I, Propitiator: "Chapter 8"

Chapter 8

Love fights with a fire that cannot be quenched. It blazes in such a way that those watching are captivated by the beauty of its flame.

“3… 2… 1…” Oliver concluded.

The next moment, without a word spoken, Lieutenant Tam rose is hand and sprang his fingers forward, sending his tipir straight forward. Oliver clearly was not expecting this as he had to dive to the right. Then realizing what he was really up against, he stated, “Love’s light blinds!”

In a whirl of red and green, his tipir formed multiple copies and lit up the whole field so bright that no one but Oliver and Lieutenant Tam could see to any degree whatsoever…. Oh wait, the other except would be the Prime I, but you get the point, it was far too bright for cameras to register what was going on.  In the blinding light, Oliver ran straight for Lieutenant Tam. The crafty lieutenant closed his hand, causing the tipir to retract. Then Oliver called his tipir to himself and they locked energy staffs for a moment. Oliver used a sweep kick to knock the lieutenant off his feet; however, Lieutenant Tam didn’t just fall, but also rolled so that he created some distance between Oliver and himself. Tam then fired his tipir, forcing Oliver to have to block a few shots of raw energy. By the time he had deflected the shots, Tam was a good 50 yards away. From there, Tam then turned his tipir into a shield and fired another array of bolts at Oliver. However, this time, he telepathically controlled the shots as well, thus making it so that Oliver couldn’t just deflect the shots, he had to neutralize them. So he stated, “The sword in my hands will break the arrows of my challenger.”

At these words, beams of light reached out to quench the fiery arrow like energy shots that were coming at Oliver. This continued for hours until eventually Admiral Fitzdaniels dined the bell, signifying that they were to take a break.

Back at the A.R.S. Zoelight, Captain Lee and Commander Lewis were busy sorting through the things they had collected from the outpost. Itxaro stayed up at the control center to oversee all ship operations during this time. Ensign Kasana simply watched from the viewscreen. However, to her, this all seemed like nothing entertaining compared to the urge she had to sing at that present point in time. You see, Cyafs loved the arts; they just seemed to be captivated by such things and could not possibly be torn away from such things whenever they were interested in. So realizing that this would interfere with her work, she requested to be relieved of duty for a few hours.

Oliver sighed as he walked off the field and back into a hallway that took him to the center plaza of the station. That should have been easier he thought. Then again, he hadn’t expected his opponent to be Lieutenant Tam, not did he expect Tam to have mastered telepathic control of his tipir. Regardless, a nice glass of chocolate milk should be a good rejuvenator as he still had to finish this battle. Hopefully, he would be able to finish this match in the second round, going to a third round meant there was the possibility of having to be voted on by the judges, which meant he’d probably lose as Oliver was not favored by the admirals due to having to leave in the middle of the tourney. Granted the Prime I seemed to favor him, yet Oliver wasn’t so certain why that was. Well whatever the reason was, Lieutenant Avner would do his best not to disappoint the leader of the entire resistance. For this reason alone, Oliver was felt that he had to win the match.

While he was walking about the place, finishing off his drink, Mom found him roaming about. She ran over to him and they embraced in the middle of the plaza, as if Oliver was half his age. Then Oliver let go, signaling that it had been long enough. Mom looked at him carefully then said, “You got a scrape on your forehead.”

Oliver used his phone like a mirror and frown upon examining it. Eventually he said, “It appears my sense of balance was momentarily lost.”

She nodded, as if that was an acceptable explanation, but still continued to say, “Well please don’t lose it again during this next round.”

He nodded as if to say he would do his best, but inside he felt that there was little he could to do guarantee his own safety, this would prove to be his most difficult duel yet.

Zurui hovered over a giant map of the Sol System. It was specially designed for this room, with electronic interfaces and detailed illustrations of the planets. Charting in the new information about the location of the A.R.S. Zoelight, Zurui decided to set a trap for the Prime I. He reasoned that if he could separate The A.R.S. Lightning from the flagship of the resistance, it would prove very useful in an attempt to kill the king of the Ies. At the very least Zurui figured he should have to have a back-up plan. Others had tried to kill the Prime I before, and all had obviously failed. Kakios was still busy down on the planet hunting Seraphina. So he’d have to find a different route or tool to help him take down the arch enemy of the regime. With a chilling smile he pushed a button to summon Vidya. She approached him cautiously. Zurui inquired with a haughty voice, “Is Decion ready yet?”

“Yes… we finished building it this morning. I even managed to fit in the optional hydro-tech generators. We are in the process of test running everything now, sir.”

“Forget the test runs! Place it in my personal speeder and work on the designs for a new one. My plans to conquer Terra Lapsa must now be hastened due to the actions of the resistance. I will send you field tests. I want Decion 2.0 up and running by next week. Understood?”

“But sir, we’ve only just finished the curre-”

“Is that understood?” Zurui thundered.

“Yessir.” She said.

Zurui signaled for her to leave his presence as he returned to pondering his next strike against the Sol System.

Oliver charged his tipir then headed out to the field yet again. Lieutenant Tam was already there waiting for the second round to begin. Oliver looked around the field. It was set with a lot more foliage this time. Perhaps this would serve to his advantage, falling objects proved quite interesting in combat. However, he was certain that his opponent had also taken that into account. Perhaps it was better not to be cutting trees unless necessary… Then again, if Tam started cutting the trees that were around the field, Oliver wouldn’t have many to use. Then again, he could consider setting the place ablaze, that wouldn’t be too hard considering he charged his tipir. But what defense would he have if the fire came near him? All this strategizing was beginning to make his head hurt. Then the bell rang for them to start again. Oliver climbed up a tree and stated, “With a voice like fire, the Prime I will reign.”

Sudenly his green tipir blazed red as it started cutting various trees around Tam and setting them on fire. Tam then kicked up a ton of dirt using his feet and then cut a few more trees, causing the fire to form a circle around him. The lieutenant had effectively turned Oliver’s attack into a shield for himself. Tam then fired a single energy bolt at the base of the tree that Oliver was in, setting it ablaze. Oliver ran across one of the branches and jumped to another tree. From there Oliver retracted his tipir and stated firing energy shots into the ground around the flames. This caused the fire to dim, but as he did this, Tam cut more trees and occasionally shot at the tree Oliver was on, thus making it so that Oliver could not effectively disable the shield this way. Oliver was had reached an impasse, unless he could figure out a faster way to undo the first attack he had made, he had no chance of winning the second round.

Kanda watched the battle unfolding. She couldn’t help but wonder what Oliver was going to do; yet at the same time, it pained her more that she could not shut out Zurui. Something had to be done to help Oliver. Perhaps she could run away and tell him not to follow… No he would follow anyways. She could secretly ask for re-assignment… but if Oliver won the tourney, he’d have access to find out why she was re-stationed… Then he’d follow again… perhaps she should kill Zurui. Wasn’t that an interesting idea? But how… She could return to him under some pretense… but he’d know eventually… ack… this there was almost nothing that could be done… she could only hope that the Prime I would restore her to who she once was when he got here.

Oliver kept moving from tree to tree, no longer really doing much in hopes to better conceal his location. However, on occasion, Tam picked up on his location due to a broken branch or some other sound. Oliver was getting tired of running and jumping. There had to be some way to strike back and then he saw it: a river. All that needed to be done was to redirect the streams to run through the fire. Oliver grabbed his tipir and began cutting trees to dam up the original path of the flowing water and kept shooting other trees down so that the waters would run to the fire. In a relatively short amount of time, the fire was put out and Tam looked at Oliver with a bit of surprise. From there, Tam began cutting down trees with energy shots around Oliver, but Oliver kept dodging them and fired an array of shots of his own directly at his opponent. Tam cut a few trees in front of himself with alarming timing to block the shots, then darted into the forest forcing Oliver to search of him. After hours of searching, Oliver could not find Tam, so Admiral Johnson ended that round. Oliver sighed; he hadn’t won this round either. However, if the admirals had ended the first two rounds, at least that meant that the Prime I would be ending the final round when he chose to.