"Lo! You're all witnesses..." I announced at the students filling their desks at the far edge of the auditorium. "To this most ancient blood-duel! If this ghoul returns and does not meet my terms, after I defeat him, you will all shame him extra hard! Good?"

A few nods, mostly from the Omnids I beat at chess. A thumbs up and a small smile from June. Good enough.

[Mana: 953/0]

"As if, you loser," Emerald commented from her seat, refusing to move and pulling out her phone. "I'ma laugh when you get shredded."

[Mana: 1247/0]

"Is he insane?" Katherine hissed at Cinder. "We're about to fight a Koshchei. A literal death-magic professor! He can murder your boyfriend with like one word!"

"Not my boyfriend," Cinder growled back.

"Heh guys," Iogann twiddled his gray fluffy thumbs. "My disaster sense is going crazy in a good way. Like, this is either going to be spectacular or spectacularly bad. Either Alex dies or the teach... encounters a catastrophe."

"Alex," Cinder grabbed my left arm again, her gaze intense. "Are you sure about this?"

"Nope," I grinned. "But that's what makes it fun. Now, everyone get ready. When I say 'go', hit him with everything you've got. Put all that mana into your attack."

[Mana: 1585/0]

The classroom lights, Kitlix hanging in glass orbs, hanging directly above us were now painfully bright, crackling with excess energy.

“What the…” Zalimar tilted his head. “A... mana surge? Why…?”

“Now,” I whispered.

Iogann nodded, pulling out his harmonica. The haunting melody that emerged was deep and resonant, carrying echoes of melancholy and doom.

The air behind Zalimar began to darken, ripple and tear, reality itself warping as Iogann's music called forth a gateway covered in a rippling, dark shawl.

The classroom lights above us detonated from mana overload shattering the glass runework. The Kitlix inside turned pure black. The ward lines around us caught fire.

The Koshchei looked at the lights that were now dark in a perfect circle around us. Sparks rained down on our group of five.

“Mildly impressive artifact use,” he hissed at me. “Still… Do you really think you can stand against me? I... who have trained delvers for centuries? What is it that makes you so foolishly brave, Mr. Glock?"

"The fact that," I said, "you've just assaulted a student in front of multiple witnesses. While spouting very discriminatory rhetoric. On camera."

"Signature received," Yulia whispered. "Quint Thornton has signed Form 204-A."

Zalimar gritted his skull-teeth. "You dare record me?"

"Yes," I replied, still holding the lighter's flame between myself and my friends. "Because someone has to. Because Sarah deserved better. Because all those mixed-blood students you've tortured and killed over the centuries deserved better."

[Mana: 1981/0]

"And what exactly do you think you can do about it, nullborn?" Zalimar sneered. "You're nothing. Less than nothing. A pathetic half-blood trying to play the hero to impress your Quietzi mate? It will take a single spell for me to separate your soul from your flesh forevermore."

"Me? Nothing," I admitted. "But them?" I gestured to my friends standing beside me. "They're everything. And together, we're going to make sure you never hurt another student again."

"Do you actually think that a team of children can stop me? I've been teaching here long before your great-great-grandparents were born!"

"Teaching?" I laughed, blood dripping from my mouth again. "Is that what you call it? Terrorizing students? Letting them die over and over until they break mentally? Making them disappear? Making them flee Skyfall Academy?"

[Mana: 2481/0]

"You know nothing!" Zalimar roared. His academic robes billowed with dark ice as he raised both skeletal hands, frost forming in the air around him. "I am the gatekeeper of Skyfall! I decide who is worthy to delve into Arx! Who lives, who dies, who succeeds!" Zalimar's voice boomed through the classroom, nearly deafening me. "And pathetic nullborn scum like YOU are NOT WORTHY!"

The gateway behind Zalimar grew as wide as a person as Io continued his eerie music.

"Cinder - confuse him! Kat - make him afraid! Vesp - blast him with all of your mana!" I barked. “By the ancient blood Law, I declare thus - Our duel begins… NOW!"

"You've made a grave mistake in taunting me, foolish child," The Instructor raised an armored hand with a skeletal grin, green fire dancing around his fingers. “I wield a soul-separating curse. When it strikes you, it will make you vulnerable to the pull of the wheel. The bracelet will not save you. You will not return!"

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

The green flame in his fingers grew bigger and brighter as he whisper-rasped the soul-cleaving curse in some arcane language from long ago.

Cinder's wings flared with brilliant colors, her voice rising in an otherworldly song that made the air itself vibrate. Katherine's emerald eyes blazed right through her goggles, plunging the classroom into unnatural darkness as she unleashed her Stollwurm fear aura.

The combined assault of mana over-filled students hit Zalimar like a tidal wave. His silver flame eyes flickered as Cinder's song wormed its way into his mind, while Katherine's darkness gnawed at his fears of death. His soul-damaging spell wavered.

For just a second Zalimar stuttered, losing sight of his target and then Vespera's black and white feathers crackled with electricity like a Tesla Coil as she summoned her thunder.

Amplified by the absurd amount of mana spilling around us in a circle of about three to four meters wide Vee's lightning bolt struck the ancient Lich's ironclad armor like a transformer explosion, sending him careening backwards into Io's gate. The last thing we saw was his look of absolute shock as the portal curtain ripped apart. As he fell backwards, I caught glimpses of a desolate landscape - rubble, broken rocks, overgrown buildings and a weird continent-sized golden crab thing in the distance looming eerily above fallen skyscrapers.

Why kill someone when you could just make them trip?

Io dropped the harmonica and the portal snapped shut in front of the Instructor.

The classroom fell silent.

----------------------------------------

I clicked the lighter closed with a trembling hand, lowering it down. Then the whispers and conversations began.

I heard a lot of “What?!” and “How?!”

Shaking and wobbling, I reached into my pocket and pulled out a magisteel tube with a healing potion, courtesy of Lance's stash. The potion flooded my system and made me feel marginally better. It wasn't a perfect solution and I still felt like shit, since I was no Omnid and the potion didn't have a crystalline-organic heart core to work with.

"Holy shit," Vespera breathed, her black and white feathers still crackling with residual electricity. "Did we just... effin' banish a teacher to another dimension? Also, what in the Abyss, how the eff did my mana get to nearly three clicks?!"

"Hey! Where did you send him?" Cinder shook the somewhat catatonic-looking Io.

“I dunno,” he replied. “Somewhere not very nice. He'll be fine. Probably. Maybe. Actually, I have no idea. Something is definitely going to kill his body in there... before his soul finds its way home to his Phylactery in Leviathan's Cradle."

"Phylactery?" I blinked.

"He is a Koshchei," Io shrugged. "He can't be perma-killed via a gate to a corpse world. He will absolutely return... in... two weeks... to give us more disastery-heck, I think?"

I sighed. A problem for the future me, no doubt.

Emerald leapt out of her seat, her ruby scales blazing with fury. "You effin' cheater!" she snarled, dragonfire igniting around her claws. "What have you done?! Did you just assault a teacher?"

"What? He started it with the slapping," I shrugged. "I have video evidence. You're all witnesses. Feel free to assault me next. We'll send you packing too. Right, Io?"

The Mothman nodded, still looking a bit dazed by how easily we obliterated an ancient lich.

"Io! You bloody traitor..." Emerald's entire figure blazed with murderous rage, smoking like an overheating furnace. "You think you can just..."

"Can just what, Em?" Vespera cut her off. "Stand up to a psycho teacher who's tots been terrorizing students for centuries? Yeah, like… actually, we can. Didn't your beerch ass hear what Alex said? Like come on, I thought that you were all about 'standing up to authority' and 'inverting shit'. Or maybe you're all bout making us into your kobolds? That it? Ohh sheet, my XP just went up. Baller!"

She hugged me, making my hair stand up in the air with electrical discharge. Cinder squinted at us.

I looked at my own stats. There was no XP listed. Damn it.

"Vee?! You're siding with this... this faker?!" Emerald snarled at her former knight. "After everything I've done for you?"

"Em," Cinder said sharply. "Kindly piss off before I clock you in the face."

"What the eff Ci?! I MADE YOU!" Emerald roared, walking towards us and hounding at Cinder, dragonfire blazing around her. "I GAVE YOU PURPOSE! I SAVED YOU, YOU UNGRATEFUL BEERCH! Do you want me to effin' tell everyone what you did two years ago, is that it?"

“You… you wouldn’t! You p-promised!” Cinder gasped, her wings darkening to pure black, feathers trembling. The color seemed to drain from her face as Em's words hit her like physical blows.

I didn't hesitate. The dimensional storage bag was already off my shoulders and in my hands. I yanked out the three liter large thermos of Genesis fluid I'd “borrowed” from the resurrection pool. The silvery liquid arced through the air, dousing Emerald's flames and scales.

Before she could recover from the shock of being soaked, my fist connected with her snout in a perfect uppercut. The combined force of seventeen hexsuits sent her flying backwards, crashing into her desk with a satisfying crunch.

“You’re not a very nice friend at all,” I told her, resealing the half empty 'Genesis' thermos. “I don’t know what Cinder saw in you.”

Emerald staggered to her feet, trembling with rage, Genesis fluid dripping from her scales. Her gold-orange eyes blazed with murderous fury. My non-magical punch had only mildly annoyed her.

"You..." she snarled, lunging for me. "I'll effing murder you!"

Vespera's magisteel-covered hands came up, stopping the teenage dragon cold with a blinding thunderblast. Emerald flew sideways, lightning dancing on red scales.

"And stay down!" Vespera snarled, her black and white feathers spread wide and crackling with residual electricity.

Emerald twitched on the floor, smoke rising from her scales, her gold-orange eyes unfocused. The Genesis fluid had completely neutralized her dragonfire, leaving her vulnerable to Vespera's thunderblast. Solace got out her desk and slowly walked over to Emerald, checking up on the dragon girl.

"Anyone else want to try something?" I asked the stunned classroom." No? Good. Now, as team manager of Delving Team 'I Love You', I hereby declare our first official pre-delving meeting. Ci, you're our team captain. What's our first order of business?"

Cinder stared at me.

“Umm…” She let out. “Did we just really defeat a teacher in a duel… and knocked out Em?”

“All in a day’s work,” I shrugged.

I slid down to the floor to sit beside my bag. Then I pulled out my phone and dialed the number for the nurse. My ribs and split face were hurting like a beerch and it was time for some well-deserved healing.