Cohost writing prompt: @Making-Up-Adventurers — Warrior who can never keep their "don't bring x to a y-fight" expressions straight, and so has a sword, a knife, a firearm, and a few secret other things just in case
"Well, here we are," the berserker says evenly. "You and I. Mano a mano. A fair fight for the future of the City of Frosted Petals, just as you asked."
The masked figure, standing in the middle of the deserted courtyard, gives a mocking little bow.
"So what's your weapon, Man of No Face?" The berserker flexes his hands. "I am fair with a long sword, or the slashing spear. Deadly with an axe. The weapons of the arena are decadent toys, but I will make a showing with the trident or clawed gauntlets, even the weighted rope. I am a hunter of men, Man of No Face. If need be I will wrench the life from your flesh with only the force of my limbs. Many others have made the mistake of laughing; haha, they say, here comes a man from the wild woods, fit only to beat us with clubs and simple fury! and have died with their laughs in their mouths. I do not bring a stick to a steel fight, Man of No Face; I am the fight."
The masked man's shoulders shake, and he laughs and laughs and wrenches the covering from his head.
"It is I!" he crows, revealed. "And you die, man of weapons, violent simpleton to the last — for I am Nabjak the Vile, and you bring only force of arms to a wizard fight!"
"Oh," the barbarian says. "Cheating," and he tucks his thumbs in his belt and looks down and to the side and says glumly, as if to himself and not to Nabjak at all, "I hate you."
Nabkaj is starting up to cackle some more when the barbarian distorts and blossoms and bursts along a dozen eye-searing axes, an unfurling kaleidoscope of flesh and bent space and Was Not Meant To Know, from the centre of which a shoe drops, followed by the squirm of a shapely leg, and then the entire length of Malia wriggles out of nowhere onto the cold flagstones, toes her shoe back on, and smooths her robe and hair while the barbarian folds sickening back down into a normal object in space behind her.
"I don't like that!" he says plaintively.
"...There's a ward!" Nabjak sputters. "One on one! It enforces it!"
"There was only one of him," Malia says. "—On the outside. Unfortunately for you, he came to this wizard fight armed with a wizard."
"Oh, piss," says Nabjak the Vile, making the well-known sign that presages a fireball, and Malia smiles with many teeth.