“Hmmm it’s hard to explain really, but it’s like when the element is coursing through you, it becomes part of you. You can feel its exact nature because it’s being imprinted on your body physically, I guess at some point you just kind of realize that if mana can take that shape then why can’t your body make it. Maybe that doesn’t make much sense.” Azura didn’t really think that was very helpful, but he had gone to Luna for advice so he would just have to take what he got
“I see.” He didn’t, but that did give him an idea. “Thanks Luna I know things like that can be hard to put into words, so I appreciate you trying.” Luna smiled at him shyly and nodded. He closed his eyes in deep concentration. Focusing on the electricity coursing through his body. Perhaps his issue was that he was focusing on ignoring the constant shock. He supposed looking at it that way, no wonder he wasn’t figuring it out. Rather than ignore it, he should focus on it. the electricity constantly burning and shocking him inside out. Focus on the way it moved, and the way it felt.
He didn’t immediately learn the skill, but he thought Luna’s advice had probably put him on the right track. “By the way, how has work on your project been moving?” He chuckled outwardly, but internally he wasn’t exactly pleased. The work was fine and should function appropriately, but he was rushing, and it showed in the lack of proper decoration. Rather than be a beautiful town like he had wanted, the circle would end up looking cookie cutter. He didn’t like it, but when he had such a limited time to prepare for a duel with his father he didn’t really have much time to mess around. Even taking time to hangout with his friends was a difficult decision he had to make, but he couldn’t just ignore them for 4 years.
“Quicker than I’d like, but slower than I need.” His father had already been an albatross around his neck, but now it was more like the sword of damocles hanging above his head. Even the legend the phrase came from would be less stressful. A dinner with a sword hanging above your head hardly seemed concerning. At least if it fell you wouldn’t have to deal with the fallout for long. Even if it was for the rest of your life.
“Slower than you need? Has something happened recently? I hadn’t realized you were in such a rush over something.” Oh that’s right he hadn’t told them yet, well no need to break his mostly honest streak over this.
“My father came by to visit yesterday, and I entered a challenge I have very little hope of winning to avoid a challenge I had absolutely no hope of winning.” and condemned himself to play obedient little heir for 4 more years, but honestly at this point that was only a mild concern. Especially since perfect heir all the way out here was very different from the perfect heir in the castle. His father had even seemed for the most part satisfied with his actions so far.
“What! And you didn’t think to tell us yesterday?!” He winced. His father paying a visit was a rather big deal, but in his defense he was in a rush to start preparing yesterday. Not that he wasn’t going to be in a rush for the rest of his school life now. Either way Luna’s shock and anger were justified, as minor as the latter was.
“Yeah, that’s my bad on that one. I rushed to get started on preparations, and didn’t think to gather everyone to explain the situation.” In hindsight the few minutes it would have taken to gather them wouldn’t have hurt much in the grand scheme of things, but in his defense he was preparing for a fight with his father, who was on a completely different scale than anyone he had ever even witnessed fight.
Luna groaned. “I understand the rush, but as much as I’m sure you have it covered, maybe we can help you somehow. I mean obviously your father won’t let us fight with you, but surely there is something we could do.” He laughed. His father would absolutely let them fight with him. They wouldn’t make any difference as far as his father was concerned. He wouldn’t tell this of course. It would only rile them up, and he personally had no intention of having them join the fight. Aside from Lily’s fire none of them had anything that would damage the man, and his father would simply ignore their existence on the battlefield.
“I’m sure all of you will find ways to help me out, but for the moment I don’t have time to focus on what you guys can do. I’m not even sure I have time to do all that I need to do to stand a chance.” 4 years probably didn’t sound like a time crunch to most, and for good reason, but his father wasn’t considered one of the strongest mages on the face of the planet for no reason. Frankly speaking nothing he knew of would get him to the point where he could actually so much as scratch his father within that time frame, but if the school kept giving him more tricks to work with he might have the slimmest of chances, and unfortunately he’d have to make do with that.
“He really scares you doesn’t he?” He winced. That was perhaps his biggest weakness in this whole scenario. He was terrified of fighting the man. Not just because his father was strong, but also because it was the same man that he had been terrified of for as long as he could remember. He hid his fear behind sarcasm, and false bravado, but if it was pressed he couldn’t deny the truth of his cowardice.
“More than anything else on the planet, well anything else save 1 apparently, but I’m still working on figuring out that other one.” Which he should focus on a little more. A boon from the spirit of the woods might go a long way in getting him where he needed to be,
“Azura… Do you think you can win?” He froze. He hadn’t expected to be asked that directly. Especially not so quickly. His friends really were starting to get a read on him if he wasn’t focusing on hiding his feelings. That was inconvenient.
“No, but I have to anyway.” That was the truth of it. He couldn’t see a single route to success, even if he managed to become twice as powerful as Kaiser by the end of his school stint he still wouldn’t have the power necessary to injure his father with brute force. Of course he had no intention of doing that from the start, but he’d still have to figure out some way of injuring his father, even if it wasn’t a ‘fair’ way of doing so.
“I’ll go talk to the others, get them caught up. That way you can work on whatever you need to, and we can talk about what we can do to help.” Luna spoke with conviction before running off to follow through on her word. He smiled, just having them in his corner was helping him. He doubted he would have been able to maintain his calm if he didn’t know his friends were there to help him, even if he didn’t know how they could.
***
Luna was rushing towards Cynthia’s room, her mind whirling with thoughts. She had no idea how strong Azura’s father really was, but she could remember the time he had brought half of the school to its knees simply by releasing some of his power. If Cynthia’s mom hadn’t been there it would have been even worse. That was the kind of opponent Azura was up against, and he only had 4 years to prepare. That was wildly unfair, but if anyone had a shot it would be Azura, but if even he didn’t think he’d be able to do it, then they would just have to make up the difference.
“What has you in such a rush?” She sighed in relief. She had made it most of the way to Cynthia’s room, but since her friend had already connected to her she would be able to save some time.
“Azura’s gotten into a bit of a mess again, and I came to give everyone the details.” It was a little sad that Azura got into trouble so often that no one was even surprised about it anymore. Not that she had much room to judge there. Her luck was just as bad as his.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
“Everyone should be heading to my room now, but I’m also going to open a full link so you can explain the issue.” She didn’t really think she knew enough to give much in the way of an explanation, but she figured Katy would know more about the situation once the general info was shared. Katy had, after all, grown up with Azura, and thus actually knew his father.
“What did our wayward leader get himself into this time?” Roran was the first one to ‘speak’ after the link was opened. Probably in part due to being the most used to the full link. It still took the rest of them a couple seconds to adjust to all of their minds being linked together by Cynthia.
“Well it sounds like his dad came to the school, and Azura ended up forced into some kind of challenge with him. By the sounds of it Azura isn’t very confident of his chances, and has entered into panicked preparations. I don’t know much more than that, aside from the fact he came to me for advice about the elemental conversion because he was progressing too slowly.” It suddenly occurred to her that she had no idea what the stakes of the challenge were. Azura made them sound serious, but he also freaked out about dirt on his clothes, so it was hard to tell how serious his complaints really were sometimes.
“You can’t be serious! His father came here and was subtle?! This is really bad. His father doesn’t suffer people he considers his lessers unless ordering them. For him to come here and not flaunt his aura as a way of keeping people away, well suffice to say he’d have to have something very important in mind. And whatever it is… it’s not going to be good.” Katy’s voice rang out with worry in her head. She had heard some about Azura’s father, but apparently she hadn’t quite understood the magnitude of the power he held over his son.
“I have to concur. I’ve been doing some digging on the Silver family since I first realized Azura was also a noble. To say I was concerned to have offended the son of such a man was an understatement. Thankfully Azura doesn’t take after his father or one way or another I’d almost certainly be dead. Tiamat Silver is by all means extraordinary. Even when he was 15 he was the strongest 1st year in this academy just like Azura is now, and he hasn’t exactly been slacking since then.” Elsimera chimed. Her voice was a bit distorted, but that was a given it was her first time being put in a multiple person link, and the first one was a little tricky to get the hang of.
“That’s true my mom is a year older than him, and she said that if it came down to an all out fight she doesn’t think she can win. Not to say Lord Silver would walk away unscathed, but she is fairly confident that he surpassed her a long time ago, and she’s been training her hardest just to keep up.” That was disheartening. Cynthia’s mother was probably the strongest person they knew that wasn’t the person they were worried about.
“I didn’t actually ask what kind of challenge it was, maybe it’s not even combat related.” That was wishful thinking, and she knew it. Azura wouldn’t be near this concerned if it was any other challenge. Azura had quite the list of achievements when it came to working around challenges rather than through them.
“I doubt Azura is that lucky. Besides his father wouldn’t agree to a challenge he didn’t have at least a 90% chance of winning. No, my bigger concern would be why Azura agreed to it. Selena is safe with the princess, and everyone else he cares about is virtually untouchable while at the school.” She paled. Katy’s confused comment had given her a pretty good guess of what Tiamat had threatened Azura with.
It’s us. He’s threatening us. We may be safe in the school, but there is no way Azura would ask us not to leave the school for 4 years, and even if he did, 4 years wouldn’t be enough for us to be safe against him anyway. Maybe Katy could escape him after 4 years, but the rest of us don’t really have any special means to avoid combat. To insure our safety we would have to stay in the armory almost all the time. If he ever knew where we would be, it would be over for us in an instant.” So they were once again an anchor waying Azura down. She frowned.
Cynthia’s door opened as a stone faced Katy and Roran walked in. “Shit, he probably is. Is there anything we can even do about that?” Lily’s voice rang out in their heads. She idly wondered why everyone was taking so long to get here, they usually gathered much faster. Not that she wanted them to hurry, they still had no idea what they were supposed to do.
“It’s too little too late anyway. Azura has already agreed to the challenge, likely in exchange for our safety. Still 4 years isn’t a lot of time, but it’s more than he typically has to work with. He’s the type whose strength multiplies over a hundred fold when he has time to prep, and he has plenty of time for that. What we need to do is help him shore up his weaknesses.” Elismera calmly interjected after Lily’s panicked question.
“What weaknesses does he have that we can shore up? You’re a lot stronger than he is, so I can see how you might help with that, but what about the rest of us?” She asked with concern. If Elsimera had found a way to help Azura then grat, but she would still need to find something she could do to help him.
“For one… Speed. His father is going to have an overwhelming speed advantage, and that is an extremely bad thing. We need to hone Azura’s reflexes, and get him as fast as we can get him. Speed is arguably the most important aspect of a fight, if you can’t cast your spell before you’re taken out even the most powerful magic is worthless. Not only that, but to my knowledge lord Silver's combat style is primarily midrange, and incredibly difficult to deal with. Mid range is where Azura is weakest. So he’ll need to up his speed significantly if he wants to keep his distance or close in.” Her mouth hung open in surprise. She supposed it made sense that Elismera would know all that. She was a 3rd year after all, but it was still odd to hear someone other than Azura laying down all the tactical reasoning.
“So essentially you're wanting us to all spar with him at the same time and get him used to dealing with as many simultaneous attacks as possible to try and make up for the fact he’s going to be slower no matter how much he trains his speed.” Katy’s eyes furrowed as she responded. She figured Azura’s oldest friend was thinking back on any times she had seen lord Silver fight. “It might help, but to clear things up his father doesn’t fight at mid range because it's where he’s strongest. He fights at midrange because he doesn’t want people he doesn’t consider worthy near him, and killing someone from long range is too ‘cowardly’.” That was disheartening. The man was so strong he fought solely at mid range for reasons as petty as those.
“Where is he strongest then? Or more importantly where is he weakest?” She had a feeling she wasn’t going to like the answer to Elismera’s question. Not that she had especially liked most of what she had ‘heard’ in this conversation. Before Katy had a chance to respond the rest of their missing group walked through Cynthia’s door.
“Well I’ve only ever seen him spar against Azura, so as far as I can tell he has no weaknesses, and is equally monstrous at all ranges.” Katy switched from mental to verbal as soon as the door closed. Elismera looked relieved to be able to physically speak and hear for the rest of the discussion.
“Then our course of action is the same. Except we will attack him from all ranges simultaneously.” Her eyes widened. That was going to be some brutal training. Having to face all of them at the same time was already rough, but if they were purposefully doing it from all ranges it would be even harder. Still if he couldn’t manage at least that then he wouldn’t stand a chance.
“Will that really help? Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for beating Azura up, but our attacks aren’t going to compare to his father’s. Even if we can match his attack in quantity, ours will be significantly weaker and slower.” Lily spoke pensively. She had to admit their fire specialist was right, Nothing they threw at him would even compare to his fathers magic.
“If he’s getting hit then he’s not doing well enough and needs to improve. So it doesn’t matter how strong the attacks are. There is no point trying to train up his durability, he’s not going to be able to tank a direct hit anyway. If we focus all our attention on his speed and reflexes he should at least be able to function in the fight. Whether or not he will win… well we’ll just have to wait and see.