The Migtrolio Marine warden took the time to introduce herself before the match.
“I’m Tiara,” she said. “Don’t hold back for even a second, okay?”
The girl was maybe a little older than the three initiates, about eighteen or nineteen. But, she was smaller than all but Soraya. Her hair was the biggest part of her body, a neat cloud of black coils. Tiara had dark skin too and rich hazel eyes. She wore a long cable knit sweater that passed the hem of her shorts. By all appearances, Tiara was a sweet kid, same as any other. Cyril expected that not to be the case. He hoped his initiates took her warning seriously.
Tiara released her denizen and transformed. The girl’s eyes dulled and became flat. Thin silver chains wrapped her wrists and the texture of her skin seemed to morph. Cyril couldn’t clearly see how from the distance.
Wakahn and Piper changed as well and Piper was first to strike. She conjured her spellcraft. Fire and light blended into a package between her three hands. The young trainee released the fireball at Tiara’s head. Cyril was a fool for thinking his student would hold back.
White clouds intercepted the fireball. Their substance was stiff but soft and the clouds burned easily. Cyril peered closer. The substance wasn’t cloudy, but something else. Like the innards of a doll or a plush toy. Tiara separated the burning cloud from her body. It dropped limply to the ground between the three. It burned harmlessly.
Wakahn tried next. He didn’t throw any projectiles but dashed close to Tiara. He swung the dorsal blades on his elbows at the girl to slice her open. The girl’s sweater had been hacked to ribbons, and the girl underneath as well.
From each wound, Tiara bled more clouds. More stuffing. She hardly reacted to the attacks otherwise. The white stuffing crawled out of the wounds Wakahn opened. Cyril recognized the silver chains around Tiara’s wrists as zippers. The girl’s denizen allowed her to produce and control the stuffing. The transformed body also seemed to resist certain attacks. The kids would have to actually use their heads.
The stuffing spread like tentacles from Tiara’s body. They reached for Wakahn, but he danced backwards, out of their grasp. Soraya couldn’t let herself miss out on the action. She ran toward Tiara and tried to tackle the girl. Tiara jumped on top of Soraya’s head and then jumped again. Cyril’s student ate dirt and Tiara landed like a leaf alighting on the ground. Her transformation probably changed her body’s weight too.
Tiara’s denizen was unique. She mastered the transformation very well for someone new to the world of sorcery. Cyril recognized talent when he saw it. Hebiha’s smile did not falter and he offered no advice, but the third warden from Migtrolio Marine cheered the girl on when she struck a blow against Cyril’s initiates.
Piper hurled another fiery package, but Wakahn didn’t notice. He almost stepped in the path of the flames. Piper redirected the attack. The fireball exploded once and its path swung to the side. It exploded again to reach its target. Wakahn, oblivious to his near immolation, went about cutting his opponent again.
Tiara repelled both attacks with ease. Her stuffing had no apparent limit to its use. Every attack Wakahn made only seemed to invite more to spill out of her body. Tiara had used another puffy cloud of the white material to intercept Piper’s fire.
“My turn!” Tiara insisted. Her hands unzipped and two streams of stuffing slowly gushed forth. Once separated from her body, the material sailed with the occasional breeze, sweeping across the hill. Cyril examined a small tuft of the stuff as it rolled to his feet.
“Extraordinary, no?” Hebiha remarked. He was watching Cyril instead of the fight. “I tried analyzing its makeup. Dried plant fibers, though from what plant exactly I know not. Don’t worry about the mess. After she transforms back, it will fade harmlessly into the environment.”
Cyril pulled apart the fibers. Hebiha probably wasn’t lying. The stuffing was like cotton, but lighter. As he’d guessed, it was the kind of waste material farmers packed into toys and pillows. Or textile workers might keep them on hand to do the same sort of thing. It was not the kind of substance found from monsters and wardens. A very rare trick that made the girl difficult to fight.
Tiara’s stuffing blanketed Wakahn. He tried to slash it away, but the fibers crawled across his body. The material fused together and separated on the girl’s whims. When the process was finished, Wakahn was entombed in a suit of the puffy material, meant to make him look like an oversized bear. The young man could wiggle the suit around, but couldn’t move normally.
Tiara started the process on Soraya, but Piper interrupted her. She lobbed a dense concentration of flame at the stuffing. It burned away the tether between Tiara and Soraya. The latter girl was able to break free of the prison, tearing the pieces off of her body.
“You’re supposed to wait your turn,” Tiara told Piper. Piper charged up another fireball. She was sweating with the effort of channeling so much consecutive spellcraft. “But, I’m happy to oblige you right now instead!” The opening at Tiara’s wrist shimmered. The open space between her arm and her hand made a sound like wind passing through a tight channel.
It became a vortex of wind. All of the weightless stuffing that had been scattered across the hill returned to her arm, overstuffing it. Tiara zipped the seam closed, but her arm had increased in size. Tiara’s hand was almost as big as her body and her arm had stretched out to several times its normal length.
Piper released the ball of flame and Tiara swatted the attack away. She snapped her shoulder and the hand sprang to life, chasing down Piper. The girl didn’t have the energy to run. Tiara clutched her helplessly, binding her arms in the overstuffed fingers so she couldn’t channel any more fire.
Soraya worked to tear open Wakahn’s prison, but the effort was not yielding much of any results. Cyril was tempted to stop the fight. The result was clear. He was not sure how the battle would affect their mindsets about training and about taking on a job. He was not sure how stepping in would affect those feelings. He kept watching.
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“Behind you!” Wakahn warned Soraya. He struggled against the suit his opponent had cast upon him, but he could not escape. Soraya only spun around in time for a boot to bust her lip. A sprinkle of blood splattered against the hillside.
Cyril cleared his throat to stop the fight.
“That’s enough!” Hebiha said instead. “It is over, no?”
He was asking Cyril. The other master just nodded. Tiara obeyed Hebiha and released her spellcraft on the other wardens.
“Wow, that was a great experience!” Tiara said. The words from anyone else might have carried sarcasm, but her genuine enthusiasm stung more. “You should come by more often! I’d love to play again.” Play. Cyril watched realization pass over the faces of his students. They had not been a real match to her. They had been toys. Afternoon amusement. The idea had a potent capacity for inspiring despair.
Piper and Wakahn had escaped the fight mostly unharmed. Cyril examined Soraya’s mouth, but found her injury on her tongue. The girl had bitten her own tongue when she was kicked. It would heal without a problem.
Cyril wondered if the girl’s plan was always to embarrass the three of them or if she was just enjoying that unexpected consequence.
“Okay, Knoll, your turn!” Tiara gave a high five to Hebiha’s other companion.
“I think my initiates have had enough,” Cyril said quickly.
“I agree,” Hebiha said. “Would you mind fighting in their stead?” The old man’s other companion had been passionate throughout the prior proceedings, but at that suggestion he seemed to lose some of his enthusiasm.
“Don’t bring up that idea without asking me first,” the young guy said.
“I don’t mind. So long as your apprentice agrees.”
Hebiha made a face like the matter was entirely settled. “Go on, Knoll. It’s not every day you get to fight a man of his strength without putting your life on the line.”
Knoll was a slim man. A knit cap covered his forehead, but brown hairs escaped the fabric. He wore a sleeveless tunic that clung to his chest and tight, dark pants. His right arm sported black tattoos, one of which Cyril recognized as his guild’s emblem. The others were mostly little animal prints. Cyril wondered if he used to be an actual sailor with all the ink dressing his arm, but his lean physique suggested otherwise.
Cyril’s initiates limped past him. He promised they’d talk more about their fight later, but the group was not really in the mood to hear it. He stepped out from their gloom to face his young opponent.
Knoll’s eyes flickered between anything that wasn’t Cyril. “Is it true you were in the SDO?” he asked nervously.
“Where’d you hear that?” Cyril asked but didn’t deny the claim.
Knoll shook his head again. He looked even more defeated. “Did you make archwarden?”
“...I did,” Cyril answered.
Knoll pulled his cap over his eyes and groaned. He was talking himself out of the fight. “Tell me you weren’t a djinn hunter.”
Djinn hunter. The second highest rank one could achieve in the SDO, besides being boss itself. Thirteen members of the guild filled thirteen seats. One for each of the original djinn. Of course, those wardens didn’t actually hunt djinn anymore, not since they were all sealed away. But, the ranks remained. The associated prestige was gargantuan. To assume the title even once was just about the highest accomplishment for any warden.
“No,” Cyril said. “I was never a Djinn Hunter.”
Knoll released a heavy sigh of relief. He resolved himself to the fight and transformed. “Please don’t kill me,” he begged. Knoll’s transformation brought two curled horns from above his eyebrows, peeking out from his cap. His chin grew a small tuft of reddish-brown whiskers. He kicked off his sandals for his feet to grow ridges, like the horns on the kids head. He somersaulted and vanished.
Cyril raised an arm and blocked Knoll’s overhead kick. The young man disappeared again, reappearing on the opposite side of Cyril with another kick. Cyril caught the attack, but the boy disappeared from his grip. Teleportation. Uncommon spellcraft, but not as rare as Tiara’s.
Knoll’s complaining didn’t translate into his battle strategy. The young man blinked around Cyril’s person four more times. Each was an inventive new angle on where to drive Knoll’s foot into Cyril’s waiting body. On the fourth attempt, Cyril predicted his timing. He transformed his arm and formed his hand into a claw. Cyril stopped his strike just before it might have disfigured Knoll’s face.
He failed the timing on his teleportation and dropped to the ground instead.
“Whoa, whoa, I give. I give,”
Knoll released his transformation and Cyril did the same. He helped the younger warden up. Hebiha took the opportunity to speak with Cyril’s students.
“You three are very fortunate,” Hebiha told them. “Your master has considerable talent. Pay him close attention and you will be rewarded with many useful lessons.”
“Is he stronger than you?” Soraya asked.
Hebiha considered the question pleasantly. He stroked his chin and asked Knoll the same question. Knoll sized up Cyril and then his own master.
Knoll took on that defeated attitude again. He said, “Sorry, master, he’s got you beat.”
Hebiha laughed. Cyril wasn’t really sure what to do before that uncensored praise. He didn’t want to deny the claim to help the old man save face. So he really just stood there awkwardly while he was being discussed.
“But, it’s close!” Knoll said. Whether he honestly thought that or not, Cyril couldn’t tell. The news didn’t brighten the atmosphere. When Cyril’s students decided to be depressed, he found it took drastic measures to alleviate the mood.
“Master Hebiha, I appreciate you letting our wardens spar like this,” Cyril bowed his head.
Hebiha did not return the gesture, but maintained his pleasant smile. “Do return some time soon Master Cyril. The guilds of Lyrique should not be strangers.”
“I’m beginning to agree,” Cyril said. “Come on, brats. And don’t think you can get out of running all the way back to the guild after that showing.”
Piper groaned, but did as the other kids, diligently following Cyril on another hurried run through town.
Knoll released another deep breath and fell to his butt on the hillside.
Hebiha waited a few moments before speaking to them. “What do you think of Gwyllion Abbey, then?”
“They were fun!” Tiara quickly remarked.
“You say that about everyone you beat up,” Knoll told her. “They were whatever. Like I thought, it’s just the silver dragon that’s a problem.”
“Not for too much longer, I understand,” Hebiha said. They stayed up on the hill a few moments longer. They watched Cyril run away and diminish into the distance.