Chapter 2: A Burning Heart

" Welcome ladies and gentlemen, I am the referee of today's annual Uher familia Tournament. Here there are only 2 rules. 

If you wish to stop fighting, please say " I give up" where you will automatically forfeit the match and must leave the stage. 

And the third and best rule, give the audience what they came for and fight till you drop.

Are you ready? "

The audience comes alive and screams of joy for the blood that's about to come.

"Good, that's what I like to hear.

Now, let's begin"

The stadium is on fire. It's nothing like I've seen before, And I do not blame them at all, I'm not even fighting and I have this burst of energy flowing through next I feel like I could punch a wall. 

" Hey Monica, do you think I could break this wall?"

"Oh ya go for..."

" Owwwwwwwwwwww"

"You idiot, you're weaker than a common goblin."

" That one time was unfair, he had a knife… And he was uncommon at least, he was up to my waist. Come on man"

We laugh as the audience is screaming. As the referee was explaining how the tournament would start, I thought that my egg moved for a second. But it's probably shaking because of all the stomping and cheering.

" The matches are placed in random order with our 32 big and strong combatants. I've and no one else has seen the brackets. For our safety, I will have my Familiar ash, the Phoenix out to stop all attacks that come towards the crowd. Ash use wildfire clone."

The next thing we all see is 8 of the same Familiar, bright flame red birds, birds that even standing next to you could feel the heat from its body. They  are said to create fierce winds with their wings and with a combination of their fire, create tornadoes of flame, yet here are 8 of them, surrounding the stage.

" I recommend that if there is anything you need to do, that you do it now, because I know I don't want to miss any of this."

I asked Monica if she wanted anything to eat and she said meat.

" I don't have enough for meat" looking down in my bag, trying to count all my money.

Monica now looking upset  says" I'm sorry, I will take a potato then" 

I leave and go to the vendor located near the entrance from the coliseum and buy 1 potato, and 1 bread. I took a bite of my bread and was in awe of the coliseum. I was in awe that I'm alive, ya sure I'm weak and yes, I get beaten on a weekly basis, but I am happy to be alive, but I'm upset… I want to be strong, I want to fight back, I want to hurt those who are constantly hurting me. I want power, not to rule the world, but so I can finally be happy. I guess all I want in life is to be happy.

Before heading back in, I saw the 3 kids who were hurting me not even an hour ago, they walked past me, not even noticing me. Talking and walking talking and walking. I feel like gravel. I can see my blood on their fist and shoes. I feel angry. So angry, angry at them, yes. But I'm angry that I won't, or more accurately I can't do anything. And shortly after them, I see 4 guys with matching armbands walking together, the symbols on them is something I have never seen before. It was 7 different shaped horns, all on the outside of a circle, inside of it was a star, but upside down? I was so distracted by the symbol, I barely heard what they were talking about. But I did hear  one of them say that this event was "gonna be a bomb" or something. My bully's, then them. they made me feel sick so I went back to my seat and handed Monica her potato

Monica: " what took you so long, did you fall in the toilet or something?"

" No your mom was at the entrance, I had to go around her and I got lost in the forest outside the city"

We laugh and all of a sudden we hear a countdown. 10.9.8.7.6.5.4.3.2….1

" Welcome to the stage sophomore bron hate. And his Familiar…."

"Wow, the announcer is loud. But for the first fight, they could have cooler-looking guys, right Monica?

"I mean I guess" not even looking at the crowd

You guess the guy's name is bron.BRON. His Familiars is a gremlin, what is he gonna"*THE BATTLE IS OVER*" over already?????"

The gremlin was standing over the opponent smiling holding his arms out.

" Holy shit" 

"Monica???? Did you just cuss"

"Did you see how fast he took them out, of course, I cussed"

"Haha, true. That gremlin is a showman…( The gremlin looks into my eyes and flips me off) did he just flip me off?. I'm kicking that thing till it's into outer space"

"He's gonna kill you"

"Nooooooo. Okay we'll ya probably"

We laugh and watch the other matches, nothing cool though till the final match of the round

"Welcome Ladies and gents. As we introduced last year's winner Sol and his Familiar Kreios

 the lightning bird"

Wait, Sol…. Sol?"

"Ya, he won last year as a freshman with his Familiar. I heard he got it from the master of the school. Do you know him?

"He was my first friend when I moved here"

"Shut up, you're joking. You knew Sol. How his family is rich and your… Sorry"

"When I first moved here he was the first person that treated me like a normal kid. He thought my black spiky hair was cool."

"What happened?" Looking at me with a suspicious look like she didn't believe me.

" He was my best friend. But around 13 he went on a trip with his dad to go find something. He showed up 2 weeks later than his dad and was missing his eye. but he found what they were looking for and moved out of the district. I haven't seen him since but he seemed cold and. I always wondered what happened."

"Wow that sounds sad, well does he look like he looked back then?"

He walks out from the dark, on his back is a bow, it looks like it was made for a knight. It was so cool. Covering his right eye was a dark black eye patch and his long blonde hair almost covered his other eye. He grew a lot. He probably towers over me now. On his shoulder is a light blue bird with sparks jumping out into the air.

"Ya, a lot taller though, but I could still beat him" laughing but both of us sounded like we forced it.

The announcer starts to countdown " 3, 2, 1, let the match begin"

The other contestant Familiar looked like a large cat, and it ran towards him aiming for his throat, but as soon as it jumped into the air.  His bird fried the thing before it even got close, he didn't flinch, his eyes were cold as if he's done this a million times and didn't care.

" Sol wins the match. the 1st rounds are now over. The second round will begin shortly".

All the other matches were boring except sol. The matches went by so fast that before we knew it, it was the semi-finals and Sol was fighting. This match seems to be his most difficult, the familiar was a large lizard, something like an alligator, breathing fire and having hard scales so the lighting wasn't affecting it .

"Hey Monica, do you ever think I will be strong? And I mean strong strong. Like Sol?"

" Do I think you will be strong? No. But will you? ya probably. You are too stubborn to not be"

" What does …." Something came over me, I had this sudden urge to run away. The color in my face disappeared and a cold sweat came over. I looked into the stage and saw Sol's bird started acting weird, crying out in the air not listening to his master. The other Familiar it was fighting went crazy too. Something bad was about to happen. I went to grab my back and it moved. 

Then

"Obliteration"

BOOM.

Half the stadium was destroyed in an instant and everything was silent, the sunlight came back and people started to scream. Rocks and rain of human blood started washing over us. As people were trying to escape, columns of fire appeared and the stadium started to burn, everyone was scrambling, throwing themselves over each other like fish in a river. I'm trying to find Monica but she's gone. I grab my bag and look at the stadium, sol and his bird are on the ground. It looked like he was coughing blood, I wanted to go save him but what could I do.

The people are pushing me through the exit and I hear this high pitch crying. It was a little girl standing alone with blood running down her face. I went to grab her hand and help her, but she's holding what looked like a hand. Her mother's hand was all that she had left of her mom. Debating to run away I grab her and take her with me. But this stadium is like a maze and with the chaos of people dying from fire columns just popping out of the ground like nothing. We run. We ran and ran, my chest was screaming from the dust and heat I was breathing in, the air feeling like it was killing me from the inside out. Completely lost and starting to lose hope, me and the girl stop. She's still crying and lost her mother's hand. I ask her what her name is and before she answers me, a column of fire surrounds her and before I can react she's gone. I never even knew her name, and now she's gone.

Next thing I hear is water hitting the ground. It was me crying standing still. I don't know what is coming over me but I just can't keep going. I'm defeated and I'm probably gonna die, and no one will care or even notice. I walk and walk and I take a left turn and I see the arena in it. Is a ring of fire.

"I wanna die, please let me die" 

A man half burned alive said the words I was thinking. Crawling towards me. I pulled out my knife and tried to wipe my tears, but I couldn't do it, I couldn't grant this dying man's wish. Ya sure I had experience killing tiny monsters for food, but when I looked beyond him and I saw the countless body's burnt, I couldn't do anything but drop my knife and cry. The smell made me sick, skin and hair burning. Groaning and twitches of people's bodys made me feel like I was at war, and I walked close to the ring and I stopped crying. It is so hot that my tears are evaporating as soon as they fall onto my face. 

I keep walking closer and closer. And before I realized it I walked past the ring. As if it wasn't there. And next thing I see is the ref's phoenix sitting on the ground, crying out loud and flapping its wings.

Is this the reason? Is the ref and his bird the reason hundreds of people died? He said he would protect us, and yet he is the one attacking. This wave of anger flowed over me. I grab my knife and scream and before I jump I see something, it's the ref's body. Lifelessly laying on the ground, not moving an inch, he looked like nothing had happened to him. But as I get closer I see…  he is dead. I look back at the bird and I finally understand what was going on. The phoenix did all this because his master was killed.

"I understand how you feel"

Looking at me with a look of pure rage, I can't help the situation, I don't even think the bird will listen to me. But I wanna try

"You're hurt"

My footsteps moving silently closer to the bird

" You lost the only person you loved, I lost someone like that too."

The bird is still flapping its wings, it cries louder and I see that it's crying. 

" But doing this is just hurting others too, just like how you are. Everyone's family feels like you right now."

I'm next to the bird and I reach out my hand, it nudges it with its head and I feel the pain of this creature. I cried with it and hugged it. But when my arms wrapped around it my clothes caught on fire, but not normal fire. But black fire, the bird tried to get away but the black flames were already on it. It flies into the sky and I lose it in sight, shocked at what's going on, and *flop*

The bird landed on the ground. All the fire that was on and in the arena vanished, the bird was dead. I step closer and I see this black flame, and I hear this sound like someone is eating.

" What the hell?"

The black flame that was on me started eating the bird and it moved, it wasn't a flame. It was a body, the body of a creature that was all black and looked like it was on fire. I went to touch it while it was eating and I realized it wasn't a flame. But nothing, it was nothing, it was an apparition. It turns its body and I see it has red eyes like me, but I can't see its mouth or nose or anything else except its eyes. It hops onto my shoulder and sits there.

I scream as I fear it's about to eat me, but it just sits there and does nothing. I was so confused about what was going on but now that everything is gone. I could finally escape.

I run and find Sol on the ground passed out, but his eye patch is off and his eye is white and his Familiar is nowhere to be found. I grab his body and it shocks me, but I grab him again and drag him over the rubble of the broken arena and we are finally out of that hell hole.

I dragged him to my house and into my room, before I could help him I passed out. Falling and landing face-first on to the ground.