Heart of Dorkness

Scourge Eleven - Punch

Felix sails straight for her opponent, but while she’s very fast, that doesn’t mean that the man she’s fighting is slow. He shifts and swings his mallet around, on a direct course to swat her out of the air.

She slaps at the air, and with a loud ‘oomph’ shoots to the side, rolls, and lands a couple of paces past the man.

The size of the arena’s making it harder for her to fight. It’s also working against her opponent. He can’t exactly start flinging boulders around without risking hitting people in the crowd.

Felix bounces on the spot a couple of times, gauging things carefully. “You’re an interesting opponent,” the man says.

“Yeah, you got any more tricks, old man?”

“You know, I’m only in my thirties, I’m hardly that old,” he says.

Felix laughs as she bounces closer, weaving from side to side with every step. Her opponent raises his mallet up, then brings it crashing down, way too early to hit Felix.

It thumps to the ground and I feel the earth tremble underfoot a moment before two stoney walls break out of the ground like massive, blunted teeth, and try to grab at Felix.

She’s faster, of course, tapping the stones on one side just enough to shoot higher and spin out of the way of the chomping grasp.

Felix moves closer, feet tapping atop shifting stones until she’s right up in front of the bigger man. He lets his mallet drop and brings his arms closer to his face and chest before a fist rockets out towards Felix’s head. The ground around him starts spinning, a blender of rocks constantly moving.

It doesn’t seem to matter to Felix. She weaves out of the path of his fists, and only touches the ground with quick taps. It almost looks as if she weighs nothing, like she’s a leaf being picked up by the passing wind.

Felix ducks under a swing that goes too wide, then peppers the underside of the man’s arm and the side of his chest with a dozen quick strikes.

He grunts, his other arm reaching out to grab her. Instead, she grabs onto his wrist, puts a foot against his chest, and pulls.

He stumbles forward, moving his centre of mass out enough that he can’t keep on his feet.

Then Felix twist’s back, and, in a sudden motion, the man is flipped around and comes crashing down onto his back with a heavy wallop.

Felix hops, spins, and jumps backward, only stopping when she lands--sitting--on the fence around the arena and crosses one leg over the other. “You done, old guy?” she asks.

“Not quite yet,” he says as he rolls back onto his feet. He stomps, and earth rises to cover him up to his thighs, then he leans down and punches the ground twice, great gobs of hardened earth crawling up his arms and forming a rough armour over his limbs and head. “I don't think I can match you for speed,” he says.

“You know, this just means I’ll have to hit harder,” Felix says.

“Hah! Then I’ll give you a free hit! We’ll see if you’re all bark and no bite, girl!” He spreads his arms wide, and there's no way Felix will miss out on an invitation like that.

Felix stands up onto the fence and reaches into a pocket. She removes a long piece of cloth, and while ignoring the murmurs on the crowd, she ties it over her eyes.

“Alright, old guy, I’m coming,” she says.

She launches herself across the arena, a repeat of her last approach.

This time, it’s not a free passage.

Rocky pillars tear out of the ground, barriers blocking her path.

Some in the crowd gasp.

Felix just laughs louder. She swings around a pillar, hops up onto another, then uses a third to springboard high into the air. Every head in the crowd turns up to follow her as she hangs in the air.

Felix grins, looking for all the world like she belongs up there, in the open sky, her eyes entirely closed but the world open to her.

The armour bursts apart as she comes crashing down fist-first. A wyvern punch, delivered from three metres up.

Felix’s laughter is drowned out by the heavy bang of her fist meeting the front of her opponent’s earthen breastplate, and the blast of wind that shoots out around her.

All that strength needs to go somewhere, and that’s out the back of the cuirass.

The older man is sent flying out, bent double at the waist. He crashes into the fence around the arena, right through two of the wooden planks.

“Whoa! Are you okay, old guy?” Felix asks. She’s shaking her hand out, probably working out the soreness there.

Her opponent stands up, looking pretty intact for someone that was just sent flying. Then again, Vigilance mages are pretty tough. Had Felix just punched someone normal like that, we’d be in a heap of trouble, what with murder being frowned upon and all.

“You’re a tough little brat, you know,” he said. “Punches like a mule.”

“Hey, you’re pretty tough too,” Felix says. “Got more in you?” She kicks at part of the stone armour he’d used, a bit that still looks a bit like a leg. It falls over, crumbling apart.

“No, I think I’ve impressed people plenty,” he says. “And knowing when to quit’s a valuable lesson too.”

Felix looks a bit disappointed. We don’t get to practice with a lot of earth mages, and they’re sometimes considered the answer to Joy magic.

“And there we have it!” the announcer says. “An incredible show of cultivation abilities! And our winner, the intrepid Joy-mage Fenix.”

“Felix!” Felix corrects.

The announcer doesn’t seem to care, and her yell’s drowned out by the cheers anyway. I think a few more people bet on the girl this time.

Another earth mage runs out and soon the arena floor is repaired, though there’s not much anyone can do about the broken posts on such short notice.

“I’ll head out next,” I say.

Esme touches my shoulder. “Careful not to let people know about you.”

I nod. “I’ll be careful,” I say.

The announcer switches tracks as I step out into the arena. “And here we have the leader of the little band of girl warriors! Will she be as impressive as her friends? Or will she fall under the fist of her opponent, Optio of the Swinging Sabers, Nillo!”

I twist around to stare at the announcer. Optio is a rank, something like a sergeant in a lot of armies. Are they sending out one of their own? Why? Did they think we needed the challenge, or are they trying to humiliate us?

I glare across the arena at the man stepping in to face me. He’s younger than Felix’s opponent by a couple of years. A smiling man with lanky limbs and very nice armour covered in delicate gilding.

I step up closer to the middle and tug my cloak on tighter.

“Are you ready, girl?” the man opposite me asks.

“Are you?” I shoot back.

He grins before turning to the announcer. “Can we start this thing?”

The announcer nods. “Last seconds for your bets, everyone... and... begin!”

I’m not the fastest spellcaster, but some spells I’ve learned to fire off quickly. It only makes sense to learn to cast those fast.

The first thing I do is allow a thick, cloying darkness to seep out from under my cloak. It instantly forms a screen between me and my opponent.

It’s not hard, frankly, the way we’ve been treated here, the way they think I’m somehow weak? It’s so easy to feel the disgust welling in the pit of my stomach and racing up to my core, and from there it feeds my magic.

I step to the side while preparing my next spells, these I cast as quickly as I can, priming them to fire as soon as I’m ready. The more time I have, the sooner I can end the fight, and if they intend to humiliate me, then ending the fight as soon as I can is the best thing for me to do.

There’s a dark-magic spell that makes one harder to hurt. It’s one of the first I learned, and probably the first I really perfected. The spell is the staple of the entire magic type, making the one it's cast on more durable, more resistant to other effects, and just a tiny bit stronger.

But the spell has a few faults. Miscast it a little, and it will make it harder to move. Miscast it a lot, and it will harden muscles and skin, and basically lock a person in place.

It’s happened to me a few times, while practicing, and it’s never fun.

So, of course, I weaponized it.

“Come on, girl! Don’t hide!” My opponent shouts.

A heavy gust of wind tears through the arena, and my dark cloud is torn apart. I hug my cloak close, even as I use the little bit of wind magic I know to press against the current pushing me back.

Then the air stills at last, and I’m left standing on my end of the arena, alone... except for the eighty or so floating spikes of dark magic, tightly wound and hovering around me like a constellation of primed firepower.

I see my opponent’s eyes widen, and the way the crowd shifts from jeering to cheering.

“Sorry,” I say. “But I do intend to win this.”

And then the spells launch.

***