Prologue

"Move!" he compelled himself, urging his limbs to budge. Trapped against a narrow section of the wall, doom impending, he pushed himself to a knee with one hand and with his other leg, launched himself aside. "Just in time," he thought as the air around his previous position suddenly compressed and thrust towards said wall, cracks appearing on its basalt surface. Less than a second later, a fist smashed into those very cracks, rocky splinters spraying everywhere. Had he lingered or been slightly hesitant, it'd have been his face that decorated the basalt in a fresco of blood and bones.

He had hardly scrambled to his feet, when he felt his ear tingle because the air twitched! Not waiting to turn around and see his enemy, he ran forward, attempting to put as much distance as he could from this foe and its deadly fist. Once again, that fist flashed through his previous position; the air around it exploded outwards, but it didn't have a wall to terrorise this time round. He had managed to evade those terrifying punches once more and beads of sweat rolled down his temples. Should this continue in such a fashion, the conclusion was easily foretold. He'd die. It was as simple as that.

The space within which his enemy and he fought was quite large. Aside from the occasional pillar, the odd medium-sized boulder, and a couple of mounds of rock scattered about, there was no obstruction or breakage in the relatively flat terrain. One could've described this place as an arena, but it was no place of competition and death forged by human hands. In fact, he had seen no mark of human activity or trespass here, save for the few corpses that had driven him to his present plight.

"I need to attack," Aadi thought, but such feats were easier said than done. Dodging the incoming buffets, none of which he could predict or track, took all his concentration and an amount of effort that he hadn't known he could exert. "Do I have any weapons?" Aadi pondered, almost slowing down enough to enter the punching range of the next attack. His foe's fist slammed into the floor and a circle of pressurised air sped outwards from the point of contact. Had he been two steps slower, he'd have been caught in that terrifying shockwave. As it was, he felt his trouser leg flutter ever so briefly.

He kept moving, simultaneously searching his pockets for anything he could use, preferably as a weapon. A trinket or magic item that let him escape would've been dandy, but he couldn't leave those human bodies behind. He knew... had known those people. One of them he loved beyond words. The other was a dear friend. The former had entered this place in search of the latter. Both had ended up... Aadi held back the tears that threatened to obscure his sight... dead. The latter he had grown up with, played with, and explored his home and its surrounding lands with. The former... Aadi found it even harder to control his tears... he called father.

He wouldn't leave them behind! As he reached into his pocket, he felt a gust of air to his left. It rushed past his face and Aadi forced himself to leap right. It wasn't much of a leap and he paid the price. The following burst of compressed air struck his left torso while his feet were still off the ground, hurling him away. The punch that succeeded it halted just short of hitting a boulder in front of it. "He's coming," Aadi thought as he tumbled to the ground and rolled about, frantically trying to find his legs and run, "I can't stop." His left side smarted, but he ploughed through it and it was a good thing that he had.

His foe was close behind him. Having stopped his punch short, the enemy lurched right with his left shoulder's momentum and closed the gap quickly, sprinting towards his target. His motions were smooth, honed through God only knew how much training and fighting experience. He had the stamina to endure an arduous battle and Aadi, his pitiful target, posed little challenge. Given time, one of his punches would find its mark. Given time, his opponent would fall. This was the absolute confidence that this enemy possessed. And Aadi?

He ran as his hand plunged into his pocket and fished out a slingshot. His free hand retrieved a projectile from his other pocket, a rock that he could grip between his thumb and index finger. He had hardly fixed the rock to the slingshot's rubber band, when he felt the air tremble. He wanted to turn and target his opponent, but the latter was too quick. Two jabs lashed out and all he could do was duck one, while the other struck his back close to his shoulder. It hurt! His shoulder bone seemed to rattle and Aadi momentarily lost his balance. He didn't dare to stop though. That'd be fatal here, against this enemy.

Stumbling and almost jumping a few steps diagonally, Aadi changed directions and tried to get past his opponent, past those deadly fists. The right fist jabbed. He ducked it. The left followed. Aadi pushed himself and thrust his weight forward, desperately hoping to avoid the second blow. The air pressure, although lighter than when his foe punched with great strength, was sufficient to upset his already fragile balance. He found himself precariously moving forward on a single foot, his body teetering towards the ground. The inevitable punch, which followed those bursts of air, arrived. It smacked his right shoulder and Aadi hit the ground with considerable force!

"No," he groaned as the wind was knocked out of his lungs. He lay on the floor face down, momentarily stunned. His enemy clasped his hands together and raised them above his head. The air surrounding him became heavier almost instantly and the adjacent pressure increased. Aadi felt it in his bones and knew that if he lay there like a corpse, he'd soon become one. With a groan that possibly echoed in the large space wherein the two 'fought', he forced himself to roll away from his adversary. "I can't keep doing this," he thought as a massive shockwave erupted from the floor! The enemy had smashed his clasped hands into the ground, creating a small crater. Basalt rock exploded outwards and the aforesaid shockwave followed it. Despite rolling away, Aadi wasn't able to avoid being hit by a few pieces of basalt and the shockwave itself.

He was lifted off the ground like a dead weight and flung away; luckily for him, it was away from his enemy. Unluckily, he had no way to stabilise his fall or cushion it. He hit the ground several times and finally rolled to a halt. His body felt bruised all over and his vision was wobbly. Aadi half-expected another blow to land any moment, for his foe had never slackened his pace. Punch after punch had erupted from his enemy's hands, suspended occasionally by the few seconds he had needed to get close to Aadi. This relentless pacing had required Aadi to focus to the utmost and his instincts screamed that another blow would arrive any moment.

Only, it didn't! He focused his eyes on his enemy with considerable difficulty, fighting through his shaky vision. His foe stood there, as stationary as a statue, with his clasped hands still on the ground where he had smashed them. A corner of Aadi's mind wondered, "Why isn't he moving?" He hadn't followed this destructive smash with another flurry of punches. Ideally, his opponent ought to have sprinted close, taking the opportunity to bludgeon Aadi to quite possibly his death. He hadn't!

Aadi gripped the slingshot in his left hand tightly and raised it. With this right hand, he set the basalt rock that he still clutched to the slingshot's rubber band. It wasn't customised to be ammunition, but he had picked it up when he entered this place. It'd do. It had to. "I can't waste this chance," he thought, pulling the rubber band as far back as he could. Despite aching all over, he thought he aimed well. Despite his arms shaking slightly from the blows he had suffered, he thought he pulled the slingshot's band back far enough. He let the band go; the rock projectile hurtled through the air, whipping towards the still motionless enemy. An onlooker would have heard the sharp snap as it left the weapon and the gentle but sure sound of it flying across the space between the two opponents. It struck.

The muffled thud of rock hitting leather raised Aadi's spirits. His free hand instinctively reached for another rock lying on the ground. Eyes locked on his foe, he tried to guess the inflicted damage.

Nothing! Absolutely nothing. The adversary's leather armour shrugged off the blow with barely a dent in it! As he gazed at his foe, his mind stunned from the futility of the attack, his enemy began to rise to fight once more.