After we had our emotional moment, and all our sweat and tears had been left out in the dirt of the arena, the Magos clan swooped in and smothered us. Everyone hugged us and told us both how immensely proud they had been. I hadn’t thought I had tears left to cry, but more spurted out as Catherine hugged me and rubbed my back lovingly.

“I knew you would do my daughter proud and show her the respect she’s fought for since she was a small child. You have no idea what that kind of thing means to a mother.” She released me and wiped my cheeks, cleaning them of fresh tears. “And I am also truly honored that she finds you as dear to her as a sister. You will always be considered family.”

My stupid eyes wouldn’t stop crying.

I smiled back at Catherine, speechless. I had been shown such an outpouring of love and acceptance from this family. I didn’t know what I could possibly say to properly express my gratitude. I chose to just embrace Catherine again in a deep hug. This was noticed by the rest, and it became just a large group hug, with everyone pulling in close to embrace and relish this victory for the Magos house.

After a moment, we parted and made our way over to their previous seating for the next round of the tournament. It was only after I sat down that I remembered the state my left side was in. Sharp pains lanced up my side as I doubled over and held my aching ribs. Noelle gasped and started immediately apologizing for the injury.

“My Goddess, Amelia! Did I really hit you that hard? I am so sorry, just the intensity of the moment got the better of me!” She immediately put her hands on the injury, and I felt the warmth pulsing from her palms as she attempted to heal the damage she had caused.

I winced a bit and glanced at her with a small smile.

“It’s ok, Noelle. I’m pretty sure I got you with one of my shots too. Silver lining? I now know what exactly happened to Roscoe!” I winked at that. Noelle didn’t say anything, but her face turned an embarrassed pink.

Ash moved in to assist in patching me up so I would be ready to go for the next round. A good thing to, as Dorian’s match was about to begin, and I didn’t expect it to last long.

“And over in this corner! Your local Lordling, the Farmer, Dorian!”

Cheers erupted from the crowd as Dorian waved. The crowd, while excited for the next match, was noticeably tamer than they had been for Noelle and me. Their energy level was much more subdued, and the cheers were more of a general excitement than purposeful in their intent.

I noticed that, while Dorian waved at the crowd, he looked over at Chad and mouthed, “Farmer? Really?”

Chad paid him no mind and continued with the start of the match, reminding the crowd it would be determined by the same strike rules as before. The fight commenced and was over about as quickly as I had expected. I had noticed on the bracket list that, of the four other entrants, three of them were from the voluntary militia. Surprisingly, Edward was the fourth.

Perhaps his opponent being someone Dorian and Chad had been training worked to his disadvantage, as Dorian seemed to know exactly what his attacker was going to do. Dorian moved with a speed that the man was not prepared for and, after a few quick parries and dodges from Dorian, he had already struck him three times to the front of his torso and back. The match was called, and Dorian shook the man’s hand. I could see him still encouraging the guy for his effort.

Edward’s match was next, and the family erupted at his introduction from Chad, again waving the banners and colors of the house. Anya, not missing a beat, also had a poster with his likeness on it, and waved it proudly while shouting “Go, Papa!”

I smiled to myself as I recalled my initial gut impression of Edward when Catherine had told me what societal pressure he had been under before he had an heir of his own. I had been very glad to learn these past months that those impressions were completely off base and he was, indeed, an amazing man, husband and father.

He doted on Catherine and his children constantly. I would frequently stumble on the two of them in the far-off corners of the house, amorously enjoying some time to themselves. From either stealing some quick kisses or cuddling on a couch when the kids weren’t around, how they had miraculously stopped at nine children and didn’t have more was beyond me. His children understood his outside pressures and loved him even more for the love and dedication he showed to his family.

“And our other challenger, the leader of your local Militia, the handsome and capable fighter, Talyon!”

I looked over and immediately groaned. Talyon was, indeed, the best fighter in the militia. He was already their leader from skill alone before training under Chad and Dorian had begun. He picked things up from them almost as quickly as I had and was also fast becoming a town favorite. I had spoken with him a few times, as his rising reputation had mistakenly given him the courage to attempt to court me.

There was nothing wrong with him per say, despite him growing a bit arrogant as his status rose. But he just did nothing for me. We had nothing in common, and within our brief interactions I could tell he thought our similar fighting prowess meant we should test some romantic waters. However, despite his increasing capabilities, he would still have been child’s play for me on the battlefield.

Edward, on the other hand, would be barely a warmup for him. Did he even know how to fight? I knew from working with him he was pretty strong but that didn’t me he knew how to handle a sword. The match begun and Talyon stalked towards him, sword extended as if inviting Edward to make the first strike. Edward obliged, only to have Talyon quickly parry the blow away with a circular flourish that whipped the blade out of Edward’s hand completely.

Edward’s eyes opened frantically as Talyon moved closer to his now unarmed opponent and the crowd gasped at what everyone was sure would happen next. However, everyone worried for naught, as Talyon had recognized the disparity in skill level and merely tapped Edward on the top of his head gently with his sword, graciously ending the match.

Sure, he was overconfident, but he was smooth too.

Chad’s match was next and was announced by the Baron that led the town, who I was sure Chad had coached to get his titles right. Chad’s match was over about as quickly as Dorian’s had been, with his familiarity with the fighter being the poor man’s undoing.

And with that, I stood to take my place in the arena to face Dorian, as had been my expected opponent for my next round. As I walked towards my starting spot, the noise of the crowd started to grow to a fever pitch, excited that I was back on the field.

Dorian also sauntered over to his spot; his signature charismatic grin plastered all over his face.

“You ready, Princess?” he called over from across the arena. “If you think Noelle took it easy on you, just wait until you see what I have in store!”

My grip on my sword tightened, grateful I was going back to swinging it around instead of another hand-to-hand match. I had to remind myself Dorian was just egging me on. He wanted me to make some quick mistakes in a haste to smack him. Where Noelle’s fight was a little more straight forward in just analyzing her movement and technique, Dorian’s would involve mind games. I was sure of it.

Chad introduced both of us again to the crowd, for the purposes of whetting their appetite more than anything else. Dorian was, again, teasingly introduced as basically a simple farmer. He grinned and played along, waving to the adoring crowd as they cheered for him. Chad introduced me afterwards and the crowd went nuts. I actually flinched with the start of their uproarious cheering.

“Am-a-zon! Am-a-zon! Am-a-zon! Am-a-zon!”

The chant echoed on endlessly, my fan base seemingly growing by the minute. The match against Noelle had only further increased my reputation it seemed, and now everyone was on the edge of their seat, waiting for what I would do next.

No pressure.

Taking a cue from Dorian, I turned and waved to the crowd nervously. This only encouraged them further, the sound of their excitement growing even further than I thought possible. I couldn’t have imagined my next match would feel more intense than the one I had just finished with Noelle. She and her family we’re leading a cheering section of their own with the villagers sitting near them.

I turned back to face Dorian, who didn’t appear shaken by the immense support his opponent was getting. On the contrary, he was merely looking himself over, as if finding a hair or thread out of place would be the difference in the match. He twirled his sword around in his hand a few times as if gauging it’s weight, before bringing it back about and pointing it at me.

“Begin!”

Dorian flashed his grin once more before dropping his expression to a serious one. My face was already set in an emotionless state. I was as ready as I was ever going to be. I held my sword in both hands in a ready stance and started to circle to my left. Dorian started strafing to his left to maintain the distance between us for the moment.

“I warned you already, but in case you have forgotten, I’m not going to let you look past me to the finals!” He leapt towards me and swung his blade down at my head. I side stepped rather than choosing to block all the momentum behind the strike and leapt further to my left.

He completed the downward swing and then rotated his wrist in a smooth motion to continue the attack, sweeping the sword to his right to follow my movement away from him. I immediately straightened my blade and blocked the swipe at my side. We held our stance, blades connected.

“If you don’t take me seriously, this will end quicker than my last match!” He growled.

I was pretty sure he knew that I was going to last longer than the next few seconds. I pushed his blade away with mine, then whipped my blade back in a diagonal slice at his right shoulder. If I could clip his sword arm, even though it wouldn’t win me a point, it would help me in the long run. He had adjusted quickly however and had immediately brought his sword to his right to block my attack, anticipating my attempt at a strike after I had shoved off him.

“I told you to take me seriously, Amelia! Now you get to pay the price!”

He reached down near his waist to grab something and flung it at me!

No, not something.

Somethings.

I was too close to him and my attempt to dodge the small projectiles was too late. I jumped away but he had anticipated where I would move, and it made no difference. Three small objects hit me in my chest, right shoulder and face and exploded.

I shut my eyes and sputtered as I realized it was some sort of liquid. I started to wipe it away with my free hand, only to realize the substance was also sticky and had a sweet smell to it. I looked myself over to get a better idea of what I had been hit with. He had covered me from the waist up with it. Honey maybe? And I had just wiped it all over my free hand.

I groaned at the implication of this new tactic. Not only was my right hand now a liability if I grasped my sword with it, but my clothes were also starting to become semi see through from the substance, including my chest area. And I realized the combination of the liquid and the slight chill in the air was starting to draw special attention to me.

I glared angrily back at him, only to realize much too late that more small objects had just been tossed at me. Without time to react, I raised my arms to cover my face as they, too, exploded on impact.

A white powder dusted me in a thick coat all over. I blinked at it and realized it was at least just flour and nothing more harmful. The flour had been aimed where the previous bombs had been tossed and it was now sticking to all of the substance already covering me. Now I was not only sticky, but also itchy and uncomfortable. I had shielded my face with my arms, so the flour covered my entire upper torso, coating me further and sticking to sweat.

The crowd went from merely cheering to loud, raunchy whistles and cat calls at my new appearance. I looked over at Dorian, who was obviously pleased with himself. I held my arms away from my body, afraid of touching anything for fear of the discomfort and stickiness spreading. I then realized it would be extremely difficult to hold myself in my trained stances covered in all this while also avoiding my cleaner body parts. While a disgusting and irritatingly underhanded move by Dorian, I shouldn’t have put something like this past him.

“You suck!” I merely yelled at him.

He just shrugged in reply. He had to have known I would be less than pleased with this tactic. What he probably didn’t realize was that I was angrier at him now than I typically was at Chad on a normal basis. I felt disgusting.

He had also done something perverted and exposed me to himself and the crowd for fun. Sure, there was a genuine tactic he had employed here to make the fight harder for me, but did it have to have such a raunchy bonus?

I reached up and covered myself to take away from the view Dorian and the crowd clearly desired. Many of the men in the crowd predictably booed in response. My right hand and arm were already compromised anyway. It would be easier to remember not to use it if I had it pressed tight against my chest. A bonus, I realized, would have my arm shield some of my chest from torso hits. Hitting that wouldn’t count!

I held my sword out extended toward Dorian and stood slightly sideways, leading with my left leg and with my torso and right side turned away from him.

“Come on then! This is how you wanted to fight me, right?” my face burned with anger, all the respect I felt toward Noelle when I fought her was gone. For Dorian, I felt only rage. I slid my left foot forward and lunged with my sword, like it was a fencing weapon. Unfortunately, the sword was too heavy for that kind of style. Plus, I had no training with this type of movement, so my attack was awkward and clumsy. Dorian took advantage of me trying something new, slapped my lunge away and immediately lunged himself, spearing me in my stomach right below my right arm.

“Oof!” I exclaimed, a breath of air rushing out of me with the blow. I winced and shuffled backwards to give myself space from him, but he pressed on, attempting more lunges to end it quickly as he had his earlier match. I continued to back up and swept my sword from side to side to knock his first two attacks away. I intentionally took the third on my arm and used the opening to swing at his right side. Unfortunately, he also used his right arm and elbow to block my attack while sweeping further past me. I whirled around to track him and felt something wet hit my back and butt.

He had flung more bombs.

I continued to whirl to face him, swinging my sword at him angrily. He had cleared the distance and the swing was useless, but it made me feel a little better. Everything was itching. I rolled my shoulders and tilted my head from side to side. I wanted to scratch anything and everything, but that would just cause more problems. And now my back, rear and thighs were covered in his makeshift stupidity. I was miserable.

So irritating! That hadn’t been necessary! It was purely for his entertainment. Was he not taking me seriously? I mean yes, he had pissed me off further with that maneuver, but tactically it did him no good. I was already as frustrated as I was going to be. His strategy had worked.

I wasn’t thinking clearly.

I wasn’t moving or fighting cleanly.

I was completely out of sorts. He had complete control of the fight.

He moved towards me again and started swinging. Left, right, left, right. I was able to block without too much difficulty. He seemed to be testing my mobility after his latest bomb salvo, to see if it had affected how I stepped and whether I was dwelling on the discomfort.

At least that’s what I thought he was doing.

Suddenly his pace and pattern completely changed. Pressing forward and forcing me into an aggressive retreat, his strikes became a blur. They were now being aimed anywhere from my legs to my sword arm to my head. I struggled at blocking each of the new attacks. Each adjustment was lagging behind each blow, until my block to defend the swing at my head was so far behind that his strike served to flat out knock my sword away from my body.

He continued to move forward, shoulder tackling me in my chest and shoving me with the effort. I stumbled backwards, my arms flailing at my side, attempting to regain my balance. As I did so, he continued to press by slicing downward, smashing his sword into my newly exposed front, scoring his second point.

And he wasn’t finished.

I was still off balance, and he whipped the sword back up, slashing at me again. It was all I could do to bring my sword back up to prevent the loss. Unfortunately, the resulting blow knocked my sword clean out of my hand.

I continued to tumble backwards and rolled through the dirt, it sticking to anything it touched. I continued to roll away from Dorian defensively and righted myself after a moment. He stood roughly where he had when he had tackled and struck me, studying his left shoulder that he had infected with the mess covering me. It hadn’t gotten him nearly as dirty as I had hoped and wasn’t going to be slowing him down.

I just couldn’t catch a break.

I stood defiantly, now also covered in dirt from head to nearly toe. I was unarmed, my sword across the other side of the arena. It shouldn’t have been that far away, but he probably knocked it further out of my reach while I had been rolling away from him. He now had two points to my none. I clinched both my fists. I could barely hear Chad droning on about the state of the match in the background, along with the reactions from the crowd.

It was headshot or nothing now.

And honor be damned at this point. With Noelle, she had fought with a level of respect for her opponent. She’d had opportunities to end our fights after some of her movements and blows, but she allowed me recovery and I had felt the need to reciprocate how she approached our fight. With Dorian, he had showed me no such respect. He fought with any tactic he thought would win him the fight.

I looked down at myself, disgusted with the picture I must have portrayed. He deserved this.

“Done daydreaming over there, honey?” He emphasized the affectionate nickname. “We’ve got a fight to finish!” He gestured at my disheveled state and added, “although from my viewpoint, it’s already over.”

My eyes snapped back up to attention. No longer worried about causing my weapon to be more unwieldy if I got it contaminated, I took up a fighting posture to let Dorian know I wasn’t quitting.

He merely shrugged and sighed, “If you insist.” He then grinned again. “I’m enjoying the view right now anyway!”

My feelings of anger at how he had treated this match deepened, and I started to sprint towards him. I would only get once chance at this, and I wanted to attempt to throw him off with my speed. He braced himself and then thrust his sword forward again in a lunge, hoping to strike me from a distance before I could get within arm’s reach.

And I had banked on it.

I nimbly dipped and dodged narrowly to the side and let the sword slide past my right. I then swung my right arm up and punched him square in the balls, as hard as I possibly could.

He immediately curled over in pain and dropped his sword. I picked it up as I stood next to his doubled over form. I waited for him to look up at me, eyes bulging as he was still processing the pain my cheap shot had caused him.

“Turnabout is fair play.”

I then whirled the sword about like a golf club and smacked him upside his head with the flat of his own blade. His head twisted to the side and his body flopped and rolled over. He was unconscious before his limp form stopped moving.

I pointed the sword at Chad.

“Call the match, Prince!”

The crowd went ballistic.

“The Amazon wins! What a match! Gentlemen, better protect the family jewels around this demoness! She’s a wild one!”

I tossed Dorian’s sword at his unconscious body and stalked over to the sidelines where Noelle’s family was alternating between faces of shock and excitement. Noelle had already procured a cloak to cover me with and didn’t seem concerned about how soiled it might become.

“Come on, let’s get you somewhere and get you cleaned up before the Finals.”

I looked back at Dorian, who already had a gathering from the crowd prodding him to see if he would easily regain consciousness.

“I kinda feel bad about how I ended that,” I commented.

Noelle followed my gaze and chuckled to herself before helping me along back towards Bronzemead and a change of clothes.

Noelle sounded like she spoke from experience as she replied, “Don’t be. He’s done worse, received worse, and deserved worse that he’s never gotten.” She squeezed my biceps playfully. “He might keep his distance from your reach for a bit, but he’ll live.”

I looked down at myself again, shook my head, and decided that Noelle was right. When you play with fire, it’s only a matter of time before you get burned.