Flexibility

"You're a strong one," Fate said, looking from his wrist to Cage. The others had stopped their attacks. "But not strong enough."

Using his Manifest Power, he jerked his hand out of the man's grasp and sliced his limp claws across Cage's throat.

Cage stumbled back, bumping into Jenna behind him as he clutched his throat. There was no rage or fear of death in the man's eyes, only a cynical detachment as he stemmed the flow of blood with both his Divine Reach, freeing his hand.

Fate didn't give him time to breathe as he pounced forward, cutting wildly with his claws as Cage blocked strike after strike.

What a joke. Fate had battled Autumn, a Destruction Embodiment, regularly. While she wasn't as strong physically as a true Strength Embodiment like he assumed Cage to be, he was still royally outclassed in that area. And yet Fate was the only one of their group that could give her a challenge.

Why? Because of one reason: flexibility.

Autumn was the only one allowed to always use her Prodigy power in spars, just like Fate almost never used his. But while Fate failed miserably against Tom, Maya, and even Nikolas in a purely physical confrontation, Autumn was ironically the only one he had a consistent shot at beating.

Autumn wasn't stupid. Far from it, actually. She was able to subdue the other three with clever uses of her physical strength and lure them onto their back foot, until they were stumbling back with each of her strikes and unable to turn the tables.

Fate's solution to men and women like her was simple. Strike first, and strike fast.

While those muscles meant she could bring forth greater strength, there was a reason that athletes were so lean like Fate was. That extra muscle restricted her movements in almost unnoticeable ways that even Tom had trouble pinning down.

She wasn't ridiculously bulky like Cage, but she was still a more on the muscley side than the lean side.

Fate, on the other hand, always paid close attention to the way she threw her punches, losing the first three hundred or so matches against her before he caught on. He fought her in a single day more than any other member of Styx did in a week, refusing to give up until he finally bested her.

He was nothing if not determined.

After finding out that her motion was actually impaired, which he was embarrassed to admit he only noticed at around the two hundred and fifty-seventh fight, he took advantage of those few extra muscles to strike in places she'd find hard to reach, like the base of her shoulder while her other arm was outstretched or the hip under her punching arm.

That fraction of a second those muscles slowed her down, along with the other fraction of a second to bring her other arm to bear, allowed him to dog her relentlessly until she had no choice but to concede.

And now this man, thrice as muscular as Autumn, thought to engage him head-on? Ridiculous.

He utilized those gaps in his defenses to land strike after strike, his claws tearing into the man again and again, shearing through his armor as if it didn't even exist. Advanced armor was meant to tank laser and plasma fire, not blades.

He used his limp hand like a whip, flinging it forward like a ragdoll. Despite this, his accuracy was only partially harmed, with one or two of his claws missing the mark every time. He kept pressing the attack, not giving Cage the room to realize Fate's weakness.

Soon the man was in shambles, snarling through his bloody teeth as blood poured out of dozens of wounds around his person, but Fate didn't let up.

Then Fate caught a flash in Cage's eye, and the floor sparked.

Living Lightning made its return, traveling through Fate's bare, scaly feet and into his body. He seized for a moment, his next strike jerky and inaccurate, only leaving a shallow wound on his opponent.

What even Fate failed to account for, though, was the power of his new draconic form.

Dragons were, primarily, creatures of the Elements. While each dragon had one that they excelled in, their biggest rivals were other dragons. How could they not have a natural resistance to other Elements?

And since Fate had been given this form by a water Dracok, his defenses against lighting were even more exaggerated.

One would think that Lighting would decimate Water, due to the latter's conductive properties, but dragons were at the top for a reason. The defenses they held against their "trump Element" were stronger than any other.

Their Water Element took care of Air, Earth, Metal, and Fire, so their scales and flesh were primed to deal with the most significant weakness a dragon of water had, Lightning.

The Living Lighting caused Fate to glow from the inside with a radiant blue light, the black of his scales and this blue glow meshing well with his eyes to give him the appearance of a true dragon.

And then Fate exhaled, and the lighting poured over Cage.

Cage raised his bloody forearms to block, the lighting washing harmlessly over him. He was chipped, after all. The lighting may have been redirected, but it was still partially sentient and knew who its masters were.

But that instinctual response coupled with the blinding light of Fate's breath meant he didn't see the next attack coming.

Fate lunged forward, his Concept allowing him to power through the increased gravity and forced slowness, his Manifest Power stopping the metal plates flying toward him, and his Divine Reach fending off the half-hearted and sudden attempts at telekinesis.

This time, he went straight for the vitals, his one good hand burying itself into Cage's chest and shooting out the back in a bloody mess. Fate pulled his hand back out, ripping the man's heart out and giving it a look before crushing it between his fingers.

He heard a gasp, a fireball smacking into his face just as Cage fell. Jenna stepped forward, her face the picture of fury as she sent fireball after fireball forward, expending what little energy she had generated during Fate's fight in an instant.

Fate let the Element wash over him, stepping over Cage's gasping form and stalking toward the woman. She started backpedaling, fury being replaced by fear as her attacks were rendered ineffective.