasn't surrendered." Alexander responded by pointing at the ground.

"Since you crumbled my stage, you didn't notice, but Thomas shoved you off of the boundary, so he wins." He walked over to Thomas and raised his arm. "Ladies and gentlemen, the winner, Thomas Virility!" The crowd cheered and chanted Thomas's name.

"I thought they hated me," Thomas was slack jawed at his name being chanted over and over again.

"Winners," Alexander said. "Are rarely hated. They'd only hate you if you cheated."