***Several hours earlier***
The ringing of the bell announced the opening of the tournament. And the second the bell's cry reached the waiting room, the elder in charge of the organization finally pulled the cord, opening the doors that led to the arena proper.
"One by one, go in!" he ordered in a voice that betrayed just how annoyed he was by his duty.
'There we go,' Mia thought, raising her head high and leading her team inside.
There was a distinctive advantage of entering the arena first. An advantage that she couldn't ignore.
"Let's go," Mia shouted to her team as she pressed forward, once again entering the darkness of the tunnel.
"Just head on straight ahead," the elder ordered her just as she was about to submerge into the darkness.
"Yes, sir!" she reported before making her way ahead.
The path through the tunnel was pretty short when compared to the one they had to take to enter the waiting room.
'Just like I thought, we were right beside the entrance,' Mia realized when she emerged from the darkness of the tunnel into the brightly illuminated fighting grounds.
The entire arena was so massive and diverse that Mia couldn't see its opposite end. If not for the tribunes stretching out high into the sky, she wouldn't even be able to judge how enormous the place was!
'Don't lose focus,' Mia thought, following a path while stealing the glances of what was going on behind her back.
The second Mia's team entered its path, the barrier closed up behind them.
'I guess we won't just gather all in one spot,' she thought, sighing a breath of relief.
Her only plan to win the tournament required all of the teams to be separated from the beginning. If they all started in a single place, there would be little to nothing that she could do.
"Make sure to observe where everyone else is going," Mia ordered in a hushed voice.
Even though it was still an official part of the tournament, and it would take a while before the fighting proper would start, she was already looking out for any possible advantages.
"Five teams are moving to the east, one moving to the north and three more moving to the west!" Sander reported, proving that he was in the right mindset despite his visible anxiety.
'Still, this place is massive,' Mia thought when she realized she could leave the observations to her team. She looked around herself, only to once again get humbled by the scale of the arena.
It was too big to grasp its entire magnitude with a single sight. Not when one was inside its premises at the very least.
It was split into seven different areas that Mia could see and three more further down her sight.
'There are building, roads, hills,' Mia thought, keenly saving every detail of her surroundings in her memory. 'At least we won't have to worry about everyone instantly discovering our position,' she thought as a small grin made its way up her lips.
The closer Mia got to the actual start of the fighting, the harder it was for her to keep her excitement in check.
"Welcome to the biweekly sect tournament!" a powerful voice suddenly filled every last corner and crevice of the arena grounds. It appeared to come from the very middle of the arena but also from every other possible direction at the same time.
'Is this some kind of formation?' Mia instantly formed a guess before ditching it completely.
'There is no point thinking about stuff that won't influence the fight,' she decided, regaining her focus on the things that actually mattered.
Instead, she looked up to the nearest part of the tribunes.
As her team was the first one to enter the place, they ended up in a position directly in the line of sight of the control lodge, where all the elders organizing the event gathered.
'Aren't they a little bit too... disinterested?' she thought when she laid her eyes on the bored faces of the people up the lodge.
They appeared as if they considered their presence at the tournament nothing more but an annoying but necessary obligation.
What's more...
The tribunes were nearly completely empty. Outside of a very few sets that somehow found someone to occupy them, the massive tribunes, easily capable of housing tens of thousands of spectators, were just empty.
'I guess no one is really interested in a tournament like that,' Mia thought before moving her attention back to the voice of the announcer.
"The tournament is overseen by the elders of the sect. As such, any form of cheating and unfair play will result in a withdrawal of the team that committed the blunder!" the announcer claimed.
Even though Mia could only hear the man's voice, she couldn't help but imagine some elder waving his finger at everyone in the arena.
"I'm also happy to announce that thanks to the sect efforts, there will be ten teams competing in this tournament instead of the standard eight!" he added.
A chill went down Mia's spine.
'With us, it should be nine,' she thought, doing quick math to reconfirm her earlier calculations. 'Where did that tenth team come from?' she asked herself, biting down on her lips.
Even though the tournament had yet to start, there were some signs that it would be even harder than Mia already expected it to be.
'Well, nothing I can do about it,' she thought, ignoring the announcer and looking back to her team.
Despite all her former efforts, people behind Mia's back didn't appear to be ready for what was about to begin any moment now.
'It's not easy to lift their morale,' Mia noticed as she did a full turn and approached her group, forcing them to gather up.
"Guys, focus now," she ordered in a stern voice, just lingering on the edge of becoming a lecturing one.
"What are we supposed to do," Veila wailed, tears gathering at the bottom of her eyes. "It's not like we can..."
"Shut the fuck up," Mia cut Veila's protests short with a domineering voice. "There is no time for crying now. What we need to is to get our minds sharp, and our bodies warmed up," she stated.
"Do you have any plan for this fight?" Sander asked.
In the end, the entire thing happened on too short notice for them to fully prepare. If not for how desperate Mia was to get going, they would only join the next tournament once all their tactics and tricks would be prepared and ready to be deployed.
"Listen, the plan is simple," Mia announced, a grin forming up on her lips.
'Right now, they can't see me shouting,' she thought, tightening her hands into fists. Yet, despite the anxiety running down her spine, she forced a smile on her lips.
"We are going to rush them," she announced before releasing a small giggle. "If you want a name for the plan, then let's call it rush B," she added, her eyes shining up a little with the small amusing trick she prepared.
"Rush B?" Sander asked, raising one of his eyebrows in confusion. "What does the B stand for?" he asked, falling right into Mia's trap.
"Bitches," Mia replied honestly while spreading her arms around and then shaking them.. "In other words, the plan is just as simple as you can guess from its name," she stated before grinning from ear to ear. "The second the battle starts, we rush those bitches down!"
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