HK: Chapter 6

As it turned out, we wouldn't be dueling in the Hall, or inside the Palace of Apsadanam Village at all. The duel had been deemed potentially too destructive for that, which showed a decent level of sense on the part of Shastri Tripathi, who, I was told, advised this course of action. Some of the things that Parahumans could do, according to my Gabriel Ward memories, were destructive enough that the palace probably wouldn't remain standing if something of any real power got used indoors. Honestly, my other memories concurred there. Superhuman fights tended to leave collateral damage, no matter which Earth you were on. Especially if there was someone like the Juggernaut, Black Samson, Dragon Korelli, Gragnor of the Trolls, or even just someone like Bane involved.

Honestly, when you get down to it, pretty much anyone with more than a ton or so of punching power could wreck up a building. I was pretty sure both my opponent and I qualified there, and even if we didn't, we could damn sure put a few holes in the walls. No, instead, I was led out into a courtyard that was decorated with frescoes of grinning monkeys on the sides of the walls, where Lord Prakash, Champion Sanjay, Amala, and Chief Arjun were all already waiting. Behind Chief Arjun and Amala was a banner displaying a stylized, multi-colored lotus flower in green, gold, and yellow on a blue background. Behind Lord Prakash and my opponent was the same Banner I had seen on the fancy Dhow that had been tied up at the docks. A Golden Crescent Moon on a blood red field.

"Finally. Perhaps now we can get to the reason we are all here?" Questioned the Prince of Vipani, rolling his eyes.

"I'm not late." I insisted.

"You are not." Confirmed the Princess.

"Then what's the problem?" I queried.

"The rest of us have been waiting for fifteen minutes." Grumbled my Opponent.

"And how is that my fault? You set the time, did you not?" I asked.

"Lord Trito is correct. He is on time. At any rate, we are gathered here in the Monkey Court to bear witness to the Duel between Lord Trito and Lord Prakash, Prince of Vipani, with the stakes being the potential of immediate service in the War against the Romaka. Lord Prakash has informed me that he will be invoking his right to a Champion." Intoned the Chief of Apsadanam Village, in what I assumed was an official capacity.

"That is correct, Chief Arjun. My Champion, Sanjay, has agreed to fight in my stead." Confirmed the Prince of Vipani.

"Lord Trito, do you have any objections to this?" Questioned Chief Arjun.

"I do not. I honestly expected this to happen." I refused.

"And is your Lord's word on the matter correct, Champion Sanjay? You are agreeing to fight of your own free will?" Queried Chief Arjun.

"I am." Nodded My Opponent.

"And have you decided upon conditions for victory?" Asked Chief Arjun.

"Forefeit or when one side is unable to continue." Suggested Lord Prakash.

"Fine by me." I shrugged.

"Then, if the combatants would take their positions, we can begin." Intoned Chief Arjun.

I did so, taking up a guard stance that would be known to anyone who studied German Fencing as the Iron Door, right leg forward, weight balanced for movement, with the blade held low across my body, point upward. Instead of immediately moving to stand opposite me, however, my Opponent simply removed his armor, stripping down to where he wore only his pants, beaded necklace, and headgear. Then, he took a deep breath in through his nose, before blowing it out through his mouth, chanting the Hanuman Chalisa as he did so.

"Om Hum Hanumate Namah." Intoned the Champion of Vipani, praying for strength.

If he prayed to Hanuman for the strength to overcome me, the Monkey God didn't answer. Instead, it appeared that the Hanuman Chalisa was a sort of mnemonic device for my opponent, which allowed him to focus his powers. As he chanted, his skin darkened, taking on a metallic sheen, even as four more arms sprouted from his sides and shoulder blades, his eyes gained a dull orange glow, and his fingernails hardened into sharpened claws. As he finished his chant, Champion Sanjay was now fully transformed, taking on the hulking bronze body and multiple limbs of an Asura. Then he stepped forth into the clearing.

"You should not have taken My Lord up on this duel. I will now have to teach you proper etiquette through pain." Intoned my Opponent.

My grip tightened on the hilt of my sword as my breathing changed, shifting into the first of the two breathing techniques I seemed to know. Even as I did that, the Mystical Power within my body reached out to the sky, charging a trail of electrons as it did so, seeding the clouds with the power of the storm. The previously clear and sunny afternoon began to cloud over as my Storm Magic churned in the wind. It would take some time to truly gather anything substantial. I was not powerful enough to change even small weather patterns at a moment's notice, after all. However, with my Magic charging in the air, my strength would begin to wax as the weather turned foul and the duel dragged on. I was pretty sure that the Champion of Vipani couldn't say the same.

Speaking of Champion Sanjay, he took a martial arts stance that could make use of all six of his clawed hands in attack and defense. It wasn't anything that any normal martial artist had ever dreamed up, but thankfully, I was capable enough with reading body language and the flow of combat that I could sort of puzzle out what the stance was for. I was sure that as the fight continued, I would be capable of picking up more of it. Either way, it was interesting enough to take note of, just in case. For a few brief moments, neither of us moved, each of us staring the other down. However, if the Champion of Vipani thought that I would be the one to flinch, he would be sorely mistaken. My will was like unto a thing of Iron, and I refused to be intimidated by such a paltry display of intent. The fact that I knew that his Lord wanted me alive to be able to fight the Romaka helped there.

Then, Champion Sanjay let out a sharp shout before stepping forward and thrusting his top right and bottom left arms out at me. The bottom left was a claw swipe aimed at hamstringing me, while the top right was a palm strike aimed at my throat. The damndest thing was that he was out of range for this attack. . .at least until he wasn't. As the strikes were thrown, his arms suddenly gained an extra meter in length, crossing the intervening space and forcing me to backpedal. I briefly recalled him being a Deva of the Many-Lengthening Arms when Amala had introduced him earlier. Apparently, this was what she had meant. I leaped over the clawing hand that was aiming to hamstring me, even as I parried the palm strike, displacing it off to the side with my blade.

My Opponent didn't let up, however, rushing toward me with a flurry of fast-paced strikes from odd angles at varying lengths. It was extremely unorthodox to say the least, and my armor took a couple of dings and scratches, even as I dodged and parried for all I was worth. With a snarl, I cut into one of the arms with one of my parries in an attack that would have cleanly sliced the hand off had the Champion's body still been flesh instead of metal. That parry did little more than scratch a crease into the Bronze Arm of my Opponent, at least in terms of damage. In terms of what it did for the flow of battle, however, it was much more successful.

Over the course of his flurry of offense, I had allowed Sanjay to push me back toward the center of the courtyard with his ever-lengthening arm strikes, where a well stood with a monkey statue topping it. My cutting parry knocked that arm into the statue, plowing through the stone, but delaying my Opponent from recovering his guard fully. In that split second, my breathing changed, and I felt the static buildup inside of me that presaged speed. Another moment to duck a knife-hand chop and leap over a clawing hand, saw that static buildup reach critical mass, and I blurred forward at speeds normally inconceivable for anyone not in some sort of vehicle. As I moved forward, I parried an incoming attack from a punching arm and tilted my head aside from a claw that was aiming for my right eye. A few lines of blood raked across the side of my face instead, but the flesh wound didn't slow me any.

Instead, as I displaced the spear-hand strike aimed at my solar plexus, I recovered my guard and thrust out for my Opponent's dully-glowing orange eyes. This move hadn't failed me yet, but there was a first time for everything, it seemed. The Champion managed to jerk his one remaining arm into the path of my thrust, and with a screech of tearing metal, my blade punched through his palm instead of his eye. Almost immediately, I was forced to let go of my sword and leap up and over him as he lashed out with a kick that would have surely broken several of my ribs even through the armor if it had hit. I landed behind the Champion of Vipani as the lightning bolt that trailed in my wake struck his bronze form.

The whole sequence must have seemed like a blur to the spectators. After all, from the beginning of my charge to the thunderclap, only a few moments. However, it had all happened thanks to being able to move at superhuman speeds. As my Opponent was struck by the thunderclap of trailing electric power, I stood up from where I had landed in a crouch behind him, turning around to see that the electric bolt had hurt him. His chest was glowing a cherry red and partially melted. However, he wasn't out of the fight yet, and thanks to his last-second parry, he had effectively disarmed me.

I watched as Champion Sanjay gripped the hilt of my blade with one hand and tugged, drawing it out of where it had embedded in his left middle palm with a grunt and shriek of tortured bronze. My thrust had punched clean through his hand, but it had cost. The Champion of Vipani tossed the twisted wreckage of my blade to the tiles, and I couldn't help but frown at that. He'd taken that head on, both parts, and was still kicking. Just what did it take to put this guy down? I wasn't sure, and honestly, that was a scary thought.

"Well struck, but it will not be enough." Intoned my Opponent.

"Apparently not." I acknowledged.

"If that is all you have, the rest of this duel will be short. You might consider forfeiting." Insisted the Champion of Vipani.

"Not on your life. I have not yet begun to fight." I refused.

"In that case, I hope for your sake that you have more of those techniques ready." Nodded Champion Sanjay.

I reached into my remaining bag of holding, pulling out a Bone and Wood Javelin and changing my breathing pattern once more as I began to infuse some of the strength the breathing pattern imparted onto me into the Javelin. Then, I hurled it at my Opponent with the force of a bullet, letting out a shout as I charged forward. Another of the Champion's Arms rose to block the Javelin, finding it surprisingly resilient compared to the mere bone and wood that it should contain, even while he lashed out with three other arms, forcing me to dodge in a serpentine pattern to avoid them. A fourth arm lashed out in a straight punch that had me parrying it with a Wing Chun-style Huen Sau, parrying the punch at the wrist and deflecting the strike away to the side. Sanjay moved to block my counterpunch, but it never came. Attacking him wasn't my real goal here. Getting past him so that I could retrieve my twisted, fallen sword was.

As he realized that, the Champion lashed out with another kick that I skidded under, dropping to the flagstones as it passed just a hair's breadth over my head. My skid came to a halt near my blade, and I swiftly snatched it up, pulsing mystical energy through it and using my power to reforge objects to remake it. I stood up just in time to parry a lashing hammer fist strike off to the side, smirking as I did so, much to my Opponent's annoyance.

"Clever." Snarled My Opponent.

"I thought so." I grinned.

"Let us see if you can keep being clever, or if your bag of tricks will run dry." Huffed the Champion.

"I suppose we'll find out." I agreed.

Then, the battle recommenced and the time for Banter had ended. . .

XXXX

Meanwhile, watching all of this, Chief Arjun, Princess Amala, and Lord Prakash of Vipani sat on the sidelines. The Chieftain of Apsadanam Village and first among equals of the Swamp Communities chewed on the ends of his mustache as he watched the duel continue. In truth, he had largely expected the Champion of Vipani to at the very least be in the process of winning this duel by now. It would have been so much simpler if he had been. Lord Trito, while undoubtedly a boon to the martial standing of the Village, clearly was the sort of man to have a target painted on him sooner or later. Had the Prince of Vipani's Champion been at least clearly winning, the Chief of Apsadanam Village would have been more comfortable with things. After all, Lord Trito would have been out of the Village shortly had that been the case, and thus, unable to bring down any Romaka Asuras looking to gain vengeance for their defeat onto the heads of his people.

Unfortunately, it seemed that, although Lord Trito had taken a few cuts and hits here and there as the battle progressed, he was still winning. None of the wounds Lord Trito had sustained came close to the patch of melted bronze or the hole in the solid bronze palm that Lord Prakash's Champion sported. It made the Chief feel far less secure in his own palace than he should be. It was nothing personal against Lord Trito, mind you. He actually rather liked the strange Deva. He was an amiable sort, after all, and both his hermit of a Father and his Daughter seemed to have taken a shine to him as well. However, as Chief, he had to think of the bigger picture. As he thought on that now, he couldn't help but wonder if Lord Trito winning would lead to more death in the future for the Village.

Meanwhile, Lord Prakash was having similar thoughts, though the reasoning behind them was far different than that of his Host. Sanjay had been a loyal retainer for years and had felled Devas and Asuras before in duels. That he was having so much trouble now, with Lord Trito, both made the Prince of Vipani eager and frustrated by turns. Eager because it meant that his instinct about wishing for Lord Trito to join the War Effort against the Romaka under his banner had been correct, and frustrated because it was looking increasingly as if that would not happen. When the Vipani Prince looked at his Champion now, he did not see the man who vanquished Lord Hari, the Deva of Leonine Mastery, or the Yavana Asura Anaximandros Pteronoxus in duels before.

Then again, both Lord Hari and Pteronoxus had not been quite so resilient as Lord Trito seemed to be. The former was gifted the ability to summon and control a pair of Lion-like Yakshas from out of the Akasha, though he was only a rudimentary combatant himself. Meanwhile, Pteronoxus had possessed a pair of mechanical wings and claw-like gauntlets of his own design, which allowed him to fly and carve through solid stone. However, he was somewhat more deficient when it came to marvelous armor designs. Both had possessed flaws in their abilities that could be taken advantage of. That Lord Trito seemingly did not was concerning. It meant that, absent intervention from him, his Champion was likely to lose.

At the same time, Amala, Princess of Apsadanam Village, watched on with interest as her latest clandestine paramour kept pulling more tactics and tricks out of the Akasha to continue wearing down the Champion of Vipani. It would not be long now, surely, until Lord Trito proved himself to be more than Champion Sanjay's equal, she thought. It seemed the Deva was as proficient on the field of battle as he had claimed to be. That thought made her feel better about her choosing to lie with him the previous night. Not that she had a poor experience. If anything, it was well above anything she could have expected. No, it was the guilt of hiding the tryst from her father that had eaten at her all day.

The Princess of Apsadnam Village had engaged in secret trysts before, of course. She was the most beautiful woman in the Village and had her pick of any potential bedmates. However, she always had to do so discreetly, lest word get out and ruin any prospects for political marriage her father may or may not have been attempting to scheme for her. She always felt a bit guilty for having to hide said affairs afterward, even if they were as successful as last night's had been. Such was the way of things when you were a princess. However, the fact that Lord Trito was a powerful Deva who was clearly capable of defeating other powerful Devas meant that she could tell herself that her liaison with him had helped secure a powerful asset for the village. That thought helped quiet the guilt of hiding her tryst.

However, each of the trio of notables was soon drawn out of their thoughts, as the crackling of thunder echoed from up above. All three looked up to see that as the duel had progressed, so too had the weather progressed. The previously sunny afternoon clouded over, with thunder on the horizon. It seemed a storm was brewing that had seemingly come out of nowhere. Odd, but not totally unheard of. However, Lord Trito's smirk seemed to tell a different story, one that seemed to say that this brewing storm was his doing. Remembering the thunderclap from the beginning of the duel, all three could admit that such a thing was far from impossible. It seemed that they were about to have a victor in this duel.

And it would more than likely be Lord Trito unless the Champion of Vipani could pull something new out of his headgear. . .

XXXX

I grinned as the thunder rumbled in the distance. I was holding things together fairly well, but my Opponent had gotten more than a couple of good hits in. I was still on my feet, but my forehead had been busted open by a punch, adding to the claw marks from earlier, and at least one of my ribs was cracked, likely with another two bruised. The Champion was worse off still, with several chunks gouged out of his arms and shoulders from cutting parries of my blade, and the front of his chest was still melted. His face had even been deformed from where I had smashed a flying knee strike into his nose, which was dented to the side as if someone had taken a mallet or sledgehammer to a bronze statue.

However, none of that mattered right now, as I had lasted long enough that the Storm Magic from earlier was coming back in force. If my Opponent didn't surrender, I would be able to draw on the power of the storm to literally smite him with lightning, a fact that, judging from the looks on the faces of the trio of Spectators, wasn't lost on anyone here. I smirked, saluting Sanjay with my blade, causing him to frown as I did so.

"Are you conceding, then?" He questioned.

"Hardly. You might want to, though." I intoned.

"And why would that be?" He queried.

"Do you not hear the Thunder? That storm is mine. If we continue this, I just have to call out to it and it will leap to my command." I informed.

"The storm is yours? It sounds ridiculous. A folk tale told to frighten me into submitting. How can I possibly believe that?" He asked.

"If you doubt me, continue the battle and you'll see just how wrong you are about that." I smirked.

"Enough! Sanjay, this is over! I concede, Lord Trito." Called out the Prince of Vipani.

"My Lord, I can still fight!" Protested the Champion.

"And you would perish. Do not throw your life away, there will be other battles!" Insisted Lord Prakash.

"Lord Prakash of Vipani has forfeited. The winner of this Duel is Lord Trito!" Pronounced Chief Arjun, forestalling any future protests.

"A wise move. Lord Trito is quite formidable." Opined Amala.

"You had doubts?" I questioned.

"Could you blame me if I said yes?" Queried the Princess.

"No, though I would be hurt." I grinned.

"Lord Trito, when will you begin this training regimen you wanted?" Asked the Chief of the Village, cutting through any potential flirting.

"Tomorrow. I need to recover from this duel. Champion Sanjay was quite a challenge, after all." I acknowledged, once again saluting my Former Opponent with my blade before sheathing it.

"Good. The sooner you begin, the sooner you can have the forces ready." Affirmed the Chief.

"Indeed, though things might not be this lively again for some time." Mused Amala.

"Either way, Sanjay and I will be leaving aboard the Jalarajkumarah for home as swiftly as he is sufficiently recovered. Enjoy your success, Lord Trito. I hope for all our sakes it was the correct decision." Intoned the Prince of Vipani.

And with that, the assembled spectators and participants for the duel all went our separate ways. Lord Prakash to begin administrative work for setting sail, Sanjay to recover, Chief Arjun to the running of the village, Amala to continue her weaving, and me to sleep the sleep of the dead and allow my powers to heal my battered body. When the sun rose tomorrow, the Prince and Champion of Vipani would be on board their magnificent Dhow, sailing back up the Gadah River to their city. Meanwhile, I would begin the first of my drill classes for the force I was building. I could only hope that my powers to create skill cards would help cover for any gaps or deficiencies in ability. If not, then this would take significantly longer than the two to three weeks I had estimated to field the force I wanted. That would be unacceptable, tantamount to proving that the Vipani Prince had been right, and I wasn't having that.

I had just fought a duel over the issue, after all. . .

XXXX

AN: All right, so here's the next chapter. The duel goes to Trito, though it was a lot closer than he was letting on. Thankfully, he has powers that effectively let him turn off his pain receptors and power through something like cracked ribs. Plus, a full night's sleep will heal him from just about anything. At the same time, we see hints that things may not be going all right politically in terms of the bigger picture for Apsadanam Village. Amala sleeping with Trito could cause a scandal, and her father is worried about reprisals from the Romaka for embarrassing them like he did. Two to three weeks may be all the time he has left in Apsadanam Village.

At any rate, the next chapter will be an interlude showing some things in Brockton Bay, as two more SIs from Trito's batch of Drawbacks show up to make a splash in the Bay. Then we'll be back with Trito for the drill instruction of the Hunters of the Village. I'll also have a couple more images out before then as well.

Stay tuned. . .