Due to dwindling light, Friday nights were only meant for weeding out the extremely weak. The grounds for disqualification were lower, meaning one K.O. and you were done. I fought once and easily disarmed my opponent without a single scratch.

The drive back to The Penthouse was extremely awkward, tension building between my frustration and Brock's unwavering gaze. Gerry passed the Penthouse first, taking me home since he and Brock lived in the same place. We pulled up outside my house and I quickly hopped out of the car. Gerry followed me, and I can only assume that Brock moved to the front seat, because I heard his door open but he was not behind me when I got to my door.

"Umm, yes?" I asked.

"Oh, I uhh, just wanted to make sure everything was ok before I left" Gerry said shyly.

"I live with a two hundred pound mountain lion...I'm safe" I said, and went inside, closing my door.

When I heard the jeep start and pull away, I ripped off my shoes and threw them across the room. I then proceeded to punch and kick every wall in my new house until I had broken both my hand and a foot twice. When I was done, Ares bit me lightly then licked me, telling me I should stop but that he understood. I sat on the floor of my kitchen, lazily petting Ares as I stared off into space.

"I hate this too" I murmured.

___________________

"You did great yesterday, I have a feeling you'll last a few rounds today" Gerry said the next morning. The second day of tourney style competition began at nine a.m.

I woke up this morning feeling confused. On one hand I wanted to kill that stupid, lie spreading, asshole who rubbed his betrayal in my face. On the other, I knew I had to keep my cover for as long as possible, even if it was emotionally draining keeping up my weak girl facade. If I slipped up and Gerry caught on, I was screwed. I couldn't help but wonder why Brock hadn't blown my cover. He knew, I was a hundred percent positive of that.

"Interesting choice of clothing" a deep voice said from behind me.

"Well I was a little restrained yesterday during my fight" I said, flipping on my cheesiest, brightest smile. I chose tights and a sports bra for today, wrapping my hands and feet for some protection, but I didn't want any extra weight.

"I mean...whatever helps" Gerry said with a laugh. Brock turned his peircing gaze on Gerry, who promptly skittered away.

"Why did you choose swords?" Brock asked after a few seconds, his attention now on me again.

"It's the only thing I'm good at" I whispered. I had done a good job of avoiding direct eye contact since the office incident, but being this close made it difficult. I needed to get away.

"I really doubt that. In fact, I'm sure you are good at quite a few things" he said. I could almost feel the intensity of his gaze on my skin.

"No sir" I said, turning away in an attempt to get away.

"Why won't you look me in the eyes?" he asked again, grabbing my upper arm.

"It's rude. You're the leader, I'm the follower" I murmured submissevely. I think swishing acid would have been easier than saying what I just said.

Silence followed my statement for a few seconds before he spoke "I-" but a loud siren interrupted whatever he was about to say. The crowd began to quickly disperse from the field, contestants who were not competing headed for the stands. Only about forty or so people remained on the field. I used the giant, amassing herd of people to quickly get away. I slipped into the crowd, fleeing to the edge of the arena. I wasn't supposed to spar for another two hours so I found a nice, anonymous spot in the bleachers to observe. I saw Gerry sitting on the platform, looking through the crowd and Brock sat tense on his throne resting on his broadsword, observing the scene below calmly. I ducked low in my chair and tried to enjoy the frivoulous activity of fellow city members around me. Music with a deep bass and provocative lyrics rang out through speakers behind me. Someone must have saved up a lot of money to have music and speakers. To my left a card game was going on between loud, raucous men and to my right, a huge crowd was congregating around something or someone. Staying low, I crawled through the bleachers toward the group. As I muscled my way to the front I saw a large, cloth chair being erected on the flat section of bleacher seats. A woman gracefully made her way up into the chair. She easily towered over everyone in the bleachers, and slowly a line formed in front of her chair. She had on the strangest clothing, satin looking billowy pants and a matching top that covered only her bust. She had piercings everywhere, in her eyebrow, nose, and lip, most of which were filled with red gems and silver hoops. A chain ran from her ear to her nose and she had elegant tattoos on her forearms and stomach. Her skin was pale as moonlight, very strange for our time period. I shrugged and fought my way back out of the crowd to watch the arena. Resting on the edge, I watched archers miss outrageously easy targets. On the knife range, a young woman owned four men in speed and accuracy. And the shooting range for guns was divided up by hand gun, shot gun, and semi automatic so each section had a specific requirement. At the far end, closest to the podium was a man with a katana fighting a man with a saber. Watching all the violence was so refreshing, it brought me back to the good ol' days.

My two hours flew by quickly and soon it was my turn to bring on the hurt. I made my way to the sword fighting section and picked out my two blades from yesterday. Light and well balanced, they could easily become weapons of mass destruction in my hands, however this was not about killing, but rather disarming. My opponent was another man, this one small and agile looking. In his hands was a Longsword, about three and a half feet long, smaller than Astvinur but still a deadly foe. I held my two-foot long swords at the ready, points up, with my body perpendicular to his front facing form. His deceptively open stance was a trick. A way to draw in clueless victims, but I knew better. I initiated slow circling in order to assess his weaknesses. Was that a slight hesitation in his left foot on the cross over? Made sense, he was right hand dominant, meaning he was probably right foot dominant, making his left ankle weaker. He probably rolled it with in the last week or so, based on his ability to move fairly quickly. On a snap decision, I sprinted two steps and jumped, whipping my body around in a spiral with blades extended toward his right side. He blocked me with a two handed grip, but when he planted his left foot as an anchor, it gave out on him and faltered. He pushed me off and scrambled back to recover. Realizing that waiting for me to attack was not wise, he sprang into quick thrust and hacks at my mid section, attempting to get my swords tangled for easy disarming. I let my swords cross, giving him false hope, but when he rotated his blade to strip my swords, I tightened my grip and rolled inward, bringing our swords and his arm around my body. I was inside his defenses now, a huge threat. When I elbowed him in the side three times, I felt his arm slacken as his right side went numb. I quickly removed my weapon from the tangle and ripped his out of his hand. Confused, disarmed, and hurt, the man just sat down slowly, then laid down on his back. The rule keeper yelled match and recorded the me as the winner.

"I'm sorry that it took me so long to find the nerve in your side, I should have only needed one hit, which would have caused less pain" I whispered, walking to the man and taking a knee. He tried to scoot away when I reached out to him, but I put on my "caring mother face" and hushed him calmingly.

"I can fix the numbness" I said in an even tone. Placing my hand on the muscles along the ribcage, I ran my hands in opposite directions until the tightened stiffness of the area relaxed away and he began moving again.

"Th-thank you" he said, taking my offered hand. He winced, sore from the hits he took, but at least his right side worked again.

"No problem" I responded with a smile, then picked up his sword to return it to the cart for him.

As I came up to the cart, I saw Gerry standing a few feet away, watching me expectantly.

"Yes?"

"That was really good" he said emotionlessly. His brow was creased and he was watching me analytically.

"Thank you? Why do I feel like I should apologize for that?"

"You didn't tell me you were good with swords"

"Yes well I've been on my own for quite a while. I didn't feel comfortable divulging all my tricks the first time we met" I responded, casually putting the swords on the appropriate racks.

"I guess that makes sense... just don't lie to me, alright?" he said intensely, then turned and left.

Well that was a new side to Gerry I had never seen before.

I returned to my seat in the bleachers and waited for my next fight, which was in an hour.