Ceres Chaos [Exosuit Progression]

The two ranged participants closed the gap, forgoing their ranged weapons for melee combat.

The knight held a short sword with two hands and swung it wide, forcing Trissa to reconsider diving straight at him, instead dodging towards the side and circling him. “Fight me like a true warrior!” The knight roared.

But instead of entering another stalemate, Trissa grinned as she took out her submachine gun again and sprayed directly at the knight.

The knight wasn’t a sword master nor a transcendent, not being able to parry any of the bullets coming in. He had no tower shield either, it being ejected far away during the armour purge, making him a free target.

A few bullets clipped him in his thighs and certain parts of the frame as he turned to get back into cover behind a pillar. However, the act of him turning away served as the final nail in the coffin, with his vulnerable power pack at the back of his exosuit fully exposed.

Three bullets out of the sixty sprayed at him hit the power pack directly, causing it to stutter and malfunction, its efficiency plummeting.

A few viewers shouted angrily at the blatant disrespect of a melee fight from Trissa, spouting some bullshit about chivalry and honour.

“How dare you tarnish this duel like this! He didn’t have any ranged options left and you just gunned him down!”

However, this was initially meant to be a ranged duel, so Trissa did not care.

She was more than allowed to use any ranged weapons she wanted, and so was the knight! The knight however had to dedicate two hands to his sword as he wasn’t good enough with its handling, hence not being able to wield the pistol in time before her.

The unpowered exosuit was not as heavy as the original armoured version, allowing the knight to slowly move away under his own strength. He grunted as he forced himself to his limits, breathing heavily.

As the knight ran away into the ‘forest’ of pillars, Trissa slowly kept a paced jog towards him, like a hunter casually running up to pick up his prey. She had everything in her hands, it was her duel to win.

She still had a functional nail gun, a clip left in her submachine gun and two thermal knives. Her exosuit was not as functional as before, with the frontal thrusters and components crushed by the impact of the armour purge, but otherwise, she retained 80% of her speed.

[It looks like all the cards are in favour of Trissa, we should expect the knight to surrender very soon! He could surrender right now by throwing himself out of the arena, but it seems that he is still holding out for hope!]

The knight reached a dense area of pillars with random heights, forming a good defensive position that allowed him to sneak through. He had to use the environment to gain the upper hand on Trissa.

All he had was a low-powered kinetic pistol and a short sword. He stowed away the short sword on his waist while he held the pistol with two hands, keeping it steady and close to his chest, breathing hard as he hid in the area. He was slightly injured in his thighs due to a few bullets grazes, causing blood to drip and reveal his direction of travel.

Trissa entered slowly with no haste, her blood-red eyes darting at every nook and cranny of the multiple pillars, trying to catch a glimmer of the tracks or traces of blood from the knight. She didn’t bother to use her exosuit sensors – the hunt was more than enough for her.

Noticing that a blood trail stopped abruptly on the floor in the middle of a circular area surrounded by short pillars, she simply smiled as she entered the very centre of the circle, acting as though she was trying to figure out why the blood stopped here while she held two thermal knives in either hand.

The ambush came as expected with three shots as expected. However, the arena went dead silent as Trissa’s exosuit whirred loudly, allowing her to deflect all three bullets that were aimed at her head with the two thermal knives!

The audience started shouting out, especially those who bet on the knight from the Five Families College, seeing the incredible display. Trissa could parry bullets with her knife for some unknown reason.

There was a big, heated discussion over whether it was real or fake, and if it was real why wasn’t it shown earlier?

Some even questioned whether she had implants or was a transcendent candidate.

“Why didn’t she use it when the knight was shooting with the machine gun? She could have won the duel much earlier!”

“Don’t be stupid, that machine gun had a high caliber and the bullets were shot way faster! This pistol is low-powered and a small caliber too, which would be much easier to react to with the boost of the exosuit. This wouldn’t matter for energy weapons, since no baseline human can react within a fraction of the speed of light, not even if you reacted at the same time!”

[It seems that participant Trissa has finally shown her wildcard, that she’s a real knife expert! While the pistol was low-powered, it is not easy to parry bullets of that speed, but I doubt she would be able to do the same for anything stronger than that pistol!]

The knight didn’t falter at the sight of the parry, continuing to change his position around the circle as he took aimed shots at the lower body, trying to force Trissa to parry further away from her head. However, Trissa put up a show, parrying or slightly moving her body to avoid certain shots.

Her eyes could be seen to be watching every single muscle on the knight, predicting the moment the knight was going to pull the trigger.

The knight cursed as he counted only five bullets left in his pistol. He had to get up close and personal now before Trissa took advantage.

Stowing away his pistol, he took out his short sword, turned the corner and charged forward in a stabbing version. But he soon realized that he was charging towards nothing.

Trissa was gone.

He turned around to see if he was flanked but as he turned his head a shadow covered him from above, blocking the sunlight over him as Trissa was airborne, diving right at him.

The knight immediately swung to stab at her above him, but she deftly dodged it and came down along the side of the sword, punching him right in the face.

Staggering backwards while still gripping the sword, he swung two times blindly as Trissa just danced around him, using her twin knives to disable the multiple joints of the barebones exosuit, causing the entire system to fail.

She used the hilt of her knife and knocked the processor at his neck, shutting it down while causing a backflow of error messages to flood the knight’s brain, stunning him for a short period.

Trissa then performed two swift kicks to the back of both knees, forcing him to kneel as she stripped away the power pack from the back of his frame with her two thermal knives in rapid fashion.

She however continued to leave the processor inside which continued to overflow the knight’s nervous system with garbage information, not allowing him to move.

Trissa chuckled as she used her two thermal knives and set them to the highest heat, before beginning to carve on the bare open skin of the knight’s back.

The knight screamed out his lungs in pain and shock as the smell of burnt flesh began to choke the surroundings, but Trissa kept going, her smile widening as she put in even more force.

[Well it looks like Trissa has won thi- wait what is she doing? Oh my god, she’s writing a message!]

The arena guards suddenly immediately entered the area and held her back, but not before she managed to carve two words into the knight’s back with searing wounds that burnt black.

A loud synchronized gasp came from the crowd, with the viewers all scrambling to take a photo or to get a closer look at what was carved. This was the most exciting thing to have happened in this competition thus far.

“So, you fuckers can do this to others but if it’s done to you, you step in immediately? FUCK YOU! FUCK ALL OF YOU INNERS!” Trissa screamed and kicked as she was arm locked by three arena guards in security exosuits, dragging her out of the playfield.

The ending was so shocking that the announcer had no idea what to say, it had all happened in an instant.

[Well... What an amazing performance from Trissa, despite the extreme display of skill at the very end! I would like to know what pushed her to the very edge... Oh, wait, sorry the next duel is already about to happen soon! Please look forward to it and the bets are now open!]

The announcer was stopped halfway due to the instruction from the examination council, telling him to not mention the words carved into the back.

However, it was a futile attempt, as some of the premium viewer capsules could see very clearly the words that were seared onto the knight’s back: “Maddy Seras”. Naturally, the name spread around the net extremely fast.

“Why would she carve a name of someone from the Five Families? Aren’t they in different competition categories?”

A heated discussion immediately popped up on the forums, with a few videos of Maddy’s Seras actions during the group stage qualifier. Seeing the intense mutilation that he performed on every other participant other than himself made quite a few audience members angry, even the inners themselves.

For all their dislike of the outers, one should never go too far. Considering that Maddy also mutilated and injured every other inner who allied with him, he had made an enemy out of everyone. Suddenly, some of the inners could somehow sympathize slightly with what Trissa did.

Of course, some staunch inners stood by what he did. “It’s a competition after all, and he played within the rules. What Trissa did went against the rule!”

“She did not trigger the personal shield either! There was no killing!”

For the outers, it was even more apparent why Trissa did that: because of what happened to Erik.

Many e-letters of protest from the victims’ families were sent to the Seras family and the examination council as to why they stopped Trissa when they didn’t stop Maddy.

Maddy’s mutilation had gone on for three hours total during which there was ample time to stop him, while Trissa was stopped immediately during the match.

While both didn’t flout any rules as they didn’t breach the killing rule, the difference in treatment between the two participants brought to the surface yet another divide between the inners and outers.

Trissa started to be treated like yet another ‘star’, next to Braton and Ceres, by the outers, especially in Zone 17. The orphanage cheered as they saw one of their own standing up for another, while Ann Lesion tried to remind them that torture was never the right thing to do!

Despite being a ‘hero’, Trissa was restrained in the waiting room, with two security guards flanking her as she was handcuffed, sitting on a chair. “What’s the point of holding me here?” Trissa sneered at the guards “Just throw me into jail or whatever.”

The waiting room’s door opened, only to reveal Maddy Seras himself! Trissa was extremely surprised.

Wasn’t this the ranged duel day? Maddy was an exosuit repairer. Why was he allowed here in the first place when it wasn’t even his day to duel?

“Don’t look so surprised. If you find such a big fan willing to do a fanart of your name, you would naturally want to meet the fan, wouldn’t you?” Maddy smiled gently as though he was the most patient saint in the entire galaxy.

“Especially after your stunning display of skill and… inclinations. How rare it is to meet someone so similar to me.”

Maddy chuckled at Trissa’s surprised face which slowly turned to fury as she came face to face with her currently number one enemy. The two security guards didn’t move a single inch, despite Maddy being against the rules by entering this room.

“I see that both you and I are quite alike in our… urges, and we have no reason to hurt each other. Perhaps you might have felt morally compelled to send a message due to the travesty that your comrades have suffered, but I know that deep down you don’t care about it. I’ve watched your duel and your past fights. It takes one to know one, you know.” Maddy laughed even harder as Trissa struggled against her restraints, forcing the two guards to hold her down.

“YOU AND I ARE NOTHING LIKE EACH OTHER!” Trissa screamed.

Maddy paused with a smirk on his face, observing Trissa carefully before his grin grew even wider.

“You are good at acting, but don't kid yourself. We are the same, and deep down inside your heart, you don’t actually give a shit about anyone around you." Maddy paced around the room slowly, looking at Trissa with interest. "If I were Chad or anybody else, maybe your antics would have got me angry and protective."

"Did it not? I got you to come here. Seems like it worked to me." Trissa sneered.

"Indeed you have..." Maddy stared closely at Trissa's face, watching her reactions intently. "Hmm, you really do care for your friends. We are not the same after all. I apologize for the premature conclusion. Rather, it is better to liken you to a dog tied on an emotional leash of 'friendship' with no self-comprehension of its own restrictions. You have yet to break free of that restraint, or you seem to have put it on willingly. Either way, it is a waste of talent...."

"I'll take that as a compliment from a feral dog."

"You seem to be getting something wrong here, Trissa..was it? You believe I'm evil and callous and so on, but I think I'm less of an immoral person and more of an amoral person. In the real world, there are no friends, only stones to make a splash with."

"Who the fuck gives a shit what you think of yourself?"

"Apparently someone willing to carve flesh during an official duel just to spite me and risk disqualification! Maybe you were hoping for society or the masses to carry on the flag for you. But know this: Nothing will happen to me at all, not legally, not emotionally. And there's nothing you can do about it. Enjoy the rest of the tournament. The next match is your last anyway." Maddy winked and walked off out of the room, while Trissa struggled against her restraints.

The guards were eventually forced to tase her, causing her to convulse and faint in the chair. It wasn’t long before she regain consciousness, but she was still chained.

Finally, after two hours, Trissa was released, but confined to the arena where she wouldn’t be able to continue hunting the knight in the hospital. A single police enforcer guard was assigned to her, keeping track of her every movement.

“Don’t get any funny ideas, miss…” The guard warned before undoing her restraints. “If you try anything else, you’ll be disqualified in a heartbeat.”

She was assigned a room and not allowed to go back to her orphanage dorm. It was a bare-bones room with a simple bed and an open toilet almost like a prison.

She still had access to the net, allowing her to watch the latest news.

Judgment on her actions during the duel has yet to be passed by the examination council, while the viewers all had extremely heated debates on what happened.

The divide between outers and inners only just got larger with Maddy and Trissa’s actions brought out into the spotlight.

Mini riots against injustice and vigilante actions broke out across the city, while the enforcers desperately tried to suppress them. Both sides tried their best to avenge or vent their anger on each other where possible.

Trissa was vindicated after seeing the result of the duel, knowing her actions had effectively created a scandal for Maddy. However, she was aware that it would be hard to pin anything on him legally.

The Five Families had a large support base after all, and Maddy did play within the arena rules.

A sinister grin appeared on Trissa’s face as she giggled to herself quietly, thinking of all the ways she could take revenge for Erik on Maddy.

No legal repercussions? "Then I'll just have to get physical."