Cindy prowled in the branches of the few trees of the clearing.
She sat on a branch right above Stinger and waited for him to start flying again.
Just as he began ascending and reached near Cindy's branch height, she pounced.
She soared out of the tree and rammed into the bee's back with her horn. Stinger flew towards the ground once again, taking longer to get up this time.
Cindy attempted to catch him, but he barely managed to get away back into the air.
She realized that she had to stop him from flying away or she wouldn't be able to win.
Cindy ran back up into the branches while Stinger tried to find her through the leaves.
He buzzed all through the leaves, ready to deliver venom, but Cindy was hard to find and even harder to catch.
She maneuvered through the trees as if she was born for it. Her claws easily dug into the bark, which made moving really easy.
Stinger almost caught her a few times, but she always avoided him at the last second and then disappeared into the trees.
Back with Jade and Sebastian, the fight was only beginning.
Jade soared toward Sebastian and launched a simple jab toward his guard. Sebastian took this opportunity to test out his backhand armor and blocked the fist.
Jade expected that and wasn't surprised that it hurt; she really just wanted to see how solid his new defense was.
Sebastian kept his eye on her tail this entire time. Jade was the most clever fighter in the entire village, and he kept that in mind.
He threw a roundhouse with his right leg, which she easily checked with her knee.
Using the recoil from his roundhouse kick being checked, he spun his body around and attempted to hit her with a spinning back fist.
She barely ducked the bone-plated fist before sending her tail flying straight towards Sebastian's sternum.
He expected that and used the bones on the back of his hand to deflect the tail in a slapping motion.
The stinger flew away behind him.
Sebastian took advantage of her still-crouching figure to launch a fearsome knee straight towards her skull, but before he could complete it, his years of fighting instinct began screaming at him.
He knew that if he didn't move right now, the fight would be over.
He just barely rolled out of the way of the long tail carrying the stinger on a dangerous return trip back to its owner. If he hadn't moved, the stinger would have hit him square in his back. It was so close that some of its venom got on his shirt.
He finished his roll and took a second to gather his breath.
'I really have to be careful with this girl. She was dangerous long before the refinement. Her little tactic almost worked on me.'
Sebastian was so unused to these extraordinary abilities that he almost lost as soon as the fight started.
'I have to be more careful.' He thought.
He looked at the back of his hand and realized that while he didn't have a lot of armor, she had none.
'Defense!'
Sebastian stood back up and began walking back towards the girl who stood waiting for him. He started running and threw himself at her while tracking her tail.
She blocked his fist with both her arms crossed together and catapulted a knee to his abdomen. He backed up just enough for it to not reach him before he saw the infamous tail once again.
Her usage of it was sloppy since it was an entirely new abdomen.
She couldn't change the direction of it too abruptly, fortunately for Sebastian.
He slapped it away again with more force to make sure it didn't go behind him like last time.
The split second that the tail would take to return was more than enough for Sebastian.
He sent his bone-covered knuckles to her jaw with a heavy thud and then another to her abdomen, which she just barely managed to back away from.
Spotting her tail coming back, he noticed something was different.
Instead of the tip of the stinger flying at him, the thickest part of the tail was.
She was going to slap him off of the branch instead of sting him.
Sebastian quickly made up his mind seeing no way to avoid the thick tail.
He raised his leg and kicked straight towards her, which she easily blocked and used the force to carry further onto the edge of the branch, bringing her dangerous tail with her.
Sebastian couldn't afford to dilly-dally, though. If he gave her too much of a break, she might finish cutting the rope.
He went straight at her at this point, tired but still willing to fight.
Jade knew she probably couldn't win and went into her crouched stance with her stinger raised and pointing toward Sebastian.
He came towards her with a lot of confidence in his gait, but he was actually extremely nervous. He was watching every twitch of her body for any more tricks she wanted to pull out.
Once he got close, Jade felt like she had no choice and just launched her tail towards him like she had other times.
Sebastian decided to try something different this time.
He stepped to the side just a little bit while slapping the tail away.
Before the tail could travel too far, he grabbed the tip of the tail just before the stinger and hugged it close to his body with his right arm.
He then began pummeling the tail with his bony knuckles on his left hand. He knew it was working because Jade was screaming out in pain.
"AHHH."
He was doing a lot of damage to her tail, and he was beginning to see blood.
"Say you forfeit!" He yelled out.
Jade said nothing, and a light in her eyes shined.
Sebastian had seen that quite a few times and easily recognized the look.
'She has a plan.'
He immediately began bashing her tail even harder, nervous to see what would happen next.
Sebastian had gripped the tail just close enough to the tail to limit the stinger's mobility so that she couldn't curve it and sting him.
Jade was going to use this to her advantage.
She managed to dig up the willpower to ignore the pain and began running slightly towards the side, using the incredibly thick branch to her advantage.
She ran completely around Sebastian, who couldn't let go of her tail for fear of being stung immediately.
But this outcome wasn't any better.
Sebastian was completely wrapped in her tail and completely vulnerable to her attacks.
Before anything else could happen, Jade sprinted straight at him and tackled him off the branch.
They both fell out of the tree, with Sebastian taking the brunt of the damage.
He hit multiple other branches on the way down and hit the ground even harder with Jade landing right on top of him.
He was still wrapped in her tail and completely immobile.
She stood over him with her fist cocked back.
"Say you forfeit!" She yelled.
Sebastian just stared at her with a straight face.
She punched him in the face several times before Sebastian seemed like he was about to go unconscious.
"Come on, Sebastian! Say it!" She pleaded, not wanting to concuss her childhood friend.
"I for-"
Just before he could finish his sentence, a white blur fell out of a tree and right onto Jade's face.
"AAAAHHHH."
A barrage of claws befell the pretty green-haired girl, who rolled to the side and released Sebastian from the vice grip that was her tail.
Sebastian finally got a second to breathe and lay on the ground before he heard a loud buzzing sound.
"Damn it."
He stood up with blood coming from his nose and lips and put his fist up.
A huge bee with a dangerous stinger was flying towards him, not very well though.
It was flying like it had been hit upside the head too many times.
It still was a danger to an injured Sebastian.
This was actually a strange situation.
Sebastian had watched the elders of the village spar plenty of times, and there was always a trend.
Human fought human, and beast fought beast.
That was the way it always was.
Mostly because if a human tried to fight a beast, it would get crushed by the huge animal in no time.
But thanks to these beasts being young, they weren't big enough to destroy humans with a flick of their paw.
Sebastian looked back at Jade and saw that she managed to get Cindy off of her face, which was now covered in scratch marks. She was trying to sting the slippery creature but couldn't seem to catch her.
Cindy would run by and scratch her or whack her with her bone-tipped tail.
But he couldn't afford to watch the show for long. He had an angry bee flying straight at him.