Hai's eyes did not hesitate when she met Mac's. She felt her fingers flinch with the lingering fear and doubt, but courage and determination reigned. Even though Hai was not a very aggressive person, she would give her best to beat Mac down. And he seemed to notice and to like that.
Mac stepped closer with his usual grin and stopped less than a meter from Hai. He was not much taller than her, just a forehead over, with his bushy hair adding just a little more to the size. Unwilling to back down, Hai raised her chin to look at him as an equal. "I will not be intimidated!" She said, more to herself than anyone else.
"Oh, really?" His voice sounded juvenile and arrogant, but even then, Hai would not forget how capable and dangerous Mac truthfully was. "Let's see then! If you don't quiver in the next ten seconds, I shall accept your challenge."
Mac was toying with her, Hai realized. He was clearly inching to fight, as he had eagerly accepted the previous challenge when she acted crazedly. She did not think Mac would seriously try to trigger her, but she still steeled herself for wherever type of joke he threw at her.
"Are you ready?" Mac said as his eyes brightened with a bratty light. Hai did not react as she thought Mac could consider her nod his victory.
He gazed intensely at her eyes, as if in a staring contest. Hai started to sweat when five seconds passed, and then Mac called. "Arani."
"Oh, no." Hai blurted when her view unconsciously traveled to Mac's hair. She saw a movement, and soon after, their plushy little friend came out, waving at her.
Hai squinted her eyes as air filled her reddish cheeks. She tried her best but still failed. "Screw you, Mac." She lightly pushed him while still laughing.
Swiftly stumbling backward, Mac chuckled like a kid that just realized a successful prank. He would have blundered further if the fires in Hai's hands didn't dissipate when she lost her concentration in Arani's eight eyes.
"Does that mean that you two will not fight?" Ms. Florinda said as she worriedly grabbed Hai by the shoulders. In the same way, Mac lightened the mood between him and Hai, he also snapped the other tribals back to action.
Hai suddenly stopped laughing when it daunt her that she had failed Mac's challenge. But before she had time to think about how to convince him to fight, Mac interrupted.
"I am sorry, Ms." He said with a cheery voice as he grabbed his not-so-cheery war hammer. His heavy and weirdly flexible weapon that had smashed multiple bodies into gore in one night scared the nearby tribals backward, except Hai.
Her instincts did tell her to run away for her life, but Hai stayed on the spot. She hunched her upper body over and inflamed her fists again. "Whatever is to be!" She told herself.
"No, no, NO!!!" But Florinda jumped between them with her hands in front of her face. She did not dare to look at Mac's weapon this time. "Please, O noble hero! Don't hurt our dear girl!" She begged on her knees to Mac with her teary eyes closed.
Hai felt awful when she realized what she was making Ms. Florinda go through due to her own meddling desire to help. But it seemed Mac was on a similar boat to hers. She assumed she was making a similar face to him.
"No! I am not gonna use this to fight her." He swiftly threw his weapon to the side as he tried to calm Florinda. "It was just for a bit."
One would think that the war hammer was not heavy due to how easily he swung it, but the walls of sand raised after the weapon landed proved the contrary.
Even with her new hardened courage and determination, Hai left a deep sigh of relief when she realized Mac would not go all out on her. She was not prideful enough to demand a fair fight against someone like him.
"But, but..." Ms. Florinda choked on her own words. Hai helped her to get up with difficulty since her body was accumulating tension already.
Without words, Hai took the deeply shaken Ms. Florinda to the surrounding tribal. She saw how all of them looked at her with nothing but worry and confusion. Hai turned and left them with a few words. "This won't take long. Just let me do it."
"Are we fighting here? Right now?" Mac asked when Hai firmed her feet on the sand, facing him. It was as if his questions were orders for the tribal since they all opened the space to expand the arena for the fight.
"Why not?" Hai looked around as if she was trying to shake the feeling of dread off. "We don't have to worry about obstacles, and if I do happen to beat you too hard, I can just throw you in the sea for quick healing." She found a type of comfort in her fake arrogance.
"Do you really think you can beat me?" Mac stretched his legs and his right arm with an unbothered face. The obnoxious loud cracks sent shivers down Hai's spine. "You do know that I still have three extra working limbs to beat you into oblivion, right?"
The increase in tension made Hai especially sensible of her surroundings. She did not expect her sweat could be that cold. "So he knows..." She thought with distress.
Considering her opponent, Hai had a tiny amount of hope inside of her that maybe, hopefully, Mac was stupid enough to not account for his injuries. She was slightly expecting that Mac, at some point during the duel, would suddenly realize that he, in fact, was deeply wounded. Hai genuinely thought that was something he would have done.
"It seems I have overestimated you," Hai tried to cope as she attempted to merge her failed assumptions with her arrogant act. "But I will still beat you just as easily!"
Mac's smile fell a little at Hai's words. "Wait, overestimated? What do you mean by that?" Hai did not have the heart to tell him how little she thought of him.
"But you will keep your promise, right?" She tested him, someone, that she didn't really consider honorable either. "As in, when you lose, you will enter the sea!"
"Yeah, sure, whatever," Mac said as if he was holding back the laughter. "And obviously, as the counterpart, when I win, you will do what I want."
"There it is. He said it again." Now with a sound mind, Hai had no choice but to wonder what Mac would have her do. She tried to consider his character and how he acted around her, and she assumed that he would make her do something silly as a joke, but she had no idea what exactly.
"And what would that be, mind I ask," Hai said as her morbid curiosity had the best of her. She realized that fighting with that worry in the back of her mind would only harm her performance during the duel.
Mac showed a satisfied smile as if he was expecting her question. "It is simple, actually." He said. "Nothing too crazy. I will only ask you to join me as a fellow Hevi and travel around the world together."
"What!!!???" Hai gasped along with many of the nearby tribal. "What are you talking about!? Is that a confession? I mean, Mac, I like you, but not in that way." Hai was so frustrated and shocked that she could only muster an automatic rejection.
His happy-go-luck demeanor immediately dropped when Mac heard the half-assed refusal. But he seemed more annoyed and insulted than sad. "It is not a goddam confession! You sand head!" Hai struck one of his nerves. "It is an invitation for you to join me and my friends. For you to become one of the Hevies!"
"Oh! Sorry. My bad." Hai awkwardly scratched the back of her head while brushing. "But why me?"
"Well, after spending a little time around you, I realized that you are kinda cool, and would fit in quite nicely with my team." Hai did not know if she should take that as a compliment or an insult. "Besides, you did say that you wanted to explore the world beyond these lands before. And let me tell you, there is no better way to journey than being surrounded by friends you can count on."
Hai considered Mac's proposition with more understanding. "It doesn't sound that bad." She allowed the thought. Now that the tribe was safe from intruders, she would have a lighter mind following her dreams, and having help from more experienced people like Mac while away sounded safer than her lonely, green-horned self. Even the fact that Mac was a chaotic hazard to himself and others did not scare her off, as he might lead her to some weird adventures.
She was fairly intrigued, but then she realized what she was doing. She frenetically shook her head to bring herself some senses. Hai was quite literally desiring to lose. It was as if Mac was trying to bait her the same way she baited him into a fight. She looked at him, hoping to find a cheeky and triumphant smile on his face, but the frown from the previous rejection still remained.
Realizing how gullible she could be and unwilling to waste more time, Hai readied her body and mind to fight. With concentration and happy thoughts, she quenched her worries and fears while she felt the energy busting inside of her. She closed her fists and the visible harmless flames around them dissipated. She sensed an explosion would come forth when she opened her hands, and she would save that for Mac.
Suddenly, tales from far away she heard from travelers emerged in her mind. Stories about formality and rules concerning duels such as the one she proposed.
"I am Hai Dayhelm, daughter of Banton and the Sun Grow Tribe." The presentations were the principal part she remembered. "I challenge you to a duel!"
Mac's grumpy face changed a little, and so did his body. He slightly turned his body sideways and raised his right arm to the level of his face. "And I am Third Hevi Mac Key Kast." He shouted. " And if I were to list every title of mine, we would be here all day, so let me keep it brief." He continued, retroactively wasting time. "I am the Hevi of experience, the one that lived infinite lives infinite times, and I accept your challenge!"