Harrison ‘Cheater’ Smith
Student Coach
Level 406
XP: 38/100
HP: 100/100
EP: 98/100
RP Status: Controversial— Points Uncalculated
Weakness Lvl 10
The academy buzzed with excitement. Everyone on campus— fighters and inventors alike— headed to the Arena to see the next bout of challengers. They’d all been entertained by the hopefuls for the past week, secretly betting their digits on who would be a new student or simply a reject stuck with the desire.
Fistborn offered three months of summer vacation in between school years, but for Student Coaches, that time was shortened to one. While the other nine wistfully thought about their families and wished for more time, Harrison Smith thought of it as a welcome relief.
His home had become the academy. Even in non-Versus years, he opted to staying and taking classes in the Versus Fighting School. Unlike the other careers that usually lasted about four years, Versus students would take up to sixteen years to graduate, depending on their age. Having been fifteen when he started, Harrison had twelve years to go, and three Versus Games to get through. That was plenty of time for more controversies to loom over his head.
On the Student Coach penthouse floor, he left his suite, going to the common lobby to meet his nine fellow coaches. Four of them were new like Harrison while the others were seasoned Student Coaches. Harrison was the outcast of the ten. Student Coaches started their terms the year following the competition, but the most important year would be the next Versus year, when they’d prove whether they could keep a hold on their position.
Harrison had a harder time; he was only recently given his Student Coach position, delayed because of the cheating allegations.
The National-level Versus tournament was held exactly one year before the official tournament. For a week, all the United States’ fighting schools would send their ten best students to compete in one-on-one matches, and whichever team racked up the most points would be the country’s representing school. Harrison had reached a level that should have promoted his rank, but even people in his own country doubted his credibility, so he was stuck with the last rank of Ten.
“What do you think about the fights?” the seventh-ranking coach asked.
Elisa ‘Double-Dutch’ Fiosda
Student Coach
Level 393
She was one of the new Student Coaches. She was a pale red-skinned Paeseoan with cream-colored wavy hair that was always tied up in a ponytail. Harrison had never seen her with her hair down before.
The ninth-ranking student shrugged. “I don’t know. To me, they’ve been boring as binary code. They’re a load of amateurs.”
Catherine ‘Lasso’ Graham
Student Coach
Level 390
She had a soft, violet skin tone and blond hair, a pretty mix of the Seeyastian and Earthian species. She was born and raised in Ireland, then traveled to the States since she preferred Fistborn over the Balla Láidir school in her country. She was nicer to Harrison than most of the others.
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“I wonder if Houdge will go easy on them,” the second-best student said. “A lot of the others have.”
Disaris ‘One-Punch’ Okione
Student Coach
Level 515
He was half-Voraxian, which gave him ocean-blue skin and incredible strength, but he definitely didn’t inherit the height, being only 5’9”, a bit shorter than Harrison. He also sported glassy black eyes inherited from his Martian side.
“She won’t,” Harrison said, quick to dissolve any criticisms of his best friend. Lílitha Houdge was the 150th-ranked student, but she was a great fighter, despite her short-lived performance in the last Games. “She’ll probably just drag it on; the faculty says to. They need the fights to last long enough for them to evaluate their skills. If she knocks them out right away, they can’t really grade anything,” Harrison followed.
“I doubt she’d knock them out right away,” the fourth-ranked coach muttered.
Li Mei ‘Knifehand’ Hoss
Student Coach
Level 426
She was a small woman who looked much younger than she really was, and she was often mistaken for a full-blooded human. The distinguishing feature was her eyes; star-shaped pupils with bright orange irises, which clarified that she was part Seeyastian.
“She could. You know how she fights. She almost bit Bark’s arm off, remember?” Harrison reminded her.
“Almost,” the first-ranked coach interjected, standing up for his Favorite student. “He still won the fight.”
Reilly ‘Clocker’ Campbell
Student Coach
Level 660
He was ranked as the best student in the Versus Fighting School. A tall, proud Voraxian with a smooth, bald head and skin as white as quartz, he was someone Harrison did not get along with. Harrison always found himself irritated by his presence, especially the arrogance in his English accent.
“He didn’t win, Coach pulled the lass off ‘im,” Catherine laughed, her mulberry-colored eyes sparkling. Unlike most from Seeyastian descent, her pupils were shaped like a human’s— circular. Seeyastians were most known for their differently-shaped, bizarrely-colored eyes. “Otherwise, he’d’ve been a one-arm. Serves him right for slagging ‘er.”
Reilly frowned, but said nothing else. He had over a hundred students under his tutelage, but he was especially defensive about his Favorites.
-10 Rel-P
He had to admit, though— his student, Bark Davies, used to be very reckless and arrogant in his first years at the academy. Being Ilamikoan, Lílitha Houdge’s childlike appearance yielded a lot of discrimination from the other students.
Bark had made a mistake, though, and found himself being beaten by a puny Ilamikoan woman. No one had ever forgotten the incident, and new students would eventually hear about it from the older juniors and seniors. Bark had grown since then, not usually letting his temper get the best of him, but he was still known as ‘Savage’, taking his fiery revenge when he deemed it fitting.
Fighters that received call signs during the tournament were those that impressed the Versus Games audience enough to be deemed one. Harrison didn’t receive his official call sign until the end of the last Versus Games.
And that call sign was ‘Cheater’.
He knew that a lot of the negative attention on him was due to his father; he had left him and his mother during his first Junior Versus and had an affair with a famous Hajjian woman. When they were caught and exposed, Harrison’s family name had taken a hit in the astropolitical world. Hajjians and Earthians having romantic affairs was strictly frowned upon by most. Thankfully, their species were not compatible for reproduction, so no mixed Hajjian-Earthians would be in the whole debate.
Being a Smith carried a lot of weight, so the other species settled grudges in the Versus Games, as the Treaty ordered, and ruined Harrison’s reputation when the tournament was over. They wouldn’t openly say it was because of the affair, but he knew it ran deeper than him simply being a ‘lowly human’.
Harrison was the first full-blooded Earthian to be a Student Coach since Lisa White, so people were still skeptical of his abilities. It wasn’t as if it had fallen into his lap; he’d trained ever since he was a child, like many others.
The ten entered the Arena and went to the passages leading to the seats. As Student Coaches, they had access to special seats with the best view of the fight; a floating, pill-shaped, glass capsule that moved around the arena circle to see the battle at the best angle. It even had personal screens that would zoom in on the fighters when it got exciting. Next to them were the school faculty, and below were the Favorites’ capsules.
Harrison slipped into the seat numbered ‘10’, his name printed beneath. It always swelled him with pride. Even though his rightful position should’ve been Reilly’s number ‘1’, he was contented with at least being a Student Coach.
Though the other nine didn’t show it as much, he knew they thought the same of him. Most half-humans didn’t take pride in their human side. They were always fiercely patriotic towards their non-Earthian half, as if they were embarrassed. Li Mei hated being assumed as a human. She would blink her bizarre eyes, making them as obvious as possible.
Harrison looked down at the Favorites’ capsules floating below them. These varied between sizes and colors, accommodating all the best members of each Guild. Students taking apprenticeship under each of the Student Coaches to advance further in their careers and increase their chances of getting on the representing team.
There were nine in all, but there should’ve been ten.