FSE

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formerly SoFurry search engine

The arena was always something that impressed him. Not so much for the size, as it was still somewhat smaller than a football stadium and whatnot, but for what it represented. On how many people would go through these halls every day trying to make something of themselves. There are fighting sports back on earth, sure, but they weren't anything like this. From what he's gathered from the past, as far as he can tell there are fights in this arena every single day just about. Anyone wanting to see a fight can just walk in, pay for a ticket and enjoy a show every night of the year. When he was talking with the dog about it, the only times they really make a point to not hold any matches is when there's something big on the way, of either a major fight going down in the town or if there was a special going up. Apparently after that last Special fight, all of the arenas were kept silent without a single fight in honor of all those that lost their lives up until the day that Rose fought that dragon. But these places were almost the equivalent to their small claims court. If two people had an issue with each other, this is where it would be settled most of the time. If you had a beef with someone, you scheduled with the ones in charge to have a fight with them and let your fists and magic do the talking. There is qualified medical people here to try and heal the wounded, an audience to watch and an area to just let all out without having to worry about harming anyone or causing any collateral damage.

And of course, as he is about to do his match he's not really allowed to really see any of this. Blade Tail is stuck in some sort of small room with someone reading through the agreement for the fight. Not that he is at all surprised by any of this. It's all par for the course for him. Stuff he's dealt with before and nothing is at all new. But just in case as a general precaution, with his fight having been set in stone for the night he's not allowed to do anything to jeopardize his own health or that of his opponent. He is to have no interaction outside of any of the officials. This way there's no chance that the people won't get to see a fight between the two fighters at their best. And unlike Rose, he has no idea how to get past the ward, nor does he really want to. She apparently just walked right through the door and then sat outside the arena as a show of force and a protest against them. But his match itself is the show of force and he has nothing to protest against. He wants to play nice so that they have no excuse to not pay him. He wants to make this his job so being on good terms with the people here is the best course of action.

It doesn't take long before he's called up and given the standard rules on what is and is not allowed, which he doesn't really find at all important. Based on the crowds he's not the first match but he is very close to being the first match. The first was likely some sort of exhibition of sorts. And technically this one is too and yet there really isn't all that much of a crowd coming to see him. It's somewhat strange considering the amount of attention he garnered while back on earth he assumed he would still have some name recognition. But given how short notice it is they likely would not have advertised it all that much. But even still, there doesn't seem to be anyone that seems to overtly acknowledge the fact that he has done this kind of thing in the past. Blade Tail considers whether to take offense and decides that it might simply be a matter of out of sight, out of mind. He's no longer a big name being blasted around because he's from earth. Now he's just another squirrel in the crowd and he'll have to re-earn his place in their estimation. And for that he just has to give a proper showing. And yet, he also has to wonder if he should give his standard offer. Though he really should just go magic all out, there is the fact that if he is known already for his skill, and his opponent knows how dangerous he is with magic, it might not be in his best effort to at least not extend the offer.

"So, I guess before we start I have an important question I have to ask you."

"And that is?"

"Do you want to do this fight using magic, or no magic at all?" Blade Tail asks.

In response his opponent just laughs. "You can't be serious. No one would be stupid enough to just come in here, drag me into a fight against a newbie and then have the gall to demand I fight without magic. I'm not going to hold back on you simply because this is your first match. People like you need to learn their place and work to where they are, not be handed advantages."

"Ah, well. Thought I'd at least offer. But it would be a shame to make all the people that came to watch my fight be disappointed in how quickly it ends up being. Not to mention I probably wouldn't get that many good fights. I imagine my standing will partly depend on how well I can showcase what I can bring the people here. Oh!" Blade Tail quickly exclaims, clapping his hands together. "There's an idea. As much as I hate having to toy with my prey, I'm going to give myself the restriction of making you surrender. I'll keep you awake and moving. I apologize in advance but I'm about to go style on you very hard. Do not take it the wrong way. I just need to make you learn your place, as you say."

Blade Tail starts hopping from one foot to another, pondering his restriction. No vital injuries, nothing deep enough to cause a bleed out. Hopefully they are a good enough fight to at least make it interesting. His opponent spits at him but the squirrel just smiles at the larger opponent, pondering how best to handle this challenge. Nothing vital and nothing deep. It'll be difficult to maintain the proper control over this but he feels he is up to the challenge. He decides to taunt the gator by turning his back, his tail raised up high and he closes his eyes, waiting for the moment of motion. He can hear the sound for the match to start but still holds his stance, just hopping from one leg to another while facing away from his opponent. He can practically taste the anger in the air. Oh, what he'd do to have that wing spell from Rose at this moment. It'd be interesting to see just how bright he could make it. The instant the gator starts heading towards him, with that first step taken, Blade Tail quickly jabs his tail into the ground where the tip shoots out and it comes back out of the ground just behind him, stabbing him in the back of the leg. Having not expected the attack he ends up falling forward, catching himself with his hands.

"Aw, and here I thought you were going to put me in my place. Are we done already? I mean I have already drawn first blood. Didn't realize you were that weak," he taunts, finally turning around and pulling his tail out of the ground, propped up well into the air again.

He growls at the taunt and then with a roar he grabs the ground beneath him, his hands forming into giant balls of flame before standing up and clapping them together. The impact sends a shockwave of heat aimed at the squirrel who just pulls his tail out and with a flick of his tail causes enough wind to push the attack off to the side and missing him completely.

"That might be impressive if it weren't so ineffective. I mean, seriously. Why would you use fire to make a shockwave? It's completely impractical. What happened to this whole putting me in my place schtick? And a ranged attack? Really? I stab you in the back of the leg from all the way back here and your response is to hit me with a blow dryer? Ooh, scary," Blade Tail raises his hands in mock horror. "Look out everyone, he's going to make my fur poof out. However will I ever manage?"

Blade Tail starts increasing the distance he's hopping between each foot as the gator roars at him again and begins charging, attempting to close the distance. And again he's lit his hands on fire.

"Good strategy. Fighting me up close where I can't just pot shot you with my tail. Shame you're way too slow for me, though."

Blade Tail laughs as the gator lunges before grabbing that arm and throwing him forward and off balance. At the same time the squirrel spins around the other side and kicks the gator forward before slicing him in the back with his tail. Blade Tail actually finds he also has to swat his tail away slightly with his feet in order to make sure the attack doesn't go too deep and to prevent himself from following up the very wide-open gator with a killing blow. He had given himself that restriction, after all.

"Now, you see here, things would have gone much better for you if you had only accepted my deal."

"Buzz off," the gator roars, spinning around and beginning to coat itself with mud that's seemingly coming from nowhere.

"Just saying. I've survived a full year-long contract on Earth. And I did it without any team mates for the vast majority of the time. Once I had earned the name Blade Tail, I made it a point of just doing my own thing. Spend months fighting people who were fighting either for the chance to survive and escape or make a name for themselves by taking down the infamous Blade Tail. I even survived the massacre special. I offer people to fight without magic because it is simply far too boring at times to be constantly dealing with people so much weaker than I am. Much more fun when it's all about skill and raw physical ability. Do you honestly want me to believe that your little parlor tricks will be able to stop me?"

To further illustrate his point Blade Tail just jumps straight down into the ground below him and emerges right behind the gator, using his tail to slice right through that mud armor and draw blood from his shoulder. Once again he could have so easily killed the gator but only through sheer force of will was he able to aim far too high. In all honesty Blade Tail was somewhat disappointed in his opponent. Sure, given the skill at both fire magic and earth magic he'd be a good gatekeeper to anyone who considered going into the arena seriously. At the same time, though, he was extremely underwhelming and based on how slow he is probably wouldn't have even been a good fight even without magic. His movements are far too obvious and slow, the only ability he has with range is a very weak fire attack. Like even Rose's little arrow thing probably would be more effective. He's almost convinced even the people in that gym could beat this guy. Meaning that either he's hiding something, which would be extremely annoying that he hasn't brought it out yet, they're trying to pull the wool over his eyes by throwing someone this weak at him and telling him they're actually worth a damn, or he was being paid so little over in earth that this is all he can afford. That or this is the only person they could get to agree to his prize pool to go after someone who is effectively an unknown entity. Either way, disappointing information regardless.

"Come on," Blade Tail taunts. "Can't you do better than this? Is this really all your people have to offer me? If you think you're strong enough to pose any real threat to me then I have no worries whatsoever about quickly rising to the top ranks. Who knows, maybe I'll be fighting your royalty myself, show that more than one person from my world is stronger than your strongest fighter."

The gator takes a deep breath and then stomps his foot, causing spikes to form out of the ground and head at Blade Tail. An impressive enough spell, one the squirrel has used on occasion as well, but not particularly effective in this context. Blade Tail stopped using the spell once he figured out it's one main disadvantage. It was a powerful spell, but drained a lot of energy and if you simply put yourself in a situation where they can't do any harm, then the spell itself becomes effectively useless. And so, Blade Tail begins spinning around in a circle as fast as he can before submerging himself into the ground. And then to make sure that his opponent has no time to recover he comes right back out behind him, sharpening his tail and using the three passes it makes as he rises up out of the ground to score three quick little gashes against the gator's back, going right through that armor he had put up. Blade Tail then kicks out at the gator, sending him forward and then using the gator's own attack, stomping his own foot into the ground and sending the spikes right at the gator's back. Since his opponent was knocked off guard there is nothing he could do to prevent the attack and this also hits him square in the back, several of them scoring deep. And yet the gator is still not signaling his defeat.

Blade Tail sighs and goes about trying it from a different angle. One that's by far less interesting for the crowds, but he doesn't know how much they would really be able to enjoy such a lopsided match, especially when he's made it quite clear that the two of them are in completely different leagues. So he walks slowly forward, focusing his body on performing all of the necessary movements for this next spell. Most of the others he used could be done with no preamble. This next one, requires quite a bit of setup. He has to soften the ground beneath the two of them and to do that he needs some precise footwork to really spread it out, all while channeling downwards. His tail joins in, making it that much easier to perform. Finally, when he arrives at the gator he uses one leg to grab as much of the ground beneath him as possible, raises the entire thing up into the air and then plants it right onto the gator. His opponent struggles, even bringing out some fire attacks of his own, but that doesn't really matter as he can't get into any position to hit him. Instead he's just being slowly submerged more and more into the ground. Since he doesn't want to kill his opponent, he makes sure that their head stays above ground, though everything else is getting more and more trapped. Eventually, if he doesn't know any spells to counter this one and can't be rescued in this situation it's only a matter of time. Has a really appropriate name to, "the silent coffin."

"Fine, I yield," the gator says finally, Blade Tail raising him up enough that his opponent can raise up their arm. Blade Tail acknowledges the victory and then fully pulls him out of the ground before giving the customary bow and then walking out of the arena.

"Should have taken me up on that no magic offer," Blade Tail says as he leaves to go collect his earnings.