Tournament: Part 2

"Alright then, so let's have the first round of contenders step into the ring now," Maddox says while he holds out the two sticks for whoever the first contenders are

Vannessa and Susan step forward and take the sticks while only nodding to each other to confirm that they are okay with using the sticks for their fight.

Then taking their positions in opposite corners of the ring Maddox stands in the middle to act as a referee, since he is not taking part in the fight so it would be fair for him to act as the judge for the tournament.

Usually, the girls would not think about doing this since practicing within the Coalition against members was generally frowned upon since the rules were enforced on training during off-hours to prevent others from generating animosity in the Coalition amongst peers.

'Something is fucked up with the Coalition...' Maddox thinks about that stupid ass policy that he glimpsed in the information given by the girls on the Coalition, and he believed he only scratched the surface

"Now girls what did you two decide on miasma use for the match?" Maddox asks the two

"We agreed to use it," Vannessa answers to the both of them, and not hearing any complaints from Susan, Maddox nods his hands in understanding

"Alright then, try to keep the blows below the neckline, once a blow is received step back to your corner, and then we will continue again, if you get out of the ring you are out and the winner of the match is the one in the ring, also aim to hit and not to kill alright? You are all part of a team, and you are not going to overly harm a teammate, alright"

The girls both nod while each getting into a different fighting stance with Vannessa holding her stick in an upright position and closer to her body while Susan holds it looking as if her stick is a sheathed katana.

Both of their stances are interesting since Maddox could see that they had both worked hard to master the stance and from what he had seen in movies Susan's stance was meant to deliver a fast and deadly strike with a blade.

Vannessa seemed to be more focused on a defensive stance to counter Susan and to make it more effective she seemed to be using her offhand to hold the stick meaning that she may be ambidextrous.

'Interesting Vannessa'

"Alright, once you hear the alarm on my phone, then you can start," Maddox says, giving them the start signal he moves out of the center of the ring, sets an alarm on his phone, and the countdown begins

*Beep* *Beep*

The signal goes off, and at first, neither of the girls move forward to face each other for a moment.

This ring was ten feet on each side so Maddox changed the stick length so that it would force the two contestants to move forwards to fight against each other due to that factor.

Soon though Vannessa steps forward by a small margin and Susan looks upon her with an unwavering gaze as the stare-off continues for a moment.

Gazing at the scene though Maddox finds something interesting as he looks at the two of them both of their bodies are glowing on the inside as they both were utilizing their essence stored within their orbs to do something.

Paying a bit more attention now Maddox sees their essence leave their bodies and then wrap around the sticks individually which caused Maddox to feel uncomfortable for some reason as he looked at their sticks.

*Whimper*

Dog also seemed to be feeling the same as he was as he looked upon their sticks he felt danger coming from them so he could see that these two could harm him with these techniques of theirs.

Then Maddox sees the essence in their bodies move to two different locations with Susan's forming up in her arms and stick while Vannessas' went to her legs, arms, and stick.

*Crack!!!*

The loud crisp sound of wood hitting wood is heard as all of a sudden, Vannessa and Susan were both now standing in front of each other with their sticks locked together with the two of them struggling to take control of the stalemate between the two.

Maddox could not even see how this happened as the essence of the two was able to boost them to inhuman speeds and reflexes that could not even be observed with the human eye leaving only the stalemate between the two as the result of their essence use.

Eventually, Vannessa somehow wins the stalemate and causes Susan to be thrown back a bit against the hay in her corner.

'Hmm...' Maddox was also looking forward to seeing how he could fight against these girls in case he had to since there were no certainties in life, he was going to be overly cautious

Vannessa keeps on the attack and stabs with her stick at Susan's stomach which is deflected with a side blow followed up by a quick jab to Vannessa's right shoulder by Susan.

"One point to Susan," Maddox announces upon seeing the blow land

"What?! I thought we were going for lethal blows?!" Vannessa complains

"I stated the rules, and I don't believe we would ever be going based off of kendo where the more lethal the strike would be is the determined winner"

"..." Vannessa has no way to answer back since Maddox was indeed right since he never said anything about Kendo, and she just assumed that is what was going on

"Back to your corners"

'Where is their essence?' Maddox questions, seeing that there is no longer any more essence flowing throughout their bodies now as if someone had flicked off a light switch in their bodies and snuffed it all out

Returning to the corners again, this time Vannessa adopted a newer stance from the get-go with her stick in her left hand still, but it was behind her back as she held her stick with the short end in her hand with the rest of it behind her back and poking out over her shoulder, while Susan goes with the same stance as before with her stick next to her hip as if it were sheathed.

"Begin!" Maddox calls out since he did not feel like restarting the timer on his phone

This time though Susan takes the initiative to strike first as she moves forward while striking outward with her stick in a clean motion to hit Vannessa in the arm before she can even do anything.

'Still no essence though,' Maddox observes as this time they don't circulate essence in their bodies to fight

*Clack!!!*

In a quick response by Vannessa, she brings her arm up and placed the stick against her leg to help support the blow made by Susan before she moves forward and keeps the stick underneath Susan's chin.

"Well done!" Maddox exclaims as Vannessa shows perfect control with her stick and does not just blindly strike Susan in the chin

'Still, though the counter of that may be easy...' Maddox thinks as he envisions how he would have handled it if he were Susan in such a situation so that he could not get hit and also effectively counterattack

"Alright, you know the drill," Maddox says while thinking a bit about what he just witnessed

Both girls take the same stance this time as they have their arms slightly extended but bent away from their bodies with the sticks pointing at each other

"Begin" Maddox starts the final round for these two

Both of them move forward while moving their sticks closer to their bodies while the sweat from the fight slides down their faces with their gazes fixated on each other, not breaking focus as everything else around them goes quiet.

"Hopefully, none of you are wearing any white clothing since you'll be sweating, and I am sure you don't want me to see anything," Maddox casually says, which breaks the silent atmosphere created

It was also enough for all the girls to break concentration from the fight as some of them start turning red from Maddox's casual statement since some of them were indeed wearing white clothes right now.

"YOU!" Angella cries out, but Maddox does not pay any attention to her

"The winner is Susan!" Maddox announces, causing everyone to look back into the ring

What Maddox saw that the others missed was that Vannessa tried to advance toward Susan to land a blow to her leg before she could act but, in doing so, left her defenseless from above and Susan was a bit faster than her, which was how Vannessa was lying on the floor rubbing her shoulder in slight pain.

"Alright, congratulations, Susan go ahead and rest now, okay," Maddox tells her while he enters the ring and helps up Vannessa, who was complaining about her unfair loss, but Maddox was accounting that to her being a sore loser

'It seems like that first round used up all their essence for now... but how many orbs do they have, though, I thought there would be a longer use for their essence,' Maddox thinks as he moves Vannessa back to the girl's office room

After getting Vannessa laid out on her inflatable mattress Maddox places a bag of ice on her back where it hurts so that it offsets the pain for her a bit.

With that done, Susan is seen sitting down in a sort of meditative position where she is refilling her essence orbs which can be improved through meditation.

From what Maddox had just seen of essence, he had found that both the girls had used it to increase their physical body parts based on what it was that they wanted to be improved to make them faster and more robust. Essence, unlike miasma though when used though can not be recycled after use as it dissipates too quickly, so they had to refill it naturally, which was faster with meditation for some reason.

'Miasma was slow to return while essence is not which is weird, so why is it that essence is faster? What are the differences between the two?' Maddox thinks as he takes his spot on the side of the ring

There were essentially no differences between essence and miasma in people except for the fact that people change into infected with miasma and with essence well to use if they use the orbs they create.

'Wait... essence orbs'

That might be the key since that was the only difference between the two and essence orbs was just a bunch of essence put together into a sphere which might account for how they can refill their essence faster than miasma user infected can.

If his train of thought was correct then the essence surrounding the mind space with all the orbs and stuff was the source point of their essence which Coalition members accessed through their orbs and were refilled quickly due to their nature. Then when they use all the essence within their orbs, they can no longer effectively use it for some reason.

'But someone must have tried drawing essence from the source before, so there must be something else I am missing Maddox thinks while he repeats the same thing he said to Vannessa and Susan at the start of their match

After that, Maddox sets the alarm, and the new pair face off at the signal.

It was Angella versus Persephone this time, meaning Dog would be up next in the final round, but it was interesting to see the oldest of the group and the youngest face off against each other.

"Hey grandma do you need some help I don't want to make you fall over accidentally during the fight," Persephone taunts Angella, who was trying to hit Persephone, who was in turn only dodging

"How about you stop moving around, and I will show you how sturdy I am in a fight," Angella answers while a bit peeved at Persephone's taunt since a woman is quite sensitive about her age

'Why the hell did I tell everyone my real age?!' Angella was crying out in her mind since she answered everything Maddox truthfully for reasons unknown to her which gave her a bad feeling constantly

"Alright let's continue this!" Persephone says as she finally goes on the attack this time with both women neck and neck together in terms of skill and technique

"Whoah..." Maddox lets out as both Persephone and Angella are moving so fast that he cannot follow their movements anymore their arms are just blurred out to him

While he could not see how with his eyes as usual he was able to see how they were doing it since their essence was being utilized more effectively than how Susan and Vannessa had since unlike them where they were building up their essence in their bodies for a massive explosion they were using smaller amounts of essence at a time to increase their speed and reflexes in the face-off between each other.

'So this is how to properly use essence in a fight, huh?' Maddox thinks while a small grin forms on his face that's barely visible