Cheats Will Always Win

"This fight is just begging."

Alek watches his sword shatter into pieces by Tristen's strike, forcing Alek to rethink a plan to beat Tristen. as his eyes start to get bigger, then he starts to bite down on his lower lip, as a piece of his sword cuts him on the left side of his cheek. He spoke.

"You. You bastard."

Alek titans his grip on his handled to his broken sword and he goes to stab Tristen in the stomach, but Tristen grabs Alek's hand with his left hand and looks into Alek's eyes with a face of enjoyment. 

"The only bastard here. Is you."

Tristen continues to turn his body in mid air, and kicks Alek in the side with his right leg. Sending Alek flying through a wall before landing in a bathtub. As Alek flies through the wall, Malos regenerates is arms back and strikes Tristen with a downward strike, sending Tristen into the floor as Tristen rolls on his side back to his feet, as Malos continues to throw punches at Tristen, but Tristen is able to dodge most of his punches, and blocks the rest with his sword. As Malos goes for a quick strike with his lower left hand, Tristen grabs a piece of the wall off the ground and blocks Malos' strike, breaking the piece into smaller pieces, as Tristen uses the smaller pieces to his advantage and punches one of them into Malos' face. Allowing for Tristen to stab his sword into Malos' stomach and let go of his sword as he changes up Reverse Mana in his hands. 

● Reverse Mana allows Tristen to enhance his physical abilities by 30%, it gives Tristen the ability to heal himself slowly over time and is even able to regain mana faster with Reverse Mana. But Reverse Mana is only about to be used internally, meaning Tristen is unable to cast spells with Reverse Mana, or can't share his mana output with others.

Tristen pulls his fist back and goes to punch Malos in the gut, but right before Tristen was able to hit Malos, Malos catches Tristen hand with his upper left hand. Malos looked down at Tristen and spoke.

"Did you really think I was going to let you use that on me again? You stupid huma…"

As Malos was talking, Tristen punches Malos three times in the gut with his left hand, forcing Malos to cough out blood and to let go of Tristen's right hand. Tristen continues to punch Malos two more times, making Malos to lean over a little, letting Tristen to reaches up and grabs Malos by the hand and pulls him down to see eye to eye with him. 

"Have you heard the phrase that says that you should never let your guard down around your opponent. Let alone talk to them in the middle of a fight."

Tristen pulls Malos' hand ever lower, allowing him to knee Malos in the face. Sending Malos' head upward, forcing Malos to take a couple of steps back from Tristen.

("How is this possible? How is a human beating me in hand-to-hand combat? How is he getting stronger every time he punches me? What is happening?")

After Malos steps back to catch his breath, Tristen instantly gets closer to him and plans his left foot on the floor and charges he reverse mana to max output to finish Malos off.

● Using Reverse Mana at max output, puts all the mana in the body to one place, allowing Tristen to enhance that physical ability from 30% to 90%. But after using it, his mana will be fully drained until it is slowly replenished.

("All I have to do is land this hit to finish this. Then I can go and check on Icibis and Maria. Maybe I should see how the others are doing outside. Well, it has been fun, Malos.")

As Tristan lands the punch, the area around them gets covered in smoke from the impact and from all the debris laying around the open area. Tristan goes to remove his hand for what he believes is Malos body, he reveals that he can't remove his hand as if something has grabbed his hand.

"What the hell. Why will you not come out?"

"That is simple. It is because I will not let you go. Until you get me a new sword. You bastard."

Tristen quickly realizes who is holding his hand. As the smoke clears, Tristen sees Alek standing there holding on to Tristen's hand with his left hand. As Tristen looks Alek in the face, he can see that Alek is bleeding from his hand with it covering most of his face as he stands there with a serious look on his face.

"You pretty beat up. Are you sure you want to do this right now? You can just walk away fro…"

Before Tristen could finish speaking, Alek grabs the sword that is in Malos gut and pulls it out as Malos falls to the ground. Alek strikes Tristen across the chest at a 60°-degree angle. Then he stabs the sword down into Tristen's right shoulder, with a follow up with a knee to the gut. As Tristen spits out blood Alek starts to speak.

"Do you remember what you told Malos just now? Never let your guard down or something like that."

"You bastard."

"No, you're the bastard here. You are the one who broke MY SWORD."

Alek trips Tristen feet out from under him, and as Tristen starts to follow, Alek grabs Tristen by the face with his right hand and forces him to the ground faster. After Tristen head hits the ground Alek lets go of Tristen's right hand, allowing Tristen to react and grabs Alek's right shoulder with his right hand, focusing Alek to regrab Tristen's right hand again but this time, Tristen pulls Alek's face into the swords handle, that focus the sword to cut through Tristen's shoulder and into Alek's upper gut. Tristen then grabs a brick with his left hand and smashes it against Alek's head, making Alek roll off of Tristen, that gives Tristen time to get up and power kick Alek in the chest, making Alek fly into the wall. After Tristen kicked Alek away, he tries to use reverse mana but finds out he is unable to use it.

("Why is my reverse mana not working? Is it him? Can he be the one stopping me from healing myself? There are too many unknowns about this guy, that is for a fact. But Lloyd seems interested in him for some reason.")

● Cancellation is able to stop all things that are non-physical from working. Making Tristen reverse mana to stop from work and even make all the mana in Tristen's body to dissipate. But cancellation can't cancel out other curses or physical ability.

("Since I can't use reverse mana, I guess I will use it instead.")

Alek slowly leans up against the wall and can feel the pain of the sword in his gut. Alek looks down at the sword and slowly pulls it out.

("Thank god, the sword miss my organs or I would be in trouble.")

Alek wipes the blood from his eyes and looks up at Tristen.

("I did enough damage to him, to buy the others time to get here. I don't think he will be moving that arm of his for a while…")

Alek's eyes widen with disbelief, as he looks at Tristen and sees that he has fully healed from the fight.

("How is that possible? My cancellation should have stopped his healing magic from work. Or did he have a healing potion on him this whole time. I don't have enough strength to keep fighting him like this. Damn it.")

Alek hits his hand against the wall that he is leaning on as he looks at Tristen with a smile on his face.

"So, tell me. Have you been holding back this whole time? Be honest now."

Tristen looks over at Alek, then stands up.

("He still alive. After all of that, the man is still kicking.")

"I guess I can be honest with you."

Tristen starts to walk slowly to Alek as he talks.

"Yes. I have been holding back this whole time."

Alek starts to grind his teeth together.

"I would say, you got me a little worried when you stopped my mana from working."

Tristan stops walking and looks over at Malos.

"Do tell. How are you able to stop mana from working? I know it is not anti magic."

"And how do you know that?"

"Well anti magic, only stops you from using magic and mana from outputting from your body. But you're able to stop mana from not only the outside the body but even from the inside the body. That is one powerful ability that you have there."

Alek spits at Tristen's feet.

"That is funny to say, because it's not an ability or skill. It's a curse that I was born with."

"Is that so?" ("That could make sense, but what curse is there that can stop mana like that, and is it only mana it works on? Too many questions to ask all at once. Best wait for Lloyd to find out for me.")

As Tristen looks at Malos body, Alek starts to cough out blood then starts to laugh, making Tristen too look over at Alek.

"What are you laughing about?"

Alek puts his hand on his face and puts the sword into the ground with his other hand.

"I just think it is funny. You're so strong, you are able to take me and Malos on without trying, but."

Alek starts to stand up, using the sword in the ground to help him up, as blood comes dripping out of his gut.

"One day, I will become even stronger than you. Strong enough to make his dreams come true."

("His? Who is he talking about?")

Tristen gets a flashback of Nor in the prison cell when he faster got to the castle.

("Wait. Is he talking about the boy that was in the prison with him earlier.")

Alek slowly starts to walk but falls on his knees. Alek starts to catch his breath but has a hard time doing so, as Tristen takes a step closer to Alek.

"I think it is time for you to take a nap Alek."

"I think it is time for you to shut up."

"Still have a mouth on you at the very end. How adorable."

Tristen dashes forward at Alek, to knock him out with a kick. As the kick hits dust flying everywhere as both Alek and Tristen can see that Tristen's feet were stopped but five wires. Alek starts to smile, and Tristen rolls his eyes and looks over his right shoulder and sees Ash standing on the floor above the hole in the roof, looking down at Tristen and Alek.

"I almost forgot about you."

Ash looks at Tristen with anger. As she tightens her grip on her wires.

"You get away from Alek right this second."

"I didn't know he was taken already."

"Please. I would rather be taken by a zombie than ever take a chance with you."

Tristen looks back at Alek with a grin on his face.

"You still have jokes."

"All day every day."

Alek spits blood at Tristen as Ash swaps places with Alek. Tristen takes a step back as he gets ready to fight Ash.

("This is getting out of hand and fast. And to top that off I don't even have a sword to us.") "How annoying."

"Sorry, what was that?"

"It was nothing to you darling. I just need to end this quickly, so I can get back to my princess."

"I will show you a princess."