Nine Lives

[Gildarts]

Cindy wielded her hammer over her shoulder once more. Her silver-streaked hair was ruffled by the breeze, yet her spiked headband showed off her characteristic aggressiveness. Cindy would always need to be just as ferocious as one of the monsters she was hunting and fighting, in order to win against them. The only question now was if she would have what it took to defeat Gildarts?

Gildarts had recovered from his heart-stopping experience but his lips were still parched from the dehydration he felt consuming his weary bones. How many battles had it been? A few... dozen? He had lost count, but the last few had really done one over on him. Before him, there were two blurred and warped mirages of Cindy. The Prime blinked a few times and his opponent slowly reformed her original shape. Around the edges of his eyes, clouds began to form. The stadium had turned on lights for the night-finale, they bothered his tolerance into a dismissive squint.

“So it comes down to this.” Gildarts concluded.

“What, you didn’t expect any other outcome?” Cindy flaunted her voice haughtily, as though she had predicted this ending all along.

“Two Primes against one another in an all secondary tournament, was this something I was supposed to predict?” Gildarts let the vacant words roll from his tongue.

“Quit stalling.” She muttered under her breath, and prepared her favorite hammer, hefting it into a fighting stance.

Gildarts and Cindy stood in the center of the arena about ten feet apart from one another. Ready for an epic battle, and an epic conclusion to their strained relationship.

Cindy moved first, tactfully setting off a flash-grenade as the battle began. She used that second to launch into gear, her heels dug hard into the crisp dirt below her, and she perpetuated her body into the air. A quick swing and Gildarts barely had the time to react as he was hit in the side with her giant friggin’ hammer.