“We’ll be fine, don’t worry!”
Kass was excited. Levik was nervous. Levik was also shapeshifted into the form of Timik, pretending to be the top Temthan house fighter. Waiting for them on the other side of the arena were Viktor the Vorrible, a Vrekan gladiator, and Vezon Taintmind, a new Lanex gladiator representing the Perpetual Abyss, the newest tribe of the Lanex. Vezon was a very bulky, very heavily armoured Lanex with spiked plating running down his back, and he definitely intimidated others. He was intimidating Levik right now.
Duo battles were the most popular of the multi-team arena matches, but that was mostly because they contained more drama. Many same-race duo teams had history and relationships together, while mixed-race duo teams were almost always tentative alliances. Kass and Levik though were both firm friends, which was unusual. They were also both rather small. Kass was about average height for a Skyan, and Levik was just below average height for a Spast (which made sense, he was still technically just a teenager in Spast terms) but both races were tiny compared to everyone else. Even if Levik could shapeshift.
This match was a pretty standard match with lots of cover. Both teams had ranged but weak weapons, arena-modified semi-automatic pistols mostly, but Kass had a slow-reload single shot rifle instead. The arena varied between bright and dark – bright was good for Vezon and dark was good for Kass.
The gong rang without much notice and the match swiftly started.
“You guys are screwed!” Viktor taunted, opening fire immediately, while Vezon decided to close the gap between himself and his opponents. “I got the new best thing since sliced bread on my team! I-AAAAH!”
Kass had ignored Viktor’s taunts and fired her rifle. She secretly had really good aim, and with Levik being a good distraction, she could line up her shots. Already, she had shot Viktor in the shoulder, forcing him to retreat and hide behind a piece of cover, spraying and praying with his pistol as he did so. Levik on the other hand was struggling a bit. Vezon was a large, heavy person, covered in even heavier armour. He was currently trying to knock Levik off his feet, and if it wasn’t for Levik shapeshifting some extra strength into his legs and tail, he’d have already ended up on the floor by now.
“Kass, need some help!”
“Why do you need help, Timik?” Vezon’s voice was deep but also oddly distorted. “You are the top Temthan house fighter, are you not?”
Kass did hear Levik’s request, but she was busy keeping Viktor away from Levik and Vezon. She knew that Viktor would easily skew the fight in his favour should he manage to interfere in the melee match in the middle of the arena.
“Um…” Levik wasn’t sure whether to answer or not. He needed Kass to wear Viktor down a bit more before he revealed who he was, but Vezon was genuinely unnerving him, doubly so since they were now locked in some sort of grapple, trying to knock each other over.
Levik’s stutter though was enough to make Vezon realise something was up. His acting skills had failed.
“Viktor, it is your friend, the Mystery Spast!” Vezon smiled cruelly. “Help me defeat-”
Before Vezon could finish his sentence, Levik made a sudden play and swiped at Vezon’s mask. He didn’t knock it off, but he did dislodge it, causing it to be skewed across his face. This forced Vezon to release his grapple and back off, so he could fix his mask and be able to see again. Levik though didn’t give him a chance to do so though. He shoved Vezon back then shapeshifted into a Banikan. Using his newfound strength, Levik then kangaroo-kicked Vezon, sending the heavy Lanex sprawling to the ground.
Viktor did try to help, but he made the vital mistake of running through a shadow. As he did so, Kass shadowjumped towards him, dragged him through several shadows to utterly disorientate the poor Vrekan, then used a shadowjumping portal trick to propel Viktor out of a shadow at an angle, causing him to briefly fly through the air before hitting the ground with a thud and a crunch. Viktor was already out for the count, but Kass finished him off with a rifle shot to the stomach, which forced Viktor to be teleported out of the arena.
Realising he was now stuck in a 1v2, Vezon tried to back roll to his feet and make some space for himself, but Levik was already on top of him, literally charging forward and trampling on the downed Lanex. It did take a moment for Levik to slow down and turn his bulky Banikan body around, which meant Vezon managed to get back to his feet, but it didn’t really matter. Vezon had made the same mistake Viktor made, and had stepped into a shadow.
However, Vezon was a tad too heavy to be thrown through the shadows the same way Viktor had been. Kass knew this, and she instead used the shadows to reposition Vezon so that he was now directly in front of Levik.
With a smile, Levik took a deep breath, then opened his mouth wide. A barrage of flames spewed from the back of his throat, instantly setting Vezon on fire. The formerly stoic Lanex began to panic and threw himself on the ground, rolling in the dirt to douse the flames, before giving up and hitting the forfeit button on his health meter. This caused Vezon to be teleported away to the medical bays, where Ksithan nurses with fire extinguishers were on hand to put him out.
The gong rang once more, and the announcers and the crowds both cheered for Kass and Levik. Levik shapeshifted back to normal, then waved at the crowds briefly, but Kass could tell that something seemed off as they finished up and headed out of the arena.
“What’s wrong, Levik?” Kass asked as they walked.
“I… kinda messed up the plan. Vezon realised I wasn’t Timik way, way to early.”
“You didn’t mess up at all!” Kass smiled. “Lanex are hard to trick, they’re super smart and work things out fast. Plus, he was probably already working things out because you don’t fight exactly the same way Timik does. But you confused him enough to make him and Viktor overconfident!”
“I guess. But I need to work on my acting skills.”
“That’s alright. We’ll work on them together. Good job though! We won!”
Levik hesitated, then smiled as well. “Heh, yeah, we did win. That was cool. We make a good team.”
“Oh, totally. We’ll do even better once we finally do a damn Dessaron match… Just waiting on the stupid Raptor to approve it…”