The Games for Gaiathal (Part 3 of 'A Tale of People and Apples Trilogy')

Chapter 15: Man and Orca

She was out of tears to shed.

She had to be strong. She had to survive. She had to win and join him.

She had to kill Solan.

And she had to be fast about it, as she looked at Luka who kneeled within his champion's veil and atop one of the shining marble pillars, who was watching on weak and withering by the second. He had been stabbed, and fanged, and now shot, pale within the blue of his victory.

If he didn't get beyond the fortress, with his Gift restored to restore his health, his tragic battle over Tristan and whatever truth he gained from the Chamber of Truth would all be won for nothing. His friends' deaths in vain.

Her lover, her light, extinguished from this world if he didn't get out soon.

She knew the instructions before the Programmers had to state it again, having watched Luka and Tristan already fight to the death and prepare themselves.

Calysa grabbed a bow and arrows as her long distance weapon of choice, the four arrows at its disposal outweighing the pistol with only two bullets. She was more skilled with a bow, and suspected she would need the extra volleys against the Scientist. A mechanism at the bow seemed to feed the arrows up when one was let loose, but it appeared familiar enough to what she was used to.

Just as her friends before her, she laced her skillful fingers at the handle of a sword and strap of a shield which she brought to the spot light which awaited her. She placed her tools to her feet as she had seen the Raven and Wolf do just moments ago.

Solan continued to shuffle and hold the weapons before him, his back facing Calysa who stood and waited, Calysa like a determined ocean, calm before the storm.

"Guns... they're much too quick for you," He called to her with his back still facing, clicking a pistol at his ear. "I want to see the life leave you up close. I want him to see," He smirked, half his face now facing her as he discarded the pistol and brought a dagger up to his cheek. "Once you die, it will break him. How does a heart beat on without its spirit?"

The Orca ignored him as she started to plan. Solan's words bounced off of Calysa now as they readied for battle. His words and threats empty and meaningless when juxtaposed to Solan's sword once it started to actually swing.

She had fought him once before, upon the beach of the old continent. She could tell he was skilled, an Alva after all, but the last time they fought he had his power and she was simply trying to chain him.

It was now or never for the Orca. Kill him while he was vulnerable, or he may never be again. She was confident he could beat him here and now with the playing field levelled.

Not only because she had the capacity to have such confidence, but because she simply had to have it here and now in the blackness and spot light of the stadium. She willed herself to believe she could, because if she didn't, she was dead before she even flung an arrow or swung a sword.

Solan put the long shining dagger to the waist of his uniform as he turned, a hammer at his left hand, and a long sword at his right, as he slowly walked to his spot light and stared across to the Orca.

Though he was a slender man, Calysa couldn't help but shiver with the ease at which he wielded the hammer as if it were a feather.

The Scientist put his weapons to his feet, his eyes unmoving upon Calysa the Orca, as Calysa stared back calmly yet fiercely at the Scientist.

Suddenly, the floor began to shake. The obstacles and mazes and walls to their right and left fell to the floor and through the ground, the steel swallowing the objects whole and a flat sheet of metal closing shut, leaving a floor as flat as the rest of the stadium. Flood lights shone upon the newly smoothed floor, flickering on and off providing checkers of darkness at seeming random, while Calysa's and Solan's sides of the stadium had a steady but dim light upon it.