Chapter 131: 129 Sandwiches

"Fifteen Sanc per attendee, sir." Donovan was stopped at the entrance of the arena by a lady wearing a bright yellow hood. They were in the section of the lobby intended to filter the audience to their seating. "The total for your party comes to forty-five. I can break a higher denomination if need be."

Donovan fished into his coin purse, stopping once his fingers landed on a fifty Sanc coin. "That should cover it. Might I ask if there are any rules we need to follow? It is our first time attending as spectators after all."

"Don't cause trouble and clean up after yourself. Obviously, you shouldn't make any moves to descend into the arena itself as well, but I doubt you would even be able to. A little advice from a woman who has had to deal with her fair share of petty squabbles, don't raise a fuss when the food and drink the vendors sell don't taste like what you are paying for. Next in line please." She tossed Donovan back a five Sanc coin as she was beginning to deal with the next group of people.

He wanted to thank her, but the situation didn't really allow it. He, Len, and Wall were practically being pushed up the stairs by the crowd, and she seemed a bit busy.

"I apologize for my rudeness, but you need to hurry up sir. We need to get to our seats before the crowds get thicker." Wall was keeping Len, someone he recognized as liable to being swept away, right in front of him to shield him from the crowd's motion. "If we hurry, we can probably still nab some food and drink along the way."

The three of them, Sanna having decided instead to get started on replacing and refurbishing his gear, had arrived much earlier than the crowd standing behind them. They had arrived with Titanyana, escorting her to the armory both to wish her luck one last time and try to get some information about where they should sit to have the best view. Apparently there were passes for front row seats, reserved for previous qualifiers of this section of the tournament and the current participants' squad members and family. They definitely would have missed that detail if they hadn't gone there to check.

"Food? Didn't she just say it tasted bad?"

"After 8 hours of nothing to eat I am sure we won't mind too much about the taste. This portion of the tournament is set to go for ten hours, right?"

Donovan, someone who had lived his life on the navy track, didn't need Wall to remind him of the reality of the situation before he was reprimanding himself. Since when was he allowed to complain about the taste of food? Did he not live for a good portion of his life on what amounted to tasteless gruel? It would appear he was letting himself grow too soft, a change of menu might be required. . . or would it? He probably wouldn't be on the front lines, and as much as he hated to admit it he could still stomach awful cooking, so was there really a need to torture himself?

He shook his head. The question over what culinary standard was best for him could be debated later. For now there were more pressing concerns.

"What in the . . ." 

For example, why was this arena so much larger than the one he had fought in?

"It's a lot bigger than I remember." Len remarked at the disparity between what he had experienced and whatever this was.

Where before the colosseum Donovan found himself in might have measure out a radius of close to a kilometer, what he was looking at now easily fell into the tens of kilometers bracket. Was this arena just different?

"We can ask somebody later. Let's go!" Wall had spotted what appeared to be some sort of sandwich vendor over the crowd due to how much taller he was. His big body was proving to be quite the boon.

- - - - - 

Donovan could only describe his experience navigating the arena as 'unique'. There was little to no order to it, there not even being a specific side of the great hallway that was reserved for moving a specific direction, and yet it seemed organized. There were incidents of course, commotion and conflict caused by the friction of people passing each other, but for the most part people were walking at the speed they normally would.

That didn't make the sandwiches look any better though, Don swore the lettuce-like leaves were starting to brown even if the vendor assured him that was just its natural coloring.

"Just head down?"

"That is where the combatant attached seating is, yes." Donovan was in the middle of a conversation with a man with a yellow hood. They were trying to figure out exactly where it was they were supposed to go, and to date none of the random passerby they had stopped had been of much use. "Walk down the hallway until you see a bigger staircase down paved with bright red stones, head down until you reach the bottom, talk to the person there. They should be wearing a yellow hood as well."

"Then show them our passes, right?"

"Yes. Any other questions?"

"No sir."

"Then have a nice day." With that he waved Donovan onward.

"You see anything Wall?"

"Not yet. It's probably pretty far away." Wall even brought his hand up to block some of the glare from the light filtering in from outside.

Don shouldn't have expected it to be close, all things considered. It was a big arena, and there were probably a limited number of places for this 'combatant attached seating'.

"Look's like this will be our cardio for the day. Do you two feel like jogging?"

"Do I get a choice?" A rare bit of unenthusiastic sass from Len. Crowds didn't agree with his personality.

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"Nope. Titanyana is going to be giving it her all today, we should put some work in as well. I'll carry the food if that makes you feel any better."

Len groaned as he handed over his lunch to Donovan. Wall, while not quite as expressive of his dissatisfaction, was not pleased either.

"Oh come on now. It's just a light jog! We want to get good seats, right?" Donovan could understand why they were being a little pissy right now. This was their rest day, and they had dressed under the impression that they would not be doing anything strenuous. Len had even dressed in some of his nicer clothes. "How about this, I'll drop the jog from tomorrow's routine if we do this jag right now. Fair deal?"

Donovan figured they still needed some time to recover from their bouts yesterday.

". . . okay." Wall had nodded pretty much instantly to his offer, but Len needed time to convince himself.

- - - - -

To the untrained eye, Titanyana appeared to be incredibly calm. She was expressionless for the most part, reacting to the actions of others when needed, but she did not give off signs of distress. In reality she was nervous, incredibly nervous. The only way you would be able to tell was from the flicking of her ears and the slight swaying of her tail, but to someone not used to her or her race's mannerism that would only look like natural motions.

There was plenty to be nervous about, her performance being the least of her worries.

The amount of people in the audience was something that bothered her. She was naturally quite shy, so she was especially conscious of the countless and increasing number eyes boring into her in anticipation of her duels. The eyes of certain individuals were a fair bit more nerve wracking though. They were likely more powerful individuals, perhaps other students who had failed to make the cut or had not participated in this tournament. Should she try to keep her more powerful techniques secret? Should she match her opponent's capabilities and pray for a victory based on skill? Or maybe she would reveal less by overpowering them from the start.

Surely there wouldn't be anything she could do to someone substantially more powerful than her anyways, right?

She shook her head, her ears falling flat to her head as she turned to look at the crowd. Where was Donovan? He was supposed to be here, right? She had come out of her own hallway, one of the 256 spaced evenly around the arena, but would Donovan know which one? She didn't know. This was her first time here, she didn't even know where her first duel was going to be. She could see one of the circles off in the distance, but it seemed like it was pretty far away. 

Her efforts here would be for nothing if Donovan didn't get to see. Additional help for her cause would be nice, but now she was more interested in maintaining her relations with the Terrans and training Donovan as best she could. He needed to see more of what high level combat looked like, and she would prefer if his reference was her style. At least she would have a level of control over that.

"Lady Titanyana, your levee is arriving now." Titanyana's head tilted at the mention of this 'levee', but before she could work up the guts to asked the enforcer her attention was drawn by a slight gust of wind. 

A rectangle, no, a ship, descended from above, coming to rest on the ground a few meters in front of her. It was a barge of sorts, if something that flew through the sky could be likened to something as clumsy and unwieldy of a barge. Well, it wasn't that big, but certainly bigger than she ever could have expected. It was larger than the ships she had back home at least, scouting vessels meant to provide warning for impending invasion.

"?"

Her head tilted the other direction as a ramp plonked down. She didn't really need it, there was already something that looked like a step leading up to the knee high deck. Truly, the expectations of her fellow 'nobles' was something else. Still, there was little use in complaining.

"Are you ready to fight?"

Much to her shock, Donovan and her comrades were already on the 'levee'. Donovan seemed almost the same as when they had left her, his hair being a bit out of sorts, but the other two were much less put together. Wall was sitting in a chair, elbows on his knees, while Len was sprawled out on the floor. Both of them were drenched in sweat, the planks below Len darkening from the moisture.

"What . . . happened?"

"Don't worry about it. I've got some good news for you though, no jog tomorrow!" Donovan smiled, an immediately the reason they were so sweaty became clear. "Do you need something to drink?"

". . . no, I'll be fine. I might need something later though."

Donovan nodded. "I see. Well, don't be afraid to ask. This, uh, levee was it? It has some water and food if you want it. We went and bough some for ourselves, but it looks like it won't be needing it." He unwrapped a sandwich, revealing an unappealing assortment of browning leaves, slimy meat, and foul smelling cheese.

Upon getting the slightest trace of a scent from this amalgam of low quality products, Titanyana's ears flattened and she recoiled, almost to the point of jumping off the levee.

"That bad huh?"

"Mmm."

"Thought so." Donovan wrapped it up again and put it back in the pile. There were seven of them, two for each of the three and one more for Wall, though it looked like they wouldn't be eating it anymore. "Well, take a seat. I'd like to talk, but if you need me to be quiet I can do that."

"Mhm. I want to concentrate." She had just been thrown off by the scent, and she needed to get her head straight again. She did want to talk to him, just to give him advice about what he should look for, but she was no longer in a state for that. Until he managed to get that sandwich off of the levee, she would come nowhere close to him.

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