RETURN OF THE SHADOW - Chapter 222

When his fist, felt something hard contacting it, instead of soft tissue of the face, he knew that he had missed. He immediately felt Glen crashing into his body and pushing him towards the wall. With hardly any distance between him and the wall, Balthazar was sure it was going to hurt him.

He was slammed into the wall by Glen, but he managed to reduce the impact by pulling up his legs and using his right hand to brace the impact. Moreover, Glen’s right hand was sandwiched between him and the wall and took the brunt of the collision as Balthazar lifted his leg in time for his knee to poke into Glen’s wrist.

The collision was more hurting to Glen as it almost broke his right arm. Balthazar managed to use Glen’s own momentum against him and Glen’s wrist would be hurting for him to properly use it. Still, Balthazar knew that he was at a disadvantage. Glen had a good view of him and was close to him while he had his back to Glen.

With his usual weapons, he had a couple of tricks he could use to escape, but barehanded, he was in a fix. Even if he didn’t feel like accepting it, he knew that Glen managed to trick him in the fight at the beginning itself and gain the advantage.

He tried to kick back and found nothing hitting his leg. He was sure it was a faint, but he needed to look at Glen. He was too silent for Balthazar to guess anything. He jumped back a step and turned around swinging his right arm but found a hand on his face obstructing his view as it pushed him back towards the wall.

Balthazar was ready too. Even if he still didn’t have a view, he now had Glen’s arm on his face and both arms free. While Glen was pushing him back, he wouldn’t be able to use his legs to block as he was pushing him towards the wall. His right wrist would be weak for a few moments and he wouldn’t be able to use it effectively.

This was his chance to retaliate. While he was an assassin and thief, climbing ropes and poles and grappling were vital for him to save his life. He ended up being quite proficient in a number of grappling techniques due to it. He caught Glen’s hand with his own managed to push his face to the side and caught onto Glen’s body with his legs.

It left him hanging off Glen in an awkward pose, but neither of them cared about it. In a fight, all such trivial things were inconsequential and much so when they have no spectators. After that, he swung his body around to get to Glen’s back, but Glen simply jumped and decided to land on the ground on his back.

This forced Balthazar to push off from Glen, even though he managed to catch and was about to go for a choke hold. It was a good chance that he had lost, but Balthazar was glad that he managed to escape from Glen’s reach. He was pushed against a wall before and it was a horrible position to be in a fight.

“Got away from situation with some small injuries on my limbs and managed to hurt his right wrist,” thought Balthazar. “Not a bad outcome, I should attack him quickly before he gets used to his wrist hurting him.”

Balthazar quickly rolled away from Glen and stood up while Glen did the same. He knew he couldn’t repeat the same trick again. For that to work he needed his back close to the wall and he was sure that Glen wouldn’t let him do it again. Apart from that, he got a basic idea of Glen’s strength from the previous tussle. Glen as expected clearly had thicker muscles and good reflexes. He was sure that he would suffer if he got close to Glen.

He put some distance between him and Glen. He needed to know more about Glen’s fight style, and he started to consider winning essential. He felt that it would be a good experience for him too. Though he had his specializations, he always felt it to be best to prepare for other scenarios. Through his experiences over the past month, he began to feel like he was given the second chance to better prepare and it would be a waste if he didn’t.

He quickly ran towards Glen to overcome him by rapidly hitting a few weak spots like his joints or head. From the previous tussle, he realized that Glen was too sturdily built for him to get any advantage by hitting him repeatedly on his torso or other parts of his limbs. Glen was too strongly built for that to work.

Getting stronger than Glen was impossible but he was sure he could have an advantage with speed. The previous exchange between them proved it. The only problem, he had was the lack of a weapon. With a weapon, it wouldn’t take much time in taking down Glen even at close combat. Still some weak spots didn’t need a weapon to injure a person, but Balthazar could see that he had his guard up. Luckily, there is a limit to the number of places that Glen could guard on his body. This was his advantage, but he realized it was not of much use when he came close to Glen and tried to attack.

He started with a quick combo of punches. Strength was never his strong point. So, Glen could block them with relative ease. Balthazar had expected that, and his punches were merely a form of distraction. His actually attacks started in the middle of the combo as he swung his right foot into the back of Glen’s knee to disrupt his foot work and make him fall onto his knees.

Balthazar hoped that when Glen fell down, his quick punches which were currently aimed at Glen’s chest would fall onto his face and he could discombobulate him with a few hits on his head. Once, Glen would be in such a state, Balthazar expected him to be easy to defeat. At the very most, even if he failed, he expected that it would be much harm to him as he felt Glen to be relatively slow and he would be able to escape any counter attacks.

As he swung his foot, he found Glen’s upper half lower as he expected when a person’s knees would buckle and thus, continued with punching. But to his surprise, it stopped midway and he found his foot to be caught by Glen between his thigh and calf muscles.

“Not bad, but not strong enough,” said Glen with a smile. With one foot struck, Balthazar’s movements were restricted. His punches were already countered by Glen’s hands. He quickly tried to rotate his body by jumping on one leg and swinging his other leg at Glen’s head, but Glen expected that too.

With both legs off ground, Balthazar couldn’t get away and both of them knew that it was Balthazar’s loss at that moment. Glen let Balthazar’s punches hit him and at the same time hit Balthazar on his face exchanging blows with each other on their heads. Balthazar’s fist struck Glen on his nose and Glen struck him with an open palm on his neck and immediately grabbed onto his neck.

As Glen caught Balthazar on his neck, he was sure he won. Balthazar’s moments were highly restricted due to this. He just had to hold on to Balthazar’s neck, pull him into both his hands and choke him up. He was just about to do so, when he noticed Balthazar’s hand catching on to his other hand with an unexpectedly firm grip.

It was quite surprising to him as he landed his first shot on Balthazar’s windpipe. Most would be in a state of breathlessness by such a shot unless those who were used to torture or specifically trained. So, he didn’t expect Balthazar to have good control of his limbs. He felt lucky that he wasn’t careless and noticed it, else he would have been definitely stunned by a strong hit on his head.

“A tough one,” said Glen as he realized that Balthazar was trying to restrict his other hand with one of his own. That would have both his hands occupied while Balthazar would have one free hand which he could use to make a strong attack. He let go of his neck as he found his other hand wouldn’t be released quickly to block Balthazar’s attack, but it unexpectedly didn’t come as Balthazar jumped back instead.

“Good, I thought you would continue with your attempt to punch me, but you decided to jump back,” said Glen. “You also have an unnatural tolerance to pain like someone who has been trained for those things. Anyone including me would at least suffocate for a second by that hit of mine. You calmly held your breath in and tried to fool me.”

“What’s with the explanation?”

“I think I learned enough. I need to know about how fast you react, your sensibility and if you can tough it out when things go unexpectedly. For bare handed fight this is enough,” said Glen. “I forfeit.”

“We can continue.”

“No point. These things are good in tournaments and competitions. Something which we don’t care about as it hardly is any good in real life. Just good to check your foundation. Now let us get the weapons out,” said Glen.

Balthazar and Glen found themselves transported into a store like interface. He quickly noticed that it was something created by Elias. There were various suits and weaponry which could be worn on civilian clothes.

“Didn’t put in combat suits in this round. Wanted to know about your talents without combat suits. Walking around in streets with combat suits would be very conspicuous and gather unnecessary attention. These are all acceptable suits and designs with weapon permits and doesn’t make civilians think that we are some special forces or military. Choose your pick. All kinds available in our organization have already been simulated and ready for practice,” said Glen.

“Can I get some privacy?” asked Balthazar as he started browsing through the interface. “Or do you want to know which weapons I am gearing up with?”

“I would like to know. You can also check my equipment,” said Glen. “This spar is to allow us to know each other. I am wearing all the equipment I bought in the plane and I suggest you do the same. Don’t forget that this is meant to allow us to know each other’s style of fighting.”

“Fine, I will wear the gear that I bought in the plane too, but I intend to finish it fast. Learning all the tricks with weapons will be too time consuming. I am going to aim to kill you as soon as possible and enjoy playing the game instead,” said Balthazar.

“So confident when you have weapons, huh. Don’t forget that you were more injured in the previous fight,” said Glen.

A few seconds later, the both of them were equipped with armour and weapons that they could wear in public. Then, Glen transported them to another arena. This one was unlike the previous arena. It was a rectangular corporate complex about 10 metres wide and 15 metres long. It had many tables, wardrobes and chairs filled with all sort of accessories. The walls were glass and it appeared that they were on a skyscr.a.p.er on a floor that was at least 100 metres above the ground.

“You like it? There are quite a few templates of places which of real-life places like this,” said Glen, twirling a gun in his left hand.

“You expect us to have a fight in an open workspace like this?” replied Balthazar. “I don’t plan to do something like that. That would same as putting ourselves out in the public eyes.”

“Ok. Fair point,” said Glen as he opened up an interface and selected another arena transporting them into a warehouse. It was filled with different boxes, series of iron racks filled with various items and had a few trolleys and crate carriers. “How about a hangar warehouse?”

“Better,” said Balthazar. “This would work.”