There was a flash of light blue that erupted from Mir’s left hand. Her right hand was busy holding herself up. That blue light seemed to pulse three times before vanishing.

Suddenly, the magic circles on the rapiers grew brighter. The rapier in the sheath unsheathed itself or, to be more precise, it was popped open. The two blades were still as they lay on the sand. The sheath, however, was vibrating violently.

A gush of water poured out, like a barrel of water had been poured through a funnel and blasted through the air. It seemed to float and stream towards Rune as he followed through with the punch.

The knuckle encountered her cheek before the water hit him and sent him flying into the wall and sand dunes. Bel was knocked down, almost uninjured, and rubbed her cheek that felt a little sore. Rune had made a slight gash in the side of her cheek, but no blood was leaving her body just yet.

Mir pushed off the ground, but stumbled. She kept doing so until Bel ran over and helped her up. It seemed Rune was giving them some time to recuperate.

There was still a sand cloud in the area where Rune was sent and no sounds could be heard from that direction. They could only hear the birds cawing and each other’s heavy breathing. This fight was quickly draining their stamina.

The sand cloud seemed to dissipate and was about to completely fade away when a metal figure burst from the sand and rushed at the duo. They had their weapons at the ready, but they soon found themselves lying on their backs. Their necks hurt badly and the weapons in their hands had left their grasp.

Rune had ran right in between the two of them and gave a quick lariat to the both of them. He followed through with the attack and was now several dozen yards away and steadily approaching once again.

His armor was cracking, Mir and Bel could see that clearly, and the other one of his shoulder pads had already been broken off, the only thing left of the pads were some bits of dangling metal. However, the orange glow from that shoulder was still covered by other pieces of armor.

They could see that one section of his right arm was cracking at the elbow. It seemed that when he lariated Bel, she slammed into his arm as hard as she could before falling down. While it was an achievement to knock off both sets of shoulder pads, they were only just shoulder pads. Nothing too special about them.

Mir was able to get up quickly. She was able to regenerate most damage in exchange for some stamina. The bruise on her throat faded in a mere few seconds, but Bel was still down. She wasn’t unconscious per say, but she was clearly somewhat out of it.

Rune was about to come up upon them, he was less than a foot away and was moving slowly intentionally, and Bel was still downed. Mir had to move quickly in order to remove Bel from Rune’s path of destruction. She could think of two ways, but one was faster.

She lifted her right leg and gave Bel’s shoulder a good kick. It sent her several feet to Bel’s right and allowed Mir to use her shoulder as a kick off point to leap out of Rune’s way.

He barreled between the two of them, this time catching no one, and skidded to a halt as best he could. He was still confined to the rules of physics and sand.

“Maybe I should increase my speed…”

He kicked off with his left foot and tackled Mir in her side. She yelped in both surprise and pain as a suit of armor with machinery inside hit her at near full force.

They both tumbled into several sand dunes until Rune and Mir hit the ground. Mir was getting more and more tired as each blow to her body used up stamina to heal herself. Rune did not need stamina and got up.

He grabbed hold of her right ankle and hefted her leg. Then he spun once, then twice and sent her flying into the wall of the arena. There was a barrier surrounding the actually fighting area and Mir was smooshed against it, like a fly on a car’s window. Following the impact, she slowly slide down the arena’s barrier and fell in a heap of sand.

She was now partially covered in sand and was not getting up anytime soon.

Rune turned towards Bel who was now staggering. He took this opportunity to run at her and slide to take out her legs.

His aim was nearly perfect as one of his legs managed to make Bel fall. She fell face first into sand and looked like she was not getting up anytime soon.

“Well…”

Rune got up. He looked at the two of them and just sighed. They wouldn’t be able to take on an Irregular Dragon and seemed like they would barely last against a Hierarch Dragon. However, they were still better than the students. He hadn’t tested them yet, but he could tell by how long their fights took earlier as well as their techniques.

He started to walk towards Bel. With one hand, he reached down and dragged her to her feet via the collar. She was unconscious now and obviously couldn’t stand, so he hefted her over his right shoulder and headed over to mir who was partially stuck in the sand and barely conscious. He hefted her over his other shoulder.

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“Now, I think you two are a bit weak. You might be able to take on a Hierarch Dragon…”

Bel silently said, “Yes!”, to Mir as they were lying down in two cots that were next to one another. All three of them were in the infirmary and it seemed to have been recently restocked by Sophia who occasionally made some medicine and potions for the injured.

“... if both of you work together and that Hierarch Dragon is on the weaker side of the spectrum.”

He finished his thought and Bel said, “Oh. Dang.”, as he moved onto the next item on his list to lecture about.

“However, you two do seem much stronger than the average human...oid. I would like you two to help spar the Honor’s Class of students. Or, actually, you can spar with the regular students in the gym area. That way people can still be trained without my help.”

“Yessir.”

Mir spoke quickly. She would rather fight regular teens than fight the monstrosity of a teen she had just been done in by. She was also faring far better than Bel who was still feeling sore on her throat and side.

“Of course.”

Bel spoke. Her personality made it so that she was usually polite to someone who she was just beaten by, but that would only last less than a day. Maybe an hour or two.

“Good. Now then, go to Jared or Kelly. They should give you some of your weapons of choice. I notified them while you were getting the stamina and healing potion from Sophia earlier. When they give you your items, they will tell you what to do next. I’m off to see my wife now.”

And, with that sudden good-bye, he left. He was still wearing his armor with the shoulder pads broken and cracks all over his arms and legs. His helmet also had several small dents on it.

Immediately, Mir groaned. She was tired and hungry and in some pain, but the most important thing on her mind was money.

“I want a pay raise!!!”

There was silence after that remark, but it ended after Bel woke up. Bel had fallen asleep as soon as Rune had left. She was tired after all. Getting beaten up takes a toll on the body and mind.

Rune was actually on his way to get replacement shoulder pads for his armor before he went to see Sophia.

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Bel slowly got up from the cot with the help of Mir who was basically fine. They had stayed in the cots for a grand total of two hours and thirty minutes. In that time, Mir went to a student passing by in the hallway and “asked” him to hand over part of a sandwich.

Mir, being the kind person she was, asked Bel to hand her a silver coin for half of the sandwich. Bel readily agreed as she was quite hungry and far too weak to think properly and to understand that a sandwich would generally cost a few copper. One silver being one hundred copper.

And so, as they munched on a sandwich, they walked down the corridor to leave the school. The front entrance had a lot of students crowding around, even though school had ended, and many of them were just talking to each other and blocking the exit.

Mir took a few strides before arriving at a large teenager blocking one of the several doors at the front of the building. She picked him up and set him down a few feet from where he was earlier. It was necessarily throwing, but it wasn’t as gently as picking up and putting down.

The teen scooted back a few feet as he had fallen and couldn’t get up. His friends backed away from both Mir and Bel as well since they did not wanted to be “moved” either. Everyone else at the scene stopped talking and focused their attention on the two maids who were exiting the building.

Mir scoffed as she left since she felt like what she had done was no big deal. The person she moved, however, was not to be called light as their racial class was Dragonborn and they were known to have more muscle mass than most.

The duo quickly moved through the large, almost campus-like, area and reached Rune’s house within a few minutes. They couldn’t run due to how there were many people in the way and also due to how they did not want to ruin the walkway done with a material similar to that of a sidewalk.

Once through the main door, they started down a hall towards the lab, but were stopped in the middle of the corridor. A hand crept up on Bel’s left shoulder and another on Mir’s right. Without hesitation, they swiveled towards the source and swiped their arms not being touched downwards.

“Gah!”

Hela the Succubus yelped in both pain and delight and she fell to the floor. She was drooling slightly which caused the Vampire and Minotaur girls’ faces to twitch in disgust.

“Ah! So, I have an important message for the two of you.”

“Why are you still here?”

Bel tilted her head, deciding not to listen to her. Mir turned her eyes upwards and thoughtfully touched her chin. After a moment, Mir turned back to Hela and spoke.

“I thought you left the mansion…”

“Nope!”

Hela stuck out her tongue to try and look cute which was followed by Bel and Mir heading onwards to the lab. She quickly got up, brushed herself off, and ran to catch up to them.

“Waitwaitwait!!!”

“What!!”

In sync, the two girls turned towards her and inadvertently yelled.

“Jared and Kelly are in the dining room. Its thataway.”

She pointed the opposite direction that they were going. The dining room was actually more towards the center of the building while the lab was on the left side. The two of them sighed as they started down the hall to go to Jared and Kelly while Hela hide a grin behind a hand and disappeared into the walls.

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“Where are they?!”

Kelly whined as her head was pressed against the table cloth. Jared just sighed and pat her head.

“I mean, Rune told us they would be coming less than thirty minutes ago. We also had to take some time to move the weapons here along with the many parts so that we could meet with them for lunch.”

While Kelly couldn’t kick her legs, since she had none, she did move her snake tail in the place of them as she was a Lamia now. While she could turn into her human form with legs, she liked the feeling of “being free” since being in that other form felt constricting to her. Jared, however, was in his human form as being twice the size of an average person with four arms was more of a nuisance to him for his work.

“I know, but… twenty minutes is a loooooong time! I had to carry these…”

Without looking up, she pointed to the five separate rectangle boxes on the table. Then, as if all her energy had left her, her arm fell to the table’s surface. Sighing, she turned her head to look to the left.

A maid was walking up to the two of them with a silver tray in both hands. On that tray, there were two mugs with a large, cylindrical jug between them as well as two plates of food, one being alfredo pasta and the other being a chicken salad.

“Ah, thanks.”

“Thank you.”

Kelly’s head was still down, even after her pasta arrived, while Jared started to devour it quickly without much mess. The maid then set down the mugs and the jug with sweet ice tea inside then proceeded towards the kitchen to put away the tray.

It was then that the couple heard a squawk from down the hall. Moments later, Bel threw open the double doors and boldly strode into the room. Mir followed behind, looking at Kelly, then at Jared.

“So, I heard there was some new weapons for us. Where are they?”

Bel spoke with genuine curiosity, but it came off more like a command rather than a question. Jared then rose from his seat and moved a few feet to the left.

“Well, here is your lance. It is three yards long and one and a half feet by one and a half feet.”

Jared gestured towards the large wooden box sitting in front of him. On it, the name “Bel” was stamped on. He then proceeded to grab a crowbar which he prepared by placing in front of him and opened the box.

The lance itself was rather intricate with both its spiral body and sturdy handle. It's handle was two and a half feet long with a material that had a lot of grip and had a large lever on it akin to a motorcycle handle. The bottom of the hilt was removable and small canisters could be placed in there. Jared proceeded to explain how he developed some different crystal powders to enhance the lance's properties. The actual section used for battle was spiraled and there were some wedges missing from itself, each an inch apart. The spiral was separated into four sections with a visible line between each. The lance could extend but using the motorcycle-like handle to make the four sections extend with metal machinery between.

“So, what do you think?”

There was silence from Bel who had started to stare at it closely from several inches away. Her hand was on her chin and, even though Jared was tall, Bel was taller and thus had to hunch over more.

“It… looks… Amazing!!!!”

She hugged the weapon, cradling it like a kitten and rubbing here face on it like one.

“Ah! Careful! The chunks missing from the spiral part make the weapon serrated.”

In the meantime, Mir decided to check out her weaponry. Kelly unboxed the five wooden weapons and held one.

Immediately, the four other weapons floated into the air around her. They were rapiers and all five could float and attack in whichever pattern the user chose. Kelly pointed out how there was a small device worn on but not all around one's neck. This device allowed the wearer to move the rapiers however they wanted.

The rapiers were not awfully long, but they were made for speed. They had serrated edges near the bottoms of the blades as well as a knuckle guard to pummel enemies as well as guard from them. Each blade was made of a mix of of bones from a Hierarch Dragon and Wind magic crystals to be both more durable and faster than most other weapons.

Kelly willed the other four rapiers to set themselves on the table and handed both the rapier in her hand and the collar device. Mir donned the device and grabbed hold of the rapier in her right hand. The other four blades slowly and shakily rose from the table and flew threw the air to occupy the space behind Mir.

She swung her blade once, after stepping away from the others, and the rest of the blades followed suit. They moved from behind and went to her sides, two to the right and two to the left. They swung at the same time as she and slashed the air in one quick motion.

“Nice.”

Mir spoke softly, but Kelly heard her and grinned. Then Mir turned back to her and spoke once again.

“Are there sheathes?”

“Yes. Here.”

Kelly picked up another box, one that she had Jared carry, and opened it with a crowbar. While they were able to open the boxes without crowbars, they did not want to accidentally break the boxes as they wanted to use them again, especially since they were enchanted.

She pulled out five sheathes. They were obsidian black, complete opposite of the gold and white color scheme of the rapiers themselves. These sheathes could be strapped to the hip or a backpack for easy access, especially since most of them would fly out on their own.

Bel looked at the two of them for a moment before turning back towards Jared. She wanted to know if she had a sheathe. However, before she could ask, Jared shook his head.

“Sorry… but I do have this.”

He took the lever portion of the handle and dragged it up the hilt, then around the hilt. Doing so made the lance shrink into a more baton looking item that still had the same mass, but was far more compact and easy to carry.

“Here. Oh, and these too. Remember this, once the trigger is pressed, you must hold it to use the crystals’ properties and it only lasts for three-ish minutes. When it runs out, take out the cartridge and place a new one in.”

“No specific time? Just “three-ish”?”

“Sorry. I didn’t really test this out much. I was more focused on the design portion.”

“Uh, don’t you have time in the lab?”

She asked him quizzically since the lab did slow down time and work could be completed much faster.

“Yes and no. Yes meaning that I had time to work on this. No meaning that I had to work on other stuff when I was done. Being an engineer is far too taxing.”

And, with that, Mir and Bel obtained new weapons. Mir with her swords at her hips and Bel with a baton strapped to her calf. While they were made of heavy materials, the rapiers were designed to be lighter and Bel was just used to carrying heavy objects.