The Gemini Age: Book One

[12-3] Under the Spotlights - Part Three

    Stepping into the exposed surroundings of the ring, a heavy weight landed in Jade's hands. The round canteen in her grasp sloshed with fresh water, and the thick strap it hung from adjusted to fit around her frame. "Thank you!" Jade called out to the crowd stood around the ring, unable to pick out her benefactor. Clinging to her like a seatbelt, the canteen floated from her body on a wave of confidence, the splashing sounds like a chorus chanting her onward.

    Marcus entered the ring, yet she did not go to him. Her head sank as she failed to override her body's stubborn reflex that rejected the prospect of approaching him, a struggle that made the sight of him harder to bear. In his eyes, his spirit's flame shrivelled under the saltwater crashing over it with his every glance her way, the torrent so relentless and agonising that he soon stopped looking at her at all. 

    Jade wished the drops that glistened in the corner of his eyes would evaporate. That wish reshaped into a desire to wipe them away herself and discover what tangles of raw, unstifled feelings weaved and whirled beneath the cool exterior. He never failed to pique her curiosity, as much as it embarrassed her to confess it.

    "Three!" Lennox called into his microphone. Jade loosened up, trying to exorcise Marcus from her mind with every crack of her neck and knuckles.

    "Two!" She slowed her breathing and fixed her eyes on the visitors, running what powers she knew they possessed through her mind one last time.

    "One!" In the corner of her vision, Marcus paid her one last look, eyes dry of that moist glow. This was just another fight she had to get through to get to Wilfred, to pull herself from the ground and go after the SUV that he sped away from her in. She could not let herself mess up again.

    "Fight!"

    Jade launched forward, ready to unscrew her bottle. In seconds, however, a powerful wind struck her side and knocked her off-balance. The taste of saliva filled her mouth as her cheek pounded against the canvas, and though dizziness blurred her vision, she made out the tails of a fan of fireballs whistling through the air overhead. She picked herself up, saw the visiting man pluck a slab from the side of the arena, and removed the lid from her bottle to pull the water into a circle around her body. Remembering to control her breathing, she whipped her arms forwards and fired a hose of water powerful enough to sweep the man from his feet. 

    She smiled at the image of the impact that played in her head, yet Marcus tried to dodge the concrete hurtling his way by flying between her and her target, catching the impact of her water in his back. With a grunt, he crashed into the ring rope. As Jade gasped in instant regret, a flare burst in the corner of her eye and fired her into the opposite edge of the ring, her left leg burning beneath its compression sleeve.

    The crowd winced. A sharp hiss of feedback cut through the collective pained groan, and Lennox tugged at his jacket by the betting table. "Did nobody tell these two kids that this is a team fight? They're fighting each other more than their opponents! At this rate, this'll be the easiest prize money our visitors will ever get! Get it together!"

    Shaking her leg cool, Jade saw the woman preparing to fire another barrage of fireballs at Marcus' dazed form. She raised another stone slab and threw it in between Marcus and the imminent fiery projectiles, yet Marcus raised both his hands and span a wind brisk enough to carry him across the ring. His blast hit Jade's stone and broke it apart, the crash drowning out his cries as his wind carried him through the shrapnel shower that followed. 

    Numb from the small nicks in his arms, Marcus flailed to kick out a scythe of fire at the visitors. The man gathered what rubble fell his way and caught the flames with it before sending it back Jade's way, this time as super-heated metal fragments. One glowing piece struck the tip of her shoulder, burning and cutting at once, and she wailed as the pain brought her down to the canvas by Marcus' side.