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1457 Words
Matt had snatched a few dozen of the arms. But, apparently, it wasn’t easy to modify them for human use while keeping their enchantments whole. Still, he had figured it out after some tinkering.
Liz was surprised when her partner ran Mathew through with his sword and started to shout at Matt for taking it too far, only to find that she was in a Concept bubble. She raged at Moon through the soundproof wall of will. She tried to resist it with her own Concept, but she only got a headache for her efforts.
If she knew this was what he wanted from Matt, she wouldn’t have agreed to push Matt into it. It also explained why he looked so unsure.
Seeing that she had no way to stop this s**t show, she forced herself to calm down, and watched as Matt decimated his friends.
She cursed again at the healing downtime he was causing as he slaughtered his way through them.
Liz would have been impressed with how strong Matt was, but the stomping seemed to be more from a lack of coordination and training on her new friends’ part.
A simple [Hail] was able to shut down their archer, Tara, for nearly the whole fight, and Sam couldn’t even pierce Matt’s armor with her dagger. She knew that [Cracked Phantom Armor] was strong, but that result fell far below her expectations. Matt had talked them and their achievements up all night. She expected to see Matt get slapped around, not to watch him toy with them.
And toy with them he did. She saw it as he fought with Sam and Kyle. Why Kyle used a ridiculous metal slab to fight, she didn’t know. It looked incredibly unwieldy, even though he seemed to handle the weight better than she would have been able to.
She knew of other fighters that used massive swords like that, but not without a flight skill or a Concept to anchor yourself. The counter forces were needed to swing that much weight around, which meant it was an ineffective style until the later Tiers.
Matt took much longer to take down the duo than she expected, going by his earlier performance. He could have ended it with the skills enchanted into his blade with two swipes.
As he chased down Tara, Liz got her first and only surprise. Tara could injure him, which was impressive in and of itself, as he could nearly handle Tier 7 attacks at Tier 5. Now that he was Tier 6, she didn’t expect a Tier 6 to be able to punch through his armor.
She noted Tara as the strongest on the team.
When the fight ended, she ran out and kicked Matt in the butt and Baxter in the shin.
“What the f**k!? You seriously injured them!” The redhead turned to Baxter and yelled, “And you! What the f**k as well!? You shouldn’t have let them get limbs cut off. They’ll be out of commission for weeks with that healing downtime! How amateurish are you? You should know better! Idiot.”
She had already cemented the idea of burning down his garden the first chance she got in her brain. This was incredibly unprofessional of him. Melinda’s entire team would be out of the fight for weeks, even after Baxter healed them.
Melinda stepped forward and placatingly said, “Don’t worry, my Talent gives all healing spells I cast Overhealth. We’ll be fine.”
Liz paused and recalled what Matt had said about his friends and Manny. One of them had a Talent that he wanted enough to message them at their PlayPen. She was unable to keep her face straight when thinking over just what that Talent was.
A Talent that gave every healing skill Overhealth both explained his personal interest, and explained his sending the top healer for what she assumed was a mentorship for Melinda.
Overhealth was just too useful, and being able to cast every spell with it was unheard of. She was sure Manny was watching Melinda with a hawk’s eye. He probably updated his copy of her Talent every time she Tiered-up.
Liz hesitated for a moment after she broke out of her trance. She debated telling them about her parents, but a small part of her was afraid that they would see her differently. She only had a single night of them treating her as a friend and didn’t want to give that up so soon.
It wasn’t fair to withhold that information after a revelation like Melinda’s, but the fear kept her mouth shut about her parents. She was mad at both herself and Moon. She glared at him- it was a lot easier than self-reflection, after all.
He couldn’t have told her about his plan, but he could have told her not to worry.
“Matt’s friends are the perfect team on paper. They have all the traditional rift delving roles, but with Melinda’s Talent, they’ve been coasting and wasting their potential. They needed a wake-up call, which is what I asked Matt to do. I also asked him to play it up. I have to say, you found an amazing friend there. I assumed from the giant ‘Do not touch’ on your profiles that he was strong, but even I’m surprised.”
His message was written in a calming tone that didn’t register with her. Liz also didn’t let Moon’s praise of her Matt distract her.
She could be proud of him later. She snapped back, “What if they hate him now? That’s not okay!”
“They won’t. I made sure to steer the conversation in a way about how they could be better. And from what I overheard, it worked.”
Matt looked hesitant as they asked for a rematch.
Liz moved back to the side and watched a repeat of the last fight. Matt bounced an arrow off the ground to hit Vinnie, who hid behind a raised slab of earth to protect his torso. After the only person who could trap him was gone, this bout was handled as quickly as the previous one.
Baxter then nodded to Liz and sent over a message. “I need you to hammer it home that they need to work hard. One fight, please, and I’ll leave you all to train or do whatever.”
Liz gave Aster to a sheepish Matt and took the field.
Their armor had rents and blood splattered over it, but their flesh was perfectly intact. Liz understood how they could be so mediocre while staying so far ahead of The Curve.
Melinda’s Talent was absurd on so many levels. She knew all about Overhealth and just how rare and powerful the Talent was.
Liz closed her eyes for a moment and calmed her mind. She would repay them for what she was about to do after their fight. She could see the hope in their eyes. They thought Matt was the exception, and the team’s heavy hitter.
They were wrong.
If they were to learn and grow, she needed to show them there was more power at Tier 6 than they currently possessed.
She opened her eyes as the countdown hit zero and reached into her glove. The well of blood was like a pool, and she withdrew it all in a wave.
The initial surge of liquid deflected the first arrow that Tara launched, and she flowed with it as she pushed the blood and herself forward. She quickly washed over Mathew and directed the blood to slit his throat with a gentle hand.
He was gone before she cut more than half an inch, which she was grateful for. She would have been pissed at Moon if he forced her to truly hurt them.
More arrows tried to punch through her iron-reinforced blood, but with a thought, she formed her blood into a more humanoid form and cast five [Blood Bullets] at the remaining members of the team. She didn’t hesitate and followed it up with five [Blood Spear]s aimed where she expected each of them to dodge.
Between the two attacks, they were all ‘dead’ and teleported out less than fifteen seconds after the start of the bout.
She withdrew all of her blood back into her glove and stood there in the silence. No one said anything until Baxter announced that he would let them train privately.
Hopefully, that didn’t discourage them.
Melinda called out with what Liz interpreted as grim determination to do something she already knew the outcome of.
“We need to fight Aster as well.”
Aster looked confused, but after Matt whispered something to her, she scampered onto the field.
- Writer
