It felt longer than 30 minutes before the new subspace was opened, and they all appeared in what looked just like the arena from their 5th trial. Azura was overwhelmed with nostalgia. Realistically it hadn’t even been that long 3 or 4 months, and yet it felt like everything was different. It wasn’t even just how much he’d changed. All though he had to admit he had easily changed the most out of everything. The absorbed memories from the copies, along with his unlocked draconic instincts had left him adrift in a world that used to be familiar, but in a way there was comfort in that. A new lens could change the world, and perhaps that meant someday he could see the beauty in it, and not just the injustice and misery.
“Any bets on our first opponent being Kaiser.” Elismera sighed in a heady mix of anticipation, and dread. He could relate, but strangely the emotion he was feeling most right now was restlessness. He was ready to fight, and he didn’t know why, or rather didn’t know why he was so eager to fight. He enjoyed a good spar as much as anyone else, but being excited to fight people so much stronger than him was a new feeling, or at least it was in these circumstances.
“I doubt it. If we get him first the fight will be manageable because he won’t know any of my tricks yet. I bet we face him last when he gets to see as many of my tricks as possible.” People would sometimes say he was a pessimist, but those were all people who didn’t know him very well. He had just adapted to the way things happened in his life, and accepted them for what they were.
“Yeah, I suppose that makes sense.” Funny enough he needn’t have said anything. It didn’t take more than 5 seconds for the first match to be displayed. He winced. Yeah, that was about his luck. His first match was against Luna’s team. That meant if he held back too much she’d be even angrier at him, but if he went all out Kaiser would get to see a lot of what he could do with this game. Was it bad that the fact that Luna was probably just as upset about this matchup made him feel a bit better.
“Those whose names appear in the air please make your way to the center of the stadium.” He sighed. Really He was pretty much expecting this result. As long as Luna stayed upset with him this would be his most awkward match up. It was made even worse by the fact that even Luna knew she was being unreasonable, so both were left without any real options to resolve the tension.
“Are these guys as good as your other team of friends?” They had already begun heading towards the stairs to enter the arena from the gates. It was a sad day when he genuinely didn’t feel like making a flashy entrance. He imagined that came from the fact both Luna and Auros currently had issues with him, and though he may not agree with them he did understand them
“In some ways they are stronger, and in some ways they are weaker. It’s hard to judge the exact level in team events like this, but they should be more or less even.” Still even discounting Luna’s current mood towards him this team would probably be the harder one to deal with. Roran was perhaps just as clever as he was at least when the older boy put his mind to it, and Cynthia’s healing would make this fight a lot harder to finish.
“What’s the plan then? I assume you still want me to hold back.” He rolled his eyes, like there was any need to askThe only time he had considered having Elismera really try was in the subspace, but it was best she saved her energy, because in the harder matches she was going to have to cover for him and Auros, neither of them would be close to on par with the 4th years or the stronger 3rd years.
“Yeah, Until my normal tricks can’t make up the difference anymore. It might put us in a rough spot, but I don’t think we’ll lose once we start going all out.” At least not to anyone that they wouldn’t go all out against from the start. Kaiser wasn’t the only one either. Plenty of the 4th years were unbelievably strong, possibly on par with Elismera, at least in terms of sheer force. The biggest reason Elismera was so dangerous was her ability to fight well at all ranges, not that melee abilities factored into this game much at all.
They entered the center of the arena, his friends already standing across from them. Both sides knew how the fight was going to go, and yet Roran still looked excited. Roran was the most gracious loser among their group, probably in part because it so rarely happened. He admired that about the boy, and strove to emulate it.
“It’s been a while since our last match huh?” Roran spoke eagerly. He couldn’t help but start to get a little excited too. In the face of Roran’s enthusiasm the worry and tension he had held about fighting Luna started to fade away, replaced by an excitement for fighting he hadn’t had in a while. He internally apologized to Katy for being more excited about this match, but Roran was the most dangerous person in their group. He sincerely thought in a 1v1 life or death struggle against the boy, he’d lose. Well in the sense that he’d have to reform at the very least.
“I won’t lose this time.” He smirked, his competitive spirit making its way to the forefront. In their last spar Roran had showed off a powerful new spell, and had taken him off guard. He wouldn’t be underestimating the boy again. His scales were not as impervious to Roran’s magic as they were to fire, and Roran was a lot better at strategy than Lily too.
“Probably not, but we’ll give you 3 a real workout.” He took his stance across from Roran. For this one they had decided to put Azura in the center. Mostly because despite Auros’ words that his distrust for Azura wouldn’t affect his fighting abilities, he had a feeling the man wouldn’t trust him enough to use his enchantments. As such he’d need to be closer so he could place them on the spell after it was cast. Difficult, even as he was now, but not impossible.
“I’m looking forward to it. Show me what you’ve got, friend of Azura.” He smiled as Elismera joined their little competitive banter. It wasn’t a fair fight, but in life it rarely is. It’s time someone other than him got a taste of that.
***
The match started with a bang. A rather literal one as Elismera had boosted him so he could attack first, and attack first he did. Thunder roared as Lighting surged towards his opponent. Roran stuck up his arm and unleashed a powerful burst of his magic, erasing the Blue electricity from existence. That was fine, the attack had served its purpose. It had drawn their attention, so they missed Elismera send vines into the ground.
Auros sent a water dragon towards Luna. To his surprise the water lost form and splashed harmlessly against the ground just a little in front of Luna. He was rather impressed. He had no idea Luna had advanced that far in her skills with enchantment. She wasn’t like him, she didn’t need to foster a deep connection to the spirit realm so she could jury rig her own enchantments, no she had simply taken the one enchantment she knew, and taken it as far as it could go. A familiar warm feeling spread throughout him. Perhaps pride was a folly, but surely pride in someone else’s growth was an acceptable sin?
She had basically taken herself out of the fight, without getting rid of her clairvoyance. He would get around that later, but the first target had to be Cynthia. It was the most obvious play, so Roran no doubt knew it as well, but getting the healer off the table was paramount if they didn’t want to exhaust themselves fighting the same foes over and over.
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Well it was a good thing Roran wasn’t the only one who could learn new tricks. He swiped a card he had prepared after their little subspace adventure, and light shot towards Cynthia, with speed none of them could react to. Only to fizzle out before most even registered it was there. He laughed. So Luna could set up an anti-magic field even from across the arena huh? That was quite clever. He and Roran exchanged spells while everyone else stood still. Flashes of ice, fire, lightning exploded from the center of the arena as a tempest like wind began to take form.
“It was a good try, Roran.” Vines erupted from under Cynthia. The attack phased through her of course, but with the sound of shattering glass her ‘life’ ran out. With Cynthia out the fight was basically over. Without healing or rather re-energizing neither Roran nor Lily had the kind of mana to have a chance in a war of attrition. Luna could try to put antimagic fields on their side of the arena, but he had already claimed the space, her enchantments wouldn’t be able to overwrite his.
“Yeah, that’s about what I expected to happen, but we didn’t really have any way to counter an attack from underground. Unless one of us was capable of creating a platform Elismera’s vines couldn’t pierce through, which unfortunately is not only above our level, but none of us had the skill set to even try.” That wasn’t entirely true. Roran was excellent at earth magic, not enough to perform the given task, but he could definitely make a platform to attempt it, in fact he likely had. In a real fight a strategy like this one wouldn’t work for a multitude of reasons. For one Cynthia could always be moving, or she could afford to sit in the anti-magic field until she needed to leave it to cast magic.
“That’s the nature of the game. It’s meant to be magic vs magic.” For the most part it did a pretty good job at that. They exchanged destructive spells as they talked. Elsimera no longer having to focus on her subterranean vines sent some at Roran above the ground. Roran did an admirable job trying to fend off all 3 of them, but the outcome was obvious, and so the fight ended with Roran panting as vines went through him, the sound of shattered glass once more rang out.
They might have to do the underground approach again for Luna. “I surrender. The only thing I could do at this point would be put the anti magic field around myself, and try to outpatient you guys, and I’m sure you could find a way around that.” Pretty easily honestly. Without Roran or Cynthia to defend, simply forming a rock above the field would suffice. Once magic became a solid object it wasn’t so easily dispersed, so long as magic wasn’t required for it to keep its shape or momentum anyway.
“I knew we would lose, but I was hoping it wouldn’t be quite this one sided.” Though he said that Roran was smiling as brightly as ever, so he didn’t think the boy was taking it poorly. Luna and Cynthia also didn’t seem all that upset. It’s a good thing they weren’t sore losers, because he really didn’t want to deal with that right now. “By the way, how did you stop me from casting my spells on your side of the field?!”
He chuckled, he had wondered when Roran would ask about it. “Well without being able to move the most dangerous attacks would be ones that start too close for you to cast something in time. So I worked out something sort of like the type 2 antimagic fields. It disrupts mana control, but it’s pretty subtle so only someone trying to cast far from themselves would have any trouble.” It was also easier to set up, which was why he was able to use it in this game at all. He could set up type 1’s from far, but while it would stop the opponents from casting, it would also make finishing them off really bothersome. Type 2’s unfortunately were quite a bit trickier.
“You really are unfairly good at this game.” Cynthia’s voice made them all chuckle except for Elismera and Auros stiffened, but otherwise didn’t react. He had already warned them about Cynthia’s ability. He subtly signed to Cynthia to be wary of Auros. He trusted Elismera at the moment but the second year was clearly freaked out about his core, and that meant he didn’t know what the boy might do. “Why? What happened?”
This time the voice only entered his head. “I’ll tell you all later. I don’t think he would actually do anything to you guys, but I’m not positive, so best if you stay on your guard around him.” Upset or not Auros seemed to be a good person, so violence was very unlikely to break out, but the 2nd year was also fairly smart, so he didn’t doubt the boy would at least be fishing for information.
While he was having his quick mental conversation with Cynthia he had also continued to chat cheerfully with everyone out loud. This was a particularly difficult type of multi-tasking, but he had a little cheat for that. He didn’t use it often though. Mostly because it was very uncomfortable. “I don’t know about 1st place, but we’ll give it our best.” He smiled cheerfully. He of course intended to win, but he could at least pretend to be humble.
“You know feigning humility doesn’t work when we already know you right?” He laughed. The tables had turned, it was Lily’s turn to call him out on his bs for a change. That first day felt like a lifetime ago. Even though it had only been around 4 months since then. Not even half a year, but it already felt like ancient history.
He shook off his nostalgia and shrugged. “Worth a shot. Jokes aside though I really am not positive that we can get first. Kaiser is an obstacle I’m not confident in my ability to overcome.” Despite his powers basically being cheating in this particular game, Kaiser still had a very real chance at winning. The heir Crimson was after all monstrously strong. The man had made a blood storm that covered the entire school in seconds, and it only harmed the him that was known to be a copy, that level of power and control was so far beyond him as to be comedic.
He and the others sat down in the spectator area having walked there during their conversation. The next match had been called, but the competitors were still making their way to the arena. “Perhaps not alone, but as a team I think our odds are good.” He wanted to share Elismera’s optimism, but she doubted Kaiser’s 3rd teammate would be a slouch, and Gareth may very well be his equal even now. Gareth was in a lot of ways the opposite of him. Gareth already knew most kinds of magic, so rather than learning new spells the other noble had been able to spend the entire time honing his magic abilities themselves. Creating spells was much easier than creating enchantments afterall, so a lot of the research and trial and error could be skipped.
“If this was an actual fight I’d say our chances of winning would be pretty near 0, but as a game of cyvran I’d say it’s probably a coin toss.” He wasn’t just being a pessimist either, in fact if anything that was probably an optimistic number. Odds were Kaiser’s 3rd member would be stronger than Auros, and it was a known fact that even going all out Kaiser was stronger than Elismera. Since him and Gareth were roughly even it was safe to say that on paper their loss should be guaranteed. Of course there was a reason fights weren’t judged by how they should go.
“Kaiser won’t be going all out either, so I think if we manage to trap him early we have a pretty good shot.” He’d certainly try, but the man wasn’t the strongest in the school for nothing. The man had figured out all of his tricks really quickly when they had clashed before. He shook his head. They would talk more later, it was time to focus on the next match.
It was Kaiser against a group of 3rd years. He watched intently waiting for the start bell to ring. The fight was over in an instant. The second the bell rang, blood jumped up from under all 3 of the 3rd years, swallowing them whole. He stared in awe as the sound of shattering glass filled the arena. The fight hadn’t even lasted a second. That spell had been too fast, he had definitely been in the right to find a way to prevent the enemy team from casting spells on their side, but even he hadn’t expected spells to be cast that far from someone that quickly. Kaiser’s monstrous power and control was once more on display. “So on further consideration 50/50 may be about right.” He laughed at Elismera’s attempt to lighten the mood. Kaiser wasn’t holding back afterall.