The First Harem Tournament 9 – The Quiet Ones [Jane POV]

Wetlands.

Jane groaned at the randomly determined biome. The mud would get her bodysuit all dirty. ‘How am I supposed to show off what I got like that?’ Slit pupils narrowed as they fell on her opponent. ‘Not that I can afford holding back too much.’

As the woman with the Regal mark, Jane had a certain privilege.

Getting sassed at by Gaia via Observe windows.

Also having it black on blue that the adorable girlfailure was, in terms of raw level, the highest one around. She still had less Stat Points than Lu Zhi, something Jane only knew because one of their many girls’ nights had involved comparing numbers. Apparently her fellow empress scaled at a factor of 8, while Lyndell was at 7. That made the 10 levels that Lyndell had on the unofficial Harmonia inconsequential.

‘I’m still at a 6 in scaling,’ Jane thought, a bit annoyed. Said annoyance was negated by the fact that this meant she still had an awesome breakthrough moment or two ahead of her. Though she wasn’t a big fan of almost dying, she loved the thrill of getting away with it. ‘I have a bit of a problem,’ she admitted to herself, smirking all the while. “Don’t ya hold back on me!”

“Mhm…” Lyndell hummed, that kissable sadness etched into her features alongside those black, tear-trail-esque markings.

The ground beneath their feet turned green and soggy. Depressions formed and were swiftly filled with water. There was just enough flow to the simulated landscape to avoid the fetid scent of bog.

Jane’s hips wiggled slightly in anticipation. Even if she had like… 30% less raw Stats, she’d tickle every bit of excitement she could out of this fight. Why not go all out in this? Neither of them got to spar under the protection of Fateweaving frequently.

The feline Lightbearer dropped to the ground, placing one hand on the floor and raising the other to the level of her head. “Three!” their man’s voice echoed through the air. “Two!” Hard light claws ignited. “One!” Gold crept through Jane’s hair, radiance surrounded her as a translucent aura. “FIGHT!”

Jane snapped across the distance. Prismatically extended digits swung, leaving technicolour trails. Lyndell was so much more powerful than Jane on paper, but that power primarily went into her magic.

Just don’t let the mages cast, idiot – Jane was sure she had read that in a martial artist’s guidebook.

The air around Lyndell shimmered. Pillars of mud suddenly shot up, magically reinforced enough to take the momentum out of Jane’s attack. Moving in unison with the accelerating beat played by her headphones, Jane kicked the air. She landed three steps back. Immediately, she was back on the offensive.

Lyndell’s mycelium laid another root into the ground. It was a hasty creation, accomplishing nothing more than another wall of mud. Jane carved through it. With claws and laser beams, she pelted the primordial Lorylim.

Rooted to the spot, the grey-skinned cutie could only try to keep up with her opponent. Her forlorn gaze lagged notably behind Jane. Every reaction was hurried, a last-second defensive effort against a rapid attack.

A sudden stomp caused the soggy ground to ripple. Jane smirked, the manipulation of the ground warping the elaborate runic circles Lyndell had to grow to enact her designs. She shot into the gap in Lyndell’s defences. A hard slam to the chest would-

The primordial Lorylim’s hand was inches from Jane’s face. A grey arm covered in miniscule runes gave rise to a singular dot of gorgeous azure. With all of her might, Jane threw herself to the side.

A continuous ray of energy blasted past where her head had been a moment prior. Beautiful, bright and foreboding, the annihilation ray tore through the air. The noise, like synthesized bells breaking, etched itself into Jane’s eardrums. The hissing pain was akin to the one Nia inflicted on everyone with her eldritch nonsense.

The undoing energy was cut off suddenly. Jane felt it in the hairs of her neck that something more was coming. She leapt backwards just before a wave of gravitational energy crashed down on Lyndell’s periphery. Squelching soil was compacted into a disk. Water gushed into the air, suddenly displaced. Jane landed a few metres away from it all.

Lyndell’s grey eyes glinted with the beginnings of amusement.

“Ah, I see that!” Jane declared, taking a moment to put a hand on her hips and point accusatorily at the gothic Harmonia. “Someone’s inner fighting junkie is coming out! Not very feminine of ya.”

Lyndell put a hand on her face, searching for a smile that had not quite formed. Behind her, a multitude of mycelial roots spread out into carpets of tendrils. “John likes his odd ones,” Lyndell defended herself.

“I know – I know that better than anyone,” Jane assured her with a laugh. “Just teasin’!”

Jane’s physical form unravelled. She had been fast before, but as light she was blindingly rapid. An amorphous mixture of cat girl and leopard, she moved around Lyndell. The Forlorn Lady of the Imperial Choir immediately began to weave a new runic mesh. Her intent was good, but her aiming left much to be desired.

Jane accelerated further, until Lyndell’s eyes completely failed to keep up. She was tossing her head left to right, moving in the exaggerated ways that so clearly signalled disorientation. Manifestation. Charge. Impact. Jane’s claws found Lyndell’s throat. Slicing and burning with solar heat, the hard-light claws journeyed south, leaving trenches that spurted black slime and purple blood.

Immediately, fungal tissue filled the wounds, a spongy prelude to further hyper-regeneration. Twisting her back, Jane brought up her other hand. The flat of her palm slammed into Lyndell’s chest, the Aura of the Martial Artist translating into a ripple that rattled the woman to the core. Raw kinetic force tore Lyndell off her anchoring, sending her flying.

SPLASH!

Lyndell disappeared beneath the water… and did not come up again for quite some time. ‘Was that too much?’ Jane wondered. ‘I don’t even see bubbles… does Lyndell need to breathe? Can she breathe underwater?’

‘MOVE!’ Copernicus yelled in her head.

Quicker than she could think, Jane leapt. A grey stalk grew from the ground, rapidly flaring into a fungal umbrella. The moment she touched back down, another of its kind followed. For a brief moment, she was back on that undiscovered island, dodging the roots of the awakening ancient entity in a panicked flurry.

Barbed, mycelial tendrils arched after her. During a particularly high leap, she spotted green grass eroding into a fungal eye. She clenched her jaw, feeling an echo of hatred for a category of being that her beloved Lyndell was, despite it all, a part of. Disdain for kin was quickly swallowed and Jane’s smile returned. This was a fight between Harmonia, a test of strength and a showcase to the world that they were too dangerous to be messed with.

Jane landed on a seemingly untouched bit of ground. All over the battleground, stalks of grey were reaching upwards, many growing into full mushroom caps. Complicated runes pulsed beneath the surfaces, tattoos carved into fungal flesh through black roots.

Water splashed. Jane whirled on her feet, catching Lyndell as she rose from the wetland pond. The ancient entity moved with easily remembered inhumanity. Her back curved a little too harshly. Her neck turned a little too fast and too wide. Water refused to cling to her, flowing back into the pond, leaving her skin, dress and hair all meticulously clean.

Wide-eyed and grinning with clenched teeth, the primordial Lorylim stared back at Jane.

[Lyndell AI: https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/40b4bd6a4175.png ]

A warning did not need to be shouted to be understood. Jane shot a laser at the humanoid form before her. The attack seared a hole into the woman’s chest, but it changed nothing. Mushroom stalks intertwined. Black roots burst through the ground. Some kind of runic circle completed its make. The world froze.

The sudden chill was dizzying. All of Jane’s senses revolted against the collapse in temperature. Pressure differences made her ears pop. The moist taste of wetland air in the back of her throat became glacial. She had to force herself to breathe, her lungs burning, revolting against the sudden cold.

“That’s dirty!” she shouted, every word a cloud in the air.

Lyndell answered with a little mad giggle.

‘Gaia, that’s hot.’

Appreciation for her fellow battle-junkie was cut short and heightened by the black lightning springing forth from Lyndell’s hand. Light-swallowing arcs of electricity jumped between the spires of nearby growths and the woman’s fingers, before being brought down like a whip. Jane leapt. Too slow. A choked cry of pain was forced out of her lungs as the supernatural voltage pierced the protective layer of her bodysuit and seared the muscles of her right leg.

Convulsions were kept down by sheer willpower. A second kick took Jane out of the crackling scar that was left in the land, kept alive by a seam of runes. ‘I still don’t understand her powers!’ Jane complained mentally. ‘It’s just weird runic formations and then whatever happens, happens!’

If there was any victory, it lay in pummelling Lyndell’s main body down until she was done!

Dedicated to that goal, Jane began to cross the distance between them once more. She was so focused on Lyndell herself that she didn’t notice the runic circle being erected in the distance until it was already too late. What had appeared only as a cluster of mushrooms fused into a vertically-facing circle.

Gravitational forces intensified, pulling Jane towards Lyndell. The sudden acceleration closed the distance faster than the feline Lightbearer had bargained for. Black liquid tendrils stabbed into Lyndell’s back. Fine roots spread beneath her skin. She moved with speed that matched that of the Martial Artist.

The first punch slammed into Jane’s abdomen. She let her bad leg give in. The second punch went narrowly past her ear, knocking her headphones off. She focused power into her right fist. The third punch missed Jane entirely. Matched speed did not equate to matched experience and Lyndell moved her human form like a puppet whose strings she pulled.

Jane moved with the grace of a seasoned melee connoisseur. From the coiling of her abdominal muscles to the impact of her knuckles on Lyndell’s chin, the entirety of the uppercut was one smooth motion. Any normal human would have leapt back on reflex, flying backwards as much from the force of the punch as their ingrained impulse to gain distance.

Lyndell tensed. Her neck was practically locked in place, then dislodged with a sickening crunch. Her head rolled, attached only by skin and muscle. Her eyes were still wide awake, her smirk curled a little further. The air grew thick. Jane could sense the atmospheric mana rushing into a mould. The force of metaphysical particles moving was enough to create a vortex around them.

Neck snapping back into its socket, the primordial Lorylim lurched forwards. Jane’s leg had healed almost enough to let her get away – almost. Her wrist was seized. Digits covered in slimy fluid curled around her arm. Tiny hooks dug into her skin.

“A-ha… haha…!” Another wave of laughter broke from the ancient entity’s mouth. The vortex was visible now. Whatever Lyndell was putting together, it distorted the light around them in ways that were neither heat shimmer nor water particles getting tossed through the air. Jane was morbidly curious what was about to shunt her out of the competition.

Lyndell’s ecstatic expression collapsed in on itself. Confused, Jane watched as the smile faded. Enjoyment drained from her eyes until the familiar sadness returned, digging even deeper than usual. Before she knew it, Jane had her arms wrapped around her fellow love. Nothing could be said before the Foremost Voice of the Imperial Choir had hugged her favourite fungus in the whole world.

The runic magic died down. Lyndell breathed evenly. Jane felt the force in every repetition. She was better at handling her panic attacks than Eliana, but it still was one.

Jane kept quiet, her hand gliding up and down Lyndell’s back as soon as the tendrils were out of the way. It was a simple gesture, showing presence, giving support. Only once the force was out of the breathing, Jane dared to ask, “What happened?”

“I got into the fight.”

“Is… that a bad thing?” Jane had to admit she was confused.

“I do not know.” Lyndell pulled away a bit, enough that they could look at each other. “At the end of joy lies another me that I do not want to confront again.”

‘Stupid moron, you’re supposed to be good at this!’ Jane chastised herself for forgetting. For all her cuteness, Lyndell was still the last remnant of an entity that had successfully wiped out its kin. ‘It must suck so much to like fighting and have THAT be the potential consequence of doing what you love…’

“I would like to surrender now,” Lyndell whispered.

“…If ya think ya have to,” Jane said slowly. She wished, truly wished, she could understand properly what Lyndell was going through. Was indulging in the thrill of danger a drug that would bring out the worst in her or was her recoiling a trauma response that she needed to get through? Was she just doomed to look sad as she raised her hand to signal she had given up?

Jane did not have the answers.

She did have every intent to cuddle her until the gothic Harmonia felt better though.