Collide Gamer

Maximillian’s body hurt.

The repeated impacts of Ernst’s fists had left dull, throbbing spots all over his chest. An elbow strike that had caught Maximillian in the back was particularly annoying. He could have had Laralia fix it, but healing magic wasn’t her speciality. The evolution of both of his elementals had gone into a particular direction, through little influence of the gravity king himself. Unlike his best friend, he did not get to choose, only to accept what nature decided to offer him.

“Come at me, little king!” Ernst taunted.

It worked. Maximillian knew the proper way to fight this was to bide his time, but he was still aiming to prove himself, still doing his best not to be overshadowed by greater conquerors. He knew his place in the hierarchy of the order, an awkward spot near the top, high enough to be isolated from the vast majority of humanity, not high enough to ever be truly strong enough to escape the orbit of other forces.

Ernst was one such force. The boisterous smirk of the man never faltered, even though the repeated Intensification Nahoa added to his diseases made his veins rise against his skin. Slick with sweat from fever, he all the same swung his fists at Maximilian when the royal approached once more.

The blow struck Maximillian in the shoulder. He was never much of a physical fighter. Reflexively, he increased the gravity on Ernst. It did nothing, his power just rose in equal measure, keeping him perfectly capable of dodging the royal’s swing.

“You’ve got potential,” Ernst grunted, suddenly and lightly chopping Maximillian in the side. He had anticipated the blow, lessening its impact by falling to the side at the same speed of the attack. It connected, but there was no stopping power behind it. They just moved simultaneously until Maximillian flew out of the man’s range.

‘Maybe it’s time to call upon the others?’ Hawpler’s voice was barely audible as an individual voice, more of a rush of sounds on a base frequency that somehow made sense to the human ear.

‘I concur,’ Laralia responded, her gorgeous tones coming out with the mild echo of her nature as a multitude.

‘No,’ Maximillian held his ground. He was not so banged up yet that he would throw in the towel. Right here was the rare opportunity for him to beat up a Latebloomer and solve his own issues. He was not prideful enough to let that kill him, but damned would he be if he did not give it his all!

Gravity turned softly. Maximillian walked off the side of the stalactite, then approached Ernst with measured steps. There was something he could still try.

Ernst answered the approach with a slow stepping up of his own. The two men came face to face. Maximillian had to tilt his neck back lightly. For a mundane man, Ernst was almost freakishly tall. With less than half a step between them, neither raised a hand. They just stared.

“You know,” Ernst grunted, “I’ve always had a soft spot for the monarchy. Sort of felt cheated out of having to fight for the moustache man instead.”

“Could have not fought,” Maximillian suggested.

Ernst shook his head, appearing serious for the first time since they had started fighting. “How old are you? I’d guess like… 21 or something, but who knows with supernatural humbug in the mix?”

“22,” he answered.

“Yeah, you just wouldn’t get it then.” Ernst just shrugged. “The raw humiliation of not just losing the first war but then having the empire be cracked apart like a nut, all of that to then be told we can’t even unify with the rest of the Germans. No emperor, no empire, no nothing – obviously we were going to fight against those assholes.” Ernst smirked again. “Admittedly, though, I was always fond of conflict.”

Ernst tried to go for a punch, but his hand rose crawlingly. Confused, he glanced at his own arm. It suddenly accelerated, but Maximillian had already noticed the motion and swerved to the side. His own arm came up.

His knuckles slammed into the side of Ernst’s face. The man stumbled back two steps, while the crowd around them gasped.

“No shot!” Maximillian picked up on the very satisfying surprise of Jane herself. He allowed himself a smirk in her direction, before walking towards Ernst. Every step felt like he was walking through molasses.

Ernst’s recovery was similarly crawled. He rubbed his chin. A bit of pink betrayed a cut on the inside of his cheeks. He straightened up, the motion done with great difficulty – until it wasn’t.

Maximillian rushed forwards. The straight punch was caught in Ernst’s fist. Immediately, the Survivor tilted and slammed his forehead down. Maximillian’s ears rang from the dazing impact. On pure instinct, he brought his knee up. It was a lucky shot, connecting with his opponent’s stomach. “Oof!” Ernst groaned, and stumbled back.

“NO SHOT!” Jane repeated, louder.

The gravity king would not take credit for that second hit, but neither was he going to stop to declare his humility. All he could do was shake his head, recover his bearings and go again. Water cape fluttering behind him, he left it to Hawpler’s splinter in his mind to coordinate what came next.

Ernst and Maximillian both went for the attack. With his longer arms, the Survivor would have hit first. Both of them slowed down to a crawl, allowing Maximillian the split-second adjustment to bend out of the way. Ernst followed that up with a kick. A tendril of water wrapped around it in what felt like slow motion. When they both accelerated again, Maximillian was the first to act.

He did not punch Ernst, just put his knuckles flat against the man’s chest.

They both stared at each other for a moment. A manly understanding surfaced in that moment. Maximillian turned away from his opponent, marching towards John instead. “Undine!” he declared. “Heal both of us. Nahoa, release your poisons.”

“…I don’t think that’s a good idea,” John cautioned.

Metra stepped up to the room in that same instant, bringing Nia with her. ‘So the Tzitzimimeh is dead?’ the gravity king theorized, while addressing his friend before their women, the captured enemies and the knights. This fight was the last that remained to resolve. “You are under my command for this, Emperor of Fusion,” he reminded. “I have decreed that we will reset this battle. Make it so.”

There was a flicker of worry in John’s eyes, but he swallowed both that and his pride. Undine left parts of herself to continue aiding the injured from the brawl, to do as Maximillian had commanded. The touch of her cool slime soothed the pains where it made contact and beyond. Half a minute of healing later, Maximillian was back to full health. It took four times as long to heal the cut done to Ernst’s heart.

“You know that I will figure out how to deal with that trick, right?” the Survivor asked. “After, I can take each of you out one after another. You cost yourself your victory right there. Why? You clearly aren’t above assassinating your enemies.”

Maximillian similarly rolled his shoulders, preparing himself for the second round. “Cloak, dagger and poison were the methods chosen because we saw no other way… but I can see it now.” Crouching into a ready stance, the gravity king announced his readiness. “This will be my victory.”

Ernst was the one to rush forwards. ‘Now.’ Hawpler notified his contractor. On the final step, fist raised, the Survivor suddenly slowed down. The weight on Maximillian’s shoulders was heavy, but that was a small and temporary price to pay to take the momentum out of the motion. ‘Release.’

Maximillian enacted his response in the exact moment both of their speeds picked up again. Try as he might, Ernst could not predict the inside of the gravity king’s head. Narrow as it came, Maximillian dodged the forward punch, then caught the brawler’s chin in a sudden uppercut.

Stumbling back, Ernst caught himself, but his feet were confused by rapid waves of weakness and strength. Maximillian knew perfectly how to coordinate his steps between the gravitational waves. Constraints of slime beneath his clothes relaxed and tightened. Rather than go for a punch, he simply shoved Ernst further back, refusing to allow him to regain his balance.

It was the beginning of a remarkably straightforward interaction of physical violence for an elementalist. Maximillian didn’t think he would have ever fought like this. Between his gravity well and inundation elemental, he was quite well equipped for it. Hawpler was, as he had always been, specialized in maximizing the effects of Maximillian’s already potent gravity magic, while Laralia focused on protection and force adjustment. Both, importantly, bestowed Maximillian with ways to multiply his mana regeneration. Both were typically used to restrict the motion and offensive capabilities of his enemies, until he won the endurance match.

Using it on Ernst would have had no effect.

Himself, however…

Maximillian crippled his own manoeuvrability just as Ernst began a counterattack. Perfect Challenge dragged Ernst’s speed down in equal measure, giving Maximillian all the time he needed to turn a purely instinctive engagement into one of reason. More than that, he controlled the pacing. Ernst could only try to guess the moment that Maximillian let the speed pick up again.

Sometimes he got it right.

The clearly telegraphed punch was a ruse. The moment they both returned to superhuman standards, Ernst dropped the arm and crouched under the gravity king’s swing. Uncoiling like a spring, he rammed his shoulder into Maximillian’s stomach. Laughing roaringly, Ernst carried him forwards. Maximillian was slammed, back first, against a wall.

Ernst pulled back to lay into him. Maximillian increased the gravity on himself so much that he crashed into the ground. “Fuck!” the Survivor shouted, slamming his knuckles into unyielding stone. “Don’t punch me in the sack!”

Maximillian growled. From where he was, that would have been all too easy. “I draw the line at stabbing my opponents in their sleep.”

“HAH!” Ernst laughed and took a step back.

The gravity king got back on his feet. That one impact had knocked the wind out of him, but that could be recovered. Similarly, Ernst had taken a multitude of hits and his knuckles bled from that misfire. Nothing decisive yet.

Yet, in a fight between equals, any punch could be the decisive one. When mundane people fought, a single blow to the head could be the one to knock the enemy out. Funnily enough, in this match between royal and Latebloomer, the same applied.

Maximillian and Ernst began to walk, not towards each other but around the edge of the arena. “You respect me,” the king pointed out.

“You’ve landed a couple solid blows,” Ernst responded. “That’s worthy of respect.”

“Not exactly a marshal accomplishment,” Maximillian declared. “I am simply using magic to get you off your rhythm.”

“And what’s wrong with that?” Ernst laughed loudly. “Use the tools you’re given, that’s how one survives!”

His tone peaked at the final word. He began a charge, only to stop at the first step. Maximillian saw all of that, hesitated, then was caught off-guard when Ernst went into a leisurely stroll towards Maximillian. He tried to dodge to the side, but Ernst cut off that route immediately. He took a step back.

Falling right into Ernst’s trap.

Maximillian found himself between two dripstones. They would have hardly even qualified as an obstacle in a regular fight between Abyssals, but with Perfect Challenge locking the environment, they locked him in place. Back was no option either, the cave wall standing right there.

Ernst lunged. The first swing was a feint, deliberately cutting short. It was a blow to Maximillian’s psychology, one he managed to withstand, standing his ground despite how close the fist sailed by him. Immediately after, the Survivor went into an uppercut, aimed at Maximillian’s stomach.

The gravity king narrowly dodged to the side, pressing his back against one dripstone. Ernst immediately went into blow after blow, while Maximillian could only dodge. They were both breaking the rhythm, Maximillian by diminishing them both below even mundane power and Ernst through the skill of a seasoned brawler. They were dancing on the proverbial robes of their ring.

Knuckles cut over Maximillian's cheeks. The fists flew past his face repeatedly and narrowly. Ernst was locked into the attacks. There was no showmanship between them, no question on positioning, just the hailstorm of knuckles against Maximillian’s reflexes and planning. Left, right, left, right, left, left, Ernst established a pattern only to break it. Slow, fast, slow, slow, fast, Maximillian messed with their linked capabilities in the same fashion.

‘If I stay here, I will lose,’ Maximillian knew and braced himself for impact.

Taking a blow to the shoulder, he halted Ernst’s momentum with his own body. Slipping to the side, Maximillian aimed for the narrow gap between the man’s chest and the dripstone. Ernst immediately raised a leg to box him in. The knee scraped over Maximillian’s thigh, but he got out all the same.

He rolled. He got back on his feet. He connected to the cape on his back. Tendrils of water shot forwards, aiming at Ernst. Though he hadn’t seen it used this entire fight, the Survivor dodged it all with that astounding precision. Supernatural powers used by his opponent, Ernst got a burst of speed allowing him to cross the distance.

That was what Maximillian had hoped for.

There was no slowing them again, no trick that the gravity king pulled. In the final moment, all he gambled on was the chaos of combat. The difference between victory and loss was a coin toss. Maximillian had made it that way, because he had to acknowledge the reality of the situation: there was no beating Ernst in a straightforward brawl.

There was only cheesing the hell out of him with unexpected manoeuvres.

Maximillian hugged Ernst’s midriff. “No way!” the Survivor laughed, his final punch missing where the gravity king’s head had been. “Well played!”

The acknowledgement of his defeat did not change that Maximillian had to enact his victory. Straining his entire body, he lifted the mountain of a man off the floor. Leveraging his deep familiarity with the pull of gravity, Maximillian then tilted backwards. The hinges of his joints guided the motion.

Maximillian’s body formed a bridge. The back of Ernst’s head and upper back slammed into the floor. The old mountain of muscles let out a pained groan, before going entirely limp from the concussive impact. Immediately, the royal released his opponent. Standing, he raised his fist into the air.

So it was that the king of Austria defeated a rebellion with a suplex.