Escanor vs Sentry

The Arena

Escanor accepted the challenge on one condition: the fight would begin at noon. Robert Reynolds, the Sentry, a man with the power of a million exploding suns and a crippling fear of his own darker self, agreed without argument. He did not want to fight at all, but the shining man in front of him spoke of pride, and the Sentry’s pride was a problem he understood.

At exactly noon, Escanor stood on a sunlit plain, enormous and gleaming, his giant axe resting on one shoulder. “Who decided that you could stand before me?” he asked. Sentry floated quietly above the grass. “Nobody did,” he said. “That’s rather the point.”

Round One

Escanor attacked first with Cruel Sun, a miniature star hurled from his palm that turned the plain into molten glass. Sentry flew through it, his body glowing golden, and emerged untouched. Escanor raised an eyebrow. Nobody had ever walked out of his sun.

Sentry hit him once, and Escanor flew backwards across the plain, his axe digging a trench a kilometre long. He rose, smiling with his trademark arrogance, and charged. At noon, his strength is overwhelming, and his next blow drove Sentry down into the earth so hard the plain split in two.

The Turn

Escanor unleashed The One, his power at its absolute peak, at the exact moment of noon. His body blazed like a star, his strength beyond anything his world had ever known. For a single minute he was the strongest being in his entire universe.

But the Sentry has stood against cosmic threats and gods, and his power does not depend on the time of day. He matched Escanor blow for blow, absorbing The One’s fury, and slowly, steadily, pushed him back. When the sun began to slip past noon, Escanor felt his strength start to fade.

The Finish

Escanor knew what would happen next, and refused to show it. He gathered the last of his peak into a final strike with his axe, Rhitta, a blow that could cleave a mountain. Sentry caught the axe in one hand.

He did not crush Escanor. He simply held him there, glowing, until the shining man’s strength slipped away with the afternoon and he shrank back into the small, timid innkeeper he becomes when the sun goes down. The axe was suddenly too heavy for him to lift.

Escanor sat on the scorched grass, adjusting his glasses with shaking hands. “I... I lost?” Sentry knelt beside him. “You were magnificent,” he said gently. “I just have a very big sun of my own.” They went back to Escanor’s inn, and Sentry ate for the first time in days.