Gladiator vs lion

"That was a very weird thing like I realized that while fighting I was using both hands and not just one what felt a lot more fluid. Then just regular one handed sword fighting felt a lot slower for me, and when I fought with the shield in the arena, it was even slower. I feel like I should use my haste to its fullest instead of just humping like a twig." He shortly explained but surely he could go on a lot longer if he wanted to.

"That seems fair… But how can you realize it after years of fighting in the regular style?" I wonder if anytime there will be a chance for me to change the tool I am using or anything like this.

"Well it's pretty hard and I didn't even fully get used to fighting like that yet but I don't think it will take long anyway. I won't use it while escaping, if I ever will have to use it, I don't want to fight while escaping though. It will be very inconvenient for any of us if we will have to fight." If we will have to fight while escaping the chance of anyone dying increases thrice or even more times.

"That's a relief," I answered very quickly and finally looked at Bog with Estel's one twig. With it, in his hands he stared into it and made a couple of swings to the left and right.

Bog is two or three heads higher than me, how can I fight? He is a goliath and I am just a fairly built fourteen years old, 1.65 high, what can I do? I am maybe a little more nimble than him but probably not for a long shot. He is larger in build as well so even in a fight, a scratch made by me would matter as much as a mosquito in a room of a tavern. Nothing interesting, just another small scratch with a very small bleed going down.

"This is the first time I will fight someone while trying to use something. A stick or a sword doesn't matter, I never really fought anyone, only stabbed with a knife like an assassin. But if we leave this place, it won't always work, especially when I rose this big since my childhood." So he is a new fighter just like me, but his only guidance was his own eyes and perception. "Shall we start?" He asked me out of nowhere after around ten seconds of clear silence between all of us.

"Yeah… Yes!" I first murmured under my nose but then followed with an assured statement. I went to my position with the sword pointing to the ground but still high enough to show where it is supposed to hit, the heart. Pop it like a weak barrier.

He also went to a position that looked pretty weird. It seemed as if he was fighting with a shield but the shield was his hand, hand horizontally in fronts of him like a shield and the single sword above his head. With a stick, this probably is an impenetrable fortress of muscle and build but if those were real swords and he didn't have a normal shield, it would be a great disadvantage for him. But now in this situation in this reality where he doesn't have a real shield but we also don't have real swords we are about to fight.

When I looked at him once again, an afterimage was appearing on him every second. A gladiator? A small shield, a helmet covering his face very distinctively, and a sword almost like a dagger, something between both. He stared at me from behind the helmet created by the imagination of my own deceitful mind, the shield also wasn't real but my own thoughts tried to intimidate me.

We were making circles just like Estel did before while fighting the tiger, looking at each other. I can't win with this fighting style, if I launch an attack he will just block it, parry it or dodge with all those options ending with him making a pirouette and hitting me with the short sword. What can I do? Change the stance.

My right leg even further in front and the left one a little further behind. With both of my hands holding the stave in my hands right above my head, to the right side, the sword that had the length of almost a spear. One overswing and I am done, swing to the wrong side, and I am done. But I have more room if he blocks an attack.

I took a small glimpse of the man that taught me the first stance. He looked at me with big eyes and seemed proud actually a very weird thing… Haven't seen that since Flora's death… What a bad thing to remember. But now it's not the time for me to think about that, now I have to focus on the thing that is right in front of me. On the man with a small shield and a sword.

I took a strong jump in his direction with the swing coming from the right up but when his shield was coming to block the sword, I made a quick movement and changed the direction to the left. Almost as if my wrist made a pirouette instead of me. He didn't predict that at all, even more, he was completely shocked by the thing I just did, and with a short stare, I also saw Estel's jaw drop. I think what I just did was a very hard thing to do but seemed easier while doing it than hearing how to do it.

Also, Bog's stance seemed very real for someone who is doing it for the first time. It looks more professional than he says it is, seems as if it was perfect even though I never saw anyone doing it.

I hit his head but of course, it wasn't enough to even make him flinch, I ferociously jumped back and just went back to the position where I started. If this was a real sword Bog would be dead by this time, it hit his bald head. That's why.

He got a little mad but still kept it under a hood of expressionless face, just looking at me, this time very prepared for anything.

"Should I try and show off?" I asked in my mind, but now the answer would ever appear in my mind as I just instinctively leaped on the man with the shield. His strong build made the barrier almost impenetrable even if the shield was fake, my strikes are just not enough to hurt him. Nothing.

The strike this time reached his shield and with the stave still laying on his hands he made a short wind up with the sword in his other hand. I jumped back right in the same moment or even before that very motion of death appeared, that omen that in a real fight could kill me immediately. I was able to dodge it perfectly, that put a toll on my body since the swing was really quick and my body's reaction was so good, my body wasn't in the same motion. So actually my mind moved my body before my body itself. That made my limbs a little numb for a second but Bog didn't realize it.

Once again he was in his position like a gladiator fighting a lion but in this instance, I am a real lion and he is a real gladiator. Not like with Estel, we both are of similar skill since we both were already sweating from the stress put on from just two swings. Two swings, with a great imagination, on a real battle could make us somehow… Dead. If that was a real battle, those two blows were both deadly. Is that why Estel wasn't sweating at all? After two swings with him, I was sweating like a pig and he didn't even flinch, nothing, were my swings just not enough to kill? Or do I even want to kill with my swings? At this point, I am not sure if I am that weak to not be able to make a slash or I just don��t want to make a killing blow on anyone? On which side am I now?

It's not the point now, I have to focus on my blade and the blade of my enemy. On the enemy right in front of my face, the gladiator fighting a lion. The goliath fighting the cub. A dark skinned man against a white man or a boy rather. The fight could go on, and will.

I again launch at him, he blocks, I jump away, he swings forward I block with my sword and this time he hits me with the shield that until now was passive. No offense, just block or parry or just making me afraid to attack anywhere at all because I could die with a single overswing or anything like that...