Lílitha ‘Piranha’ Houdge
Versus Fighter
Level 380
XP: 57/100
HP: 100/100
EP: 88/100
RP Status: Highly-Respected— 150 RP
Weakness Lvl 5
“Good morning, Miss Lílitha Houdge. It is now 6:20 in the morning of November 13th, 2349 in the city of Washington D.C. Good luck on your first day of Guild Training.”
Lílitha’s small blue feet gently descended onto the soft carpet. She immediately went to her clothing selection station and changed from her soft sleep suit into her blue bodysuit. She always hated how puny she looked in it.
These next few weeks were about to be more challenging for the little woman. She was partly regretting this decision, but she felt it was appropriate. It was the only way she could finally gain a proper advantage in the academy.
Back when she started her career in combat, she’d initially planned to go to the small, barely recognized Tathi Fighting Center in her country on Ilamiko, but after she turned of age on her planet, she pushed herself to try a bigger, more recognized school. The best Ilamikoan fighting school, Woegih Academy, required her family’s permission regardless of her age, so she took the first space shuttle out of Ilamiko and looked for a school that would accept her.
Somehow, she wound up on Earth. Being one of the 625 Ilamikoans on the entire planet, she struggled to find a decent place to live and sustain herself. With no support from her family, she had to use all her savings to get what she needed for legal planetary entry. Being a minor at the time, she was able to stay at a shelter until she got to apply to the academy, which thankfully didn’t take too long— only about a year. Her relentless training throughout her childhood and teen years paid off, getting her in the school at five years old— around 15 for humans.
Time had literally flown by. Earth’s time pace was very different from her home’s. She sometimes wondered how her family fared back on Ilamiko, but she would probably never know until she graduated from the academy. None of them had contacted her since she left— not once.
How could she differ from the other Ilamikoan fighters on their planet team? Just because they didn’t win as often as the other planets didn’t mean they were wasting their time. She needed to prove she was more than a useless kid that wasn’t as skilled in their family business as her siblings.
Unfortunately, she would do so through a different planet that wasn’t her first choice.
Being in the human fighting school was a bit counterintuitive to her goal. Fistborn was historic, with over 200 years’ worth of progress, and an unbroken streak of winning their National tournament, making them the representative for the country. Still, the species bias against the ‘human-based’ school was severe.
That Medley kid made everything worse, being a ditzy Socializer who didn’t know the first thing about fighting. What a blow to the name. Progress or not, her wimpiness and self-doubt irritated Lílitha. She needed to work harder if she insisted on being on the team this year, just like Lílitha would.
She wasn’t about to glitch up her chances like she did last Versus. She’d finally gotten on the country team in her second year one, only to get herself eliminated in the third round of the preliminaries thanks to her overconfidence, which landed her in the 150th rank in the country. She only had a call sign because of her notorious bite.
After finishing her lonely breakfast in her dormitory, Lílitha showed up to her first class. Her lynx-like ears tingled and twitched as she heard whispers from her classmates. The orange Guild patches and Favorite badge were pretty obvious. She had trained herself to not care about any attention she got, only enjoying it whenever she was fighting, but there was still that part of her that felt self-conscious of what they said about her.
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How did that human girl live as someone who relied on people’s opinions? If she were more like Calista, she would’ve crumbled upon seeing her Reputation Level go down from Feared to Highly-Respected in one night. She’d worked hard to be feared, but in joining Harrison’s Guild, had sacrificed over forty RP. She hoped, in turn, that it was worth it.
She’d learned how to keep an impassive, uncaring expression on her face, pretending she didn’t notice any of the students pointing and staring at her with her new Guild accessories, but her stomachs flipped over like… some human food that had to do with a cake. She always forgot the name. She was always on guard, always anticipating some kind of confrontation, even though she knew that most would leave her alone. Whether she downgraded in Reputation status or not, her bite was irrevocably deadly.
The one she knew would antagonize her was her sworn enemy, who was even more fearsome in Reputation and superior in strength and power. There was a reason Hajjians were higher on the power chain than Ilamikoans.
The devil’s eyes instantly landed on her when she entered the gym for her Teamwork class. Her fangs flashed in a smile as she watched Lílitha get down on the mat, her orange patches flashing on her blue bodysuit sleeves.
The little woman ignored her and started her stretches. She’d hit a new record for ‘Days since the last incident with Rosalina Wiasod’, and she was initially eager to break it, but was now rethinking her impulsive decision the night before. She’d wanted to annoy Rosalina, trick her into getting another mark on her ‘good behavior’ record, but what would that cost?
“H-hey…”
Lílitha instantly recognized the nervous voice. She sighed and looked upside-down at Calista. The girl was wearing a strange-looking red skirt… shorts? A mix of both, it seemed. Her blue top was tight and sparkly, reflecting with the light, and her shoes were white cushions melded to her feet.
Honestly, how did she have the time to come up with such things? She had more important things to focus on than her looks. Lílitha guessed it was a hard habit to break after spending one’s whole life worrying about appearance.
“Good morning,” Lílitha said, bending over backwards and stretching her limbs to lift her body in the air.
“You’re coming to training tonight, right?”
“No, next year,” she said sarcastically. She was trying to be patient. How did Harrison handle her cluelessness and insecurity? The boy had taken quite a liking to her. In nearly every class, he’d stare at her, especially when she had a new uniform on.
-2 Rel-P
It wasn’t any of her business, but she wouldn’t approve of Harrison having any sort of connection with Calista. Lílitha didn’t know much about most other species’ romance, since it didn’t work the same way on her planet, but she’d watched enough HARP movies and series to know that a girl like Calista wasn’t someone trustworthy.
No one was really trustworthy. She’d risked a lot even trusting Harrison. There were still plenty of things she didn’t tell him, and she appreciated that he didn’t insist on knowing everything about her.
Lílitha stretched her hand to the panels against the far wall of the gym, selecting a 10-pound barbell. She grunted as she lifted the weight and placed it on her back to do her regular push-ups.
Calista stared. “You use 10-pound weights?”
Lílitha rolled her eyes. “If you warmed up with weights more often, you’d see more growth in those little muscles of yours. Even I have bigger muscles.”
Calista frowned and looked down at herself, squeezing her biceps, then her skinny waist. “They’ve gotten better now…”
“How much do you weigh?”
“About… 123, last I checked. I’m close to the healthy weight… it’s just taking a while.”
“How tall are you?” Lílitha asked her.
“Around five-foot-nine.”
“Oh, you’ll need a lot more than that,” she chuckled, using the barbell as leverage to lift her legs in the air and completely stand upside-down.
“Well, how much do you weigh?” the human asked, now slightly defensive.
-2 Rel-P
“Eighty pounds,” she answered, straining as she stretched her arms, lifting her body in the air. “But I’m four-foot-six. You, on the other hand, can get blown away by the wind.”
“She’s pretty flexible, though. Good for escapes.” Harrison joined the two women. “I think the coaches are placing us today. Hope we don’t get buggy teams.”
Lílitha got back on her feet and lifted the barbell, gripping it with both hands and stretching her elbows out. She looked over her shoulder at Rosalina, who was warming up with a 30-pound weight. The coaches avoided placing them on the same team, but they’d placed them against each other many times.
“Li.” Harrison eyed her sternly.
“I’m not doing anything.” Lílitha shrugged innocently, hiding a smile.
The first Teamwork period went by without any incident. The teams split up for a game of Weightless Dodgeball, which was one of the more ‘boring’ games, in Lílitha’s opinion. Neither Hothead nor Gravity made any jabs at her or Calista, which made her suspicious. She was planning something… both of them were. Hillary was still angry about Calista tagging her nose in Chess.
Rosalina hadn’t confronted Lílitha that day, but the tension was still there between their teams. Despite winning the game, she probably wanted to confront Lílitha herself, but lost her chance.
Rosalina was as sneaky and slimy as a likata; a circular, colorful beetle on Ilamiko that infected whoever it touched with a severe illness, regardless of species. They were beautiful to look at, but clever and great at hiding so they could easily catch people off guard. Poisonous and deadly. Silent and deceptive. It was an apt description for someone like Rosalina ‘Hothead’ Wiasod.
Task Complete: Attend First Teamwork period— +8 XP
Upcoming Task: Attend Second Teamwork period— 7 XP
