The Referee

Why are you coming forward when you’re so much slower? Duartes-Carr thought. A second later, shock wore off and he readied himself. No, that’s exactly why you’re coming forward, isn’t it?

What is speed in a fight, pragmatically speaking?

It is the ability to collapse distance quickly. This point has two meanings; the ability to close the distance between yourself and your opponent and the ability to close the distance between your instrument of violence—either your fist or your weapon. In other words, your the speed of your legs and your hands. When outmatching your opponent in either department, you may control the pace of the fight—after all, how can they fight against that which they cannot react to?

How, then, does one neutralize such an advantage?

For the leg speed, one theory—and the most common, instinctive reaction for the uninitiated—is to simply increase the distance between the two. The logic goes thusly: if one fencer can move across a certain distance faster than the other fencer can react, then by increasing the amount of distance the other fencer has to travel the slower fencer can increase the amount of time he has to react.

This logic is at times solid in both sports and in this world, but it falls apart often. It worked in Carr’s duel against Cassius—the latter was faster than Carr, but because of Carr’s intelligent distance management and Cassius’ absurd bullrush he was giving Carr enough time to react.

This was not the case against a competent fencer like Duartes-Carr.

True, if he was trying to cross that absurd distance in one motion he would give Carr enough time to react. But he wasn’t just a master of stats, he was a master at fencing. This meant he knew that the faster fencer should, in response, just approach in two separate tempos. One step to close the distance, and another step to actually execute his movement—this way, the distance he was traveling with his movement would be shortened and his slower opponent would not be given the chance to react.

Thus Carr picked the only other option available against an opponent of overwhelming speed.

Your opponent’s ability to collapse the distance becomes meaningless if there is no distance to collapse. What good does it do for your enemy to be able to take three steps before you can even finish one…if the distance between you two is only one step?

It doesn’t actually matter how much faster your opponent is than you. So long as you can get close enough to them that both of you can hit the other, who cares who’s faster? Your legs no longer matter here.

DID YOU EXPECT ME TO STAY TIMID AND AFRAID OF YOUR SPEED? FUCK THAT. I’M NOT SLOWING THIS GAME DOWN. I’M MAKING IT FASTER! Carr shouted in his mind. AS FAST AS I FUCKING CAN!

Carr had decided not to run away from this confrontation at all. Against a much superior opponent, here he made his stand: fight or die.

Duartes-Carr was not impressed. My hands are still faster—this is pointless! Even at close range, Duartes-Carr would have no issues executing a simple counter-sixte parry. This ends here, dumbass!

This wasn’t the first time Carr had tried this strategy against an opponent with much superior stats. The first time had been against Johan, when they met by the docks—and it ended in Carr’s complete and absolute defeat. Despite closing in the distance, Johan managed to use a counter-sixte parry and despite not having proper leverage, lifted Carr high up in the air due to his superpowered strength before destroying him.

Naturally, Duartes-Carr aimed to do the same.

My hands are fast enough to parry you, he thought confidently. Did you think you could get me?

Here Duartes-Carr took Carr’s blade in sixte and attempted to lift him off the ground much as Johan had done before. And here, an impossible parry occurred.

Carr did not try to resist Duartes-Carr’s move, just the opposite! Instead, he used the same move he had used against Max earlier—a ceding parry! When Duartes-Carr started to lift Carr’s blade, instead of pushing back out of reflex, he made his blade limp and pulled it up just as his opponent was pushing it.The result was that Duartes-Carr put too much strength in the movement, pushing his own blade high up in the air while Carr managed to escape underneath.

Such an absurd motion would not have occurred on Earth, but Duartes-Carr’s powered move had thrown his own arm too high up to bring it down in time.

And here he delivered his strike, straight to Duartes-Carr’s heart—though it was hardly enough to do much damage.

The New Bladewolves:

Carr the Swordsman of Zero — 1 (41)

The Real Bladewolves:

Carr the Champion of Earth — 2 (38)

“FOUR MORE POINTS!” Fedal shouted from the stands.

“Just four more,” Valle agreed beside him. His voice was quiet, and he watched with his arms crossed. Still, though his expression was impassive, his grip on his own arms tightened. “Come on, Carr,” he muttered, in a lower voice, narrowing his eyes. Don’t you dare lose before I can beat you.

It wasn’t fury that overtook Duartes-Carr. Instead, it was a sort of calm analysis that possessed him to ask, “How?”

“When I duelled against Johan for the first time since we came to this world…I lost completely. I tried to shorten the distance, but he parried me off my feet and threw me high up in the air like I was a child. So I started to think how to counter that…and I came to this solution.”

“A ceding parry?”

“Among other things,” Carr replied, smirking as he readied himself in en garde. “Why don’t you stick around and find out?”

“Pointless,” Duartes-Carr said, sighing dramatically to punctuate his point. “There’s no amount of tricks that will carry you out of this situation. I’m you, but with better powers.”

“But I have the better training,” Carr pointed out.

“We have the same training.”

“Not so. Considering how you think Johan is your friend, he probably erased some of my memories since coming to this world before giving them to you. No way you remember duelling Johan at the docks, do you?”

“What are you getting at?”

Carr laughed. “Oh, you know it without me needing to say the whole spiel, right? I have lost more times than you have. So I have evolved.”

He didn’t have to say anything else. Everyone in that arena understood what he meant.

In sports, you improve far more when you lose than when you win. Victory is confirmation of your theories, that your skills are capable of what you had hoped them to be, and that little has to change aside from marching on in your intended path. Defeat, however…it is here that you must ponder. Was it an unfortunate loss because you haven’t progressed down in your intended path enough yet or was your very path a mistake in of itself?

Losing provides enormous opportunity for growth, and Carr had taken it.

“It doesn’t matter how well you master your stats,” Carr said. “If you use them at full power, your sword is going to be out of position for a bit. Ceding parries are a really good counter to any blade taking actions from you.”

“That’s just fucking perfect,” Duartes-Carr said. “So I’ll defeat you and steal your techniques for next time I fight Johan.”

“Being my clone is bad enough,” Carr muttered annoyedly. “But thinking that Johan is your friend is what offends me.”

And so they resumed the clash.

Once more, Carr dashed forward.

Here Duartes-Carr took a step backward. If you want to collapse the distance that quickly, he thought, I won’t let you! It was the same principle that had been discussed earlier. If your opponent is too fast for you, then increase the distance between both of you. Duartes-Carr was faster to start with, but if Carr meant to collapse the distance he would not play along with him for no reason. Thus, he readied himself for Carr’s charge.

And it did not come. The fuck? Duartes-Carr thought. You were running, but now—!

If it were me, Carr thought, I would definitely take a step back seeing a flèche-ish looking approach. So now—!

Their distance had been shortened, though not quite to the extreme from before. From here, Duartes-Carr would have been able to respond with an attack of his own and Carr would not have had a chance to do anything about it. Yet, his mind was set on perceiving Carr’s attack instead—his stat-powered parry had failed him, so he meant to have perfect timing to fully utilize his strengths. But Carr, having anticipated this, stopped his own attack a moment’s away from him.

And this moment of indecision was enough.

Carr launched himself forward then—he had dared to use two tempos against a fencer who was faster than his fastest action in one tempo. And the plan had worked.

Both fencers collided, and Duartes-Carr again attempted at a parry. Carr responded with a ceding parry, as he had done last time, but this time his opponent responded differently—when he noticed that both their blades were out of the way, Duartes-Carr stepped forward so that both their torsos were slamming against each other.

I want you to understand the awkwardness of this type of infighting. Remember that your weapon cannot cut, it can only thrust. Now, imagine both you and your opponent are close enough that your torsos are nearly colliding. How can you stab them? You have to bring your sword arm behind your own body, while trying not to step back enough to give your opponent opportunity to stab you. This is an area where shorter fencers have the advantage, as shorter limbs require less maneuverability than their longer counterparts. Both Carrs were, naturally, the same height—Roger’s courtesy.

But their blades weren’t.

Recall, if you will, that French Grips have more reach than Pistol Grips. This is true in every situation, and usually this is an advantage for the French side of the argument. However, when it comes to infighting, generally speaking—! This is when Pistol Grips have an advantage!

Duartes-Carr was much faster, but at that position it’s not just a matter of being faster. From that awkward angles, moving faster may cost you the point. When you are both in a position where neither can score until your opponent moves, being slower has its advantage. Instead of moving your arm to a position where you can score, merely waiting until your opponent moves themselves and then attacking without wasting time to shift your stance is advantageous.

And it was here that Carr tried to score.

Yet, it wasn’t successful. Though his positioning was flawless, it just so happened that Duartes-Carr managed to angle his blade in the right way. Messy, confusing infighting sometimes results in messy point and this was one of them.

The New Bladewolves:

Carr the Swordsman of Zero — 1 (41)

The Real Bladewolves:

Carr the Champion of Earth — 3 (39)

Yet Carr wasn’t displeased when he walked away, nor was Duartes-Carr shouting in celebration. The point belonged to the fake, of course, but this had been by pure chance. If this exact same scenario were to occur once more, it would be likely that Carr would be the one to score. Though the Champion of Earth led the individual score, it was obvious that the Swordsman of Zero had started to steal the pace from him.

“Bastard,” Duartes-Carr muttered. “So that’s your game?”

“Courtesy of Fedal and Valle,” he replied. “How do you like it?”

Fedal tilted his head to the side. “What are they talking about? What does that strategy have to do with us?”

Valle shrugged noncommittally. He had a guess but he wasn’t the type of person to make a fool out of himself by speaking out about things he was no expert in.

Kat had no such issue. “Your Carr’s gameplan is simple. Collapse the distance—rush in from the allez. Do you see the issue with that plan?”

“Not really.”

“Your Carr rushes forward, then tries to respond to parries with ceding parries. This can go wrong if he misreads what parry is coming to start with, but he could probably cutover if he really wanted to. Point is, if…if my Carr tries to parry, then your Carr can get around it and get inside that infighting distance. There, he has a chance to fight back—stats don’t mean that much from that position.”

“Ah.” Valle spoke up, realizing his earlier assumption was correct. “The question becomes, then, why Duartes would want to parry instead of doing anything else.”

Kat nodded. “You have three options against a rushdown attack like that, effectively. You can parry them, you can stop-hit them, or you can rush them down even faster.”

“That’s where we come in,” Valle said slowly. Then, turning to Fedal, he said, “Our lead eliminates one of those options. Do you know which one?”

Fedal frowned, making an effort to think it through. “He’s not going to rush down if we have the lead, right?”

“Precisely,” Kat said. “It doesn’t matter how much faster you are. With a distance of four meters between two fencers at the start of the bout, when both are ready to go...if both of you are flying at each other, there’s a real chance that you’re going to score a double. At that distance, especially if both of you are going super fast you might not have enough time to knock each other’s blade aside.”

“If Duartes responded by rushing down as well, even if he won a few single points…they would score a few doubles that way. Ah!” Fedal exclaimed, as his thoughts caught up to the situation. “That’s why—from that situation, he can’t do anything!”

When his team was down by four points, going for a strategy that might result in doubles was more than reckless—it was likely to result in your loss. Thus, before this bout even started…Fedal and Valle had sealed one of Duartes-Carr’s options.

“The question is,” Valle wondered, “why he hasn’t used a stop-hit so far.”

Kat opened her mouth to reply, but she could not bring herself to say it.

Every fencer is attracted to their specialty—they try to use it even in situations when other moves would be a better call. Usually, you want your stop-hit to come first and for your parry to be your last line of defence if your stop-hit fails. But if you are really confident in your parry, you might consider throwing away your stop-hit—much to your coach’s anger—in an attempt to improve your chances at getting a successful parry off.

Moreover, there was one other issue with it.

Carr’s most devilish plan.

Come on, Carr thought, a manic sort of joy in his mind. TRY TO STOP-HIT ME!

Imagine a stop-hit motion. Your arm is extended forward and at(or slightly above) eye level, with your wrist angled downward. You will understand, you don’t use any strength here at all—you are just holding your arm out and letting your opponent run into it. In fact, not only you don’t have to apply any strength to it, you MUST NOT apply it. Why is that?

Grab a pen and assume stop-hit position. Extend your arm high and slightly up, elbow straight, and point the tip of the pen down. Good? Observe the tip of the pen—it hardly moves.

Now, apply strength to this motion. Flex your muscles as you well. The tip of the pen goes wild! It moves, it flickerslike candlelight! Indeed, applying strength to this motion makes you unable to control your blade properly. You see the issue here?

Strength limits your point control.

This means that if Duartes-Carr meant to stop-hit Carr on the way there, he couldn’t use his stats to power his moves.

“Come on!” Carr shouted. “What’s the matter, Faker? Standing around like a coward shames both me and Duartes, don’t you know?”

“Bastard,” Duartes-Carr snarled back. “Is this what you’re dragging the match down to?”

“Damn fucking straight.”

By initiating the attack, Carr was limiting the number of actions that were available to his opponent.

This is, I thought, a most marvellous strategy.

I shall run down the situation—and refer, during the duration of this claim, to the copy merely as ‘Duartes’ for brevity’s sake.

Allow me to break down the mathematics of the situation, using my powers as the almighty referee—and a reasonably informed individual—to come to my conclusions. Of course, these numbers are just estimates and probabilities. If you understand probabilities, you understand that they are not indicative of what the final score would be if both fencers went for them, but simply of how likely each score is to occur. You may flip a coin and get the same result four times in a row, after all.

Looking into the minds of both fencers, they both agreed with my assessment.

Well then, Carr thought excitedly, how are you going to respond to this, dear Faker?

So this is your plan, his opponent thought.

1) Duartes could respond by rushing him down himself—the chance of a double hit was too large, so this was out of question. This would result, I wager, result in a double-hit occurring 7 times out of 10. Duartes would score a single hit 2 times out of 10, and Carr would score a single hit only once out of 10.

2) Duartes could respond by parrying. Here, he had two options.

2a) By parrying with his stat-powered strength, any amount of blade contact would be enough for him to win the exchange. Carr had learned how to use stat-parries against themselves, so this approach had a high likelihood of inducing infighting. At this point, Carr held the advantage, not Duartes. This would result in Carr having the advantage. Duartes would parry him successfully 2 times out of 10. Carr would avoid the parry 8 times out of 10. Once the parry had been avoided, Carr would win the infighting 7 times out of 10.

2b) By parrying him without his stats, the match would become a straight up duel between fencing talent. Without the intense power making his parries too wide, Duartes would have the exact same amount of fencing skill as his opponent and it would be a matter of whether he could predict a disengage or not. This would be a 5/5 matchup—either fencer could win the point, as their skillsets were very similar.

3) Duartes could try stop-hitting Carr’s advance off the line.

3a) If Duartes tried stop-hitting Carr using his stats, there was a high chance that his attack would miss him, and Carr could slip in and score a single point. It was hard to give this a numerical possibility, but this route favoured Carr 6-4. Not insurmountable odds, but given the lead…

3b) If Duartes tried stop-hitting Carr without using his stats, then he was not only being predictable, but also effectively stat-less for the moment. Still, Carr was also being predictable with his approach, meaning Duartes would have the slightest edge—6-4 matchup for Duartes.

How monstrous of a plan this is, I considered. By using the lead his teammates constructed as a weapon, Carr has cornered his stronger opponent. Their skills are equal, their stats in difference is monstrous…yet those small four points at the start of the round have considerably changed the pace of the duel.

Were it not for Isabella keeping the score close, were it not for Fedal grabbing the lead, were it not for Valle consolidating it…I had no idea how Carr would be managing this fight.

“This is it!” Carr announced, arms wide in a taunting motion. “This is my secret technique—Carr’s World! Can you escape it, Faker?”

“That’s not a technique! That’s not magic!” Duartes-Carr snapped back. “You bastard—!”

“Allez!” I shouted.

Carr launched himself forward.

Though Duartes-Carr had won their last exchange from infighting range, he understood Carr’s plan—all too well. Going for a parry again was too disadvantageous for him to count on. For the sake of victory, he was willing to put aside everything. His ego, his pride—and his favourite move.

Stop-hit without stats was his choice—the most likely move to hit. If I can shorten the lead here, he thought, then I can reassess the situation.

As he stepped backwards, Carr flèched forward. Having anticipated the stop-hit, Carr enveloped Duarte-Carr’s blade in six—high and to the outside. Duartes-Carr also anticipated this option as he used his Swordsmanship to power his arm. He couldn’t stop the blade taking, but he could use his abnormal strength to make sure that Carr’s sword was also moved to the outside by awkwardly shifting his wrist 180 degrees to expose the underside of his closed fist and push it out of the danger zone. This way, Carr’s blade was too far away to find its target.

GOT YOU! Carr thought, and here he stepped forward, nearly colliding shoulder first against Duartes-Carr. Their blades were away, and he took this change to rush in.

Infighting range again, Duartes-Carr thought, cursing his choice of moves.

From that distance, Carr’s shorter range gave him the advantage. No, it wasn’t only his shorter, Pistol Grip range—this was a style of fencing he had been practicing for a while now. This practice came by after his loss to Johan, that Duartes-Carr hadn’t experienced. It was his response to fighting those with absurdly higher stats than himself.

This wasn’t a wholly original idea of his.

Johan Harmenberg—not to be confused with Johan, Carr’s friend—the inventor of epee 2.0 had come to much the same conclusion when trying to create a paradigm that allowed him to compete against fencers with more classical talent than himself. Talent, height—he was lacking compared to others in many degrees. But that mattered little with his focus on getting in infighting situations. You were only as good as your practice once you landed in infighting range.

The God of Fencing made men weak or strong, Johan Harmenberg had made them equal.

The New Bladewolves:

Carr the Swordsman of Zero — 2 (42)

The Real Bladewolves:

Carr the Champion of Earth — 3 (39)

“LET’S FUCKING GO!” Carr shouted as he recovered to a safe distance. “What do you say now, Faker? Ready to tap out and change your fucking face to something more original?”

“Are you still on about calling me a fake?” Duartes-Carr snapped back. “Don’t forge that I know everything about you! That you’re a little coward. That you were always jealous of Johan. Going on and on about revenge and morals—you just want a reason to look down on him, don’t you? I’m not like that. I can admit my flaws, and I’m working on them. Not you.”

Carr drew a deep breath and held an open hand toward me. “Ref, can I request a small break? I want to respond to that.”

This was unorthodox, but I saw no reason to deny the request. “Granted. Time shall be stopped.”

“You know, that actually hits pretty close to home,” Carr said, in an introspective, slow tone. “How much of that is your own conclusions based on my memories and how much of that is Johan’s bullshit affecting it is…debatable. But I can’t deny I was jealous of Johan. At first I thought he was an arrogant prick, but the more I knew about him, the more I admired about him, you know? Taking care of his sick little brother, wanting to be the best in the world at a sport just to make his brother smile…hard not to admire that, you know? And I guess deep down inside, I always hated that I felt inferior to him.”

Duartes-Carr said nothing. He just watched his mirror in silence.

“If I look back on it,” Carr said hesitantly, “the time Johan bribed the other team to win nationals…I was angry at him for lying to us. For not believing we could do it. Angry at myself for not being strong enough to make him trust me. But I think most of all…if I’m being honest…I think I was angry that he wasn’t strong enough to win without cheating.” Carr laughed heartily at this. “He used to really give off this atmosphere like he could do the impossible, like he was this invincible creature. When I realized he had to sink so low to cheat to win…I was really disappointed.”

Again, Duartes-Carr remained silent.

“When I slept on it, I figured I was being silly and I could forgive him for it. Yeah, he cheated, he was pathetic…but he was my best friend. And I loved the guy, not because of how amazing he was, but because he was my friend.Still…next time we saw each other, he did something I can’t forgive. He killed all of our friends—even his own brother—just to become stronger.” Carr rubbed the back of his head awkwardly. “Yeah, I know I was jealous of him. I can acknowledge that. But he crossed a line and I’m the only one who can punish him for it.”

“You’re still just jealous of him,” Duartes-Carr snapped back. He has to be. I know what those memories are, he thought, nervously. If he wasn’t jealous of Johan, then how many other memories had been altered? Did that even matter? They weren’t his memories anyway. They will be once I win the Carr name in this duel, he thought, more confidently. Everything could be settled on the fencing piste. “If you are serious about avenging your friends, about killing Johan—why not use the spheres? You know you would!”

“Because Johan wants me to,” Carr replied, a sort of twisted pleasure in his voice. “It’s not enough to kill him. If I kill him while using stats, he would smile and think he did the right thing sacrificing everyone. I want that miserable little shit to die in agony realizing he sacrificed everything he ever loved and still wasn’t good enough to beat me. Oh, I was jealous of him once upon a time, but let me tell you one thing—now?” Carr laughed. “Now, I think he’s the most pathetic, idiotic egomaniac in the world and death is too good for him. When I kill him, I’m going to make sure to burn his body so that worms aren’t subjected to his toxic remains, and sent his ashes into outer space.”

“You’re fucking crazy.”

“So I am,” Carr acknowledged. “And if not for how much I fucking hate Johan, maybe I would turn out like you. A little bitch obsessed with his big numbers because he doesn’t want to rely on actually evolving, content to be Johan’s number two forever.”

“Seems like,” Duartes-Carr said slowly, “we’re never going to agree with each other.”

“No, I don’t think we will.”

“I’m going to prove to you that you’re wrong,” Duartes-Carr said, falling into his en garde stance. “That the real Carr would do whatever it takes to be the strongest. That you are the fake.”

“And I’m going to prove that I’m stronger than any stupid fucking big number,” Carr replied, laughing as if this was all a joke. “I have cornered you in my World—what will you do?”

“Do you think you’re the only one who can think?” Duartes-Carr roared back. “That you’re the only one who can escape tough situations? Dream the fuck on, clown. I’ll show you now, why I’m the real deal.”

“Bring it!” Do you think you can escape my trap?

“My fucking pleasure, you numberphobic asshole!” Do you think that it’s that easy to trap me? Do you think I’m that easy to defeat? That my stats can be sealed so easily? Get ready, loser, because I’m going to fucking murder you.

This was the signal I had been waiting for. I raised an arm, and as I brought it down, said, “ALLEZ!”