Althea let the dam burst on her adrenaline rush and the whole room around slowed down to a crawl. Borrowed experience told her where to grasp – where to push, where to bend – where to strike. Goshram roared in anger and pain, his swings and lunges missing her as she moved under and around him. Furniture under his errant blows exploded into shards and the crowd pulled back into a shouting ring around them.

Keep it close.

She paid for the thought, clipped by a pair of blows for her lack of attention to the fight. She was too high to feel pain, but the kinetic impacts bowled her away from him – towards the nearest press of the shouting crowd.

Grabbing a broken chair, she swung it wildly to force the crowd father back. Goshram may have intended to merely to beat the fight out of her, but after a few moments of actual resistance, the man realized what was happening. He quickly turned to lethal attacks.

Her back to the wall of shouting people, dancing to avoid the man’s enraged lunges. Goshram was getting perceptually faster – her dwindling resources beginning to show. Althea didn’t have much time left, and formulated a flurry of attacks to finish the fight. She threw herself into it – quicker blows, faster spins.

The hall became a liquid blur around her.

Muscles burning with the strain, turning to lead, she made her last gambit, pinning him to the floor his face against the rough and sticky surface. She held him there more with his pain than her strength. She pressed into his back, twisted, pushed his left arm as high as she could, forcing an agonized groan from him.

“Have you had enough,” she told him once, twice, three times, voice harsher, twisting tighter, increasing the pain with each iteration. Finally, he responded. She could barely hear his strained voice over the shouting crowd.

“I’ll kill you. They’ll kill you,” he asserted, voice still defiant, but near breathless. She angled her pressure and his body shuddered.

“No, they won’t,” she told him, cheeks pressed against the hot wet fabric on of his back, his rank odor filling her nostrils.

They don’t care about you, any more than you do about them.

He struggled underneath her pressure, nearly bucking her. She gasped, strained with the effort to keep him down.

“Give up, and I’ll let you walk away.”

He responded with a string of curses – threats – struggled wildly, his foot hitting an overturned chair sending it flying into the surprised crowd. Althea spared a glance up, but saw only a blurry array through the sting of hot sweat in her eyes. Fearing there was no time left, she pulled an arm free, speared the back of the man’s head with the bent fingers as hard as she could, and his huge body shuddered and collapsed under her. He was still, unmoving as she gasped for breath, unable to rise; her own muscles locked with the strain.

Then his body moved beneath her, barrel chest rising once, then again and again.

She released him, wiped the stinging sweat from her eyes, looked up at the watching crowd, tried to smile – forced herself to her feet. The mountain of muscle was beaten to the floor. She… was standing.