Robinson was big. Big enough in fact, that I was pretty sure I would not be allowed to fight him in most arenas. This wasn’t most arenas, sure, but even in the slum back alleys this felt unfair. I felt tension ripple throughout my body and felt like a string pulled taut. Robinson made his way in and I followed after.
As I entered the room, I slowly glanced around, getting used to the arena. It was mostly bare, with the exception of the speakers and cameras on the wall as well as the various liquids on the floor from previous fights—mainly blood.
To be honest I had no idea how I was expected to win this. There were two points to mark where each competitor would start on the floor, large black dots that indicated starting points. I walked over there as I tried to figure out why Liz would encourage me to fight this massive fucker. I couldn’t overestimate the size difference.
I was pretty tall, well above average but this guy was at least a head above me. Not only that but he was utterly jacked.
The speakers buzzed to life and a robotic voice called out some details about us. Apparently not only was he jacked, but Robinson has a 15-2 record. Great. The only edge I had was being a half-baked scribed.
My mind swirled with a flash of realization as the countdown commenced. Memories of our previous conversation regarding my ability blurred through my mind and I realized her intent in wanting me to face someone so dangerous.
The danger was the goal.
The timer hit zero and Robinson began making his way toward me. The mundane fights were often slower at the start, there were lower gains in giving up form, and rushing in to gain initiative wasn’t as necessary.
That being said, I rushed him hoping I understood Liz’s intent. He looked a bit surprised, but a vicious grin stretched across his face as he stepped into me.
Immediately reality screamed at me. His muscles rippled with stories of devastation and pain. I instinctively threw myself to the side, stumbling as I tried to avoid the sensation, the warning overriding my thoughts.
His fist flickered past my face, exactly where it would have been had I not. I faced a problem the next moment, I wanted to move my legs as my mind screamed at me again, the ground whispered a tale of crushing agony. I couldn’t but I didn’t do the best I could with what my instincts were telling me and ducked. The next thing I knew Robinson’s leg whipped out as his hand grasped my head. His grab missed, but my legs were still swept from under me sending me tumbling to the ground.
Next thing I knew Robinson was mounting me. I was caught off guard, my inscription didn’t trigger. Then the epiphany hit me, The mount hadn’t harmed me. It was obvious in hindsight, but while the intent of the action was obvious, it was just a prelude to the violence to come.
My inscription agreed as the prelude swelled into a climax. I felt reality scream at me, and stories of brutality rang through the air all around me. I was stuck between them, trapped between promises of suffering.
Robinson rained blows on me, and before each, one of the stories would ring out louder than the rest. I would hastily adjust my block each time, barely blocking the heavy blows that slammed into me.
My mind whirred into action, trying to figure out how to get out. I tried some counter blows, from sides that didn’t radiate the same level of destructive forecasting, but the blows back didn’t stop his onslaught. My mind went from a whir to a crawl, as I slowly became disoriented. I was able to block all the blows from my head, but the pain's creeping influence compiled with the foreshadowing of more began to overload my senses. I started receding back into my mind.
Hit. Hit. Hit. I felt blow after blow. I was exhausted at this point, my head was pounding.
Hit. Hit. Hit. I felt something within me quiver.
I blocked punch after punch. I threw one back.
Another combination. Another counter attempt. They were feeble at this point, I couldn’t get a clean hit in.
I felt my mana get siphoned away as reality blossomed into a hurricane of tales. I felt like my brain was frying.
I caught a heavy blow to the side of the head for the distraction but that was a blessing in disguise. The stimulation grounded me and helped me focus. I listened to the stories around me, electricity buzzed to and fro from faraway places. The air shook in resonance with the people outside, their cheers outside. Robinson’s arms screamed filled with acid that inhibited them they couldn’t last forever, but at this rate, they would still outlast me. I heard the whispers from the scar tissue in his right shoulder, traces of mana from a botched healing. I listened to the journey of the pinpricks of pain that trickled from it. His heart raced in exertion and adrenaline. A natural concoction of stress, excitement, and ecstasy drowned out all the wails from his body. I felt the creeping insidious sadism that radiated from him. A well-contained bottle of bloodlust-fueled physical prowess was the constitution of this man. Then as if the bottle was constructed from glass the stories rang out in a resonance that my body and my head matched in a dull symphony. His elbow was the loudest of all, it promised damage. Long-term, traumatic. I felt panic swell in my chest as my mind finished interpreting the narrative that was forming. Robinson was planning on smashing his elbow into my face to knock me out. Then I felt my mana dry out.
I could see it form into reality properly moments later. I saw his body adjust as promised by my inscription. As he leaned in and his elbow rocketed downward, I immediately bucked my hips using my head and left shoulder as a grounding points. I ached my body to the sky and threw off the elbow’s descent. Robinson’s face smashed into the ground, and I used the moment to sweep him, rolling on top.
Robinson played with me out of a cruel, barely contained sadism. I lacked such motivation. I started my mount with the same elbow promised to me and I could see some of the lights behind Robinson’s eyes dim.
Sadly, that didn’t stop him from grabbing my arm. I tried to wrench free, but I lacked any technique to give me leverage here and Robinson’s sculpted body had an insurmountable advantage in muscle mass. One hand on my arm, he used the other to get control of my head. I knew I was in trouble then, my inscription's influence rippled through my mind, not in the nigh-omnipotent potency of before, but in the small scale, wisps of danger that licked at my mind in near-silent whispers.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
He let go of my arm and started swinging wildly to the back of my head.
I grapevined my legs between his, entangling us to prevent him from flipping me while I swung back blindly. Each hit to the back of my head was disorienting, and I knew if there wasn’t a healer nearby would very likely lead to permanent disability.
A few moments later, fear of long-term injury won out and my hand instead slammed into the ground several times.
With trained professionalism, Robinson let me go immediately. And stood up woozily. I struggled to my feet, exhaustion, pain, and disorientation making me fall back down.
The next thing I knew, the healer is shining a light in my eye.
“Alright he’s responsive, should be back with us in a few moments I think.
"I feel like shit," was the first thing I said.
"Look it too," the doc snorted, "You should be mostly fine by tomorrow but uhh… don't take too many hits to the head. Things could've been scrambled in that egg of yours"
I forced out a sound, half scoff half laugh, "Would it surprise you if I told you that wasn't the first time I've gotten that advice recently?" I said as the doctor held a hand out and helped lift me to my feet.
"Well explains why the healing of your brain was a bit harder than usual. Nothing insane and it should heal all hunky-dory but sounds like you've been playing stupid games," he said as he, his assistant and I headed into the main room.
I managed to get my way back to the group to a small round of applause.
"Honestly not the worst performance I've seen against him, you lasted a good while. You used to taking a pounding or something? Your defense looked really solid there. Offense could use some work though," Luther rambled off.
Liz barked out in laughter, "I've been telling him that."
We shot the shit for a while, but I mostly zoned out, pushing the pain in my body and head out of my mind.
Not only did it hurt but I was sore. It felt like the day after an intense workout.
Liz shot several glances at me during the conversation, her inner mirth leaking out in spades.
The two of us left not long after and headed back to the apartment.
We got back and I passed out from exhaustion and immediately went to sleep.
___________________________________
That night I had a dream I could barely remember, the only thing that really seemed to have stuck was the fact it was coherent in a way dreams often aren’t. It told a story, narrated by the voice of a soft-spoken girl.
___________________________________
I woke up the next day feeling surprisingly good. There was a dull ache across my body, as a result of the healing I received. The fight from the day before could have almost been mistaken for a dream if it didn't leave me with a splitting headache.
I dragged myself from bed to the couch, I had always found laying in bed during the day would leave me with a sense of discomfort.
I lazed around, not bothering training, the phantasms of pain that haunted my muscles inhibited my motivation to do so. And I didn't have Liz's masochistic discipline to push through this. I had no idea how she managed to push through this.
Liz came in about thirty minutes after I woke up. She had a bag of food— Raul's.
"Yo bought us some grub," she said and dropped the bag on the table. I rolled off of the couch and dragged myself to the table.
Liz sat across from me smiling.
"So… did it work?" She asked, confirming my suspicion about her intent.
"Mhm," I said, mouth not leaving the tip of my straw. She waited for me to speak as I waited for her patience to run out. She decided to be circumspect at best about her intentions at the competition. I appreciated the concept and the idea of using stress to better understand my inscription. I still didn’t care for getting my ass beat by a sadist. It was a petty get-back but I’d figure something better out later. Maybe I’d give her a late pickpocket warning again? Nah this required something better.
I was almost to the bottom of my milkshake—which was a delicious deep rich chocolate with tiny chips intermixed within—by the time she finally broke.
“So how did it feel? What’s the difference like?”
I let the question hang in the air as I work on savoring the rest of this milkshake as it sludged down my throat.
“It was a lot, nearly overwhelming. Like listening to a dozen songs at the same time. All of them with various lyrics. Some parts of the same album, some not,” I said trying to explain the feeling. The music analogy felt flat though.
“Actually it feels closer to a bunch of stories now that I think about it,” I said, the worst slipping into place feeling like the missing parts of a jigsaw puzzle left unsolved.
“Ah, that’s the conceptualization aspect, some inscriptions have that. Usually, remnants of the being the inscription ties you to,” Liz responded.
I looked at her surprised. I hadn’t heard anything about conceptualization before and wondered where and when she learned about that, assuming she wasn’t bullshitting me for fun again. I doubted it though, she had a fascination with inscriptions, one that at times was barely contained. Honestly, If it wasn’t for Liz’s influence I don’t know if I would have even bothered registering for this year's inscription test and ceremony. I found them interesting in a practical way, as tools. Liz on the other hand cared in a deeper way. About the various forms of inscription, the scribed only jobs that were around. She studied the culture, inscribed spaces, and the mental and physical effects that various inscriptions have on their bearer. I remember once she even had me help her find a leaked copy of a specific family's scribed combat arts for the various inscriptions that were common from their private binding gem.
Speaking of which, after this was all said and done, once I cleared the entrance exams for Northridge and the exams and ceremony for the inscription ceremony, I think I’ll offer Liz a shot at the gem I had.
I still had it by some stroke of luck. An unregistered, unknown binding gem. I thought back about the bastard that I took it from. The thief. The person who my instincts told me was responsible for the massive explosion that left us displaced. The one that sent Liz’s father into a deep coma leaving him indefinitely hospitalized.
I gritted my teeth and left my revere as Liz looked at me calmly waiting for me to respond. She was used to my moments of disconnect from the outside world. Ever patience when others often got irritated or upset.
“Sorry about that,” I said, grounding myself back in the present, “Where were we?”
“Your inscription, we can go over your conceptualization more later, what’s the level with how it works? Or at least how it feels like it works.”
“It let me predict things. Not too far ahead, at least not this time. It was different than the time before,” I explained.
“That’s pretty common, the first activation is often considered the actual inscription for some people, it's strong, sometimes overwhelming. Been a while since the last incarnation event occurred from a manifestation too large though.”
I forgot about the risk of incarnation. A threat that my brain filed away, that would have been very relevant, enough that I probably wouldn’t have taken the risk if I remembered it at the time.
I really haven’t had the best planning as of late.