Will turned to his right to stare at his reptilian rival. The lizard was wearing a suit of leather armor, with a matching skullcap to replace the helmet Will won from him.

The whole ensemble was painted a bright red-striped yellow. It looked like the hide of something extremely venomous. And possibly poisonous too.

“Will, old chap! Fancy meeting you here,” Jeremy’s cheerful voice seemed completely devoid of any anger at Will. “This is so exciting, isn’t it?”

Hey, Jeremy. I didn’t think you’d be so happy to see me, after our duel.

“Poppycock, mate! It was a good fight, and you were better, so you won. And now you’re officially my rival, so every meeting is a good one!”

That’s an oddly optimistic way of looking at things.

“Every future champion needs a rival, mate. How else is one supposed to push oneself forward to improve? It’s the most honourable relationship in sports!”

You know what, Jeremy? I can get behind that outlook. Here’s to a productive rivalry for both of us!”

“Now you’re getting it! Looks like it’s about to start here. Watch out for the wingies, I’ve seen some of them fight before, and they love to attack from beyond your reach.”

Thanks for the heads up.

“Oy, mate. That one stunk to high heaven!”

Will’s chance to tell Jeremy that he very much did not intend to make any puns was lost when Quentin (the Barbarian!)’s voice interrupted their conversation.

“And now, with the two rivals having had a chance to posture at each other, we are ready to start! Contestants, good luck, and may the best fighter win! Fight!”

At the instant the word “fight” echoed across the arena, almost every one of the contestants burst into action at the same time. The three birds took wing, trying to get high enough to avoid the attacks of the more land bound combatants.

Robert, just Robert the chip just vanished. One moment Will could see him standing on the sand, and the next he was just gone.

The hornets buzzed about, seeming undecided on what to do.

The turtle hid in her shell, but Will could see the catapult on her shell loading itself, seemingly on its own.

The golden retriever charged at the closest enemy it could find, which happened to be the turtle.

The beetle, seemingly unwilling to be caught between Will and Jeremy, moved forward towards the center of the arena, its mandibles glowing green.

Jeremy leaped at Gwendolyn the seagull, trying to hit her with his tail flail before she could fly too high for him to reach.

Which left Will more or less to his own devices.

Being fairly decently armored against physical attacks, Will figured that his biggest danger would probably be the wizardly looking duck. The duck, however, was directly across from Will, and out of range of anything he could do at the moment.

The rock-carrying eagle, on the other hand, was well within range for Will’s Shock Ball skill, and Will didn’t waste any time before casting the skill, in bolt mode. Two small balls of electrical energy blasted from Will and hit the eagle. The unfortunate bird got stunned by the attack, and fell back to the ground.

Will would have said that the eagle was lucky in that he hadn’t had time to get high enough to make the fall dangerous, but the turtle took advantage of Will’s attack to launch her own rock at the stunned bird.

At the same time, the golden retriever slammed into the turtle’s shell. A shell which briefly turned grey, causing the dog’s lance to shatter against it harmlessly. The dog kept running, putting some distance between himself and the turtle, and his lance reformed. Or maybe he pulled out a new one out of his inventory. Will had no real idea.

The duck aimed his wand at where Will had last seen the chimp, and a brace of five feathers shot out of it, fast enough to punch into the sand in a seemingly random pattern. As far as Will could tell, they didn’t actually hit anything.

Jeremy missed Gwendolyn, who flew upwards too fast for him to catch. He did, however, manage to catch her in his Basilisk Gaze, and the paralyzed bird fell back down to the ground. Not, however, before she managed to shoot Jeremy’s unarmored leg with her crossbow.

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The beetle was still running forward, and seemed to be aiming at joining the attack on the turtle.

Still free from interruptions, Will charged at the fallen eagle, intending to take him out before he could recover. Between the increased damage of his charge attack and his new Claw Proficiency, the stunned bird didn’t stand a chance, and vanished from in front of Will within seconds, whisked away to safety by the arena’s magic.

The turtle, seeing that Will was dealing with the eagle, turned her catapult on her own attacker. Will would have expected the dog to be too fast for the catapult to hit, but the rock shifted its own trajectory to better aim itself, and slammed into its target. Will couldn’t tell if it had any effect, however, since the armored dog just kept charging at the turtle. With the exact same results as his previous attack.

The beetle had had enough time to reach the turtle, and started biting at her shell. The turtle’s shell was now a solid grey, and staying that way, and the green glowing mandibles didn’t seem to be doing much to it, but Will figured that the turtle was probably burning mana or stamina to reinforce it, which made it a battle of attrition.

The hornets managed to shake off whatever it was that made her freeze, and the whole swarm flew at Will and surrounded him. The wombat was armored enough that most of the stings weren’t even reaching his skin. And with the largest unarmored part of his body being his naturally tough wom-butt, most of the ones that did manage to reach it weren’t doing much. He could still feel the damage accumulating from the ones buzzing around his legs though, and knew he had to deal with them fast.

Seagull and lizard were locked in melee, with Jeremy preventing Gwendolyn from taking off again, but suffering some serious damage from the bird’s bill in return. Still, he gave at least as good as he got, putting his tail flail to good use.

The wizard duck was still trying to locate the chimp. He was launching feathers in ever expanding patterns, seemingly oblivious to mundane concerns such as running out of mana. None of the feathers were actually hitting anything though. And the chimp still hadn’t made any moves after vanishing.

Thinking fast, Will cast Shock Ball again, this time in burst mode. The skill absolutely devastated the hornet swarm. It looked like each one of the insects counted as a different target, taking the full damage from the skill. And each one had a low enough health that the skill took them out immediately.

There were a few individual insects outside of the skill’s area of effect, but even those ones vanished as soon as the skill activated, signifying the swarm’s loss.

The turtle’s defensive skill sputtered off under the beetle’s constant attacks, and the golden retriever’s next charge managed to shatter her shell, causing her to vanish. Dog and beetle squared off against each other, their momentary alliance already forgotten.

The duck quacked loudly and stopped his barrage of feathers. Will had just enough time to see a throwing knife imbedded in its chest before he vanished back to safety. The chimp, who was obviously the source of the knife, was suddenly visible again, standing well outside of the area the duck had been shooting at.

Jeremy was quickly winning his fight against Gwendolyn. The seagull was clearly not optimized for fighting at close range, and the only thing keeping her in the fight was her honestly quite nasty looking bill, and the fact that her metallic wing feathers could actually block Jeremy’s attacks. Still, between Jeremy’s armor and tail flail, it was only a matter of time before she’d get overwhelmed.

The golden retriever didn’t bother changing his hit and run tactics, now that he was fighting the beetle instead of the turtle. The fact that the beetle didn’t lose after the dog’s first charge made Will believe that he had some sort of defensive skill of his own, but whatever it was was significantly less flashy than the turtle’s.

Which probably meant it’d last longer. Everything is a tradeoff, of course, and the beetle’s defenses were far less effective than the turtle’s had been, as evidenced by the cracks that already showed on his carapace.

Not that the beetle was just taking it, of course. He wasn’t fast enough to actually bite the dog, but whenever he tried, a ghostly set of mandibles appeared right on top of its enemy, biting down and denting the plate armor.

Worried that the chimp would stealth again, Will fired two Shock Bolts at him. The bolts hit their target, but the stun effect failed to activate, and a second later Robert vanished again.

Jeremy managed to finish Gwendolyn off, and started looking for his next opponent. His eyes met Will’s for a second, and the lizard nodded. Will nodded right back at him, and both looked for other targets. Both of them felt that it would be wrong for the rivals to fight each other before all other combatants were eliminated.

With Robert out of sight and everyone else occupied, Will considered using Least Cure Wounds to heal some of the damage done by the hornet swarm. But with each sting counting as a different wound, the skill would barely heal him, and each Least Cure cast meant two less Shock Balls. In the end, he decided it wasn’t worth the cost.

The duel between beetle and dog ended abruptly. The dog stumbled over something, and the beetle managed to catch him in its mandibles. The dog’s armor crumpled like used tinfoil, and he vanished almost immediately.

Will cast Shock Ball on the survivor, and Jeremy was already in the air on his way to smash him with his tail flail. The wombat was just about to charge in himself when he felt a sharp prick in his butt.

Spinning around, he saw a very confused looking Robert staring at him, and Will wasted no time before charging at the primate.

Up close and personal, the rogue didn’t put up much of a fight. Will’s claws, boosted by the armor piercing from Claw Proficiency, completely ignored the light leather armor he was wearing, and Robert’s knives couldn’t even come close to doing to same to the wombat’s platemail. The fight was completely one sided, and Will managed to dispatch him quickly.

Turning back to the last to fighters, Will was just in time to see Jeremy’s tail flail shatter the beetle’s carapace, and the beetle vanishing from the arena.

Left alone at last, wombat and lizard turned to face each other.