SSS Talent: From Trash to Tyrant

Caelvyrn stepped out onto the open black ground and rolled his shoulders, still wearing the human form Trafalgar knew best. Tall, broad, irritatingly handsome in the way old dragons apparently had every right to be, and far too pleased with himself now that something interesting had finally appeared.

”You asked for this,” he said, flexing his fingers once. ”So don’t complain afterward.”

Trafalgar walked out after him, still damp from the pool, while Rhosyn remained near the furniture with her arms resting loosely over her knees. Dravok had returned sometime during the exchange, emerging from the dark without announcement, and now stood beside her with his arms folded.

Neither looked remotely concerned about what was about to happen.

That probably should have worried Trafalgar more than it did.

He raised one hand. Dark motes gathered above his palm and folded inward, thickening until Maledicta appeared and dropped into his grip with its familiar weight. The Legendary blade settled into his hand like it had never left, black steel drinking what little light existed in the dimension.

Caelvyrn looked at the sword, then back at him. ”No weapon for me.”

”Confident.”

”I’m an ancient dragon.”

”Right. I forgot you mention that every ten minutes.”

Caelvyrn’s grin widened. ”Come find out why.”

Trafalgar moved first.

He drove mana down into his legs and reached for the structure of [Godstep]. Mana into the muscles, every part firing together, the burst coming before ordinary movement could ever begin.

It fired badly.

His right leg went a fraction before his left and threw the entire line sideways instead of forward. Trafalgar appeared almost three metres from where he’d intended, shoulder already turning because his body had learned over the last several days that a failed step was usually followed by an embarrassing meeting with the ground.

He saved his balance this time.

Caelvyrn’s fist buried itself in his stomach before he could enjoy the achievement.

The blow folded Trafalgar around it and lifted him clean off his feet. Air tore from his lungs as he flew backward, hit the black ground shoulder-first, and rolled hard enough for Maledicta to carve a long scar beside him before he finally stopped.

”That,” Caelvyrn said, strolling after him, ”wouldn’t have landed if you’d moved normally.”

Trafalgar coughed and pushed himself upright, one hand briefly pressing against his stomach. ”I noticed.”

”Again then.”

Trafalgar showed his teeth and came forward properly this time.

[Morgain’s Linebreaker].

Black mana wrapped Maledicta as he drove directly into Caelvyrn, the cutting force gathering ahead of its point. There was enough power behind the rush to tear through armour and keep travelling through whatever unfortunate bastard happened to be wearing it.

Caelvyrn simply raised one arm.

Maledicta struck his forearm, and dark scales burst across the skin an instant before impact. They spread from wrist to elbow in overlapping plates, almost black beneath the dim light, and the Legendary blade screamed against them.

Then it stopped.

Trafalgar’s eyes narrowed. ’That’s just his skin.’

He had felt no skill activate. [Sword Insight] found nothing to catch because there was nothing there beyond Caelvyrn deciding that the part of his body Trafalgar wanted to cut would be covered in dragon scales instead.

Then Caelvyrn backhanded him.

Trafalgar ducked most of it, but the knuckles still clipped his temple and sent him staggering sideways. Warm blood immediately ran down the side of his face, and Caelvyrn gave him no time to properly register it.

Trafalgar tried [Godstep] again.

The mana reached both legs more cleanly this time. For half a heartbeat, it almost worked, until his left calf contracted too hard and his body launched forward faster than his balance could follow.

Caelvyrn turned one shoulder aside as Trafalgar shot past him, then caught him by the back of his coat.

”Wrong way.”

He slammed Trafalgar into the ground.

The black surface cracked beneath his shoulder, pain punching through his back as Maledicta scraped uselessly beside him. Rhosyn watched from near the pool and didn’t move, while Dravok showed even less interest in saving him.

Trafalgar lay there for one breath.

’They’re really going to let him beat this into me.’

Fine. He’d agreed to it.

He twisted beneath Caelvyrn’s grip and brought Maledicta upward, flowing immediately into [Morgain’s Requiem]. One slash became another, then another, curved black arcs tearing through the air as Trafalgar forced Caelvyrn to move with the sword-dance building around him.

Caelvyrn barely retreated.

Wherever Maledicta reached, scales followed. They appeared across his ribs, along one shoulder, over his thigh, never covering more of his body than necessary and always arriving exactly where the blade was about to land.

Trafalgar reversed the final cut and aimed for his neck.

Scales climbed the side of Caelvyrn’s throat.

Maledicta struck with a metallic shriek and bounced away.

Caelvyrn caught Trafalgar across the face with an open palm, snapping his head sideways hard enough for blood to spray from his mouth. Trafalgar stumbled back two steps and spat red onto the black ground.

”Too obvious,” Caelvyrn said.

”You sound like Dravok.”

”Don’t insult me.”

”That wasn’t an insult.”

”It was to me.”

Trafalgar fired [Godstep] again.

Four metres.

Almost clean.

He appeared on Caelvyrn’s blind side with his balance mostly intact and brought Maledicta down toward the dragon’s shoulder with both hands. For the first time, Caelvyrn had to turn sharply, scales flashing into existence under the edge only a heartbeat before it landed.

The impact pushed him half a step.

Caelvyrn looked down at his own foot, then slowly back at Trafalgar. ”Oh. Maybe you’re finally getting somewhere.”

His hands changed.

The fingers remained human, but the nails lengthened into dark hooked claws, hard enough that Trafalgar heard them scrape together when Caelvyrn flexed once.

Rhosyn sighed from the side. ”Don’t take an arm.”

”I wasn’t going to.”

”But you were thinking about it.”

Caelvyrn didn’t bother denying that.

He came forward.

Trafalgar barely got Maledicta between them before the first strike landed. Caelvyrn knocked the sword aside with one scaled forearm, then raked the claws of his other hand across Trafalgar’s chest.

They tore through cloth first.

Then skin.

Trafalgar’s Primordial flesh resisted far better than any human body could have. The claws didn’t sink deep enough to open him to the bone, but four red lines ripped across his chest and blood immediately soaked into what remained of his shirt.

He hissed and drove an elbow toward Caelvyrn’s jaw.

The dragon let it hit.

Trafalgar might as well have elbowed a wall, and Caelvyrn answered by driving a knee into his ribs. Something cracked under the impact, forcing Trafalgar back with one arm instinctively tightening against his side.

’Probably one rib.’

Maybe two.

He’d find out later. The pool existed for a reason.

”Again,” Dravok said from the edge of the training ground. ”Don’t retreat into what you already know because the new thing hurts. Use it.”

Trafalgar glanced toward him, but the old Primordial’s face remained flat and unmoved. Caelvyrn rolled his neck in front of him, looking irritatingly pleased with the advice.

”Listen to the old man.”

”I hate when both of you agree.”

Trafalgar lowered his stance and pushed mana into his body again.

He fired [Godstep].

Wrong.

Caelvyrn’s fist caught his jaw before he could recover.

Trafalgar tried again, pushed too much mana through the burst, and arrived with his right thigh already locking beneath him. Caelvyrn’s claws opened his shoulder before Maledicta could come around.

Again.

This one was faster.

Trafalgar vanished almost perfectly, only to reappear too close and nearly collide chest-first with Caelvyrn. The dragon caught him by the throat before his boots had properly settled and threw him across the training ground.

Trafalgar hit hard, rolled twice, and forced himself upright.

Blood ran from his chest, shoulder, mouth, and temple. His clothes hung open in strips, his ribs hurt with every breath, and his whole body had reached that ugly point where pain stopped arriving from individual places and simply became part of existing.

Still, neither Rhosyn nor Dravok came toward him.

Caelvyrn waited while Trafalgar reset himself, and the grin he’d worn at the beginning of the fight had finally disappeared. There was something else in its place now, a sharper interest that Trafalgar preferred far more.

”You’re close,” Caelvyrn said.

”I know.”

”Do you?”

Trafalgar ignored him and tightened his grip on Maledicta.

He could feel it.

Every failure had been different because his body had been changing beneath each attempt. Too early. Too late. One leg firing before the other. Too much mana pushed through one side, too little through another.

But the last few had changed something.

The pathways were there now. His muscles knew what he was asking of them, his body knew the violence of the acceleration, and the technique itself no longer felt foreign.

The failure was him.

Caelvyrn came at him.

Fast.

Far faster than before.

Every instinct Trafalgar had screamed at him to dodge normally, to trust the movement that had kept him alive through more fights than he cared to count.

He refused.

Mana flooded his legs.

Then his hips.

His core tightened with them, his back and shoulders joining the movement as the whole body connected into a single mechanism instead of a collection of muscles trying to fire at once.

Caelvyrn’s claws reached for his face.

Trafalgar fired.

For one impossible fraction of a second, the world seemed to disappear beneath his feet.

Then his boots struck black ground.

Five metres away.

His balance was perfect, Maledicta already raised in his hand, his body sitting exactly where he’d told it to go.

And before Trafalgar could even turn toward Caelvyrn, a familiar sound rang inside his head.

[You have learned a skill: Godstep]

One today, I’m traveling and don’t have internet conection :c