The Adventures of Soap Boy

Part 12 The Assault

As I charged into the fray, I saw Aguante take up a fighting stance. With every step I took, I cursed myself. How could I have not seen this coming? I never once thought about what would happen if an innocent person came down our path. I was so proud of my plan, but it had such an obvious hole. Of course, I had no time to tell the men to call off the assault, so they cut the ropes holding the net. That lead to me charging in myself to get the girl out of harm's way.

As I drew in close, I was forced to dodge a blow from Aguante. Luckily, I was right at the edge of his reach, so I slipped by just fine. I braced myself, and slammed my shoulder into the gut of the girl. I picked her up and kept running, but I didn't make it far. Only continuing for about five meters before I fell over from her weight throwing me off balance. Aguante turned to chase me, but the net hit the ground at the same time I did.

Just as planned, the men closest to the net came out of hiding and twisted it up. They then started fishing in their packs for stakes as Aguante began to thrash about. I got up and started to help the men to stake down the edges of the net. As I did so, I saw the girl run and hide behind a tree out of the corner of my eye. Though, she couldn't hold my attention once I saw Aguante. He was beginning to grow slowly. But how?

It was then that I remembered. According to Aspis, most of Aguante's growth in their fight was from self inflicted wounds. Specifically, harm he did to himself by striking Aspis' shields. It seemed the same went for the nets. Anything we used to attack him could be used by him to grow, so long as he hurt himself on it. In this case, he was thrashing about in the net to suffer rope burns, joint pains, and bruises.

"Drop the second net!" I called out. Within seconds, another net fell overtop the first. The men spun this one clockwise, counter to the first net, and began staking it down as well. Something felt a little different this time, though. It only took me a second to realize what. Aguante was staring directly at me. He had been since I called for the second net.

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It was that boy. He was the one calling the shots. He had even called for the second net in response to Aguante's growth, which was only just starting. This was great.

Two real opponents only two days apart. It was a dream come true for Aguante. Not since his days in the ring had he had such luck. And the boy had even done him the favor of getting Curandera out of the way for their battle.

Aguante thrashed some more, feeling the thrill far stronger than it had been, and he could finally feel them coming in. Claws formed at the tips of his fingers. Claws that he could use to cut rope. He got to work on his bindings.

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As predicted, Aguante was using his natural blades to cut the ropes. Of course, that was what the second net was for. It had steel cable running through the insides of each line. But something was wrong. Either Aguante was incredibly lucky and all of the ropes he tried to cut were normal, or his claws could cut steel.

Assuming the latter, I moved on to phase three. After calling out a few signals, the men and I closed in on Aguante's position. We wrapped a series of ropes around him, and began to run in circles to tie him up tight. Once he was bound, a tall man walked up close and pulled a large sack over Aguante's head and down to his ankles. We synched the sack shut, and tied a few more ropes around it for good measure. By not giving Aguante any room to move, perhaps we would remove his ability to self harm.

Of course, the plan began to fall through immediately. The sack grew tighter and tighter as Aguante grew, and soon, spikes started to protrude from it. Before it was too late, we tied the ends of all of our ropes to the surrounding trees. Many of the men backed off, and I also took a few steps back. The sack started to come apart at the seams, and the sounds of ropes snapping could be heard from within.