Chapter 9 - I don't have time!

"John! Where is your goddamn brother?! He went missing 5 days ago and there is still no sign where he went! And YOU JIMMY! What the hell did you even do to anger 'that' man? WHY the hell did you even do that to Mark?!? He got chosen by us, so there was no reason to do that!" The father of the "Ashen" family was screaming since morning. The 2nd son who should go with their modelfighter to the tournament was still missing and it wasn't clear if and when he would appear again. The only absolutely thing was the date of the tournament drewing closer and closer...

"Hah, don't worry you still got a few more hours till the tournament." That sly old fox was laughing at me and enjoyed my uncertainty to the fullest extent.

"OH NO! Please! I have to know it! I can't miss this chance! It might be my only one!" I tried to convince him, while I was full of desperation, knowing that I should have gone missing for almost a week.

"Nah, what did you learn just now? Calm yourself down first. You still have 5 hours till the opening. I must say though, it is a wonder that your body has already healed to such a degree even with good medical care, don't you think so aswell?" He told me quite sarcastic implying that he actually knew, why it healed this quickly. "My great body, right?" I asked wearing a wry smile and anticipated his answer. "You said that, not me, but you should concentrate on the upcoming tournament for now. Do you have anything in mind for the last hours?"

I tried to be as calm as I could be and didn't let my nervousness get through anymore. "No Jack, could you tell me something I should do?" "I don't think you will be able to relax and just meditate for the next few hours, so I'll first talk about the tournament, the rules and your possible opponents I pinned down through some logic procedures. You know that the rules always get announced 4 days before the start to increase the adaptability of the fighters and this time it is going to be a KO - Tournament, that means if you lose even once, you are out. If you manage to win the first fight, you will have to fight one more time today. So that makes it 2 fights each day and the semi-finals and final battles are going to be on 2 different dates. Everything is allowed, so prepare for some foul play. The fights will also end if one of the fighters isn't able to fight anymore or gives up."

"So it is almost like last year, the only difference will be that there are 2 fights per day. This time it is really about endurance and quick regeneration." I mumbled to myself.

"You should also think about not exhausting yourself too much in the first fight. There will be fights every 3 days and the opening fight will be a team battle with your other partner."

"I will be able to fight with John?!" I said, really astonished and feeling energetic to finally fight with him.

"Yeah, so you don't have to worry about winning the first fight. Just relax, earn some experience and try to get used to your techniques. ... So about the opponents you will probably be facing... In the first fight you might be fighting either the Bona-Brothers or the Williams. Those twins specialise in pure strength and are great teammates. They spar with each other all the time and know the other one from the inside out. Their only weakness would be speed and the element of suprise, so you might be shining in the battle, since their is almost no battle data for you anywhere. But you have John, so it will still be an easy battle."

"And what about the second round?" I asked quite curiously.

"After these opening fights the winners will be send into different groups and the teammates will be seperated. Their will be 4 groups and each winner of the group will be participating in the finals. We haven't gotten an info about how that will work out yet, but this time the tournament will be really exciting and cool. The finals might be a free-for-all, a teambattle again or something entirely different. About 60 of the families chose to participate in the regionals, but the big 5 are already qualified to go to the nationals, so they won't partake in the tournament." - The society isn't ruled by a goverment, but instead it is controlled by "families". Their power depends on their influence and how they do in the tournaments. The "Ashen-family", my family, is at the bottom, since we don't have a lot of strong fighters. There was my grandpa, but after the "drawback" it was over for him. I never saw him fight for real since I was born after his drawback. But even when I just watched his fights, I got the feeling that something was horribly wrong. That is the same feeling I got, when watching the apex-monsters from the big 5 fight. Those monsters can end their fight almost instantly and so it is only natural, that they stand on top of all. They wouldn't even bother joining the regionals.

- "So since it is your first tournament, you will probably be one of the guys, who won't have a second round and get a win by default. But that is if you get lucky and considering they know nothing about you, they might throw you in against Max Born, George Hudson or Tim Brown. They are also all newbies and so unfortunately I can't give you any data." Jack finished his speech with a shameful smile. "So there will be a total of 5 rounds and it will only be 4 or 5 days where battles will take place..."

"We only have about 4 hours left, so let's go to the stadium and see if your partner is already there."