Amaro rushed forward, but Tadios was ready for him. He sidestepped Amaro’s charging strike,
“Kidney punch!” He yelled before jabbing Amaro’s kidney. Amaro felt intense pain shoot across his body, and he was once again doubled over. He punched the ground, trying to stand before Tadios grabbed his horn and kneed his temple.
SNAP!
“I can see why you didn’t wanna fight me before. You’re lazy. You’ve relied on your natural talent so much you put in almost no effort to using your head. Doesn’t matter how fast you are if I know what you’re gonna do before you do it.” Tadios raised Amaro’s horn to deflect an incoming strike from Anitus’s greatsword.
“Wh- How did you- Mpff!”
Tadios grabbed him by the mouth and slammed him into the dirt, “That’s for usin’ weapons in a fist fight, idiot. Settle this with your hands like a real warrior, or snap your own horns off.”
“I must say, Tadios. You’ve grown substantially in these past few weeks-” Deka started, only to narrowly duck an incoming fireball from Tadios.
“I aint lettin’ you buy time with talkin’.” Tadios said, having already closed the distance between them.
Deka grinned, “A worthy opponent indeed.”
Anitus and Amaro picked themselves up, rushing in to crowd Tadios between them. It was not that there was a substantial gap in power between them. It was that Tadios had a battle sense beyond their own.
While the three of them each landed hits which had to have hurt him, he pushed through them. Tadios had a seemingly unbreakable chin, but it was rare any of the three of them got a good enough hit in to test it.
Everytime Amaro landed, it felt like Tadios had softened the blow somehow. Whether it was by moving or raising his guard at the right time. No, it wasn’t just that. Even hits which landed felt as if they were slowed at the last possible second. Thanks to Kaara, neither him nor Anitus were fatigued or wounded, but nothing Amaro landed seemed to hurt as much as he thought it would.
Fire blinded him. He ducked out of instinct, narrowly avoiding a tail swipe. He raised his guard up as a kick slammed into his arms. Amaro could feel his instincts taking over now. Tadios had put him off balance from the first punch, but now that the three of them were crowded around him the tides were starting to turn.
Deka sent lightning through him, but Tadios jammed his tail into the ground to dampen the spell’s damage.
As Anitus charged in from behind, Tadios used his grounded tail to fling mud in his eyes. Amaro took his chance to land an overhand to his ribs, sending another shock through his body. Tadios stumbled and Anitus capitalized, kicking his legs out from under him and sending him crashing to the ground.
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Deka sent a brutal ax kick to his ribs, but Tadios grabbed it and put him in a leg lock that put Deka on his back.
Anitus and Amaro lurched forward to continue kicking. Tadios spat a fireball from his mouth at Amaro and ate a kick from Anitus.
Tadios bridged his body to snap Deka’s leg, but Deka managed to slip out of the submission. Tadios abandoned the grapple, posting his hand to the ground and sending a kick up into Anitus’s jaw.
Anitus crumpled to the ground, regaining consciousness just in time to scramble to his knees and have it taken again by Tadios’s shin bone.
Before Tadios could break his horns, Amaro tackled him. Tadios sprawled out, hooking uppercut after uppercut into Amaro’s nose until he had to hide his face elsewhere, only for his other fist to find it again. Amaro was pancaked under Tadios’s weight, but Deka had the opportunity to land his shots. Tadios backed off, cutting Deka’s pursuit with a white blast of fire. Anitus picked himself up, walking Tadios down with his guard up.
Anitus slipped a hook and sent an uppercut into Tadios’s jaw. Deka swept through with speed he had not yet shown, slamming his elbow into Tadios’ head and opening up a wound over his eye. As Tadios raised his guard, Amaro broke through it with another blast of lightning.
Anitus took advantage of the opening, sending an overhand straight down the center of his guard. Tadios was on his heel, having to brace on his tail to stay standing.
The three kept up their pressure, bouncing Tadios from one strike to the other as he turtled up. Their hits were starting to get through now, but he was still dangerous. Amaro narrowly avoided another counter punch, a wound opening up on his cheek.
“That spell of yours is starting to take its toll isn’t it?” Deka said in between strikes, pushing Tadios back with a front kick.
Tadios said nothing, by this point half of his face was caked in his own blood from the cut on his brow. The flame between his horns was smaller than before, and his face had been bruised badly. Amaro closed in, feinting to the head, and hooking to the body. Anitus cracked a kick to the back of his thigh.
Just as Tadios stepped to throw a counter punch, Anitus snapped his fingers. An explosion on the back of his leg sent him stumbling forward into a flying knee from Deka.
Tadios growled like an animal and hugged Deka’s leg. Deka grabbed his horn.
SNAP!
“There’s one!” He mused as if he was savoring the moment.
Tadios tripped him to the ground, only to be blindsided by a hook from Anitus.
Amaro kicked his thigh as Anitus grabbed for his other horn. Tadios caught his wrist, and pried it off, slipping behind Anitus and suplexing him into the parched soil below.
Before Amaro could rush him, he heard something big charge him from behind. He moved out of the way, feeling the jaws of a bat drake snap closed only centimeters from his arm. The beast snarled, getting up on its hind legs, and grappling Amaro like a bear. It snarled in his face, but Deka blasted it away with lightning.
“How unsportsmanlike,” he said.
Tadios recovered to his feet, huffing and puffing as his arms shook to keep his guard up. The beast let out a rattling hiss at them, wary of their magic.
As Anitus approached, a bolt of ice shattered over his skull. Cloaked in shimmering white fur was a girl with a white feathered tail staring daggers at them.
“So it seems the noxa have come to interrupt us,” Anitus said stalking forward, “And we were just about to win too.”
“On the contrary, we’ve already won.” Deka said, extending his hand out to Tadios, “You’ve fought well, but I think it’s time I show you just how much I’ve had to hold back to keep this fight entertaining.”