One Hour Earlier

“Alright then it's time for Operation Liontamer,” Nazuko declares as she hops onto a nearby rooftop.

“We’ll meet later tonight!” she yells before running off in some obscure direction.

“Alright imma go beat up anyone I see with a lion mask!” Nerva asserts as she marches off in the opposite direction.

Nerva haphazardly scampered along the twisting roads of wine smelling city believing in her ability to get into trouble. Unlike Nazuko she had no real plan whatsoever, other than hopefully stumbling onto whatever fights were currently happening in the city. Back home in Colonus a surprisingly good amount of information could be gained via your fists, and since the state of Oclana is still part of the human empire that same logic applies here.

In this world humans held the record for the largest amount of fights that happened on a daily basis, only the Orcs could be considered relatively close.

Nerva still ran the risk of fighting someone who had absolutely no connection to the main objective at hand, but still she was someone who fought for the sheer sake of the fight, everything else could be considered secondary. Any unnecessary fights she got herself involved in could be her making an excuse for her performance against Archer as her fight against him left her with a burning fury and a desire to get stronger.

The current problem she was facing however was that the streets were surprisingly bare of competent people that looked like they could even put up a decent fight. Anyone that looked like they could start a fight seemed drunk or tipsy in one way or another. Just the nature of this city she supposed, but it made for a rather boring time compared to the streets of Colonus. She had just finished beating up 5 drunkards that unfortunately made the mistake of hitting on her by calling her as sweet as a ‘strawberry’.

“Argh this place is so boring, is there anyone in this city who could possibly put up a fight!” Nerva yelled to the sky as she kicked an empty bottle that rolled into the sewer system on the sides of the street.

“Heh you think your so strong *hic*, you wouldn’t last a single minute against the lion,” one of the drunkards Nerva beat up claimed.

“Lion?” Nerva said, perking up at the mention of the wildcat.

She turns around, picks up the particular drunkard by his collar and sets him on his knees.

“If you're so confident I can’t last one minute against this Lion guy, then bring him here. I’ll burn him as easily as I beat you guys up,” Nerva says as a fireball appears in her left hand and she brings it closer to the man's face.

“Go to a place called the Dawn Distillery *hic*and say ‘Wine’s fine but I prefer punch’. They’ll take you to an underground arena where you’ll get destroyed, heh I can’t wait,” the man laughs.

“We’ll see about that,” Nerva says before blasting the man away into a nearby dumpster as the lid closes down on him two seconds later.

Nerva walks away before realizing she has no idea where this Dawn Distillery looked like. She walks back to the dumpster and pulls the man out of it to ask where in the city the Distillery was.

“Hey dumpster fire, what exactly does this Dawn Distillery place look like,” Nerva commands.

“Uhh I think it was a brown brick building with a wooden roof?” The man slurs barely conscious from Nerva’s attack.

“Thanks,” she says before punching the man one last time and closing the dumpster lid.

Immediately forgetting about Nazuko’s decision to meet up in the afternoon with all the information they’ve gathered, Nerva was in quite the fight happy mood and went straight to the first brown brick building that came into view. As she entered the building the smell of alcohol only intensified, annoying Nerva as she held back her impulse to set the building on fire. She knew exactly what kind of reaction fire would have when coming into contact with alcohol as she’d seen it many times with drinks in the guild. The man in a waiter outfit with gray hair and a chevron mustache approached the pig tailed girl as soon as she entered the building.

“Hello there you don’t seem to be one of our usual patrons, but have you come here to sample one of our fine wines?” the older man asks.

“Ah shit, there’s some crap I gotta say right. Um wine’s fine but I prefer…… FUCK what was it again? Aaah F*CK IT I came here to punch, not memorize code words!” Nerva yells at the unsuspecting old man.

Hearing this the man takes a deep breath and sighs.

“Close enough I suppose. Another one of you people, when will we ever have actual patrons? Follow me to the underground fight club,” the old man says reluctantly.

The old man leads Nerva into the basement of the distillery, the wooden stairs creaked with each step taken indicating the somewhat advanced age of this establishment. The basement smelled of oak as the basement was entirely filled with wine barrels that were being aged. The waiter leads Nerva off to the corner of the basement before stopping in front of a wooden door.

“Here we are the Urbossa fight pits, try to keep this place a secret, although I suppose it's not such a well kept secret these days,” the waiter informs.

“Finally, it's been itching for a real fight since I got here,” Nerva says as she approaches the door and starts to pull the handle.

Right as Nerva pulls on the handle the door becomes unhinged bringing the whole door down on Nerva.

“Oh dear, really do need to replace that rusty old door. Pardon miss, are you alright?”

The fallen door is launched into the ceiling via fireball causing it to break into pieces, scattering burning chunks of wood around her.

“Fuck! Is this place as old as you are?” Nerva answers angrily.

“Perhaps even older if I may take a gander. We would renovate, but most of our revenue goes to the unsightly man in the pit before you. If you intend to fight him, do take care, he is quite nasty.”

“I’ll be fine, worry about your own problems you geezer,” Nerva replies as she stomps into the arena.

Nerva entered into a circular stone room about 100 feet in diameter, with the ceiling about 30 feet tall. In the center of the room lay a circular iron cage about a third of the size of the room itself. The crisscrossing iron bars covered every direction as well as the ceiling. She could see inside the cage that two people were fighting, one man appeared bloody and bruised as he boxed against another much larger man that caught her attention. The large man wore nothing but a wrestler singlet and had a muscular figure similar to Armstrong, but what caught her attention was the lion mask he was wearing.

The fight itself seemed to be nearing completion right as the first man took a punch to the chin causing him to become dazed. The man in the lion mask proceeds to pick the guy up by the legs and holds him in the air as he turns his attention to the crowd watching him.

“EVERYONE THIS FOOL THOUGHT HE COULD CHALLENGE ME, BUT LET ME REMIND YOU WHAT HAPPENS TO EVERYONE WHO CHALLENGES THE LION!” the man in the pit roars.

The man in the lion mask finishes the fight as he brings down his opponent slamming his back against his knee, completely breaking the man's spine. The crowd feeds into the bloodlust as they start cheering intensely. The lion masked man takes in the applause as he turns to the crowd with his arms wide open.

“TRULY IS THERE ANYONE WHO CAN GIVE ME EVEN A SEMBLANCE OF A GOOD FIGHT?”

“I CAN!” a voice in the crowd yells.

“Who said that?” the lion masked man questions as he turns in the direction of the voice.

“Was it you?!” he asks as he points at a random man in the crowd.

“Nuh uh wasn’t me,” the random man responds.

“Then you!” he says as he points at another man.

“Not me either.”

“THEN WHO!”

“HEY FUCKER WHO'S BULGE IS EXPOSED TO THE WORLD! IT WAS ME!” the voice shouts.

Everybody moves away from the person who said that revealing Nerva.

There’s a brief moment of silence before everything erupts into laughter.

“HAH! EVERYBODY DID MY EARS DECEIVE ME OR DID THIS RUNT JUST SAY SHE COULD TAKE ME, THE LI-”

In the next instant a blast of fire erupts from the crowd blasting the lion masked man in the face. The impact was so strong enough to send the man hurling towards the back of the cage. The sudden and intense show of power was enough to quiet the crowd and there’s a few seconds of eerie silence before the wrestler slowly got back up on his feet. The previous smirk or arrogance on his face slowly fades to a stoic expression before returning to a joyous grin.

“Yes, that's exactly the kind of power I’ve been looking for. This town is full of drunken, weaklings, so much that I've grown rather bored here. Tell me girl, who are you and what do you want? If you can give me a good fight I’ll give you anything you want.”

“Nerva. And you're going to tell me everything I want to know when I’m done kicking your ass.”

“Ohoh, well then Nerva, step into the cage and face me. My name is Leo and I daresay we’re about to have a good match,” the wrestler announces.

Everyone steps aside for Nerva to walk up into the iron cage and close the door.

“Feeling scared?” Leo asks as he begins to clench both fists.

“Let me make one thing clear, I’m not stuck in here with you, you're stuck in here with ME!” Nerva yells as she holds up her hands unleashing a sudden burst of flame that envelops half of the cage and a good portion of the room as well.

Onlookers desperately raced towards the other half of the fight in an attempt to escape the flames.

Nerva judged her opponent and got an accurate guess of his strengths. Judging by his physique, she guessed he was a monk, and due to her past attempts at taking on Armstrong, she knew that monks don’t go down that easily due to the average higher level of aura usage of that class. She braced herself for the man in front of her to suddenly rush out of the smoke and attack. Nerva barely noticed a change in smoke in her peripheral vision and before she turned to see, the lion masked man appeared behind her.

“Too late!” Leo says before grabbing Nerva’s waist and immediately suplexing her.

Nerva felt a small amount of pain after having her head smashed into the ground, but that pain became less noticeable as her rage built up releasing adrenaline that would temporarily numb the pain. In retaliation she lets loose an attack from her feet that hits Leo right in the back. The beast-like man was not fazed as he turned around charges at Nerva like a raging bull, slamming her against the iron bars of the cage. Nerva places her hand directly on Leo’s skull before quickly unleashing a quick but concentrated blast of flame. Staggered by the sudden attack, Leo stumbles a few steps back letting go of his hold on Nerva. Nerva took this opportunity to rush forward, boosted by the flames under her feet, then kicking Leo directly in the abdomen followed up by a consistent stream of flames. The increasing heat from her flames was enough to start melting the iron cage the two fighters stood in. After being defeated by Archer during the castle siege in Ayana, Nerva devoted herself to strengthening the power and intensity of her flames. A strong stomp disrupts Nerva’s stream of flame as it lifts about 2 feet into the air. Leo dashes forward and with a swift kick sends Nerva right into the ceiling of the iron cage. Nerva hangs by the iron bars of the cage as she observes her opponent. It seems that those flames were indeed strong enough to get past his aura as 1st degree burns could be seen covering the man’s forearms which he must have used to endure Nerva’s stream of flames. A few more concentrated blasts like that and he’d be finished.

Nerva uses this opportunity to rain down hellfire from her feet, completely enveloping the cage. However Leo quickly leaps into the air and swats Nerva down with a punch as easily as swatting a fly. He follows it up by dive bombing her as he lands on top of her with his elbow and makes contact with her stomach. The pain of this almost 300 pound man landing on her stomach makes her want to puke, but Nerva holds down bile as best she can.

“Ready to give up yet, the toilet is just around the corner,” Leo jokes.

“Shut… the… hell… up. We are not done yet!”

“Hmph, guess I get to perform one of my finishers then,” Leo says as he prepares to charge Nerva once more.

Nerva fought the urge to puke as she faced the wrestler head on. She knew she had to end this fight quickly, but all that went through her mind was one thought. What would Akane do?

One of her lessons flashed back inside her head.

“Observe your surroundings and take advantage of the environment”

An idea quickly flashed through her head as Nerva deployed a small smoke screen in front of Leo before jumping over him and slamming his head through the metal bars. Quickly she melted the metal bars, changing their shape and preventing Leo from pulling his head out, effectively trapping him. As Leo struggles to pull himself free from the iron bars, Nerva gets behind him and starts charging an extremely dense fire blast in her hands. A wicked smile begins to form on Nerva’s face as she anticipates the damage she’ll do to her opponent. Conversely, sensing the immense power building up behind him, Leo desperately struggles to break himself free. The iron bars soon snap as he breaks himself free, but as he turns around he’s met with a white hot blast of fire. Nerva’s blast destroys the cage as well as penetrating the distillery above.

Accumulated dust often carried with it a risk of dust explosion and due to the advanced age of this distillery along with the lack of care it's been receiving a dust explosion was all but inevitable. Nerva’s blast then caused a chain of reactions which perforated throughout the distillery. With her opponent most likely defeated Nerva went around the corner to the toilet to celebrate her victory.