Ascension of the elder

"Aww little Willem got a problem?"

Willem seemed to become enraged at Kyle's taunt and began to swing wildly throwing in a kick here and there. Kyle easily deflected all these and even managed to turn Willem 180 degrees before kicking him in the butt making him collide with his older brother.

Willem quickly turned back with his hand glowing apparently ready to use a skill of some description which caused a lot of the other competitors to back away. Archie, Neil, Clyde and Bruno didn't back away as they were looking forward to Willem getting pwned but before the chaos could spread any further a loud voice was heard.

"Enough if you want to fight then do it in the ring!"

It was one of the officials for the tournament who had ceased their aggression. Willem huffed before he looked at Kyle maliciously the cogs in his mind seemed to be turning before he venomously spat out.

"If you were only in my age bracket I would destroy you."

"Oh you're already 16 I thought that you were about 4 from that show of skill."

Everyone who wasn't part of the Miles family or from the imperial retinue with a couple of outliers giggled a little at Kyle's taunt. Willem had a vein pulsing at his temple but squashed his annoyance down before he put his plan into motion.

"You know that we can change a rule if everyone agrees. Well seeing how strong you are why don't we say that if the winner and second place in the younger bracket consent they can compete in the next bracket up. With your skill I'm sure you'll be able to win your group."

At this Clyde, Neil and Archie face palmed simultaneously while the rest of the Powell family team just looked like they had lost a puppy. Archie's team seeing this reaction could only be curious as to why they were acting like this as they hadn't been included in their training.

"Well looks like we won't get a chance to stand out."

"Yup time to get beaten again."

"At least I'll get my 15 minutes in the sun."

It didn't need to be said which of them said what as the feeling was more than enough. The officiator on hearing this looked at the other competitors and they all seemed to be happy with this new rule, if they won in their age group they could at least try to beat those in the older group to show what they could do.

With the consent of the competitors the official approached the family heads and the imperial overseer and quietly told them of the rule the competitors wished to enact. The overseer and the Miles family head had equally malicious grins on their faces because if Kyle got knocked out early he would be killed in the incoming chaos and if he got through he may have to face Willem who could use his skills to really hurt him.

The Tor family head merely nodded to this rule as he had no real reason to block it. The Black and Powell families quickly discussed it with each other and Landon quickly looked in Kyle's direction and caught his eye. Kyle gave a tiny nod so Landon and Leonard both agreed to the rule change.

The imperial overseer on receiving the go ahead of the noble families had the rule sheet brought out and a scribe wrote the new rule on it before the overseer signed on the space underneath it.

"The new rule as requested by our virtuous competitors has been put into place and we wish to see how they mean to entertain us."

The imperial overseer was a pompous twat in Kyle's opinion but he was a politician so Kyle needed to be careful if he planned to cause him problems during the tournament.

With everything ready everyone returned to their respective seats while the lots were drawn. The first group of 10-15 was drawn. Kyle and Bruno were separated during the bouts and wouldn't meet each other until the final. The noble family's names were placed in a separate drawing bout so they wouldn't meet each other during the first match.

This was because the noble families had better resources which meant their younger generations were stronger than their peers. If they met to early people may get bored with the later matches so to keep the hype up it was configured in this way.

Kyle and Bruno would both be fighting against lower aristocrats in their first battle so the both got up lazily and got in the queue waiting for their turn in the ring. Bruno would be first up so Kyle gave him a slap on the shoulder.

"Don't cock it up, just remember Alena is watching."

"Yeah thanks bro I wasn't nervous until you said that."

Bruno responded before looking to his paramour who waved to him when she saw him looking at her. She was seated with the other girls with the guards sitting just behind them.

"Are you going to ask for a weapon battle or just a fist fight?"

Kyle asked as people could request to use weapons or could fight with their fists if they so chose. If the competitors couldn't agree it would be decided with a coin flip.

"I think a fist fight to start that should be more fun."

As they were talking the referee entered the stage and called up the first Bruno and his opponent. Bruno shook the competitors hand before the match which surprised his opponent as it showed a certain respect.

"How do you wish to fight?"

"Unarmed."

"Same."

"Good the first battle will be a fight of fist against fist. You may begin at the gong; victory will be determined by a ring out, knockout or surrender."

With that the referee stepped away and Bruno and competitor A went to their starting positions, once they were in place a loud gong sounded out and they rushed towards each other. Or at least competitor A did, Bruno just seemed to be strolling towards him but as they were about to make contact Bruno ducked and used his shoulder to barge competitor A at a slightly upwards angle.

When Bruno made contact competitor A left the ground and sailed through the air before crashing to the ground. He wasn't injured but was winded as where Bruno had hit him put pressure on his diaphragm knocking the wind out of him.

"You shouldn't swing so wide it leaves you open like that."

Bruno stated in a friendly way, this was how Kyle had taught him how to fight and how Bruno had trained with the others each noticing and pointing out each other's flaws making them all stronger.

Competitor A struggled to his feet and placed his hands on his knees while breathing deeply before he looked to Bruno with a confused expression on his face.

"Why didn't you press your advantage?"

"What purpose would that serve? We aren't enemies this is just a little game."

When he heard this he realised that while Bruno wasn't a bad person he wasn't taking this tournament seriously at all so after receiving Bruno's strength he felt it would be better to bow out gracefully.

"I can't fight you with your strength so I concede."

With that competitor A left the ring.

"Winner Bruno of the Powell family."

There was a smattering of applause as Bruno also left the ring. He headed back over to wait with Kyle who looked at him with an odd look on his face.

"What?"

"You could have made that last longer."

"Yeah but I want to get to the main event."

"Okay but let's have some fun okay, the girls are here for a show and if we don't deliver you can explain it to Elena."

Bruno looked over at said person and saw her looking at him with a piercing gaze.

"Okay but can you ask her not to look at me like that?"

Kyle also turned to Elena and waved at her which made her look away from Bruno before she waved back at Kyle before she looked back at the stage as 2 new competitors entered the stage. This was more of a conventional fight as both opted to go unarmed again and were throwing straights at each other, one after another.

Kyle shook his head at this as without their skills these people were straight punchers and would barely move. This continued for the next couple of matches as even the members of the noble houses only moved minimally to lessen the impacts they received.

No one had really paid attention to how Bruno had fought as he had rushed straight in and only dodged at the last moment but Kyle's turn was now up so he would show them the truth of martial arts.

He was up against another no name competitor but Kyle still shook his hand like Bruno did and once again they both opted to go unarmed. Most of the juniors would fight unarmed due to the preference of great swords being a problem for most of them with their smaller stature.

When the gong sounded competitor B rushed in like the others had done but as he reached Kyle and swung wide Kyle ducked under his arm and rather than body check like Bruno had done Kyle pivoted on his right foot and kicked his opponent in the back.

He didn't use much force but it was still enough to make competitor B stumble over due to him already sprinting. Getting back up competitor B rushed back at Kyle, what followed seemed to be a mix of ballet from Kyle and a series of prat falls from his opponent. Eventually his opponent got frustrated and shouted at him.

"Why are you just dodging, fight me like a man."

With that the opponent rushed Kyle again but this time Kyle didn't dodge and just deflected and redirected every strike sent his way while occasionally giving his opponent an opening before easily blocking his attack.

Competitor B couldn't keep it up and after a little while became exhausted and like Bruno's opponent put his hands on his knees wheezing for breath. Kyle at this point simply pushed competitor B on the shoulder and he collapsed on his back.

"Winner Kyle of the Powell family."

'Well that was anticlimactic' thought Kyle as he returned to Bruno's side. Everyone was shocked as after all that Kyle didn't have a drop of sweat on him. What was this monstrous stamina but unknown to them all of Kyle's people could fight for this long even the youngest members of the household.

Bruno was up again and this time he was facing someone from the Tor family. Kyle wanted to get everyone heated up for Bruno's match so after thinking for a moment he grinned and looked to Elena as she would be the first to pick up on what he was doing.

Elena was chatting with the other girls as she wasn't really interested in this fight and just wanted the real fun to start when she felt someone was looking at her. Seeing Kyle's expression she knew he was planning something and as usual she would follow his lead.

As Bruno entered the arena he heard a strange primal rhythm and turned to see Kyle was the cause as he was stamping his feet and clapping his hands.

*Stomp, stomp, clap, stomp, stomp, clap*

"We will, we will rock you."