The Cyborg System-Chapter 60: Lenny’s Fight
Before heading into one of the fighting cells, Lenny and Brom passed the weapons racks. Brom stopped and pulled two short swords off the wall, brandishing them together. When Lenny passed by the daggers, he paused, then simply walked off to the opening between the spirit glass panels. There were a few sniggers from the crowd.
Rose heard a few of the others’ whisper. "Plans to take him out without a weapon?" "What’s his ability?" "No, he’s not in Transformation Arts," said another.
Even some of the masters had taken note, as they had not expected the blue sashes to be on the field so early. The gap seemed insurmountable. Lenny realised at that point there was no turning back. He’d made the choice and there was no way he would let himself be stepped on, like a bug.
Brom had probably had several instructors from a young age, teaching him the basics of his ability, reinforcing new skills and creative ways to apply the techniques. Lenny had been cast aside before he could even remember, a piece of trash that the world forgot about. Well, almost. He really did have a couple of friends now that he’d happily risk his life for.
Someone walked up to Rose, challenging her, and she rejected their offer instantly. She needed to see what would happen. She didn’t know how Lenny planned on doing it, but if his last encounter with a prey beast was anything to go by, he wouldn’t be giving up easily either.
*
"A high-level opponent has been detected. Defeat them for an instant level up."
Timing wise, it couldn’t have been better. He’d literally just levelled up with the fight against the prey tier beast and the EXP rewarded had been enough to push him to the next level. He’d applied the extra stat point into speed without hesitation. He’d seen time and time again it make all the difference in his sparring matches. While it wasn’t universally true that speed was better than strength, one being useless without the other, one of the major differences between the two was speed’s utility when it came to avoiding damage. If Lenny was going to win this match, against an opponent his scan wouldn’t even work properly on, he was going to need all the speed he could get.
Brom raised his two short swords in the air, holding one forward and the other back in a defensive position. A green liquid appeared along the blade, dripping green foam onto the tatami mats.
Lenny raised his hands in the orthodox stance he’d practiced so often.
Master Berg shouted: "Fight!"
Unlike what had been expected, Lenny was the one to charge forward. Brom had a wide grin across his face. He slashed down with the forward blade, flecks of green foam spitting out, but Lenny simply side stepped. Brom followed up with the other blade in a diagonal slash, and Lenny rolled underneath, and followed up with a solid hook to his face, his Steel Fist planted in the blue sash’s jaw. He was using all of his speed, all of his muscle memory, and even a subtle ability he had to read his opponents movements as they were about to make a strike.
He wanted to commit to another but saw Brom was preparing a counter of his own, so backed off, creating some space between the two of them. Brom’s wild slash missed, as expected, and the crowd around the room, if they were not doing previously, began to concentrate on their fight.
"It seems like things are heating up," said Edmond, half-heartedly resuming his role as commentator. He still wasn’t sure if the battle unfolding was worthy of his talents, so spoke in a soft manner, as if practicing his skills.
Lenny tentatively stepped forward, wanting to close the distance. However, each time he did so, a swift strike would come his way, usually aiming straight for his head. He still had a couple of tricks up his sleeve, but didn’t want to use them till he absolutely had to. Through a combination of footwork and good head movement, each one of his opponent’s strikes were avoided. He remembered Berg’s demonstration, how he’d been able to frustrate his opponents, making them feel inert and forcing them to tire themselves out.
"He’s a fast one, that orange sash..." said Edmond. "Did anyone catch his ability?"
The group started to talk amongst themselves, till Julie, one of the yellow sashes from his group spoke up. "He claims not to have one... but if you ask me, that’s rubbish."
Brom was growing impatient now. He never expected the fight to go on this long, thinking he would teach the boy a quick lesson not to cross him, but now it was starting to draw attention. He knew that shortly after the poison entered his opponent’s bloodstream, they’d be out of the fight, completely disorientated. Maybe those with a higher level of spirit essence might have been able to resist, but the bug in front of him had no chance.
Lenny thought he could see it: the path that would lead him to another clean strike on his opponent. What he hadn’t anticipated was that, unlike himself, Brom had not been taking the fight too seriously up until this point.
Brom leaned forward slightly, taking a more aggressive stance. He no longer held a blade back for defence, instead swinging wildly with both from a variety of different angles.
Slash!
The blade was quick and Lenny, realising he would not be quick enough to avoid the strike, activated his Adrenaline Rush skill. With 13 points in stamina, that was now effectively a time limit of 13 seconds he had to finish the fight.
With 16 points in speed and an additional 50%, bringing his total to 24, Lenny now had all the speed he needed to avoid the strike and start landing heavy punches on his opponent. Jab, cross, slip the blade, cross, parry, overhand right, left hook... his steel knuckles were landing cleanly, damaging his opponent, but Brom’s high level of essence gave him some resistance to common physical attacks. After all, that was the reason the spirited were so important in the battle against the more powerful beasts, who had a similarly high resistance against common kinetic strikes.
"10 seconds remaining," said the system. Lenny muted the notifications.
"I think he has a weak speed ability," said Edmond.
"No, listen to the sound of those strikes, that’s hardening," said Sam from his Hand-to-Hand Combat class.
Growing frustrated, Brom fired out a burst of poison in a thick green plume. Lenny was forced to cover his eyes, unable to see what was happening, and Brom used the moment to slash downwards with both of his blades with all his strength.
Berg had moved, jumping the wall, moving in to stop the fight, but before reaching them, he noticed Lenny had opened his eyes and the corners of his mouth twist up into a faint smile. Instead of moving his hands to defend himself against the strike that was coming at him, or simply freezing up, he withdrew his arm back, ready to throw a strike of his own.
Berg recognised that look. He didn’t understand it, not exactly, but that wasn’t someone about to lose. And so, against his usual better judgement, he held back.
"Let’s see what you’ve really got in store," he thought.
The training blades crashed down on Lenny’s head, bending as they did so, one of them being thrown from his opponent’s hand with the strength of the rebound.
"Health 15 of 25. Steel cranium enhancement has been damaged and will require spirit essence to fix."
Lenny knew what the prey tier core would be spent on in advance and now was glad he had done so. The plus 10 points to his health stat couldn’t be underestimated in their journey to the beast planet. He just hadn’t expected it to come in handy so soon. His forearm smashed into his opponent’s face, and Brom was completely disorientated, out on his feet. He went for another punch, but at that moment, the worst thing that could happen happened.
"Adrenaline rush skill is deactivated. You must now pay the penalty."
Lenny’s stamina was completely wiped and he dropped to his knees.
"What are you doing?" shouted members of the crowd. However, as hard as he tried, in that moment while he recovered, he could only manage to crawl towards his opponent.
The few seconds that passed gave Brom some time to recover, and he summoned his poison essence into his fingers, and used them to claw at Lenny multiple times, until Berg stopped the fight.
"You have won. Remove the poison," said Master Berg.
Brom smiled, taking out most of what he had just put into Lenny’s body.
Lenny laid back, exhausted.
"Are you alright, boy?" said Berg.
Rather than form words, he gave him a small thumbs up.
"We need to talk when you’ve recovered. Obviously, you’ve been hiding some things. I get it. You can’t anymore though, too many people..." his voice trailed off. "Look, come see me before you go, okay?"
Berg’s voice was sincere. Lenny would have to come up with something, but he still didn’t know how close to the truth he would venture. For now, he could hardly stand up. Rose and Harry appeared from the side lines and helped him out of the cell. There were many people looking at Lenny in a way they had never done so before.
Ivy appeared from nowhere, giving Rose a strange knowing look. She thought it was one of understanding, some kind of appreciation of what Rose had meant when she had said that Lenny should not be underestimated. He seemed to be one of those who could pull out great strength when the occasion called for it. He might have lost the fight, but for most, this loss was far more impressive than his opponent’s win. Brom might not have been from a top faction, nor the most skilful of the blue sashes, but he had everything on his side. Far more essence, an offensive ability, a weapon—or a training weapon anyway. Perhaps if Brom had been able to use his comparatively vast store of essence to fuel spirit weapons or armour, the fight wouldn’t have lasted so long. Lenny knew before even trying that his essence drain wouldn’t have been effective on him. The gap was too large. So, he took a different approach. It felt good to use everything together, his skills, his techniques, his muscle stimulators and steel reinforcements. It was all flowing together into a cohesive fighting strategy. It was just a shame the Adrenaline Rush skill had such a harsh payback. He could have done with using the Drowned’s battery but had no desire to ask.
No rankings were changed, no cores earnt from the battle. But there was one strange side-effect of Lenny’s showdown. Later that day, ten students would visit the reception to change their registered discipline to Hand-to-Hand Combat.
