9 Chapter 9: Duel

From the very first moment both drew their blades, it has become evident that both are at least masters of close quarter combat.

The Aquarian Leaf Blades Dolon carries are of the thinner variation, where jabs and precise strikes at vital joints are of the aim.

The one Golden Raider carries, however, are the broader one and favors slicing and cutting as its main damaging mechanism. But for someone to be brave enough to challenge the number one ranked melee fighter in the game, the Golden Raider seemed awefully confident in his own abilities.

Dolon didn't care.

It only took two skips to close in in Golden Raider, all four of her blades spun around in a dazzling pattern before piercing at the shoulder joints of the Golden Raider.

A simple move, but executed to absolute perfection.

Golden Raider swiped two of his blades upward and easily knocked the blades off course to the side. He then pulled back and stand tall with blades folded against his side.

'Don't insult me.' The Golden Raider sounder slightly annoyed at the treatment. The simplest of the attack is something he took seriously.

Dolon made a face and continued her attack, each one of her thin blades targeting crucial joint areas of the exoskeleton. This is one of the most standard form of practice exercises an Aquarian does, however there is a crucial difference between drills that were performed under water and those that were done while wearing exoskeleton.

The water gives him movements, agility and body control, but the exoskeleton he is wearing, no matter how advanced, is something completely different.

A normal pivot maneuver under water almost got him stuck in one place due to the nature of exoskeleton suit designs. The tip of one blade made contact, but was bounced away by the force field.

'Wow. Really?' Dolon used the change in momentum to regain some distance between the two and mocked her opponent, 'a shield? Don't matter.'

A standard procedure is to simply activate an extra blade properties that shorts out generators very much like the one Rydel faced in the cave. Dolon tapped the two blades together as some sparks traveled up and down the blade like neural signals, enabling it to short out any force field upon contact and reminding enemies of it's deadly touch with jolts of electricity.

The Golden Raider went silent as the skills and experience of Dolon shocked him, despite how much mental preparation he has done.

He entered into a textbook combat ready stance and prepared for the next attack, from what he sees, Dolon's combat style is that of utter and total competence through all the fundamentally different styles of Aquarian Blade Martial arts.

He may not be at the same level of competence as Dolon, but he can very clearly see the influences of the big three from that extremely simple footwork and maneuver.

The Wave's dazzling patterns for unpredictable attacks at odd angles and timing, the Ice's steady and unyielding footwork and a sprinkle of the Grass's natural flow and efficiently movements.

The Golden Raider truly respected someone who managed to master and combine the three major styles to create something of her own, but he also has something up her sleeve.

Being the best students coming out of the Ice in this generation, he had already mastered the art of not losing. To have a chance to win, you have to not lose first.

It's time to focus now. All that flamboyance meant next to nothing in front of the sword. Golden Raider could feel sweats creeping from his arms and making the control slightly slippery. He carefully watched the movements of Dolon and predicted her next move.

With a precise swipe or one blade and a block with the other two, he stopped her next attack dead in its tracks. The thin yet dealt tip of Dolon's blades grazed along the body of Golden Raider's thicker blades and screetched unpleasantly.

'Not bad.' Dolon complimented Golden Raider's quick decisive action.

She retracted the tip that was in contact with his blade by an inch or less, shifted the angles slightly and went straight for his body by slightly knocking his blade off course.

Golden Raider has to react as his force shields is now obsolete upon contact wit the electrified blades. He jumped back slightly and swiped upwards with one of his lower arms, preventing the attack from landing and dealing a significant amount of damage.

Within the game, any sort of damage is reflected with slight stimulation of the body from the gaming suit and subsequent tightening of its fabric to disallow movements from limbs that are injured. It simulates how one have to compensate after sustaining blows to the body.

Golden Raider is no stranger to injuries, but any extra feedback against such a formidable opponent will be a costly distraction.

Suddenly, he felt a slight bit of tingle from his the left side of his torso as well as two of his arms. The slight tingle soon became soreness and then numbness before his suit tightened those areas up. He was hit, but Golden Raider have no idea when the contacts were made.

His opponent, however, seemed perfectly unscathed and have already backed off after this round of attack.

Golden Raider reached for his shield generator just to check if it's online by any chance, fully knowing the multiple contacts Dolon's blade made shorted his shield and then immediately dealt damage to his body.

It was piping hot and it's won't come back online for a good while.

Golden Raider actually felt a hint of belief. He gently touched his wounds to see how bad it is while locking his sights firmly on Dolon. Two slash and one stab. It's not too severe.

'What's going on, golden boy?' Dolon taunted, 'wanna just give up so I can save a few minutes?'

Golden Raider stood there in complete and total silence, angered by the blatant disrespect when suddenly something caught on to him. Since they have made sure to block out or monitor all communication frequencies, the only way Dolon and whoever's her back up can coordinate their attack would be to time everything perfectly.

This is a time-tested battle strategy from before the age of communications til many years after.

However, since Dolon needed to perform certain actions at a particular point in time, all Golden Raider needed to do is to stall for time at the worst or make her completely miss the coordinated attack at the best.

Golden Raider relaxed after realising all the above. The situation is now back under his control. Ever since the beginning of this extremely short duel, the shear prospect of facing such a strong and reputable opponent pumped adrenaline all over his body and causes him to tense up at times. It is only when he is relaxed that his true power is shown.

He ignored the tightness from his injured areas and returned back to his ready stance.

'I will not be denied. Come!' Dolon smiled at her opponents determination and will, and she shall grant him defeat.

She charges forwards, blades spinning around her body and reflecting lights from the ceiling all around. When she was one step away from reaching Golden Raider, three of her arms had lined up to put the blades all in parallel with other to form a medium sized mirror and flashed the light straight at Golden Raider.

With the other two, Dolon aimed at the non-injured arms of Golden Raider and sends her blades forward. The tactic worked almost perfectly. The initial movement allows Dolon to feel for the location of the lights by looking at the reflections on the floors and walls, making it so much easier to recreate the correct angle for a perfect reflection of light into her opponent's eyes.

Golden Raider was temporarily dazzled by the sudden move, but he was able to catch a glimpse of her shoulder movements and predicted where the attack is going to originate.

He have no idea where the attack is going to land, but if he aims for the intersection of both attacks and give it a quick and decisive slice with his longer and bigger blades, Dolon will either have to give up her attack, dodge or sustain damage much worse than that dealt to Golden Raider.

From that brief look he took right before the reflection blinds him, Golden Raider was able to predict where Dolon's shoulder is going to be. He closed his eyes and let his blades guide him. His upward swipe didn't make contact, but neither did Dolon's attacks, rather there was a light tap on his body.

Golden Raider opened his eyes and realised that Dolon had aborted the attack and somehow completely altered her forward momentum to avoid taking a crippling cut, ending up behind him.

He quickly turned around and saw Dolon immediately making her next move. This time it was the more standard footwork and movements and Golden Raider is able to either move out of the way or deflect the incoming attacks. Dolon seemed slightly more rushed in her attempts as time goes on while Golden Raider became ever more relaxed.

'What's the rush, Lightining Rod?' said Golden Raider, 'You seemed nervous.'

'And you aren't?' Dolon retorted whilst dodging a swing from from Golden Raider.

At the exact same time, she reached out with the her arm that had the artifact attached to it and wrapped onto Golden Raiders arm.

Before he realised what is going on, Dolon had already closed the distance between the two and got right in his face. Within half a second, She moved her blades six times, leaving six cuts on Golden Raider's body, cutting out the circulation in both of his legs and the non-injured arms.

She then grabbed his paralyzed body, using her shoulder as a pivot and slammed him into the ground with a wrestling move. Golden Raider never knew defeat would come so suddenly.

The moment he has settled down and become complacent, Dolon took the opportunity to end the fight instantly and completely destroyed both his confidence and his body. He tried to move his arms and legs, but his gaming suit is completely locked up and prevents him from doing anything.

If this had been real life, he would have been completely immobile and be dead in less than ten minutes.

'You are good, kid. Very good.' Dolon stood back and returned all her blades to their pockets, 'In time, you can even be as good as me.' She put on her backpack once again and started walking out of the room.

'Wait. Take my weapons. That was the deal in the beginning...'Golden Raider tried to turn his neck and look at the direction Dolon's gone, but even that part of his body is completely taken out of commission.

'You keep it, kid. I don't need shitty weapons.' Dolon's voice came from the door, which sounded it's getting farther and farther away as Golden Raider's character is slowly dying, 'Plus you stuff is probably too heavy for me...'

After leaving the room, Dolon couldn't help but turn on the cooling system of her gaming suit as the duel with Golden Raider really made her break some slimey Aquarian sweat. But now as she is behind schedule, she had to hurry up to the control room, destroy that and then head to the main production line.

It didn't take her all that long to spot the control. There were one players standing guard there and he was took down in a matter of seconds before even drawing out any weapons. After making sure the control module is the real thing and resetting the times on the bombs, she quickly made her way out of the building.

'Open fire!' The moment she exited the building, she was instantly surrounded by twenty to thirty Blue Regimen Players and they open fired on her. She cursed and then quickly backed into the building once again.

She is not about to face twenty players alone. Not with blades anyways. She reached for all of her flash grenades and smoke grenades simultaneously and set the timer to 2 seconds before throwing it out of a gap of the door.

The players outside were stunned and then surrounded by layers of thick smoke, but that only stalled them for a second before a blizzard of energy blasts stormed towards where they think Dolon is standing in the smoke.

Meanwhile, Dolon had already got to the other side of the building and jumped out from a window on the second floor and started making her way towards her space craft. Shortly after she reached the force shields once again, the control center exploded into flames and the building was completely demolished in one simple blast.

The force shields ripped before dissolving and the rest of Dolon's squadron came down with almost picture perfect timing with their bombing run and lit the homebase moon of the Blue Regimen on fire.

Dolon got to her spaceship after her Squadron has cleaned up the whole area with another bombing run and rejoined the group.

'I almost thought you wouldn't make it! But literally seconds before we have gotten into firing range the shields were lowered!' One of her squad members commented excitedly but got a bit too loud. Moaning and whining sounds echoed across the channel before another chimes in, 'Now this is done, let's rejoin with the Investor!'

Mealwhile, the stagnant battle between Dynasty's Summer and Winter and Groups of Turbby Raiders have come to an end.

Both sides sustained a decent amount of casualties, but the Blue Regimen's transport platoon and the reinforcements were completely annihilated.

They did fight valiantly and forces Summer to have to retreat and leaving Winter to guard the rear. From a tactical standpoint however, the Blue Regimen is effectively cut into two halves with one occupying several major stations on Hebo 3 and the others roaming around the moons and asteroids between their home base and Hebo 3.

The Investor's tasks were to lead the Yellow Regimen and take over the stations on Hebo 3 while the Red Regimen dominated the Blue Regimen forces on the gas giant.

'After the EPIC duel between Golden Raider and Lightning Rod, it all went perfectly to plan for both Yellow and Red, but a last minute betrayal by the Red Regimen forces the Investor to play hide and seek within the asteroids with the remaining Blue Regimen players, which are still a substantial amount. As the four seasons grouped together to take over the Hebo 3 stations with overwhelming forces, both Blue and Yellow Regimens's dwindling forces ultimately succumbed to resource exhaustion and lost the match.'

The commentator's voice pulled Rydel back to reality once again as he watches Dolon, possibly the greatest melee fighter he has ever seen at least in the game, lost due to a lack of fue for the ships.

'Overall, last year's the War Game tournament winner was the Dynasty club, which seems very fitting as they continued with their dominance oevr the War Game landscape. Will their streak continue, or would their dynasty be overthrown? Tune in for this years War Game to find out!'

In the next few days, Rydel has worked harder than ever. Seeing how good of a fighter Dolon is without her artifacts made him wonder what's Dolon's true strength if she is fighting with full force while being able to control electricity. She would essentially become the goddess of thunder....in fact there is no evidence why she isn't already that.