As I expected, he started slow and began to work up the speed, noting how I was easily able to follow and truly keep pace with him, unlike anyone else he’d fought as yet.

His fists hammered into my arm guards, the adamantium able to take the impacts and disperse the force for me, while I vented a lot of it against the floor. I also alternately Repulsed and Attracted his fists, testing his own ability to shear the sticking force or cut through the repelling force.

If he didn’t do the former, then abruptly I was up inside his reach with his midsection basically in my face. If he didn’t do the latter, then his fists literally couldn’t make real contact with me, and did nothing.

I could treat any of his blows with either technique, and if he got it wrong, he wasted a swing or I was in range on him.

I was also totally aware he could drag me back to set me up for a combination, so when he ‘mis-timed’ his shear the first time, I actually ducked down very low as he dragged back my arm, let him go, and kicked his knee.

The crack as his kneecap broke was pretty loud, while his massive fist grazed my head instead of slamming me to the floor. He jerked and jumped away, muscle control and strength totally enough to keep his footing, while my other foot chopped into the side of his other knee like a knife, adding to his maneuverability woes.

These attacks were very suddenly Bane of Legends empowered, meaning they got to +VI, which meant they bypassed his handy-dandy Exemplar Damage Reduction completely. My Penetrate Damage Reduction drove into the rest with a lot of Might damage behind it.

He kicked out, I rolled up into a ball, and he punted me away as if I weighed nothing, which I effectively did. As soon as I pushed off the ground, however, Featherweight dispersed my momentum, and scarcely ten yards from him I gently drifted back to the ground feet first, hit it, and charged right into the attack again.

He didn’t smile, but his golden eyes sparked in appreciation for my spunk and daring, if nothing else.

His speed increased.

He had +28 bonus to hit from his Strength/Power, a +25 from his Melee Levels, and at least +8 from Weapon Mastery/Unarmed.

And a +25 bonus from Luck. Freaking Exemplar!

+86 to-hit meant he missed when he wanted to, and that was it.

I could tell he wasn’t bringing the full load of his Luck to bear, or things would have started breaking already. A +20 damage bonus from Luck was also sitting on top of everything, always hitting the most vulnerable and best parts, without even needing to work for it.

If all Elders were Exemplars as the last of their kind, it really explained why they were so bloody dangerous.

And I couldn’t make myself Beyond Law and Chaos, so I couldn’t ignore that shit, and my Red Eyes weren’t powerful enough to neutralize it...

Or were they?

I was bound to the Underweb, so I was a tool of Fate. Fate opposed Luck, Insight bonuses against Luck bonuses. I just had to juice my side of the connection to offset his side of the connection, right?

And I had shitloads of energy to do just that.

I poured the Lightning Reserve, Soul Lightning, Shocking, and Shocking Touch’s power supply into the aspect of my Pact that fed the Red Eyes.

I wasn’t looking for an additional bonus. I wanted a radiating anti-bonus, Fate cancelling Luck, leaving free will to do its thing.

My Red Eyes seemed to almost crystallize and pulse, pushing back against an outside force. Some of the overwhelming pressure on me seemed to go away, even if his now-measly +61 bonus was still guaranteed to hit me... unless he did fancy things like try exotic moves, attacked superfast, or tried Power Attacking me for effect.

If he did that, he could miss, as I had a working Armor Class of 59 against the overwhelming danger he presented.

It also meant his hitting of me in the best locations possible suddenly stopped or were canceled out as I moved the necessary centimeters to annul his Luck with slivers of Insight in opposition.

His brow furrowed as he realized I’d done something, but he didn’t know what. Regardless, the torrential pressure of his blows suddenly lifted a good bunch, and his hammering of my Health and Soak slowed down immensely.

Hah!

It also meant his Armor Class dropped, and he wasn’t really taking defensive precautions to begin with.

He had big fists, I had small fists. But my small fists hit really, really hard.

There was some form of cosmic energy leaking in off his attacks, acting against healing effects. I could Dispel it, and was certainly allowed to, but the next blow would just reinstate it, so it was moot.

But his damage had just gone way down, although some was still getting through. To wit, time for my next trump card.

My bones lit up.

I was an Alchemist, and transformation of the body was a thing. Heavy Gravity Training wouldn’t replace the Wrecker Buff, or even stack with it, but straight magical enhancement would, and it worked on Stats, not capabilities.

+5 to Physical Stats via Alchemical bonuses on my bones was totally a thing.

It also meant I was suddenly at the 70 (75) Strength level, and I was stronger than he was in both measures.

Very abruptly, he was doing almost nothing to me. Spider Totem DR increased nicely when it was dealing with blunt attacks with less Might than their own. In other words, a normal person could beat on us Spider Totems all day, and literally do nothing to us if we took the hits right.

I had Stalwart. I took the hits right, and he was still slamming most of his blows into my adamantium bracers, which dispersed the force over my entire forearm, instead of straight against the bones and joints beneath.

This move would have meant nothing if his Luck bonus to damage was still in place, but it wasn’t, running into Underweb interference, so now he was going to have to work it.

He tried Power Attacking, but I also had Elusive Target, so that wasn’t going to work against me. It also meant I was automatically parrying and deflecting one attack per cycle from him... which naturally meant the attack that was supposed to do the most damage.

And with Powerful Finesse, I could still hit him easily in return, and I was punishing his arms, hands, and fists something fierce now.

I saw the grimace as his massive fists crashed against the adamantium of my gauntlets. His technique was tons better than mine, and he was now raising his effective Melee Attack bonus every breath towards his limit as he whiffed so much, or pounded down on me and did absolutely nothing.

Our fists and forearms met more than once, and his arms and hands were soon covered in minor cuts and gashes as Bane of Legends and Blooding did their things.

His golden eyes were starting to shine as he took his attack speed and power past +20. This was Melee attack skill beyond perfect, so fast that a normal person was seeing only blurs and hearing sounds like chain-cannons slamming into one another with jumping thunderblasts hammering the air and making the force-field around the arena jiggle at the air pressure it was containing.

I couldn’t keep up with that level of pure speed, but I didn’t have to. I had to weather the weakest attacks, parry the strongest one away, and attack his attacks, feeling his bones start to crack.

He couldn’t back me up. I had Heavyfoot equal to triple my Might, which was now sitting at 400+ tons.

I was stronger than he was, and I was not slow, even if I couldn’t keep up with his Melee Attack Bonus.

Melee/25 and no Cast Buffs allowed on my side. She-yah, right...

He started testing my footwork, his massive body moving as lightly and rapidly as a ghost, trying to get angles on me, testing my awareness as he upped his speed.

He momentarily forgot I could Repulse in an area and turn the floor into a frictionless surface. He wasn’t using heavyfoot when moving that fast, and so abruptly he was behind me... and his feet went out from under him.

He was falling forwards as he punched for my head, but without any bracing it wasn’t going to do anything. I bent forwards and my foot came up behind me in a Tiger Tail Kick, and he ran into it with his chin as his fist rammed into my lower back.

He went flying, his blow retreating with him as he was smashed fifty feet into the air, flipping completely over four times, and coming down a hundred feet away perfectly poised on both feet.

He reached up to feel the crimson blood under his jaw, a straight gash going right up to the bone. “One point to Dynamo!” he called out, and the shocked judge acknowledged it.

I gathered first point didn’t happen to Champion very often by the ref’s reaction.

He came back in at speed, the floor rattling with the force of his steps, an eclectic combination of heavy and lightfoot that would leave no openings for such a technique again.

Obviously, I wasn’t going to get another surprise point off him, because now everything coming in was a hurricane.

The process of losing my first point started when he slammed his foot down between mine, and cut my Attract connection with a force shear. His follow-up blow blew me away straight and low, not into the air where my momentum would vent instantly, and I went skidding across the floor as I sucked for air, dragging at the metal beneath me as he pursued almost as fast as I was moving... and since I was slowing down, quickly faster.

The second combination hit me as I got my feet back, and as his foot slammed down for the shear, I slammed my foot down atop his. To his surprise, he smashed into me and tore himself off his feet as he did so, since I dragged his foot with me and totally upended him in doing so.

I bounced another hundred feet, but he had hit the ground and wasn’t chasing me as I skidded, rolled, and pushed myself to my feet.

I had still parried the main hit, but the follow-ups were just too strong, and my Soak was dropping again.

Well, it was bound to happen. He had way more cushion than I did, and the additional Outsider Hit Dice from the Wrecker Buff weren’t enough to make up a huge gap in that stuff.

On the other hand, his hands and forearms were all bloody, and I was pretty sure most of his knuckles were busted. I’d also punished his knees pretty bad, although it hadn’t stopped him from moving.

His next move should be trying to get me into the air and hammer me back against the force field...

Thirty seconds later I was force-sheared, and then a punch came down onto the ground to Thunder Wave me into the air.

So unfair. Because I couldn’t do that without Casting a spell...

In midair, he started jabbing me like a punching bag, charging me as he did so, hammering me back through the air while I had no leverage. It didn’t hurt me at all, but it only took a couple seconds for the force field to come up, and it was time to rope-a-dope...

Or not.