On the Verge (A Charmed Life Book 1) (23 page)

Tracy waited patiently for Tyra to move first.  Tracy had never been comfortable with offense; all of her best moves came from turning a defensive move into a grab or hold.  When Tyra did move, it was with that surprising speed, but Tracy was anticipating that speed this time.  All the same, she was already landing on her butt several feet back by the time the rose-marble form settled into her skin.  Her chest was aching where Tyra's palm had struck, but her butt, at least, didn't hurt from hitting the floor.

Tracy grabbed Tyra's hand and Tyra pulled her to her feet as if she weighed no more than a small child.  "Right," she said, grinning at Tyra with a determined glint in her eye, letting the stone form slip away to flesh once more.  "Let's try that again."

It took another half-dozen tries before Tracy was able to get the stone form up fast enough to block Tyra's strike, though she at least had been able to twist out of the way quickly enough, after two more strikes, that her chest would not be a giant mass of bruises.  Then another couple of dozen tries after that made sure she had it down pat. 

By that time, Tyra had started adding in a few extra moves.  An extra punch, a kick to the shins, always changing it up a little so Tracy couldn't start taking it for granted.  She wasn't much one for rote repetition, Tyra.  She wanted you thinking about what you were doing.  All the same, that made Tracy completely lack any guilt about changing the rules of this exercise without telling Tyra first.

The next time Tyra attacked, Tracy seized the earth body swiftly and grabbed Tyra's wrist, pulling at it.  Tyra twisted her hand away from Tracy's grasp, but she was already a little extra extended, and Tracy's foot swept at Tyra's ankle, sending her further off balance.  Tyra quickly recovered, lifting her arm above her head to guard herself as she committed herself into the forward lunge.  She was past Tracy in a moment and turning to face her once more, but Tracy dangled her charm bracelet from thumb and forefinger, showing Tyra she'd taken it back, then deliberately clasped the magnetic fastener around her wrist again.

That... felt right.  Felt much better.  She breathed easily again, letting go of a stress she hadn't even realized had been there.  A missing piece that clicked into place.

"Ah," Tyra said, grinning.  "Right on.  Next level."

Tyra's hands burst into flames, and Tracy blanched.  Right.  That's what she was going to fight.  Fire.  As Tyra attacked once more with a fierce cry, Tracy summoned the sheath of mist around her own hands.  There was a fierce hiss, like water on a hot pan, as the dark red-orange flames struck Tracy's pale, insubstantial block.  Strike after strike, and Tracy moved with it, circling around the room, deflecting each blow to the side in time.  Tyra wasn't as good as Grandmaster Lee, but she was surprisingly skilled all the same, and Tracy wasn't so familiar with her.  Her familiarity with Grandmaster Lee let her put up the defense against his attacks, despite his skill.  For the first several seconds, Tracy was fully concerned with defense, learning the feel of Tyra's attacks.

Tyra was not nearly so controlled as Tracy was used to - her attacks were fierce and delivered with a tremendous force, even before factoring in Tyra's enhanced strength.  Tyra threw herself into her attacks with little thought for defense, and Tracy was certain that this was no formal style - Tyra had learned to fight the hard way.  Tracy had seen this among some of the students – they'd learned to fight not only to hit their enemies, but also to demonstrate such a display of power that no one would want to fight them afterwards.  That no one could doubt they had won because they were the toughest, not merely lucky or somehow 'cheating' with advanced technique, and that even if they lost, people would respect that they had fought tough.  However, with the flaming hands, her technique had changed.  Before, she'd been changing things up, using her whole body as a weapon.  Now, she was focused solely on her flaming hands – trying to hit with those magic strikes.  Despite the magic, she actually was less dangerous now.

Tracy followed up understanding with a counter, grabbing Tyra, pulling her deeper into the fierce attack, to use Tyra's own momentum against her.  The quick strike in passing did almost nothing to Tyra - the obsidian skin absorbed the blow easily, and Tracy learned that she had once again underestimated the woman.  Even as Tyra was tripped up and sent to the floor, Tracy felt herself yanked backwards as Tyra grabbed the back of her shirt and pulled her down after her.

Most brawlers of any other style - or those of no styles - wanted to strike from a distance.  Especially when they had reach on a little gal like Tracy.  If they wanted to grab, they usually telegraphed that intention, and it was easy for a style like Aikido to take advantage of that.  Tyra, on the other hand, easily pulled Tracy down to the floor where a swift and fierce series of flaming blows to the chin, to the back, and to the side overwhelmed Tracy.  A bite on her wrist to keep her from blocking more than to do any sort of damage, and that hand at the center of her back, twisted up in her shirt, kept her off-balance.

In panic and desperation, Tracy pulled hard, and was surprised how easily her shirt ripped away.  She twisted around and jabbed one quick hand up into Tyra's throat, a stiff-fingered strike that usually would have left someone choking for breath for ages.  It was a more advanced move that she really shouldn't have used, had never used in a spar before, but this hadn't felt much like a spar for quite a while, now.  Tyra coughed, all right, and rolled away from Tracy, but she recovered quickly, too.

She had dismissed the fire, and as Tracy stood there, watching, she recovered her breath and looked up at her.  "Ow," she said, rubbing her throat cautiously.  "That was a good hit, but y'made a mistake."

Tracy stepped back a moment, cautious of a trick, and tilted her head to the side in question.

"Y'stepped back.  Y'all still think of this as some practice fight.  Not as a fight.  Y'shoulda jumped me once you got mah throat like that.  Forced a surrender.  Y'all had th' advantage; y'should have taken it."

Tracy felt an automatic negation jump up in her throat, but bit back hot words as she considered Tyra's assessment.  She... she was right.  That was the rules of a spar because you didn't want to hurt each other.  Anthony and Pax wanted to hurt Tracy.  She needed to defeat them and defeat them quickly, or she might not just lose - she might get very hurt.  Or, worse, she would give them leeway and they would hurt Jacob because she'd made a mistake.

Tracy took a deep breath and let it out.  She cleaned away the remnant shreds of shirt, leaving her with the sports bra, like Tyra.  The shreds were scorched, those flaming strikes doing more than just bruising her – but it wasn't ashes like she'd been expecting.  Well, sure.  It took time for things to catch fire – but she bet that she'd be smarting something fierce from the light burn just now if she hadn't had earth's toughness protecting her.

The next half hour was embarrassing for Tracy.  She was used to being pretty darn good at this stuff.  Whether in her Aikido class, or in her brief fights in this secret magic world, everything had confirmed that she was a pretty good martial artist, even by their standards.  Even Tyra here had been put to her knees at Tracy's hands.  Yet now, every time Tracy thought she had an upper hand, Tyra made her pay for it.  To land one solid blow, Tracy had to endure a blistering fury of smaller hits from Tyra.  Grandmaster Lee might have found the exercise in humility quite beneficial for her.

It wasn't that Tyra was better than Tracy.  Quite the opposite; Tracy soon determined that her own technique was far superior.  Tyra wasn't clumsy by any means, but compared to Tracy, she just didn't have the same agility or technical acumen.  It didn't help that Tracy really didn't have her own balance.  Jacob, thus far, had been focusing on magic – trying to get Tracy to use magic like … well, like a spellcaster.  She hadn't really had a chance to get used to her stone-form's balance.  To Tyra's benefit, she was taller, bigger, and stronger, there was no doubting that - and despite the movies, nothing quite matched up to pure physical ability when it came to combat.

Regardless of Tracy's mild disadvantage, or Tyra's natural strength, the real problem Tracy was having with this fight was … fighting Tyra was a little like playing poker, or trying to catch a stage magician in a trick.  Each time it seemed like Tracy was able to read her, Tyra had something new up her sleeve, in her hand.  That 'tell' that Tracy thought she'd spotted was actually a trap.  The next time she was ready for the trap, but instead of a lure, that feint was actually a full attack.  Tracy couldn't even necessarily say it was all 'fighting dirty'.  Rather, the combination of pure overwhelming power and Tyra's aggressive personality helped to disguise that Tyra was actually a very clever fighter, with an acute physical empathy.  She seemed to know what you were doing as soon as you set your balance to do it – and she knew Tracy preferred holds and grapples, so she did all she could not to let Tracy get a solid grip on her.

Tracy, and everyone Tracy had ever sparred against, did just that - they sparred.   Despite her realization early on, it took at least half an hour to really, really understand what Tyra was doing differently.  Tyra wasn't a martial artist.  She was just a fighter.  Tyra was fighting, not sparring.  Tyra fought to win.  When Tyra swung, there was no worry about whether or not she'd hurt her opponent, and she drove her fist in with all her strength.  If she was on defense, she was more than willing to take a lesser, deflecting blow from Tracy to set up for a much more solid return blow – or to open herself up to a small, glancing hit in order to avoid letting Tracy get a hold on her.  Tracy was not used to someone … not holding back.  Treating her like a real threat, and using their full strength against her.  At least, she hoped Tyra was using her full strength.  It'd be even more embarrassing if Tyra were holding back.

Not only was Tyra ruthless in the fight, she made full use of the durability and strength of the stone forms they were using.  Mere flesh wouldn't have taken glancing blows like this nearly as well.  Were Tyra and Tracy both fighting as mere humans, Tyra might have had a mass of bruises by now.  Instead, she moved easily, only slightly winded from the intense workout.  Tracy understood what Slate's mook was saying, now, about elemental styles of fighting.  Tracy was, yes, water and air, not just in the magic she used, but in the style of her martial arts.  Tyra was implacable stone, combined with a fierce energy that Tracy could only call fire.  They were polar opposites of each other.

Tracy soon realized that the stone form was hardy, but not invulnerable.  Even as rose marble, she could feel that mass of bruises.  Her stone skin showed a web of cracks all over her chest, which Tyra assured her would turn into bruising and
not
massive trauma once she turned back to normal.  That earlier blow that had knocked the breath out of her had been very effective, too.  She'd gotten knocked right out of stone form – while the small blows could be entirely ignored, those heavy blows were still devastating, especially with Tyra's stone-enhanced strength behind them.  Anthony's ability to take those small hits would be even better, with metal's greater durability behind it.

Tyra stepped back, raising her hands defensively in a universal gesture of 'wait'.  “Hol' on, hol' on,” she said, “Time fer a break.  Yer gonna wear me down.”

Tracy paused a moment, her mind still trying to process what trick this was … before she relaxed, letting out a heavy breath, then collapsing onto a nearby weight bench as she panted desperately.  “You're … worn out?” she gasped.  She tugged her sports bag over with one toe, and pulled out her water bottle to suck greedily from it.  “You don't look it,” she said, half-accusingly, half-amused.

“Don't y'believe it,” Tyra said, fetching her own sports bag.  “Ah'm usin' an extra earth stone and an air stone just t' boost my endurance.  Usin' a number of stones, actually.”

“Doesn't seem entirely fair.”

“Well, means Ah get to push y'all harder, so y'learn more.  So deal.”

“Well, good to know you're not holding back.”

“No, I am doing that.”  Tyra smirked.  “Trust me, if Ah was goin' all out, y'all'd be flattened.  Ah'm only using a half-dozen of my stones.  But fer kickin' yer ass, yes.  Ah'm not holdin' back.  Yer really good!  Ah ain't sure how yeh din't finish some ah those grabs.”

“Because you're damn squirrelly.”  Tracy rolled her eyes.  “I can't get anywhere near you without you biting and pummeling me.  And you're damn strong!”

“Know if y'all grab me, it's all over,” Tyra confirmed, grinning proudly.  “So can't let that happen.”  She pulled out a bottle of RC Cola and cracked it open with a hiss of carbonation, then took a quick swing.  Then, as Tracy watched in confusion, she pulled out a packet of peanuts, ripped those open, and dumped them into the bottle of soda.

“What are you doing?” Tracy asked, as Tyra took another swig, finishing the drink with loud crunching as she chewed the peanuts.

Tyra smirked, and responded before she was done chewing.  “What, yeh never had peanuts n' coke afore?”

Tracy looked to the side, away from Tyra's open mouth.  “Tyra,” she murmured in mild scolding.  “Didn't your mother ever teach you not to talk with your mouth open?”

The athletic woman made an apologetic sound, and Tracy looked back just in time to see Tyra deliberately open her mouth and stick out her tongue, covered in half-chewed bits of peanuts.  “Nyaaaaa!”  Tracy let out an exasperated noise and glanced away again, shaking her head, but unable to keep from letting out a soft huff of laughter.