Annabel watches with reserve as two Fighters, Desperado and Klok, pummel the stuffing out of each other. Desperado strikes out with his whip, and he draws blood from his enemy and a cheer from the crowd. Sighing, Annabel realizes, finally, how bloodthirsty her entire society is. Klok clocks Desperado with a simple punch that sends the smaller, whip-bearing Fighter across the Court and into the Styroplex wall.
The match, which is a timed bout that counts towards nothing, is between two friends. Neither is scheduled for another bout until a few months from now, for both will be taking on a new Trainee after tonight’s Parglassi ceremony. Thus, both decided it was in their best interests to fight as the warm-up match for the Parglassi.
The timer runs out as Desperado stumbles to his feet. Klok helps him towards the edge of the Court, and the two waves at the crowd. The walls rise, and Klok and Desperado exit, chatting conversationally about the prospective new Fighters of the Parglassi ceremony tonight.
Annabel tips a wave to them as they pass. After all, there is no sense in making enemies out of prospective companions. Desperado nods to her, and Klok offers her a thumbs-up to wish her luck. They exit the area towards the locker rooms, still talking.
The first Parglassi match is between Tyranada and her Trainee, both trained in the use of only a shield for weaponry. Tyranada’s Trainee is one of Annabel’s tormentors, and so, Annabel has a difficult time trying to decide whether she hopes the girl will win so she can fall at the hands of another (preferably Annabel herself), or lose so she must go through another two years of instruction.
The bout begins with the introduction of the Trainee and the formal challenge. The girl has chosen the name of Pterra, and the fight begins. They are too unevenly matched, however, and Annabel bores quickly.
Annabel notices that Carmelotto comes up beside her. “We’re scheduled for the third slot.”
“She’s too under-skilled,” Annabel replies, not acknowledging his comment.
Mel nods. “Pterra will need more time in the Court.”
“Ten years in the Court won’t be able to help her. She’s better off in the Pholio-circuit and entertaining people that way.”
Smirking, Mel fixes Annabel with a curious stare. “Jealous and bitter, are we?”
Annabel scoffs. “Not of her!” she cries, a bit offended that Mel would even suggest it. She then glances at him and adds, as an afterthought, “Why should I be?”
He begins counting on his fingertips with each point he makes. “She’s the envy of most men. She comes from old money. She could be whatever she wanted. She – “
“I get the point, Mel.”
“So? Are you jealous?”
Annabel watches Tyranada fight her Trainee for a moment before laughing. “No,” she admits. “She got to those positions through disks and complacency, and I’m rather content that I got this far on my own abilities.”
The match ends with the announcer declaring, “Tyranada has drawn fourth blood. She is the victor.” The crowd applauds kindly, and Pterra – or the girl who wanted to be known as Pterra – is escorted from the Court.
“At least she has the decency to look defeated,” Annabel admits.
“True enough. Next up are Stygian and his Trainee.” The Trainee introduces himself as Procrustes. “I’ve heard great things are expected of him.”
Annabel watches the bout, but the skills of both are too simple and ineffective to hold her interest. “f he had just twisted his wrist a different way, he could have blocked that shot,” she observes. She turns to Mel. “What’s to keep the Master from simply allowing his Trainee to win?” she wants to know.
He sighs in response. “Before the match, you’ll notice we are injected with a serum. The serum allows the Council of Peers to follow neurological scans of our brains and bodies. If we are consciously holing back more than twenty percent of our fullest potential, we are brought before them. The Trainee is still admitted, but if he fails to win against more seasoned opponents, he is removed from our ranks.”
Annabel nods. Procrustes flings Stygian into the nearest wall, and the crowd screams and cheers. “And what is it, exactly, that keeps us from killing each other?”
“Morals, mostly, and the eye-for-an-eye policy. You see, if one is injured irrevocably in a bout, preventing him from ever fighting again, the one who injured him is removed from our ranks and treated to the same sort of harm that he had inflicted upon his opponent.” He pauses and blinks at Annabel. “I thought you knew that, Nabel.”
I was making certain I had it all right. You’ve been telling me so much these past few days, it’s been a bit difficult to keep it all straight.”
Mel motions towards the Court with his chin. “They’re tied,” he states.
Despite this turn of events, Annabel can not stomach it to watch. “Neither has skill enough,” she states coldly. “Both should be brought to the Council, not just the Master.” “That’s your opinion. Long ago, it was thought that this was this best way to do it. It’s worked fairly well, I think. “
Suddenly, the match ends with Procrustes the looser. “I guess Stygian preferred doing things the right way, after all,” Annabel observes. “Is the Council of Peers all that bad?”
“You’ll have to answer that for yourself, Nabel. They’re the ones who do the Markings for the ceremony. Come on, we’re up.”
Carmelotto leads the way to the center of the Court. He removes his shirt, revealing a very well toned torso that is barely nicked by previous bouts. He removes his gloves, too, and it is one of the few times Annabel has seen his Mark – that of Servitude – that is emblazoned in a beautiful shade of black upon both of his hands. He exchanges his shed clothing for the syringe held by a nearby aide. Wincing as he injects the serum, Carmelotto shoves down the plunger. He then hands the empty syringe and needle to the aide and rolls his shoulders to loosen them up.
Annabel, meanwhile, watches him. She yanks on her gauntlet-length gloves and flexes her fingers into them as far as they will go. The walls around the Court descend, and a misty haze is pumped into the area. The crowd is greatly muted, and so is the announcer outside the Court.
“This is a fourth blood match,” Mel reminds her. “The point is to draw blood four times from me, your enemy, not to get the fourth shot landed. When the spot finds you, state your name, desired name, reason for fighting, and formal challenge. And remember, I’m no loner Carmelotto. I am Sylvus.”
Annabel nods, and almost immediately, a brilliant white circle encompasses her and the immediate area around her. “My name,” she announces with a defiant air, “is Annabel Lee Harvey Oswald. However, for my peers to respect me, I have chosen the name of Impros. As Impros, I will battle nobly, and none shall restrain me. It is my desire to fight, because the only time I feel alive and free is when I am engaged in battle. In order to further my feelings of unsurpassable freedom and vitality, I, Impros, challenge you, Sylvus, to a fourth blood match. Do you accept?”
Mel replies with equal defiance. "I do, but you shall rue the day you made this challenge!" Then, more quietly, he says to Annabel alone, "They're not expecting much out of you, and I don't know why, but let's give them a show, eh?"
Annabel nods with determination. The haze dissapates, and a bell tolls. In a blink, Mel is racing towards her. She braces herself, ready for the impact, but he leaps into the air, tucks a roll, unsheathes his knives, and lands behind her, turning to face her back. Half-way through all of this, Annabel realizes what he is doing. She drops to the ground, rolls away, and yanks her blades from their resting places on her thighs.
Dashing to her feet and kicking up a cloud of sand in the process, Annabel charges her tutor. He locks his knees and holds up his knives for defence. She raises her own, and the blades lock for a moment before he pushes her away. Instead of falling from the overbalance, Annabel catches herself and waits. She motions for Mel to come at her with a flick of her fingertips. He complies.
When he comes close enough to allow momentum to carry him into her, she drops to her back and plants a firm enough kick into his chest. He flies backwards, and Annabel cannot help but wonder why he did not see that one coming. Not one to ponder too long in a fit of action, she flicks herself onto her feet. By the time she is righted, however, Mel is coming at her again. This time, he shifts his weight to go low.
Annabel, however, is not ready to play puppet for him. Instead of jumping, as most normal Fighters would, she sheaths her knives and pounces on him before he can get her. She hits him with her hands on his shoulders, knocking his knives away before they can nick her. She stays there for a heartbeat, her soul suddenly at peace as she lands in a heap with Mel.
Thankfully, Mel does not allow her placated spirit to drift far. "You're not focusing," he hisses before rolling out from under her.
"What did you expect?" Annabel mutters and gives him his girth. She watches him cautiously as he collects his weapons and then rushes him. He, too, charges, and they get locked once again. They both push against each other, but his shove is harder, and she loses ground. However, the tip of one of his knives is suddenly livid with the unmistakeable red of -
"BLOOD!" the crowd screams so loudly that it echoes, even within the Styroplex walls of the Court.
Disbelieving, Annabel's gloved hand reaches up and touches her burning right cheek. She pulls away her hand, and it is, indeed, bleeding. Above them, the Pholiograph is displaying the changed blood count. "You're mine," she breathes through teeth gritted in rage.
Mel smirks. "I wouldn't have it any other way."
Not about to be charmed by his charisma, Annabel pulls her knives out again and flicks them into her classic backwards grip. She's serious, as far as this bout is concerned. A series of small leaps intermixed with spurts of running brings her to Carmelotto's front. She fakes left, down, and then right, and he follows her the whole way. Finally giving up in trying to find a weakness, for he follows her too quickly and tightly, she flicks her wrist and her knife catches Mel across the chest, drawing a long, thin line in blood.
Falling back to avoid a deeper cut, Mel grins. "That certainly shut them up," he observes of the crowd's silent response to her point.
Annabel narrows her eyes. "Let's finish this," she says, her voice merely a growl now. She circles him, widening the gap between them as she does, and lets him follow her. She then sprints towards him, and he towards her. They collide, senselessly again. He pushes her back again, but she pulls a handless backflip before he can cut her. A handless forwards flip brings her back to her previous position, and she slips in a nice slice via one of her knives to draw blood from Mel's arm. He shrinks away, however, and she shoves her shoulder forwards and swings with the other hand. This one connects and forms a nice, deep valley from which blood flows.
She notices something dripping from her forehead, and she wipes away the sweat with her forearm after again shrinking out of the way of Mel's retribution. Tiring and boring of this long bout - did it take so long for the others' to finish theirs? - Annabel decides against simply finishing him off quickly. Instead, she decides to do so with flair. She dances in long enough to allow Mel to pull off a successful nick on her arm, and she, too, allows for another well of blood to spout up from Mel's chest. Then, she discards her knives and backflips to the wall. She motions for Mel, and he shakes his head.
"You're getting cocky," he warns, but he follows her anyway.
"And you're getting slow and stupid in your old age," Annabel teases. He is, after all, only six years her senior. The barb hits close enough to its mark, and Mel rushes in towards Annabel.
She blows him a kiss before pulling a backflip onto the Styroplex wall. She stays there for but a moment before inertia, momentum, and gravity begin to take their tolls. Noting this, she thrusts herself off of the wall and out towards Carmelotto. Whatever he was expecting, evidently it wasn't that. He is caught off-guard, and his knives go flying away from him.
Both bodies once again fall to the floor, this time with Annabel pinning down Mel. "And now, my dear, sweet teacher, you are finished by your far too cocky student," she whispers before pressing a nice, long kiss onto his lips as he gasps for want of air; he had, after all, landed hard. As she kisses him, her thumbnail digs into his jaw, and she forces a deep jut to form in it, deep enough to draw, for the fourth time, blood.
Releasing him, Annabel bounds to her feet and raises her hand high so all can see. The crowd's cheers flood the Arena as ecstasy floods her body. She has defeated her Master. A smile leaks onto her face as she suddenly feels compelled to catch her breath. It is all over now; she has drawn fourth blood.
Seven other bouts brought two other new Fighters into the ranks of those who battle in the Arena. The two others are young men, friends, little older than she, named Terrapin and Docker. They are named after legends, for neither turtles nor docks any longer exist, not after old-Earth's fall. After the final match, the house lights flood the Arena, and another bell tolls. The crowd begins to chant "Parglassi" over and over again, as if they are calling forth the Council of Peers to perform the ritual.
In answer, six men garbed in red, hooded robes raise the box that covers the Court. Two are carrying an urn of flaming coals, and another totes a handful of metal rods of various shapes and sizes. He begins to heat them in the urn after it is set down on the ground.
"If I may have your attention!" one of the other three men shouts as he raises a hand; in reply, the crowd quiets significantly. "We have had a wonderful display of strength, strategy, and sheer bloodlust. We issue forth our deepest sympathies for those who did not make it, and our most heartfelt welcome for those who did. Will our three new Fighters please come forward?"
In reply, Annabel is guided by Mel as the other two are guided by their teachers to the center of the Court, in front of the Council. Nodding, the three Masters retreat fairly discreetly, leaving Terrapin, Docker, and Impros before the Council for final judgement. Surprisingly, the speaker smiles upon looking at them.
"Terrapin, you are a strong, determined youth. Your heart is in the right place, as is your mind. You will do well," the man continues. Terrapin nods a thank-you. "Docker, your blows are swift and clean. You make your enemies doubt themselves, and then you confirm their doubts. You will do well, too." Docker nods his thanks as well. Then, the man turns to Annabel. "Impros, you are quick, harsh, and brutal. You have a thought as much for your duties as for the crowds. You, also, will do well." Annabel also nods her thanks.
A mild cheer rises again from the crowd, but the man raises a hand again in silence. The cheer fades away. He addresses them once again. "Of course you know what is coming next. The instruments of the Marks are heated, the coals are stoked, and now, there is no more to prepare. Now, we preform ... Parglassi!"
A deep cheer arises again from the crowd. The man does not bother to lessen its intensity this time. Instead, he says, "Terrapin, come forward." The young man complies, and drops to his knees before them. He is shirtless, and Annabel finds him mildly attractive, but no competition for Mel. "You, Terrapin, I bless with half the mark of Brotherhood," the man announces as he presses burns into Terrapin's left pectoral. "You are bound in friendship and companionship to the one also bearing this Mark. May you find peace and happiness with its guidance." He presents a hand after disposing of the rods and helps Terrapin to his feet. One of the other men escorts him to the sidelines where a medic will cover the burn in a salve that will heal the wounds more quickly and scar them deep, pure black. The applause increases.
"Docker, come forward," the man says as the rods are reheating. He, also, drops to his knees. He pulls off his shirt at the request of the man, and closes his eyes. The same wound is pressed onto his right pectoral. "You, also, are blessed with half of the Mark of Brotherhood. You and Terrapin are bound in filial honor to one another. May you two find the will and strength to overcome all obstacles." He extends a hand, and Docker rises to his feet and is escorted by the other aid to the medic. The crowd offers their praise in greater quantities, if that is at all possible.
"Impros, come forwards," the man instructs Annabel. She does so and stands before him, momentarilly defiant. "Kneel and remove your outer shirt," the man commands. Peeling off her outer shirt, Annabel drops to her knees and bows her head submissively. Firm hands press her shoulders down close to the ground.
Staring at the sand, Annabel tries in vain to ignore the pain of hot metal searing through the flesh of her back in a complex pattern. Tears that she can not fight back form in her eyes and begin to fall to the sand uninhibited as she attempts yet again to shove the excruciating agony far from the upper levels of her consciousness. As her flesh is butchered and cauderized instantaneously, she hears the man speak.
"Impros, you are blessed with the Mark of Heaven. You will aspire to do great things, and Heaven's Mark will always be here to guide you. May you remember that pain preceeds and intensifies pleasure, and that no hardships are undue. May you recall that great things are preceeded by great sacrifices. Your future is enshrouded, but you will know basic happiness before your trials surface."
The heat and its pain, thankfully, retreat soon afterwards. She raises herself to her knees again and does not move to hide the tears of her pain. Her eyes, however, are no longer crying. Instead, they are burning with the insane desire to repay this man for the agony he had issued forth upon her body. He extends a hand, which she accepts, and pulls her to her feet. He, himself, escorts her to the medic.
The salve, in comparrison to the pokers, is chilling cold and quite possibly the most wonderful feeling Annabel has ever known. Indeed, as she relaxes in the presence of the cool gel on her back, the Council of Peers returns to the center of the Court and begins a farewell speech. Annabel, however, does not bother to listen. She finds herself half asleep on the bench next to Mel, her head leaning on his shoulder for want of a better pillow.
Background by Backgrounds 2000.