Jason’s knees slipped from Sexia’s grip, allowing him to extend his legs out. He could now use his leverage to roll the two of them over and kick at her back. Immediately her legs unwrapped from his neck and defended against his attack while moving away from him. They both rolled up from the ground, preparing for the next engagement, but as both were expecting to defend they were in the awkward position of waiting for the others first move. When it didn’t come and they relaxed, both laughed. Her eyes went to her weapons and then to his noting that his was closer to her. He saw the same thing. In the next instant both went for the others’ weapons. She for his and him for hers. She grabbed his blade and wildly swung at him, but found that she was already blocked by her own sword. That was not all though. Her other sword was inbound for her neck. Had she been human she would definitely be decapitated, but her physiology allowed her to tilt her head so far back that where once there was neck there was now just a flattened space where one ought to be from Jason’s viewpoint.

The thud of a fallen head is what we was expecting to hear. Instead he had his head forcibly knocked upward as Sexia foot slammed into his jaw as she spun her body vertical with no apparent effort, graceful as any dancer one would ever have seen on Earth. On the other hand, he was knocked back stumbling to regain his footing. It took several steps, but he managed to not lose his balance and when he looked to her there she was standing as graceful and poised ever, ready take on any attack that he brought her way. He was dumbstruck by just how pretty she was. Yes, was an alien, a squid like alien from what he suspected, but she had the figure and disposition of a world class model, a world class model that was decently proficient with pointy objects and fighting. More over, she seemed to have the ability move as if there wasn’t a bone in her body, so flexible that the most highly of trained contortionists on Earth would be jealous. Of course, the whole suckers on her hand thing was kinda gross, but, hey, we all have flaws.

In movies, when scenes like this play out, there is a calm as the two fighters stare each other. Wind blows the hair and lose clothing as some tumbleweed would roll across the background. The duelists would wait for the clock to chime and the music would increase the tension bit by bit emphasizing the desolate scenery and an expectant town to be saved from the evil bandit by the heroic new lawman that has come to town. None of that existed in this pregnant pause in the battle. Not even wind to blow anything dramatically and even if there were neither of them had much in the way of hair or clothing to blow in the wind. Sexia had none. Jason had little. None the less, the two stood staring each other down, waiting for a non-existent bell to chime to spur them into action.

As if both were synced to each other they both began to charge at each other swords at the ready. The blades smacked and clanged against each other for what seemed like an eternity to the combatants, neither getting or giving an advantage to the other. Every opening that they believed they saw the other would cover for it. Sexia with her flexibility and Jason with his ability to discern her attack arcs and the usage of her owns dual swords. He could always get one of them into position to stop her from getting a blow to connect. Soon both would grow tired and slip up though. They were already feeling the soreness in their hands from the constant battering they were being given from the countless attacks that they forced themselves to endure.

Xev and Mittana watched on from their respective perspectives. Xev found herself happy and proud of the improvement that Jason was showing. There was a chance that after he fought with his brother that he would fall into a depression and never recover, but instead it looked like he had taken it as a challenge to get even better. This Sexia character was clearly not as well trained or hostile as his brother, but it was clearly that she posed a significantly higher challenge than Jason would think. For one thing, her chitinous skin was highly protective and another was that her physiology was completely outside of what any normal person from the majority of cultures she knew about would have ever guess. Win or lose, she felt more vindicated than ever before that she had made the right decision to ally herself with and train this Human.

Mittana’s eyes shined as she watched the Arena match unfold between these two fighters. When she agreed to help Jason out she was only worried about him, but she had no belief that he was at all a good fighter after the previous performance that she witnessed. She had improved his weapons to the maximum of her and their ability The problem was that those weapons were still low grade ARMS and there was no way to make them anything other than low grade ARMS and that meant that even the best ARMS engineer could only adjust their synchronization with their user. Other than that nothing could be done to such ARMS. Regardless, Jason seemed to be holding his own against his foe. She still didn’t think that he could win, but Mittana now saw that he was a much better fighter than she believed. The thought of what went wrong last time briefly crossed her mind, but her mind quickly moved on to analyzing the ARMS that the 2 fighters were using. She knew everything about Jason’s gear now, but he was now using the other fighters weapons and that made her curious. As the two exchanged blows she spied various aspects of the two swords. When she saw ARMS icon glowing a different color she became giddy with anticipation to be able to play with them. Then a thought crossed her mind, “Did Jason know?” With that on her mind she laughed goofily to herself.

The battle beneath the stands raged on with neither side giving an inch, but then as the blade in Jason’s left hand crashed into a swing of the sword by Sexia, blocking the attack, the weapon lit up and flashed. It felt like an explosion had been released from the sword in Jason’s hand. The force threw Sexia back forcefully, but she didn’t get far. He pushed the attack, charging in to stab into the center of her body. She made to block for it, tensing her muscles and closing her eyes, but nothing hit her. Her eyes opened, looking for what had happened. He had vanished. It was a moment in time as all this took place, but it was long enough for her go from curious, to confused, and then finally utter shock as she felt her own weapon stab through her mid section. She didn’t know what had happened. There hadn’t been enough time for him to move from her front to her back, but he he did. He was just as stunned at her as he had no idea how he ended up behind her. Xev and Mittana knew though. The ARMS each had an ability and they had both activated. Jason didn’t know or understand how ARMS abilities worked, but that didn’t matter. They were designed to activated when the user had to will to use them, whether they knew consciously of this will or not. It was simply that in that moment he wanted a way push her away, so the one activated, and when he charged he saw her defense and thought a back attack would get through her defenses, so the other activated. As a result Sexia had her sword plunged through her torso from the back.

“I think you put it in the wrong hole,” Xev’s voice came over the comms into his head.

“Shut up,” he shot back.

Sexia was frozen in place stunned by the sudden penetration. Her eyes blinked, but if one were to look at the site of wound they’d notice that there didn’t seem to be much in the way of blood or any sort of viscera like one would expect. Jason didn’t see this, but in his nature of doing only what is necessary to win and not push it, he released the swords hilt. “Well look like the victory is mine for sure this time,” he said. Sexia recovered her senses and began to turn to refute his claim without the slightest hint of being injured, but in the next moment she felt his hand slapping her mantle. Jason continued, “That’s easy to fi…” He was cut off mid sentence by Sexia dropping to to the ground unconscious.

“Please, collect you equipment and return to your rooms. If you cannot do so under your own power assistance will be given for a price,” came the voice of the Arena.

He stood there baffled by what had happened. She seemed fine, other than the sword sticking out of her torso, one moment and the next down went the walls. He didn’t know what to do, but the voice said to collect his stuff. He wondered if Sexia’s weapons counted as his now. He decided to not take the chance and put them next to unconscious body before taking up his own sword. He felt a little regretful now that he had experienced what the ARMS’ abilities could do he didn’t want to go back to his ability-less weapon, but it seemed he had no choice. Sheathing his sword he turned and regretfully left the Arena, hoping that Sexia would be alright. There was a good chance he’d never find out, but he had to put that out of his mind so that he could concentrate on his present goal; saving his friend Gael before something terrible happened to her. The door shut behind him and with it thoughts of her ceased.

Xev leaned back as he entered the room. “Nice knock out there,” she said. “I never would have thought to create new hole to distract from giving her a concussion.”

“What?” he questioned.

“Where do you think her brain is? She’s like a cephalopod. Why do you think she was so flexible? Her body is made of mostly fused tentacles. I thought you knew that,” she said surprised by the fact that it seemed like he hadn’t figured that out.

“I… no… I didn’t know that.”

Xev sighed, “Ok. Let’s just… pretend that didn’t happen. With that victory you should have been given access to better dungeons. You should be able to find enough treasure in the next dungeon we go to. Let’s get some ‘sleep’ and head out.”

“I’m not sleeping with you,” Jason said bluntly.

Mittana burst into the room, “Congrats! Let me see those swords!”

“I could have kept those?!”

“Of course you could have. You can taken anything from the loser of the Arena, even the loser themself if they have nothing else. Wait… So you don’t have the swords!?” Mittana pouted.

Xev stood from her seat and made for the exit, “Don’t worry kitty, we’ll be getting some good stuff in the dungeon we’re heading to. You’re welcome to come along. As I understand it, Humans enjoy stroking kitties to help relax.”

“Sh… shut up, you Kesruc!” she shouted at Xev. “I’m not a fighter. You’re not gonna trick me into being indebted someone like you! Why don’t you take Rina if you need another person!”

“Not a bad idea,” Xev said aloud over her shoulder, “Let’s go see what she thinks about that.” A devious smile crept over her face.