The day of the match had arrived.
Grub sat on the hard bed of his cell, staring at the ceiling as morning light crept through the small barred window. He had spent most of the night planning. Running through every scenario his exhausted brain could produce until the candle burned out and his thoughts blurred into half-dreams of circles, water and old turtle women who couldn't be moved.
Even with all that preparation, his confidence wasn't high.
Morrigan was still Morrigan. An old monster who had survived countless battles and reached a level of strength that seemed impossible.
But his confidence didn't need to be high. It just needed to exist. He had hedged his bets, stacked every advantage he could find, and built something that resembled a plan.
A shot. That's all I need. One real shot.
After hearing footsteps echo down the corridor, Grub looked up and saw the familiar dog-faced Guardian appear at his cell door, keys in hand.
"Your match is up."
The Guardian unlocked the door and smirked, his sharp teeth glinting.
"I hope you have your last meal picked out."
Grub said nothing as he stood up, rolled his shoulders, and walked out of the cell.
They led him through the village to an open arena behind the building where his first trial had been held. The moment Grub saw it, a quiet wave of relief washed through his chest.
Good. My intuition was right.
Last night, he hadn't known for certain where the match would take place. So he had to makee an educated guess and bet on the open area that was attached to the building where official judgments were carried out. It had been a gamble, but it had paid off.
The guardian shoved him through the entrance. "Good luck." The sarcasm in his voice was obvious.
Grub looked back with a scowl before he stepped into the arena and gave the space a slow, blank, lifeless stare as he took everything in.
The stands were full. It seemed half the village had turned out to watch the Sky-Fallen traitor face their chief. As the murmur of the crowd washed over him, he heard an assortment of curiosity, hostility, and anticipation, all blended into a low hum.
He ignored them and looked around until he spotted Luthiel in the crowd. She had golden eyes with neat braids framing her face and waved at him enthusiastically, her mitten-like hand swinging back and forth above her head.
Grub merely gave her a small nod of acknowledgment and kept walking.
Upon seeing his slightly cold reaction, Lu's wave faltered. A slight frown crossed her face.
In the high seats of the arena sat the Guardians. The big green one — Orgack — took up several seats by himself and looked profoundly uncomfortable wedged into the seating area. A few others in white vestments sat in a row beside him. And then Grub's eyes locked onto Pazuzu.
The horned bastard sat with bandages wrapped around his head, the white cloth stark against his grey skin. It was clear the wounds from their fight hadn't fully healed.
Grub felt a small, quiet satisfaction at the sight. He really liked the look of the fearsome guardian with bandages wrapping his booboo.
Pazuzu stared back at him with calm eyes. But beneath that calm, laced through it like poison in water, was pure hatred. The Fiend's expression didn't change, or twitch. For a brief moment, Grub felt the urge to make that face go limp again, the way it had when the notebook cracked across his jaw.
The urge wasn't strong enough to act on so he looked elsewhere.
Teacher Orobas sat in the middle rows, his clawed hands folded anxiously in his lap. Around him sat a few of Grub's classmates — faces he recognized but had never bothered learning names for.
Urgor was present in the crowd as well, sitting right next to Luthiel. The furry blacksmith's short frame was barely visible over the railing.
All here to watch him either earn his freedom.
Or die.
In the center of the arena stood Morrigan. The old kappa wore her usual white robe, while her staff nowhere in sight. Her flower crown sat freshly arranged atop her head, circling the basin of water that rippled gently with each small movement. A faint smile rested on her beak. As if this were nothing more than a casual afternoon activity.
She stood inside a large circle drawn into the arena floor — a ring of white chalk perhaps fifteen paces across.
When Grub fully entered the arena, Morrigan raised her voice and addressed the crowd and spoke of his crime. Treason and espionage against the village. She spoke of the ancient right of trial by match, the title of overseer, and the terms of victory and defeat.
Grub wasn't listening, however.
Instead, his eyes moved across the arena floor, checking, confirming, reviewing everything he had done last night. He looked over at the scattered rocks near the eastern wall. The texture of the ground inside and around the circle. He measured each angle and distance. He had to make sure the work he had done under the cover of night, in the hours between leaving the clearing and reporting back to his cell, was all the same.
Luckily for him, everything was where he had left it.
Phase one. I just have to stick to phase one.
Morrigan finished her speech and a Guardian walked to the edge of the arena, raised a heavy bell, and rang it once.
The match had finally begun.
Morrigan stood in the center of her circle, calm and unmoving, her hands folded behind her back. The rules confined her to that chalk ring. Grub, by contrast, had the entire arena to roam.
Abruptly, Grub ran straight at her.
He crossed the distance in seconds, planted his foot at the circle's edge, and threw a punch aimed directly at her midsection.
The moment his fist traveled toward Morrigan it was as though an invisible wind seized it, like an unseeable current had caught his arm. There was no resistance or impact, no force pushing back. Rather, there was just a gentle, irresistible guidance, that existed only for him. His fist lost no momentum and his form didn't break. By every sensation in his body, the punch should have been on course.
Instead, it sailed harmlessly past Morrigan's right side, missing her completely.
Morrigan didn't even blink before backhanding him.
BAM
The blow cracked across his face so hard his vision went white. Had he not instinctively reinforced himself with anima, his neck might have snapped. As it was, he staggered sideways, his ears ringing, blood rushing to his cheek.
I accounted for this. I just have to keep going.
He rebounded and threw another punch. Again his arm drifted off course. Soon another backhand struck his face.
Grub sent another punch at that missed left this time. Her response was a backhand.
This happened over and over again.
Each strike was guided off course by that invisible flow, bending around Morrigan like a river around a stone. From the stands, it looked like Grub was deliberately punching the air beside her. And each miss was answered with a backhand delivered with casual, humiliating precision.
By the tenth exchange, Grub's nose was bleeding freely.
The weak display made the crowd grow rowdy. Laughter rippled through the stands as the villagers watched the scrawny, pale, black-and-green-haired Sky-Fallen flail like a bumbling idiot against their chief. The Guardians were grinning ear to ear and Pazuzu's smile was the widest of all. To everyone watching, Grub looked pathetic.
"MISTER GRUB, WATCH OUT—"
Lu's voice cut through the noise, shrill with panic.
"STOP GOING IN FOR PUNCHES! STOP IT, ITS POINTLESS IT WONT HIT!"
Grub ignored her warning and threw another strike, took another backhand, then spat blood onto the arena floor and threw another.
His face was swelling, yet his expression never changed Because behind the blank expression, his mind was running numbers.
Reinforced backhand, redirect, redirect, reinforced backhand. Her Anima expenditure per redirect is roughly equal to one of my reinforced punches. She's spending on offense AND defense. I'm only spending on defense.
He had measured his own reserves last night in his Ego, and discovered something useful. The training had pushed him up. He was Dormant Tier 2 now. Up one single tier in one impossible day. Morrigan's hell had been worth every bruise.
This meant Morrigan, equalized, was also operating at Dormant Tier 2.
Probably.
There was a gap in his theory and he knew it. Morrigan had said ranks measured personal development, not universal power. Two people at the same rank and tier could differ wildly. So when her Maladroit equalized her, did it bring her down to his Tier 2 with his exact reserves and output? Or did it bring her down to her version of Tier 2, which might be considerably stronger?
He had banked everything on the former. That Equalization meant true equalization and her pool and his pool were the same size. If he was wrong, the entire plan collapsed.
No way to verify except to keep spending her money.
He threw another strike but this time, something different happened.
Morrigan didn't redirect it. She simply leaned her upper body three inches to the left and let the punch pass by her shoulder. She dodged it. Instead of redirecting the punch she actually dodged it.
Grub smirked.
There it is.
She was conserving. Which meant her pool wasn't bottomless and that meant his math was working.
Nobody else in the arena saw what Grub saw. They saw a bloody, beaten boy grinning like a lunatic in the middle of a one-sided slaughter. The Guardians leaned forward, licking their lips, waiting for the moment the traitor finally crumpled.
After another exchange he disengaged. He jumped back out of backhand range, turned, and sprinted toward the eastern end of the arena. Morrigan's eyes tracked him from the center of her circle, her faint smile unmoving.
The crowd laughed harder.
"HE'S RUNNING!"
"HE'S GIVING UP!"
Pazuzu leaned back in satisfaction.
Grub didn't acknowledge them and reached the eastern wall, crouched, and scooped up a handful of rocks from the scattered pile lying there. Of course, these were totally just conveniently placed rocks.
He picked a hefty one out of the pile and chucked it at her. Then grabbed another and another. Stone after stone whipped through the air toward Morrigan, each one driven by his arm and accelerated by a pulse of anima at the moment of release. They weren't gentle throws. Each rock carried enough force to crack a normal skull.
Morrigan dodged the first easily and leaned past the second. While the third bent away from her mid-flight, its trajectory curving as the current caught it. The fourth she sidestepped. The fifth curved like the third.
Morrigan smiled wider. Her eyes met Grub's across the arena, and in that look he saw it clearly — she knew. She had caught on to his plan, at least some of it.
And she made no effort whatsoever to change her approach.
Is this some sort of strange pride? Maybe a test? Or does she have a counter I haven't seen?
Despite his doubts he kept throwing.
The crowd began laughing again Now he wasn't even punching. He was throwing rocks like a child. A few villagers jeered and someone threw food. Luthiel and Orobas watched in mutual horror, gripping their seats. Only Grub remained perfectly calm.
Grub didn't care about any of their opinions. Stone after pebble after rock flew through the air as Morrigan evaded or redirected every single one. However, Grub had hauled enough rocks here last night to do this for a long, long time. And as he threw, he watched. A pattern was emerging that Grub soon caught on to.
Morrigan would dodge one stone. Redirect the next off to her right. Dodge another. Redirect the next off to her left. Dodge. Redirect right. Dodge. Redirect left. Over and over, the same rotation, like a steady metronome.
It was strangely consistent. So consistent that Grub's instincts prickled.
Nobody this skilled is this predictable by accident. She's being stale on purpose. She's either baiting me or testing whether I'll notice.
Either way, it didn't matter. Because a pattern — real or offered — was an opening. Grub gathered a fistful of stones and tracked her rotation. She dodged, then redirected right then dodged again. The next redirect would be a left.
He threw the entire handful at once.
A scatter of stones flew at her chest and face — and buried within the volley, thrown a half-second behind and far to her right side with significantly more power than anything he had thrown before, were two final, hefty rocks.
Morrigan's current swept the main volley left. The stones bent away from her in a smooth arc, exactly on schedule.
And the two trailing rocks — the ones flying wide to her right — got caught in that same leftward current.
The crowd barely paid attention to the throw. Why would they? It looked like another terrible throw.
But then they curved. The redirect she had cast for the volley dragged them along its flow, bending their wide trajectory inward, pulling them across the space she occupied. The first one missed her shoulder by an inch, but the second one struck her square in the side of the head with a loud CONK.
The crack of stone on skull echoed through the suddenly silent arena.
Morrigan's head jerked hard to the left. The basin atop her head lurched with the motion — and water sloshed violently over the rim, splashing down across her shoulder and spattering onto the arena floor.
The old kappa froze. Her body went rigid mid-motion, locked in place like a statue, her eyes wide and unblinking. The flowers in her crown trembled. A thin stream of water dripped from the basin's edge, each drop loud in the silence.
The once cheering and laughing crowd had gone dead quiet.
The Great Sage Equal to Heaven had just been hit for the first time in the entire match, and it was by her own Forte.
Grub didn't waste a beat. His legs reared back, coiling, his depleted muscles croaked to life as he loaded every remaining scrap of power into them. The next part of his plan had begun.