Yes, but barely.

You start to step into the arena hearing the crowd start to cheer as you do. You aren't sure where it started, but you begin hearing a chant spread across the crowd.

"Outsider...Outsider...Outsider" you hear their chant evolve into. Feeling a little emboldened you raise your hand into the air and push magic through a fire spell. The result is a gout of flame shooting from your hand into the air for a few seconds. Stopping the magic you realize the crowd immediately went silent during the display. You start to worry you scared them or something until you hear someone call out.

"AGAIN" you hear them yell. Stabbing your sword into the ground you raise both hands into the air and two gouts of flames shoot into the air, which the crowd immediately begins cheering for. Releasing the magic you bow to the crowd as they begin chanting "Outsider" again. Looking over at Cal with a smile he quickly rolls his eyes and draws his thumb across his neck. Lira finally stands up and the crowd slowly quiets down.

"Here we are. Our final two combatants. Only one of them can win, but today we are all winners. We are all winners because we have had the honor of watching these honorable men give us a show of their honor and skill inside this ring before us" she yells. The crowd claps and cheers when she pauses, and she gestures for them to quiet down again.

"Although some have shown more honor than others" she says giving Cal a quick glare.

"Lina" she turns to Lina "do you have anything you would like to say" she asks. Lina stands up and holds Lira's hand as the crowd cheers slowly die down.

"I wanted to first thank everyone for making this day so amazing. I know not everyone gets such a large celebration like this, so please, above all else, make sure you take advantage of what everyone has done and have your own fun. This celebration is as much for you as it is for me, because without everyone's work it wouldn't be possible, and I can't properly express how happy it makes me seeing everyone enjoying what we have done together" she says choking up a little bit. The crowd claps and cheers in response, and you have to admit it was nice to see how much she cares about her community. Lina waits for the crowd to quiet down again.

"As my mother said, we are now down to our final two. The outsider" she gestures at you and winks earing a whoo from the crowd "and Cal" she gestures at Cal but the crowd just remains silent. "I know we are all excited to see who wins, I know I am" she smirks "so I'll stop talking now so we can watch this final battle" she exclaims. The crowd cheers watching Lira and Lina sit back down, but quickly quiets down as the Amazon woman enters into the ring. You both signal you are ready, and the Amazon yells to fight followed by the loud DOOM of the drum.

As you suspected he might, Cal rushed forward at you. However, as you felt the familiar slowing of time as adrenaline raced through your blood, he didn't swing wildly at you. His swings were accurate and methodical giving you little opportunity to do much but dodge and parry his maces away. The moment one was deflected another was on its way, and Cal started pushing you around the ring. The other unfortunate thing you realized was that if his maces had been steel he'd wear himself down soon, but with this steel wood being so light it was going to take a while before he tired himself out. You were going to have to change something, or else one of these blows was going to connect.

Cal gave you that opportunity by swinging both maces down at you. You spun around behind him, and used the momentum of your spin to bring your sword to bear on his back. Twisting the blade slightly a loud SLAP sounded off as the flat of your blade met the bare skin of his back. Cal immediately swung a mace as he spun to face you which you barely deflected over your head, followed by his other mace making you step back. You could see the rage and pain in his eyes when he realized you'd landed the first blow. You took the opportunity to calm your breathing down a bit.

Again Cal rushed forward reigning blow after blow at you. However, you've had enough of this. For the next several blows you made sure to block his swings, now you knew you had him expecting blocks as he started putting even more force behind his swings trying to, you assume, break or knock your sword away, and you waited until he swung with a roundhouse swing. When he finally did with his left hand, you allowed the mace to glance off your blade. You saw his eyes get suddenly wide as his momentum forced his swing well beyond what he intended. Spinning your blade into an overhead chop you brought the blade down on his forearm. You could feel his bone give, and his hand involuntarily released his grip on the mace.

You watched his mace fall in slow motion, and your confidence surged. It was over, you could relax, but life still had a lesson to teach you it seemed. Without even thinking it a possibility Cal swung his injured arm back at you. You felt the back of his hand collide with your jaw, and the world started to close in on you a little bit. Knowing you were still in danger, you leaned backwards narrowly missing his other mace swinging right in front of your nose. Your feet didn't want to follow what you were telling them to do causing you to fall down onto your ass. Cal wasted no time swinging his mace down at the only part he could reach. You grunted as you felt the mace contact your ankle with a slight grinding sensation, but no pain yet. Adrenaline surged through you again, and you rolled away as his mace hit the ground behind you.

You quickly tried to stand, but now you could feel the pain. A lance of pain shot up through your leg forcing you to collapse down onto one knee. You looked up to see Cal maliciously smiling at you as he rushed forward, his mace held high to finish you off. There was no way you were going to let Cal be the one to finish you off. Through sheer willpower and ignoring the pain you stood up right as Cal started getting close. Acting on almost pure instinct you caught his wrist on the downswing, and dropping your sword you growled as you grabbed his neck. Anger surged through you and you lifted. Cal's feet dangled off the ground as you walked forward holding him in the air. Lightning bolts of pain erupted with every step. The terror and surprise on his face spurred you on as he limply tried gripping and hitting your arm with his broken one. Then you threw him. His face a mixture of rage and bewilderment as he landed on his back. Unable to understand what you'd just done to him he scrambled to his feet to charge again, but the Amazon woman quickly got in his way stopping him.

"What are you doing, get out of my way" he snarled at her. You could see he was tempted to swing his mace at her, and she looked like she wanted him to try.

"It's over Cal" the woman said "you lost".

"WHAT" he screamed "I can still fight. It's not over until my mace crunches his thick skull in" he yelled.

"Take a breath and look where you are standing Cal" the woman told him. Utterly confused Cal lowered his mace to look where he was. There you stood on one foot, your other held off the ground, and rubbing your jaw where he'd caught you, but you were inside the circle of stones. There Cal stood, his broken arm clutched tightly to his chest, and outside the circle of stones. The realization of what you'd done hit him, and he tensed like he was going to attack again for a split second. Instead his grip on the mace released allowing it to drop to the ground. His shoulders drooped, and he hung his head. Turning around he walked away from the arena. The crowd parting and filling back in as he walked through them. The Amazon woman relaxed and turned around walking back to you. She grabbed your hand and thrust it into the air.

"OUR CHAMPION" she roared as drums boomed over and over again. DOOM DOOM DOOM. You thought the crowd was loud before, but the noise they made now made you cringe slightly from your ears protesting the assault. Your girls all rushed forward hugging and kissing you. You couldn't hear a word they were saying, but you could tell they were clearly concerned about your ankle. Annabel and Dawn quickly made you wrap your arms over their shoulders to support you, and you wiggled your jaw a little as they turned you around to face Lira, Aella, and Lina as they walked towards you. Lira extended her hand and you grasped wrists. Next to her Aella jiggled a little bottle of healing potion to hand to you.

You nodded your head in thanks, uncorked it, and upended the draught into your mouth. The warm sensation travelled through your body the moment you swallowed it. Handing the remainder of the bottle back to Aella you pointed at your left arm and then in the direction Cal had vanished. She nodded her head. You felt your jaw finally relax as the soreness disappeared, and a pleasant tingle in your ankle made your eyes shutter as the throbbing pain stopped. You planted your foot on the ground to give it a test, and feeling no pain or grinding allowed yourself to put weight on it again. Looking at Lina you could see she was fighting between trying to kiss you or hug you, but eventually grabbing your hand and pulling you behind her. She urgently led you towards the throne building. Looking behind you your girls smiled and gave you thumbs up as you were pulled along to your fate.