“Is that legal in a duel?” called forth one voice.

“It’s natural to monsters, why wouldn’t it be?” countered another.

“What is that glow, anyways?” called yet another of the townspeople, this one a child’s voice.

“It’s the glow a monster makes when it gets enough experience points and actual experience to evolve.”

As the people’s conversations could be heard over the lull of the battle, I stood dumbfounded.

Edbert meanwhile simply gave me a wicked grin, and even started laughing. We needed to knock him out before his evolving Ossicarn could enter the fray.

However, before I could even let out an order to Hierophant the Liefiathan, the glow magnified in size, changing shape into the silhouette of a much larger monster and then disappearing.

Where before there was a kitten sized lion cub monster, there now stood a muscular lion sized big cat that looked as if you took a smilodon, a cave lion, an african lion, and a catamount and created a hybrid from them all. It’s skin was the same tawny color it had before, but the coals had turned into a long black and red furred mane.

The smilodon-like fangs it had were easily measured at dagger length. Paring knife-sized bottom teeth joined them. On its legs were random red, brown, green, black, and blue patches of fur that gave the impression of a car with flames on it.

Part of me wanted to admire its look and this possible glimpse at Bagheera’s future. But I wasn’t about to let my inner monster collection nerd ruin this.

“Hierophant, keep up our strategy. I’m going to analyze what this his changed for us.”

With the analysis, the tinny voice of the monster bible read the entry to me so I could keep my concentration on the battle at hand.

[[“Heartrox are considered to be pets and companions fit for royalty. Keen hunters and mystical guardians, they are almost always kept in high tier nobles’ households as well, and even arch-wizards are known to enjoy using them as monster partners and familiars. Heartrox are known to have greater heat tolerance than other Ossicarn evolutions, and are known to also greatly detest large amounts of water. This Heartrox is male. All heartrox are fire and fae primary aligned monsters. This heartrox has a secondary earth alignment. Its tertiary alignment is fire. This Heartrox evolved from an Ossicarn. Weaknesses: Water. Strengths: Double power with fire type techniques, natural ability to use the technique ‘Wisp Fire’.”]]

This fight was not going to go well for my liefiathan if I let the newly evolved Heartrox get a hold of it. So I had to take it out before it could get its paws on Hierophant.

Rushing forward to get in range again, I powered up another instance of my waterfall fist technique, but just before I closed the distance I heard a utterance of “Veil step” three times from Edbert and suddenly found a blast of mist appear before me. Seconds later, he stepped out of the mists and hit me across the torso with the flat of his blade and sent me rocketing towards the edge of the arena.

It was dumb luck that prevented me from getting thrown out of the ring and losing the match and duel.

“Data Compendium, Veil Step.” I mentally commanded as I pushed myself up from the flat of my back.

Instantly information flashed before my eyes.

[[Veil Step – A fae aligned move that allows the user to pass through the mystic veil of the world to move from one place to another in a single step. This technique increases the mass of any swings the user makes immediately following them by a factor of the number of feet they crossed and the amount of momentum they would have gained from charging those feet towards their destination.]]

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No wonder my entire torso hurt. He had basically hit me with the force of a rhino, and increased bodily endurance or not, that could have broken a wall.

With a spit of blood on the ground I pushed myself back to my feet, using my staff as a walking stick.

“Good game, Edbert, good game.”

“What? Are you speaking in tongues or just more outworlder drivel? This isn’t a game though I will certainly have some fun with it. Heartrox, roast his glorified fish fry.”

“Hierophant, to me!” I shouted, losing any bravado or will to smack talk in the moment. It was new to my little family of monsters, but the leaf dwelling serpentine shark was still my monster. If I was doing this, and thought I could protect my kids, I had to show the strength to be able to protect my monsters as well.

So as piles of leaves and brush continued to appear and rapidly grow in the stone arena we were in, and Hierophant rushed to dodge as it had when Edbert’s Heartrox was still an ossicarn, I tried to close the distance.

In the process, I ate a few more of Edbert’s veil step combos and some more of the pavement, but each time, and with each strike landed on my partner, I did not give up.

Hierophant's health was at nearly a third remaining by now, so I needed to fight differently and take out that Heartrox more quickly. If Edbert was going to use his technique to be unpredictable, so would I.

Which is why I rushed forward and the second I heard the words announcing another Veil Step, I shouted ‘Vulcan’s Crescent’ and focused the head into my right hand, while summoning a Waterfall Fist into my left. Aiming the fiery heat and the waterfall at the ground itself, I soon found myself rocketing through the air and out of the reach of Edbert’s strike.

My impromptu hovering technique only worked for a second before I was plummeting back to the ground. Which was why I kicked Edbert in the back of the head as I did. Just as quickly as I laid my blow, the Hekatondronan youth grabbed my ankle and spun, launching me towards the edge of the ring. Another quick waterfall fist reversed my momentum enough to save me, but the whole thing taught me that being clever wasn’t enough.

Even as I stumbled up I saw the razor wire vines and dagger like leaves of Hierophant the liefviathan’s techniques wounding the Heartrox, but the feline chasing it at speed and burning and blistering the serpentine shark monster just as much. Already, liefviathan was down to the last tenth of its heath, and Heartrox meanwhile was nearly at full health. Evolving had healed it.

Reaching groggily for my leaf shark’s reliquary, I returned the monster. Moments later, there were gasps before Marlie called out.

“Round two goes to Edbert and his heartrox. This brings the duel to one win for each combatant!”

I didn’t need to beat him every time, but I still had some worries. As much as the type based weaknesses were bunk, there were elemental weaknesses - and I didn’t have some chart memorized for them. So it could be a crap shoot figuring out how I would win, especially if any of Edbert’s other monsters decided to evolve mid-battle.

As Edbert headed back to his corner, he did not bother to return his Heartrox. Instead, he simply gave it one simple scratch on the head and gave me that hateful grin once more.

I had a choice to make. I could summon Bagheera and let my ossicarn and try to defeat the heartrox within a competition of who was the better cat. I could hedge my bets with Baloo, Bedevere, or Fragarach – as they were water type monsters themselves.

I could even use Softail, but bringing my alpha jackanack to a fight with a newly evolved monster would only make me look weak in Edbert and the village’s eyes. Did that make the opposite true as well, though? If beating it with a large, high level, and strong monster would make me look weak, would beating it with a monster that was tiny make Edbert look weaker?

Mind games could wait. I needed a sure bet, and that meant one thing. I needed to rely on type advantage – and – a monster I could rely on. Bedevere lacked any water elemental moves yet after all, even if it was the biggest show, a bee versus a lion.

That left my other newborn monster then.

“Come on, Fragarach.” I called, grabbing the scrimshaw reliquary of the Totlelong and throwing it in a spin to summon it.

This time it at least landed on a three, and even as I looked at my turtle-gator-dragonling monster, I could see the four stats in a diamond, with body on the top, mind on the bottom, knack on the left and charisma on the right. Beside each there were two plus symbols, thanks to the die roll.

I looked over my own stats, seeing I had fifty five health left, and gave Edbert a nod. My mana was two-thirds full and slowly regenerating.

“I’m ready if you are.”

He gave a nod to Marlie.

“Very well. Round three may begin.”