The First Fight

I feel the cold steel pavement under my feet as I gaze at my opponent. The man who was announced as "Targer". His face resembles a tiger, informing me that he is a tiger-person, the average tiger-person is 4x as strong as the average human, same as me. He looks to be quite smaller than me. I glance at his hands and notice two blades made of steel that both look to be enhanced with fire as it glows red.

On his badge it reads 20 stars. He is more experienced than me. I feel my stomach flutter as I realize that he could have been in fights against Dark Alliance grunts to earn those stars. He may have experience killing grunts just as strong as me from those fights.

I grab my [Water Enhanced Dagger] relic from inside my pocket and yell "Obtain" to convert the relic into a dagger made out of steel and enhanced with water energy. I remember that water is 1.5x as strong as fire giving me the advantage in this fight.

As the timer above use ticks down slowly I begin to plan out an attack. I decide that it is best if I dodge at the start as tiger-people are naturally a lot stronger than humans in strength and he will probably be stronger than the average tiger-person so it is best not to close the gap and risk getting hit from his strong attacks.

A bell rings signaling the beginning of our fight and immediately Targer dashes away faster than my eyes can follow. Horrified I tighten the grip around my daggers ready to parry as he is likely too fast for me to be able to dodge.

I sense his presence as he appears behind me and while he thrusts one of his daggers towards the back of my torso. My training in reaction time pays off and I have enough time to quickly turn around and swing my dagger towards his to parry the attack. However I feel the water enhanced steel of my dagger push against the fire enhanced steel of his own and I feel his immense strength start to overpower my own pushing my dagger backwards stopping me from parrying his attack but still allowing me to block it.

I look into his eyes and can tell that he realizes that despite his strength my dagger will not give. I think this is likely due to it being 1.5x stronger than his dagger and not because of my strength because while I am as strong as the average tiger-person he is clearly stronger.

Targer while still having one of his daggers pushing against my own swings his other dagger around down towards my dagger that is blocking his one. Putting his daggers into a position that looks like an x his strength doubles on my dagger and I struggle to still continue blocking his attack.

I realize that I cannot hope to continue blocking as I feel the immense strength of his double dagger technique and decide to commit to a different strategy. I drop my dagger and drop to the ground into a prone position. Because of the sudden drop in resistance he flies forward and falls to the ground. I manage to pickup my dagger from the ground just as he falls.

Targer's face suddenly scrunches up with anger as he yells "You think you're smart do you?" then while still on the ground slashes his daggers towards my legs.

"Shit!" I yell as I quickly transfer all the elemental energy I have in my body to my feet and use it to boost the height of my jump in order to dodge the dagger. Leaving his arms still swinging through the air where my legs used to be.

While in the air and while his daggers are still swinging I aim my daggers towards the center of his back and hope that they will hit their target. Using all of the phsyical strength that I have I throw the daggers towards their target. Targer looks up at me and I see a singular tear roll down his hairy cheek as he realizes that he lost the first fight and will not gain any stars from this tournament.

The daggers both reach their target and impale his back. Blood drips from both the daggers as I land on the steel pavement below. I see Targer's eyes close and realize he has lost consciousness most likely due to the pain.

The bell rings to signal the end of the fight and the announcer announces "Targer has lost consciousness, therefore Malek wins!"

I feel the flutter in my stomach leave as I realize that I have earned my first 5 stars. I raise my arms and scream "I did it!" feeling the happiest and most excited that I have felt in my entire life. My life has been leading to this moment I feel.

After the excitement diminishes I head to the winners of the first round section of the building.