“Then, three, two, one. Begin!"
Eugene charged.
Felix quickly shifted from feigned indifference to a ready stance. The first part of his plan had worked. He’d baited Eugene into a charge. Unfortunately for Felix, he’d underestimated just how vast the difference between their physical abilities was.
Eugene might not have reached the limit of his natural abilities, but he had a good bit of height on Felix. Training as a knight also boosted his natural limit. All that meant Eugene was almost half again as fast as Felix.
At least his skills were on par with what Felix expected. Either that or Felix had really gotten under his skin. Eugene charged him, holding his training sword above his head, ready to slash down. He completely disregarded the fact that it left him wide open. Not only that, he was charging an opponent with superior reach.
Felix’s training paid off as he barely managed to get his staff in between them before Eugene got too close. He wasn’t able to put as much force into his jab as he’d have liked, but Eugene’s momentum worked against him as he charged into the attack.
With a strained sound, the air was forced out of Eugene as the tip of the staff drove into his abdomen. Felix quickly swung his staff around, trying to capitalise on the opening with another strike.
Eugene managed to barely place his sword in between the strike, again bleeding off some of the force. His own sword whacked him in the face as the awkward angle stopped Eugene from fully blocking the strike.
Felix pursed his lips. Things weren’t going well. He might have the upper hand, but if the fight dragged on, Eugene would have the advantage. Felix might have a slight edge in skill, but that wasn’t going to make up for their difference in strength.
Not wanting to give Eugene a chance to turn the tables, Felix launched into a barrage of strikes. He swapped his grip from a thrusting stance near the end of the staff to a middle grip. It allowed him to attack with both ends of the staff. With his new grip, he was able to quickly vary the angle of his strikes. Even with his increased speed, Eugene wasn’t able to keep up with the unpredictable flurry of blows. Yet even as Felix landed strike after strike, each one causing Eugene to grunt in pain, he realised that it wouldn’t work.
Not having the full length of the staff as leverage meant his strikes weren’t doing any significant damage. They clearly hurt like hell, going off Eugene’s pained yelps and panicked attempts to block the onslaught. But it wasn’t enough to win.
To make matters worse, with every successful block, Felix’s hands grew numb. Eugene’s strength made it feel as if he were slamming his staff against a solid pillar. Each hit sent ripples through the staff and up his arms.
Eugene’s panic quickly turned to rage again as he started ignoring some of Felix’s strikes to launch counterattacks.
Felix managed to avoid him. His lack of skill meant that, though his strikes were fast, they were clearly telegraphed.
Struggling to keep up, Felix quickly brought his staff to the side to block a strike, only to be hit with a greater force than he expected. The strike nearly made him lose his footing. He barely managed to catch himself, but not quickly enough to avoid the follow-up strike from Eugene. His sword cleanly connected with his collarbone.
With a sickening snap, Felix could feel something break. He barely managed to bite back a yell of pain as he quickly jumped back to put some distance between them. Either from caution or exhaustion, Eugene didn’t immediately follow up with a charge.
Felix’s mind worked rapidly to assess the damage. He could barely move his left arm. Every movement sent a spike of pain through his neck, arm, and back. He could feel something sharp digging into his flesh near the nape of his neck.
‘Spokes! This is bad.’
Quickly scrambling for a way to win, Felix quickly realised he couldn’t let Eugene know how much damage he’d done. He quickly schooled his expression into a mask of confidence. He wouldn’t have long before the bruising became obvious. If not for his shirt covering the worst of his injury, he might not even have been able to do that much.
“Oh wow! You can hit back! Hey, if we were playing for points like we used to back home, what would the score be right now? Hundred to one? I lost count some time ago.”
Eugene was clearly nursing several injuries. He was putting most of his weight on his right foot and held his sword limply in his left hand. Still, he looked at Felix with eyes that screamed of pure hatred.
Felix shifted his staff to one hand and rested it on his good shoulder in a posture of feigned nonchalance.
Hoping he could bait him into another careless strike, Felix pressed on.
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“Say, weren’t you so convinced of your greatness? Didn’t you keep going on about how you were one of the most talented people at the Crossroad? Weren’t you arrogant enough to declare that I should stop trying to be a Traveller just because you said so?
“Well, c’mon then, oh paragon of talent, why don’t you show everyone how great you are? Or is this all you have? Barely able to hold on against someone who doesn’t even have a spell? Not even able to fight a mage in melee combat?”
The moment he saw the flash of excitement in Eugene’s eyes, he realised he’d made a mistake. He shouldn’t have brought up spells, his careless taunt giving Eugene an idea.
Instead of charging in like a moron and leaving himself wide open for a counterattack, Eugene closed his eyes.
Felix looked on in shock, knowing what was coming. His feigned nonchalance and useless left arm worked against him. He couldn’t cross the distance fast enough to stop him.
Before Felix could intervene, waves of heat roiled off Eugene, and he opened his eyes, giving Felix an almost manic look as his sword was engulfed in a plume of fire. With Felix already closing the distance, he didn’t have the space to dodge as Eugene rushed forward.
Eugene brought down his sword. His terrible control over the fire worked in his favour, as instead of sticking to the sword, it spread throughout the place. It served as a guard, preventing Felix from taking advantage of the countless openings he left.
Felix quickly used the second move he’d been training as he rapidly side-stepped, avoiding the brunt of Eugene’s attack. The leftover momentum from when he tried stopping the cast forced him to use his staff to shove Eugene to the side to avoid the rest of it.
The move worked as Eugene sped past Felix, flailing his sword uselessly. The last-second shove didn’t go unpunished, though, as Felix’s staff caught fire. He quickly smashed it into the ground, breaking it where the fire had weakened it. It left Felix with a length of wood little longer than Eugene’s sword.
Felix lost his advantage in reach, but the staff became far more manageable with one hand. Eugene still hadn’t noticed the injury. Most likely due to the fact that his own spell was so wildly out of control, the flames covering most of his vision.
‘Shame he can’t be burned by his own spell, would have been great if he took himself out.’
With a bit more distance and now being ready, Felix managed to kite Eugene around the arena, taking advantage of the blind spots his spell created.
It didn’t take long for him to run out of steam. His lack of control clearly showed how little time he’d spent practicing his spell. Felix wouldn’t be surprised if he just focused on blasting out as much fire as he could, thinking it would overwhelm anything he fought.
He wasn’t completely wrong, as his lack of skill would have been easier to take advantage of if his flames were focused on a point. Still, it meant he only managed a couple more swings before he’d managed to turn his own weapon to ash and end up completely exhausted in the process.
The moment his spell flagged, Felix was ready. He closed the distance in a burst of speed, catching Eugene on the side of the face with a direct, full-strength hit.
He could feel a crunch as the remains of his staff connected, sending a couple of teeth flying as Eugene crashed to the side.
The moment Eugene landed, instructor Grendel was already standing in front of Felix, preventing him from going any further. Not that he could, his wild movements made it feel like the remains of his collarbone would dig through his skin at any moment. He could feel pulsing waves of pain so intense that it left him feeling cold and dizzy.
“Winner, Felix!” The instructor took a look around the gym.
“Take a careful look at what happened here today. Every year, the longer you stay, the more duels become commonplace. Remember that if you go around picking fights, we won’t protect you from the consequences.” His rumbling voice was the only thing audible other than Felix’s panting and Eugene’s whimpers.
The crowd had gone completely silent during the duel. Felix didn’t know when it happened, having tuned them out completely during the fight.
Looking at them now, he could see the looks they were giving him and Eugene, some tinged with fear, others with worry. He noticed a few people quickly slinking out of the building, sending worried looks towards the crowd.
Felix turned his gaze to the fallen Eugene, and he was horrified as he realised the level of violence he’d inflicted on another person, someone he knew, someone he used to be friends with.
He remembered why he’d done it. Eugene had become an obstacle, someone standing in his path and preventing him from moving forward. He didn’t do it because he wanted to. He did it because he saw no other way forward.
A renewed sense of horror washed over him as he watched him helplessly sprawled out on the ground. What if next time someone stood in his way, he had to go even further? If he had to kill to keep moving forward, would he do it?
He wanted to deny it. He wanted to say that it would never happen. But he stood at the Crossroad. This place wouldn’t let him deny his path. A certainty settled in him. It wasn’t a matter of if, it was a matter of when.
Bile rose up in his throat as he thought of what he’d need to do to keep going on his path. Violence was cool when you read about it in adventure novels, but now, being faced with it in real life. Being faced with the violence he’d wrought with his own hands, it felt different.
A gentle squeeze on his uninjured shoulder woke him from his spiralling thoughts. Looking up, instructor Grendel nodded his head at Lara and Aster, who waited for him at the edge of the ring.
“Go on, little cub, they’ll take you to the infirmary, get that shoulder looked at. Don’t shy away from what you’ve learned. Think it over. If you need to talk about it, I'm here.” He scratched his chin in thought before shrugging.
“Any guide you wish to talk to will be willing to help you.”
He patted Felix on the back as if to nudge him along. Felix nodded. He might have mumbled a thank you, though he couldn’t be sure.
Lara and Aster took him to the infirmary, though a silence hung over the group. All of them were lost in their own thoughts, unsure of what to say.
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