Making another quick sniff, Herah smelt Rose surrounded by the faint scents of raw and cooked meat, a variety of metals, and blood. With all those smells, the artist realized Rose ended up in the academy cafeteria in her haste in getting her teacher away.
Hmm, the cafeteria tables might serve as good cover or even make-shift weapons with some flame enhancements.
Herah could also tell, by the strength of Rose’s scent, her teacher wasn’t moving. By the way her scent turned stale and felt on the edge of shifting, the artist knew Rose lied in wait with something to throw her way. Though, Herah couldn’t help but be distracted by another smell starting to boil up alongside that strange fear that never left. It was buttery and warm, like freshly popped popcorn.
Pleasure, you’re enjoying our battle, the artist thought before letting a small smile slip from her lips, Good.
Coming back to the moment, Herah shook her head, walked out of the flight shaft, and began the complex process of decreasing her fire's temperature within her chest, increasing its temperature within her fist, and changing the temperature of her flame as it traveled from her chest to her fist. Doing all three of these things weren’t too hard separate, each process instinctual for nearly all Cendreux. Doing them at the same time, however, felt like trying to move one hand vertically and the other horizontally at the same time. Luckily in the artist’s case, such a process was like breathing due to her mastery of her own fire.
By the time Herah reached the hole Rose flew through, her flame shroud had reignited, green once more and ready for anything Rose threw at it.
The artist, however, wasn’t prepared to step in front of Rose’s hole and become flattened against a flying iron table.
Knocked into the air and vision filled only with metal, Herah didn’t see Rose as the teacher blasted another hole through the wall and circled around to position herself right behind the artist.
Herah did feel Rose’s leg as it slammed into her hip and launched her down the hallway, table along for the ride.
Jolted thanks to the kick, the artist peeled herself off of the table and with a turn of one hand, flipped it midair so the thick wedge running along the bottom of the table’s length pointed towards the floor.
Landing on top of the table, Herah unfurled her wings again and swung them upwards.
The force of the motion sent both herself and the table down hard, the wedge of the table tearing into and through the steel floor with sparks filling the air as it grinded down the hallway.
Turning around to face her teacher, the artist saw Rose flying through the air, zoning in with a grin.
One thought, and Herah’s fire shroud condensed around her left hand, focusing specifically around her claws once more.
Pulling her arm back and over her head, the artist took in both Rose’s scent and sight, planning out her pattern of attack.
With one blink, Herah smelled and saw everything needed.
Information gathered, the artist clawed at the air six times. Every swipe resulted in five blades of green flames cutting through the air towards Rose, with every subsequent attack timed differently than the one that came before.
Rose tucked her wings and spiraled through the air, flying through the gaps of every fire blade and towards Herah.
Once on top of the artist, Rose flourished her wings and spun into a back-flip, lashing out with a leg straight for Herah’s head.
The artist snapped her body back, bending till her head nearly touched the table beneath. Rose’s foot sailed just a centimeter past Herah’s nose as the teacher overtook the artist.
Popping back up and turning around, Herah watched Rose flip and touch down on the floor. Sparks leaped from the teacher’s toes, the scales covering them and her claws scraping against the steel of the floor while sliding ahead.
The pair made eye contact for less than a second, Rose still grinning while the artist frowned before noticing a shift in her teacher’s scent.
Fuck!
Herah leaped into the air as Rose stabbed her two-ertèmasstick halfway into the floor, abruptly halting her movement and turning her body into an unmovable pillar.
The table serving as the artist’s impromptu rode smashed into Rose, crumpling like paper as it wrapped around her body.
Flipping over and past her teacher, Herah reached out with her left hand and gave a mental command.
A claw of green flames larger than Rose exploded from the artist’s palm and engulfed both Rose and the table.
The iron melted on contact, covering every inch of the teacher in molten metal.
With another thought, Herah’s fire cooled, rapidly shifting from green to yellow to orange to red. And as soon as it turned red, the liquid metal solidified and encased Rose in an iron mold of herself.
There’s my chance!
One swing of her wings halted the artist’s momentum. Another swing sent Herah shooting towards Rose while rearing her right arm back.
However, a sudden shift in her teacher's scent caused the artist to swerve left last second.
Just in time too as Rose exploded out from her iron prison slashing up with her two-ertèmasstick. Shrapnel shredded through the surrounding floor and walls.
BOOM!
Sound caught up once more as Herah tore through a pair of sliding double steel doors and skipped across a floor of black and grey ash. As the artist bounced, much of the ash scattered to the air in the wake of a sonic boom washing over the immense room. The wave of force rippled out till it struck the brick walls of the room, leaving not a scratch as the Theory marking them absorbed it all.
Flipping head over heel, Herah caught herself and skidded to a standing stop as her back bumped the rear and windowed wall of the room.
Shaking her head, the artist rose to her feet and waved her wings to disperse the thick cloud of ash starting to choke the air. Vision cleared; Herah took stock of her surroundings.
From behind herself, soft, multi-colored starlight shone through thick, stained-glass windows depicting gory and glorious battles from Cendreux history going from the floor all the way to the roof. The starlight illuminated the floor of ash, reflected off the steel, pyramid-shaped ceiling over a hundred feet high, and disappeared into the brick walls on all sides, each about a hundred feet across from another.
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This was the school’s gym, the only place properly built to deal with a fight on the level of the pair.
“What the fuck?!”
Also, the place currently occupied by several other Cendreux. One, an adult silex with skin as brown as leather and scales like marble. Dressed in a sleeveless black shirt and grey shorts, the silex stood before a mix of a small handful of much younger silexas and acieras also dressed in sleeveless shirts and shorts. One silex, with skin like a rainbow, scales a matching, iridescent bismuth, and his tail limp on the ground stood across from an acier with skin and scales of a matching color and black horns curling away from her head in twin crescents. They stood both atop a platform of black rock, about a foot high and shaped into a circle.
The dueling ring.
Feu Brun is teaching currently.
“Herah.” Brun walked up to the artist with a frown, the white marble of his face shining some light into Herah’s eyes, “You can’t just barge into my gym whenever you wish. Your class is in an hour.”
“Apologies,” the artist responded, looking past the teacher and towards the wall, “Fighting Feu Rose now.”
“Wha- “
“Sorry to barge in Brun.” Rose appeared in the doorway, two-ertèmasstick resting on her shoulder and wings folded. “Herah and I are currently settling an argument.”
Brun frowned at his fellow teacher.
“You’re fighting a student, Rose?”
Rose raised a brow and growled.
“Yeah, you got something you want to say about that?”
Herah smelt Brun’s scent become dyed in fear as the silex looked away from Rose.
“I thought so.” Rose stepped into the gym and nodded towards the hole, “Clear out. We’ll be done soon. The brat’s running a little low on steam.”
At Rose’s words, the artist’s flame aura flickered then dispersed, seemingly unable to maintain itself any longer. Thanks to those two kicks combined with her charging final attack, Herah’s flame felt as weak as a lit matchstick.
Ready to blow out at any moment.
And Rose’s smirk, as students and teacher rushed by, told the artist the teacher planned to make that moment soon.
“You can’t block my hits any longer child, the next one ends this for you.”
“Easy win.” Herah said with a wide grin, feeling no less confident than before in her chances.
Rose pursed her lips and shook her head.
“Let no one ever call you a coward.”
The artist took a deep breath and felt the weakness of her flame catch up. Her arms and legs screamed, her lungs seemed desperate for air, and her heart thundered in her chest. But Herah let none of her exhaustion show, instead striding confidently up to the now vacant ring as Rose did the same.
While walking up, the artist focused on her right hand, still clenched and teeming with indigo flames ready to explode from beneath its scales. It had been hard to maintain focus on the build-up process in her last exchange, but now her final attack was ready to go.
You know I’m running low Rose, but you think that’s because of all your hits. It’s annoying you seem able to estimate my flames strength so easily, but I’ll be using that to my advantage. Lead with my left, surprise with the right. Focus the power to the size of my fist, any larger and the attack will be too weak to break through. I’m going to win this. Victory is mine!
Herah stopped three feet away from Rose, the same distance their duel had started from. Now in the ring, the artist forced a grin as Rose smirked back.
“Ready to end this, child?”
Herah took in Rose’s scent, found her weird fear present still, and finally decided to bring it up.
“Why are you afraid?”
Rose blinked, her smirk faulting then returning as the buttery smell of pleasure came to the forefront of her scent, burying for a moment the strange fear.
“I’ll answer after I win, child.”
“When I win.” the artist responded with a hiss.
Rose shook her head again before tossing her two-ertèmasstick back into her left hand-
Your dominant hand, Herah thought with sudden realization, Hadn’t even realized you weren’t using it.
Two-ertèmasstick in hand, Rose extended her arm forth only a foot before resting one of the metal ruler’s ends on the ground. Her right hand moved parallel to her left, palm extended as if waiting for any blow the artist would throw her way. The teacher spread her legs and bent her knees slightly, completing the teacher’s defensive stance.
Rose waited, her smell going stale and once again pushed against shifting. As if the teacher had an immediate counter for whatever Herah threw her way.
But you don’t.
Folding her wings back in, the artist slid her left foot forward and her right foot back, slightly bending her knees for balance. Herah raised her left hand and held it half extended towards Rose with her fingers pointed and palm towards the side for a clean stab. Her right arm sat primed at her waist, pulled back slightly for an easy follow-up to any attack from her left. Once again, the artist popped her claws, though this time no green flames covered them.
The pair stared at each other silently, Herah feeling like a rock atop a pool of lava. Comfortable, warm, and at peace.
Nothing but her plan for attack filled her thoughts.
Lead with the left, surprise with the right.
Her eyes closed as her mind imagined the winning strike again and again.
Lead with the left, surprise with the right.
One deep inhale, and her lungs swelled with both air and smoke.
Lead with the left, surprise with the right.
An exhale followed, smoke pouring from her mouth and nose in a gentle trickle.
Lead with the left, surprise with the right.
The artist opened her eyes, ready.
The fuzzy, black hand reappeared over Rose.
Come to me, Artist.
Herah flinched.
Rose’s scent shifted, and the teacher chopped at the side of the artist’s neck with her freehand.
Herah ducked, stabbing at her teacher’s exposed chest with her left-hand.
Rose twisted her left wrist, her two-ertèmasstick tearing down through the artist’s wrist.
Before gravity could pull her disconnected hand down, Herah commanded strands of red fire to shoot out from her split wrist and into her hand still wrapped around Rose’s heart.
The teacher’s eyes widened as the artist felt Rose’s heart pulse through her old hand again.
Lead with the left—
Before Herah could pull her heart out, Rose leaned back and crossed her arms over her chest.
Smiling like mad, the artist’s right arm burst into indigo flames.
—surprise with the right.
Indigo flames spewed from Herah’s elbow, launching her fist towards Rose’s chest at hypersonic speeds.
I win!
Rose’s knee snapped up, striking the artist’s wrist and knocking her attack up and into the teacher’s head.
Rose’s head exploded in a burst of gore and blood, her eyes sailing past Herah’s face as her brains and chunks of her skull splattered onto the walls and door a hundred feet behind herself.
No! the artist screamed internally, her own eyes wide at the sudden upset.
And before Herah could take any other action, Rose’s raised leg snapped up in a kick.
For a single excruciating moment, the artist’s world exploded in red and pain.
Then, her eyes saw nothing. They couldn’t as they sailed up and smacked into the ceiling.
Her ears heard nothing. They couldn’t after they spun through the air and squished against separate windows.
Her tongue tasted nothing. It couldn’t while it flopped to the ashy ground.
Her nose smelled nothing. It couldn’t because it compressed to mush then liquid then vapor in the air.
Her brain registered nothing. It couldn’t since it splattered against the wall behind her still-standing body.
Herah knew only darkness and a phantom warmth, her flame never unfelt. The warmth’s shape was reminiscent of her body. A shape the artist could pull and push even while unable to think.
Before any commands were given, Herah felt the warmth’s shape flare near the top. Something new, but familiar took form there.
The artist’s brain registered everything once more.
Her eyes snapped opened, staring up into ash filled air with shaky breaths. Her ears throbbed, picking up on the deafening beating of her own heart. Her skin felt warm and sticky, all along her back. Her nose wrinkled, choked thick with the smell of iron from the blood puddle her body laid in. Her tongue licked at the air, tasting ash all burnt and grainy.
Her senses back in focus, Herah realized her body ached and felt like frozen lead. Her flame was but a spark, the artist only knowing it still there because her body wasn’t ash. Herah could barely drag herself up to look at Rose.
The headless teacher cast a large shadow over the artist, still standing with blood dripping down from her raised leg and onto her Herah face. Her body stood deathly still, balanced unshakably on one leg, with her arms still crossed over her chest and her two-ertèmasstick clenched tightly by her left hand. That was all Rose could do without either letting her flame heal or control her body, the last kick only possible thanks to whatever intense focus the teacher had right before her head got smashed.
The artist opened her mouth and tried to breathe out fire, but only smoke escaped.
Not a hint of fire. Meaning I lost.
Herah let out a sigh and fell back into her blood puddle.
"Votre victoire, Feu Rose."
Her victory acknowledged; blue flames spewed from the stump of Rose’s neck as her head burnt back into existence. Able to move again, Rose lowered her leg and let out a breath before grinning.
“Almost had me there, Herah.”