I slip my runed focus gloves on and take off my vest and jacket, placing them in the warded seating area. The two boys I've attempted to foster forth growth from, are chatting in the opposite corner of the training room. Neither of them seemed to have a care in the world. I found it hard to measure the appropriate response for this behavior. Surely, they've both been through many trials and tribulations at this point of their journey as artists, but to so confidently disregard a formal skirmish with your mentor, who just a hair over a month ago would thrash both of you at once without even a hint of difficulty. I am truly at a loss as whether to be filled with contempt or anticipation for their upcoming performance.

"Ready whenever you are, gentlemen!" I begin to hop in place. As the saying goes, motion is lotion for older joints like these.

The two of them look back at me, share a laugh and a high five. The morale is at an all-time high today. I suppose a reunion from beyond the grave will do that for a pair of allies. I eye Tyson carefully as he full commits to walking into the warded seating area and sits down kicking his feet up. He truly intends to have Wyatt try this on his own? Interesting. I decide to keep an eye on him all the same, lest this be a repeat of their previous bouts with me.

"Give that geezer the business, Thompson!" Tyson cheered, looking much too relaxed for my liking.

Wyatt taps his belt in response, activating one of his trademark recall runes. "I'll keep it short and sweet, don't want to pull out all of my new tricks yet anyway." A mixture of his usual sage green magis sparks within his palm with traces of a smokey violet energy intertwined. The two forces merge and a focus that I've yet to lay my eyes on appears in the young man's right palm. It is slightly larger than his standard casters, but not quite as bulky as the rust-colored one, he used once before to try to blow me away. I'll have to be on guard until I learn of its function. Upon closer inspection, the casting focus resembles the head of some sort of beast. The detailing of the focus' frame ignites as Wyatt shoots a volley of bolts in my direction. Although I counted three simultaneous bolts manifesting and being fired, their threat level as projectiles seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary. A quick sidestep had me out of the way, and upon further inspection there was no lasting damage to the warded floors of the room. No matter, I'll start by showing the boy a lesson he should have learned by now. In a real fight, one has no time for such experimenta-

A light humming grew frightfully deafening in a mere moment, and I reflexively gated myself 15 feet above where I had previously been standing. Dashing past that point of reference was the young master, with the most unhinged expression I'd ever seen on his face. In his left hand he sported a focus that resembled a sword hilt, held in reverse grip with a blade of force magis extended to roughly 2 feet in length.

"Tsk. almost had you there, Travers. I hope you're taking this as seriously as I am!"

He begins to fire more arrays of bolts, still fairly easy to dodge. The jarring part is this unbridled aggression, he is pursuing me every which way I move instead of manipulating the distance between us like before. I'll have to put this new martial confidence in check. I lunge towards him and aim to disarm him and send a reserve of discplacement-magis into his system. This should end things before I lose control of the situation. As I close what little distance there was, Wyatt locks eyes with me. His right eye resembles that of a beast's and is overflowing with a foreign presence. Possession? I'd never thought him this desperate. But I will set him straight as soon as this connects. I throw all of my weight into a heavy blow towards his center mass-

*PSHHH*

* * *

The sound of Traver's meaty hook smashing into my shield construct instead of my sternum sent waves of relief and satisfaction through my whole system. It was like getting a second wind when I hadn't even lost my first.

Well done my valued steward. Now let us, as they say, "bring this home!"

I honestly thought it would take me longer than just a week to get used to my link with Elbry, I definitely didn't expect to be able to use it effictively in combat yet. But with his help, it feels like I've jumped years ahead of my prior curve. Now that I understand the nature of my magis, I don't have the issue of bogging up my neurons by flooding them with energy. Even better, I can think faster and clearer than I ever have before, my body is almost moving as fast as my thoughts! It's like I've got a new lease on life and I can use it to fight the way I've always wanted to.

Travers throws a few more strikes at the shield construct that has him boxed in, and the definition of the forcefield is starting to fade. I've got a few more seconds, tops to shut him down from here. I begin to frantically fire more bolts all around the room, spacing them out generously until there's not many viable options for Travers to move anywhere once the shield is down. It all comes down to the next few exchanges.

A power-packed uppercut breaks through the remainder of the energy stores of the shield bubble, and I fire a quick barrage of bolts out of my caster modeled after Elbry's ugly mug, tweaking the ratio of force to psychic magis allowing for drastic increase in speed. My heart races as I watch the bolts fly past the shards of the construct, and I can see Travers' making the call practically in slow motion. His eyes dart all around, looking for somewhere to warp to, but he doesn't have any options. This whole room is full of floating psych-bolts. I just need to tag him once and he's all mine. I catch the moment he stops considering his dwindling options and braces his body with magis, before striking each bolt with a lightning-fast jab. I suck my teeth and brace myself for a rush, that after a few breaths still hadn't come.

Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

Keep his hands busy, you're always in range for him. Don't let him make you feel safe.

If Tyson was someone to trust, and he is. Something's coming.

I send a battery of the floating bolts I had at the ready straight to him and charge at him instead of waiting around. As the bolts get closer, I can feel a disturbance in the magis surrounding both of us and slide following my instincts. The air where my head was boomed after a fist peeked through a green gate and pistoned through before disappearing.

Ohhh that was supposed to put me to sleep.

My body clenched at the thought of taking a blow like that to the head. Based on how quiet Elbry was being, I'm guessing he was considering what kind of feedback that may or may not have caused him. It's time to lock in. I can't overpower Travers, that's always been obvious. But I'll be damned if I'm not leagues smarter than this fossil. I bring the rest of the bolts down with him the center. This had to be roughly 60% of my reserves, but it's rare to get a good win without a little investment. I dial in all of my senses to the moment the bolts should be making contact with their target as I also dive straight to the mass of energy. By just a hair, Travers' presence left the space at the moment of convergence. I desperately reach out towards the mass with my new focus and engage the long barrel of it, as Elbry liked to call it, the maw.

A dense body of magis blipped into existence behind me, causing my hair to stand on end. If I hadn't anticipated this, if he hadn't literally done this shit to me before, I'd be taking a bash to the back of my skull and waking up on the floor in an hour or so with a migraine. I blind fire a volley of psych-bolts behind me and plunge the maw into the energy mass, siphoning it until the focus is at capacity and turn it to face my target for the last time.

* * *

There were certainly improvements, and the speed of his movement and decision making were like night and day from his previous showings. However, the young man once again fell into the trap of thinking that he had me cornered. As the foggy mass of violet-green magis attempts to converge on me, I execute a well-times gate in order to avoid learning first-hand what the effects of contact would be. As I jump through to land a haymaker to the back of my quarry's skull, I'm greeted with a volley of minor bolts that are mostly absorbed by the magis cycling through my body used to maintain high speed movement. I follow through with my strike, however, instead of the morbidly satisfying feedback provided by bone-on-bone collision, I'm met with no sensation outside of my fist passing through the air ahead of me. The visage of Wyatt that I attempted to strike, divides and warps after my attack phases past it. After a moment my eyes refocus and I am met with the harrowing visual of Wyatt's new focus, having opened a new compartment resembling a dragon's jaws. The focus is brimming with magis, excess can be seen wafting out of the would-be eye sockets with a dense aura. I attempt to gate away, but my senses are still out of sorts, and I am unable to properly shift my position.

A well-earned victory, Mr. Thompson.

* * *

Yo.

A deluge of magis completely envelopes Hank, and sends Wyatt crashing into the ground, using all of his strength to hold his casting focus upright and keep the beam going.

I have to shield my eyes from it for a second, and when everything is cleared up, Wyatt stands up, dusting off his pants and holstering his focus. Meanwhile, Hank has been blasted to the other side of the room, the wards have held up pretty well, and Hank doesn't seem super messed up. So, I can't say much for the stopping power of that move, but when I look at Hanks face, his eyes are darting all over the place and his jaw is completely slacked. He's definitely out, just not from a good old-fashioned noggin jostling.

I clap Wyatt's shoulders. "That was crazy! I knew you had some way to handle him all on your own but seeing you in action was completely different from anything I could have thought up. You gotta tell me, the moves, the gear, everything!"

Wyatt looked me up and down with a glazed-over look in his eyes and took a few seconds before responding. "I'm alive? I won? Plus, I'm not mortally wounded or concussed after a fight for once? Oh, today is a great day."

Turns out Wyatt is an even bigger geek about his arts and constructs that I thought. He had everything named, even the stuff I took for granted, and he gave me the rundown of everything that happened. All of those small floating bolts he did were a "zoning" variation of an art he called "hack shot". Hack shot focuses less on damage like his usual force bolts and instead function to mess up the target's circulation of magis in their own body by gunking it up with psychic magis and distorting their senses and perception. The neat thing about it being psychic magis based is that Wyatt has a much easier time controlling it. He can change how fast it moves or whether it moves at all on the fly. So once Hank had gotten hit with even a little of it without overpowering it using his on magis, he was pretty much on the ropes, but that didn't happen until the very end. Wyatt used his new focus he calls "D-Frag" modeled after his contracted wyvern, who I'm super stoked to meet soon, to rearrange all of the psych magis he had laid out into one concentrated shower. The direct his totally fried Travers' perception and got Wyatt the win.

Travers didn't get up for about 20 or so minutes. He described the sensation as the sickest he had ever felt. Wyatt assured that it was safer for the target than actually bashing their skull in by leaps and bounds.

All in all, I'm happy Wyatt finally got his win, but this new kit of his is kind of scary. I'm glad we probably won't be fighting again. I hope...

Once Hank could walk again, we all made our way to his office at the school, so he could finally keep his word.

Wyatt took a long sip of coffee before breathing in deep and exhaling.

"Okay Travers' so kicked your ass solo, don't spare me any details. What happened with my parents?"