District One Tournament Day One: Sublino vs Le Roux

You'd spent the day before the tournament doing some last-minute cramming in the training center. Shoring up your weak points. With a roster full of names like Le Roux and Vanburen, you couldn't help but think back to the weapons so many of the prominent family had commissioned, legally or otherwise, from the Sublinos' forge over the years. You remembered every last one of them - a slim dueling rapier with gilded handle and scabbard molded to prominently display their family crest. A set of throwing knives ornate enough to seem ceremonial but sharper and every bit as deadly as the standard ones that you'd set up one of the training machines to aim at you as you dodged and batted at them with your mace.

Most of the weapons you'd been training against and preparing to face - and those favored by a particular section of your clientele - were light and fast, ready to exploit whereever you'd left an opening. You're not prepared for the Le Roux you'd been listed as facing to show up with a mace in her hands identical to the one you're holding.

Your first mistake: slipping into the wrong defensive stance as the girl charges you.

A parry that might've easily knocked a sword or spear off-course has little effect on your opponent's momentum, instead succeeding only in giving her weapon a straight path towards the back of your head. You almost would've admired how quickly the other girl got straight to the point, if you weren't too busy blinking the spots back from your vision and whirling towards her with a blow just as forceful of your own.