S17 - Assessment

What separates man from beast?

Able stood surrounded. Three Spirits. One half-Spirit. And a blind girl. With the bear gone, violent instincts were unmoored. Nothing to stand between blades and flesh. Nothing to pull hands away from necks. Nothing to stop Able from killing every single other living thing here.

What separates man from beast? What gift does man possess that elevates him above all creation? What gift does Able possess to elevate him above all these?

He has the ability to strategize.

When boiled down to their most basic components, any battle, whether it between men or between armies, came down to two fundamental rules:

Kill.

Do not be killed.

It was that simple. And it stayed the same, no matter the situation. Even if a man were to fight an army, so long as he has killed everyone and no one has killed him, then he has won.

Able assessed his foes.

He was familiar with three of them. Scorpion. Toph. Dog. All of them were interesting. He had fought all of them at one point, and each had gotten away. Dog's escape was particularly frustrating. He'd noticed a flyer for a play about it. That Dog wrote. When killed Dog, he'd make a trophy. But he was getting ahead of himself.

Toph fought at a range. Dog fought up close. Scorpion used range to eliminate space and fight up close.

He could guess the blonde boy— Emil's— abilities. He wielded a sword. Close range.

The blonde girl— Korrina, he did not know. She could fight at range or up close. He would take this into consideration.

The layout of the room.

Able stood on one side of a long table. To his right was Korrina. To his left, Scorpion, Emil, then Doggie, all in a row. And right across from him… Toph. Alone.

When accounting for unknowns, Toph was the easiest to kill. Full human. She was the easiest to isolate. If he killed her early, that was five versus one brought down to four versus one. The choice was simple.

He vaulted over the table and gripped the edge as he did. He pulled the table up with him to create a barrier between himself and the other four. This flung food at Toph— convenient, as he recalled from their first encounter that Toph struggled against projectiles. She erected a wall of stone between herself and Able, which Able, of course, broke through. He drew a blade from his stores. A simple slice to the neck would do.

- Season 17 Round 2, /u/Ragnarust