7.117 - Coliseum I

As the illusory screen hanging above her instructed, Natalie walked to her side of the arena to begin their fight.

Her thoughts churned. A best-of-three. That changed things. Most Coliseum fights were best-of-ones, a simple fight to the death—injuries of course healed afterward, with the wager following.

That there would be multiple rounds altered the dynamic. Natalie's biggest advantage—as big as her new gear and skills—was the element of surprise. Elida expected her to be stronger than what she'd shown in the Ruins, but she wouldn't assume Natalie had jumped that much in strength. Plus, she didn't know about [Empower].

Did she stagger those reveals? Did she go all out from the start? She wasn't sure. If she tried to sandbag and lost a round, that would be catastrophic, and she would feel like an idiot. Couldn't she rely on simple stat superiority? Did surprise matter that much?

She didn't have time to mull over every possibility. Arriving at her side of the arena, a countdown began.

She made her decision. All out from the start to secure the first round. Then deal with the next as they came. Hopefully she could close this out two-to-zero.

Grip tightening on her hammer, Natalie braced herself.

***

Vanetta leaned on her elbows against the lip of the viewing box's barrier, Clementine and Faye to her side. The whole team had come to watch this fight, and half the damn city. She'd heard more than a few lewd remarks from the crowd about both the girls. Natalie was as popular here as at Tenet. That mildly annoyed her, for some reason.

"I would've sworn Elida had the advantage," Faye muttered. "Why are the odds so stacked against her?"

The odds. The Coliseum evaluated its participants objectively and provided a means to bet between the two fighters. Vanetta had known Natalie had gotten stronger, but to that extent?

Three-to-one?

In retrospect, she could see how. Elida was a monstrously talented individual, and had the benefit of a class equally as strong as Natalie's. But which of the two champions would flourish in the City of Eros: the one sponsored by Rage, or the one sponsored by Lust?

Elida hadn't gotten as much from the City as she could have. And certainly less than Natalie. Though Elida was a pragmatist, that didn't extend to engaging with the City in the myriad perverted ways it wanted. Elida had declined more than two-thirds of her assignments, instead venturing out on solo missions into the Ruins. Vanetta was pretty sure the team didn't know about that. She herself, naturally, had followed on a few occasions.

She sympathized. If not for Natalie, she too would have avoided every assignment except the Arena—because only solo activities would have matched her sensibilities. She had nothing against someone who threw themselves into the debauchery of the City, sleeping with anyone and everyone, but she wasn't that person.

So. Natalie had come out far ahead of Elida thanks to the events of the past week and a half. She had a level on her, and not one but two mythical items—and three epics to join them. Elida hadn't even spent her tokens yet. She was waiting for the Emporium key that this fight would likely give her.

In that light, that the Coliseum still acknowledged a one-in-four likelihood that Elida came out the victor was nothing short of astounding. A level and a full set of massively better gear ought to make this a foregone conclusion.

That Elida had the odds she did was no doubt because it was a great matchup fundamentally. No matter how much Natalie had boosted her Prowess and had planned around fighting a rogue, a slow-moving—relatively speaking—tank against one of Tenet's best rogues was going to be rough. What did it matter if her Tenacity and Furor were so much higher if the Prowess gap and Elida's evasion skills made pinning her down impossible?

Clearly it wouldn't be 'impossible' though. Again: three-to-one odds in Natalie's favor.

Vanetta wondered how she herself would fare against Elida. What odds would she have been assigned? Seeing how the only way to find out would be to accept a Coliseum fight, and thus have to make 'stakes', she was okay without an answer. Unlike Natalie, she was a sane individual. The idea of sleeping with Elida regardless of her objective attractiveness appealed to her not in the slightest.

Above, on the enormous illusory panel, a countdown ticked down from five to one.

Then zero.

Natalie exploded forward. A woman wielding a giant hammer with a mallet head nearly the size of her body had no right moving that fast. Even Vanetta was taken off guard by how quickly the ground between the two opponents evaporated. Elida jerked to the side and avoided the first swing, but her posture radiated surprise.

Halting the momentum of her hammer in a way that shouldn't have been possible—that likely hadn't been possible just this morning—Natalie rerouted the direction of her swing and pirouetted, slamming her weapon down where Elida had been standing. She missed by inches, the rogue twisting out of the way at the last possible moment, and an explosion of dust fountained from the ground.

Natalie kept up the flurry of attacks, ending with a kick, and since Elida was off-balance from dodging the previous rapid-fire blows, she had no choice but to activate a skill. Vanetta had been on enough delves with Elida to recognize the way she jerked to the side and found her footing, instantly lashing forward with a speed even a rogue shouldn't be capable of. Evade and retaliate, she had mentally nicknamed the skill.

Her dagger slammed into Natalie's exposed thigh—leg raised as she delivered that kick—but somehow the weapon jerked to a stop and scraped sideways, rather than sinking into flesh.

A return skill of Natalie's own: the one that made her nigh-invulnerable for a short period. Excellent reaction speed, Vanetta acknowledged, finding herself leaning over the ledge in fascination. The rest of the spectators were equally entranced. The City of Eros featured predominantly level threes. This level of fighting ability simply wasn't seen here. The speed and strength of the duel below she would expect of level fives, maybe higher.

Natalie dropped her pseudo-invulnerability and transitioned into a whirlwind-type attack, spinning on one heel as she cleared half the damn arena with the ridiculous reach of that weapon. Having overextended herself and used up her primary evasion skill—and also surely not expecting the sheer speed Natalie was somehow swinging that absurdly sized hammer with—Elida didn't manage to get out of the way.

It was a glancing blow; it caught Elida's arm as she threw herself backward. Vanetta smirked. A glancing blow was still a hit, and if she'd been in Natalie's shoes, that was exactly when she'd have taken the gamble and activated the mark-applying attack to trigger [Insatiable Strikes]. Since Elida had burned her primary evasion skill.

Sure enough: the fight became a formality.

It was terrifying, the way Natalie locked onto Elida. She didn't use any other skill, didn't try to call up an [Illusion] or similar. She let [Insatiable Strikes] do the work. Blow after blow rained down on Elida, and, despite the speed difference, Natalie's attacks simply landed where they needed to, as if she'd grown prescient of the other girl's movements.

A blow to the shoulder had Elida spinning away. Another should've landed, but the rogue triggered another skill, supernaturally twisting away in a manner that didn't quite make sense to Vanetta's brain. A hit caught her on the knee, and she staggered.

One last blow crushed onto Elida's skull, and their bodies flickered and reset on opposite ends of the arena.

Vanetta shook her head in incredulity. It had ended so fast Elida hadn't even gotten to demonstrate all her skills. The assault had simply been too overwhelming and unexpected—it had lasted all of ten seconds.

Her eyes drifted to Natalie.

This woman was going to be an utter monster a year or two from now, wasn't she?