"Lady Aegis and Lady Stormwind, the loser is the one who is disarmed, knocked out of the ring, knocked unconscious, or yields. I reserve the right to declare the end of the duel in the event of probable death. Seconds will observe and defend your primaries in the event of believed death. Should the second step in, it will be a loss."

The official looked at both sides who nodded agreement.

"Very good. Please return to your starting points and seconds make your way to your places."

They did as instructed. Euryale looked at Sorin and nodded with a smile as a brief silent conversation of knowing what had just been avoided passed between them.

"Begin!"

Euryale and Aello moved as quickly as they could to the center when a flash of fire and silver wind smashed into eachother billowing around eachother. Euryale stomped pushing her liquid fire around her feet setting herself on fire in an instant activating her passive and shifting to her burning form. Her hair became serpents that lashed out against Aello who flapped her wings backward and spun shooting herself to the sky.

Euryale just looked up and continued to pour aether into her ever expanding lake of fire. Aello took on a silver sheen and flapped her arms now covered silver feathers sending silver feathers streaking down toward Euryale. With a flash of she slide across the flames beneath her avoiding the vast majority of the razor sharp silver feathers and batted a few out of the sky with now burning khopesh swords.

Euryale's hair rose with fire aether coalescing at their mouths then firing beams upward at Aello. She fluttered quickly to the side dodging all the beams...so so she thought, a single serpent delayed it's beam after the others which allowed it to hit Aello burning a small hole through her left arm. A scream came from her as she began to lose altitude. She flew quickly down and right before hitting the ground she slapped the ground causing a sheet of what seemed like liquid metal to slam into and over the liquid fire.

Where they combined they bubbled and popped. Aello put her hand over the wound and began to fill it with silver. She rotated her arm as if it was never injured.

Aello took on a shimmer of silver and began to blur at the edges causing Euryale to widen her stance and bring her blades up in ready for an attack. She darted forward and Aello did the same. At inhuman speeds they flashed around the arena with their weapons.

Flashes of fire and silver interspersed with sparks lit the ring in which they fought. A blast if silver sent Euryale flying backwards and before she exited the ring she flashed her fire stopping her momentum and allowing her to return to her burning lake of fire and darting back into the fight.

The exchanges continued one would slam the other backward then the other. Aello was slammed into the ground and Euryale was knocked skyward by a silver wind uppercut that impacted a molten barrier hastily thrown upward.

A pause in the fighting came minutes after as each the the fighters breathed heavily, cuts all over their bodies.

Euryale moved first. She raised her arms in a very familiar fashion causing dozens of white specks to appear around her. Aello flicked her arms covered in silver feathers out causing flecks of silver to appear all around her. They launched at the same time and the world was rattled with explosions.

When the smoke cleared both women were on the ground not moving.

"Both duelists are unconscious thereforit is a double loss!" The official declared.

"Healers!"

Sorin seeing his primary defenseless, he slammed a barrier over the top of her. Nothing happened, but he couldn't be too certain.

Two healers ran out to the ring between the silver and flames. Sorin lowered his barrier and stood over top of Euryale watching her and the surroundings with his senses.

The bodies of the women were heavily damaged with cuts and bruises. Their energy levels were extremely low. Sorin saw the healer begin working on Euryale and rather than seeing the flesh begin to revitalize it began to darken.

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Sorin launched a kick at the healer sending him flying backwards with a cry. He looked at Euryale and saw the channels in her legs were already heavily damaged from the sabotage.

The official seeing the healer go flying ran over.

"What is the meaning of this?!" He shouted.

"Sabotage. That healer has damaged the channels within Lady Aegis's legs." Sorin said.

The official called the other healer over who had just completed with Aello.

"Who did this?!" The lady said looking in horror at the channels.

The official looked at the healer clearly unable to sense the damage. "What happened Lady healer?"

The lady went down and Euryales body began to rejuvenate save for the channels. They remained damaged.

"The channels in Lady Aegis's legs are severely damaged. This was clear sabotage."

The wounds on Euryale had been healed and she appeared perfectly healthy.

"I'll take it from here. See to it that the healer over there is interrogated and punished for his crimes." Sorin said carefully picking up Euryale and walking off the the waiting room.

Sorin had left the ring as Euryale woke up and cried out in agony. "Ma'am contain your pain. We are headed somewhere you can let it out."

She closed her mouth and clenched her jaw. In a few minutes she was laying on a couch within the waiting area looking internally sobbing uncontrollably.

"I can't fight like this! I'll be lucky if this even heals." She said through the tears.

The door opened and Reeger rushed in.

"My lady, I came as soon as i heard." He said.

"Reeger, my channels are completely damaged. I'll fail now." She cried.

He paused for a moment then turned to Sorin.

"You. You swore to me you would if it came to it." Reeger said to Sorin.

Euryale looked between the two men.

"Would what? What are you talking about?" She asked.

"I had come to the same conclusion. I had promised you, agreed to be loyal to her and her family, and if I looked selfishly at this, her failing does me no good." Sorin replied.

"Stop ignoring me!" Euryale said in frustration.

They both looked at her, but Reeger spoke.

"Sorin has another skill he can use. It's what actually brought Linx back to fighting shape."

Euryale looked at Reeger as is she were slapped and at Sorin with hope.

"You kept this from me Reeger?!" She asked angrily of Reeger who merely nodded. Then she turned to Sorin.

"Could it work?"

"I don't know. Never healed channels before, but theoretically it could. I'd have to try with your permission of course." Sorin replied.

"Absolutely! I have nothing to lose, what do i do?" She said clear desperation in her voice and eyes.

"You stretch out your legs and lay back and try not to distract me." Sorin said as he expanded his senses punching through her NAF.

He saw her channels from her knees up as the healthy channels they were supposed to be, but below the knees were almost jet back and damaged almost to the point of collapse.

He saw the energy barely able to be contained in them. He pushed his absorption technique to the max and began pushing aether into her body. He began replacing the remaining damaged aether in her body with fresh aether. Her channels were a different color and he slowly changed something within her trying to get the consistency. He would raise and lower the output or what he was thinking was frequency of aether of each mote that he would call a cell in his world until it went to such a high frequency that it took on a spiritual light and matched with what he saw up above.

*bleep*

He began swapping the out the damaged "spirit aether" as he dubbed it with new aether and began reconstructing and reinforcing her channels. He pushed on the inside spreading them back to match the size of the channels above until at last, he was done.

He came back to himself and breathed. He opened his eyes and saw Euryale's red eyes staring at him.

"Do you have any idea what you just did?" She asked in a hushed tone.

Sorin went to answer

"Shhhh! Don't speak. Not here." She interrupted.

She moved her legs and felt no pain. It was as if she were never injured.

"Save for being mostly depleted of aether I'm nearly ready." She said happily.

Sorin expanded his sense back out, punched through her NAF again to her core and began pushing Aether into her core. The fire aether hit her and she tried to resist but it bypassed her defenses and went straight to her core where it filled it to nearly two thirds full. .

He came back to himself and looked at the sitting and blushing Euryale.

"What?" He asked.

"Sorin you must NEVER do that to anyone except your wife." She said.

Sorin sat fully as Euryale continued. "What you did was share your aether directly with me. In the culture of this empire, that is as intimate as nearly sharing a bed. In other words, if my family found out, they would probably kill you for that act."

Sorin sputtered. "No it was a tactical decision. You needed aether and I have plenty. There was no intent behind it other than that."

"I know. That is why I didn't have Reeger gut you. I understand your intent and it is appreciated, but again, never do that to anyone except your wife."

Sorin shifted uncomfortably. "Can we move on passed this please? It's comfortable." Sorin asked handing Euryale a fresh set of robes.

"Yes. Luckily for us, my next opponent will be expecting a withdrawal. It's not happening now. They will expect exhaustion after that, but it won't be the case. I'm ending it as fast as I can." She said putting on the robes.