Ravens of Eternity

106 Light Warmup

The two off duty guards loomed over Eva as they processed her words. They had their translators reconfirm her meaning, then glanced at each other in complete puzzlement.

To them, she was just some frail human girl. In fact, they viewed all humans as rather frail. The fact that the two of them tied in a brawl against seven humans was more than proof of it. If they fought her, it would have been a complete massacre.

The one that barreled through three people stepped forward and puffed up his chest a little. A hint of annoyance was laced throughout his voice.

“Imagine just what that report would look like to our superior – two of us against one of you. We would be flayed alive for doing such a thing.”

“Oh, so you’re afraid to hurt me, then?”

“No Drogar is afraid to hurt any human. I simply do not wish to be written up for it.”

Eva continued unabated with her light taunting. She just couldn’t help herself. Something deep within her was curious about the Drogar, about how well she matched up against them.

So, she kept on poking the bear.

“It’s fine,” she said. “I mean, there’s nothing I can do about it if you’re afraid of me, personally.”

.....

“You should stop teasing the Drogar,” said Miko. “You already know they are no match for you.”

One of the Drogar was quick to back up Miko.

“Yeah,” he said, “exactly what your friend sai- hold on! What’d you say?”

Both their heads perked up when Miko’s words fully sunk in. One of them was agitated to the point where his facial spines began to flare out.

“How dare you accuse us of being weak!” he snarled.

His friend was also somewhat agitated and had bared his fangs slightly, but held the angrier one back.

“Calm down,” he told him. “They’re just riling us up with lies. It’s just human tricks.”

Miko’s brow furrowed at the accusation.

“I do not lie! ...Um, unless I am contractually obligated to use deception.”

“Alright, fine!” cried the angry one. “Duel me, but do not regret being torn apart.”

Eva stepped into the fighting ring and beckoned the Drogar with a wide grin on her face. The angry Drogar entered without hesitation, though he appeared to be trying to calm himself down.

A number of humans and a handful of Drogar crowded around the ring, excited at the opportunity to see this match. The previous match took their attention, and this one drew them in completely.

One of them ran off to spread the news, propelled purely by the excitement of the fight.

The Drogar looked down at Eva and sized her up as he spoke.

“You agree to this duel, yes? Legally?”

Eva nodded.

“I don’t know what makes it legal or whatever. I agree anyway.”

“Foolish human,” he spat. “With all as witness, this duel can begin. And it can only end with blood. The one who spills it first, loses.”

The crowd around them hooted and hollered in excitement, but their sounds bled away as the two combatants focused solely on each other.

Eva scanned her opponent as she got into a defensive stance. Although she still wasn’t very familiar, she was getting faster at finding information via the Imperial Nexus. She looked over general Drogar biology as she circled the Drogar.

Her opponent’s muscles flexed as he drew out his dagger from its sheath. Its edge glinted under the sun.

“I don’t get a knife?” asked Eva.

“You will have to take mine,” he said, “but you will never get that chance.”

“Nah, don’t need it.”

Eva quickly snapped up the initiative and leapt forward in attack. She performed an easy open with a straight right and uppercut left combo. The Drogar was quick to evade and parry her strikes, but found himself staggered back by the force of her blows.

He took a step back as he reassessed Eva. It only took him a moment to realize that she was much more capable than the three he had fought earlier. Excited by the prospect of facing a real opponent, his scowl turned into a grin as he swiped at her with more power, more speed.

He threw strike after strike at her in a flurry of swipes, kicks, and elbows. Each one faster and fiercer than the last.

A wave of calm swept through Eva as she evaded each of his strikes. She fought to keep herself in control, to not allow the heat of the moment to overtake her, overwhelm her. The Drogar was fast and accurate and lethal.

But she was patient.

She waited until he began to falter in his step, when his swings began to be wilder, when his breaths began to heave.

Then she countered and spun into him, and with the snap of a backhand, struck him squarely in the stomach. She then lightly struck him in the throat, which stopped air from going back in. Finally, she dealt a jumping push kick into his abdomen for a second time with much greater force.

The Drogar’s breath was taken from him as he was pushed back. The force of her combo attack was enough for him to lose all sight, even if it was just a moment. He clumsily stumbled backwards as he recovered, and shook his head to scatter the stars away from his eyes.

When his senses returned to full, he quickly refocused everything on Eva. It occurred to him that he might have underestimated the humans a great deal. Clearly, some of them were great threats.

“You should probably stop holding back,” she taunted.

The Drogar bared his fangs in delight as reared back to launch an all-out strike at her. He poured every bit of energy into his muscles and sprang forward with tremendous force. Both of his arms flew forward as he aimed his gleaming blade directly at Eva’s neck.

Eva crouched down as he sailed towards her, then spun around and threw her leg out into a back kick. Energy coursed through her legs as power thrummed throughout her body.

In contrast, she dialed in her strength and held back from throwing her full strength into the kick. She wasn’t trying to kill the guy, after all.

With a WHUMPH, her foot and his chest connected in mid-air. Pain coursed throughout his body as his velocity stopped dead in its tracks. Blood rushed into his throat as he was thrown back by a half dozen meters.

He bounced and rolled a couple of times before he finally collapsed in an inglorious heap on the ground.

After a moment, the Drogar groaned as his world spun back into place. He pulled himself up to his hands and knees and coughed up blood in the process. A few drops splattered on the grass below.

“D-damn you,” he uttered.

“I did say it should’ve been the both of you,” Eva replied.

The humans cheered as they saw Eva had won the duel. Though they knew Eva and all the other refugees were strong and tough, they weren’t sure if they were still weaker than the Drogar.

The Drogar had rubbed their physical advantages in their noses for centuries, and this small win felt like some huge victory. But the cheers didn’t last long.

A commanding voice boomed from beyond the now-large throng of people, and cut all the noise in two.

“Just what in the heavens is going on here?”

The crowd of humans and Drogar parted, which revealed a pair of imperious, armored Drogar walking in their direction. Both wielded long straight blades, shorter curved daggers, and fiendish pistols on their hips. Compared to most of the other Drogar around them, these two were taller, slimmer, and held smoother features. Neither had a single spine on their faces.

Both wore intricate lamellar armor, but the one that was a beautiful gradient of jade had silver accents on her armor. The other was a stunning dark orange, and her armor held bronze accents.

“Justicars!” cried Eva’s opponent. “We-we performed a legitimate duel. Please do not cite me for it!”

“Why would I cite you for dueling?” asked the jade Drogar. “If anything, the only crime you’ve committed is by doing a poor job of vetting your opponents. You assumed a human was weaker than you.”

“Senior,” interjected the orange Drogar, “may I?”

The jade Drogar nodded, and the orange one stepped forward to continue. She raised her chin a little and puffed out her chest as she spoke.

“The human you’ve been dueling is a mercenary with the callsign Freya. Her mercenary partner is Raijin, who’s standing right over there. These two are perhaps the most dangerous humans you’ve ever met. Had you known that, you might not have been so eager to jump into a fight with either of them.

“You should all know that they came here due to a skirmish against a faction of human pirates. These two were especially instrumental in their opponent’s defeat. This one...”

She pointed at Eva.

“...destroyed three fully-armed anti-fighter B-ranked Terra Nach Mar frigates. By herself. In a pitiful C-ranked Federal Shipyards fighter. This one...”

Her hand swung over to point at Miko.

“...destroyed eight of those same frigates through a makeshift superweapon, and with a single shot.”

The orange one then hung her hands on her hips and stared down Eva’s opponent.

“Do you honestly believe you’ve got a chance against either?”

Silence filled the area as knowledge of Eva and Miko’s participation in the battle spilled out into the open. They originally kept things quiet as they simply didn’t want to deal with the attention. The last thing they wanted was to gain notoriety for their kills. Worse, they didn’t want to get blamed for all of them ending up in Drogar hands.

Eva was the first to break that silence. It made her uncomfortable to swim in it.

“The two of you seem to know quite a lot about the two of us,” she said.

“Apologies,” said the jade one. “I’m Justicar Severas, and my over-exuberant, overly-dramatic junior here is Justicar Doleth.”

“Dramatic?” protested Doleth. “I thought a Justicar’s supposed to be exemplary.”

“In our deeds,” replied Severas, “not so much in our speech. I suggest you not take the role too seriously in that regard.”

She then turned towards Eva to continue their line of discussion.

“We’ve been briefed on both of you and your capabilities, based on preliminary intel gathered from your asteroid’s logs. We’re both rather impressed. In any case, we’ve been assigned by Swarmfather Retholis as your guides and guards here at the capital.”

Eva was stunned by what she had heard. She expected someone to babysit her, but certainly not someone who had a great amount of influence. As she scanned over the other Drogar, it was plain to see that they all revered the two of them. Even the younger one who appeared to still be in training.

“Wow, Justicars,” she said. “That’s a crazy title, and I’m not exactly sure what that means, but it sounds damned important. Too important just to cart us around – we’re just prisoners. Why’re you two assigned to us?”

“I asked Retholis the same exact question. All he said was that we were the most trustworthy, and that had great value. He believes that others are too easily tempted by their own prejudices.”

“You’re not?”

.....

“All that matters to me is that the law remains unsullied.”