Chapter Text
For freedom, mate. Because that’s the only way outta this shite-hole, right?
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Preliminaries, Group A
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The woman currently known as Purple Lightning tightened the knot in the piece of cloth she was wearing over the upper half of her face as she stepped from the dark entryway into the light of the arena. She glanced around at the other nineteen combatants, taking the measure of each of them as they, too, entered the circular area. She could still see, of course, as she had cut holes in the cloth before using it as a makeshift mask to hide her identity. She wasn’t an idiot. Sure, she was entering an event that, statistically, most people did not walk away from, but she wasn’t going to do it blind or anything.
She glanced up at the stands, which were only sparsely populated. She suspected that one of the main reasons most people didn’t really care about the preliminaries was that they were, by design, not very flashy. Combatants weren’t allowed their own weapons, and the attire was strictly regulated. The whole point was that everyone would have a more or less even playing field and wouldn’t be specifically favored for popularity or style. Once the tournament proper began, those who made it that far could bring whatever weapons they wished and don whatever flashy garments would get them the most applause. At that point, that sort of ridiculousness was both allowed and encouraged. The spectacle brought in more money, after all, and money was what made every cog in the economy of the desert city of Ul’dah turn.
At this stage, though, the only thing that mattered was that four out of the twenty people in the arena could walk away from the fight without being beaten to death or having any bones broken. While the Bloodsands itself didn’t have any restrictions whatsoever on who could fight, the reality was that better combatants resulted in more exciting fights which drew a larger crowd. Therefore, every prisoner, fortune-seeker, or desperate wastrel who wanted to compete for glory or coin had to survive the preliminaries while impressing the arena’s administrators. Aside from the group selecting those who would advance, the only people who usually attended the preliminaries were bookkeepers, gamblers, or hardcore fans.
Purple Lightning caught the eye of her own personal benefactor in the stands and winked to her. Some people were forced to fight in the Bloodsands as a way to escape prison, but some were in it just for the excitement. It wasn’t necessarily required to have a sponsor either way, but it sure did help, especially if a person needed such things as better weapons, flashier clothing, or, in the worst case, a decent burial. When Lightning entered the tournament, she had listed her benefactor as one Lady Leona Fortunata, a wealthy speculator who owned several pieces of property in and around Ul’dah’s Goblet District. The Lady didn’t return her wink and in fact just shook her head and gestured to the arena at large, with the implication that Lightning make with the punching.
Lightning grinned. This was, after all, her favorite part.
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