Watching Lira’s fights was enthralling. The dedication to practice she had shown over the past month was evident in her form throughout. While she still tried to use her nimbleness and more flashy moves than either Lysa or Martinez would use, she had leaned on solid attacks that were tried and true, leaving little options for her opponents to attack her.

But Lysa could not celebrate her friend's attempt at victory at the moment, the two other fighters in the ultra-heavyweight division had to be her focus. Unlike her, the two she would have to fight looked like they genuinely belonged in the division.

One of them was the jet-black Varintol woman from the locker room. She was a genuine beast in her own right, standing nearly two and a half meters tall and almost as wide. She wore a bright orange top and shorts, both just large enough to cover the woman's modesty, and practically screaming as her squashy build almost ripped the seams open.

The other one, Lysa was unfamiliar with his species, but like several of the students in the dojo, he was an insectoid. His yellowish gold carapace shimmered in the bright overhead lights almost blindingly. He was incredibly swift despite being taller than the Varintol by a solid meter.

The division running the competition had decided that weight was the only way to make the competition fair. Yet, having someone like him, who could not only reach farther but was covered in spines that had to be capped by padding lest someone impale themselves, and was born with an essentially bulletproof carapace, hardly seemed proper—since she was unable to use the one thing Aveix had as a natural weapon: their teeth and jaws.

At least the Varintol also had to follow that rule, having her bone-crushing maw and knife-like claws off the table for options. The last thing Lysa wanted was for her to get cut by them. However, because of that limit, the Varintol was essentially trying to slap the insect into submission.

They were brawling wildly, fighting in unique ways that fell within strategies to aid them. The Varintol was surprisingly nimble despite weighing easily two hundred and fifty kilograms. Meanwhile, the far taller and long-ranged insectoid alien did his best to stay out of her grasp and keep scoring points with quick punches and kicks.

It was a fair strategy because if that woman grabbed him, she could smother him into a knockout and could do the same come Lysa’s match.

While Lysa watched she attempted to craft a strategy to win against either of them. Keeping distance and kicking was definitely how she had to win against the Varintol, for the same reason as her current opponent.

“What would you propose I do about the man?” Lysa questioned, nervously fidgeting, unable to devise a viable plan independently.

“I’m not certain,” Martinez replied, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees.

“You definitely could press in on them. That seems to be what that Varintol is failing to do,” Ivorn commented.

“I could see that as an option for Lysa. She is definitely faster than the Varintol. But the trouble is that other Alien’s reach,” Martinez replied before pausing for a few moments and pulling out his datapad. “What species is he, Ivorn?”

“He is a Burtex, likely from their warrior cast. Hence the tall figure, and all the spines,” Ivorn said after a few moments, thinking through the thousands of species names and descriptions he had put to memory over the last ten standard years. “Either that or nobility. They are also extremely tall compared to the workers, but he is not burly enough to be a hive guard. Why?”

“I figured we might be able to look up some data on them and use it to our advantage. We have all their medical information after all,” Martinez said, opening the Burtex medical information.

“Isn’t that a bit unfair?” Ivorn commented.

Ivorn did point out that Martinez's actions might be considered unfair by others. Still, there were no rules against researching your opponent's anatomy and capitalizing on any built-in weaknesses.

The years Martinez spent in combat taught him that any point in the enemy's anatomy or defenses that could be leveraged should be. While this time, there are no lives on the line, Martinez would find something to stack the deck in Lysa’s favor—entering a fair fight is something only idiots do anyway.

“Meh, they are already doing it. We just are planning ahead,” Martinez shrugged before returning to the datapad.

All of the effort Martinez put into finding any form of weakness they could exploit in anatomy was not wholly useless. Still, it did allay any nervousness boiling in Lysa’s chest, buzzing in her breast like hundreds of angry hornets.

Her Ruh'ah had given her a simple plan for the Varintol. The woman, who, before their fight began, Lysa had learned was named Perla, had similar weaknesses to Lysa and Martinez just based on their all having mammalian anatomy: prone to being gassed out, having the same vitals, and having identical points that would drive her to the ground, even if she was far more sturdy.

They had to strategize about the woman being thrice Lysa’s weight and being a tundra-adapted version of the species, not the variant built for the steppes, mountains, arboreal, or equatorial deserts.

Those variants of the species were far leaner and more analogous to Lysa and Martinez: lean, dense muscle, high oxygen efficiency, and the ability to endure for astronomical amounts of time in a fight. On the other hand, the tundra variation, when temperatures were not usually any higher than zero degrees, was prone to overheating and could be drawn out due to their generally more aggressive demeanor.

Lysa just had to wear the woman down, strike from a safe distance, and keep Perla from grabbing her. Physics was still in effect, and the arctic Varintol could easily crush Lysa when all two to three hundred kilograms of fur, fat, and muscle were laid out atop her. That was an end state they had to avoid; it would be a sure victory for Perla if it came to that.

“Just don’t forget the plan, Ruh'ah,” Martinez said calmly while double-checking Lysa’s gloves.

“I shan't,” Lysa nodded, gnawing on her mouthguard.

“Make sure you tap out if you are feeling hurt. This is still just a competition,” Ivorn interjected.

Lysa nodded her understanding. She does wish to win and get a picture of her with a medal in Teacher’s dojo, but that does not mean she wants to be seriously injured during this. Martinez had explained to her and Lira over the last month that this was not a title fight. No money is riding on this; She just had to do her best.

After short words of encouragement from Martinez and Ivorn and nods from the rest of the team, Lysa stepped onto the mats and took a deep breath to try to steady herself in front of her lumbering opponent.

Being close to Perla did not hold a candle to how intimidating the Varintol was from a distance. She was gargantuan. Muscle, fat, and fur all offered her safety in a fight. Lysa felt almost naked before her inspecting red-eyed gaze.

However, Perla was in no way what Lysa had expected.

Based on the previous fight, Perla was quiet and highly focused on the task at hand. Now, the black-furred Varintol had a bubbly smile and offered Lysa a glove to bump without any hesitation.

Calling what Perla wore mixed martial arts gloves did not quite encapsulate what they were. They looked somewhat like gauntlets you would wear with traditional armor, but they had increased padding on all sides and fully encapsulated her fingers to keep her sharp claws from being a danger.

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“Hey, I hope we have fun today,” Perla smiled, showing off her fangs in a wide beaming grin. “This is my first competition. I hope you go easy on me. That last guy was no fun.”

Perla caught Lysa entirely off guard with the offer and her general demeanor and appearance; neither matched what she was expecting.

Lysa had never considered fighting other than as a means of defense. It was simply a vital matter of survival for most Aveix to treat martial practices that way. She had never considered anything else since she and Martinez had been practicing and plotting before this. Wasn’t this meant to be a somewhat violent altercation?

At the same time, if this Varintol held no contempt for Lysa or other Aveix on sight, like so many who had since the moment Lysa drew breath. And since Lysa had no intention of being anything but cordial and returning the courtesies, treating the match as just some friendly sparring was also somewhat liberating for Lysa. Perhaps Lysa had been treating a friendly bout as a bit too vital to her survival?

“It is my first competition as well,” Lysa replied, gently bumping gloves with Perla. “I pray you extend the same courtesy. Let’s try to have fun, but I’m afraid I still wish to win.”

“Same here,” Perla replied, stepping back, raising her gloves, and assuming a tight stance.

Lysa backed up and did the same, waiting for the referee to signal the beginning. Peering over her fingerless gloves at Perla, the need for her strategy was all the more evident. It was like staring at a pair of trees guarding a boulder of fur.

“Begin!” The referee announced, giving the pair a wide berth, a reason evident from Perla’s last fight against the man in their bracket.

Perla, true to her bearish nature, was immediately aggressive, putting Lysa on the back foot. She opened with a barrage of mocked claw strikes that, despite her weight, were blindingly fast.

Doing her best and showing her skill, Lysa dodged each one gracefully and quickly, moving her head, bobbing and weaving under and around each attack. Perla’s gauntleted hands only missed Lysa’s head and shoulders by a few centimeters, flicking at trailing raven hair.

Lysa broke off the initial engagement by leaping backward, bouncing on her toes, and keeping her arms and upper body in constant motion. She did all she could to keep Perla from predicting a potential retaliation.

“Great head movement,” Perla extolled while cautiously closing the gap.

“I appreciate the praise,” Lysa smiled.

Perla opened up with another series of the same style of strikes, and Lysa continued to do the same, keeping herself just outside of the attack's range. If the attacks were tighter and coming from the front, they would be difficult to avoid, but because they needed so much wind-up and came out like a hook with nothing to feint first, it was a simple duck and weave to avoid.

Teacher had forced Lysa and Feinel to practice dodging far tighter strikes than this in Roilan martial arts daily. But the strikes were like this because Perla used a traditional form of fighting for the Varintol, capitalizing on their claws. It was optimized for attacking animals or other Varintol, built to rip through armor and thick layers of fat. But Lysa would not know this until after the competition.

Lysa led Perla around the fighting area outlined on the mats, focusing on her main strikes, rhythm, and occasional punches. After a lap or two, Lysa started getting the feel and picked up on the part of Perla's martial art skills that was lacking; it lacked defense low and offered massive openings to her enormous frame when the Varintol's retraction lingered.

It was just as Martinez had told her. Arctic Varintol were fast relative to their girth, but a well-trained Human or Aveix could easily beat them out in speed.

“Come on, Lysa, you have to get some points,” Martinez commented as they passed. “Get in there.”

“I understand Ruh'ah,” Lysa replied through a sharp inhale, trying to control her breathing while jerking her head back to avoid another strike.

After a few more dodges, Lysa had finally spotted her opening for a powerful retaliation. Stepping to the side and letting Perla’s glove travel through her trailing raven hair, Lysa loaded her legs and exploded upward, launching her padded foot into the side of Perla’s head.

To the Varintol woman's credit, she attempted to step back to dodge, but the tips of Lysa’s foot collided with her jaw with a dull thud. It felt like Lysa had just kicked a brick wall, the shock of the impact rocking one as much as the other.

“Woah,” Perla snorted, stepping back and shaking the fog from her head. “I was wondering if you were going to start attacking back.”

“I just had to get a gauge on you, is all,” Lysa responded.

“Smart, my teacher recommends a lot of the same, but that's no fun,” Perla replied, gesturing at another Varintol behind her. His arms crossed and a smirk on his face. “I wanna as the GU lads back home say, ‘Get stuck in.’’’

That comment caught Martinez’s attention. He had only ever heard that turn of phrase from Humans in the military. Some GU military guys had picked it up, but they were few and far between. Who did she know where that was part of her lexicon?

“Shall we continue? We should attempt to not disappoint either of our teachers,” Lysa replied, gesturing toward Teacher in the crowd. The goblin-esc woman was already yelling at Lysa to stop chatting with her and keep hitting her.

Instead of a verbal response, Perla just stepped forward and attempted to throw a straight punch into Lysa’s head; in response, Lysa raised her front leg and drove it into Perla’s plushy stomach, stopping her forward momentum, and performing a flawless Teep.

Pressing the attack, Lysa dropped her foot and exchanged blows with Perla. Most of the time, she avoided any of the Vartintols' attacks, but a few sneaked through her guard, hitting her like a brick.

Such was the nature of fighting in the blender.

Martinez had warned Lysa against being that close to Perla or anyone for that matter. But Lysa seemed to have failed to follow one of the critical parts of their strategy: to avoid being pulled into a direct threat. It happens to the best fighters from time to time.

Because Lysa was relatively inexperienced compared to Martinez. He could only encourage her to get out of that range before it was too late. But Perla and Lysa were both caught up in enjoying the fight.

They were laughing, bantering, complementing, and playfully jibbing one another. Enough so that both lost track of time, and before they realized it, almost all of the five-minute bout had passed.

The referee announced thirty seconds remaining, causing the crowd to cheer for their favorite and boo whom they did not enjoy. It was not missed on Martinez that Perla was the favorite to win—but Lysa was an Aviex, so it happened.

Both clearly heard the cheers and sped up their attacks. Through ragged breaths, both weaved, dodged, and chained strikes in and out of one another's guards. Martinez glanced at the referee and saw both were gaining points almost as quickly as the other, the man clicking his counter for points just as quickly for each competitor.

Who would take the win was up in the air until the last few seconds. Then Perla decided to press and win with one massive throw. Lysa launched a quick kick into her side, a resounding thump echoing. But Perla had intentionally tanked that hit and given Lysa the point just so she could step in and grab Lysa by the waist.

Rolling Lysa over her hip, Perla slammed Lysa to the ground, giving the far lighter Lysa a scrap of grace; instead of jumping atop and crushing Lysa, she stood and distanced herself, burning the last few seconds.

Martinez watched as his Ruh'ah was slammed flat on her back, gasping as the air left her lungs just as the match was called, leaving her gasping for air like a fish out of water. To his dismay, the referee counted the points, and a takedown like that was worth quite a few more than the strikes they had been exchanging.

“Time!” The referee announced.

Without pause, Perla helped Lysa to her feet, ensuring her opponent was all right. “Hey, that was a lot of fun.”

“It indeed was enjoyable. That was a nice throw at the end,” Lysa smiled, leaning on Perla’s support while catching her breath. Although both of them looked utterly gassed, neither could keep steady without the other.

It was a surprisingly violent and giggly end to the match.

Shortly after the referee let them both catch their breaths, he took a moment to get them to his sides. Raising Perla's hand, he announced she won, much to the crowd's enjoyment. It seemed everyone liked the fight despite a cacophony of agreements and denials of the outcome poured out.

The outroar of the crowd was enjoyable for both coaching groups, filling them with pride. Their students had done well enough that both would likely be talked about later in the night. It was rare for two classification black species to fight in public, and it was a spectacle. A show of sportsmanship not all would give.

The pair of fighters laughing and having fun as they went helped for sure. Their laughter was infectious throughout the bout. Even Martinez and Ivorn were laughing at their small, playful jabs.

“Congratulations, Perla,” Lysa said, tilting her head in a slight bow.

“Thanks,” Perla responded. “Can I have your contact information? We could go get a drink or something later.”

“Of course,” Lysa smiled.

After exchanging their information, Lysa wished Perla a lovely night and turned about preparing herself for the next bout. She walked over to Martinez and Ivorn to rest for a few minutes. With Perla having taken first place, she and the Burtex still had to battle over second place.

While she had enjoyed the fight and thought the next one would be just as fun, regrettably, it would not happen. For reasons she was all too familiar with.