by Jared Teer
In mid flip, Takeya struck down multiple times in the blink of an eye, thrusting the tips of his fingers into the base of Ray’s skull. Takeya landed in the horse stance with his Praying Hands up in front of him, back to back with Ray.
Takeya glanced back over his shoulder. To his astonishment, Ray slowly turned to face him, somehow resisting the paralysis typically induced by his style’s ultimate technique. He was impressed by Ray’s tenacity and looked forward to fighting him again someday, but this fight was over.
Ray shakily reached for the back of Takeya’s neck, then golden light began to shine from his mouth. Ray exploded in a spherical burst of golden electricity.
Takeya turned and bowed toward the blast.
Hughes massaged Darion’s shoulders as he awaited the announcement of his fight. “Remember the lesson from your last fight,” he advised. “Don’t … hold … back.” Darion nodded in response. “You know Sky’s a knucklehead, but don’t take him lightly. He’ll be joking and shouting those ridiculous names of his special attacks. You mustn’t be distracted. Get him out of there, okay. Laugh with him afterward when he rematerializes.”
“Got it, Hughes.”
“Like I said,” Hughes continued, “do not take him lightly. He’s a highly skilled fighter, though I don’t think he’s as serious about hand-to-hand combat as the others in his family. Counter his technique with aggression; you know the old adage—brawl a boxer and box a brawler. You want to brawl with Sky. Frustrate him and make him fight your fight. Make it a war, and your determination will be the deciding factor.” Darion nodded in understanding.
The announcer spoke and the crowd went silent. “Ladies and gentlemen, are you ready for the last semifinal bout to determine who will face the powerful karateka, Yukinaga Takeya?” The crowd erupted. “Well, without further delay, representing the Rowdies of the Hall of Might and the honorable Conner Clan, Sky Conner!” Sky materialized on the arena floor.
“His opponent, the explosive Ascended warrior trained by the legendary Joseph Hughes, Darion Elmore!” Darion materialized across from Sky.
“Winner goes to the finals, guys,” said Clay. “Are you—” Sky held out his hand to hush his big brother and glared at Darion.
“I must break you,” Sky said evenly in a very good interpretation of a deep Russian accent. Darion smiled and shook his head.
“Are you done?” asked Clay, smiling and annoyed.
“Sorry. I’m done.”
“Are you ready?” Sky nodded. “Are you ready?” Darion nodded, and Clay disappeared.
“Fight!”
Sky shot forward but diagonally to the right before Darion even moved—the years of training making him tricky even in his direct attacks. Flying to Darion’s left, Sky spun to the right on the ball of his left foot and sent his right heel whipping for Darion’s head. Darion shifted to the right and the kick passed over his left shoulder, but the follow-up caught him square in the nose, for, after missing the first kick, Sky kept his leg extended and spun again, whipping another spinning heel for Darion’s face.
Darion reeled. Sky pressed with a devastating combination of unpredictability, skill, and ferocity. Darion attempted to shift straight back, but Sky blasted his thigh with a roundhouse, reared back with the same leg and struck to the ribs, then reared back again and struck to the head as Darion lowered his guard slightly to shield his ribs. Sky continued to mix it up with roundhouses. Darion shifted straight up to evade and Sky leapt after him with one fist extended upward, “Rocket Uppercut!” The blow caught Darion underneath the chin. After connecting with his special move, Sky decided to press the reeling Darion with a series of punches. They traded in midair; Sky landed a few rapid blows but punching was Darion’s game, and he retaliated with a barrage of his own and got the better of the exchange. Sky backed away. Darion pursued and Sky shot a front kick for his face as he approached. Darion saw it coming and shifted quickly to the outside of the strike. “Knuckle Twister!” Sky pulled his leg back after missing the kick and flew into a spin like a top with both fists extended to the side in pursuit of Darion.
Though the names seemed comical and cliché, Sky’s special moves were quite effective at attacking a shifting opponent—the Rocket Uppercut good against an upward shift, and the Knuckle Twister punishing to the sides.
Darion thought himself momentarily safe after shifting and was caught cleanly in the face by the first few rotations. He shifted downward to the ground to avoid more blows and Sky came out of his spin and touched down as well, continuing the onslaught with high kicks that Darion leaned away and glided backward to avoid. Darion had to take the fight to Sky. He threw caution to the wind and surged forward with a barrage of straight head and body punches, forcing Sky to cover and retreat. Sky was adept at shifting as well (though not to the level achieved by training with Hughes’s methods) and suddenly flew straight up, shifted forward, and stepped on Darion’s head, and then came down to Darion’s rear, back to back, and then thrust a back kick to Darion’s butt that sent him shooting head first into the front row of stands. Darion rose and turned to face Sky. Sky was smiling. Darion was furious.
All the more infuriating was the fact that Sky was visibly enjoying himself, smiling and saying ooh when his blows landed. It was clearly just another fight for Sky, but Darion had more serious motives—the life of his friend hung in the balance. Sure, this wasn’t Sky’s fault, but he was an obstacle (an obnoxious obstacle at that) and had to be destroyed.
Darion flew toward him with a right cross, but Sky shifted to the outside of the punch at the last moment and threw a roundhouse to Darion’s exposed right side that sent him sailing over the arena floor. Sky took off after him. Darion overcame the inertia and met Sky head-on, assaulting him with a barrage of differing punches—straights, hooks, and uppercuts. Sky blocked or avoided the majority of the shots, but he took a few as well and decided to shift up and away from the brutal onslaught. Darion was on to him and reached up and grabbed him by both ankles when he attempted to ascend and pulled down while flying up and smashed the crown of his head into Sky’s chin. Sky reeled back. Darion surged forward with a cross but Sky shifted to the outside of the punch and turned his hips for another roundhouse to Darion’s exposed side. Not this time! Darion shifted back and the roundhouse whooshed in front of him, exposing Sky’s back. Darion thrust a forceful front kick into Sky’s butt that sent him skidding on his stomach across the floor. Now, Sky was ticked off. He quickly rose and rocketed toward Darion, abandoning technique in his anger in favor of a direct assault. He leapt forward with a flying knee; Darion caught the blow on his guard and was driven back by the impact. Sky landed and charged with a series of alternating straights that Darion blocked but which were so forceful that his heels tore trenches in the stone floor. Sky was strong. Darion wondered if he shouldn’t have kicked him in the butt.
Sky settled down when he saw that Darion was blocking his shots and went back to his systematical assault of low, middle, and high kicks. After going high, then to the body, Sky threw a roundhouse for Darion’s thigh, but in an unprecedented move, Darion leapt over the kick, bringing his knees up slightly higher than his shoulders, resembling one curling himself into a ball with his parallel forearms between his thighs. Sky rotated 360 degrees on the ball of his supporting foot and came with another roundhouse for the compacted Darion hovering before him. Darion shifted downward, still in a ball, and landed in a low crouch, and, as the kick passed over his head, he sent a cross forward into Sky’s supporting knee that collapsed him. Darion zipped forward in his balled-up state and extended both feet, sliding minutely off the ground in a supine position and smashed his soles into the downed Sky’s side. Sky went sliding across the floor and smashed into the front row in the distance. Darion folded his arms in his supine position and with a wide grin, slowly erected himself like some rigid vampire rising from a coffin.
Sky’s eyes went wide and his brow furrowed as he glared at Darion standing there smugly in the center
of the arena floor. That curling, crouching, whatever technique was completely ridiculous, ludicrous—he had to get Darion to teach it to him. But, first things first. He had to show this upstart what the Conners were really about. Enough of the flashy special moves—though they had their applications, they were more of Sky’s way of distinguishing his own fighting style from that of his family. What truly made the Conner style exceptional was its simultaneous attacks—manipulating one’s center of gravity to allow attacks with multiple limbs at once, increasing the probability of an attack getting through even the best of defenses.
He rose from the crater and took off toward Darion in a sprint. Darion held his ground, bouncing there on his toes with his guard up. Sky reared back with his right arm as he approached as if cocking it for a mighty cross. As he entered striking range, Sky suddenly spun to his right, swinging his cocked arm in a backfist so forceful it gave Darion’s neck a jolt despite his blocking the blow. Sky pressed with an onslaught of various combinations of simultaneous attacks—a left roundhouse with a right cross, left hook with a right knee, rising knee strikes with downward elbows. Darion attempted to trade, but he was clearly getting the worst of the exchange with at least one of Sky’s strikes landing in each combination. A downward elbow came down cleanly on the top of his head, his crown emitting golden vapor on impact. Darion was taking a beating; if he shifted straight back or laterally he’d be pursued with the Knuckle Twister, straight up and the Rocket Uppercut. The fight was becoming grueling, and a couple more clean shots from Sky’s simultaneous attacks could finish him off. The only way to overcome Sky’s attack was to meet it head-on.
With a roaring battle cry, Darion shifted forward, catching a knee in the gut from a simultaneous knee and hook that bulged his back with a puff of golden vapor, but avoiding the hook as his forehead surged forward into Sky’s nose. Sky reeled, but even moving backward he lashed out with his simultaneous attacks. Darion still caught at least one shot from each of Sky’s attacks, but he persistently pressed forward, landing his own more powerful blows.
A less determined fighter would have succumbed to the surgical beating Sky was administering, but Darion’s renewed forward attack inflicted sufficient damage that now both fighters were in equal danger of molecular diffusion. Desperate now, Sky shifted back to create distance and exploded forward with a simultaneous flying knee and downward elbow attack. The move was a high attack, looking to raise the knee into the underside of Darion’s chin while hammering the crown of his head by bringing down the point of the elbow. Darion shifted into a crouch just in time, and Sky soared over his head; his knee rose and collided with his own downward elbow with a resounding smack. Darion leapt out of his crouch into a back flip while kicking up with one leg; the toe of his boot caught Sky in the tailbone and sent him descending forward into the stone floor. Darion was right on him but gave him the courtesy of letting him rise and turn before smashing a right into his jaw. Darion shuffled forward in a wide stance while punishing Sky with rapid punch combinations—jab, cross; jab, cross, left hook to the head; jab, cross, left hook to the body. Sky was emitting puffs of Essence vapor at the spot of each connecting blow. “Knuckle Twis—” Sky began to spin, but Darion stopped his left arm with a right forearm block and then sent a cross to Sky’s jaw with the same arm. Sky stumbled back badly, and Darion thought he was vulnerable and went forward and reared back with his right fist. Darion was right to assume that Sky was vulnerable, but the years of training made Sky dangerous even when reeling. As Sky was toppling backward, he let the momentum of the fall raise the toe of his left foot in a powerful up-kick. Darion’s right side was completely exposed due to his arm being cocked for the cross, and the toe of Sky’s boot smashed into the underside of his chin, sending him soaring straight up.
Sky saw his opportunity to end the fight and exploded upward: “Rocket Uppercut!” Darion strained his neck against the upward inertia to look down as Sky ascended rapidly. If he didn’t do something he knew Sky’s blow would finish him off. The up-kick had landed with devastating power, the upward inertia virtually irresistible. Darion strained with all his might to overcome the upward momentum and regain control of his own movement. His pores bled golden vapor as the strain of overcoming the inertia pushed his very molecules to the brink of diffusion. Finally, as Sky rapidly approached, Darion managed to shift downward while curling his right foot back.
Sky’s fist rose into the underside of Darion’s sternum, causing him to hack golden-tinted blood, but fell short of its intended destination of his chin. Sky’s fist was short of its mark because his ascension was halted when his face rose into Darion’s protruding, bent right knee. The impact was tremendous, with Sky’s face getting the worst of the collision. Sky exploded on contact and the punch sent Darion crashing to the arena floor hundreds of feet below—where he impacted with a golden, spherical blast.
CHAPTER 17
Kagan
For Darion, all was a black void. His only companions were his audible thoughts, for his mind was devoid of even the ability to visualize imagery. He had no form, couldn’t move: just be. His assertive will was squelched with his most determined thoughts restricted from the realm of action. It was torturous, enough to drive one mad. Thankfully, it was only temporary.
A dot of light emerged in the void and began to slowly increase in size, becoming the image of the silvery inside of the circular chamber of the infirmary in the Hall of Might. He still had no physical form and could not move but could observe everything before him within his field of vision. Things appeared as if he was looking from a point on the wall, rounded on both sides by circular platforms six feet in diameter on the floor, with identical platforms directly above each on the ceiling. In the center of the chamber, there was a rising circular terminal at which sat two technicians dressed in white lab coats with golden trim. To his right, hovering in the space between a ceiling and floor platform was a golden sphere teeming with electrical energies. In the midst of the sphere, there was a white-hot humanoid being, which, when observed closely, appeared to be of the same form as Sky Conner.
Before the sphere stood another technician who Darion could hear speaking to the being. “Your reconstitution is nearly complete, Cadet Conner. That was an awesome match, by the way. It could have gone either way, really.”
One of the technicians at the center terminal said something, and the man before Sky turned toward Darion’s spot. “Ah, good.” Darion watched helplessly as the man approached. “Mr. Elmore,” he said, “welcome back. I hope the experience of molecular dispersal wasn’t too unpleasant. We try to get you guys back together as soon as we can.”
Just then, Sky’s illuminated form flashed brilliantly and then dimmed to reveal his normal self standing on the platform. “I’m back!” Sky said with a deep Austrian accent.
The man in front of Darion turned to Sky. “Welcome back. How do you feel?”
Sky did a couple jumping jacks and flexed. “Outstanding!” he said. Sky walked over and stood before Darion’s spot with the man. “Awesome match, Darion,” said Sky. “Man, I was sure I had you with that Rocket Uppercut. Somehow you … I don’t know. Hey, you gotta show me that ball … squat … thingy. What do you call it? Probably something cool like Balled Fury or Human Wrecking Ball? Furious Human Wrecking Ball, perhaps?”
After a few minutes, Darion reformed and stepped down from the platform. “How do you feel, Mr. Elmore?” asked the technician.
Darion cracked his neck and the knuckles of each hand. “Never better,” he said. “What happened in the match?” he asked, still not sure of the outcome.
“You won, Mr. Elmore,” said the man.
“Barely,” added Sky.
“I was destroyed,” said Darion. “My particles were dispersed.”
“It was spectacular, really,” said the technician. “Yes, you did experience particle dispersal, but Cadet Conner did so as well moments earlier, making you the winner.”
“Yes!” Darion exclaimed, pu
mping his fists.
“Yeah, well, don’t get too cocky,” said Sky. “It was beginner’s luck.”
“You’re actually wanted in the arena, Mr. Elmore,” continued the technician, “for the announcement of the result.”
Darion thanked the technicians and teleported and materialized in the center of the arena to raucous applause.
“Welcome back, Darion,” said the announcer. “Advancing to the final round after a truly hard-fought battle, your winner, Dariooon Elmooore!” The crowd went wild.
“There will be a one-hour intermission before the championship fight!” continued the announcer.
Darion materialized in the stands. “Good job, Darion,” said Hughes.
“Thanks.”
“That was an amazing fight,” said Enoch. “Impressive, quite impressive. Your resilience is astonishing. Such tenacious tactics. Your skill is truly exceptional. You’ve been blessed, my friend.”
“Thank you, sir,” Darion replied.
“Quite welcome, young man. Well, one hour for intermission, aye. You take care out there. The Seishin style is powerful indeed, particularly their Praying Hands technique—hard to beat using hand-to-hand combat alone without Destructive Applications.”
“We have some tricks up our sleeves as well, Commander,” said Hughes.
“I’m certain you do, Joseph,” said Enoch. “Deflection-oriented maneuvers, I’m sure, hmm?” The commander raised an eyebrow, observing them curiously. Hughes and Darion simply smiled. “Anyway, I’d better go check on the Command Center during this break. Gentlemen … ” The commander gave a slight bow and disappeared.
