I'm in.

Mesa just shrugged at Kite's comment, looking thoughtful, but not overly upset at the idea of not getting far in the tournament. She would obviously try her best to advance, but she hadn't entered to actually try to win any bits or fame. She let out a sigh of relief as Vita finished her leg, and gave it an experimental stretch. She threw an impressed look at the doctor when the movement brought no pain, as if Silencia's knife had never touched there at all. Mesa briefly wondered if she should try to be more reckless during her next fight, if she really couldn't suffer any lasting damage. Breaking herself out of her thoughts at Kite's question, Mesa tapped her hoof against her chin as she tried to remember if any other combatants had really caught her attention.

"Honestly, I was called to fight fairly quickly after you, but I did see bits and pieces of a few fights." She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to see the fights she had passed in her mind's eye. "There was a crystal pony with a bow and some interesting arrows, it looked like they spread ice wherever they hit," she remembered. "And a tall unicorn mare that could definitely handle a rapier. Oh, and an Earth pony with hoof daggers that, quite frankly, seemed a little insane." After another moment, Mesa frowned slightly. "And there was that cloaked pony. Who did the clipboard pony call into that zone? Nightshade and.... Misty something?" She shook her head at her own guess. "No, that wasn't it. Anyway, you probably saw her before the matches began, she passed by us when Vita was checking ahead for any medical problems. It almost looked like she wasn't carrying any weapons at all, just an hourglass," Mesa added, recalling the detail that made the strange pony stick out in her mind in the first place.

Lapsing into another moment of thoughtful silence, and taking the opportunity to really look around for the first time since she had limped in, Mesa caught sight of Foxtrot as he was asking Vita some medical question. Not wanting to break off her conversation with Kite or interrupt Vita, Mesa settled on attempting to catch Foxtrot's eye and give him a brief smile of greeting before she returned her attention to the other pegasus. "Those were the main combatants I noticed, anyway." She glanced in the direction of the arena with a vaguely impatient expression, trying to guess how many ponies were still fighting. "I'm guessing the first rounds are fairly close to over, especially with how many fights were going on at once."

Mesa **** one eyelid open as Kite addressed her, straightening up as she recognized the pegasus she had chatted with after she had first registered. "Hello," she greeted, returning his polite smile. "Yeah, I won. The other mare was quite good with her knives, though..." Mesa trailed off, gingerly touching the back of her pained leg. She was about to insist that Kite should be treated first- after all, he'd gotten there before her- when Vita finished with Honey and started on Kite, saving Mesa the trouble. The brown pegasus recognized Honey belatedly, and gave her a brief nod of greeting before she turned to Vita. "Alright, but take your time. I'm really fine," Mesa said quickly, looking slightly uneasy as she shifted on the cot. She had never really liked having her wounds treated by anypony but herself, though she knew she didn't exactly have the painkilling magic suitable for the current situation. She forced herself to relax, continuing to stretch her leg as she addressed Kite again. "So what about you, how did your fight go?"

Mesa quickly pulled herself to her hooves as Silencia landed hard a short distance away, the pegasus's sides heaving and "injured" leg trembling slightly as she put weight on it. But countless long treks in all sorts of conditions had hardened Mesa's muscles, and she had long since learned how to shove pain to the back of her mind in order to push just a little bit harder. Mesa's eyes were bright with determination and an edge of competitiveness; it was obvious that she was far from giving up.

She didn't hesitate as Silencia lay dazed, tightening her grip on the stolen knife she still held and charging towards the fallen unicorn. As Silencia recovered and started to get up, Mesa tensed her back legs and took a flying leap, using her wings to assist her in order to come down toward Silencia with as much force as possible. She aimed to land with all four hooves square on top of the other mare, hopefully knocking her back down if she had managed to get fully up, and pinning her if she hadn't. At the same time, Mesa aimed the knife downward in one smooth, forceful thrust towards Silencia's back.

As the first knife was swung towards her, Mesa quickly twisted her head to catch the knife on her own, the attacking blade coming unnervingly near, but not quite meeting its mark as she parried it. Expecting another attack from the same knife, Mesa was startled as the previously sheathed knife cut upward towards her. Mesa almost jumped back, though she knew she had most likely been too slow to see the knife and such a dodge would be futile, but stopped herself at the last moment. She refused to put distance between herself and Silencia, and possibly lose her temporary advantage of having her opponent on the ground.

So she simply braced herself and leapt toward the unicorn, the barrier preventing the knife from making a sizable cut across her chest, though it certainly didn't lessen the feeling that it did. She exhaled sharply, the spike of pain causing her to temporarily falter, before she steeled herself and threw her hooves around Silencia's neck from above, attempting to yank the cloaked mare's head upward and slightly forward. Mesa deftly angled her body so, if the initial forceful pull was successful, Silencia's horn would pass safely by, and the unicorn would be put in a hold so her head was held firmly under Mesa's front leg and against her hip as the pegasus balanced on her back legs. Regardless of the success of the maneuver, Mesa ignored the sharp stinging on her chest and decided to return the favor, aiming a long slash downward and towards Silencia's back.

Mesa continued weaving as she reached for another bolt, noting how quickly she was going through them. She couldn't keep this up forever. As she loaded the bolt and started to draw it back, her attention was caught by a bright flash as the sun reflected off the incoming blade. She paused in her loading, dodging rather easily to the side to avoid the knife. She threw Silencia a slightly confused look, having already seen the unicorn's impressive aim and was a little surprised at the easily avoided attack. Her eyes widened as she suddenly recalled Silencia's very first trick of distracting Mesa as the knives came in from the side, and she instantly spun around to see the second knife mere seconds away.

Reacting more out of desperate instinct than anything else, Mesa sought to position something, anything, between her and the sharp blade; clutching the handle of her crossbow with both hooves, she forcefully swung it downward as the knife streaked towards her. One of the bow's limbs smacked the top of the knife, only two or so feet away from Mesa, disrupting its straight line of flight and sending it downward. Quickly recovering from her surprise at her desperate trick actually working, Mesa suddenly dove after the knife. She beat her wings quickly as she neared the falling weapon, managing to reach it a short distance from the ground and grabbing it with her teeth. The sharp stinging on her tongue informed Mesa that it wasn't by the handle that she had caught the knife, but she ignored it as she fought to bring her body parallel to the ground before she landed on her face. She barely managed to get her legs under her, before she hit the ground with enough force to send splinters of pain shooting up through her hooves and into her legs.

A sizable cloud of dust rose at Mesa's less-than-graceful landing, briefly concealing her movements as she tossed the knife upward and caught it again, this time by its much less painful handle. The dust started to settle as she saw Silencia sprinting towards her, and without hesitation, Mesa lowered her head and clenched her teeth to tighten her hold on the stolen knife, then charged straight towards her opponent.

Mesa only had a moment to compute Silencia’s apparent pain before she was blinded. Immediately dropping to the ground from her low fight, Mesa skidded a few feet, kicking up dirt as she flared out her wings to stop herself. She immediately spun back around in time to see Silencia starting to gather up her knives. Mesa started to feel a tiny bit of frustration. She had little practice in fighting against unicorns, and she kept forgetting her opponent’s advantage. Well, if she wants to play like that, fine. If she’s going to make use of her natural skill set, I will too, Mesa thought, abandoning her previous strategy of maximizing the show for the onlookers. Any extra points I get for it aren’t worth the pain of being stabbed.

She shot back up in the sky, coming to a hover several feet above the ground and a little in front of Silencia. Twisting in the air, a tad awkwardly, she drew her long knife from her sheath and held it tightly in her teeth. Then she went into a steep dive, her intention apparently being to dive bomb the unicorn and go for the kill, figurative speaking, regardless of the other mare's three blades. But at the very last possible second, she wrenched herself upward, her wings crying out in pain as she pulled out of the dive almost impossibly fast. At the same instant, she gathered all of her strength in her back legs and kicked out as hard she could, aiming for the base of Silencia’s horn. It was a dirty trick, but Mesa knew her chances of winning the match would increase significantly if she could disable the other mare’s magic, even just for a short time.