Chapter 307: Second Fight, First Half
There was something strange weighing me down in my chest... a strange something that could only be best described as feeling very, very heavy.
It felt like it was going to sink me to the floor, then somewhere deeper through the floor, and maybe even beyond deeper that. I couldn’t quite place this sensation while I was doing with so many others that were just as foreign and strange feeling.
In stark contrast, there was a weightlessness to my senses above... my head felt so loose and swayed so light, I feared it might not even be attached to me anymore, and then at the same time, the soles of my feet were completely numb and unfeeling in its every lumbering step.
But none felt ever more prominent than the gaping pitfall opening up in my chest? What was it? Could be many things, many it was just the nerves, I’m getting the shakes, or maybe it was just this stupid chestplate they cladded me with... certainly was heavy enough to fit the criteria, maybe it was just that.
The light tingles in my head, maybe it was also just the helmet. The numbness to my feet could just be the greaves padding it fully with its thin, firm metal walls.
Should have perhaps told my costume designer that she had my armor on too tight before I decided to walk out into the battlefield, sword and shield, tight in either iron-clad grasp.
Too late now. I clunked once, twice... further into the center of the arena. Tyler echoed loud, as well as the incessant fervor of the crowd, filling full the narrow empty space between the helmet and my face, resounding it, magnifying it, as if they really were all screaming their cheers, spitting their jeers, directly into both my ears.
.....
Speaking of jeers... Bob decided to forgo the iron helm, preferring instead the sturdy comfort of his construction hat, so now I have to deal with his sneering smug mug staring down at me throughout this whole entire ordeal.
Pretty sure that’s very much against safety regulations. Then again, he’s pretty broken every single rule up to this point and has gotten away with it all scot-free/ So what was one more measly rule?
“Hmm,” He stared across from me, his gaze assessing, his lips slowly twisting. “Clown outfit was a nice laugh, but this knight getup is even better. You look like an absolute muppet now.”
“And you look like you shouldn’t even be here,” I responded back. “And yet here you are, mind explaining that?”
Bob shrugged. “Something it pays to have close connections, and for this sort of occasion, luckily I got the closest connection of all – family.”
“Ahh, so the judges...” It finally clicked. Why he could be so neglectful of the rules, why he could still have that cockiness stretching his lips. Can’t believe it took me so long to connect the pieces. “Younger brother? Older? You’re a cousin?”
“Little dotted brother. But of who exactly, I ain’t telling you. Be bad on his image if people know he’s got one of the randomly chosen champions back. Could be a whole scandal.”
“And you don’t mind telling me this all now because – ?”
“I trust you, you seem like a good guy,” He simply said, then said a little more. “Maybe too good for your own good too. Match is going to start anytime soon, still have a chance to start accusing me and I’ll have no way to deny, could win the match and move on just like that – you’re not going to?”
“No, I won’t. I played dirty my fair share, but for you, I rather take things fair. Besides, there’s no point.”
A snort. “No point?”
I nodded. “You’re still going to lose to me regardless.”
He didn’t lose that smarmy grin, in fact it only grew more prominent, like he just heard the most amusing joke in his life and was trying to keep himself from laughing.
“You’re a good joker, jester,” He whispered, then got into a stance. “But I don’t know about that one.”
I got into a stance one of my own, and that’s where the conversation ended. Now it was time to let our swords and shields do the smart talking, the fierce contending, and ultimately decide who was right.
Shortly after, Tyler ended his overtly grandiose spiel of the dual of the millennium and finally diverted his focus to the two contenders of the aforementioned duel.
“Champions!” His voice weaved through the air. “The warrior’s greeting, if you’d be so kind?”
We promptly did as told, my sword and his crossing one another’s, then pulled away hard, fast – I felt the shrillness of it, the pressure, impelled back into my wrist, feeling it within my very bones. It was like the physical equivalent of nails to chalkboard.
Then once more, Tyler looked to his left. “Bob of the Builder,” Spun to his right. “Big Man of House Playboy...”
A little giggle, a little squeal, and the booming roar of the excitement of many directly behind it.
“Quenz’t adil lok’athar!”
Immediately right after, Bob decided to take the preemptive approach, closing the distance in a speedy dash forward. In the midst of the trumpets blare, the crash of drums, he fell his blade from above – its gleam, its blinding shimmer, a growing shadow before my eyes.
It met with a clunk, hitting something blunt – jerking back from the impact of my shield raised against it just in time... and although the shield had taken the brunt of the attack, I could still feel the force of it, the momentum, a shockwave coursing through the length of my arm, and that’s when I knew:
This Bob was stronger than he looked.
In that fraction of a second, he had already recovered. I saw his eyes dart frantically all over, locating an opening, finding that opening – and with his sword swerving horizontally – striking that opening.
He is fast too.
But I’ve seen faster.
Adalia was the fastest opponent that couldn’t be beat.
Barely he got a hit, missing only by the smallest of inches as I took a retreating skip back. ‘Course if I expected that to be the end of that, then I really deserve to lose this one.
He kept at it – blow after blow – aggression, speed intensifying with every missed strike. I didn’t have a single chance to retaliate, further and further, he’s having me take retreating steps back.
Meanwhile the crowd was going ballistic, finally faced with a match worthy of their attention, their time – with Tyler amplifying that excitement a hundredfold with his best play-by-play yet.
My every move was clunky at best, clumsy at worst, ungraceful, unrefined... a perfect matchup with his crude and reckless approach to combat. When he attacks, it was more a flail, less a strike – there was no method to his barrage, he was just swinging and praying.
And slowly but gradually, it was starting to get more and more predictable.
He swung again, he loves to swing left, and always follows it up with a strike from above.
I dodged the first – then firmly, hands bracing, raised my blade on the second.
A hard clunk resounded, plastic meeting plastic, the edge of my sword slamming into his, an increasing pressure from his side trembling the blade in my grasp – I pushed back – trembling his just as much.
“Ooh, it’s a sword cross!” I heard Tyler shout from all around. “A classic in sword fights. Who’s going to break first? Who’s going to give in first? They’re both just staring at each other like a pair of lovers!”
“Pair of... lovers...” heaved Bob, his teeth visible through heavy grunts. “You should break... soon. People might get... the wrong... idea...”
“You...” I hissed deep, my voice as tight as his. “First...”
Somehow even in a tense struggle, fucker could still give out a chuckle.
“Growing up, every night, every morning, me and my brother have this habit of playing swords and shields – we still do, I only get better with every day, my brother takes up fencing as a hobby too, and you wanna know something?
He mounted the pressure, overpowering mine, the tip of his blade mere inches from my face.
“I always end up beating him anyway.”
It felt like my chest was about to explode. “Brother must be... a shitty fencer...”
Bob snorted. “Best of his class, actually.”
“Shitty... class, then...”
“Best in town.”
“Oh, I see...” I tried pushing up, he kept pushing back, harder back. “Even with family... you play dirty...”
He cracked a smile. “I always do, Big Man, always do.”
That’s when the thought occurred to me, the moment when I finally noticed, asked myself – why does his blade shimmer brighter than mine? Why does its gleam feel so authentic, look so real?
My eyes must have reflected back my realization, for Bob’s smile grew even wider.
It wasn’t him that was heavy, it wasn’t him that was strong. His sword was.
“Cheater...” I muttered, furious.
“This is the third time already. If you didn’t think I’d do it again, then maybe the clown outfit isn’t just an outfit, after all. In my defense... you should have seen this coming.”
Yes, I really should have.
My mistake.
Won’t happen again.
He drove his blade even more, sinking it, sinking me... but right before the upper hand was his take and acquire, I stopped sinking.
My blade stopped trembling.
Confusion briefly flashed in his eyes, before it came and went and he immediately impelled again. Yet for all his might, his strength, his every expended effort, he couldn’t get me down any lower.
Quite the opposite was happening, actually.
I was rising.
“I think you forgot what I said, Bob,” I told him in a breath, in a tone, steady as can be. “I told you already, I also play my fair share of dirty.”
Something surged through my arms, something invisible, intangible, something very, very foreign. I felt every muscle tense, including ones incorporeal, and with just the slightest of effort directs upwards –
“OH!” Tyler’s voice rang out to the cries of the crowd. “THAT’S THE SHIT! THAT’S THE GOOD STUFF! BIG MAN JUST SHOWED BOB HE AIN’T HERE TO GET TOSSED AROUND! THAT HE CAN BITE HARDER THAN HE BARKS! WOOF!”
Bob went soaring back, stumbling back.
His first steps backward.
“Huh...” He chuckled. “I wasn’t expecting that...”
Unlike the confusion from before, the one now stayed lingering in his gaze for a little while longer... and stirring amidst it, I could see he was a little caught off guard by what just happened then.
But like everything else, he brushed it aside... most likely thinking it a lucky fluke.
Well then, Bob. In your eyes, in the next few moments that’ll come to pass, I’m about to get lucky again.
Extremely lucky.
.....
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