Sting : Match

Dramatis Personae

Danno Solea

Yuli Weducalli

Sting : Match

Danno had spent the last nine years rebuilding his army - and his right leg - for this moment. It was just a practice match, but this opponent had caused three of his Coriniaid fighters to drain their energy and transform back into useless puddles of oil. In the end, there was nothing that could quite hit like flesh and blood. 

He stepped into the match ring equipped with his fencing sword, one formed from bloodstone specifically crafted to be anti-Heavy Metal. The fearsome Quicksilver user who greeted him was certainly a female- and one not entrusted with reproducing, judging by her vocation. However, her chiseled face and severe yet sinister expression reminded him of the Gvaneti and Galeodes men. She was dressed in red, with messy black hair, and the sinister atmosphere deepened once they locked eyes.

“Finally, the flesh and blood’s come out,” her voice was deep and devoid of friendliness, even as they spat on their hands and shook as a gesture of sportsmanship.

“And what does that mean?” Danno’s black eyes stared up at her imposing form in a guarded fashion.

“It means whatever you want it to mean, little man.” 

She had some squires unbind her hand, which had been her previous handicap in these sense-deprived fencing matches. Instead, they blindfolded her, removing her eyesight for the upcoming match. That was much more of a disadvantage, Danno thought, but he didn’t know what species she came from. He hadn’t started paying attention to the matches until she’d wiped the floor with his best combatant - and she wasn’t even vying for a spot as one of the Nine Camula, she was someone’s subordinate! Gods feared whoever she worked for.

The referee signaled they enter the piste, a small strip of elevated terrain, and the technicians checked Danno’s prosthetic leg while checking her blindfold.

“Qualifying round match pumfit. In the black corner, Domina Animalia Solea Danno, representing the Eremos people and hailing from the Court of Black Gold. In the white corner, Magia Suprema Weducallia Yuli, representing the Latrodecti people and hailing from the Court of Leaden Rivers.”

Danno’s eyebrows arched slightly. Latrodecti. They were Kubeleya peoples too, much like the Sulyafuj and Gvaneti he employed. But he had little knowledge of any provinces north of Eskern, or their combat styles.

“I’ve noticed your change in tells,” Danno said slowly, tapping his epee on the ground with his leading question. “You only get three chances to substitute them, you know?”

“Hmm, is that so,” Yuli responded dispassionately. “Are there any more of those phantoms?”

“I’m the only Ae-Camula who can conjure such beings, so no,” Danno’s voice cracked slightly as he exclaimed with pride. 

“I don’t need my eyesight then.”

Danno grit his teeth.

“Match, begin!”

It was times like this, when those thousand-armed mutants spoke about not needing their senses that Eremos like Danno enjoyed beating them at their own sense-deprivation game. It was a misconception that they had invented the sport to spite the An-Awen beings from which Danno was descended, but it was a convincing enough legend to fuel a deep rivalry.

He pulled his prayer beads off of his neck, causing one of the knots to snap and a black bead to fall to the floor beneath them. He had done so the moment Yuli had leapt forward with a lunge, parrying it easily while snapping his other fingers. 

At that moment, the black bead burst into a pitch-coloured, scentless oil, covering the fighting area in it. It was a trick he often used against beings who bragged about not needing eyesight. Everyone expected rock oil and pitch to smell, and Danno had tested this on enough thousand-armed beings to know its scent was undetectable even to the more sharpened tongue. At the same time, his bloodstone-laced epee neutralized the force from Yuli’s quicksilver energy, rendering its effectiveness and toxicity minimal. 

Rocks don’t work against rocks, you damn moll! Danno thought, in the split second between when Yuli slipped on the oil and when she arched her back to flip into a handstand, one hand planted firmly on the slippery floor and one holding onto the neutralized epee. 

Their eyes locked as Yuli used the force of her hand to push her into the air again, flipping over and land securely in a squatting position a yard from Danno’s ankles. Danno’s eyes widened in surprise and he made a bewildered sound as he thrust his epee into her chest and earned himself a point, but on the recoil, Yuli did something he had never experienced before.

He held out his free hand in front of Danno, as if to gift him something, and sliced her thumb with a cutting ring. In a gory display, her middle finger’s final bone burst through her flesh, silvery liquid glinting between the dull white. Its fast and sharp trajectory pierced through the soft flesh of Danno’s lower jaw and judging by the way Danno suddenly dropped his weapon and his eyes rolled back into his head, it had obviously hit his brain. The Eremos noble twitched and groaned, but seemed unable.

The crowd had erupted with noise as they followed the progression of the fight, but after about ten seconds, Danno wasn’t moving anymore and they seemed to be quiet. The referee had not stopped the fight, indicating that Danno was neither dead or in concession. Tense confusion spread quickly.

Yuli turned her head, careful not to move her impalement of Danno’s throat and skull. She seemed to be looking at the time left in the match, and what the score was. When the boards gave her her answer, she tossed her cracked quicksilver epee and to the shock of the audience, Danno’s hand reached out to catch it, before he raised his hand and tapped the edge of the blade on his neck.

One.

Danno couldn’t do anything. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t think. A current was running through him as if he’d swallowed an electric eel. But he could hear Yuli’s voice in his mind.

Two. Danno tapped the blade again, granting Yuli another point.

“Does it tickle, little man? Being worked over like this?”

Three.

“Your Ambacta, Arnal. I know him. We belong to the same guild. You didn’t even watch his match.”

Four.

“You should’ve, you know.”
The crowd had seen the art of mind filtering and lobotomie before, but Yuli’s battle style was considered crude and primitive so it had been unexpected that she would so easily turn a seasoned warrior into a puppet like this in a practice match. Especially when although she had won against Danno’s Coriniaid subjects with obvious advantage, the matches had lasted the full nine minutes.

Five. Six. Seven. 

Drool pooled in Danno’s mouth and began to trickle down, slightly mingled with pinkish hues of diluted blood. His ankles trembled. The only thing he could manage to think was why - why this way, this method?

Eight. He tapped his neck again and the crowd’s cheering reached toward its climax.

“I could have let you last nine minutes, but I’ve got a pretty-”

Yuli shifted and her bone pick retracted cleanly from inside Danno’s head.
“...strong thrust for flesh and bone,” Yuli finished. 

Danno let out a shaky breath, his eyes tearing up as they began to refocus and the pain began to register. Yuli grabbed her epee from Danno’s hand as he clenched and then let go, a scream beginning to erupt from his throat. He made the ninth strike into Danno’s right knee, splitting his flesh from the prosthetic and dislocating it, causing the scream to be shortened by a sickening groan and thump as the blond man hit the slick, oily floor.

“Plus, you might need that pretty face when you’re getting your tools repaired.”