Sam could see Janik’s expression reacting to something, not considering that the reaction was to Sam’s expression. All the weapons he had picked up were floating around him and his mind was racing with options and thoughts on how to beat his enemy. He knew that his weapons couldn’t do much against him, perhaps hurt or bring him pain but that was it. There was no dirt, water, fire, or secondary he could use to fight. A brief idea of forcing a wooden dagger into his mouth and throat, to restrict his breathing flashed in his mind but he managed to remove that from his mind.
Suddenly realizing what he was doing, Sam managed to put this side of himself away. He was considering ways to kill Janik. That wasn’t what he was after, no, this was training and testing amongst friends, there was no need to react that dramatically. He just needed to bonk him with the dull wooden training weapons.
This calmed his mind down considerably. Sam realised that his mind had gone into murder mode, the island might not have left his subconscious yet as every fight there was for his life. He even had to kill in creative ways which... was a horrible sentence if you considered it. This was just sparring, he didn’t need to go that far.
Then Janik started moving.
As Janik started moving towards Sam, swords in hand and aiming for an attack, the tunnel vision returned, almost like a switch flipped all the self-persuasion to stop thinking about this as a real-life or death situation faded. He stopped thinking about anything positive, not even properly considering that he was using training weapons, and his survival instinct kicked back in. The only thing that mattered was to take him out before he came within attack range, but what options did he have?
All his weapons couldn’t make it through his armour, he knew his Defence rating and his weapons wouldn’t make it through that, not in any practical way. He felt his pulse rise dramatically and a fear for his life washed over him.
He needed better weapons, an angle he hadn’t considered, he needed more power.
Then it clicked, he had more power!
Triggering the Telekinetic Boost, a timer popped up in the corner of his view.
[ Time remaining: 29 / 29 seconds ]
Dropping all his weapons and moving his Psyhands over to Janik, all his hands were on the man before the training weapons landed on the floor. His opponent reacted as one normally would as a group of hands grabbed them, but he also knew about it so it didn’t seem to change the plans to attack Sam.
Janik rose off the ground and lost traction in his steps, starting to struggle he used his swords to try and swat the invisible hands of his body. Sam wanted to attack, but all his Psyhands were busy, and Force Launch needed free energy. Despawning enough hands to get the four Energy needed to trigger Force Launch Janik remained in the air, still having plenty of hands to keep him lifted.
[ Time remaining: 27 / 29 seconds ]
Sam triggered Force Launch.
[ Time remaining: 22 / 29 seconds ]
The pulses of the collective swarm of Psyhands collected into a single wave of energy that, in a split second focused on Janik’s body. As if he were a projectile to be thrown he was launched backwards at great speed, flying several meters before his arc even began to drop, hitting the opposing wall with great force before falling to the ground like a limp doll. His swords were dropped from the initial pulse as he was thrown and the sudden G-forces of this even knocked several of his knicknacks off. The expected sickening cracking and squelching sound of him hitting the wall was luckily replaced with the dull thump of an external force catching him instead, it looked like it hurt, a lot, but it didn’t break him like a solid wall would have.
Janik started coughing as he forced himself to sit up, this snapped Sam out of it, bringing him back to the reality of what was going on.
“Oh, fuck. No... Sorry, I didn’t mean to... are... are you ok?” Realizing that he just lethally attacked his friend in a sparring match, he slowly realised what was going on in his mind.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Sam...” Janik commented through coughing as he slowly got himself back on his feet. “I know you wanted to win but you don’t need to actually kill me.” Emphasizing the word ‘actually’, he made it clear that this was not what he expected.
“I’m sorry... I don’t know what happened... I just...” Before Sam could try to find the words to complete his sentence, Janik broke in.
“I think I know what happened...” As he spoke and walked towards Sam, not having a hint of anger or annoyance on his face, only a supportive smile. “I think the shit happening to you on the island took over... Calm down, you’re safe here, I’m not an enemy so don’t worry.”
Almost like calming Sam down, as if he were an angry dog, Janik slowly walked over to him and placed his hand on Sam’s shoulder. “You’ve been through a lot, so don’t worry. It’ll be fine.”
As strange as this scene was, it did calm Sam down. It gave him the presence of mind to analyse what happened, replaying the scene from his side and looking into what happened. And Janik might be right. First now, in a weird third-person analysis of what he was doing, what he was feeling, he realised that as soon as Janik started his attack, his mind stopped identifying him as a friend. He had only been on the island for about a week, not even fighting every day, but the fights there had done something to his mind.
Not considering the people who attacked him as actual people, just opponents to be taken care of, he classified Janik as the same, just an opponent to beat, and the fastest way to beat someone is to kill them...
“I can see it on your face.” Janik continued, patting Sam on the shoulder as he spoke. “Don’t worry about it. I picked this room because I was afraid that your girl was going to cream me into a wall when we fought. So it has damage dampening, it hurt like fuck, don’t get me wrong, but I didn’t take any actual damage from it.” He smiled through the whole explanation.
“Why don’t you take a minute to relax, I can fight her in the meantime.” Nodding towards Dia as he referred to her.
Sam nodded, it was not a bad idea for him to take a moment to analyse this. Though it was clear what had happened.
Sitting down against a nearby wall, he hovered all the training weapons back on the rack. At the same time, Janik went back to pick up his stuff, the various pins and stuff that flew off his vest took a moment to be put back in their place before he picked up the swords and walked back to Dia.
“Sooo... You want to fight me?” Janik tried asking the short Beastfolk.
Dia turned to Sam with a questioning look. "Sa. Var garn shan?”
Sam had no idea what that meant, she was asking Sam if She... something... He lifted his palm and punched it with his other hand. “Kra.”
He knew the word for Punch, and she seemed clever enough to get how this worked. At worst, she seemed to at least listen to him when he stopped her doing something.
Elara took this moment to slither down to the ground and move over to Sam, climbing his sitting body and coiling around his neck as normal.
Dia nodded at the command to punch and took a stance as she turned towards Janik.
“Zar kru var kra lin. Var garn.”
Janik shook his head, he clearly had no idea what she said, but he seemed to like what was going on and after taking a few steps away from her, he took his stance.
Not waiting for any words or triggers, Dia took the first action. Swiftly stepping in she closed the distance between them, delivering a flurry of attacks, however, Janik was fast enough to parry them. With each punch and each kick, Janik managed to swing his swords in just the right way and redirect the force away from his body.
However, this didn’t give him a chance to attack, using all of his focus to parry, and since he had only two arms he had to parry her four limbs. This also meant that she didn’t manage to land any hits, so they were at a stalemate.
Dia changed things up, suddenly changing everything she lounged out with a bite, it landed on his left arm and hand Janik punched her to get her to let go before he made some distance. Both of them were breathing heavier than before but looked fine, even the bite didn’t seem to do any proper damage. Checking Dia’s info the bite would cause 63 damage, Janik’s Defence rating was 64, so he would just be fine.
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Janik stepped in, going on the offence this time. The first hit landed but the following ones missed as she went back into her martial arts, parrying with surprising mastery. Suddenly Dia took a step backwards and made a swift spin, Janik smirked as he dodged it with surprising ease before taking a step closer delivering a kick of his own. Janik’s kick landed first, causing the much lighter Dia to be sent off her feet, tumbling onto the floor behind her. In the tumbling motion, she found traction and charged at Janik on all four legs, pouncing on him as she got close. Janik seemed to have planned for this and rather than dodging or stepping away he simply lifted both his swords and pointed towards her. With her straight-ahead momentum, there was little she could do but crash into the two swords.
As the swords were wooden and dull, this probably hurt but she had taken no actual damage, remembering from earlier inspection they had a damage rating of 0, most likely just for this purpose.
She got back on her feet and they continued their assault. The longer the fight dragged on the more Janik started landing hits. It was made clear that they were equally matched on paper, but Janik’s experience gave him the needed edge.
In the end, after gaining a few steps of distance between each other, Janik calmed down and exited his fighting stance. Both of them were breathing heavily after the workout.
“I think we’re done.” He commented towards Sam more than towards Dia.
Sam understood that, since she didn’t, it was probably a good idea that Sam called her out of combat, just in case.
“Dia.” His voice was firm but not angry or negative.
Dia hesitantly looked towards him, not wanting to look away from her opponent. But as her eyes met with Sam’s he smiled as he patted the floor next to him, hinting for her to sit down.
“Come.”
All hints of combat and aggression faded, she fell to her four legs and ran over to sit down, snuggling up against Sam. Still breathing heavily her breath carried a purr as she rubbed up against him.
Janik laughed as he took the training swords over to the rack. “If nothing else, it’s clear that she likes you.”
“Well... I could have told you that.” Sam commented back snarkily. It was more meant as a joke to carry the conversation than an actual statement.
“She’s also pretty good at fighting for a Beastfolk. I don’t have any idea where she learned to fight like that... that kind of fighting is not normal for Beastfolk. The moment she bit me was more what I expected, but structured martial arts... first time I’ve seen that.” Almost sounding like he was giving a report of his findings to Sam, he continued his explanation. “She lacks experience fighting Players, which makes sense as she’d probably be dead if she fought us regularly, but besides that, she’s incredibly skilled for being... untrained?”
The tone at the end of his statement explained that Janik wasn’t sure if he should consider her trained or not. As he mentioned that her martial arts being uncommon as well it hinted at a paradox of being untrained and lacking experience, while also almost managing to keep up with an experienced Player.
“So, she should just fight more and she’ll get better?” Sam asked the obvious.
“Well... yes... Based on the explanation you gave me yesterday, she levelled while on the island with you, so she’ll probably passively grow in power as you do, but actual experience can never be underestimated. And that kick of hers, it’s very easy to see through, especially if you know about it. In actual combat, it takes longer than you’d think, and she’s strangely wobbly and slow after it. She needs to learn when to use it... because when it lands, it’s devastating...” Rubbing his chin a bit when he mentioned the devastating nature of the kick, it was clear that he was thinking back to it.
“Come to think of it-” Janik’s gaze snapped to Sam as if he just remembered something. “Can you have her kick me with it in here? I want to try and block it.”
Sam shook his head. “There is an hour cooldown on it, and since she just used it...”
“An hour?” Janik let out a single chuckle. “That’s harsh, but then again, used correctly it can be... absurd. If you find a way to time it with something that increases critical chance... As I said before, even with my armour a critical hit from that would kill me.”
Janik looked super serious as he explained that.
Taking that to heart, Sam was considering her Spin Kick a bit more, according to the math it does double normal Kick damage, which was 50, so 100 normally. That alone was amazing, even higher than a critical hit from the Moonblade, but on a critical hit, it would do 200 damage. He would need to find a way to give her a higher critical chance, perhaps an active ability that could trigger that on one attack or something.
During this whole moment, Dia didn’t pay attention to their talk and just sat against Sam like the dressed-up canine she was. It did, however, make Sam realize that she didn’t have many problems moving around in the dress, it was probably the better clothing for her, save something like a bikini or something that didn’t restrict anything.
Though he had some time to think about his own behaviour during their fight, it was somewhat pushed back to secondary brainpower. But it had still been enough for him to get a grasp on what went on in his mind. Though his time on the island was short, the life or death situation, as well as the ease he killed people there, had awakened a super logical view on fighting. The goal was to win or survive. When he sparred with Janik, this survival instinct took over and branded him an enemy. Though good from a survival angle, it wasn’t good for... friendly sparring.
Janik came over to the couple sitting on the floor and crouched down. “I can spar with her to give her some experience, that was fun so that’s fine. But you... you need to work out a few things...” He was smiling even though his words had a heavier weight.
“Yeah... I think I know what’s going on, the shit the System has put me through lately... I just saw you as an enemy to beat or survive, so something in my mind just wanted you gone...” Just being honest often seemed like the best idea, especially with friends.
“Yeah, I thought something like that was the case. And to be honest, it’s not a bad instinct, it just makes sparring and friendly combat a bit... problematic.” Janik’s smile had curled into an honest expression. “But, if nothing else, I can say for sure that... that tactic of yours will be devastating.”
Sam had to agree, seeing it in action. Though Defence rating absorbed damage, falling off cliffs, being thrown into walls, pain and problems like that aren’t affected by Defence. This is why he could take out the men on the island with sand, or fire. Being thrown into a wall like that would probably knock the air out of someone. And being lifted, or thrown up, to crash into the ground would work very well.
Sitting down on the floor in front of Sam, they spent some time talking about this. And it felt surprisingly nice having someone as supportive as Janik in his life. He was almost envious of the kids he was taking care of. But he was still getting fatherly advice like this though he was ‘just’ his friend.
Janik might be a bit odd, but he was a good man.
Their talk let Sam self-analyse a bit more, it wasn’t as much a therapy session as it was someone who understood combat and what certain situations could do to you. Sam thought back to when they fought the first Players, Janik had no problems with the thought of killing them. And the way he spoke about things in how combat or certain situations can change you, felt more close to his heart than just reading about it would do. It was clear to Sam that Janik had seen his share of shit. But he chose not to dive into that.
Deciding that Dia could spar with Janik when she wanted was a good idea, giving them both some training. And he was fine fighting Sam wheneer but Sam needed to get control over that murder side of himself. It was good to have in actual life-or-death scenarios, but they weren’t going to enter PvP all the time, so it might be a good idea to calm down that side of him.
“In other news, while you were gone, I discovered something new and interesting that you might like... Or rather, Ethan came to me with a good question I decided to test out.” Janik smiled widely.
“And what is that?” Sam asked almost suspicious of his way of wording that.
Janik’s smile widened.
“We have found a way to help you get through Defence, even with daggers.”