Four pillars rise from the stage’s floor, marking an all-too-familiar rectangle of clear, buzzing barriers. The skin of my upper arms twitches as I relive the faded memory of Duff flinging me into the same barriers when we first met. I know I’ve improved since then, but there's still an inherent fear of touching them left in me.
“Am I being hazed? This is the third time I’ve been coerced into combat with other people since my ascension.” I say, crossing my arms at Revision.
His chuckle through his helmet sounds haunting; its muffled echo darkening his normally jovial voice. “Considering the job description, is it really so surprising that we take every chance we can to practice?”
I step into the arena, careful not to touch the electrical fields as I do. “That sounds miserably painful; what about when Catherine isn’t around? Do you just stay constantly sore?”
My grimace is part real, part show, as the cameras are still on us. The show must go on, or something like that. I don't know; I wasn’t a theater kid.
He touches his gauntleted hand to the electrified barrier like some nostalgic old guy caressing the support beam of his childhood home; completely unfazed by its violent crackling. I almost pass off the action as purely sentimental, but my gut tells me there’s something more going on.
“Once you get good enough at it, there really isn’t much soreness to complain about. Someone of my Ascension rank can’t realistically push themselves without causing damage to their surroundings, so instead you become more precise. More efficient.”
I see a flash of his palm as he clenches his fist and settles into a waiting stance, giving me a look at a padding of sorts that wasn’t there before. Is it to make his blows softer? No—he just emphasized how precise he is; he wouldn’t need that. I doubt it’s to reduce the impact of my hits either, as I’ve seen how little physical damage does to him.
My tentacles fan out around me, careful not to touch the barriers as I prepare my next move.
Dashing in one direction, I direct my tentacles to attack from the other, probing his defenses noncommittaly. He snatches two of them out of the air, yanking fast enough that I’m almost too slow to let them dissipate, avoiding a disaster by miliseconds.
“Even restricting himself physically to your rank, Revision will be far more responsive to your attacks than you will to his. His mind is simply on a different plane of comprehension than yours due to his rank.” Roosevelt adds, derailing my previous train of thought.
Growing a collection of crystalline shards from some of my tentacles, I tear them off and throw them his way. It’s clumsy, and I receive no awards for ingenuity, but anything that doesn’t leave me open to an immediate counterattack is a win in my book.
“Since we’re talking anyway, how about you tell me what my best bet would be to give this guy the business?" I say, asking despite knowing he plans on rejecting me.
His posh defiance is cute, yet unhelpful, as he responds with, “I hardly think telling you how to fight him would be within the spirit of sportsmanship.”
Revision, rather than dodging or attacking, backhands my own projectiles back at me, their shattered remains pelting me like a shotgun blast of fiberglass. I block my eyes and most of my face, but my wrists and parts of my forearms suffer the damage instead, with dozens of tiny blood droplets welling up where I was hit.
“Sportsmanship? You’re going with sportsmanship? If that’s the case, why is someone of my weight class fighting that behemoth of a man?” I clap back, morphing two of my tentacles over my forearms and hardening them to prevent further damage.
“The difference in body type is less relevant when you consider—"
“If you say anything relating to magic powers, I’ll tie your arms and tentacles together.”
“I suppose a little hint couldn’t hurt.”
I jump backwards as Revision stomps towards me, but it’s just a fakeout to get me to touch the fence, which, unfortunately, I do. Electrical shocks light up my rear as I just about sit on the thing in front of a live audience. I glower at him, but any expression he makes in response is hidden by his helmets design—a lions maw opening just enough to reveal his bright blue eyes.
“I would love that hint at any point, if you ever feel so inclined.” I think toward Roosevelt, a tinge of desperation sliding into my snark.
Seeing my hesitation to act, Revision abandons his defensive act, hopping forward and throwing a jab at my midsection. I widen and flatten the crystal shield on my arm, angling it so his attack would skid off of it, but severely overestimate it’s durability.
The shield's midsection crunches as his armored fist connects with it, and my own bones groan in complaint at the stress, but it does deflect him enough that I avoid the far more damaging hit to my ribs. I spin out of the way, letting his attack boost me—painfully—out of his reach.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“I have a feeling you’d have figured it out shortly regardless, but here’s your hint: Look at his knuckles.”
Knuckles? Oh. Knuckles.
Protruding from the knuckles of the gauntlet that broke my shield is a collection of four, still-growing spikes. They’re barely an inch long, but I could easily see them piercing right through any of my meager defenses.
Thinking back to the start of the fight, I compare this to him intentionally shocking himself and growing what must have been some sort of insulated padding, like rubber. Is he manually doing that? I doubt it, or else he’d have started the fight with all of these advantages rather than waiting for them to show up. Maybe he’s—
I slap my forehead mid-fight, causing him to pause and look at me.
“Are you okay? I didn’t hit your head or anything, did I?” he asks, genuine concern showing through his revealed eyes.
“Your name is literally Revision.” I respond snippily, even though I’m the one who forgot that it was his Vanguard title, even if he took it as his legal name.
The plates of his armor scrape together as he tilts his head quizzically.
“Yes?”
I sprint at him, barely forming together my plan as I run. My arms spread out as if I’m going to tackle him, but I kick my legs out at the last moment, sending myself sliding horizontally between his legs.
A foot stomps down on my hair, but I let the trapped part dissipate, focusing all my attention on channeling my chthonic energy. My fingertips connect with the knee joint of his armor and I release, a burst of dense crystal spikes stabbing violently through the mechanism.
His grunt of pain brings me a little more satisfaction than I’m comfortable with, but I’ll leave the nuances of my budding sadism to a later Brooke.
I watch as the armor covering his injury seals up—new, even thicker plates spreading on top of it like a metallic mold. “I’m sure you’ve gotten the gist of what I’m planning; do you think it’ll work?” I ask Roosevelt, needing some confidence from an outside source.
“It’s actually one of your better ideas.”
“That’s definitely an insult. I’m too busy to work out how, but you’re being rude.”
Revision is up and moving by this point, and if I hadn’t seen myself stab him in the knee, I’d have assumed him to be uninjured. That’s not a great sign for plan: “human airbag,” but he could just be toughing it out.
“You’re more vicious than I thought! Didn’t think you’d be ready to draw blood so quickly.” Revisions announces, banging his fists against specific parts of his armor. Fresh plates grow beneath his assault, some of them thick and malleable, others thin but razor sharp.
“Complementing me? Aren’t you supposed to be engaged?” I say, morphing two of my tentacles into blunt, mace-like shapes behind my back. I want to rush in, but he looks ready this time, and if he properly gets a hold of me, I’m done for.
He glances nervously at one of the big screens, responding, “Those are dangerous words, considering the lady in question.”
I don't respond, spreading my feet and lowering my center of balance—a clear invitation.
His bark of a laugh is once again warped by his helmet, setting me on edge as he tromps my way, more train than man. The entire stage shakes with his charge, and I quickly find myself wondering whether I can realistically survive the impact if he hits.
Once he’s four feet away, I panic, moving too early and whipping out the pair of maces I’ve been molding well before I intended to. I swing one for the bottom of his helmet and the other towards his already injured knee, but the knee I was aiming for crashes into my chin, slamming my teeth together and tossing me a good three feet off the ground.
I swallow the pennies someone must have put in my mouth as I get to my feet, far more wobbly than I was a moment ago. All three Revisions look apologetic, but I barely feel anything, so their pity is more insulting than anything else.
“That was a pretty bad hit, you might want to end it here and have Vaguard Asclepius take a look at you. Brain damage is very tricky to heal.”
My vision clears, somewhat, thankfully subtracting my opponents by two. “Ib–I’ll be fine; there’s only one of him, after all.” I say, laughing at my own joke.
I let my tentacles wander, their ends sharpening into points and hooks without my conscious input. The fog invading my mind remains, dulling my actions and senses as I fight it for control. Then it occurs to me:
Why do I want control?
I stop struggling, letting the apathetic fog pervade my thoughts, giving it what it so wants. Roosevelt's voice sounds out again, but I can’t hear it; I’m no longer me. I’m just a passenger now. A deeper thing within acts, dashing forward with my body, affording me precision and speed I could never generate myself.
His surprise is evident, but he reacts quickly, batting the tendrils away as they surround him, their actions synchronized with my body. Even with his experience and power, he has a hard time dealing with the flood of attacks, and instead tries to go for the source.
One of his feet shoots forward, trying to step on one of mine and knock me off balance, but the me is ready for that, hopping into the air and kicking off his chest—a burst of crystal embedding itself in the plate there. His armor grows, gaining thickness and sharpening the tips of his fingers as it adapts, letting him shrug off the tide of my attacks. But also making him slow.
My hands morph into claws, and while I’m sure that would normally horrify me, it’s somewhat comforting right now. In fact, I’m kind of loving the feeling of my too-long tongue as it caresses my changing teeth.
Revisions arm rips through the air despite his armor restricting him, but all me does is lean back, slicing a barbed tentacle against the inner elbow of that limb. Armor grows where he was cut, locking his arm in place for a moment, and giving me the opportunity to do the same to his legs.
He falls to one knee, the other one holding strong as he looks up at me, his blue eyes full of worry.
But what’s making me feel like that worry is for me?