Chapter 8 - Duel

Within the second cavern stood a short girl fussing with the contents of a desk. Attached to her waist was a large leather bag that she kept stuffing with rods of black chalk. Tetsuo stood up from the gap and readied his lance. The girl seemed too preoccupied with filling her bags to have heard him.

“Um, stop! …Surrender now, to u-us…” Tetsuo cringed at the words he had attempted to use. 

The girl quickly turned around startled, grabbing a metallic mace from the table. Through the wavy black hair hiding her face, Tetsuo could see that she seemed to be surprisingly young, most likely just a teenager. Her eyes widened in fear, as she gripped the mace with both hands, pointing it at Tetsuo. With her eyes glued to him, she began to slowly step to her left following the length of the wall. Tetsuo looked towards where she was going and spotted a ladder that led upwards to a hatch that had sunlight creeping through. He realized she intended to escape using the hatch, and looked back at her. She saw his eyes dart up to the hatch, prompting her to sprint to the ladder, Tetsuo doing the same. 

She reached the ladder first and began scaling it, two rungs at a time. Tetsuo dashed forwards swinging his lance horizontally, cracking the ladder in two and bringing it crashing down. He moved to catch her as she fell, but she turned in the air swinging her mace down at him as she fell. He rolled to the side and assumed a kneeling position, dodging the strike but dropping his lance. He stretched out his hand attempting to reach for his lance, but again she swung wildly forcing him to duck backwards. Tetsuo put his hand out and motioned for her to pause.

“Look… I don’t want… to hurt you. I don’t know how you got here, but maybe…w-we can work something out.” A metallic tinge seared the back of his throat as Tetsuo attempted to catch his breath. “If you cooperate, maybe the kingdom will take it easy on you.” At the mention of Alvania, the girl grit her teeth and scowled at him.

“Bocudo.” She ran forwards, dragging her mace against the ground preparing for a wide swing.

“Sorry, I’ll try to be gentle.” Tetsuo leapt forwards ignoring his lance, and occupied the space directly in front of her. She attempted to take a step back to swing, but Tetsuo leaned in and reached across to grab one of her arms. She let go of her mace and attempted to strike him with her free arm but he shrugged it off easily. He pivoted pulling her arm over his shoulder, and lurched forwards using his momentum to pull her over him. He tried to soften the blow before she landed on her back, but the fall still left her writhing on the ground in pain.

“Hey! I got one, she’s in he- Urk!” Tetsuo’s vision blurred as he received a quick kick to the crotch, doubling over in pain. He turned to see the girl standing above him, looking coldly down at him with the mace. It seemed she had exaggerated the amount of pain she was in to make him lower his guard. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, pointing the head of the mace at Tetsuo’s face. He could only watch as the characters on the mace began to flicker like a strobing light. Sweat began to trickle down her brow and she began to hyper ventilate. The mace shook in her hand as Tetsuo felt a strong heat begin to generate. The writing on the lance began to drip off it, the ink steaming the ground it landed on. The mace shook more violently and her eyes began to widen in fear as the handle began to emanate smoke.

Swiftly, Veera burst through the rear wall, causing it to come crumbling down. He dashed to the both of them and grabbed the head of the mace with his hand, knocking her away with the other. Steam billowed out between his fingers as he grit his teeth enduring the pain. Veera shouted, “Roscoe!” and the earth below him rose out of the ground and encased his hand in a boulder. He took shallow breaths before nodding to Roscoe by the entrance. Roscoe knelt down and placed his hand flat on the ground. The boulder encasing Veera’s hand crumbled, freeing him and the mace. Veera tossed the smoldering mace against a wall, the head now a deformed from the heat of the blast. He waved his hand through the air attempting to cool it down. Tetsuo could see that his palm had become red with blisters. Veera used his other hand to pull the girl onto her feet. 

“Nuthin’ in this world is worth losing your life over, kid.”

She looked down shamedly, nervously glancing at his hand. “...I’m sorry.” Tears began to well up in her eyes, and she began to sniffle.

“Pah! This is nothing. I’ll be good as new tomorrow!” Veera knelt down and tried to meet her gaze. “I’m Veera, invincible soldier of Alvania. What’s your name?”

The girl wiped the tears away from her eyes and answered. “Pia…”

“Pia… That’s a good name.” Veera gently took her hands. “Pia, why don’t you come with me and your friends back to the capital, and I’ll treat ya to a very special bakery I like.” Veera trailed off as he gently pulled Pia with him towards the exit. “You know you remind me a lot of my daughter, she’s super strong just like you…”

“Tetsuo! Are you okay?” Wilbur came up to him and started inspecting his sides. “You hurt anywhere?

Tetsuo took an uncomfortable step back. “No, I’m good… miraculously.”

“That’s a relief. We’re lucky she barely knew how to power that thing.”

“Barely?”

“They modified it. If she had used it the way you used the lance, we’d have all been ashes.” 

Tetsuo glanced back at the discarded mace. The metal head had melted into a silver bubbling pile on the ground, while the wooden handle caught aflame.