Over three thousand years ago, mages and wizards battled for control of destiny. They would fight with battle avatars, magical items and their wits. The top prize was the ability to control and shape fate. These combatants would sometimes fight alone or along side of allies who supported their cause. A trio of judges would act as referees. Inside the arena there would be only five rules. These rules were simple: 1. No outside help 2. Use what you brought 3. Everything is inspected 4. Other then the main rules, anything else goes. 5. Loser doesn’t get a rematch for a period of 1 Sidereal cycle.

***

During the month of February, 2011 at the start of the Sidereal month two male mages met for the first time in over two-thousand years. The first mage was escorted by his wife with long flowing black hair. She wore white robes that fit tightly against her thin frame. The male mage wore jeans and a simple tight white shirt which showed off his muscular body. His bald had been recently shaven and deep emerald green eyes missed little. His golden brown skin brought out the color of his piercing hawk-like eyes. In his hand he clutched a glowing gold staff that was in the shape of a serpent ready to strike all those who dared to cross his patch. The eyes of the serpent held two half dollar sized rubies. The scales of cobra changed color as he waved it around.

A young male with shaved brown hair and violet eyes approached. He wore all black cotton clothes. The lighter and more loosely fitting the better and to provide more flexibility and freedom of movement. His philosophy was simple: maintain flexible in all matters (even with your clothes). On his arms he wore stainless steel gauntlets with leather gloves. This contradicted the standing belief that mages must wear natural materials. Non-natural material tended to interfere with spell casting, especially metal and leather. The brown haired, violet eyed male played by his own rules, not what others lived by.

Like most of the ancient mage-fights, talking shit to your opponent was expected and encouraged. The goal was to either unnerve or unseat their mental stability.

“It looks like you took your time getting here, Heru,” said the shin-shaven male with the cobra staff.

The ruby eyes radiated a deep seated repugnance toward his master’s opponent.

“The name is Horus, shit bird. I hope you tipped well to the poor kid that shined your bald-assed head, Impotent I mean Imnotep. Who’s the snaggle toothed heifer?” he asked pointing to the woman by his arm.

One of the three Judges walked up in between the two mages. Neither of them was bothering to hide their battle auras . Both knew what each other were capable of.

“That’s my wife, she wanted to be here to watch you get your face smashed in,” he replied. “So where’s your wife?”

Imnotep knew he struck a nerve as Horus clutched his fist in irritation.

“Ah, you are all alone. I guess you don’t want anyone to see you get beat or no one cares about you, Little Pharaoh,” he continued to push.

Horus kept his cool and studied him carefully. He wasn’t about to let this human get the best of him.

A soft-female voice from beyond space and time echoed in Horus’ head, “As long as I am here, you are never alone.”

He gave her a mental pat on the hand as he refused to take his eyes off his opponent. They presented all their magic items, five each. Since Imnotep was the initial challenger he was the first to present his items to the Judges. The first was his staff, second was his wife, third was a small red-rubber ball, fourth was a dark blue crystal and finally were prayer beads. He placed his bid: keys for the iron-gates of magic for the earth realm. He was guarding them for over a thousand years when he defeated Arch-Mage Pharaoh Anon-Islander.

Horus presented his items: ball of wax, small brown tiki-like statue, his gauntlets, red pocket lint, and a ball with flattened spikes on it being held by a time 1 inch green man. Horus then placed his bid, his eyes. The eyes of Horus had many powers including the ability to see through lies, strength (in all things) enhancement, and many other useful natural abilities.

“You know you can’t use your eyes in combat if you are betting them?” replied Imnotep.

“I know shit bag. I don’t need them beat an African-booty scratcher like you,” he replied.

Imnotep glared at Horus, he was never proud of fact he was born as slave in Africa and considered it an insult to mention it. Horus gave a “we’re even now” glare back at Imnotep.

The Judges watched the opponents calm down before announcing “Ok, let’s begin.”

The Judges raised their hands into the sky as the air shimmered. The two combatants were standing on a basketball size brown granite arena. On the four corners and in the center of the arena were raised platforms. These platforms held smaller pyramids on it. The entire arena floated somewhere in the sky. A cool breeze blew across the arena. Several smaller platforms with pyramids floated around the arena.

Horus pulled out the pocket lint and stretched it out. It expanded around him as the web-like structure expanded to about 7 feet in diameter. Imnotep jumped to one of the platforms and raised his staff and his wife appeared next to him. She took a defensive position to his side.

“Wait a sec,” Horus shouted. “This was supposed to be a one-on-one duel, why is snaggle tooth here and not at a dentist?”

The voice from one of the Judges echoed across the arena battlefield, “She is being used as a magical item.”

Imnotep grinned at Horus. He just out maneuvered his opponent, things were looking good.

“Ain’t that a bitch,” Horus muttered to himself.

“Don’t forget your trump card,” whispered the voice Horus’ head.

“Right, I was getting to that," he replied mentally.

He quickly assessed the situation. The arena was in a bad state of disrepair. The granite was broken off in places and debris was everywhere. From amount of debris this place hadn’t been used in centuries.

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“Perfect,” he muttered as he reached in his pocket.

He produced the little green man with the ball and tossed him on the ground.

“Roll my little Prince, roll!” he said quietly.

A little golden crown appeared on the green man’s head as he rolled his ball away from the fight.

Imnotep raised his staff and three shards of white light shot from it. As the white-hot spheres shot towards Horus the song “Great Balls of Fire” resonated from the projectiles.

“Why the hell is music playing?” Horus asked to no one in particular.

Imnotep grinned again as the light crashed into the protective barrier around Horus. The crackle of energy erupted around his area, as it debris shot everywhere. As the dust settled Horus remained untouched by the opening attack.

“Good thing I got that Chaos barrier up,” Horus thought.

“I guess you forgot, Little Pharaoh,” said the female haughty, “It HAS was a long time. I guess you can figure it out when you lose.”

The rubbed her husband’s muscular shoulder and whispered to him “Finish him quickly, my master.”

Horus raised his hands up in the air and used his index and thumbs to form a square. In the ancient language of Egyptian battle-mages he began to chant. Three black and purple dots began to form in between his fingers. Then he yelled out the command word as the dots moved silently towards Imnotep.

The attack was too slow, as Imnotep calmly knocked all three dots aside with his staff. The dots crashed into the arena with an earth-shattering boom. The shockwave ripped through the air blowing fragments of rubble in every direction.

Horus knew the attack wouldn’t work. He tried to look surprised, because his main goal was to buy time. Imnotep appeared to be unimpressed.

His wife coldly said, “I guess he should have used more speed instead of power.”

He nodded in agreement with his wife’s comment.

Imnotep fried off two more attacks from his shards. Each time they stuck Horus’ Chaos field, and each time the song “Great Balls of Fire” reverberated off the walls of the arena. The Chaos ward began to change from a deep red hue to more of a pink color.

The weakening field needed to be reinforced. Horus extended his right arm down to his side. He flexed his wrist, palm facing down, and injected more energy into the protective field. The color changed back into a blood-red crimson.

“I can keep this up all day. You should trade in your heifer for a toupee, it would be more useful right now,” taunted Horus. "Wait till I get imovable object up, and you will be useless as Mrs. Piggy up there!"

He smiled happily at Imnotep. He glared back; none of his attacks were getting through that field. He would have to get into melee combat in order to negate that Chaos Field.

He would have to distract his opponent and draw his attention away. Then he noticed that Horus pulled out the statue and began running his fingers over the ruins carved on to it.

It would take a few seconds to activate it. He would be protected from melee attacks if that thing was activated. He would then be gradually being beaten down with slow, but destructive attacks. It was only a matter of time before Horus figured out the true power of music and its relationship to magic. Imnotep had to make his move carefully.

He charged up six shards, three of them behind each other. He sent them flying towards Horus. As before they crashed into his barrier with little result, but this time stacked the three reaming shards on the staff. His wife touched the staff as it beamed bright orange. The song “Shot Through the Heart” sounded its one line.

As long as Imnotep hit anywhere on Horus’ body, the staff would automatically strike the heart. Then the three shards would ignite finishing the battle once and for all.

“You will soon be dead now Little Pharaoh!” she echoed.

Horus gritted his teeth; irritated of the woman’s acidic comments raised his right hand into the air. Two red hexagrams encased in a circle with magical writing around it appeared over and under his wife. Arcs of red electricity shot between the two encircled hexagrams as she screamed out in pain. Imnotep jumped off the platform and ran towards Horus.

She tried to crumple in pain over but the static field prevented her from moving. Imnotep tried to telepath to his wife, but the static barrier was preventing all but her screams from escaping the barrier. Time seemed to slow as he tried to close the distance between him and Horus.

Imnotep saw Horus’ aura change as he used his anger, frustration and hatred to fuel the offensive barrier. Most mages tended to be calm and emotions (especially strong ones) degraded the quality of magic. Horus’ rage was doing the opposite. Everything about him was unconventional.

“The Pain!” she screamed.

She had always been a masochist, but the attack disrupted her pleasure sensors. She would be affected in the earth-realm as well. He had to finish this quickly. Horus was almost in melee range. Imnotep raised his staff ready to shatter his target’s heart. Horus dropped his gaze from the woman he was tormenting and winked at Imnotep.

“You lose,” Horus said.

Then he tucked and rolled to his right, then quickly recovered from his roll. The words “La La La La, Katamari Damashi!” began to sing in front of Imnotep in a bad Japanese-English accent. A 10-foot sphere of cacophony composed of debris and rubble raced towards him.

“Are you kidding me? I’m just going to swat that…” Imnotep said as he stared in disbelief of the rolling pile of junked headed towards him.

He swung his staff, expecting to bat it away as if shooing away a pesky fly. Instead, he suddenly became stuck to the rolling ball of wreckage. His mind was instantly frozen in time as he lay helpless on the Katamari sphere.

Horus commanded the ball to stop. The little green man wearing the prince crown stopped the ball, and wiped miniature beads of sweat from his forehead.

Horus reached in his pocket and pulled out the ball of wax. He uttered a command word and turned into a black spike. Calmly walking over to Imnotep, still stuck on the ball, held the weapon to his opponent’s heart.

“My opponent locked in stasis and is useless dentist in Britian; do I need to kill him to confirm my win?” Horus shouted in the air.

There was muttering that came from no particular location. The Judges were confirming Horus’ claim.

Seconds later came their response, “As of right now, the Arch-Mage Imnotep cannot take any further actions. The victory belongs to Horus!”

Horus shot them the middle finger at being made to wait for their decision. With the duel over, Imnotep and Horus were inside the temple where they first gathered together. Imnotep handed over a plain looking iron key to Horus. He quickly snatched up the key and pocketed it. Imnotep had new found admiration for his opponent that outsmarted him in the mage duel.

“So you finally figured out that you could use music to modify magical attacks,” said Imnotep.

“You can do what now?” asked Horus in surprise.

Imnotep and his wife both had a blank expression.

“I thought it was some kind of shit to make your magic look cool during the duel,” Horus said.

Imnotep shook his head trying to figure out how he just got outsmarted by this dolt who forgot the 1st lesson in magic control.

His wife quickly changed the subject, “So what do you plan on using the key for?”

Horus winked at her and said, “You’ll see soon enough, doll face. I got work to do.”

He waved good-bye at both of them and disappeared.

“Whatever it is, he can’t be up to any good,” she whispered to her husband. Imnotep nodded in agreement.