Mark cracked his fist across the jaw of a woman and the woman went down, into the sands of the arena. She did not get up, but she was still breathing so it was fine.

Mark focused inward, and on the woman, the pulse of his Union thrumming through his heartbeat, into the world, into the air, and latching on to the woman’s body. A few heartbeats later his own jaw cracked as his bones suddenly set correctly, a spike of pain briefly ripping through his teeth. He spat out a tooth as he looked at the woman on the ground. The woman breathed hard, with Mark, and then she breathed easy. Her eyes opened. She blinked a few times and Mark pulled his healing back, the veins in his skin and in the air fading inward.

The woman sat up. With her hands in the sand and a quizzical look to her face, she looked up at Mark. “I lost?”

“I rattled your brain, I think,” Mark said, “You almost had me there with that knife kick.”

The woman sighed. “Almost isn’t good enough…” She looked at her arms and she touched her chest. “How long was I out?”

“Just 10 seconds,” Mark said.

This was Mark’s fourth fight of the day, and he was getting a lot better at all aspects of this Union-thing; from healing others to ensuring he was protected. This win put him on track to enter the middle-field of the arena, but he was not going to win his next fight; he could already tell. Those were B’s up there, and they were hitting each other hard.

The woman Mark had just fought had some sort of ‘knife body’ going on, allowing her to cut Mark deeply with every attack, but Mark just healed the damage and blunted further damage. It was, perhaps, the only match up that Mark could hope to win against the people further up the field.

The woman said, “I’m glad I asked you to go harder, then.” And then she simply sat there and closed her eyes to… well, it looked like she was meditating.

Mark turned his attentions to the other spars…

Ah.

He saw who his next opponent was going to be.

Isoko, from yesterday, was just south of him. She had already finished her bout and she was looking his way. Upon meeting the silver woman’s eyes, she waved a little.

… Mark decided he was going to ask her to Etiquette Class.

Was that a good idea?

Maybe not.

Did he know anything about the woman at all?

No. But she knew about him, probably. This was true for almost everyone, though.

Was he really doing this?

Yes.

Soon, Badger called out for people to end their fights and move on to the next.

Mark walked toward Isoko and she walked his way.

Mark instantly said, “I have Etiquette Class that starts at 11 am at the Clubhouse. I need to bring someone with me today. Want to go?”

Isoko nodded, then said, “You will use offensive Union on me, and then I will do this trade.”

Mark expected that, which is why he had spoken so quickly; he had needed to be the one on the attack, dictating the scenario, and then he could agree to the request he knew the woman was going to make. “Sure—” Sudden panic. “It’s not a date! … just so there is no confusion.”

Isoko grinned. “There is no confusion.”

They squared up.

Mark focused his Union, black lines tracing up from his mana veins into the air, while Isoko’s perpetually-grey skin shimmered all the way to platinum silver.

Mark had experimented with what he was about to do a little bit yesterday, after talking with Lola about Badaira and her observation that Mark would be good with offensive-based Union. He had tried it with some plants after that, and he achieved a few minor effects. He certainly didn’t explode any of them, which was an improvement.

Mark’s heart beat with the world and with Isoko, latching on to her. If she noticed, then she did not appear to notice.

And then Instructor Badger yelled out ‘Go’ and Mark instantly breathed in Isoko’s ‘good’, taking it into himself and depriving her of it, followed by giving her all of his own ‘bad’. She breathed in Mark’s exhale, and Mark wasn’t sure she noticed she was doing that; she certainly didn’t flinch at the stench, so he had done that right.

But then Isoko stepped forward and she almost fell on her face, her body not keeping up with her desired movement. Her grin turned manic as her eyes flashed full silver and her teeth gritted. She did not fall. She stood her ground, her skin turning radiant platinum under her basic brown clothes as she centered herself again.

And then she stopped breathing and Mark felt his Union break.

Darkness evaporated from Isoko’s skin like a discarded gloom. She stood up straight and said, “Good try. Need to be more subtle than that.”

Mark grinned. “I can do subtle.”

Isoko advanced, full platinum and practically glowing with power.

Mark fortified his body, his heart beating in resilience and expunging weakness into the world.

Isoko punched, and Mark batted her fist away, connecting to her heartbeat.

Mark took the good and gave Isoko the bad.

Isoko’s eyes fluttered as her head drooped and Mark tumbled her to the ground. She recovered enough in that tumble to roll out of it and stand up and away, but she did not break the Union. Mark had already broke the Union, having only used it when he needed to, and so that she couldn’t build defenses against it. She eyed Mark, wondering what he was doing. She stopped breathing for a moment, too, trying to understand what she was seeing. She walked left.

Mark walked right.

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They circled.

Mark built a Union on that circling, flowing in an unseen, unfelt flow, that only Mark could sense at all. He was ready to activate it how he needed to activate it, when he needed to activate it. His heart still beat black into the air.

Mark asked, “Just wondering, but you don’t smell anything bad when I do this, do you?

“… No. Why ask this?”

“Because it smelled like death when I didn’t know how to weave it back into the world. It’s a weakness of my own that I need to work on, to make it all more subtle—”

Mark took some of her ‘good’.

Isoko’s eyes blinked too long. She almost stumbled on a small drift of sand but she recovered. She smiled, and her silver sheen got bright again as she pushed Mark out. The Union broke. She grinned daggers at him, saying, “You are rather subtle. I would like to try a trick of my own.”

Mark saw himself walking in time with Isoko, matching her circling with his own circling. He waited to use that Union, if necessary.

“As long as it’s not lethal, then go ahead.”

Isoko nodded—

She came at him with a hand horizontal-flat and forward, like a knife, moving too fast to react. Her fingernails cut into Mark’s hip, for he had not managed to get away from the blow fast enough. Blood spurted and Mark recovered, fending off slashing, knife-like hands. Defending with his forearms was a bad idea. Wounds opened up and blood flowed.

Mark retreated and Isoko followed, their heartbeats linked but nothing was happening to Isoko; Mark was too focused on healing his own damage and fortifying his body so that Isoko couldn’t hurt him as much as she was. Taking her good wasn’t effective enough right now. It barely helped. Matching her breathing was a failure. Every time he did that she broke it on purpose. It was hard to fight with matching breath in the first place, because the dance of it all was so dependent on what you were doing and aiming for at any specific moment in the combat.

But Mark matched footsteps with Isoko, and that proved to be a game changer.

She stepped forward and he stepped back, and then he stepped one way and she followed, and then he stepped forward, feinting an attack, and she backed up when she should have advanced. It was the start of a different Union; one that allowed Mark to focus on the breathing again. Isoko turned dull, her eyes unfocusing as her hands dropped to her sides.

Mark went to sit down on the ground but Isoko sat down first, collapsing out of her control. Mark broke the Union and stayed upright. Isoko did not stay upright. She came back to herself as she sat on her ass, and then she just kinda stayed there, wondering at the world.

Mark had made her sit down.

Mark said, “I don’t think that’s a win for me.”

Isoko laughed. She stood back up, saying, “No. It is not.” She squared up again. “This is good training for me. I usually shrug off everything. Mindbenders included.”

“This isn’t mindbending at all,” Mark said. “It’s definitely a Natural Talent; Union.”

“Naturals are always the weaknesses of Brawnies. It is a weakness I must work on.”

And then she shot forward, brilliant platinum and eyes full of fun.

Mark had a hard time connecting to her again, but it was not nearly as one-sided of a beat down as it had been before.

At the called-out end of the round, Mark sat down, saying, “Your win. You know where the Clubhouse is, yes? Don’t be late. I’ll be waiting at the tram stop by the Clubhouse at 10 minutes to 11.”

Isoko grinned. “I will not be late. I have heard they have good food there.”

“Some of the best! And it’s free.”

Isoko chuckled. “The best price!”

Isoko walked on to her next bout against some other winner.

Mark went to his spar with some other loser.

He fought a morpher this time and he got his ass absolutely handed to him. The guy fought with whips of flesh and bone and punches that became pillars of bone held together by flesh and kicks that rotated like giant bones, used as clubs. Mark tried to connect to him with Union, just to see if he could use his actual, real power at all, and found nothing to connect to. He certainly didn’t try to harm the guy, or heal him; that would have been a violation. Isoko had asked for it, but this guy had not.

Mark accepted the loss when a slice across the abdomen threatened to spill his guts out onto the floor.

It was a good fight, though.

“Good fight,” Mark said, as some teeth regrew for the third time that day and he held his stomach in. Within seconds the pain was gone and his flesh regrew into the correct format. His clothes were fucked up, though, and the pain of injury was never a nice thing to know, but it did pass fast. He muttered, “Fuck that hurts.”

The guy reassembled himself, though it took him a moment. Eventually he was a person again with bright red hair and freckles and a smile. He had a strange accent that Mark could not place. “Yes! Good fight. You are tough!”

Mark smiled. “You’re tougher.” He asked, “Do you even have lungs right now?”

“I do not! All internal organs are mush! I am Ulrick! Weird Body is my Skill.”

“All your organs are mush? … How are you alive right now?” Mark added, “I’m Mark.”

“I do not know! I just am. If I wasn’t told not to do it, I would show you how I can cut myself in half and then survive and grow back to full! It is a funky Skill.” Ulrick admitted, “Separating into piles makes a mess.”

Mark was dumbfounded.

Ulrick had said ‘it leaves a mess’, like that was the only thing wrong with the Talent. It was a fucked up Talent that made him look like a monster. But he obviously wasn’t a monster. Mark hoped the guy didn’t get mistaken out in the wild; friendly fire could be a real problem.

Also, he was saying ‘Skill’ all capitalized-like, too. Mark wasn’t sure which cultures did that, but maybe… Australian? Or maybe Antarctican? Somewhere down there by the Southern Pole, at the southern entrance to Endless Daihoon. That would explain the Weird Body, too. Ulrick was practically Daihoonian if he grew up down there.

Mark said, “That’s an impressive… Skill? Daihoonian?”

“Yes! My parents from there… Err. It is ‘Talent’, not ‘Skill’, isn’t it? I’m still learn English.”

“I think everyone would understand the meaning anyway. I’m still learning Xerkonan myself.”

Ulrick’s face morphed into extreme joy. It was uncanny and disturbing, and then he started speaking way too fast for Mark to keep up at all. The only words Mark caught were something about dragons and killing them and how Ulrick finally recognized Mark.

Mark was glad for being unable to understand much of that, so when Ulrick finished Mark said, “I didn't understand most of that, but I think I got the gist of it. Uh… Death to all monsters.”

Ulrick grinned. “Yes! Death to all monsters! It was nice to meet you, Mark! Good luck!”

Instructor Badger must have called a switch, because everyone was moving around.

Mark went further east, toward the entrance and away from the S ranks, to find another person to fight.

He lost his next fight to another Giant Strength guy, just like Escobar from yesterday.

Mark wondered at Grand Healer Badaira’s words. It wouldn’t be long till he just couldn’t keep up with the brawnies. Heck! He couldn’t keep up with most of them already. Ulrick would have wiped the floor with him in a real fight, and Isoka was almost there herself. Any of the Giant Strength guys were way out of Mark’s ability to reach, and they’d only get further beyond him soon enough.

… Brawny wasn’t his goal in life, anyway.

It was still fun to fight, though. He could keep fighting all day, and never tire of it. This was fun.

… Mark would stop when he couldn’t actually advance in skill, or when the blows taken from an errant strike threatened to truly injure him. He could make it at least a week, though.

His current set of clothes was done for, though. Shredded, parts missing, blood everywhere… though not as much as usual.

Some of the blood was flaking away.

Was someone using that cleaning Union that Lola used sometimes?

Probably.