My opponent, as it happened, was ready first. I'd been worried that we would need to wait, but apparently Alden had taken 'is here right know' as unspoken criteria, and all of our opponents were on the premises. I was glad not to have to wait for my big match. I was raring to go at the moment, having more than recovered from any exhaustion from my earlier training with Jessie's help on the elevator ride down here. Having a teammate who could mainline pure life force into your body was insanely convenient.
The guy I was fighting, Fang (and wasn't that a boring name, I had to wonder how he had even gotten it, I'd have thought it would be taken) was an average looking man with pale skin, brown hair, and amber eyes with dark circles under them like he didn't get much sleep. His expression was serene, which I wouldn't have expected from a guy named Fang, but I could somewhat sense and aura of danger coming off him, like I was looking at a predator.
"It's nice to meet you, I think I saw you around at the party." I said politely. Fang's expression didn't change, but he gave a slow nod. Not a chatty guy. "So, any rules you want to make, special circumstances, safe words? This is my first time in one of these so I don't exactly know what the conventions are. I hope you can guide me through what we're supposed to be doing for this match."
Fang stood there, unmoving for a second, looking up and away ponderingly before finally giving a slight nod. "Attack until one party calls stop, or unconsciousness. Avoid killing blows." His voice was deep and rumbled up from his chest, surprisingly growly for such a small man. I didn't put him at more then five foot six, but he his voice made him sound like a giant. It rumbled up from his chest like an eruption from the depths of the molten earth.
It also stopped immediately after he said that, clearly having decided that he didn't need to illuminate me anymore. I shrugged internally, it was nice enough for him to bother to start with. I didn't mind just starting. I turned to Alden, who was apparently taking a position as officiator. He gave me a wide grin. "Now, as you all know, officiator of the battle is a sacred trust. No suspect calls are tolerated. I've proven my impartiality, but I wanted to inform our fresh hire that I won't be going easy just because I bet a chunk of cash on him. Understood?"
I nodded. "That's fine, I wouldn't want it any other way. I take it his rules were all there are?" I glanced to Fang. "Not that I'm doubting you, just want to make extra sure I haven't missed anything. It would be a shame to lose on a technicality I didn't see coming. I'd rather have as fair and even a match as possible" I also didn't know this guy. No harm in doing a bit of double checking.
When Alden nodded, I breathed a sight of relief and did something I hadn't done in a long time. I activated my overlay. I had let this particular tool in my arsenal rust for quite a while since we arrived in Rajak. With all my new overt attacks it just never seemed too useful. I preferred sneak attacks and overwhelming force. I wasn't done though. Along with the overlay, I resonated my Balam Skill, and the arrows shifted.
Suddenly I was standing in a field of images of myself and my opponent, some red, some green. Because they were, after all, my Skills, I could see that each image represented one of my Balam forms, and I could tell what the responses might be. I prowled forward, staying loose and ready to attack, as well as keeping my eyes out for attack opportunities on Fang, whose power I didn't actually know yet.
When I got close, I spun off my front foot, back leg scything out in a sweeping whip from low to high with my entire body behind it. Fang reacted by taking a slight step back, which had been an option I prepared for, and I hurled myself back into a flip off my feet as my kick came full circle and my other one hit the ground, pressing my hands down for extra distance as I brought both heels down in a smash at Fang's head and shoulders.
The overlay was combining with my Balam Mastery to form a sort of predictive textbook on how to use my attacks. It gave me lots of options that I could use, and lots of potential responses, and using it was letting me refine my technique in combat. My overlay, as I'd suspected, was the perfect way to figure out how to string all my movements and forms together optimally. It was going to take lots of repetition to find the patterns that worked best, but then again, that was the whole point of this fight.
My heels smashed down at Fang's face, and I expected him to dodge. I did not however, expect him to pick the least likely possible response and headbutt my heel while using both hands to catch the other. I reacted with a cloud step, pushing off the air to change direction just before he was able to wrap his hands around my ankle. I landed a few feet away,and once I realized I wasn't going to break his defense with the range I had, I reached into my coat and drew my cane.
When he saw the weapon, Fang did something I hadn't expected at all. He smiled. The smile started as a small, quiet thing, but then it began to grow, his lips pulled back, continuing past the point of natural possibility as he fece lengthened and shifted, the action acting as the opening for a transformation as his visage twisted into a muzzled furry wolf face. The rest of his body expanded and began to fill in with fur, until the small man was gone, and I was looking at a seven and a half foot tall werewolf.
Which kind of explained the whole Vitality regen thing. I mentally cursed at Alden for burying the lead here, but I didn't really blame him. Based on the first part of this fight, Fang might not have needed to actually shift for most people, especially if he had a limited version of that regen in human form. I wondered where all the extra mass came from, then just wrote it off as Fantasy. I bet he could do other crazy werewolf shit with Fantasy if he leaned into the stories too, but for the moment I doubted it was relevant.
It took me a second to decide how to handle this, and I finally decided to use my poison fire. It was a soft counter to regeneration, and would burn his energy more quickly. Plus it would hurt which was distracting. Once that was done I triggered Leaf on the Wind, because mobility was the only possible way I had a chance at beating someone this big and based on what I knew about werewolves, probably strong.
I was guessing this was a racial ability, I knew that fairies weren't the only things around, it was also possible to become a devil or monster. Werewolves weren't a big surprise, though I hadn't heard of any before so they might have been rare like vampires, or I might just be a frog in a well...and I was distracting myself again. I shook off my wandering thoughts and decided to put more energy into raising Focus, it was possible having it so far behind Perception was the reason I was so easily distracted.
With my attention back where it should be, I rushed forward at Fang, staying light on my feet to take advantage of Leaf on the Wind. My cane whirled as I pushed off, hurtling toward him in a long, low lunge that carried me forward about fifteen feet right above the ground. As I came forward the overlay showed his mist likely response, and since this was a direct attack, it was easy to see what he would go with.
Knowing what was coming, I waited until I got in close, then triggered cloud step three times. I pushed off once sending me hard to the side, out of his eyeline, then again pushing forward at a diagonal to appear behind him, then a third time from the back to throw me forward at his back, my cane lashing out at his undefended skull from behind as the quick series of motions allowed me to slip into his blindspot through using the cloud steps like a wall corner I was able to bounce off of.
Fang was fast, but his reaction was still limited to what he could track, and he didn't manage to turn around quickly enough to avoid the poison fire can snash upside his head, sending him staggering forward as I used the opportunity to follow up with a few attacks from behind, aiming my first one at the back of his knee to unsteady him. Luckily the overlay warned me of his coming attack (well, a dozen of them, were possible but they all involved an attack to drive me away) so I was able to dodge back in a smooth handspring and avoid the powerful werewolf claw attacks as he spun.
Despite his absurd size, Fang was also FAST. The werewolf had the speed of a striking snake, and only a combination of my mobility and the overlay let me stay ahead of him. Even that wouldn't have been enough except for the fact that I had the healing burst from Jessie. I triggered it, along with Afterburner, which amplified one of my moves massively. A five times boost to Jessie's life energy pushed my physical ability to it's absolute maximum and left me overflowing with vital power even as all my energy usage until now recovered.
I went on the offensive. I only had until the quintupled power of the Vitality boost ended, which would be at most a quarter of an hour, but that was plenty of time to immerse myself in the battle. I'd also confirmed that unlike Mercy Kill, Afterburner would work on a healing skill as long as I was the one using it. That would be useful information in the future. For now I just flashed forward to attack with the best combinations I could find in the overlay. My cane lashed out, spinning between fingers to take advantage of the rotational specialty of Balam.
I lost myself in battle. I knew the energy wasn't infinite, and at fifteen minutes might not seem long, but the amount of learning you can do with my level of Focus and a perfect opponent to test every idea of concept on, as well as a guide, isn't small, even in that limited amount of time. I flashed through endless combinations, blurring through the air at the absolute maximum speed my ninety seven points of Might could manage.
Fang met me head on, obviously much more Vitality heavy than Might (which made sense with a VItality multiplier for regeneration in his combat form) but still stronger than me. But between my ability to predict moves and make them myself with Leaf on the Wind I managed to avoid most hits. He got in some lucky shots, broke a few ribs and left a lot more bruises, but the poison fire was wearing him down.
I didn't expect it to actually beat him, even if I lined up every shot perfectly and joined the effects together in stacks. With his Vitality that would never happen, but what DID happen was that each stack of poison fire took up resources his body needed to heal. After fourteen minutes, my lifeforce charge was about to run out, and I decided to end things right then and there.
Flurry of Blows, Mercy Kill, and a triggered burst of stored force I'd been stockpiling through the whole fight slammed into his knee and shattered it in such a vicious way even his regen would take a minute or two to fix it. I looked to Alden, who accepted that I could have killed him with that blow if I'd hit him in the head and declared me the winner. Then the weakness hit and I fell on my ass, breathing heavy as the lifeforce ran out and the backlash from Afterburner hit. I didn't mind though, because I could feel one of my Skill breaking through. Balam Mastery had just hit Lesser. Perfect.
