Chương 77: Chapter 74 (part 2)

Harrison decided no matter how strange the situation or what the end goal of all this was, he'd still take it just as seriously as any normal spar. He was a professional, he'd act the part down to the dotted i, no matter the situation. He'd already warned the girl about her costume being damaged, everything else was on them now. He had a good handle on the weak points on that armor and where he could leverage against, but now he had to figure out what the girl actually knew.

So he moved in with a simple approach - test her footwork, see how she handled the armor's weight distribution. Nothing fancy. A basic feint to gauge her reaction time. Selena pivoted on her heel, bringing her left arm up to block. It looked practiced. So someone had taught her some kind of fundamentals, though he'd have changed the stance and angles a bit. But he could tell those were very effective in using the armor itself to block with. Huh.

Did actors really invent entire new ways to fight just to make their costumes more accurate?

"Not bad," Harrison murmured, circling left. He threw a quick feint then a jab toward her midsection - nothing serious, just probing her guard. Selena stepped back and deflected with her forearm. His hit lightly connected. Christ, that was solid. Real plate. If he hadn't pulled his punch back near the last second, he may as well have punched a brick wall. Harrison reset, considering what he'd learned.

Basic defensive training with that armor and faster reflexes than a regular civilian so she had some martial arts training underneath all that metal. But no real combat experience; Her timing was still conscious, movements too deliberate. Like someone who'd learned techniques in isolation but never pressure-tested them. He closed distance fast, gave another set of jab and one feinted kick to abuse her reflexes and get her guard open.

With that done, he dropped low and went for a simple takedown - kick the back of the legs, drive through. Get a hammerlock hold on her arm, and pin her down with it. Someone less skilled would think this jujitsu, but the reality was more a mix of techniques all working together to get to the end result here. Selena tried to readjust, but the armor's weight worked against her as he'd hoped for.

Harrison had her down on the mat in seconds, controlling her shoulders, locked elbow pulling her left arm up, while his knee held the back of her spine and neck down. Easy pin.

"It's over, don't risk an injury." He said, applying steady pressure to keep her on the ground. Then her left arm started moving against his pin. Harrison frowned. He had proper leverage, full body weight distributed correctly. She shouldn't be able to generate any meaningful resistance from that position. But her arm was moving, even as he increased the strength of his own push. It wasn't explosive strength, just steady mechanical pressure, like a hydraulic jack.

Harrison pulled back against it, keeping her arm in place, but the strength was just unending until he found himself fully pushing with both his arms and his full back. He was actually worried now, if whatever resistance Selena was using just turned off, his own push here could snap her arm, or at the very least dislocate her shoulder. But it didn't matter. Selena's arm continued overpowering him.

A second passed, possibly just two or three inches of actual movement against his efforts happened, and his instincts told him it was time to bail. Harrison aborted, letting go and rolling away, reassessing.

"Bloody hell. What kind of rig are you wearing under there?" Selena rolled on her hands and feet, then got up, brushing off her armor with casual dignity.

"I beg your pardon?" The family watching looked confused at what happened. Beatrice coughed in her hand, "Staff Sergeant, there's no need to toy around with our guest." Of course from their point of view, he'd tackled Selena down, held her arm for a second, and then bolted off of her like a freaked out cat.

"Ma'am. She would have broken my pin." Harrison simply said, focusing on the armor while the family started squabbling about this being impossible for a correctly placed hammerlock. Nothing he could see as he circled around. The armor looked like period-accurate medieval plate. No visible tech, no power sources. For that much strength there should have been a giant backpack as a battery. And if the military had exoskeleton technology that sophisticated, he'd have seen it during his service.

Hell, he'd probably have been testing it himself for those eggheads. He hadn't been that long in retirement. He looked over to the Blackwood-Sinclairs watching, thinking this was their play. Weird way to advertise new tech advancements, but old families were very much out of touch, even ones who'd gone the distance to remain in-touch. Except the family looked just as stunned as he was, still not understanding that he hadn't stopped the pin out of mercy, but out of necessity. All except for Millicent.

Harrison turned back to the actress.

"The mechanical assist. Powered exoskeleton or something." Harrison circled her again, still looking for tells - battery packs, actuator housings, control cables, anything.

"Has to be cutting-edge to generate that kind of leverage."

"I do not understand your meaning, Staff Sergeant." Selena said. Harrison studied her face. Either she was the best liar he'd ever met, or she genuinely had no idea what he was talking about. Neither option made sense.

"Right then." He settled back into a fighting stance.

"Let's try that again." Quick shot forward, duck her punch attempt, grab the overextended arm, drive through before she could brace, then use his back to rock her entire body over him into the ground. Down she went, Harrison transitioning immediately to mount position, controlling her torso, using his legs this time to pin her arms. No messing about with a 'weaker' hold. Legs locking the arms would be the strongest muscles he had to work with.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. This time even the family could tell something was off when the waif of a girl pulled her arm forward and an entire man was lifted upwards. Even if it was only a few inches off the mat, it was still a massive force.

"This is insane," Harrison muttered, rolling off again the instant he realized that pin wasn't going to work. That technology doesn't exist. Not at that scale. The staff and maids around were starting to murmur among each other. The first bout had been too surgical for them to know what was actually going on, but seeing him get picked up like that from someone on the ground pinned, that was obvious even to a civilian.

"This is ridiculous." Beatrice squawked, "Are you conspiring with the girl in order to pull a prank on us all Mr. Harrison? If you think this is hilarious, we'll see how you feel after I discuss this with my husband." If only it was a magic trick. Harrison took a breath, and lunged forward. On this third takedown, he struck for her head. He wasn't actually planning on punching her delicate features, that would be against the spirit of the spar. Instead, he was forcing her attention up at her face.

And away from the leg sweep that would once more knock her off her feet while she was too busy guarding her nose and eyes. She couldn't have seen it coming. And somehow the girl had somehow seen and reacted by kneeling straight down, causing his kick to slam against a sturdy legplate rather than the exposed joint he'd been aiming for, ruining his movement. That shouldn't be possible.

She'd somehow either perfectly guessed and also perfectly practiced at countering this particular takedown, or she had eyes on the back of her neck. Not even in the back of her neck, she'd need them under her armpit to see anything happening. But she'd seen and countered it. And it hadn't been some wild gamble, otherwise she'd have moved earlier. Instead, it had happened the moment he'd performed the sweep, exactly like someone watching would.

And worse: She didn't want him to get distance again like the last few bouts. She had reached out to grab him instead of a counter punch, armored fingers wrapping around his vest. Harrison felt his feet leave the ground. She was actually picking him up. A hundred and sixty pounds of trained soldier, and she was lifting him like he was a child in addition to her armor's weight. And from the look on her face she was about to turn on her heel and launch him across the room.

He knew immediately that her grip was irontight on his vest, no chance he could break the hold. In this regard the metal armor really did help her: He couldn't just slam his elbow down to break her grab like he would have normally. Before he even realized it, his hand already had his dagger out and he'd cut through his shirt's fabric, letting him rip away the rest of it and escape. Bloody Mary, it had been years since the last time he'd felt his body move like that on instinct. This kind of strength was impossible.

Even powered armor couldn't generate leverage like that without massive external support systems.

"Right," he said, sheathing his knife back into its holster. Trying to process what he'd just experienced. This duel was a test of these abilities, not some marketing stunt. He didn't know what the costume part of everything was about, but the strength was beyond the questioning phase. The Blackwood-Sinclairs on the other hand looked very much gobstruck. Even the fat uncle didn't have a single word to say, eyes wide. Harrison recalculated his approach and went back into range.

She could break any pin with that armor, so he had to fight the girl herself and her weaknesses as a fighter rather than put himself in a place the armor could do the work for her. Selena responded by stepping back from one of his feints - and something was very wrong with how she moved. The jump was too long. Too controlled. She'd covered nearly three feet in a single casual backward leap, and when she landed, it was too soft. Like she'd drifted down instead of dropping.

It was very subtle, but his instincts had seen it like a lighthouse from twenty feet away. Physics didn't work that way. Super strength was one thing. Theoretical power armor could maybe explain that. But this looked like she'd somehow reduced her own mass mid-jump. Changed her relationship to gravity itself. He called a stop to the fight, one hand up.

"What the bloody hell was that?"

"I noticed a change in your combat attempts. You seemed to return to standard methods, I made space in preparation."

"I mean people don't move like that." He turned over to the Blackwood-Sinclairs. He could immediately tell none of them had really understood the kind of slight movement he'd seen in this one. But Thomas had. He'd done enough sparring to know how people should move on a more primal level by now. He'd seen the same thing Harrison had, given how he was staring with his mouth open. And Millicent hadn't just seen it, she seemed to understand it. Like she'd been expecting this to happen.'

Ain't no way to convince you of anythin' until you see it for yourself.' What had she put him up against?

"I do not know what kind of fights you have been in, Staff Sergeant." Selena said.

"However such combat techniques you have been using thus far are very strange, and I appreciate the return to normality." Right. The character. The fantasy roleplay persona she was committed to maintaining. Except Harrison's gut kept insisting she wasn't acting. He tried a different tactic, moving in close for rapid combinations. Test her reflexes, see if the impossible strength translated to speed. It did.

Selena's counter-punches came faster than they should have, faster than the armor's weight should have allowed. He dodged and danced around her attempts, before testing how strong these punches were with a slight deflection, palm out to grab the punch midway. He felt the power behind that punch and called the match immediately.

"Stop. Full stop." He backed away, hands raised.

"This is over. I concede." Beatrice squawked from the side, finally having enough and clearly not understanding the gravity of the situation.

"You concede? Harrison, she's a child playing dress-up, stop this horsing around." Harrison stared at the elf. At the crafted armor that showed no signs of technological enhancement. At the feathered ears that twitched with apparent emotion. At the young girl who'd just demonstrated impossible strength, impossible agility, and enough striking power to commit casual murder. It wasn't safe to fight her hand to hand and the only right way to engage this kind of threat was at a distance with bullets.

"Respectfully Ma'am," He said, looking over to Beatrice, "This child as you so say she is, can snap my bones in half and throw me halfway through this room if she wanted to. Unless I'm able to use a more lethal weapon or trade real punches, there's no chance I could win." And even if he could trade blows and fight with no hands held back, he wouldn't want to get anywhere near that girl. A single half-decent punch could probably end his life. Harrison was forty bloody years old.

He hadn't lived through twenty two years of hell on earth without knowing how to pick his fights, and Selena Nightreaver was not a fight he wanted to pick without the right tools and plan. His professional assessment: This wasn't a costume. This wasn't an act. And this definitely wasn't some kind of advanced military hardware he'd somehow missed during two decades of service at the highest level. Which left him with exactly one conclusion, and it was completely insane.

The elf straightened, looking genuinely confused.

"Have I done something wrong?"

"No," He said finally.

"You haven't done anything wrong." He turned his gaze to Millicent, and the girl returned his gaze, expecting.

"Miss Millicent, I'd like to speak to you in private first, if I may?" He politely asked. Because either Harrison was losing his mind, or he'd just been in a sparring match with something that wasn't a human. And he'd be betting on option two. Which meant Little Milly had brought home an actual bloody fantasy elf.