"The committee has declared the Vincent the winner."

Camilla left the arena, even though she hadn't been called down for her match yet. She entered the stadium undercroft. Jacob and Victor's match flashed through her mind. Poor Jacob. He'd worked so hard to get to where he was. Victor shouldn't have abused him like that.

She set her jaw. Victor...

She made her way through the now-familiar labyrinth of concrete tunnels, to the side Victor had entered the arena from. Each encounter during the match she'd watched had made her blood run hotter and hotter.

A voice drifted down the corridor. Camilla quickened her pace and rounded the corner. Victor was coming out of the Post-Match room. Maria leaned into him. They were talking in murmurs.

Victor noticed her and frowned. "D'Angelo?"

Camilla strode right up to him and pointed at his face. They were of a height, which to Camilla meant Victor was a runt. "You're gonna get what's coming to you, you arrogant little rat. Do you hear me?"

Victor blinked. "Excuse me? You don't talk to me that way in front of my girlfriend."

"I'll talk to you however I want to," Camilla jabbed her finger at him. "You bastard. You arrogant, selfish bastard."

Victor grinned. "What? You're mad about my match with Jacob? All I did was teach him an important lesson."

"Get off your high horse, you little rat. You deliberately humiliated him."

"What is he, your boyfriend?"

"Shut up!" Camilla hissed. "You're dead meat next weekend, Vincent. Dead meat."

Victor's grin curdled into a rictus. "Win your match before you talk trash, D'Angelo. C'mon, Maria, let's leave this witch to her angry little life."

Victor wrapped his arm around Maria's shoulders and brushed by Camilla.

Camilla shouted after them. "Run away, little boy!"

Neither of them replied, nor turned back. They rounded the corner.

Camilla realized she was literally seething. She took a deep breath and continued on to the Prep Room. The tournament aide standing outside looked surprised to see her.

"Camilla D'Angelo. I'm early for my match," she said. "And no, I don't want an advisor."

She strolled past the fumbling aide, into the Prep Room, and shut the door behind her.

She sat down and tried to quiet her mind. Usually it was as easy as sweeping a clutter of trash to one side, but this time she kept circling back to the encounter with Victor.

Grr... What had she even accomplished? She'd just antagonized Victor against her and made herself even more angry.And Jacob, who was the whole reason she had done it in the first place, would have been down here too. But instead of going to talk to him, she'd gone and berated Victor.

What did that say about her as a friend?

Suddenly she felt like crying and she didn't know why because this was not something to cry about. She took several long, deep breaths until the feeling subsided. Grace never got angry like this. Paige and Olivia never got angry like this. What was wrong with her? Why was she like this? And why was she suddenly so upset?

Ugh, Jacob! Why did she even bother worrying about him? He just constantly made her upset like this. She couldn't afford this right now! Her father wouldn't have been upset like this before his matches. No way. He would have been uber locked in. Unemotional. What if she couldn't get herself under control? What if she went out there and lost? Xavier Hudson was no slouch. In classes he was always collected, nearly robotic. He'd be ready to abuse any opening she left him. He probably wouldn't have been fazed by something like this. Tanaka wouldn't be fazed by something like this. So why was she?

She couldn't lose. She couldn't.

A knock at the door.

Camilla slammed her fist against her chair, anger and panic warring within her. She hadn't even had time to collect her thoughts, let alone go over her game plan. Stupid!

"Ms D'Angelo? It's time."

——————

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

"From Vancouver, Canada, she's been unstoppable, it's Camilla D'Angelo!"

Jacob watched as Camilla strode out into the arena and took her place. The crowd cheered.

"Does she look different?" Archie asked no one in particular.

Jacob peered closer, but he couldn't make out anything. She just looked like Camilla.

"Maybe," Grace said. "Tough to tell."

"From Lincoln, Nebraska, he's been an underdog before and made it work, it's Xavier Hudson!"

"I didn't know anyone actually lived in Nebraska," Grace said.

Xavier strolled out into the arena. He'd left his shoulder length hair loose and it blew in the light wind, obscuring his face.

"He's pretty balanced, right?" Blake asked.

"Yes," Jacob said. "He's also in MW Club with me."

"Oh."

"Contestants, get ready!"

Camilla and Xavier both braced themselves.

"Start!"

Xavier engaged perception and strength and took off for Camilla. He threw a forceward as he approached. He moved quickly and with good control.

Camilla engaged perception and strength as well. She dodged the forceward, but instead of approaching cast a crimson spell.

"Fire magic?" Archie asked. "Gotta be careful with that. Very quickly becomes lethal force."

A swirling wall of fire roared up in front of Camilla. The churn of the hungrily burning flames drowned out the crowd. Xavier stumbled back from the flames, throwing up one arm to ward off the heat. Camilla came rushing through the flame-wall a moment later, a second spell Jacob hadn't caught making the flames roll over her like oil on water.

Xavier threw up a last second ward, dark, reinforcing struts running through it. Camilla slugged it once, twice, and it promptly shattered. Xavier leapt back. Camilla pursued. Jacob was again reminded of a cheetah and a gazelle.

Xavier lanced a large, darkly yellow forceward mid-leap. Camilla blurred fluidly around it. Xavier leapt away once more. Magic burst out of Camilla. She threw her hands back and blasted streams of magic behind her. She jetted forward like a bullet.

Xavier started to cast something blue but Camilla closed the gap too quickly. She extended her arm, making a giant, shining fist with magic, and punched Xavier in the side. He blocked the blow with his forearm, but the force sent him spinning out of bounds.

"Hudson is out of bounds, D'Angelo wins!"

The gang cheered.

Hudson rolled to his feet, stood, and said something to Camilla. Camilla nodded, then they each went back to their respective tunnel.

"Wow! That was electric!" The announcer said. "The final match of the day will be coming up shortly!"

"Good win, but I'm still a little surprised she used fire magic," Archie said.

"It worked," Jacob said.

"But it did give more of her ability away, and she could have beaten Hudson without it."

Jacob shrugged.

Camilla emerged from the undercroft a few minutes later and came up to their row. They all congratulated her in regular fashion. Good win. Cool spells. So quick. So strong, etc, etc.

She stood for a moment by Jacob and looked at him.

"I'm sorry I didn't see you after your match," she said.

Jacob frowned. "What? Don't worry about it. I wouldn't have wanted you to distract you from your match."

"Okay."

"But thanks, anyway."

"Victor is an asshole."

Jacob sighed. "Yeah. I know. It is what it is."

They settled in to watch the last match, although Jacob didn't feel very immersed in it. He was tired and just wanted to go to bed, even thought it was Saturday night. Several long weeks stretched out between now and the end of the term.

Diego and Sophia went back and forth for what felt like forever, both hanging back and blasting wards, beams, fireballs, Decomp waves at each other.

If Camilla, Victor, and Tanaka had been able to hold back spells in their matches, Sophia and Diego pulled every trick in the book, every last spell in their arsenal, turning the battlefield into a flashing rainbow of magic. In the end, it promptly devolved into a Consumption tussle, and Diego tossed Sophia out of bounds with 4:27 left on the twenty minute timer.

The contestants for the semi-finals were set. Tanaka would face Diego in the first match. Camilla would face Victor in the second.

They filed out of the arena. People seemed to either be excited to talk about the day and the upcoming semi-finals, or depressed that it was over for another week.

"Caibo!" A now familiar voice called.

Jacob frowned and searched the crowd of students milling about and leaving the arena.

Victor strode towards him, pushing his way through the flow of students, half-raising his hand in greeting.

Jacob's anger rekindled and suddenly he didn't want to just go back to his dorm and sleep. He wanted to fight again.

"What the fuck do you want?" Jacob asked.

Victor's face wasn't smeared with his usual smug grin. It looked much as it had in the training room the night before: all business.

"You need to learn how to fight," Victor said, dead-pan serious.

If there hadn't been about a hundred people around them, Jacob would have hauled off and whacked him, regardless that the other boy was far stronger than him.

"Are you fucking kidding me right now?" Jacob asked. He'd been half expecting an apology. He should have known better. He turned and walked away.

"Wait," Victor shook his head once. "I didn't mean it like that."

"Then what the hell did you mean?" Jacob turned back to the asshole and got right up in his face.

"I meant you need to learn how to fight. You need to learn hand-to-hand combat. Martial arts," Victor said. "You're a strong Consumer, but hand-to-hand combat with magic is the same as hand-to-hand combat without magic. It's a skill, a craft. If you want to get stronger, seriously stronger, you're going to have to learn technique. You can't just rely on brute magical strength."

Jacob blinked. Was this advice? "You mean like karate?"

"I'd start with something more universally functional, like judo. Then maybe boxing or jiu-jitsu once you've gotten the fundamentals down. Anyway, you did well in the fight today," Victor nodded his head once.

"What?" Jacob asked. He couldn't figure out if this was a veiled insult or not.

"You stayed true to your word and didn't use any other spells despite everything I did." Victor said. "It was nothing personal, by the way. I'll see you around."

Victor turned and walked off through the crowd.

Jacob blinked. What the hell? He felt patronized, but with Victor that wasn't surprising in the least.

"Jacob, you coming?" Blake poked his head back through the stadium entrance.

"Yeah, wait up," Jacob said.

He jogged out into the afternoon sun, and the gang made their way to Blake's favourite spot: the cafeteria.