Past Life Hero, ch 16

Even though the parking lot was relatively small, there were few enough vehicles to allow for plenty of room.  In fact, there was a handy, empty space outside right after leaving the food court. This seemed weird to Max.  Back on Earth, it seemed people were often trying to park as closely to the doors as possible.

Lance caught his eye outside and gave him a panicked expression.  The banker-turned-Summoner student was following along in the crowd, obviously concerned.  Max ignored his friend.  He knew Lance meant well, but this was a different world, one Max was actually a bit more accustomed to than Lance was.  At least the honor duels part.

Max stopped thinking about malls and parking lots when he stood and examined Prince Regal.  Now that they were outside, he could see that Regal was about Max’s height and build, but with more muscle on him.  He might be an arrogant asshole, but he obviously trained.

After testing the cane in his hand, swishing it from side to side, Max wondered again if maybe he'd been a little too confident. Of course, it was also definitely possible he had the advantage. After all, even though Max was pretty sure he'd never met or fought against a Mystic Spearman Path warrior per se, he'd fought against plenty of magic-empowered warriors and definitely plenty of spearmen.

Furthermore, his take on the obnoxious prince he was fighting was that the man hadn't worked very hard. Or sure, he’d done conditioning, but Max doubted he’d been beat up much or jad seriously fought other skilled warriors.

But there were other things to consider.

If Regal had came from a wealthy or influential family that was more clued into how the universe worked than people on Earth, it was very possible, even probable, that he'd gotten some sort of training back on his home world. Max wasn't quite sure what that would be.

The Summoner handbook said that if any Challenger accepted the summons from their world, and were already sufficiently advanced along any Path, their destiny would be predetermined.  They would likely automatically be sent to whatever academy already existed for that Path instead of getting another random one.  The handbook had also said that very rarely, a Challenger who graduated early on any Path or found good fortune could receive another Path.

But this sort of thing was rare because it had to be voted on by all the professors in any given Quartet.  Every Quartet’s professors had to vote on it since each Quartet had a limited number of slots…per decade.  To even qualify for such a thing, a Challenger would first need to dominate their own Quartet's competitions.

Max looked down at his weapon, the plain wooden cane.  He stilled his mind and found peace, deciding that even if he’d been arrogant or hot-headed to agree to this duel, Regal was worse.  After all, despite the Prince's bladed weapon, Max would still have better reach.  Regal also knew nothing about Max.  Even if the prince thought his opponent was delusional, he should have still noticed Max’s lack of fear.  Max was not trying to hide how he moved, either.  Anyone who really spent time around other warriors generally learned to spot others like them.

The only possibility that came to Max's mind for Regal’s attitude was complete lack of emotional control, arrogance, or lack of real combat training.  Maybe it was a mix of all three.  After all, it really did seem like students from the Mystic Spear Academy felt overwhelmingly superior to Summoners.  All the other schools in this Quartet looked down on Summoner Academy.  The Mystic Spear Academy was just the worst about it.

Max shook his head and took his place in the parking lot facing Prince Regal. 

"You're not going to be a coward and back out now, are you?" said Regal. The prince smirked and looked around at the watching crowd of people.

Whatever scraps of pity Max might have been developing for Regal vanished. He didn't reply immediately, glancing around instead. He was mildly surprised by how many people really were watching at this point. Apparently, there had either been more people leaving the mall behind them that he hadn't seen before, or others had seen the commotion and come to check out what was going on.

Although he didn't particularly like the idea, he decided that there was no way doing such a reckless, high-profile thing would escape the attention of his classmates at Summoner Academy or the rest of the Quartet. Win or lose, this was going to be talked about.  So he decided to ham it up.  What was done was done.  In for a penny, in for a pound.

He turned his back on Regal and began doing stretches. Around the perimeter of the people watching, he heard a few titters and chuckles. The onlookers definitely understood that he was still antagonizing the prince.

Regal proved himself to not be a complete idiot because he didn't say anything more that might embarrass himself or feed Max’s provocation. After all, there was only a limited amount of time that Max could continue showboating before he would start to make himself look bad. He judged that point to be right around when the crowd would start getting bored.

So after a few minutes of stretching, he turned and said, "Are you ready, Prince Enema?"

"I've been ready since we left the mall," growled Regal. “You talk a lot.  It’ll feel great to cut you up.”

Max smiled, shrugged, and hit “Accept” on his system-generated duel window in the air. The display read:

Duel:

Max Cunningham, Summoner Academy, first year

versus

Prince Regal Von Fuera, Mystic Spear Academy, second year

Are you ready to proceed?”

Max hit accept, and then there was a countdown timer hanging in mid air.  It started from twenty.

As the countdown timer seconds ticked down, Max found that he could no longer move his body. It didn't surprise him because he’d read about this in the student handbooks too.  It was still a weird sensation. The structure of the Quartet was built in for combat-oriented students, and this duel system was a large part of it.

Two seconds away.  Max was ready.

When the countdown timer hit zero, he'd expected the prince to rush him, and he wasn't disappointed. With superhuman speed, the other man charged him, leading with his dagger, almost like he was holding a spear in his hand. His other hand was held in check like it was holding the pole of a spear, and Max recognized what Regal was going to do. He was acting aggressively, likely seeking to check the cane or even control Max's arm while stabbing him. It was a really good strategy to win quickly, especially since broken bones and the like would heal so quickly in the Quartet.  Even if Regal took a hit and got hurt, he’d still win with very little to pay for it.

Max was actually grudgingly impressed.  The Prince had likely assumed that Max was a powerless new Summoner with no abilities, but he’d still started the duel as if Max was a real opponent.  It was overkill.  But in a real fight, nothing was ever truly overkill, so Max had to give credit where it was due.

Although whatever hits Regal was prepared to take, it was very unlikely the other man thought Max would actually hurt him much.

It was near certain that whether Regal used mana or some other power source for his mystic arts, his body was much more durable than a normal human's. If Max truly was just a clueless person from earth, even if he swung full strength with his borrowed cane, he might not even leave a bruise.  Hitting Regal actually might just break the cane.

Unfortunately for the prince, Max was not a normal person.

Regal closed in flash and Max gracefully pivoted.  He tapped the other man's wrist to redirect the dagger strike, using the momentum of his opponent against him. His return swing with the cane hit Regal in the face.  Then with a tight, but flashy spin, Max smoothly disengaged.

The Prince was a dick, and Max was annoyed. Regal had been trying to finish the fight as quickly as possible to shame Max, so Max had decided to prolong it for a time. Like a game of Reversi, he thought and grinned at his sputtering opponent. Regal had a bloody nose.

Around him, the crowd gasped. Even though they'd come out for a spectacle, they obviously hadn't expected Max to last more than two seconds.

In the first brief exchange, Max had been able to accurately measure his physical abilities compared to the Prince. Unless the other man was sandbagging, Max was just barely faster, or maybe right on par, speed-wise. But the Prince was definitely stronger and was likely using some sort of weapon art on his dagger.  The blade had an aura of menace now.  Bad news.

The dagger had been enchanted on its own before, now it was further enhanced.  Max knew he definitely did not want to get hit by that thing.  The Mystic Spear Path student also used some sort of mobility skills that Max wasn’t entirely familiar with, but he’d seen similar before.  He was able to counter them by predicting where his opponent would dash.

“You still gonna put me in my place?” asked Max, voice droll.

Regal didn't reply out loud, just glared with glittering, hate-filled eyes. And instead of displaying any more open signs of anger, he breathed deeply and his eyes grew slightly unfocused.  His breathing calmed.

I guess he really isn’t a total idiot, thought Max. The other man was definitely working to control his emotions in order to fight better. Max revised his opinion of Regal a bit.  Even though he might be a fool, he was better trained than Max has assumed.  The next few exchanges demonstrated that.

Despite Max's hair-faster speed, he definitely would have lost quickly if not for his skill and experience. Luckily, his skill made all the difference, even while he was physically outclassed.  

All Regal had to do was get ahold of him once and the fight would be over.  Max just simply didn’t let the prince grab him.

And Regal never came close to hitting him with the dagger, either. Instead, Max kept delivering savage blows to the other man in humiliating and painful areas.  But both fighters stayed rational and cool-headed, even Regal

In one exchange, when Max whacked Regal across the ass with his mana-reinforced cane, the prince was overcome by frustration and finally lost his composure.

The man screamed.  He made a savage leaping attack at Max who, rather than backing away, advanced and let the dagger pass within an inch of his face.  Max stabbed savagely into his opponent's armpit using the grip of the cane.

Regal countered.  He used his open hand to slap away Max’s arm underneath his own dagger-wielding arm as he moved past.  Then Max spun with his cane, blocking the nasty reverse grip stab that Regal tried to recover with.  Max wasn’t as strong, but he had better leverage.  He grunted, putting his entire body into it, managing to push the other man’s arms away and stab Regal in the eye with the butt of his cane at the same time.

Even though the grip of the cane wasn’t sharp, Max still had a mildly mana-infused body that he’d been conditioning.

Regal’s eyeball popped.  He reeled back, howling, and Max delivered a textbook-perfect chop with the cane to Regal’s face.  The attack was beautifully executed, using all of the muscles of his body, an attack honed over decades of sword work.  Regal's cheek and eye socket visibly crumpled.

The prince stumbled back further, beginning to fall, but Max didn't watch it happen passively. Instead, he moved forward swiftly, delivering a savage backswing to Regal’s temple. The man's head whipped around from the impact and an arc of blood sprayed through the air.

The time to keep playing with the prince had ended.  This was serious and Max was not going to risk his opponent pulling something nasty and unexpected at the last second.

As Regal hit the ground with his shoulders, Max delivered a full-power, crushing downward swing to his opponent's throat. Three times.  Each blow might have been fatal, but one of them definitely killed the prince because only seconds after Max stepped back from the unmoving body, it began to turn into smoke and fade away. Only seconds after that, all that was left on the ground of the parking lot was the clothing that the prince had been wearing and the dagger that he'd used.  There was a belt, too.

Absolute silence rang among the onlookers.

Max casually walked over to his spoils of war and collected Regal's clothing and the dagger. He put on the belt and attached the dagger.  The rest of the clothing was neatly folded up in his arms as he turned to leave. The cane he'd used, he left on the ground and kicked it over to Regal's shocked friends with a wave. Then, deciding that he’d truly pushed his luck to the breaking point, he started heading back to the Summoner Academy without another word.

His back tingled and he wondered if he was about to catch a spear in the back.   If he didn’t, it had to either be because of surprise or fear or reprisals of some king among the onlookers loyal to Regal.

Before reaching the end of the parking lot, Lance caught up.  Under his breath he kept saying, "Holy shit, holy shit," about a dozen times. Halfway back to the entry gate of the Summoner Academy, Lance hissed, "Where in the hell did you learn to fight like that? How in the hell can you even move like that?  What in the hell is going on?" The last few worlds had come out shrilly, and his voice trailed off.  He shook his head. "If I was a betting man, and I had any money in the first place... Actually, it's probably good I didn't have any money."  He stopped and said, "Actually, nobody was betting anyway, so none of this makes any sense.  It makes even less sense."

Max smiled at his thoroughly shocked new friend and said, "I told you I did something like MMA back home, remember?"

“Did you used to crush motherfuckers’ necks in MMA?  Holy hell, maybe all Americans are…”  He trailed off.

“Don’t go throwing those stones, buddy.  You Canooks gave us Justin Bieber and Avril Lavigne.”

“Okay fair.”  Lance gave a shaky laugh.

“Let’s act natural until we get back to the Summoner Academy,” Max said softly.  “Don’t slow down. We need to get the hell out of here.”

"Yeah," said Lance slowly. Then he eyed the clothing in Max's arms and shook his head. "This place is absolutely insane. I was buying into all the heroics stuff, you know?  I thought this was going to be like…Sky High.  We were all going to become super heroes and everyone would be friends.  But it’s not like that, not at all.  Like, it's super civilized on the surface, but in reality, it's super brutal, isn't it?"

"Couldn't have said it better myself," said Max.

When they got to the gate to Summoner Academy grounds, the professors or guards manning the border raised their eyebrows.  They’d immediately noticed Max's new weapon.

Max noticed their eyes grow unfocused for a couple of seconds and he assumed that they had looked up the recent duel records, which was something that official staff in any Quartet could do.  They continued to stay silent until Max and Lance were almost a hundred meters away, then they’d begun talking too quietly to be overhear.

Lance kept glancing back at them and the gate, but Max didn’t.  He figured he was probably in the clear, now.

As they walked on the road back to the academy grounds, he replayed everything he'd done and decided it might not have been the best idea to make such a flashy entrance to the Quartet. But at the same time, after learning how each Quartet worked and having decided to get as strong as he possibly could, there was a limit to how much he could actually achieve while staying under the radar.  His goal was to be the best, so in order to create more opportunities for himself to grow, there was no way to do that without getting noticed.

Still, Max decided he’d jumped the gun this time.  It would be smart to maybe lay low until classes started. He glanced at Lance out of the corner of his eye and noticed his friend chewing on his lip, still stealing glances back the way they'd come.

Max figured that Lance would agree with his decision to avoid any more trouble over the next few days.