Lysa responded mechanically to her cabal's questions. Really, Laura’s. Radolfo was surprisingly absent from barraging Lysa with questions she didn’t have answers to.

“Is Jose dead? Did he over exert himself?” Laura asked. She took a deep breath and replied with the same response she’d given just moments after Jose fell to the ground.

“All I know is that he’s being treated. I don’t think he’s dead. I’ll check up on him when I can.” Lysa wrote. Laura soon tapered off from her inquiries and wished her luck in the event.

There was a nervous energy in her body that she was frantic in dispersing, reverting to simple soul shaping exercises to pass the time as she waited for her number to be called. Her foot tapped the ground and she shifted her weight to and fro while waiting for her turn to get even.

“Number 17, please make your entrance!” Elder Isabella shouted and the fanfare of applause from the audiences followed. She waved at the audience as she walked, giving a casual smile as she did so.

Lysa was a pile of knots both physically and mentally and the best respite she’d find at the moment would be pummeling her opponent. Whether they were conspirators or not, she wanted to win.

She shifted her attention to the beanpole in the black suit waving her gloved hands at the audience like she was some performer. The woman wasn’t fit for this kind of event, long black hair falling down past her shoulders with a small hat clipped to the side of her head, carrying an oddly shaped box that sat to the side of her.

"Thank you, thank you!" She shouted as she blew kisses at the audience. Lysa felt a pang of annoyance well up within her. She wasn’t planning to take things seriously. The way everyone else before them did.

The way Jose did.

"Can we get on with this!" Lysa yelled at Isabella. The Elder gave her a look of displeasure. She was enjoying the spectacle this woman was providing to the audience but she got off her ass and walked towards her podium.

"These last few rounds have been extraordinary displays of ingenuity and determination by our wonderful citizens. I expect this match to be no different."

Lysa bristled at the undertones. It was a rigged competition in favor of Elder Isabella and all of her goons and they knew it. Without that woman’s meddling in telling them things would be rigged, Lysa wasn’t sure if she’d have been wary to spot the number of ways certain competitors seemed oddly prepared for this section of the event.

The way her current opponent was treating this as a walk in the park, a victory already under her belt. She’d show her…

"Number 17, are you ready to begin the match?" The disappearing referee asked her. Lysa made a mental note to ask about his trick or talk to Nora about it later.

"Yeah, I'm ready to rumble" Lysa said as she entered into her combat position.

"Number 53, are you ready to begin the match?"

The woman turned her attention away from the audience, "Ready and willing!" Her voice was melodic, the lilt in her words intoxicatingly pleasant. Lysa shook her head to dispel the words circling in her mind. She looked at Lysa and waved, "Good luck today. Don't feel too bad when you lose though." The same honeyed voice was jarringly overconfident.

Lysa cracked her knuckles, "When I lose? I don’t think you’re ready for what I’m gonna put you through."

The sound of the match bell rang out and Lysa sprung into action. She was proactive in preventing this woman from setting up whatever stage she needed and attempted to nip this whole fight in the bud. Her fist swung in a wide arc, her muscles exploding with kinetic energy as she cut through the air. The beanpole gracefully shifted her body to the side and evaded the attack. Her hands were fumbling around that case she'd brought into the arena.

Lysa didn't let up. She used the momentum from the first swing and twisted her core, throwing her full weight into the second swing.

A graze this time, clipping the woman's shoulder as she pushed off the ground and retreated backwards, hands still clinging to the box inside. Her soul reinforced blow caused massive damage to what little flesh she managed to impact, the proof being the limpness in her opponent's arm.

"Get out of the arena if all you plan to do is dance around!" Lysa confidently cried out, pressing her advantage with another reinforced hook.

“Oh this old thing,” she gestured to her loose arm and after a moment, moved it around like normal, “I’m sure I’ll be fine to handle whatever you dish out.” The woman bowed with a flourish to the rest of the audience, amazed with the miraculous healing of her arm. More of her nerves started to grate and Lysa pushed out punch after punch, only ever grazing her opponent while tiring out.

"You're too brutish of a woman to understand the importance of grace and presentation in our line of work." The woman responded with the same performative tone, if slightly winded.

Lysa didn’t respond, her thoughts single-mindedly focused on the task of bringing her opponent down. She threw blow after blow of jabs and hooks, the attacks always pushing her opponent further and further into the out of bounds line. Her grace didn’t fucking matter if she could get a good tackle in and knock her out of the arena.

"Citizens of Ileah, witness the birth of this underdog!" The woman yelled out and the clasps from her box revealed an instrument. It was an elegant lyre hewn of black wood and embellished with bright violet flowers wrapped around the ends of the instrument. The woman plucked a string and the discordance left Lysa feeling unbalanced and nauseous. The momentum from her onslaught caused her to tumble to the floor.

The audience broke out in exclamations of amazement. Fucking croc shit. The woman plucked at another string, sending another wave of discomfort across her body.

Lysa thought fast, covering her eyes and ears with her soul in a similar fashion to Jose's opponent. The next plucked string rang out but the discomfort was a negligible distraction.

"I declare to my audience this first time that the Beast has no power against this haunting note!" The woman's tone of voice had changed, the warm and airy lilt suddenly filled with a boom and gravitas that filled her chest with weight. Something had changed within her and Lysa reacted to stop whatever she was plotting next.

Lysa reached out with her soul and attempted to pull the instrument out of the woman’s hands. She felt the cool tones of her soul rope out of her and attach onto the instrument but failed to feel the characteristic tug at the object she had practiced in her training.

“The Beast assails me again and I declare to my audience that I will not bend! I will play this note once more and repel the Beast.” The woman played the same note and it squirmed past Lysa’s defenses, causing her soul to recoil and her body to convulse and double over with dry heaves. Her head was swimming with disorientation. Her senses were overwhelmed with smells and sights she was sure had to be illusions.

The audience cried out once more with applause and excitement, the woman staring expectantly at Lysa for her next move. Her thoughts were frantic and disjointed. Given a moment, the disorientation subsided enough to let her stand on her own two feet and come up with a solution to her problem. The lyre was the source of her troubles, Lysa was sure, but getting access to it was proving tricky in the hands of this slippery beanpole.

“I’m gonna break that fucking instrument…” Lysa muttered under her breath. She channeled her inner Jose and shoved a proverbial stick up her ass, trying to assess her next move so it wouldn’t lead to her defeat. He was much better at figuring out solutions than actually having the confidence or the followthrough to create the solution, so this was outside of her wheelhouse of acting and thinking about the consequences later.

“The Beast can think however long it wants. The stage is set for her defeat by this beautiful underdog.” The woman shouted to the arena garnering more applause and praise from the enthralled audience.

Lysa was certain Jose mentioned something about people using instruments for stuff like this but her memory was too faulty and her interest focused on other more important things at the time that she was kicking herself for not paying attention. If she were Jose, the issue would be the follow-through, not the observation.

“Oh fuck this…” Lysa took out the stick from her ass and acted. She pulled out her weapon of choice, an extendable spear her wife had given her for this upcoming event ‘just in case’ anything happened. She’d plant a sloppy one on her after this if her plan worked.

“The Beast bares her fangs!” The woman pointed out to the audience, receiving audible gasps from the crowd. Her playing hand hung just above the strings but no notes were played. For Lysa, it didn’t matter what the conditions were, she’d just push through them despite the croc shit.

Lysa reeled her arm back and flung the spear out to the side of the woman, tethering her soul to its end like rope, the connection extending the further along it traveled. Her opponent kept a facade of collected calm but her eyes were fraught with confusion at the new turn of events. The attack was wide, landing far behind her opponent and the momentary relief they experienced was what she was waiting for.

“Take this asshole!” Lysa sent a shockwave through the ground from her spear, causing the ground beneath to split open and the spear to return to the connection on her palm. The spear clipped the woman and the quake sent her off balance. She didn’t let up, pushing past the fatigue to finish the job. Lysa reached out for the instrument and swung with her spear in a wide arc-

“And for my grand finale, I present to you the Sins of the Beast!” The woman proclaimed. A cavalcade of notes followed and Lysa wasn’t sure of what would happen next.

She heard the screams of audiences cheering the spectacle on as her mind drifted.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Are you seriously considering going on this mission?” Nora asked. Lysa looked around in confusion. She was back at home. Ollie was sleeping in his room and Nora, despite the stern tone and severe eyes, was curled up in Lysa’s arms while they sat together in the living room.

“Yes, love. I want to go out there and see what the world has to offer and-”

“And you want to be out there to support Jose. I don’t get why you aren’t satisfied with the life you have here right now.” Nora cut in with a cold vitriol. She didn’t get it even after explaining the extent of their kinship with one another.

“I mean that too, but it’ll be fun to see what you get to see on a weekly basis.”

“Fun? You think going out there and risking my life with my brothers and sisters in arms is fun?” The weight on Lysa’s chest pressed down hard on her, Nora growing larger with a boomier voice. “You couldn’t even begin to imagine the struggle we go through just trying to make sure everyone’s alive at the end of a nest clearing!” Lysa struggled to pull away, her body becoming infinitesimal compared to the stature and weight of Nora on top of her. Her eyes were pits of darkness and her face-

Lysa closed her eyes and waited for the nightmare to be over. The weight on her chest disappeared and the cozy atmosphere around her felt different as if the scene she was in was shifting with her. She opened her eyes and saw she was sitting out on the loamy hillside of Ileah.

“Thanks for having my back out there.” She turned and saw Jose, his face less weathered and younger, cheeks less round and chubby.

“Any time.” Lysa replied. This was a memory, she realized. Not one she enjoyed remembering.

“What do you think she’s up to?” Lysa’s stomach lurched over.

“Why should it matter what she’s up to? She left and she’s gone. Get over it.” The words came out of her mouth but she didn’t mean it. Their day had been rough and she was irritated and-

“I-I can’t get over it…” Jose sunk his head into his knees, the fire within him flickering into a wisp of heat and warmth. “I thought it would get easier but who else do I have? You? Emma?” He looked to her for support.

“Shouldn’t we be enough for you? We’ve been with you since that day and you haven’t shown an ounce of gratitude.” A hatred she didn’t recognize spewed out from her. This isn’t how it happened.

“Oh, I thought…” Jose trailed off in clear detachment from the conversation

“That’s the problem, Jose; you don’t actually think about the people around you. You’re just so difficult to be around when you act like this” She never said this! Jose’s posture slumped further as if his entire body were melting. “If you would just smile more and stop talking about your issues, maybe you’d have more friends. Maybe the people around you would like you more!”

She heard a snap and crackle in her ears and took over herself, shutting her eyes again to skip past the corrupted memory.

“You’re never going to be enough for them.” She opened her eyes and saw a mirror of herself, callous and indignant with crystalline eyes and a sneer across her mouth.

“Why are you doing this?” Lysa asked with cracks in her voice. The look of contempt she received sent a chill down her spine.

“You push yourself into the picture of so many people's lives without ever asking if you’re wanted there,” the Mirrored Lysa walked slowly around her, inspecting her imperfections with a menacing glare, “It disgusts me to my core that you think anyone likes hanging around an inconsiderate idiot like you.”

The feeling of wrongness didn’t go away. There was something important she was meant to handle but she couldn’t quite-

“Ollie and I would be better off without you. You’re an embarrassment to me.” She looked up and saw Nora and Ollie both with the same contemptuous glare and dismissive sneer. “You forced me to love you, badgering me over and over for attention. How could you even look at yourself and think you’re worthwhile?”

Lysa’s heart ached and she crumpled to the floor. There was a gnawing sensation at the back of her mind that she needed to handle-

“I could have done this without you. I wanted to do this without you.” She looked up and saw Jose wrapped around Emma, a crowd of gawkers looking at Lysa’s dishevelled form. “If you can’t even be responsible for yourself, what makes you think I want to drag around dead weight?”

This had to be an illusion. She was certain there was something going on.

“There’s nothing wrong here Lysa. You just don’t want to face the truth that this world would be better off if you just disappeared.” Mirrored Lysa lifted her head by her hair to spit out every word. Lysa wanted to reject her statement.

But…

That gnawing sensation clawed at the back of her mind. She didn’t even have the energy to think. She just wanted the world to go away.

“Snap out of it!” Lysa’s body erupted in a blaze of glory.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“And the winner of this event is-” Elder Isabella was interrupted as Lysa lifted herself up from the ground. Her opponent turned over to her incredulously.

“What are you doing?” She yelled in clear panic. Lysa’s head was still swimming but she pieced together that something happened in her assault. She took a deep breath and centered herself, a rising fury centralized on that singular opponent.

“I spoke too soon! Let the match continue!” Elder Isabella clapped her hands and the audience clapped along. Before her opponent could argue with the decision, Lysa sprinted at her with energy from a second wind.

The woman played that same discordant note but Lysa ignored its effects, the dizziness seemingly slipping off of her. She stretched out her arm and opened her palm.

“Wait, stop! I surr-” Lysa grabbed her by the face and flung her arm down to the ground, dragging the woman's head along the way. It would have been satisfying to crush her assailant's head like a grape but knocking her out would suffice.

The crowd was silent.

“In quite the upset, Number 17 emerges victorious!” Elder Isabella announced.

The crowd burst into an uproar. She turned her attention away from the mass of people and saw the referee walking away with her opponent.

She won but wasn’t sure how she broke out of that illusion. The memories of her time there were too tender to relive so instead she walked out of the arena and into the waiting area, her journal buzzing with notifications, her thoughts around reconnecting with Jose and hashing out a plan to take down those scumbags