The bond didn't take long to adjust to. By the time the starting horn sounded, just like Abel had said, I was already pretty used to it. Thus, I immediately leaned on it to push the Ralkor into a full on sprint the second we were told to go. Though I couldn't use any active Skills, my passive connection to Callie through Paired Dueling was still there, and I had enough of a sense of her to match our speeds as we took off down the track, bringing my Ralkor close to hers as we raced ahead.

Unfortunately, as mentioned, the Ralkor distribution was random. Callie's was a bit slower than mine, and several of the enemy were much faster. Not only that, several started to drift in toward me as if preparing to attack. Ahead of me, I saw Abel, sprinting along on his own red Ralkor, and as a blue and a green drifted in from both sides, it leaped into the air and kicked out with both claws, attempting to gouge each of them in succession.

The first rider, the one on the green a lighter shade than mine, was coming in too fast, and he had to put his arm up to block and got laid open to the bone, falling back with a howl of pain. The blue rider, however, flipped up into a picture perfect counter claws clashing against claws in a shower of sparks as they were thrown away from each other.

The two trying to close on us made their own move while we were distracted by the attack, but unfortunately for them I within arms reach of Callie. I reached out and grabbed her hand and her Ralkor leapt into the air and with a heave I swung her around my entire head, her legs keeping her Ralkor under her and her mounts kicked out with a series of dangerous bicycle kicks to attack both of them.

One of the attackers got driven back, but the other dipped under the attack and managed to slip in to slash at my leg. Sadly for the tall man on the back of the red Ralkor I was wearing strong armor, which soaked the blow easily, even if it hurt like crazy. I urged my Ralkor in closer and leveled a heavy punch at his head. He dipped back and took it on the shoulder even as Callie came up around on the other side of him and executed a spinning taloned kick at his head with her own purple Ralkor.

The man tried to counter the attack, leaving him open for a hard kick from me, his Ralkor turning to dart after him as he flew off into the pack behind us, and I winced as I saw him get stepped on, though from the brief glance I got he didn't die or anything and his Ralkor managed to snatch him up.

Callie pulled up even with me and shot me a grin. The two of us had a huge advantage here even without active Skill use, the training we'd done over the last few months giving us a passive awareness of each other and what the other would do. Of course, that meant Mel and Abel had an advantage too. It was easy to see the two of them had joined up and were in the center of a crowd of Ralkors seamlessly fighting them off.

Giving a nod to them, Callie made a gesture that we'd worked out in training to indicate helping and I flashed her a thumbs up. We split up and closed in on the crowd from either side flashing a few hand signs at Abel and Mel as we came in, pincering the group of five enemies in between us. I saw Mel's orange Ralkor leap straight up about ten feet into the air as Abel smashed sideways to drive one of the five out of formation at me and I kicked low as he swung partly off his Ralkor, leg lashing out at the head of the one between us, the racing bird unbalanced and thrown behind by the dual attack.

Mel meanwhile came plummeting from the sky like the stars she was named for breaking, and when two of the others tried to move aside, Callie body slammed one into another and shoved them both into the path of our descending mentor, Ralkor claws flashing even before the heavy bird smashed into them and opening long slashed across arms and back and forcing them to retreat.

The last two Mel and Abel converged to pull the same swing move we had earlier taking them out. I saw them consider attacking us directly, but they eventually decided to leave that for the end of the race if we met up and the four of us separated. The winners would get half the entry money, but we;d use it for the Pavilion anyway, not that it would stop Abel from competing if we ended up being that last ones left.

As we belted forward at top speed, I saw the other riders avoid us completely and nodded with smugness. Sadly, this wasn't a brawl, it was a race, and we weren't winning. I didn't want to leave Callie, knowing not only would she be more vulnerable without me, but I'd have to worry about watching my back much more thoroughly. Taking a lesson from Mel's huge jump I noted the faster speed of my Ralkor and shot Callie a few hand signs that she responded to quickly before closing in.

Taking her hand I did the same swing maneuver, but instead of a circle I hurled her up and around, shooting her forward into the air alongside her squawking Ralkor, sending her hurtling into the near distance as I kicked my own bird into high gear, sprinting full out to catch up before she landed among a large group.

I managed to beat her there and smashed into them like a scaly wrecking ball, mostly clearing them out so she could land delicately, the long tough legs of her Ralkor absorbing the impact as she crashed down, only to grab her again and throwing her a second time, before sprinting all out with my much faster Ralkor to catch up to her, essentially leapfrogging forward a few times as we closed with some of the lead elements of the pack.

The furthest ahead were in a state of near constant combat even as they ran. While getting a feel for the bond was simple and martial arts experience helped maneuvering, the most advanced seemed to be old hands at this kind of racing. While their actual capabilities weren't any more impressive, their grasp on the movements that the Ralkor's excelled at were much more refined. I took a moment to watch and study, learning more about the bodies of the animals we were riding as I watched the dizzying arrays of kicks and slashes from these veteran racers.

Abel, of course, managed just fine without any of those considerations, his spatial awareness monstrous even without using Skills. Mel was doing surprisingly well too, probably from her perception of Abel through the bond similar to what Callie and I shared. As we watched some of the attacks, Callie and I refined our own techniques, noting certain kinds of explosive movement that Ralkor's seemed built for.

For instance, Ralkor's were front heavy, a fact they countered with extremely solid traction, but relied on to sprint faster. A forward flipping motion that whipped the legs up over the head and down on the enemy was extremely suitable for their physiology. With a glance at Callie, we decided to try a variation of that. Grabbing her hand, she pushed her Ralkor to flip up over me, and I swung her as she traveled along the arc of my extended arm, ramping up the speed to deliver a brutal overhead slash to the pair of Ralkor riders in front of us.

The two were so distracted by trying to outdo each other they missed the attack until it was too late, both of their backs being slashed open. With cries of pain the two split, letting themselves fall back to treat their wounds and being overtaked by the pack within seconds and passed.

It was notable that no one in this little race actually attacked the Ralkors. I personally avoided it because they were just racing animals and didn't deserve to be hurt, but I somehow doubted the people of Doomtown were nice enough to keep that in mind. If I had to guess the Lanes had some sort of rule about it. That actually gave us a distinct advantage, because due to our armor the Ralkors couldn't do much harm to us.

With those two out of the way we picked up the pace, pushing for just that little bit of extra speed from Callie's mount. I was able to keep pace, but she'd managed to eke out a bit more momentum and we started to slowly close on the mad scramble of battling Ralkors at the front. We were getting closer to catching up. The track was pretty long, though we apparently had to do multiple laps before this ended, but I wasn't sure how many and I didn't want to get screwed out of winning because the race ended early.

Despite the advancing though, we still needed to break through the line of battling Ralkor with advanced riders. Even Abel and Mel seemed to be stuck, as they'd run into a pack of five riders who worked with shocking coordination to repel them. I supposed Abel wasn't invincible after all. I was jarred from that realization by a feeling of alarm through my bond with Callie, and barely managed to weave to the side to avoid a vicious slash aimed at my throat.

Mordaunt laughed happily as her Ralkor pirouetted through the air, claws flashing right by me, actually scraping across my mask as I leaned back, though not doing any damage. I felt more than saw Callie lunge for her in retaliation, only to be intercepted by the hulking form of Rahm on a massive black scaled Ralkor, interposing himself between my girlfriend and his mistress. I cursed as I saw the two of them break past us to surge into the midst of the pack of frontrunners, slowing down to meet up with Callie.

I made a few hand gestures, and got a few in response, glad once again that we'd decided to to refine our communication during all that practice. Honestly I suspected the hand signals were much less effective than they seemed, and at least some of the understanding we developed of each other was just intuition that came as a precursor to developing the Paired Dueling Skill.

Looking ahead, I glared at all the Ralkors in front of us. I had no idea how to get past them, or if we even could I wished I could use Skills right now, but Abel had mentioned they had ways of detecting that. I scoured my brain for something, ANYTHING that would let me break through the line. At this point I didn't even care much about winning. I just wanted to beat Mordaunt. That attack had pissed me off. Armor or not it had been way too dangerous for a friendly race. Something was seriously wrong with that girl, she could've put my eye out, not to mention slitting my throat.

Finally, I had an idea. I had no shot at winning this, there were a few racers out front of the pack that were definitely going to get it. There was, however, a gap between the pack of frontrunners and the very best who were leading the charge. I shot Callie a look and a few gestures and she grinned back at me. She drifted out in front as I slowed down, and with no hesitation I steered my Ralkor to jump onto her shoulders. With a single powerful leap her Ralkor hurled itself up about twenty feet, and I had my own Ralkor jump as hard as it could using her shoulders as a playform. As I sailed over the battling crowd to land between them and the frontrunners I got a good laugh. Mordaunt didn't seem nearly as amused now.