Touch of Fate

Julia coughed and gasped for breath. For the first time in years, she had been caught by surprise.

The newbie adventurer's blow almost knocked her out, but years of street fighting had earned her a comparatively high rank pain resistance skill. That said, she was still going to be incapacitated for a few minutes while she regained her breath.

In the meantime she got a front row seat to watch the young adventurer take apart her followers with disturbing ease.

At first, all four of them were too afraid to even move. The display of strength and speed quashed whatever courage they had mustered, and left them trembling in place, instinctively holding still as if to avoid the attention of a nearby predator.

Then, one of the younger ones, Julia vaguely recalled that his name was Farin, leaped at the adventurer with his club. The wide, panicked eyes of the thug betraying his real motivation as fear.

The adventurer simply leaned out of the way of the blow, allowing the club to harmlessly impact the dirt next to him. He executed two quick jabs, almost too fast for Julia to see, at Farin's face and torso. The reckless thug's eyes rolled back into his head and he collapsed, clearly unconscious.

At this point the other thugs understood the nature of their enemy, and chose two separate courses of action to pursue. Two of them decided to try their luck at the same time, while Roger, the organizer of this particular event, turned and sprinted out of the alley without a word.

The two attacking thugs each armed with a dagger attempted to flank the newbie, but he was having none of it. As soon as they approached, he stepped forward towards one, casually knocked the thug's weapon away, and delivered a front kick to the thug's midsection.

The adventurer apparently put too much force into the blow, because the unlucky thug was thrown clear across the alley, before impacting against a nearby wall, leaving a body shaped imprint.

The newbie grimaced slightly, almost as if he hadn't intended hit him quite so hard. At almost the exact same time he spun, narrowly avoiding a dagger in the kidneys from the remaining thug. With a flick of his wrist he chopped the back of the thug's head, causing him to collapse on top of Farin.

In the span of a few seconds, he had defeated three enforcers of the Grey, unarmed, without breaking a sweat.

With a cold smile, the terrifying adventurer turned to face Julia, and she felt chills run down her spine.

[I'm going to KILL Roger when I get a hold of him! There is no way this guy is a newbie adventurer.]

By this point she had mostly caught her breath, but was still a little unsteady on her feet. Not quite ready to try anything else, and banking on the way the adventurer had been using nonlethal methods so far, she decided to give diplomacy a shot.

She called out to the adventurer in a slightly wheezing voice. "So...It seems like we've got a bit of a case of mistaken identity here. This is really all a big misunderstanding." She gave a nervous smile forgetting entirely that she was still wearing a mask.

"I don't suppose you'd be willing to let me go?" She asked hopefully. "I promise I won't bother you again."

[I don't think he is going to fall for it, but hopefully, I can buy enough time to recover and use my trump card.]

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Mike looked incredulously at the thug leader. [Does she really think that I would believe that she tried, on multiple occasions, to rob and/or kill me, all because of a case of mistaken identity? She specifically told me to drop the Salamander's Cloak!]

He snorted in derision. "You can't expect me to believe that you went to such lengths, and didn't take any measures to verify my identity at all."

"No I suppose I can't, although it was worth a try. Would you perhaps be willing to let me off in exchange for some....favors." She said in a sultry voice while stretching languorously. "You wouldn't regret it."

For a brief moment Mike's mind blanked, his teenaged hormones overriding his adult mind, but he quickly snapped out of it thanks to his Physiological Resistance Skill.

"You had me going there for a minute, but there is no way I'm going to trust you after you and your goons tried to kill me." He kicked the head of one of the said goons, who was slowly in the process of rising to his knees, to emphasize his point.

"Well you can't blame me for trying. Guess I'll just have to do this the old fashioned way." She sighed lightly.

"You probably should rethink-." Mike was forced to dodge a barely perceived blow to the face. The thug leader had suddenly disappeared and was attacking him before he could understand what was happening.

He could barely see the thugs movements as a barrage of high speed attacks kept him constantly evading. In fact, the only aspect of his opponent that he could perceive clearly was her two vertically slitted pupils.

After a few rounds spent dodging and blocking the thug's attacks, Mike started to feel that he was getting the hang of this style of fighting. Pretty soon, he was trading blows hand-to-hand in a flurry of attack and defense.

[It feels like I'm the main character of a martial arts film!] He thought, while knocking away another nearly invisible slash from his opponent's dagger. He'd messed up the first few times he tried that, but the injuries had already healed.

He noticed that the thug leader's hood had fallen back in the confusion, and he caught glimpses of short orange hair and a pair of fairly large cat ears.

[Ooh, a female cat beastman. I feel like she would have a lot of fans back in my old universe.] He hadn't realized it yet, but he had already started enjoying this 'life or death' fight, and was in an increasingly good mood.

After exchanging a few more blows, a newly discovered instinct alerted him to the flaw in the thug leader's defenses. Not wasting any time, he threw a kick which successfully connected with her right side, sending her careening into a nearby wall.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Julia cursed under her breath as she struggled to her feet for the second time. She'd managed to stall for enough time to activate her Atavism, but the disturbingly capable adventurer still managed to dodge her attacks, and even launch an effective counter attack.

Atavism was a unique Inherent Skill that could only be acquired by beastmen. Unlike other Inherent Skills, it could rank up and was not available to beastmen from birth. It had to be unlocked by traumatic and life-threatening circumstances. Even then, Atavism users were rare. Most beastmen never managed to unlock the skill.

It allowed the user to temporarily call on the strength of their more animalistic ancestors, granting a variety of benefits depending on the type of beastman using it. In her case, she gained enhanced agility, speed, senses, and to a lesser degree endurance. She also grew claws and developed slitted pupils which greatly reduced her ability to see in color, but gave her much greater night vision and kinetic vision.

Julia had depended on the skill to serve as her ace in the hole. It required the user to be in an extended state of tension or emotional anxiety, often taking several minutes of fighting to reach the right peak. Once used she would have a short period of time, typically a few minutes, before the effect would wear off. Afterwards, she would suffer a rebound which would leave her largely helpless for the rest of the day.

Never before had she failed to defeat an opponent once her Atavism activated. She was at a loss on how to proceed.

[How can any human, especially one that young, keep up with a beastman during Atavism? Its so unfair! He hasn't even drawn his sword!]

Knowing that her effect would wear off soon, and the newbie adventurer was no closer to being defeated than when she started, Julia gave up on beating him.

She stared at him defiantly, ready to accept defeat, but quickly noticed that he had an absent look on his face. She didn't know what had happened to the adventurer, but she decided to seize the opportunity presented.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Mike watched the thug leader struggle to her feet. Her mask had slipped enough to let him get a glimpse at her face. If not for the slightly feral snarl currently twisting her features, Mike thought she would actually have been really cute, in a tomboyish sort of way.

[She's pretty close to my type. If she was a little less homicidal, she'd almost be perfect.]

He let his thoughts drift back to her earlier offer, and found himself regretting that it was an obvious trap.

Since he hadn't really been taking things seriously up to this point, it wasn't all that surprising that he lowered his guard at this critical moment.

The thug leader pulled a small round object from a belt pouch and threw it against the ground in one swift motion. It burst on impact emitting a large, white cloud of smoke.

Mike coughed a couple of times, and used Air Magic to clear the air. By the time he had done so his opponent had already disappeared.

[Was that a real smoke bomb? I always thought they were more of a narrative device than anything else.]

He looked around and realized he was still standing in an alley full of unconscious thugs. Not really sure how he would go about turning them into the authorities, he shrugged and decided to let them go.

[All this exercise had made me a little hungry. I guess I'll head back to the inn and get something to eat. I wonder what Morris is doing right about now?]

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Julia staggered into the Watering Hole, utterly exhausted. Her Atavism had worn off shortly after she escaped the terrifying adventurer, and she was left to limp her way back. She glanced around quickly hoping to spot the spineless informant that had gotten her into the situation in the first place, but to no avail.

Albert rose from his chair and came to meet her. "Julia? What happened? You look like shit."

She responded with a glare, and made her way over to the bar, grabbing herself a bottle from behind the counter. Activating her Atavism took a lot out of her in a number of ways, and she usually ended up dehydrated because of it. Not that this particular course of action helped that in any way.

Julia took a long swig before answering her boss's question. "We got beat. That's what happened. Roger's information was bad."

She limped over to a table and sat down, with Albert soon taking a seat opposite.

"What do you mean bad? What happened?"

"I don't know who that guy was, but he wasn't a newbie. That's for sure."

"What do you mean?"

"The guy Roger wanted us to rob? He took down three of my guys in a few seconds, and then matched me blow for blow while I was using Atavism."

"What? How is that possible. I haven't heard of any major hitters coming into town lately."

Julia was staring at the label of the bottle with a disgusted look, not really listening at this point. "The really irritating part was that he was holding back the whole time. He didn't even draw his sword! Even when he was surrounded by armed enforcers!"

Albert leaned back and let his follower vent, mind already trying to develop a plan for damage control.

"If it hadn't gotten distracted by something at the end, I'm not sure if I could have gotten away. Ugh! Its all so frustrating!" She threw the now empty bottle across the room where it smashed against the wall.

Albert could sympathize. In his long career, he too had been at the mercy of powerful individuals. It was simply a consequence of the world they lived in. However, he didn't really know how to comfort the girl, so he remained silent.

After a few minutes she stood up angrily, a little bit of her old fire sparking to life. "I'm going to find that bastard Roger, and make him wish he was never born, and then I'm going to come back here and we are going to plan how to get this guy."

"Well, I'm not too sur-"

"No." She said sharply. "I need to get my revenge on him."

Albert just sighed while rubbing his bald pate. It was hard to talk to her when she was like this. He just hoped that this wouldn't bring any more problems to his benighted guild.