"Rise and shine!" Theo's voice yelled, waking me from my perfect dreams. That bitch, sorry bastard. "It's competition day and we still need to sign in."

"I guess that's a good reason to wake me up at this god forsaken hour," I replied, stretching out my arms. I was excited for this competition, actually. It's been a while since I've fought anyone who wasn't pathetically weak.

"No complaints," Theo said, "I let you sleep in for half an hour."

This time, Mercy chimed in. "Yes, thank you our lord and savior Theo, for letting us sleep until five thirty in the morning."

"Praise be," Mila joined in.

I could hear Levi snickering from the door. I had to give it to the girls, my sarcasm was really catching on. And it was beautiful.

"Guys, come on," Theo whined, "don't I get enough of this from Shadow?"

"Don't whine so much, Pooh Bear," I replied, looking at him with a snakes grin. "We all know you love it when I tease you."

And with that, he was gone. The door clicked shut behind him, and I jumped down to lock it, ignoring the ladder and just jumping off the edge.

I clapped my hands together, and said, "Come on girls, we need to be grateful for this extra half hour. I bet Theo sat by his clock and waited for the exact minute to wake us up." A glance to the clock told me I was probably right. "And he's right, believe it or not, we need to get going. We have a competition today and I'm really looking forward to it."

With a groan that made her sound like someone just shot her, Mercy sat up and stretched her arms. On the other side of the room, I had to pull Mila onto the floor, where she laid in fetal position to protect herself from the nonexistent cold. Sighing, I let her get her own lazy ass up. Besides, she'd only be at the competition to watch, not fight.

I went and got myself dressed in a long sleeve black V-neck with jean pant and combat boots. I turned to Mercy to see she was waiting patiently by the door. Mila was tripping over her last pant leg, and she somehow made it out the door without any head trauma.

Theo and the others were waiting in the common room.

"Ready?" Levi asked.

I nodded the okay, and we headed out the door.

Theo lead us down hall that I recognized from Kendal's tour. I don't, however, remember what she called it.

When we finally stopped, we were at double doors that I didn't recognize. I read a plastic sign above the doors that read, 'Coliseum.'

"Wait a second," I said, smiling like an idiot at the door. "We have a coliseum?"

Bryce nodded. "You didn't know? I thought one of the other trainees took you on a tour."

"She took me on a tour, that doesn't mean I listened to everything she said." But really, a coliseum? You'd think I'd take notice of something like that.

Theo opened the door to reveal a small room, crowded with faces I recognized from the training room. So these were the competitors, huh? Theo lead us to the far end of the room, to where a lady with blonde hair was sitting behind a counter, looking down at something in her hands.

Theo cleared his throat to catch her attention. When she looked up, she was already giving off that unconvincing fake smile that most of the paper people here gave. Yes, I called them paper people. Don't judge me, I just can't think of the right word at the moment.

"Hello," the lady said, "how can I help you today?"

Theo spoke up, because that's just what he did. "This is Squadron Five, checking in for the competition."

The lady's eyes scanned over all of us, taking an extra second to examine both Mercy and myself. Now that I think about it, the atmosphere of the entire room seemed to change at the mention of Squadron Five. Oh well, who cares what they thought? I'd be kicking their asses in a bit anyways. The very idea of being in a real fight made me smile.

"Right," the lady said, brining me back to the world, "I'll need to see your Superior Officer's badge to verify your team and that you have permission to enter."

All eyes flew to me. My team all gave me that look that said they didn't trust me with this. Just because I didn't care enough to bring my ID every other day didn't make me that untrustworthy.

"Calm down, I thought it through today." From my back pocket, I pulled out the ID that had my picture and info on it. Very minimal info, if I might add.

I handed the lady the ID who then examined it. She glanced up to me, and then looked back at the little piece of plastic. I was given back my ID, but I decided to give it to Theo. I mean, come on, we all know I'd probably loose it, especially since I don't think it's that important.

"Alright," the lady said, writing something down on a paper below her. "Unfortunately, I won't be able to abide by you're request. Each member of the squadron now has to participate. I'm sorry, but we don't allow members to be left out anymore."

"Hold on," Bryce said, "last year, all teams had to leave out one member as an extra, in case one couldn't compete."

"Yes, well the rules have changed. All members have to compete, now. These are the rules, and if you want to compete you must abide by them. Understand?"

I could tell Bryce was preparing to make a smart comment, having been on the other side of one of these arguments. I placed my hand on his shoulder and silenced him.

"We understand," Theo replied, smiling stupidly.

The lady smiled back at him and then handed him a piece of paper. It was folded, so I couldn't really catch any of what was on it.

Theo lead us out the set of doors that were on the side of the counter. This is was the real coliseum. We were on the second floor of the building. This floor had rows and rows of chairs, at least a forth of which were already occupied. Below us was a ring of dirt, where the fighting would be taking place. I really wanted to go down there right now and fight someone, but Theo pulled us to some front row seats and made us wait there.

By the look of these plastic chairs, they came around before the ban of electricity, so they were at least a hundred years old.

"Alright," Theo said, unfolding the piece of paper for me to look at. On it was one of those chart things that decide who's fighting who. Gods, I'm really doing bad with names today. "In every place it says Five, we'll pick a member to fight. More often than not, the weaker members go first, so the stronger members can ensure victory. Sorry Mila, but..."

"I get it," she replied, "I didn't want to compete in the first place. You don't have to pretend like I'm a good fighter when we all know I'm not." She gave a little huff and crossed her arms.

I nodded my approval at her. I was glad she understood, even if she may not be the happiest about it.

Theo continued talking. "I'll let you decide where each of us are going to fight. But right here," he said, pointing to the third fight we'd be in, "this is where you have to fight. To make it fair, every Supirior Officer has to fight another Superior Officer."

"Wait a second, so my fight depends on the first two rounds being in our favor?"

Theo nodded at me, then handed me a pencil from god knows where.

Sighing, I wrote Mila in on the first line. While I thought about who I'd put in the next fight, I counted teams. There were a total of sixteen teams. For the second round, I'd have to pick three of my teammates to fight. If two or more of them won their battles, we'd move on. If two or more of them lost, we'd loose. I quickly erased Mila's name and set her up as one of three fighters in the second round.

At the end of all my thinking, I ended up with this: Levi would fight the first round. Mila, Bryce, and Mercy would fight in the second. I'd be in the third. Theo would be in the last.

What could I say? From what I've seen, he was the best fighter, besides me, on the team. And, if I put him up against a really good fighter, I may just be able to see that terrifying side of him again. I wanted to know more about that. I hated to admit it, but it actually scared me a bit.

When I was done, I handed the others the paper. They all agreed that this was for the best, and then we waited for the competition to start.

---

The first fight was between a girl from Squadron One who used a small, light bow and a girl from team two who also used a bow with arrows. It was actually pretty interesting. The ones who set up the match added giant rocks to the dirt field, but set up a tall fence in between to there could be two fights at once.

On the other side of the chain link fence, a boy from Squadron three, holding a long staff, prepared to face a girl from team four, holding a short sword in her right hand. I admit, I was a bit interested in this fight. Very few people fought with staffs, so I wanted to get a better idea on how to teach Levi.

A whistle blew and both sides went off into their fight.

The boy holding the staff retreated immediately, hiding behind rocks. When Sword Girl came to hunt him out, he had already moved behind her, and I could see him preparing to attack. He held the staff in his right hand as he charged.

When the girl caught sight of him, right before he could land a hit, she lifted her sword to defend herself. Now exposed, the boy ran again, back into hiding.

Good on offense, but I still haven't seen defense. Keep it long range.

Again, the girl had no choice but to hunt the boy. This time, she was more prepared, holding her sword up at the ready. The boy took note of that and attacked from behind this time.

Wait a second, this was Squadron Three, Kindel's team. If I remember correctly, they were mostly recon, which explains why he didn't do much defending. He probably didn't have much power to defend himself with and he knew that, too.

I took note during the match, which ended in Squadron Fours favor. Levi was next.

"Angel," he called. I glanced over to him, noticing that he was smiling at me with pearly white teeth. "You have to take me there, as my Superior Office."

I looked to Theo with a do-I-really kind of glance. He gave me a sympathetic look, then nodded.

For the most part, it was Levi leading me. He took me to a set of stairs in the back of the seating area and lead me down them. It led us into a dark hall with a bright light at the end, the dirt field.

Just as we were about to head into the arena, he stopped me. His hand grabbed onto my arm. When I looked over to him, his head was hanging down, a light red crossing his cheeks.

"Levi?"

"Last night," he whispered. "Are you-are you okay?"

I looked at him, a bit confused before I remembered Bryce's words from last night. Not sure how to react to that, I did what I used to do with my Mercy. I set my hand on top of his long red hair and ruffled it, sending it into a flaming mess.

"Hey, stop that!"

When I finally finished, he looked back up to me with big puppy eyes that I couldn't help but smile at. He was adorable when he was embarrassed. In a pet or little sibling kind of way.

"Don't worry so much. I'm all good, there's no need to worry. Now, come on, we have a competition to win."