Chapter 250 Thea Vs Josinia [I]

A few days later, at a freshly opener venue...

People started showing up to the venue before the card has even started.

From the street the place looked ordinary. A side door. Security in black. A line that kept getting longer.

Some people thought they had the wrong address until they saw the Intergalactic League marks on the staff jackets.

Once they got inside, the underground hall opened out much wider than expected. Thousands of seats. A cage in the middle. Bright lights above it. The air was cooler under the ground and already filling with voices.

By the time the doors had been open an hour, most of those seats were taken.

Street sellers worked the outside queue with drinks and printed cards that only had two names on them.

Inside, ushers pushed the crowd down the steps and into the bowl. People pointed at the cage and argued about random things regarding to this newly opened organisation.

A lot of them still could not believe Kalon had left Atlas and put this together himself. A lot of them were still asking the same question they had been asking online all day.

Who was Josinia, the girl who was supposedly fighting against Thea Bluegale?

...

At some point Richard Red tried to get in through the second queue with cash in his hand.

The steward did not even argue with him for long.

"We’re full."

"W-what? I’ll pay more."

"There are no tickets left."

Richard stood there like he had misheard. The people behind him started complaining about resale chats and standing room.

Security moved him off the line before he could turn it into a real problem. He walked away angry, already on his phone, trying to force a way in. Nobody opened a door for him. The house was capped and the staff had stopped being polite about it.

This only angered the man... He hated Kalon, and only planned to watch so that he could see how terrible the event was.

But if that was the reason, why did he feel so upset about having to miss out?

Eventually he ran to a nearby pub in hopes of catching the livestream on television.

...

Inside, the noise kept rising. There was no undercard, no long sponsor video, no warm-up act to kill time. People just sat, talked, and waited.

Some rewatched the Wembley clip on their phones. Some went back through Josinia’s empty profile again and still found nothing. Others went and watched footage of the few fights Thea had on camera.

The longer the lights stayed down over the cage, the louder the hall got.

Then the lights went out completely.

The crowd surged in the dark.

When the lights came back on, Kalon Manchester was standing in the centre of the floor.

The crowd went even louder at the sight of him. He stood there dressed in all black like some sort of king.

Thea and Josinia faced each other in front of him. Both of them were in costume.

Thea had on a white and blue battle dress with fake wing pieces on the shoulders and shiny boots. The outfit made her look co under the hard lights, hair tied back, blue eyes fixed forward.

Josinia wore black and violet armour over a bodysuit, white hair down, makeup done heavy enough under the lights that her purple skin looked like part of the outfit.

From the seats they did not look like normal prospects. They looked like someone had put two stage characters in a real cage and dared the crowd to go with it.

"That’s Josinia?!"

"She’s a beauty!"

"Almost as beautiful as Thea!"

"Hell, I think she’s even hotter!"

"Nah, you’ve lost your mind!"

...

Kalon smiled at the reactions, then raised the mic.

"Thank you all for coming. This is the first card under Intergalactic League. This is my debut as an organiser. You paid to be here, so I am not going to waste your time."

The crowd answered him hard enough that the lower rails shook.

He turned toward Thea.

"In the white corner. From the sky-fortress line of the Outer Veil, holder of the Tide Mark and veteran of the Blue Reach campaigns. Seraph Thea of House Bluegale."

People went quiet for a second.

Then someone laughed.

Then more people laughed with him. The noise flipped into cheering when they realised Kalon was doing it on purpose. This was a part of the show!

Thea smiled. She rolled her shoulders, kept her eyes on Josinia, and let the hall enjoy themselves. A few people near the front started repeating the title like it was already part of the show.

For some reason, the show felt a lot less tense, and a lot more exciting than your standard card.

Kalon pointed to Josinia next.

"And her opponent. From the Violet Deep beyond mapped lanes, earth-breaker of the Silent Orchards and first blade of the Wandering Court. Josinia of the Purple Reach."

That one hit the crowd harder.

Nobody had a real record for Josinia. Her profile had been made a day ago. One follower at the start, and absolutely no information on her.

Hearing her introduced like that made the whole place buzz. Someone up high shouted that it was like watching an anime. Another person repeated it.

Phones came up. People leaned forward on the rails. People were still confused as to who she was, and they were now eager to find out what she was about.

Josinia smiled a little and set her feet. She felt alive. More alive than she had ever felt in her life.

Thea answered with a ready stance of her own.

Kalon looked at both of them, then back at the crowd.

"Rules are standard under League authority. Affinities are allowed. Medical teams are live, and so is the death prevention field. You came here to watch the first fight of the Intergalactic Organisation..."

He stepped back from the middle and let the cage hold the moment for a beat longer.

"Here it is."

His hand came up.

"Begin."