DN - Red Steel Fight

And that instant of recognition is over, and now we’re in a faster, harder fight than I’ve ever been in before. If he’s got any doubts whatsoever about accepting a contract on a kid, he left them back on Earth. Punch meets counter-punch, kick meets pivot and riposte. It’s a complicated, nasty little fight, a hectic, dizzying swirl of dodges and counters as we each jockey for a superior position.

We’ve both got an extra weak spot in this fight—the solar plexus. One good hit there will evacuate all the air from our lungs, and whoever loses their breath first will have to disengage and get back into the atmosphere as fast as they can. So we’re both hoping to protect ourselves, while at the same time trying to get in close enough to do unto others before it’s done unto us. And because we’re in space, there’s nothing to inhibit our movement in any direction. No ground, no buildings, hell, not even any clouds to hide in. Without the air to slow us down we accelerate faster and turn harder. And all of this is happening in perfect silence. You don’t think of fights as quiet, but they’re often just a bunch of grunts and slaps and thuds. This is even less than that.

As I pivot up over him to get behind him for a sort of weaponized Heimlich maneuver, he sinks down and away, twisting to keep his front to me. When he loops wide, I come in tight on his flank. Earth and night dance around us, and I’ve completely lost track of my course. Altitude, heading, it’s all gone, there’s only this punch and the next one after it.

Twice he goes to get his arms around me in a squeeze to clear my lungs, and twice I make him pay for it with headbutts and knee strikes. When I throw a hard, spinning kick at his head, he catches me by the ankle and snaps me like a whip. Tendons and ligaments all over my body scream. I curl up on myself, use my own trapped leg as a lever to slingshot in close and plant my kneecap in his nose with a crunch I can feel, but not hear. We go tumbling end-over-end, and somehow he’s gotten hold of my cape and whips me about in a tight circle. My cape tears away from my shoulders, and I go zipping away at the better part of a thousand miles an hour.

This isn’t working. He’s got a reach advantage on me. Well, they almost always have a reach advantage on me, but usually I can mitigate it with speed or durability or pure, unfiltered aggression. Not here. Not with him. Everything I can do, he can match. Everything he can do, I scramble to keep up with. It doesn’t even seem like he’s getting worn down; he’s just got this focused look on his face like I’m a puzzle and he only needs to figure out how to unlock me. Time to change things up. Instead of turning to head back into the fight, I use the momentum he’s given me to boost hard away from him. Red Steel tosses my torn cape aside (Dude, not cool! That thing cost more than most people’s cars! You could at least tuck it in your belt so I can get it back after I’m done kicking your ass.) and powers after me.

***

Even now that I know he’s here, Red Steel is barely a presence in the lattice. He’s more like an absence than anything else. I have to actually twist and look down between my legs, and yeah, he’s still with me, about a hundred yards back and crawling to close the distance. With these few seconds of peace in the middle of the fight, my body is starting to report on how much pain it’s in. My lips are stiff with frozen blood. My left leg is hanging limp, basically useless. A deep, formless ache sings about how hard he punched my kidney. And I’m tired too. This whole fight has been maybe two minutes long so far, and I’m already exhausted. Every time we get close, it’s like I’m holding on with my fingernails. One good punch. That’s all either of us need, and I’m getting less and less able to hold off his attacks.

It’s hard to tell from this far away, but I don’t see him bleeding the way I am. My knuckles all ache already, and I’ve got no idea if anything I’ve done has even hurt him.

- Sovereign, Chapter 23