Chapter 101: Love of the Game

  Rudy had fought for his life. He had fought for Chloe. He had even fought for her parents, though he didn't know her dad and seemed unable to stammer through a dozen kind words with her mom unless he was practically falling down from painkillers. He'd been thrilled when he beat Stephan, proud when he won the first round of the Cup in record time, empty when Zelph allowed him to advance.

  He'd fought for so many reasons, he'd forgotten how much fun it could be.

  He had none of those reasons now. It didn't matter to Chloe, to Algreil Aerospace, or even to Rudy himself who won his match with Marcel Avalon.

  It mattered to the Crimson Phoenix, though.

  Rudy zipped past a flurry of flawless strikes from the monomolecular-edged lance Avalon twirled and thrust through the vacuum. He tried to land a blow on the Divine Auric Drake's vulnerable joints, but his claws didn't even scrape armor and he had to cartwheel away from a thrust that could have skewered him.

  He grinned through the whole exchange.

  Rudy would never have believed he could again feel about a tournament anything like the way he had before he met Chloe.

  But he could.

  He should.

  He swept up and over Avalon's next thrust and snapped his mecha's feet together, trying to catch the lance's shaft. No luck. Avalon yanked it back, unbelievably fast.

  Rudy realized how little of his full potential the Divine Auric Drake had used in their previous matches.

  He realized how little the Crimson Phoenix had deserved the Etemenos Cup in his previous tries for it.

  He could blame those losses on equipment failure, but he no longer believed it.

  The Cup deserved a better mechaneer than he'd been, then. Maybe a better man, too.

  And here he was getting all philosophical when Avalon's lance crashed through the vacuum and skimmed centimeters from his chest. If Rudy let himself get distracted again, the twist that had saved his mecha wouldn't come in time.

  It seemed easy to get distracted, even though with every passing second the pace of the battle accelerated. The battle? It hardly even seemed like a battle. Rudy felt more calm and in control of himself than he'd ever been, and he knew Avalon had to feel the same to be moving so fluidly. Neither of them seemed able to even hit the other, though their jukes and dodges had to be faster with every blow the other launched.

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  Rudy only wished Chloe could have seen this match. He knew she didn't like tournaments, but at that moment, he was sure he and Avalon could make a fan of anyone.

  No worries, he thought. She can't see me win the Etemenos Cup? By the Principle, she'll see me defend it, and that will be even better.

  He had to win first, though.

  He dodged three more lightning thrusts. He actually had to parry when Avalon followed them up by hurling his lance and diving after it with a punch. The blow glanced off Rudy's wrist armor, but the admiral regained his weapon and brought it up in a backstroke.

  Rudy kicked off the lance's shaft, then off the Divine Auric Drake's chest. He somersaulted and triggered a barrage of rockets in his wake.

  One sweep of Avalon's lance destroyed them all, using the explosion of each to trigger the one beside it.

  Rudy raised an eyebrow.

  It occurred to him he might actually lose to the ex-admiral.

  Then he cracked a cocky grin at the Divine Auric Drake.

  The Crimson Phoenix might lose.

  But he wasn't gonna.

  Dodge after dodge, blow after blow. They blurred together in Rudy's mind as he fell into a state almost trance-like in its simplicity. He lived in each second and embraced it and thrilled to it, until it passed and he moved on to the next and that was better still.

  He realized he was winning when he actually managed to catch Avalon's lance. Neither of them had landed a solid blow. When Rudy tore the weapon from the admiral's hands and sent it hurtling away, he'd moved closer to victory than he could have with a hundred punches or a dozen deep gashes from his claws.

  Avalon seemed to know it, too. The Divine Auric Drake made a feint to follow his weapon, but when the Crimson Phoenix checked it and sent him spiraling down toward the barriers keeping them from the stands instead of the core his lance had drifted to, he righted himself and floated in a defensive stance.

  Rudy grinned.

  He was gonna win the Etemenos Cup.

  He was actually gonna win.

  But Avalon, he knew, would not let him have it without a fight. The golden custom-model Wyvern might be at a disadvantage without its mechaneer's favorite weapon, but it remained one hell of a dangerous adversary for the Epee. The Divine Auric Drake retained the advantage of mass, especially in the artificial muscles of his mecha's broad chest and upper arms.

  He'd try for a wrestling match now.

  No reason to give him one.

  No reason to give him a chance to win.

  Except...

  Suddenly, Rudy's palms felt sweaty. He stared at the Divine Auric Drake floating before him and cast a glance at his rear screens, where the spherical senate chamber floated like a miniature planet of smooth metal.

  Where Chloe was standing trial for the crime of being herself.

  No, Rudy had no reason to give Marcel Avalon a chance to win...

  Except that he couldn't afford to let the ex-admiral lose.