[Eelskin]

Chapter 2

Liz was backstage, meditating. She wasn't scheduled to have another fight for another two hours, so she took the time to refocus and concentrate on her body. She flexed every part of her, checking for any sore spots or pulled muscles. She found none. She sat cross-legged on the floor of her room and emptied her mind.

Rather, she tried to empty her mind, but couldn't, because of the noise that was being made directly outside of her door. She frowned, stood up, and went to open the door.

As she looked down the hall, she saw three men in suits walking away from her, surrounding a very angry, 60 cm tall Emerald Dragon. She was speaking in Vietnamese and shouting at everyone around her, though Liz couldn't understand any of it. She was walking almost a quickly as she was talking, and with her increased speed from having been reduced, she was outpacing the full-size men slightly. One of the men was responding to her in Vietnamese, and though Liz couldn't understand any of the words, from his tone she could tell that he was apologizing profusely. He?s probably her agent, the poor guy. She decided to follow her.

As Emerald Dragon reached the medical lab, where several technicians were waiting for her, one of the suits noticed Liz. He addressed Emerald and she whirled around to face Liz. All of her advisors took a step away from her. Her eyes narrowed. "What do you want?" She asked.
"I... just wanted to make sure there are no hard feelings."
"No hard feelings?" Emerald turned around and stepped through an opening into a tall plastic cylinder. She barked an order in Vietnamese at one of her aides, who motioned to one of the technicians. The opening closed behind her, and she turned back to face Liz. "I've just been humiliated." As she spoke, the interior of the chamber started to glow a faint pink, and she slowly began to grow back to her original size. "My fans come to see me fight, and they expect to see me win. I haven't been beaten in almost two years, and not once since I joined the league! And now, the first time I'm allowed to enter the world tournament, my very first match and I don't even land one blow! And you want there to be no hard feelings?" At this point she was almost back to her full size, and Liz could see her eye was twitching slightly from the stress she was under. As she slowly gained her last remaining centimetres, she pointed at Liz. "Well, this isn't over. I can still compete. First-round eliminations have a chance to re-enter the ranks, and I intend to re-enter." The glow faded, and she stepped back out of the booth. She walked right up to Liz and looked down at her from her regained height advantage. "You haven't gotten rid of me yet." She smirked. After a moment, she turned to her aide and yelled something in Vietnamese again, and the four of them walked past Liz into the corridor. One of them gave her an apologetic glance as he walked away. Liz turned back to the technicians.
"Do you need anything, ma'am?"
"No, thank you." She walked back to her room to try to regain her composure.

Her next match was against the Yellow Jacket. Where do they keep getting these names? She thought to herself. Not that mine is any better. Why can?t we just use our real names? This stage persona garbage is ridiculous. She paced back and forth along her end of the ring. Looking out over the crowd, she tried not to think about how many people were watching at this time. She knew that the arena was capable of holding 67,000 people, and this looked to be a sold-out crowd. Not to mention the fact that the matches were being broadcast live all over the world; an estimated 926,000,000 viewers were watching this event from home or from sports bars. She shook her head and concentrated on the match at hand.
Yellow Jacket?s costume wasn?t actually a jacket, but it was yellow. She leapt onto the vertical plastic barrier, bouncing back off with her feet, flipping backwards in mid-air and landing perfectly upright with bent knees. Her fans cheered, and she raised her hands in appreciation. She didn?t seem to notice that Liz was standing there. The announcer stated that she was 164 centimetres tall, almost the same as Liz.
?The rules of the match are as follows!? Boomed the voice of the announcer. ?Fighters will have, in addition to their standard holoswords, five throwing darts!? Liz nodded. She was well-practiced with all of the tools, as were all of the other contestants. There were no surprises in these matches. ?All other standard rules apply!?
All of this preparation for a ninety-second fight. Liz picked up one of the small black marbles tucked into her belt. This is what would become a dart once the match began, but as the holograms were weightless, throwing them would be exactly the same as before. She paced back and forth and waited patiently until the announcer told them to take their positions.

Liz stood in her blue circle, and Yellow Jacket in hers. When the tone sounded, both lifted their swords in their right hands and felt their belts with their left. Yellow Jacket didn?t attack right away; she danced back and forth, jabbing intermittently, gauging Liz? reaction time and hand movements. She?s much better than Emerald Dragon. I need to be caref- as the thought flickered across her mind, Yellow Jacket attacked with surprising speed and agility. Her sword flashed across Liz? face, and she barely got her own sword up in time to parry it, but no sooner had she done that than her opponent took a step in and the amber blade in front of her darted in to stab at her belly. Liz brought her holoblade downward, pushing it away, but Yellow Jacket was now right next to her, and kicked at her right knee. Liz stmbled away in pain and surprise, and while she was concentrating on distancing herself from her opponent and not falling down, Yellow Jacket loosed from her left hand one of her darts. Liz rolled to the right to avoid the streak of light that sped toward her, but not fast enough; the entire room briefly flashed yellow and the tone sounded, emanating from the speakers. As she stood up, she saw that Yellow Jacket was now looking down on her slightly and grinning.
She looked at her left shoulder and saw a pale, pulsing yellow glowing spot. Crap.

The audience?s reaction was mixed; cheers from Yellow Jacket?s supporters clashed with boos from Azure Avenger?s fanbase, but Liz wasn?t even listening. Liz backed up slowly, watching her opponent for opportunities to attack. Yellow Jacket advanced steadily but cautiously, already picking another marble from her belt. When she attacked this time, Liz was expecting it, and parried her attacks away from her, not allowing Yellow Jacket to get in a position to hit her again. Suddenly, she overextended her arm slightly on a swing towards Liz? head, and Liz saw an opening in her defences! She moved in, aiming her holoblade for the vulnerable spot, but gasped as Yellow Jacket moved into the attack instead of away, as she had been expecting. Suddenly, they were right next to each other again, and Yellow Jacket shoulder-checked Liz backwards with all of her weight. Liz, having lost a few centimetres, was now lighter and she stumbled backwards. She struggled not to fall, and extended an arm to help her keep her balance, and accidentally touched the clear barrier. She looked up in horror. Oh no! I misjudged the distance to the edge of the ring! A ripple of amber passed around the barrier from the point where she had touched it with her hand, and she felt herself shrink again. She looked up at her foe and saw that she now only reached Yellow Jacket?s shoulders.

This is not going well. She was finding it harder to ignore the reactions of the audience now, as she dodged Yellow Jacket?s attacks. She maintained her defensive stance, striking only in counter-attacks, when she suddenly realised something. She?s slow! I?m small enough now that I?m faster than she is. I just need to use my speed to my advantage!
Indeed, Yellow Jacket?s attacks seemed to be easier to avoid now than they had been at the beginning of the fight. Liz watched her carefully, looked for patterns in her attacks that she could exploit. So long as she was sped up, she could keep up this defensive fighting for a while. That wasn?t necessary, though, as Yellow Jacket began to get impatient. The fans were getting restless, and Yellow Jacket seemed to get upset from that. She redoubled her efforts to attack Liz, attacking quickly and more carelessly. She chopped downward from the right, and Liz ducked under the swing. With her increased speed, she knew that Yellow Jacket wouldn?t have enough time to properly bring her weapon back to a defensive position, so she stabbed forward, pushing her holoblade directly into her foe?s stomach, then rolled forward and to the right, scoring another hit on her arm as she dove. As she was distancing herself, she threw a dart behind her blindly to keep her opponent from pursuing her until she had a chance to right herself. The dart didn?t hit, but the lights in the arena glared a brilliant blue and then, immediately after, another, fainter pulse. The tone sounded twice in succession, and Liz looked back to find her opponent. She had dodged the dart without much trouble, but Liz had scored one major strike on her and a follow up, which was enough to shrink her until the top of her head was level with Liz? chin.

Liz watched her blade as it shrank slightly, according itself to the size of the biggest fighter. Yellow Jacket, clearly displeased with this turn of events, charged in, now, in turn, faster than Liz. As she approached, she threw a dart, aiming slightly towards the right, then stepped to the left to attack. Liz parried her attack but stepped backwards to attack, moving directly into the path of the dart. She saw the bright yellow glow of the stadium lights, and tried her best to maintain her attack as she felt herself shrink. Her foe hadn?t expected this counter attack, and wasn?t able to block it in time; the holoblade passed through her shoulder, causing her to drop significantly, until she was no taller than Liz? breasts.
The lights flashed yellow and blue in rapid succession, and the tone twice more sounded out over the crowd. Disoriented and starting to lose her breath, Yellow Jacket backed up. She checked behind her to gauge the distance to the edge of the ring, but when she turned back, saw a streak of blue light directly in front of her. She felt the tiny marble strike her in the forehead, but when the lights turned blue, they stayed blue. She raised her weapon, and noticed that her blade had blinked out. She realised that Liz had aimed her shot perfectly, and brought her down until she was level with her hips. With Liz? reduced stature, however, that meant that Yellow Jacket was at a third of her former size. The match was over. Azure Avenger was going to move on to the next bracket.