Okay, so Waverly had not expected Victor to actually grab the sword when Jim brought his hand down and bellowed “Continue!”
She also really hadn’t imagined the blade, sunken deep into the floor, could be used as a launchpad like that.
And as Victor sailed through the air, claws outstretched, she still didn't believe he’d do any damage.
But then, at the moment of impact, [Call of the Moon] activated.
It was the weirdest fucking skill she’d ever heard of, but it was hers, and it somehow fit her, and she loved it. At (F)-Rank, it had just made her remember facts better, even though she still forgot her keys and hairbands and stuff like that, so that had been great for school, even though she’d definitely stood out among the other werewolves, most of which had as little time to study as her, but most importantly ever since she raised it to (D)-Rank, the skill had allowed her to notice details.
She’d always noticed stuff, of course, because life was full of interesting things all the time, but when [Call of the Moon] activated, it was easier to really take something in. Like now, for example. There was a red tinge around Victor’s hand as he collided with Ssseth’s shield. It was super weak, little more than a glow that lost itself in the lanternlight, and if Waverly didn’t know about Victor’s second class, she might have dismissed it outright. Then the glow touched the shield and vanished, and her friend slammed into the metal lid and Ssseth got pushed back a few feet but kept standing and Victor rebounded and as he flew, [Call of the Moon] activated again and told her to look at Victor’s face.
He was grumpy. The last time he looked like that was when Waverly was studying in his room because hers was kinda messy and his was always super clean, but he had decided to nap instead and when someone played loud music directly under them and Victor woke up because of the bass, he’d worn that expression.
Then he’d stomped out the door and down the stairs and when he came back up, the music had been much quieter, and he’d curled up on the bed and gone back to sleep.
In short: he was pissed.
He raised his hand in front of his eyes as if to check if the glow was there, but then his ears perked up and he rolled his eyes, clearly disappointed at himself.
He fell into a backward roll to dodge an attack by Ssseth, who seemed to have decided that it was time to end this fight before Victor got any funny ideas. But when the lizardkin swung for a follow-up attack, Victor caught his arm with his hand. Victor wasn’t strong, Waverly knew. Mostly because neither [Vampire] nor [Catboy] scaled Strength well, but also because he never ever went to the gym or did any sort of sports beyond climbing. Anyway, his grip wasn’t nearly enough to stop the momentum of Ssseth’s swing, and he caught the baton square in the ribs.
The crowd oooo’d in sympathy at the hit, and Victor did take a second to get back up again, but when he did, he was grinning in a way that made Waverly wish she had even more coins to bet on him winning.
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Finally, Victor got it. It had taken some tries to figure out [Vampiric Hunger]. He’d always thought it was weird how some skills were super straightforward, while others, especially the ones that few people ever talked about, were more like laws: Very much open to interpretation. In [Vampiric Hunger]’s case, Will to Live wasn’t some weird metaphor for blood, at least not yet, and physical contact meant that he had to touch the person’s skin directly, not just their armor.
He wished he’d found that out before cracking a rib or two, but he wasn’t a monster for nothing, so as long as his limbs were attached and he wasn’t actively dying, he could walk it off. Of course, the will to live he’d drained from Ssseth helped. He had feared that Will to Live might have meant he could make people depressed by touching them, which would have been a pretty damn scary power, even if he could only use it in dungeons and duels. Luckily, it didn’t make him feel happier, and Ssseth didn’t seem sadder, as far as he could tell after such a short moment of contact. Instead, it made him feel as if there was more of himself, and that mass had more momentum, urging him forward.
He briefly wondered if this was how Waverly felt all the time, but pushed the thought aside. Only one thing mattered now: getting touchy with the Lizard.
He grinned as he wiped some blood from the corner of his mouth.
“Want some more?” Ssseth said, grinning back as he twirled his baton to stay limber.
“You don’t even know, man,” Victor said, and then they were at it again.
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Victor was relentless now. Every time he attacked, he went for some sort of grapple, punch, or just a slight touch in passing, and every time he managed to land an attack, he came away just a little faster, a little shaper, a bit stronger.
Ssseth on the other hand managed to land fewer and fewer hits. Where he first bashed Victor with either his baton or his shield whenever he could, or simply tackled him when the opportunity arose, he withdrew more and more as the fight went on. It was obvious he’d figured out something was wrong, and before long, he made Victor pay dearly for every attempt at touching him, raining down blows to drive him back. Before long, they had arrived at yet another stalemate.
“Want to give up?” Victor asked, bouncing on his feet. He was standing next to where the giant sword was buried in the ground.
“Was about to ask you the same thing!” Ssseth shot back. He wasn’t cocky anymore, but to Victor’s surprise, the lizardkin had given him the impression that he was enjoying himself immensely every single second of the fight.
“But nah, I think it’sss time we end thisss,” Ssseth said, shrugging his shoulders. “Good fight, though, for sssure.”
“Was about to say the same thing,” Victor said.
The crowd loved it, and their roar made the room tremble. Victor was sure he could still hear Waverly over the din, spurring him on. He didn’t know where she was, but he nodded anyhow, hoping she’d catch the gesture.
But then Ssseth shrugged again, and the crowd went wild as his skin went dry and flakey. For a second, Victor worried he’d overdone it with [Vampiric Hunger], but then he realized it wasn’t him who had killed that lizard’s skin.
It had been Ssseth himself.
He must have used some sort of regenerative skill because he suddenly looked as spry as he had when the fight began. While most of the dead scales got stuck in his clothes (which would be a paradise to clean up later, Victor supposed), the lizardkin grabbed his own face and ripped it off with a loud roar, which Victor had to admit was pretty damn intimidating.
In his veins, however, his blood thundered louder, calling for him to not be outdone.
And so, before he even knew what he was doing, Victor placed one hand on the handle of the giant sword next to him, and the crowd went dead silent.
Then, using every single bit of stolen Willpower that he could muster, Victor pulled.
The sword rose from the floorboards like a leviathan from the waves. It wasn’t easy, but Victor was determined as fuck to make it look that way, so he gave people a show by slowly flicking the blade free of splinters, then resting it on his shoulders.
The second the blunt side of the blade came to a rest, balanced on his shoulder blades, the crowd went absolutely fucking ballistic.
Victor didn’t wait. He was on borrowed time, he could feel it.
So he exploded forward, bringing the sword around with all his momentum for a devastating strike.
A metallic bang rattled the arena as Ssseth parried it with his shield, redirecting its momentum in a brutal clash of metal against metal.
Because Victor didn’t let go, the weight of the blade made him stumble sideward, leaving him wide open.
In an ephemeral moment, their eyes met, and Ssseth grinned, victoriously, raising his baton.
Victor jumped, and the weight of a sword that easily matched him in size just carried him with it. Just a few nails, sure, but that wasn’t enough. So he tugged his knees to his chest, aimed for Ssseth’s center of mass, and kicked himself off.
He was pretty sure that in the old days, they would have tortured Newton by making him watch that scene on repeat, but Victor didn’t care. He landed by rolling over the flat of the Sword, picked it back up as quickly as he could, and brought it up just in time to parry another of Ssseth’s baton strikes.
Using the lizardkin’s force, Victor let himself get pushed back towards one of the wooden pillars. The sword grew heavier and heavier in his grasp. His strength was fading.
But as a [Catboy,] his agility was still top-notch.
So he just went up the pillar, feet against the wood, and did a backflip, yanking the sword with him as he went.
Ssseth had a second to say “Ssshiii—“ and raise his shield halfway before the massive, sharpened slab of iron split him clean in half.
Victor landed behind him as his halves fell away to either side, then straightened, and bowed just as they hit the floor with a wet splash!
Victor stumbled as the crowd cheered their lungs out, and would have fallen over if Waverly hadn’t been there in a flash and propped him up. She grabbed his sword, too, he noticed.
Then she yelled “OHMYDEVILSYOUWEREAMAZING” straight into his ear and even though it hurt like a motherfucker, he could help but laugh.
The crowd pressed closer, all trying to congratulate him, but the first thing Victor did with Waverly’s help was to turn around and look for Ssseth’s ghost. He found it hovering over the left side of his corpse, nodding at Victor approvingly.
“Man, that wasss clean!” the lizardkin said with a grin. “Didn’t even hurt because you got the brain firssst. Nice!”
Victor couldn’t do much more than accept the compliment with a nod and a smile. Man, not many people could take a loss like that. He was definitely going to buy the lizardkin a drink later, after someone had given him a [Scroll of Dark Resurrection].
“Why isn’t he mad, though?” Victor said to Waverly. He had to raise his voice. A lot.
“Would you have been? Mad, I mean?” Waverly asked, yelling into his ear.
Victor considered that for a second. Yeah. He would have been. But also, he would have been pumped. Even after the fight was over, he still felt like he never had before in his entire life, and winning was the smallest part of that feeling.
It was being present, being seen, and showing what he could do. It was trying new things and pushing against something he wasn’t certain he could do. It was finding out something about himself, and gently pushing himself to places he never knew he could reach.
“No!” Victor yelled at Waverly.
And then he pushed away all thoughts of philosophy and meaning, and just let the patrons of the CrowBar celebrate Victor K, Champion of FightNight.
Nothing more, nothing less.