The Lone Wanderer

Percy swung both scythes at Rambert, hoping to trap him within their lethal embrace. The man leapt above the closing stranglehold with relative ease, before trying to land a blow of his own.

But Percy wasn’t deterred so easily. Letting go of his weapons, he used a third scythe to divert the attack. The construct still shattered in the process, unable to survive the full brunt of the Green’s fury. Yet, that was merely the start. Percy doubled down with another slash from a fourth scythe, soon discarding it for a fifth after that also failed.

Like that, the two men fought with everything on the line, hinging everything on their battle’s final act. Whenever Rambert’s fist made contact, Percy’s armour crumbled. Without the hardness runes keeping the pieces stable, the absorption runes alone struggled to fend the powerful attacks off. At the same time, Percy’s bones cracked, his flesh turning to mush beneath the armour, bloodied patches already exposed in several locations.

But he wasn’t without his own victories.

Using the scattered weapons as disposable replacements for his own, he pressed onward with greater confidence, inflicting more injuries on Rambert. The man’s already pale skin had grown even paler, making him resemble a corpse more than a living person by now, his gaunt body animated through sheer grit and unyielding rage.

Though Percy couldn’t care less about his opponent. He even ignored his own pain, or the very real possibility of death looming around the corner. Instead, he allowed himself to fall into a trance, grasping at a new opportunity emerging by the edge of his consciousness.

Swapping his scythes one after the other, he failed to properly wield them all, often resorting to all sorts of awkward grips out of necessity. Sometimes, he held one with his elbow, other times even using his armpits. Suffice to say, the circus act wasn’t particularly effective, unless his goal was to make Rambert laugh.

Still, the feeling of the mana-fuelled constructs pressing against the inside of his joints inevitably jogged some long-buried memories, bringing them to the surface of his mind. These weren’t merely his own. They were experiences he had shared with a friend all those years ago. Naturally, they were from the colosseum back on Huehue, from when Micky demonstrated how he fought.

Doing his best to remember, Percy capitalized on the lingering remnants of muscle memory, trying to reconstruct part of his friend’s style, and to adapt it to his current needs. After all, he couldn’t use it in its original state, as many of his circumstances were different, from his affinity to his physiology, and to the very nature of his weapons.