Vath stood on an arena floor, wondering how he’d let his brother talk him into this. Emara had looked at Kaser like he was crazy, and Dornah had laughed loudly before encouraging Kaser to try with a smirk. Vath felt the same way, and yet somehow here he was. Kaser had spun some tale of them winning against the odds and learning from the experience even if they failed. Vath hadn’t bought it for a moment, but he’d followed his brother anyway. He suspected at least half of his agreement stemmed from wanting Kaser to just stop pestering him about it, but it was too late to back out now, no matter the reasons.
The announcer had, well, announced him as having only moved to senior outer disciple that week, which had drawn some murmurs from the crowd, as well as a few laughs, which hadn’t felt great. He could understand why, though. While senior outer disciples were allowed to join the matches, most didn’t until they’d spent some more time growing, and plenty waiting until inner disciple, if they ever used the arena at all. It made for flashier crowd pleasing battles, and new senior outer disciples were rarely capable of more than one or two low level techniques. After all, the only qualifications to become one were to reach at least fifth layer in your core, and have second stage essence control - the equivalent of orange void in other affinities.
Vath and friends had gone beyond the norm in stage, essence control, and base attributes before being officially recorded as senior outer disciples. The only thing they really lacked in comparison to their peers was martial skill and time. They had sparred, fought, hunted, and trained for sure, but most people in this arena would have years or perhaps a decade more practice in both sparring and real fights; not to mention that the inner disciples or any outer disciple closing in on that rank would also outclass them in the other categories, even if they were further ahead than their recent advancement would indicate.
The opponent announced for him - a man named Torin - immediately proved what a bad idea this was. Apparently, the lowest person here today available to fight him was thought to be weeks away from inner disciples' much more stringent requirements, and looked to be at least three years older than him.
Torin raised a single eyebrow at him with a slightly exasperated expression. It was clear he didn’t want to fight someone he thought hadn’t even reached second tempering, and was wondering why Vath was even here; though he was trying not to be rude.
Vath shrugged with a small smile and spoke when Torin got close enough, “I know. I don’t expect to win, but I’ll give it my best shot. Don’t hold back on my account. I want to see how far I still have to go.”
Torin smiled back at that, before shaking his head, giving a nod, and settling into a stance. Vath tried to analyze, but he honestly wasn’t coming up with much. The man wasn’t a Beastkin unless his sign was non-obvious, and there was no other indication what essence or style the man used. He knew he wouldn’t last in a protracted battle against someone at least a stage above him even in a spar, so he’d come out of the gate swinging. That was his strong suit to begin with, so there was no use trying to be clever.
The referee had them bow, counted down, and then the show began. Vath was immediately covered in a bright yellow glow from his head to his feet, smooth except for small spikes on his knuckles - he’d decided to emulate his forthcoming gauntlets ahead of time since he’d need to get used to fighting that way. The same instant he conjured his void form there were bolts forming in the air and flying towards Torin, and he charged after them. When he’d first started using void beam, he was still at red void control, and between that and his low mastery of the technique, he’d only been able to shoot them straight out of his palms. That progressed to his fingertips, then to anywhere on his body, and now, with the technique fully mastered and yellow void control, he could even have the beam start in the air around him and aimed in any direction. Though he couldn’t yet manage more than a few feet or so from himself, and aiming anywhere he wasn’t looking at was completely impossible; though he was assured that essence senses would help with that in later stages.
Torin looked more than a little surprised to see multiple yellow bolts of light flashing at him as soon as the match started, but, sadly, he didn’t look that worried. He effortlessly dodged most of them, and one that got too close to his face was backhanded into the ground. His hand didn’t even look damaged. Vath couldn’t tell if he was using a technique or his durability and resilience were just that high. Either way it didn’t bode well that his only offensive technique barely bothered his fellow competitor.
Torin hadn’t bothered to move from his spot after the beams, waiting for Vath to arrive with a firmly planted stance. Vath opened up with a barrage of strikes; punches, kicks, and elbows were thrown. He even tried grabs and sweeping his adversary’s legs. Torin blocked, diverted, dodged or just hopped over every blow and made it look easy, though his face was certainly more focused now.
Vath felt like he was punching a wall. He still couldn’t tell whether it was a technique beyond his vision or raw attributes, but Torin was tough. So he upped the pressure. Not with his strikes, they were already pressuring as much as he could, but he’d saved something in the hopes he could surprise the other disciple.
And judging by his face, the man was very surprised when yellow beams suddenly blasted at him from the sides and behind without Vath losing tempo at all. The problem was, Torin’s face registered surprise the moment the bolts were conjured, before they had even moved towards him, despite the fact that not a one of them was in his field of view. Vath had made sure of that; a few feet from his body was more than enough to be completely behind his enemy when they were this close after all. The other man clearly could sense his essence even when he couldn’t see it. That meant he had a domain, and knew at least a bit of how to use it. How he wasn’t already an inner disciple, Vath didn’t know.
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The end result of his surprise attack was a very surprised Torin avoiding every yellow lance without issue, and his palm smashing directly into Vath’s chest, sending him stumbling back. Vath continued his ranged assault, adding a few from straight ahead to prevent Torin from rushing him while he regained his feet. “Good!” Torin yelled with a wide grin while dealing with the barrage as easily as ever, “You are young, and your attributes need growth, but I commend your teachers. Were I closer to your advancement, I would have no domain to warn me, and that surprise would have hurt. And to keep it up and cut off my route to capitalize? Wonderful.” He wore a vicious grin as he finished.
“I knew you’d be better and stronger, but I miscalculated, didn’t I?” Vath said while trying to regain his breath.
Torin’s grin widened and he laughed, “A bit, yeah. You’re good, kid, but you’re what, second tempering? There’s a reason people don’t come here that early even if it’s allowed. Your essence control is impressive for just making senior, but your potency just isn’t there yet. I haven’t even used a technique yet.”
Vath sighed, “Yeah, I thought so. And you probably know more than two, don’t you?” Torin just smirked in response. “Well, I still have more to learn, and we’re already here. Show me how far I have to go, Torin.”
“You sure, kid? Don’t wanna hurt you too bad.” Torin said uncertainly.
Vath nodded resolutely, resetting his stance, “Yeah, I’m sure.”
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Elder Lita’s arms were crossed. Her foot was tapping. Her eyes were narrowed, and her mouth was decidedly frowning. She stared at the two brothers, bruises and light cuts on their face, and doubtless more under their robes. Dornah and Emara sat off to the side, and the traitors had already told Lita what had happened to them when asked.
“You want to explain why I just had a healer fix two broken noses, assorted other fractures, and one internal bleed? Explain what possessed you to go do more sparring on your first rest day off from relentless sparring, but in a place where you were completely outmatched and didn’t have Wald and I watching?” she demanded.
“Well,” Kaser began, “I thought we might do better than that, at first. But also, I thought we could learn something from the fights.”
“Tell me, then, what did you learn, Kaser.” she said flatly.
“I mean, I refined a few moves, but mostly just variations on things I already knew. I’m susceptible to things that slow or stop my speed, and being fast enough to hit doesn’t help if it is a weak blow that doesn’t hurt. Speaking of which, I want to spar more against Dornah, and I have a suggestion that he find an ice technique that slows or traps enemies. He’s got the best defense of the four of us, and if he gets such a thing, I’ll have someone to practice both my biggest weaknesses against.” Kaser answered with a questioning look to Dornah, who looked thoughtful before agreeing that it would be a good addition to his repertoire.
“And you?” Lita said with a look towards Vath.
“That we’re good at this.” he responded.
For the first time, she looked a little less frustrated, as an eyebrow rose. “Explain.” she said.
“We didn’t train much in the village, less in the wilds, and when we first got here we were only building the foundations of our knowledge for the longest time. We had the sparring class, so we knew we were improving, but it was all against people our age, without techniques in most cases. You and Wald have praised us, we’ve had some dry factual talks about our strong and weak points, and we could clearly see that we were better week over week, especially the last two months. But you know us, like us. And some of our proficiency fighting Dornah and Emara has to be familiarity at this point. I went into that arena wanting to learn just how far we had to go, but the biggest thing I learned is just how quickly we’re gonna get there. Torin, my opponent, had no idea who I was. He was three years older than me, at least. He’s probably been practicing his skills for most of a decade longer than me even if he came from a similar village.. He’s been at the sect longer. He had more techniques, and he was more than a full stage above me. And I still made him work for it. I impressed him. I told him to pull out all the stops just so I could see what it was like, and it still took him multiple minutes to put me down. I don’t think I could have won regardless, but the only thing that prevented me from having a real fighting chance was a lack of strength and potency. We’ve only been here a few months. It just really hit me. Sure, we have plenty of room to grow, but we’re good at this.” Vath replied, looking up at Lita as he finished.
She paused, ruminating for a moment before she spoke, “Confidence is good, and if this gave you some in your own abilities, I’m glad; but knowing when to fight and when not to is also good. I hate the idea of hurting those under my care, but I do find pain is excellent at making people remember things. So, that healer fixed everything that might be dangerous, but the rest of this…” she said with a wave at the bruises and light lacerations, “Those you can heal naturally, and maybe next time you won’t jump into a battle with people you know are stronger just to see what happens. And if I hear that you went to another healer to fix them, there will be consequences.” she finished, before stomping away.
The brothers looked to Wald, protestations on their lips, but he cut them off with a wry smile, “Don’t look at me. I’m less upset than she is - she’s always been overprotective - but I would have given you the same punishment for doing something like that without even telling us. There are healers there, but these are full technique fights. You could have been seriously injured for days or weeks, even if death was unlikely. Ancestors, you were seriously injured from what the healer said. You can deal with light pain for a bit to remember. Besides, both your durabilities are over forty. You’ll heal in no time.” He turned to follow his mother, leaving two grumbling brothers in his wake.