-Same day, the volcano, Coliseum, Arizona-
I watched as Gene caught the blade of the scythe with his spear and twisted it so that both the sword like prongs held the scythe’s blade.
With a heave, and a sharp twisting motion, the scythe went spinning out of his opponent’s grip. Gene followed that up by continuing the twisting motion to slam the butt end of the spear across the longma’s face before twirling the spear into an upwards slash that cut into the longma’s chest and sent him both flying and screaming in a spray of blood.
Gene approached the downed longma and pointed the spear's prongs at his throat.
“Yield, you’re bleeding out pretty badly from where I hit you.” There was a long moment when the longma sighed. “I apologize for that, but there is more to learn in defeat than there is in victory.”
“I yield.” The longma stated while nodding to Gene. “I thank you for this lesson.”
“Winner, Gene ‘Swift Reaction’ Eric.” After the announcer called it, Gene helped the longma out of the arena and to the awaiting medics. Gene even stopped to pick up the scythe for his opponent.
Said scythe was still a gardening tool, but it had been neat to see it being used effectively in combat.
“That guy was pretty good with a farming implement.” Just making conversation, wondering when my turn was coming so I could show everyone my special talent for busting heads with my bare hooves.
“Yes, but he couldn’t match our friend Gene in skill with his weapon.” It wasn’t all that special Velvet, Gene was trained in various weapons and was decent at martial arts. From the way Jacky tells it, Gene started leaning towards spears after joining her crew. That and it was one of the spare weapons she had on talon until Flamberge gave him a better spear.
“Next up ‘Savannah, the wild’!” The announcer just made Jacky flinch and she watched as Savannah sauntered on down to the arena. “Her opponent will take some time to get into the arena.”
“Really who’s my opponent and are they hot?” Savannah’s tail flicked back and forth as she waited for her opponent and even I was curious.
The last time this happened, Jacky ended up bruised and slightly bloodied with pulp. The fight was both silly and a bit messed up with how poorly it went for Jacky, I could never look at a durian the same way again. Not that I have ever considered durians as anything dangerous before seeing Jacky’s curse full tilt her with what should have been a simple fight.
It wasn’t like I was going to ever fight a durian or go out of my way to do so in the same way Jacky did personally, I learned a lot from watching her flounder and flail about. The pulp that got all over Jacky's feathers was cleaned out with Skelly’s help and the smell was still bad even after all the remaining bits of it were thoroughly scrubbed away.
Eventually we saw Savannahs opponent, it had to be flown in and I think this competition might have been slightly skewed because of Jacky’s participation. Why else would Savannah have to fight that?
“You’re opponent, is this section of brick wall… yes, we’re being quite serious about this.” It’s hard to believe the referee was just going along with this, he even sounded a little hard pressed to talk about the virtues of a brick wall like he did with the durian.
The durian was okay and it proved to be entertaining, but it had a signed form and everything. Now that the durian was gone and mostly eaten by a skeleton that currently had her daytime disguise on, well the seeds were going to be grown into more proud battle durians by a longma that wouldn’t mind the smell.
Which led to the question, how in the hay did a brick wall sign a signature multiple times? Why was it even this brick wall specifically? What section of the city did it come from and why did it end up in this competition?
“I’m blaming you for this Captain!” Savannah shouted at the parrot sitting alone in the stands, mostly because said parrot smelled like durian now.
Jacky can’t control her smell, Fortitude could actually contain and shape his smell to his whims by pure willpower. This explains why were weren’t all gagging at sitting near Fortitude at the moment.
“Fair enough!” Jacky shouted right on back.
“So how will we know if I’ve beaten the wall?” The underwhelming nature of this next fight was quite noted by anyone, but it mostly came out in Savannah’s tone. “It’s… a section of brick wall.”
“Knock it down and don’t let it get up?” Even the referee seemed a little confused about how this was going to work.
“This is the oddest fighting competition I’ve ever been a part of.” I received noises of agreement from both Velvet and Paprika. Even Paprika took fighting seriously in her own way, despite fighting primarily with love and smiles.
-Savannah-
“Ready… fight!” The referee announced. I just looked at him and then back to the brick wall.
I took on a thinking pose while I looked at the wall. It was a brick wall, seven feet wide at least five feet tall and a few inches thick. There was no way I was punching this problem away, I’d hurt my fists just trying.
Thinking about it, I decided to try ramming the wall with my shoulder first. This was not like a bar brawl or a normal martial arts fight that requires agility, poise and a strong fist or nicely manicured claws. This was me fighting a brick wall.
Like Jacky had said, this was utterly ridiculous, but I had to do it if I wanted to move on to the next round.
Backing up, I properly brought my shoulder forward and looked at the wall. I lacked the weight to actually topple it, but maybe I could get it moving?
I charged forward into the wall and… fell to the ground after bouncing off it. I was not super strong like Arizona, I wasn’t able to have a cannon on me at all times like Captain Jacky and I wasn’t lucky enough to have the incredible martial prowess that could allow me to punch through bricks without feeling pain.
I may be beautiful and can attract plenty a look in my direction, but that wouldn’t last forever. Beauty was fleeting and not something I was intent on pursuing to the end of my days, I do want to be known for other things after all.
This… was going to be a problem.
Getting up I studied the brick wall, I decided to change tactics as ramming it shoulder first was going to leave me hurting if I kept doing it. I backed up once again and ran forward to jump and kick at it.
I pushed off the wall when both my feet collided with it and did a hand spring into a standing position where I ran towards the wall to jump and kick at it again. It wobbled and a few chips of stone came out of it, but it was staying sturdy.
I was able to take the impact to the bottom of my feet much better than the hits to my shoulder, so I should be able to keep this up for a few minutes.
-Sweetcakes-
In Huoshan, one could be blamed for their actions and the results of them. On the other side of things, you could also be praised for positive actions and helping others. I was taking this opportunity to help out the medics on standby for injured fighters.
I had finished sealing up the longma’s spear related injury, without the need for stitches, and was given the go ahead to see to Jacky. Jacky’s scratches and bruises weren’t immediately fatal, so other than the smell she didn’t need nearly as much help as the other fighters did, but I was open to give her help now.
There were no rules about how fighters recovered between fights, though I had just been healing only the losers so far. Both Shocking Awe and Dispel Grace really tore up their first round competition, at least they weren’t killing anyone. Dispel had at least some wonky sense of honor and wouldn’t hurt a downed and completely helpless opponent, compared to Shocking rubbing in his victories as much as he could before the match was called.
There was also the fact that Tianhuo was doing something on the job in the city and told me to keep the fighters that lose in good condition. She had a feeling we’d be needing them some time shortly after the competition was over with.
I certainly wasn’t going to heal Dispel Grace or Shocking Awe, but I wasn’t worried about those two… I was worried about Teatime Clockwork and what he could be doing. I didn’t know of his danger until he called it in right on top of me.
In an effort to help Jacky, I needed to talk to the scariest being currently here… Paprika.
“Hello I need help, do you have a smell stopper, I need to heal her.” I pointed to Jacky, Paprika nodded and held out a wooden pin. I reached for it, only she pulled it out of the way of my paw.
I gave her a curious look, she held out her hooves and waited for me. Ah, she wanted to embrace me in exchange for goods and services. I sighed and moved into range, she grabbed me and nuzzled me affectionately. It was a little bit tight and a bit painful, but after a minute she let me go and placed the thing on my nose while smiling.
Having acquired the necessary equipment I made my way over to Jacky and gave her a look.
“Yeah, okay, I get it.” Grumbled Jacky. “I washed it all off, but it still smells horrible and the stench could light up the stands if I go anywhere near Flamberge. Fair warning, I’m a constant walking bruise, so you may tire yourself out trying to fully heal me. Just get me in a good enough condition.”
Gene was Flamberge’s brother and Jacky was Gene’s Captain and ‘Special Someone; if Flamberge ever started loving me back, I would be family with her. Not that that was the only reason why I was healing her, I did want to actually be friends with all of their friends on my own merit.
Building bonds and connecting was always nice, especially with interesting people.
Ryu and Dodgy were interesting people in Neighpon, they may have saved my butt once or twice when I knocked down a building, got kidnapped or accidentally caused a few gang wars. I kind of miss those days, but all this travel and adventure were just as, if not more, exciting.
“You’re sweating an awful lot, you look like you need to take a break and cool down.” Yes, The Volcano was exceptionally warm and I was tiring a lot, but I could stand to give a little more.
Starting to the feel an immense strain on my strength, I’m taking Jacky’s advice and will not try to heal her fully. She was like a healing magic sponge, how many injuries does this parrot walk around and live with?! I just decided to stop right then and there.
“Thanks, you shouldn’t push yourself so hard or try so hard where Flamberge is concerned. Just let it happen if it does and continue to be a good friend like this.” That… was actually good advice and I nodded to Jacky with a smile. “Hey, Tinsel, a hot and bothered friend over here needs to cool down a little!”
Tinsel, the adorable little familiar of Velvet with the thin ‘I heart Paprika’ shirt, floated over to us holding a tiny flag that was praising Arizona. He put the flag down and looked me over, eventually he thrusted a tiny limb forward and a cooling wind rushed gently through my fur.
I smiled and relaxed, then I thought of something. I pulled out the tengu fan and held it out to him, he looked at it curiously and he took the thing into it his tiny limbs and dropped a bit from the weight that he struggled with for a minute.
Looking about the arena, Tinsel smiled and swung the fan and the stands started filling with a gentle cooling breeze. He then dropped the fan in front of me and smiled tiredly at me. That was quite an impressive amount of effort for one so small. He slowly hovered his way back over to Velvet and the snuggling family.
“Well that was a cute interaction, also it seems Savannah is slowly losing this fight.” To see what Jacky was talking about, I looked into the arena and saw Savannah sitting on the ground wheezing a bit. “She’s been kicking off that wall constantly for the last few minutes, at least she’s shown stamina and how brave she is in the face of the clearly immovable opponent.”
I agree, such a show of heart should be praised and the longma seemed to agree with her.
-Savannah-
Okay, kicking off the wall did minimal damage, said minimal damage was a number of cracks from every spot I hit on the wall with the full weight of my body.
I needed a new tactic… once I catch my breath. At least I didn’t have to worry about my opponent attacking me back. I moved over to the side of the wall and gripped both sides of it, then I started to climb until I was on top of the wall.
“Okay, I’ve pinned him, does that count?” I asked after sitting on the wall for ten seconds.
“No, your opponent is still standing, though I have to admit that I’m impressed with your resolve to win this fight.” The referee stated and I sighed audibly as I laid down on top of the wall.
What to do? Well… I could start trying to rock the wall from up here. With the difference in the center of gravity… I might be able to topple it just need to a few more minutes to give myself some time to build up the energy to do that.
When I was ready I gripped the top of the wall and started rocking it back and forth, eventually the wall started to lean with my movement and with a hard jerk the wall tilted to my right almost like it was going to fall over.
The wall quickly slammed to the left and I was flung off the wall to the ground. The wall rocked back and forth twice before it came crashing down entirely on top me.
-Arizona-
Savannah yowled in pain as she was crushed under the wall and several people went to her immediate aid, I was one of them that helped lift the wall off of the poor Abyssinian. She had been squashed by it and likely had some broken bones if she was still alive.
“Winner by knockout, the… The ‘ton of bricks’ Wall!” The referee shouted in disbelief as Savannah was carried to the medics by her crew.
-Thirty minutes later-
“Next fighter, Pom ‘The Canine Queen’ Lambchop.” Well that was a surprise. “Her opponent, 'Flying Puppy' Ruff!”
I think corrected.