Damn it! Drascule thought, ducking behind a sizable dune that had just been formed by the Blast coming from the man opposite the arena.
"OUR REIGNING CHAMPION SEEMS TO BE HAVING SOME TROUBLE WITH OUR NEW DARK HORSE COMPETITOR!" Shouted Gregorius Morgan, the eccentric commentator of the Sands Arena, with unbelievable volume, "COULD THIS BE THE DAY THAT OUR CHAMPION IS TORN DOWN FROM HIS PEDESTAL!? WILL JACKAL SHOW HIMSELF TO BE THE SAND'S STRONGEST SCIO!?"
Drascule grimaced from behind the dune. Sweat dripping down his chin, he crouched into a runners position, then took off just as the dune he had been using for cover was blasted apart by a shimmering white force that dissipated almost as soon as it made contact with the sand. Drascule didn't even look at the explosion of sand as he tore across the arena, moving with the speed of a Cheetah to a dune somewhat closer to his opponent. He skidded to a halt behind it, sand spraying up towards his face, but he paid it no mind. He had more pressing concerns than a little bit of sand.
Peeking out above the sand he could see his opponent, who went by the pseudonym Jackal, standing about forty yards away from him. Drascule figured he could probably close that distance in about two seconds if he were on solid footing, but the loose sand covering the floor of the arena made his footing somewhat less stable, and he knew it would take him an extra half a second. Two and a half seconds might not seem like much to some people, but Drascule knew from the dozens of fights he'd had in the Sands arena that anything more than a fraction of a second might as well be an eternity for even an inexperienced fighter to attack, and this man was anything but inexperienced.
Drascule ducked back behind his cover, huddling as low as he could. He quickly gathered up a handful of sand and stared at it hard. He had been practicing this for a while, but hadn't used it yet since it was so difficult for him. Luckily, his efforts seemed to have paid off, because after a few seconds the handful of sand that he had collected Formed into five pebbles the size of large grapes. He smiled to himself, proud despite his predicament. For people born with Strengths, sighting Forms is incredibly difficult because their mental compatibility is horrible, not to mention Forms are considered the most difficult of Sights to perform. In any case, Forming stone from sand is among the most basic of Forms.
Still, Drascule thought to himself, not bad for a muscle head.
Grasping the stones, Drascule launched himself out from the side of the dune, throwing two of his stones with blinding speed. They whizzed through the air, one of them shattering harmlessly against the far wall about fifty yards away, the other striking Jackal in the left shoulder making an audible snap.
"OOOOHH!" Exclaimed Gregorias to the crowd, "LOOKS LIKE DRASCULE JUST TOOK A LEAF OUT OF THE BOOK OF A PREVIOUS OPPONENT AND FORMED SOME ROCKS FROM THE SAND! PRETTY IMPRESSIVE CONSIDERING HE'S A MAN WHO HAS RELIED ALMOST SOLELY ON STRENGTHS UP UNTIL THIS POINT! HE'S NOT THE CHAMPION FOR NOTHING!"
Without pausing to acknowledge the roaring crowd nor to see if his stones had done serious damage, Drascule quickly veered towards Jackal, throwing his three remaining stones as he sprinted. This time he could see that all three of his stones were on target, with one of them flying straight at his head. The stones were moving almost too fast to see, and there was no way that Jackal would be able to dodge them in time. Drascule allowed himself a small smile in anticipation of his forty-second victory in a row…When suddenly the stones stopped mid-air in front of Jackal. Cursing to himself, Drascule's legs hit the sand at a drum roll, covering the remaining thirty yards in just over a second.
But one second was too long. When he was just a few yards from Jackal, the sand between them suddenly flew up from the ground and created a huge wall. At the speed Drascule was moving, he didn't even have time to react and hit the wall of sand head on at full speed. He couldn't see and was disoriented both because of the impact, as well as because he was now half buried in sand. He quickly regained his wits and attempted to push himself out of the sand, but wherever he put pressure on the sand it gave way, preventing him from getting any purchase.
"THIS IS ASTOUNDING! JACKAL IS SHOWING MAGNIFICENT CONTROL WITH HIS SHIFTS, FIRST STOPPING THE STONES MID-AIR, THEN USING THE SAND OF THE ARENA TO TRAP DRASCULE SO HE CAN'T USE HIS STRENGTHS TO REACH HIM! DOING SOMETHING LIKE THAT TAKES INCREDIBLE SKILL, AND IT MUST BE EATING AWAY AT JACKAL'S MARKS! COULD THIS BE THE END OF DRASCULE'S IMPRESSIVE WIN STREAK!? OR WILL JACKAL RUN OUT OF MARKS FIRST!?" Bellowed Gregorias, leaning out over his raised platform next to the arena.
The large mass of sand covering Drascule slowly moved forward, shifting so that Drascule's face was exposed, but his arms and legs were still trapped. As he looked into his opponent's face, he could see him clearly for the first time. Jackal was wearing a hood that seemed to be clipped forward so that it wouldn't fall off. This was why Drascule couldn't see his face before, but now that he was so close, he could see that the man who had pushed him so far was little more than a boy. He had very tan skin and a thin face, and he couldn't have been more than twenty one or twenty two years old. Still, he was a competitor in the Sands Arena, and he was no pushover either. Drascule was not known for holding back, and he didn't plan to start that sort of reputation now. Jackal raised a hand in front of Drascule's face, palm facing his opponent.
"Yield." he said in a voice that sounded much older than his face looked, "You won't be able to use any more Strengths while you are in there."
Drascule strained his considerable muscles to test what Jackal said, and he was met with immovable sand whichever way he tried to move. He knew that Jackal had to use the sand to hold him, as Shifts can't move cognae, but even with that hurdle, the sand proved to be plenty to hold back even Drascule's powerful Strengths. But he had one more trick, and since Jackal was standing mere feet away…
Drascule smiled at him. "You never studied any of my fights did you? I never yield. That's why I win."
Jackal simply looked at him with an uninterested expression. He sighed. "Very well." And stretched his fingers a little closer, until he was almost touching Drascule's face.
At that moment, a shimmering light similar to the Blasts that Jackal had used earlier shot out from the sand encasing Drascule, piercing Jackal's left hip. Jackal grimaced in pain, and jumped back to avoid a second ray of light that suddenly sprouted from Drascule's left side. The pain combined with the distraction of having to avoid Drascule's attack caused Jackal's Shift to deteriorate. Drascule hit the ground at a roll, with the shimmering rays almost held in his hands as if they were-
"HIS SWORDS! THERE THEY ARE FOLKS, DRASCULE'S SIGNATURE SIGHT!" Gregorias was nearly hopping in excitement at this point, "NO ONE ELSE HAS FIGURED OUT HOW TO USE THIS SPECIAL TYPE SIGHT, AND DRASCULE HAS NEVER REVEALED IT IN ANY INTERVIEW!"
Drascule's jumped up immediately and dove for Jackal, point of his "swords" first. The sand at his feet motionless now, Drascule's Sight flashed closer and closer, with just feet between their target, then inches…
But at the same time as Drascule dove for Jackal, Jackal raised his palm to face Drascule. Just before he was struck, a Blast the size of a brick shot out of his palm and struck Drascule mid-dive on in the nose, halting his momentum and throwing him to the ground. Drascule grunted in pain, and tried to look up at his opponent, but tears were already forming in his eyes because of his broken nose, so he could only make out watery shapes.
"WHAT A TURNAROUND! IT LOOKS LIKE JACKAL HAS OUR CHAMPION AT HIS MERCY! BUT WHO KNOWS? PERHAPS WE'LL SEE ANOTHER MIRACULOUS COMEBACK FROM DRASCULE!" Gregorious was working the crowd to get them as excited as possible for what was looking to be the finale of this fight. Drascule himself was feeling dizzy and light headed from the heavy blow he had just taken. If it weren't for the Strength Sight he had used to give himself a hard head (in the literal sense), he felt he could've died from that Projection. The figure that he took to be Jackal got larger in his vision, and he tried to bring his right-hand blade up to strike him, but it had long since dissipated from the pain. As he blinked the tears away, he could see Jackal leaning over him, a curious look on his face.
"How did you do that?" He asked.
Drascule blinked in confusion, his head still swimming from his recent concussion, "What?" he asked stupidly.
"Your Sight. The one where you turned your soul into the shape of a sword. How did you do it?" Jackal asked quizzically, "physical Sights are normally limited to Projections like I've been using, and even then they can't hold their physical form for more than a couple seconds at best. So how are you maintaining your Sight's form without burning through your marks in seconds?"
Groggily, Drascule mumbled up at him, "I, uh… I move my marks in… in a flow pattern… They go out in the shape that I want, then they come back to me… if they don't hit anything... it's a Special type…"
Jackal looked up, bringing his hand to his chin in a thoughtful expression, "So you aren't actually expending many marks unless you hit something," he mumbled to himself, "and depending on how fast you move your marks, you could do a lot of damage even with a light touch. Though of course, the faster they move, the more marks you expend…"
He suddenly looked back down at Drascule, who had begun to try and get up. "Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot about you for a moment." He said before bringing one of his boots up swiftly into Drascule's chin, knocking him onto his back and making his head spin all over again.
"Really though, it's very clever of you." Jackal said, smiling brightly, "We certainly didn't have Sights as creative as that back in my day… though I suppose you can't hear me now can you?" He asked the now motionless Drascule as the crowd, which had been relatively quiet for a moment, cheered, booed, and roared at Jackal.
"WHAT AN OUTCOME! AFTER A DIFFICULT MATCH ON BOTH SIDES, WITH A TOTAL OF FIVE OF THE SIX TYPES OF SIGHTS COMING FROM JUST TWO SCIOS, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, I PRESENT TO YOU YOUR NEW CHAMPION! JACKAL!!!" Bellowed Gregorious, shouting the last word so loud that it echoed throughout the entire twenty story Colosseum. Even then, it was only just heard over the thunderous roar of the crowd.
Drascule, for his part, was actually not unconscious. He simply couldn't move. He had been using Strength Sights a lot, and he could see that his skin had become noticeably paler. He felt worn out, and besides, he knew he had been beaten. There was no shame in losing as long as he got to fight another day. His sentence was almost up in any case, and then a man of his fame would be able to get a job as a security guard, or perhaps a personal guard for a noble.
Of course, he was surprised to have been beaten after not having lost a match in nearly a year. Especially by such a young man. Then again, as he felt the aches of his body, some of which had been there long before the fight, he figured he must be getting old by now. He did find one thing strange though. Something Jackal had said about his Sight, and he muttered to himself,
"Back in his day?"