"And how did you come down to that conclusion?" Garron inquired, pushing himself up off the ground and crossing his arms.
"It's simple, really. I looked at your movements before and after you used your magic, the sudden shift in your momentum always happening after you tipped your heel. It was interesting, the way that you would always stagger your limbs, right before your body twisted or coiled with intense precision."
Revian looked down to where Garron's feet were, pointing to the way his toes were lifted off the ground out of habit.
"You see? I could differentiate between when you were and weren't going to use your magic based off of when you tried to diminish contact with the ground as much as humanly possible. That got me thinking, what mechanics would force you to decrease the area that your feet covered?"
Revian was walking forward towards Garron , his index finger and thumb squeezing his chin.
Garron's fists were clenched, his eyebrows falling down to express his discomfort with Revian being in such close proximity.
Responsively, Revian held his hands out, signaling him to calm down.
Standing just a few feet from him now, his feet slowly gripped free of gravity's control, lifting off above him with no apparent haste.
"It's funny; with my float, I'm able to break the tethers tying me down to the ground, but at the cost of having no control while in the air. It's an effectively useless ability for combat, its utilities found only in deactivation in the midst of usage. But you? Your drawback is far worse--far more lethal."
Garron's face relaxed, his mouth forming a firm yet hesitant smile as if to alleviate the pangs of regret in his heart for reasons unknown to Revian.
"You can't use your magic over large areas, can you? And you certainly can't use it on other people, yes?"
Garron's bravado shone just as bright, although it remained just that--bravado.
"And if it is?"
"Then you are effectively balancing yourself on tacks and nails each time you apply your magic in the manner that you do."
"Go on."
"It's rather simple a concept, one that doesn't require extensive knowledge of physics. Moment of inertia is proportional to radius--the greater the distance, the harder it is to apply rotational translation. You've gotten around this, though, and rather tactfully might I add. You apply your magic over small areas, so small that it must be measured in millimeters, perhaps even micrometers considering your magic's assessed weakness."
"And how would that prove your point?" Garron asked, his head resting on a balled fist as if he found entertainment in Revian's words.
"To begin with, balancing yourself on one foot in the middle of combat would already be foretelling of your imminent doom, but to then do that while having your other leg clashing against your opponent in a kick, and additionally apply intense rotational force to propel yourself? Quite frankly, it's a miracle you could do all of that on the fly--hey, what's up with that smile?"
Garron's expression was now a fully authentic beam of happiness, the red of his gums poking out.
"Well, it's just, brother, I haven't seen you talk this much." He said, patting his shoulder. "But you're correct in that I have to effectively balance myself on a single point of contact. It's a slippery slope, that one."
He stretched his arms out, more lax than he had been the whole fight.
"Do you wish to know how I did it?"
Thwam!
Suddenly, Garron had attached his hand to Revian's floating leg, pummeling him repeatedly onto the ground below, cracks formulating with each loaded strike.
"With. Pure. Hard. Work!" He grunted, each breath laced with another impact.
Revian was coughing--no, puking blood from the intense bout, refusing to deactivate float out of fear that Garron's assault would grow in strength with the addition of gravity.
Garron tossed Revian away, discarding him like a cigarette burnt beyond its use.
"That's... dirty..." He groaned, his wheezes accompanied with mixtures of phlegm and blood.
"All is fair in the name of fighting and war!" Garron yelled, Revian closing his eyes and laughing bitterly in the irony of his misremembering the quote.
Revian's pain was a veil to his thoughts, struggling to return to his feet as Garron rushed him.
It's understandable that he could've learned to balance his body on such thin a surface area, but what's really risky is twisting his joints the way he does. Moving your body faster and stronger than it's built to be capable of is one thing, but he's finding the weakest points in his body and applying as much force as possible. Even for one as strong him, it's dangerous. It's like firing a cannonball through a cracked barrel--inevitably, something gives.
Rolling along his back to swerve Garron's fist, Revian grit through the pain and wriggled himself off the ground, observing his movements.
Copying his technique won't work again--all it does is even the scales between him and I. No, I need something else. Something more--
Fwip!
A kick to the face missing him by a hair, Revian watched carefully for any sudden movements in his back foot, his knee jolting by centimeters while his foot was elevated.
Using the small opening, Revian sent a quick jab towards Garron's chest, but Garron hadn't even bothered to react to this, his raised foot coming down to deflect the reached arm before it'd even begun its movements.
Ah, The Lion's Eyes.
Succumbing to his fate, Revian's arm threw back behind him from the force of Garron's kick, time slowed through heightened awareness but his body moving in slow-motion.
I can't avoid this one.
Garron's height grew an inch or two as his foot tilted, his knee folding with the expectation of sudden movement.
Crack!
Revian's chest crackled at the full brunt of Garron's magic-amplified kick, the force behind the attack fully unguarded against and his bones already weakened with previous impact.
"Grrahhhh!" He yelled, pangs of a thousand deaths drowning out his calm.