Slauson stared in horror, his lip trending downward as it trembled in fear and doubt. He took a step back, looking Zalan up and down and trying to read him. The calls from the audience were reduced to a low hum in his ears. Slauson no longer had fists at his side, but held his hands together in uncertainty. He had forgotten that he was in a fight.

“How would you know it was my father?” Slauson asked, sounding as though he desperately didn’t want to believe Zalan.

Zalan was still mostly frozen, but Slauson was no longer maintaining the ice coating on him. Without the intervention of the Elemental Ice user, it was melting. Zalan was slowly becoming free. But he didn’t care about that as much as he loved watching Slauson break down in front of him. The stoicism and derisive glances were gone. Slauson knew fear and he was experiencing the worst of it. Zalan smiled and searched for words to make his nemesis feel worse.

“He mentioned you by name, Slauson,” Zalan said.

“That could be anyone,” Slauson rejected insincerely.

“The man’s tunic was shredded. He had eaten the clothes off his back as his last, sad meal,” Zalan continued, ignoring Slauson’s denial.

“No!” Slauson snapped.

“I stripped him of his daggers. He was nothing when I left,” Zalan assured him.

Slauson’s eye twitched in agitation. A disturbed recognition flashed through his eyes. The confusion on his face quickly transferred to mercilessness.

“You desecrated his remains?” Slauson asked.

Zalan felt that he had achieved his goal. Slauson looked as enraged as he felt. His body was tense and his head marked with an extruded vein. His hands trembled and his eyes were unfocused. Zalan felt it was all justified. Both of their parents had been equally insulted.

Zalan wiggled his fingers. He was no longer frozen. Free to fight.

“Not like he deserved any better when the best he could do was raise a disappointment like you,” Zalan said.

Slauson reacted immediately. He threw a fist swirling in fire and ice straight for Zalan’s face. Zalan reacted like he had been trained on many long nights. He pushed the fist aside and fully imbued himself in lightning, returning with a haymaker. Slauson wasn’t even surprised that Zalan could move again. He didn’t hesitate to see him move. He deftly smashed Zalan’s hand upward, and went for an uppercut with his other hand. Zalan leaned back, narrowly avoiding the punch, but felt the sting of ice rush across his chin. Slauson’s arms were fully imbued with Elemental Ice.

The audience exploded in a deafening roar of approval. It was the first time Slauson looked like he was in a real match where his opponent wasn’t mysteriously impaired. The cheers shook the stadium and the two fighters fought as though there was nothing in the world but one another.

Zalan felt a rush of excitement, finally letting loose all of the anger that had been building inside of him in a single battle. The imbued lightning was pulsing as it raced through his body. His blows were charged with enough lightning to incapacitate Slauson, but he could never get a clean hit. Where Zalan felt incredibly powerful in his rage, fighting at maximum output, Slauson was a precise fighter. Even as Slauson was enraged by Zalan’s words, he expertly wore down Zalan. He was nimble and powerful all at once. He struck the bruises left behind by Rexler and never allowed a fully imbued attack to hit him.

Zalan tried to change tactics and use his feet, but Slauson seemed to have expected the transition and slammed Zalan’s attempts aside. Slauson’s feet were imbued with flames and his upper-body with ice. Zalan was beginning to grow frustrated and confused. Anger was supposed to be a tool. Something to increase his power, but he was clearly outmatched. In fact, he felt utterly exhausted after holding onto anger for so long. It drained him much faster than he felt in his other fights. Zalan thought for sure that if he could figure out how to avoid being frozen at the beginning of the fight, he would be able to beat Slauson in regular combat.

He was woefully misled, and his frustration was not helping at all. His attacks were tossed aside like he was moving in slow motion. His Elemental blasts never hit their marks where Slauson’s pelts of ice were creating more bruises and bleeds on Zalan’s skin. The rage he channeled didn’t come out as powerful as it felt in Zalan’s mind. Zalan’s head was filled with distracting thoughts and noises where he should have been more focused on the fight. And in the heat of the battle, Zalan saw something for a moment that made him even more unstable.

Slauson had tears running down his cheeks.

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Even as he put up an incredible fight, he had the capacity to mourn his lost parent. It infuriated Zalan that even Slauson knew how to cry. This fighter that acted like an emotionless husk for so much of the tournament could grieve, even in intense combat. Slauson didn’t even see his father pass, but hearing the words was enough to bring him to an emotional release. And he was such a good fighter that Zalan was backed up to the edge of the ring. Even with tears clouding his vision, Zalan was the weaker fighter. He would be pushed out of the arena if Slauson kept up the fight.

Zalan felt an odd stinging run through his leg and realized that he had somehow shocked himself. The floor of the arena was still sleek with water, and stepping without thinking was hurting him. But the pain gave him an idea.

He zapped the floor next to Slauson with lightning. The electricity traveled through a puddle that Slauson stood on and ran up Slauson’s body. Slauson jerked back involuntarily. Zalan ran forward and shoved him aside to make it back to the center of the ring. Slauson quickly regained his senses and turned around to face him. He wiped the tears from his face and grunted in frustration. His eyes weren’t clouded by a blind rage, but a determination to win. Zalan couldn’t understand it.

The audience was on their feet cheering with approval over the course of the battle. Each fighter was imbued with so much power it was visible from anywhere in the stands. Zalan’s imbued blue lightning and Slauson’s imbued fire were almost blinding in their intensity. The audience members were amazed to see that Slauson was an incredible fighter and equally impressed by how long Zalan had lasted after being on the receiving end of so many hits. He was bruised all over and his face blackened and charred from his self-delivered lightning.

“You’re a cheater!” Zalan proclaimed, once again trying to get the upper hand of battle.

“You are a liar!” Slauson replied equally loudly.

Zalan couldn’t tell if Slauson was rejecting being called a cheater or was still unsure whether Zalan was telling the truth about his father. Zalan wanted to say something more and get the people to see Slauson for what he was, but Slauson was bounding forward with a fiery fist. His entire body was imbued in a maelstrom of fire. Zalan rushed ahead to return the attack, exploding in a storm of electricity as he also imbued himself at full power. He gripped his fist tightly, ready to end this battle. In a battle of fire and lighting, Zalan was certain he could do more damage. He would stop Slauson in his tracks before the fire had a chance to burn through him.

They both jumped, ready to strike one another with all they had.

Slauson’s fist opened at the last second, and he threw out a large block of ice from his palm. Zalan’s eyes went wide, he thought they would be punching one another in the face. He couldn’t shift his momentum.

The ice rammed into Zalan’s chest, throwing the trajectory of his jump out of control. Crying out in shock, he began to fall backward. Slauson placed a flame-imbued hand on Zalan’s chest and slammed him to the ground. Zalan coughed as the air was driven out of him and pain ran through his back. He was blinded, stars swirling in his vision. He almost blacked out, but willed himself to stay awake. The fight wasn’t going right. He wasn’t supposed to be on the losing side.

With grit teeth, Slauson withstood the shocks sent through his system by the lightning on Zalan’s body. Zalan tried to react blindly, even as the stars hadn’t exited his eyes. He raised his arms and shot out lightning, getting nowhere near Slauson and sending fear through the nearly-struck audience. Slauson emitted immense amounts of ice on Zalan’s body. He struggled to jump up as his vision began to restore itself, but he couldn’t move. He was once again frozen in place, much more so than the beginning of the fight.

Zalan tried to imbue himself with enough power to melt down the ice, but Slauson kept replenishing anything Zalan would thaw away. The ice would conduct the lightning in unpredictable paths and Zalan would hurt himself too much to continue. He was stuck. In far too much pain to keep up any defense. Slauson stood over him, disgust in his eyes.

“You lied to me to get a rise out of me,” Slauson said, trying to assure himself. “You know nothing of my father.”

“No,” Zalan replied, his voice growing tight.

Ice was covering his mouth. But he’d said enough. Slauson believed him. He turned away from Zalan and closed his eyes, blocking more tears from appearing.

“A shame that I had to hear it from someone so abhorrent. May God curse you and everyone you care for,” Slauson spat, opening his eyes to glare at Zalan.

Zalan’s eyes went wide. He snapped. If Slauson had left it at beating him in battle, Zalan may have been able to live with that. Even at his maximum output, Slauson beat him. But he had to make one last comment. He went too far. He cursed Rep. Spat on all the friends he’d made in this world. Cursed his mother.

All of the anger that Zalan thought he had expended came back with a vengeance. He had to do something. But he couldn’t move. Couldn’t even speak. The power built up in him. He was blind with rage, feeling like it reached out to envelop everything surrounding him. The lightning sensation in Zalan’s mind expanded, and Zalan felt something new. It was a little thread of power floating above the stadium. Invisible to anything but Zalan’s mind. Like the muscle that he used to emit lightning brushed against something in the sky. Zalan gripped to it with his power, not knowing what he was interacting with, but too enraged to care.

He pulled against the feeling with his mind. With all the might he could muster.

All the hair on Slauson’s head stood up as it was swarmed with static. The sky cracked loudly and blinked a blinding white above the canyon walls. Slauson hesitated in confusion, then stared upward in shock.

A massive bolt of lightning flared through the sky, miraculously summoned entirely by Zalan in his pinned state on the floor. Slauson raised his hands just as the lightning came down. It stabbed into him like a javelin, the power of the lightning detonating within him. His entire body flashed with blinding white power and the crowd had to avert their gaze as the electricity tore through him in a thunderous explosion.