Anyway, now for Canopus’ fight. Rilen is actually a character of mine from long long ago. Now she’s just a fight in this tournament. >.>

He looked over her entire body, memorizing how she stood, what muscles she tensed, the movement allowed by her clothing, everything he could just from a rest stance. He nodded. “Are you planning on using that sword?”

“You’ll just have to wait and see won’t you?” she replied.

He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter for the result. I just wanted to give you an appropriate opponent.”

Her eyes narrowed even more, if that was even possible without them closing completely. “You’re right. Won’t change the results.”

Canopus slid one leg back and opened both arms, going into an actual stance. The announcer watched for combatants for a second, then raised his arm and hopped out of the ring.

“And fight!”

Rilean shot forward in a blur, aiming a kick at Canopus’ side. Canopus brought up his arm and deflected the flying boot, hopping a yard or so to the side. She didn’t give him any breathing time at all, closing the gap between them and throwing another blow. He dodged the second attack by hopping over Rilean, using her shoulder for an added boost, and landed on both feet, facing her back. Rilean spun around and tried to catch her heel on Canopus’ temple, but he saw the attack coming as soon as her foot left the ground, so it took little effort to duck the kick and deliver a shoulder bash to her unguarded torso.

Rilean rolled with the blow and braced herself for another attack from Canopus, but she almost lost her footing when she saw that he hadn’t moved to take advantage of his offense. She smiled. “What’s the matter?

Worried you’ve used all of your luck for the round?”

“You don’t know how to do this, do you?”

“I’ll show you exactly how much I know!” Rilean charged Canopus and jumped up for a flying kick. Canopus grabbed her heel, inched to the side, grabbed her thigh, and swung her face-first into the stone arena.
He stepped back a few feet. “You’re an assassin trained in your sword. I can tell. Despite your lack of power, you’re trying to make every attack a killing or crippling blow, something you won’t be able to do against me unless you’re in your element.”

“That’s fine with me!” Rilean pulled her sword from her sheath and swung it, using the momentum of her spin to give it power as she aimed for Canopus’ midsection. She was fully expecting to catch him off guard and end the match with a quick blow, so she was reasonably surprised when her attack hit metal. She looked up. Out of thin air, Canopus had pulled a white-bladed sword, as smooth and shiny as glass but powerful enough to block her katana.

She strained against his weapon, but he easily held hers where it was and leaned his face close to hers. “It’s fine with me too. I like my element.” He held his breath for a second, tensed his entire body, and formed a blue aura around his eyes. The moment he felt Rilean’s sword pull from his, he released a vicious blast of ice-cold energy. The force of the attack combined with Rilean’s total lack of readiness blew her through the air and right out of the ring.

David stepped back into the arena. “Arena out! Winner Canopus!”

Rilean hopped back on the stone, breathing heavily and making quite a spectacle, what with the lightly-frosted fur and the tiny icicles hanging from her muzzle. “I want a rematch!”

David grinned and pointed both index fingers at her. “And congratulations, you won’t get one!” He pointed to the seat she had occupied before the round.

“Instead, take a load off. On our tab.” Rilean grudgingly returned to her seat, and Canopus came back to his section of the stands, smiling softly to himself.

Anyway, I pop in all the parts, hook them up, all the time thinking ‘Man, I am going to press this power button and the darn thing isn’t going to turn on.’ A problem which has plagued me on more than one occasion, but was particularly dreaded this time., not only because of the previous problems, but because I was generally just too tired to stick my face in the case and try and figure out which wires I had crossed, or accept the possibility that something else was broken.

So I finish up, put the case in place, and low and behold, the power turns on when I hit the power button. (Ah technology.) The motherboard blurb pops up on the screen as I stick in the Windows 7 disk I have. It loads for five minutes and everything pops up all fancy as is Windows wont.

I tell it, it’s going to install Windows for me, and it displays the drives on which this is possible. All of them, except for the one on which Windows already is. I stare, for a moment, at the only 2gigs remaining free on my C drive, wondering where the heck the ‘reformat and install on this drive’ option is…

Well as far as I can tell, there isn’t one. So I figure I’ll have a better chance trying the only other install option, which is an upgrade while Windows is running. So I pull out the CD, restart, and get the fun ‘You’ve changed something, you have to reactivate.’ message. I try to get past it only to find out that the ps2 keyboard and mouse I have plugged in (when a computer has no OS, it has trouble reading usb keyboards and mouses as what they are, so I have a backup.) do not work. Nor do the usb keyboard or mouse.

After a few moments of disbelief and a restart (just in case) I shut down the computer and pull out the hard drive that has the C drive on it. I then proceed to my husband’s computer, where lots of fun and boot drive setting later I clean off the drive with a shift-delete. NOW I put the hard drive back into my computer and get the installation going.

When it’s finally ready for human input it starts up and of course there’s immediatly the message for ‘activate windows’. I click on the activate, forgetting that I have not yet installed the drivers for my motherboard, meaning the Internet does not work and the gosh darn OS blue screens on me. Once I ignore the activation thing I actually get to Windows, am able to install my drivers and everything is peachy.

So the moral of the story is: Everything works forever except Windows 7 is dumb in some ways that will likely never matter again.

“Dirk and Cowboy Bebop.”

“See. I told you you’d do great. What did you think Canopus?” She had glanced at the white haired man a few times during the fight, but was not able to figure out what he was thinking.

“Mostly what I would have done. But you’re too flashy. Should go for the simple, effective attacks over what looks better.”

Kyanosa threw up his hands. “You use your style, I use mine.”

“Neither of which is mine, I hope.” Dirk looked at them both.

Canopus stared back at the ring. “Don’t worry. We’ve learned more than that.”

“Now we just have to wait and see which of you all is next,” Kyanosa said.

Everybody was quiet for a second as they watched the next match, a lizardman versus a catboy. Josh chuckled. “At least they’re not playing favorites with races.”

“More interesting this way,” Kaye said.

“If I fight somebody inherently immune to electricity, I’m gonna be ticked.”

Dirk slapped his knee. “Which reminds me! Everybody saw how Kyanosa fought, right? All punches and kicks and dodging? No magic or weapons, even to fly or block? Try to get close to that. You don’t want to play all of your cards in the first match. Leave some kind of surprise in case anybody’s going Canopus on us and trying to memorize our techniques. Keep them guessing.”

Josh nodded. “Can do.”

Canopus narrowed his eyes. “If I have to.”

“I haven’t fought magicless in a long time.” Kaye winced. “Guess if I’d thought about it I could’ve practiced some last night.”

“At least don’t go all-out.” Dirk looked at her. “Use as little as possible if you have to do anything.”

“That I can do. But someone has to spar with me tonight. Unless that counts as fighting…”

He shook his head. “Sparring, no. In fact, sparring is encouraged.”

Kaye smiled. “Good.”

The fight drew to a close, with the catboy still standing. Canopus looked at Kyanosa. “Were you watching that?”

Kyanosa shook his head. “No, why?”

“The announcer said we’d be using ladders to determine who fights whom. If we’re going in order, that guy’s your next opponent.”

“Eh. If he’s adjusting his style like we are, there’s no point in watching, is there?”

Canopus grumbled something not nice.

The screen displaying the matches coming up shifted up one every time a fight ended. As the fighters left the arena, the loser with the healer’s help, the next match displayed.

“Look, Sebastion is in fight seven.” Josh pointed. “I wonder where he is.”

“I don’t.” Canopus said, watching the fight that had just started.

Fight five was soon finished with Gelid, a blue ice dog, winning and immediately everyone in the group looked at Canopus as his name popped up as a participant in battle 8. His match would be right after Sebastion. The white haired teen perked noticeably, which considering his normally stoic demeanor was really saying something.

“There’s Sebastion,” Kyanosa said, watching as the familiar looking man passed them by without even a glance. “He looks good.”

Sebastion’s opponent was a young man in a red robe with long brown hair named Jamie. The instant he pulled out a sword longer than his legs and with a slight white aura, Canopus knew who the winner would be. Moving with decidedly inhuman speed, knowing all the most devastating places to strike, and sporting a giant sword that sliced right through Sebastion’s barriers and weapons, Jamie made short work of the well-aged energy manipulator.

“Knockout! Winner Jamie Menfield! Possibly a record at that.” The announcer smiled and shot a sympathetic look at Sebastion, who was being carried off the field by a pair of medics. “And our next battle is between Canopus and Rilean Starr!” The group didn’t really hear what came after that. They were watching Canopus too hard.

Kaye expected Canopus to be down on the edge of the arena as soon as battle 7 was over, but the man stayed in his seat. He was watching the field intently, until a brownish red female fox walked out onto the grass. She was wearing a pair of loose dark gray pants and a white tank top. She had white fingerless gloves and brown boots. There was also a sheath hanging from her waist.

Only now did Canopus stand up and make his way down toward the arena.