Tristan's Tale Pt. 05

The rest of that night is foggy in my memory. I trained with the projection of my Chi, whose sarcasm and attitude had vanished. I tried to bring it back after an hour, after the feeling of something being wrong had built up too much for me to ignore. He was just so...quiet.

But I couldn't. I don't know why, but it was just like I was fighting a blob that looked like me — actually like me now, I noted, not more broad shouldered and more confident — and that actually fought intelligently. My Chi had lost its personality.

I could probably give it back, somehow. After all, this was all in my head. All the physical clashing of weapons were simulated in my mind. All the sounds, all the sensations. All the burning, the pain. I'm sure I had some amount of help from Shae. But it would have been a big effort to simulate a personality, I think, and even if it wasn't I didn't miss it that much. Not with the kind of focus I had going on. I didn't have time for that.

And, true to her word, Jade got her Chi that night. I'd only been training for ten minutes when she came into the room and showed it to me. It was a beautiful thing. A long, glittering rapier with an abalone-iridescent blade, and a breathtaking spiral guard in the shape of an opening flower.

It ought to have looked like a faerie weapon. Something out of a toy set.

Maybe it was how Jade held the weapon, and how her eyes turned calm and sharp and focused. Maybe it was the edge — I remembered rapiers as a thrusting weapon, but there was no doubt to my mind that this sword would cut through bone. When Jade held it, there was no mistaking that it was deadly.

The petals did not evoke the romance of a gift of flowers. But they were indeed a gift: like Jade, a last flash of something beautiful before you met your end.

I asked her if she wanted to train. She was tired. We rain checked, kissed, and I still had it in me to be humbled in her presence, and to shiver when her fingers trailed across my skin before she left.

The rest of the night was a flash of calm, intense sparring with my Chi. I emphasize the fact of the calmness because I want you to understand how important it was at making me better.

Because, frankly, I was. I was better by miles. I had acquired a deep understanding of my Chi.

I'd figured out the problem of weight, for one. My Chi was light as a feather — it shouldn't have any kind of force behind it, but it did. If you hit someone with the cutting edge of a rigid piece of aluminum it shouldn't cut their arm off. At worst they'd get a shallow cut. And air resistance would make it near impossible to make precise cuts. But my Chi had serious impact when it struck, despite its apparent weightlessness.

It grew heavier in the moment of collision with something. Like more of my mind manifested when it was important, but didn't bother to when it wasn't.

That was part of it. But also — and this one's going to be hard to wrap your head around, or, at least it was for me — I wasn't actually holding it. My hand was around a handle. It was supporting weight — but not all of it. The hand around the handle was just a matter of convenience. The sword wasn't actually weightless — it was more that all its weight wasn't in my hand. It was mind-made — it didn't follow gravity's rules. It followed mine.

Sparring with my Chi gave me a chance to apply what I'd learned from fighting Jet. What I could remember of it, anyway. There had been so much. A thousand subtleties woven together.

Even so, I found I was still learning. Growing quicker. At one point I asked my Chi again how it was that he knew how to fight and I didn't, if we really were one and the same.

"For two reasons that are really one reason," he said without any tone or inflection in his voice. "The first is that Shae has given you the Art, and I am a part of it, and I am more molded by her than I am by you. The second is that we are both one and the same and we are different, at the same time."

"Like apples are fruit, and oranges are fruit, but apples aren't oranges?" I asked.

"No," he said simply, and swung his sword.

It was a lot of work, and my body was aching. I was making distinctions in movements and seeing things coming before they'd even happened. I could allow time to slow just a little with my Chi out. One or two percent, maybe, nothing like the time-stopping power I'd wielded when I first brought it out in the Stone Giant grove. No, there was all kinds of mind in the way, now. I could feel it, a thickness in the manner I held my Chi both in my hands and in my mind.

But I was chopping away at that thickness, bit by bit. I'd honestly become a hundred times the fighter I'd been before I had my Chi and before I'd dumped my life into practicing all the time.

And a big reason for that was being able to stay calm. Especially in regard to thoughts I had. I was able to subdivide my mind, almost, assigning every thought, every unwanted feeling or emotion a place to go where I didn't need to pay attention to them. Their own little box where I could let them do their thing without affecting me.

As a result, I was vastly more present. I was more able to use the time I had because I was seeing more with it. Does that makes sense?

I don't know if it does. These things are hard to explain. Sufficed to say that if time slowing by one or two percent seems insignificant, well, it is.

But a person who knows how to fight can make a small advantage go immensely, absurdly far.

And by the end of that night, I knew how to fight.

~

It was...

Damn, I needed to put names on these days. They flew by in a blur and I had no name for them. Was it Tuesday? Friday? I could see where they were coming from with the lack of names philosophy. It's not like there's an actual difference between a weekday and a weekend or a Tuesday and a Wednesday.

But those names are there for a reason: they're useful. Whatever day it was, then, today was my last day to get a chance at practicing with other races before the Tournament. Failing to get any practice with them beforehand would be tantamount to failure at the Tournament — I'd have no idea what I was going up against.

When the bells rang for breakfast, I found myself hungry again. Finally. I was worried I'd never get to eat cake again. What was that — two days off one fruit? More or less.

I spent breakfast hoping my hunger wouldn't come at me with a vengeance, demanding reparations for the time that I'd ignored it. Thankfully, it didn't, and I was able to watch a few slices of probably-steak sizzle deliciously on the hot brick.

"Heard you were up all night training," remarked Fred.

I flipped my steak with a fork and nodded. "I'm going to beat everyone I fight today," I remarked absently. I was running over a few instances my Chi had gotten past my guard in my head, while simultaneously trying to be as precise and economical with my eating movements. I was trying to train like Jet — everything mattered. Everything was an opportunity to do it precisely, correctly, without excess.

Jules snorted. "I told you he'd get it."

"Well, shit," mumbled Fred.

"Get what?" I asked from the part of my mind that talked to others.

"Chi fever," said Fred. "Happens to everyone, so I hear. They get their Chi, feel all powerful and whatnot, and walk around thinking they're a mini-God until somebody beats the pants off 'em." He gave me an emphatic stare. "I suspected you'd get it particularly bad."

Jules nodded in agreement, a rare occurrence. "Yup. Happened to me. I fought...God, what's Derrik's chick's name again?"

"Tori," I said immediately, biting into my steak. I reached for a plate of eggs, and then, on the next boat, a banana, loading up my area with food.

Jules nodded ruefully. "I challenged her after she gave me a look I didn't like. I was fresh from getting my Chi." He laughed. "Got my ass handed to me ten ways from Sunday. And then she spat on me." He made a disgusted face.

I ate a mouthful of eggs. They'd been barely warm by the time they got to me, but I'd heated them on the hot brick. I wasn't appreciating the taste, though. I was wolfing down my food, in a pure, concentrated fashion. Tristan hungry. Tristan eat. Tristan get back to training.

"We're just saying," Fred began, "Don't get all disappointed if you get knocked off the clouds you're walking on."

I finished my eggs, and drank from my water. Someone was walking down the hall, already done. Since we were the most recent abductees, we sat farthest from the source of food, and got it last.

"My feet are on the ground," I said. "It's the best place from which to fight."

Fred rolled his eyes. "Sure thing, kiddo."

Jules looked at me thoughtfully. "You know, he's been training his ass off..." And there was something else to his look. Something that told me the end of his sentence was "and it's Tristan".

"Bet you a half hour's worth of Clay that he makes it," said Jules.

Fred looked ready to agree, but something held him back. He paused.

"Hey Jet!" I heard someone call a few seats down.

He was the first one done with his food, and leaving. "Yes?" he said without stopping his exit.

"Can you give me a free schedule?" asked the person, sounding like they were trying very hard to be assertive.

An immediate and palpable silence arose in our area of the mess hall. "No," said Jet curtly, passing them.

"What?" exclaimed the person, indignant. I didn't bother looking who it was. I just kept eating, so I could get back on the mats sooner. "But Tristan's got one. That's not fair!"

"I gave Tristan a free schedule and he's done nothing but train," said Jet, stopping. "If I took away your classes, you'd do nothing but satisfy your base desires all day."

The person talking was silent for a moment, taken aback. "No I would--"

"Don't." interrupted Jet. "Don't lie. Not to me, not to anyone. You've got no idea what it does to you."

And then he'd continued walking. I was almost done with my food. Fred glanced at Jules. "No bet," he mumbled. "Much as I think I'd win..." he shot me a strange look. I could see the questions in his eyes. How does he practice so much? Without eating, or sleeping? But all he ended up muttering around his food was "I don't like those odds..."

I finished eating, and left without saying goodbye. It didn't seem important at the time. I wasn't terribly well keyed into the social sphere.

Plus, the dining hall was tightly packed. People would have heard. They'd have heard the sound of someone not willing to bet a half hour of time at the Clay wall on whether or not I'd win my fights.

That was the kind of thing you overheard and shared with your friends. That was the kind of thing you worried about, if you were one of the people I was going to challenge.

~

After Kiara's class, I met Thad in the hallway on the way to the mats, and asked him about the particulars of ranking up.

His eyebrows shot up. "So you're really doing it," he said.

"You sound surprised," I said as we walked down the hall.

"I guess I shouldn't be," he said. "But I heard the stories, and it just all started to sound like a bunch of nonsense. You're not eating? You're not sleeping?" He gave me a frank look. "I've seen you looking like you were in the fight of your life, but there was nobody against you."

I grimaced. Thad was somebody I needed to think well of me. He was one of the top fighters in Moleh, and a powerful member of Talon. "That must have looked a little strange," I admitted. "But I promise you that I'm not crazy." I paused, thinking. "Well, not to the point that I'm visually hallucinating things." I paused again. Shit...

He laughed. "I'm not one to judge, Tristan, but while you might not be crazy, I can tell you that your idea to break the top twenty in a day is absolutely insane."

"Okay." I nodded, agreeing with him. "Let's work with me being crazy and this idea being insane, then. How do I go about doing it?"

"I admire your dedication," he said. "It's a pretty simple process, actually. You find the person right above you, and challenge them for their rank."

We passed Tori, who was staring some poor soul dead in the eyes. He had himself against the wall, removed his pants, and begun to jack off.

I made a face. "That's kind of fucked up. Making some guy jerk off in a hallway."

"Not really," he replied mildly. "It's not like anybody would think less of him for it."

It dawned on me. "Oh. That really says more about Tori, doesn't it?"

Thad nodded. "Yeah. It's a testament to Tower that they make you do that kind of shit regardless. You'll see — it's humiliating. It's one thing to know you weren't in control of your actions. But when you were there, doing it the whole time...sometimes it's hard to parse what's fact from fiction."

"That's fucked," I said succinctly.

"You bet," he agreed.

We passed into the small alcove with the disinfectant sludge. I'd gotten used to it by now, and so I didn't hesitate before stepping in and squishing my toes around.

"So that's it, then?" I asked. "Challenge the person one up from me?"

Thad nodded, stretching his arms up, revealing his absurdly well-defined muscles. If Thomas was a bodybuilder, Thad was a professional bear wrestler. Thomas was massive. Thad was big — but it wasn't excessive, even though it might have seemed that way in comparison to Derrik, or especially Kelechi's lighter frames. I tried to remind myself that how big these people were didn't make much of a difference for how well they fought. Kelechi's first lesson, I remembered.

"It's a simple process," said Thad. "But it's draining. It's not like sparring. Once you shake on it, the room turns Tournament mode."

I raised a quizzical eyebrow.

"You feel a lot of pain," explained Thad, "And may even go numb in the place you got hit. A strike to the neck basically knocks you out. You get awfully close to dying. It's...unpleasant," he said with an odd tinge to his voice.

I could imagine where it came from. He was top twenty. How many people had he fought to claw his way up?

About the same as I was about to face. More or less.

I had a sudden question. "What's the incentive to rank up past the top twenty percent gap?" I asked.

Thad flashed me a grin as we made our way toward the door that led to the mats. "Stupid, dumb pride."

I returned his smile. "I think I know a thing or two about that."

He gave me a thoughtful look, his hand on the door. "I know you've been training a lot. I know you got your Chi. But do you really think you're good enough to beat eight out of ten of the people here?"

I looked at him. "Truthfully?"

He returned my gaze. "Yeah."

I pushed open the door. "I could do it one handed," I said, and walked past him, onto the mats.

~

It turns out, I couldn't do it one handed. Not all of it.

Just most of it.

I wish this was something I could be proud of. Something I could use to validate my sense of myself: rising through the ranks fighting with one hand behind my back. But when it came down to it, I had a huge fucking sword, and most people had daggers.

It wasn't even a contest. Finding the first guy to fight took longer than I'd thought. I was lucky that he was on the mats at the same time as me. He was a wiry looking man with short black hair over a squeamish face. He looked relatively new. Somewhere between me and Emmit.

He regarded me nervously as I approached. I interrupted his training. "You're Alan, right?" I asked. It came out a little frustrated. I'd hoped to start training immediately, but had had to waste a bunch of time asking around to figure out where to start my climb.

He flinched back from a thrust from his opponent, and reoriented his focus back on his fight. "Yeah," he said. There was something in his voice I couldn't place.

"Cool. Well," I said kind of awkwardly. "Let's fight."

"In the middle of something here..." he muttered, taking advantage of a window of opportunity to get a neat slice on an outstretched arm.

"Er..." I rubbed the back of my neck. "For rank."

Alan sighed as his partner stopped the fight, making his excuses to leave. "Okay," he said.

"How do we do this?" I asked.

"Shake on it," he replied, a weird look on his face. "Didn't anybody tell you?"

"Yeah, but I wasn't sure if we went somewhere, or if we just did it here."

He gave me a flat look. "Let's just get this over with."

I shrugged. "Fine by me."

I felt a rush of attention as I manifested my Chi. It always came out the same way, with a kind of...soundless sound. Damn. I don't know how to say it.

It's like if you accidentally dropped a fragile vase. And then you watched it fall, watching it rush to the ground, building up all this anticipation. And then it shattered, but made no sound. It was a sudden sensation. A kind of relief, an instant where everything snapped to clarity. It was totally quiet, and accompanied by a sense of profound stillness.

Alan eyed my Chi, and raised his dagger in a kind of doomed defense. With my Chi out, I didn't have much room for compassion: I fell instantly into a state of dispassionate calculation. So I only saw this as a massive advantage he was giving me.

We made sure we had a modicum of space around us - crowded as it was, people recognized what was happening, and gave us as much room as could be spared on the first mat — and then we shook hands.

It began.

I stepped forward, the deadly sharp, watery blade in front of me. He took a hesitant step back. His arm shifted down just a little.

It was enough — quick as a hummingbird, I was in and out, and my Chi slashed his stomach. The blade sliced into him, with some resistance. It left no trace of its path. There was no cut, no blood.

He gave a blood-curdling yell, doubling over as one hand clenched his stomach — visibly uninjured, but still. The scream belied what was going on. It was awful.

I reflexively quartered away the part of my mind that was having a reaction to his pain, and, thus liberated from my empathy, made short work of the rest of the fight with a single, swift cut to the neck.

He slumped to the ground.

I blinked, and my control wavered for a moment. Had I just killed him?

He wasn't moving.

"Alan?" I asked, my voice more calm than I felt.

He spasmed after a moment, and looked up at me. "Congratulations," he muttered, standing up. "You're better than me. Who knew." His tone was resentful.

My Chi was still out. I was not feeling apologetic. "Who's next?" I asked of the people watching our fight. I was ranked, now. I was starting the climb.

~

The person after him wasn't in class at the moment, but it turned out, according to a visibly disinterested Kelechi, that you don't have to do all the fights in order. Plenty of people got their Chi and experienced large jumps in power. So they sometimes aimed high, to see how good they really were, and worked downward from there. You didn't officially get the rank until you beat everyone before them, though. It kept the rankings as accurate as possible.

There were maybe sixty people on the mats that period. About fifty of them were ranked. Only a few of those were top twenty - Thad and Jeff, Derrik and Kelechi. The few others on the fourth mat with brass Tower emblems on their shirts. There were probably a couple on the third mat too, I guessed, if this class size was representative of all of Moleh.

So I moved on to the next person. It went about the same as the first.

Simply put, I cut my way through the rankings like my opponents were toddlers. I became used to the screams, and steadily colder in my demeanor. Well, that's how it must have seemed, anyway. I didn't feel cold — I didn't feel anything. It was just the next person. They started to see me coming, as I worked my way through the first mat.