I gave the spiky fuck a little time to get up after his fall and noticed in that short time, his breathing was heavier and winded. He really wasn't used to someone putting up a fight without fighting and exerting himself was paying off for me. I wanted to make a show of it for the crowd though, so that they didn't feel like they'd lose their money horribly -- even though that's exactly what was happening. When he stood, the sounds of plinking metal whispered behind him and he turned to see that some of the spikes had been busted loose from the leather straps and this really, really pissed him off.
"Do you KNOW how much this shit COST ME?!" He roared, throwing his hands out in grief as he faced me. I shrugged, apathetically.
"It's not even a look, dude. It's straps of leather. I'm sure your mommy can repair it for you." I snickered.
Enraging people was something that I did best. As a simple and easy-going passive aggressive, I could lay back, relax and thump buttons all day long and in the end, probably still have a beer with this hulking, bondage-douche. Somehow though, I didn't think he felt the same way. He lifted into a boxer's stance and I saw what looked to be a bit of chi ebbing from his frame. I wasn't aware that he had any form of training in these arts, but being the new guy, I didn't know much. I was a bit of a dunce when it came to things like this.
I'd been in an alleyway after a gig in Muspell about two weeks ago when some fuckstick tried to jump me in an alley. Notice that a gig in my line of work wasn't easy, by any means -- and I'm surely not fucking talking about music. However, as classified as my work was, let's just say that I'd returned some stolen property to it's rightful owner when this fuck-nut approaches me with a knife in a shadier part of Muspell. A knife. I mean, seriously -- the fight wasn't anything drastic, but I'd also been training for the better part of my life, thanks to dear ole' dad, so when the time came -- I suspect it was brutal looking.
I wont get too much into this little side-note, but to simply say, when the fight ended, the man was unconscious and hanging by his boot laces from one of those metal and grate staircases that is mounted to the outside of a building. Apparently, this tickled someone's fancy and he drove up on me in a blacked out sedan and cracked the window, only handing me a bit of parchment with an address scribble on it, a time and date, and 'The Fights'. And here I am.
Payn had taken his precious time while I'd been reminiscing about how I ended up here and finally had conjured enough energy to form something of an attack. Now, call me arrogant, but the time it took him to accumulate such a small amount of potential, I'd nearly doubled it. "EAT THIS, FAIRYFUCK!" He roared and threw a fist toward me. The energy had swollen about his wrist and fanned out into something that looked like a cone of energy, with the point aimed right at me. Normally, someone would have been concerned with this sort of onslaught because of the man's overall size, assuming that his energy-gathering abilities might directly correlate. Wrong answer.
I didn't want to do what I did, but only because I liked this hoodie. With a raised right hand, the swamp of arcana expanded about lithe digits and essentially brick-walled his entire attack. The cone came into contact with my own arcana and simply nullified what he had sent toward me with a whoosh of wind from the heavy collision across the crowds. My dejection was that the trails of arcana crossed my arms, via runic tattoos that had been scribed along my flesh. When they'd heated up, it literally burned off the sleeve of my hoodie like a high-intensity laser.
The crowd flipped out. Their cheers of seeing such potentials drove them to insane antics and pointing. I sighed, deciding that it was time to end this stupidity. I grinned. The light from this angle illuminated my lower jaw and sharp canines, revealing a caramel olive toned skin and a nasty sneer, "My turn." Payn's eyes were widened, still in awe that his entire efforts had been put down like a rabid dog.
A snap echoed within the concrete room and I'd vanished. Such a trick would be confusing to some, but the arcana in my bloodline was incredibly powerful. Tracking me would be useless, because the moment I vanished, I wasn't really on the corporeal plane, but an alternate dimension. Throughout time, people have called it Purgatory, but I know better than that -- my demon side enjoys the travels and feels revitalized whenever I return. Seconds pass. I cannot ever remain in this limbo state, due to the laws of the universe. I, like my father before me, have learned to master and harness where I leave from, and where I re-enter. In this such case, I've projected myself out of the limbo state with a flying knee ... right to Payn's big ugly facemask. I can feel the crunching of cartilage beneath my bones. I can stare into his eyes, milliseconds before the impact and watch his pupils dilate with recognition. The beads of sweat on his massive, bald head -- I can count them individually. The very breath heaves from this ebony mask and it sounds like a typhoon with his inhalation of utter surprise. Crunch.
Riding his body like a stallion was a rather enjoyable experience. The gasp from the crowd sounded like it could have sucked the oxygen from the entire building. It was a collective understanding that they no longer had any money or investment in this fight. They'd lost everything, except for one luck person who bet right ... of course, this was my opinion. Avoiding the spikes, I pushed off of Payn in a launching or vaulting motion, performing a back flip, but using my own weight to rocket the man at the ground where the sickening thump of his skull against the hard concrete allowed a massive wince at once to act as a wave through the crowds. With perfect agility I landed, standing in the middle of the arena. Music blared. Other fights cheered and could be heard, but the oddity of silence around me felt odd. I exhaled quietly.