Sloane had already merged with her companions by the time she reached the sand. They had somehow restored the arena to its original state, sans big circle of rock, but I noted with interest that her feet seemed to skim over the ground without imprinting too deeply. I wasn't sure if it was some effect of the silver wings, or some kind of light step fox ability, but it was an interesting detail to note.

I turned to Mel briefly. "So." I asked. "Who exactly is she fighting? I don't think they said. Do either of you know?" Having details on the other fighter for comparison would help give me a better idea of what Sloane could do. Since we were apparently going to be fighting her in the tournament. Or more realistically, I might be fighting her. If our team ran into the Beast Lord Garden's crew, Abel and Mel would crush them, but the team competition was only the preliminary stage of the event.

She shook her head. "No, but they usually do some kind of announcement." Even as she spoke, the announcer who had introduced us bellowed Sloane's name, mentioning her affiliation, before moving on to introduce the dark cloth wrapped form slinking from the other gate. When Mel heard the name, she winced. "Ah. That's not going to be an easy fight. I've never fought Shale, but I got a quick run down of the big names from Ceras."

"Shale?" I asked suspiciously. "That's a type of rock right? Some kind of earth manipulator? I could see how that might be a pain in the ass." As the battle started, I saw Sloane pivot forward, her wings cracking the air as she was driven straight at the other fighter almost too fast to follow. The glow of the wings made it clear there was more at work than just muscle, and I whistled at the speed on display.

Still, it wasn't too fast for someone like me to dodge, so I assumed Shale would move. I assumed wrong. Not only did Shale not move, Shale didn't do ANYTHING. They just stood there as Sloane smashed into them at top speed...and bounced off, skidding across the sand with a scream of pain, holding the shoulder she had led with. She staggered to her feet, giving a quick jerk of her arm to pop it back into place as she glared at the other fighter.

The cloth across Shale's chest had been shredded slightly by the wings, some kind of split second slashing attack I hadn't even been able to see in the split second after Sloane bounced off, but the flesh under the wrapping didn't seem to be bleeding. Hell, it didn't seem to be flesh. Shale shook their head, reaching up to unwind the cloth from their face and rebind it over their chest.

The revealed face was masculine and rough. Not like some people use that phrase to mean worn or hard won, but LITERALLY rough. Also grey. Because the form under the wrappings was made of solid rock. Mel snickered slightly. "Earth manipulation adjacent." I turned to cock my head at her. "He's a golem. It's a relatively rare racial trait. They're pretty environmentally specific, but in an arena like this he's going to be a beast to get by. Most of them have a few earth manipulation Skills."

I winced. "That sounds...unfortunate. I take it from that blow he tanked that they're relatively sturdy for their level of Impact?" I knew that some abilities could make people more durable within their rank. Rock with twelve Impact was tougher than wood with twelve impact, and they were both tougher than flesh. That was how defensive abilities worked, and this seemed like a pretty good one based on the attack he just took.

Rather than answer, she gestured to the screen, where Sloane was climbing to her feet. "Ok." She growled. "That hurt." Her voice was rough and animalistic as she began to slowly stalk forward. "I admit, I wasn't expecting that. Don't suppose I actually did any damage?"

"Not much." Shale chuckled. If Sloane's voice was the growl of an animal, Shale's was the crashing of falling rocks. It was so bassy it was almost hard to discern the words. "Still, that's better than most manage. You definitely cut into me a bit. I'm curious to see if you can do it again." As he finished speaking, he stripped the sleeves off his arms and knelt down, pressing a fist to the sand. The earth began to crawl up his grey stone flesh, thickening and expanding his arms and then moving to his chest, stretching the chest wrapping to the limit but not breaking it.

I could see why he used the wraps instead of normal clothes now. The bandages expanded as he did, preventing rips and tears. By the time he was done and stood back up, his upper body had almost doubled in muscle mass. The sand had condensed into something halfway between armor and a body modification. I winced. Mel had been right. Earth based Skill. Probably his ability before he became a Golem. I knew racial traits shifted the primary ability to a Skill when the transformation was activated, just like Jobs.

Sloane looked a bit conflicted. She was obviously unhappy to just sit and watch him buff up, but this was such an obvious opening that actually attacking probably felt like a trap. I knew I probably wouldn't have closed during that little show, maybe trying some kind of ranged attack. I didn't know if Sloane even HAD any of those. She seemed indecisive for a minute, before eventually deciding to just bite the bullet and attack again, flashing forward in another blur of silver wings.

I was confused as to what she was going to do, but she seemed to have taken into account the new information. Instead of slamming into Shale, when she got in close this time, she juked sideways, spinning out on her wings to circle around behind him. As she pirouetted in the air her wings lashed out like blades, scoring along the exterior of Shale's new enhanced body and flitting away too quickly to grab.

Despite the wings versatility, I was ninety percent sure that some of the movements Sloane was making shouldn't be physically possible. Not for lack of power or anything like that, but because the smooth shifts in momentum were antithetical to how force and inertia should work. In some strange way, it reminded me a bit of the weird lack of impression her feet had left when she entered the arena. While the wings clearly gave her some kind of massive speed boost and could carve into the stone that way, I was pretty sure the fox aspect of her transformation was giving her access to agility and maneuverability that shouldn't be possible.

The combination was absolutely brutal, and despite his incredibly powerful form, it made her functionally untouchable by Shale as he lashed out at her with short, precise jabs and grabs. Despite the huge disadvantage of his speed though, the Golem was doing an amazing job of keeping himself from being damaged too much by assuming an extremely tight defensive stance and focusing the slicing attacks at non vital areas.

I could see grey metallic blood begin to leak from some of the slashes, but only a trickle, and Shale remained as composed and unmoving as his rocklike exterior implied as he patiently waited for her to show some kind of opening. Sloane, for her part, was starting to look a bit tired after a few minutes of the stalemate. She began to slow down, and finally, after three minutes of the attack blitz, she desperately dove for a low sweeping cut that left her open to the Golem's retaliation.

He lashed out with all the speed his immense Might could manage, snapping out a grab at her wing with the speed of a striking snake. Unfortunately for him, she had expected that. Her 'accidental' slip hadn't been an accident at all. She'd been setting up an opening to exploit in return. As he dove forward in a split second grab, the wings turned into silver mist in his grip.

Eyes the color of granite widened in shock as he overbalanced slightly when he grabbed nothing but air. It was only a split second, but it was enough. As the wings faded, birdlike talons tore free of the shoes on Sloane's feet as she planted her hands in the sand and lashed out at Shale's exposed body. One claw raked over an eye, another opening his throat, both vulnerable spots he'd been protecting with his defensive stance.

The gouges weren't crippling or life threatening, she didn't have enough force for that. But they were distracting and painful and kept him preoccupied enough for her to swing around and start lashing out with more blows. The claws were much better suited for cutting than the feathers, and they tore holes in several vulnerable places, cutting into the under arms, the pecs, and even the thighs as Sloane unleashed a blistering storm of slashing kicks on her enemy, who stumbled back blindly to get away.

A back handspring up to her feet followed by a scything flip that brought her legs up and over again in another assault pressed the attack, and Shale desperately tried to regain his footing to defend. It looked like she was going to pull off the win for a minute, until Shale managed to find a small gap in her attacks and post up again.

With his defense in place her attacks did far less damage than they had been up to this point. No vitals on display meant no obvious strike points, and aside from being durable, Golems were apparently tough as nails, because the damage he'd taken up to now didn't seem to be slowing him down much. While her earlier exhaustion had been a feint, Sloane had been going all out in this attack blitz, and after another minute or two she actually started to flag for real.

Having learned his lesson, Shale didn't go for the opening, he just stayed posted in place, feet sunk deep into the sand as he endured the slowly flagging wave of attacks. In the end, Sloane just wasn't able to put him down, and after she had thoroughly exhausted herself and slowed down immensely, he started taking cautious shots at her. She avoided some of them, but not all, and slowly but surely he chipped away at her until she left herself open for a finishing blow.

The punch that he landed to her jaw snapped her head to the side sharply and she was unconscious by the time she hit the sand. Mel cursed. "Shit. I should have quit while I was ahead." She shrugged guiltily. "Sorry about that. You want me to cover the bet? I didn't ask you so I won't be too bothered to handle the payment."

Callie just waved her off. "Nah. It's fine. You won us seventy five chits on top of the loss, so we'll cover it. Cost of doing business." Seventy five G-rank chits was a decent windfall anyway, so I wasn't too worried about it either. Glancing at the screen she winced as some guard hopped into the pit and started dragging Sloane out by her ankle. "Wow. She's going to have sand in so many uncomfortable places."

That surprised a laugh out of me. On that note we headed for the tunnel to meet Sloane when she was dropped off. Might as well save her some annoyance by picking her up. I was a guest elder after all. Once that was done we headed back up to meet with the rest of the Beast Lord Initiates, who all seemed a bit sulky, probably having bet on their boss to win like we had. I tried my hardest not to snicker at the expressions. At least Doomtown hadn't been boring so far.