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1018 Words
Queen slammed a fist on the table. “You cheated me out of a real challenge of blades. I want a rematch. No bullshit this time.”
She turned to her manager and growled. “And you! You said the teams that got managers early were limited, but you never said there was a real blade fighter. I feel scammed.”
Matt couldn’t help but smile. Her being upset that he had sandbagged in their first fight was not what he had been expecting. Not at all.
It was so odd and honest he could only admire it. Though now that he thought about their first interaction in the Masquerade lounge, where she ignored them when she found out they weren’t blade wielders, it did make sense.
Queen turned to Liz, and with hope shining in her eyes, she asked, “You don’t happen to be a secret blade user?”
When Liz laughingly said no, Queen looked to Aster, who just looked at her paws. “I don’t really have the thumbs for it…”
Queen looked dejected at the confirmation that they didn’t use blades, but then turned back to Matt and moved to stand up. “Let’s have a real spar.”
Luna coughed. “First, we need to go over Talents and how you can interact with each other. I have a more than extensive training regimen set up for our next seven weeks. You’ll get all the fighting you want then.”
Carol chimed in as well, “And we need to go over how Minkalla works and the strategies. It’s random, but we have a lot of information, and you need to learn it all. No bullshit of hiding data at this point. You need to know everything we have, and you’ll learn it all. We won’t know what you’ll face in Minkalla, but we’ll prepare you as best we can.”
Matt nodded absently, shutting out the part of his brain that wanted to break into the ‘spires of Minkalla’ song he’d come up with to memorize just that. He wasn’t sure if Queen already knew everything, or if Carol was just starting to tell her now. He paused, now that he thought about it, Carol might be making sure that Luna hadn’t hidden any information from them.
Carol’s ever-present half grin bloomed into a true smile as she said, “And best of all, we can plan for the rewards you’ll aim for.”
Matt and Liz sat up in unison, looking at Luna. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Queen do the same with her manager, but he was mostly preoccupied with being very happy that Luna was nodding along with Carol’s words.
Carol looked to Queen, and their fellow Pather started talking. “I’m Susanne. I’d rather you call me Sue or Queen rather than Ann or Annie if you have to shorten it. My Talent is about calligraphy, and not useful to my fighting style as of yet. But although I’m working on expanding what my Talent considers a writing utensil, I’m a far cry from getting it to work on my greatsword. I used my Legacy to get myself a bit of spatial power with my Concept. It’s a greatsword Concept which I always keep active and on me.” She raised her right hand where, on a bracelet like a little charm, hung a miniature greatsword.
He inspected it with his spiritual sense and Concept, only to find it packed with power. Susanne might have miniaturized her signature weapon, but she hadn’t shrunk its power. “My Concept is all about polishing out the imperfections with me and my sword. We are one and the same. A pair, but the same whole. I improve, and my sword improves.
In less fancy terms, it benefits directly from my physical cultivation and self-buffing skills, as well as my willpower, which is itself rated as extraordinary in both control and strength. My Concept is strictly external, but the armor I got as my reward from the Tier 10 tournament gives me a lot of the same benefits that an internal Concept does, so long as I’m using my actual Concept, which is always.”
Susanne tapped the table, thinking for a moment before saying, “I’m also very good at using a lot of general Concept powers, like flight, and most of my strategy is built around that fact. I also have a few skills that help me punch through really tough defenses and fight against multiple opponents. My Legacy gives me some spatial abilities which I use for offense and maneuvering around the battlefield, so ranged opponents find it very difficult to get away or stay away from me. Can’t teleport myself with it yet, but I’m working on that. Even without that, I have a speed-oriented [Dash] that allows me to close the gap, but I haven’t had to use it that much since the tournament.” Susanne chewed on her lip a little before nodding. “That’s the basics, anyway. Anything else is better learned when we fight Matt whistled to show his appreciation at Susanne. Honestly, he was beyond impressed that her skill was natural. It also reinvigorated his desire to learn from her.
Fighting someone better than yourself was always a good way to improve.
Aster hopped to her feet and introduced herself. “I’m Aster, and I used to be an ice fox, but I changed my bloodline to winter, which made me a lot stronger. I’m generally support, but I can help out with a few new spells, and I have a few good debuffs to weaken and slow the enemies, which is helpful when attacking higher Tier rifts. I also can hit really hard if I have enough ice to manipulate. I’m super excited—”
Matt missed what Aster said after that as he saw Carol’s eyes get almost imperceptibly wide before narrowing down to Aster.
He was watching for any signs of hostility until she pulled her eyes away and winked at Matt.
- Writer
