Days bled away and the competition that we had been preparing for was soon upon us.

I’d still not figured out a way to diplomatically ask Cariad if she’d let me touch her and see if the entropy magic would protect me from the consequences that may have very well been why she was willing to be around someone like me.

I knew I was falling into my old habits of self doubt, but it was easy to let those worries shove the thoughts to the back of my mind and hide them in a corner under a dusty sheet.

The business starting to take off didn’t hurt either. I’d managed to sell a few pieces of jewelry and one statue I’d made, bringing in enough that I’d have rent covered for the month without too much trouble. Which had been one of the distractions that I’d let keep me from doing more with the entropic magic, too.

The statue that I sold was actually one I had made to mimic the giant elemental wolves that we’d fought months ago at that lumber camp. I’d spent a good amount of time refining the features and was rather proud when the simple granite sculpture sold so quickly.

I’d gotten several messages on Bitsy asking if there were any more, and disappointed replies when I revealed the statue was one of a kind. Ever since, I’d been looking for new inspiration for another sculpture, as people seemed more willing to buy those than expensive jewelry.

Well, that might work for one, I thought as I stood across the packed sand of the arena from my opponent.

The animal standing in front of me had the rough appearance of a mastiff, but sized up to about the level of a pony with a more angular muzzle that reminded me of a jackal or those old Anubis statues I’d seen online while researching stuff for my business. Its fur was a rich red-gray mixture, looking similar to the embers in a fire with how the red shot through the bed of gray.

An image that was furthered by the flames dancing along those red strands or flickering between obsidian-black teeth.

The girls had been in constant contact with me today, letting me know that we would be dealing with several fights over the course of the day and what my spot in the order was. Apparently, it was considered part of the process to actually summon your creature onto the field, as it proved without a doubt that the creature taking part in the fight was a summoned beast. So I’d been stuck waiting at home for the girls to call me.

I hadn’t known the specific nature of my opponent until moments before I received my summon, since the organizers had decided to do a concealed bracket in order to ensure no one could cheat. Something that, according to Rieka, was new.

So I studied my opponent and its summoner as I settled into a ready stance, rolling my head on my neck to finish loosening up. I’d originally stretched out back home, but I couldn’t help the instinctive actions.

The arena we were standing in was familiar, as we’d been here only months before to do the initial check ups with the instructors running the competition. Oval in shape and constructed of stone with a sandy floor, the whole place reminded me somewhat of a trimmed down football stadium, with rising tiers of wood and stone benches for spectators to watch, and there were definitely plenty of those as it was obvious more than just those competing were present. There was even an entire section of the stands that had the look of faculty. The roof had been opened up to reveal a clear blue sky dotted with a trio of clouds overhead, and I was glad that the weather was cooling off, otherwise the sun beating down on us would be stifling in its heat.

Since I’d finally started seeing some money coming in from my sales, I’d decided to spring on some ‘fighting clothes’ to give myself a bit of an advantage when word had come from the girls that confirmed I wouldn’t be allowed any weapons or armor. I wasn’t as worried about the weapons, since my Shape-Shifting had all but taken over that role, but the loss of the armor was annoying.

So instead, I was wearing a set of thick jeans made of the same material as fire hoses. It was supposed to be cut resistant and definitely felt durable, so I hoped it would help my shifted skin. My top was just a tight fitting cotton shirt. I’d decided it was better to have freedom of movement rather than whatever small protection the cloth could give my torso.

When the girls had summoned me, I appeared directly in front of them with all four of my bonded summoners standing about two feet behind me, something I confirmed with a quick glance around. The fiery hound stood a hundred yards away from me, with a thin young man who wore fine silk clothes behind him.

I watched the hound for another second, but it didn’t react, simply glaring at me while huffing little breaths of flame from between its blackened teeth. When I was sure it wouldn’t just attack right away, I turned to glance at my girls, getting relieved smiles from all of them and a blown kiss from Rieka.

Before I could greet them, though, a voice rang out from the seating above the ring.

“Objection! What the hell is going on? This is a course for summoning! Where did that man come from?!”

The angry words came from an older wolf kin male high up in the stands. His black hair and pointed ears stood out against the reserved grandeur of his gray robes shot through with shimmering silver embroidery at the hems and collar.

“Lord Willem, you were already aware that some of my students succeeded in summoning and bonding with a Human. You were there at the staff meeting where we discussed it happening. Why do you raise such a fuss?” This counter-jibe came from a familiar form that sat a few seats down from the wolf man.

I hadn’t seen Lady Maia in some time, having only met her the once to talk and then seen her in passing twice since my arrival, but the stern elven woman glared at her colleague with obvious irritation in her eyes that I could see from even down in the ring.

“I gave those foolish reports the sort of respect that they deserved for being nonsense. You are telling me that your students have passed off that man as a Human? Preposterous!”

“Lord Willem, the summoned has already been examined and confirmed to be a conjured being by the student’s actual instructors. Please, take your seat as you are causing a disruption.” The cool voice of Instructor Rainfist cut through the air of the stadium and earned the cat kin man a glare from Willem.

Something must have passed between the two men, as Rainfist did not back down and continued to stare evenly up at Willem. The wolf kin man snarled briefly before scowling and flopping down onto his chair with a huff, directing his glare at me instead.

I just stared back at him idly, as if he wasn’t even worth the effort. Which was true. I didn’t need to prove myself to the man. The people grading the competition were the actual instructors, and I already knew Rainfist was on my side.

“All right then. As before, this is a single elimination match. Earl Gregor has matched with the group led by Princess Rieka. Summoners are not allowed to assist their summoned creature with spells, but can direct it with orders. Remember, this is to submission not to death. Summoners, stand ready to dismiss your creature if it stops obeying orders.”

Rainfist rattled off his quick spiel with the air of someone who had repeated the same several times already today. Given that it was nearly noon, that fact did not surprise me. According to what the girls had told me, there were a fair number of fights to get through, and I’d have at least one or two more today depending on if I got eliminated.

I returned my gaze to the flaming dog in front of me while waiting for Rainfist to continue.

“The match is between Skarb the Hellhound and Liam the Human. When you hear my horn, you may begin.” Rainfist held up a curving black ram’s horn that had brass fittings around either end of it.

“Liam, be safe!” The rush of murmurs from the gathered students on the stands above us nearly drowned Shayla’s words out.

“You girls do the same. Stay well back so you don’t get caught in this, okay?” I replied, shooting them a small smile over my shoulder again.

“Anyone else thinking about how ridiculous it is that we are having Liam basically fight for sport and our grades right now? It doesn’t feel right.” I didn’t hear the answer to Jane’s murmured question before Rainfist gave a blast on his horn.

“Skarb, attack!” barked the wolf kin student, his voice surprisingly high and youthful for someone of his apparent age. The hellhound let out a flame-filled snarl and lunged forward, bounding across the sandy floor of the arena towards me.

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I knew that I could end this fight with just one quick spell if I could catch the animal. The entropy school of magic was just too powerful in that regard, but I was glad to have it as an ace up my sleeve. I hadn’t let on to the girls that I’d taken it yet, wanting to explore it more before bringing that up and dealing with the onslaught of questions I knew were coming. So instead, I went with what I knew best.

Circling quickly to the left to draw the hellhound away from my girls, I raised both my arms up in front of myself and prepared for the clash I knew was coming.

My left hand rippled and flattened slightly before angular black scales emerged while my fingers all blended together to form a single flat scoop-like feature at the end of my arm where my hand had been.

I’d been researching different creatures and adaptations for different encounters. After my last two issues with fire-breathing monsters, I’d wanted something to deal with that and protect myself should I encounter a third. The fact that I was already encountering said third firebreather in the first round of the competition made me doubly glad.

The hellhound skidded to a stop only feet away from me and its mouth spread open to belch a jet of flame at me. I acted quickly, bringing my scaled left arm up over my face and covering my head with the wide flap of my hand.

The fire hit and burned right through my shirt, leaving only charred rags behind. My pants were made of sterner stuff, though, and smoldered rather than lighting.

I could already feel a light burn rising on my skin, but my second shift hardening the rest of my skin into a thick, leathery material combined with the reinforcements from my earth magic using the elemental alignment sub-power kept me safe.

“Ha ha ha! See that? He’s already cowering from Skarb’s flame! If you ask nicely, Princess—” I heard the silk-clad idiot already shouting over the fighting towards my girls and didn’t need to let him finish to know he was about to say something stupid and taunting.

Rather than letting this Earl whoever-he-was keep rambling and annoying my girls, I seized the opportunity of the fire-breath cutting off and lunged forward. The hellhound was fast, but I was faster with my boosted stats.

The heavy weight of my left hand caught it on the top of the head and I drove it to the ground with a hammer-blow from above. My left hand then expanded a bit further, wrapping around the hellhound’s muzzle and pinning it closed. I also covered the creature’s nostrils and mouth entirely.

The hellhound lost it, emitting a muffled yelping noise as it tried to yank away while slashing at me with the stubby claws on its forepaws. Given its size, it should have been able to throw me off of it, but the other part of my new use of Shape-Shifting came into play.

While researching ways to keep myself from burning, I’d found out about another interesting little gastropod back on Earth. The Volcano Snail. While its name was misleading, it did give me the idea that led to this new plan. Those angular scales on my arm were actually the sclerites that protected said snail’s foot, giving it the scaly look. They actually had an iron-sulfide covering, which had deflected enough of the heat from the burst of flames that it had protected my face and head, but most importantly: my eyebrows.

Now, though, those sclerites were performing their second function and binding to each other. The little scales overlapped like roof tiles, and as they had an iron coating, it made it easier for them to resist the forces of the hellhound trying to open its jaw or pull away by interlocking them while the ‘foot’ my left hand had become wrapped around its muzzle and squeezed down with all of my eighty plus points of strength.

“Yield, before Skarb gets hurt,” I yelled, shifting so that I could put my body weight into pinning the large animal down and letting those sclerites flow over my body to increase my total mass.

The one way that the hellhound could get free would be to throw me away, but it was panicking and trying to scrape my hand off its face with its claws.

“What are you doing, Skarb?! Bite him!” demanded Gregor, not listening to my advice.

“He can’t bite me. I’ve got his mouth pinned shut. Now either yield for him, or you risk your summoned companion getting hurt!” I snapped again, glaring at him now.

The young man glared at him, his lips curving up in a snarl as Skarb’s struggles slowly became weaker and weaker.

Seeing that the young idiot wasn’t going to listen to reason, I turned my attention to Rainfist and quirked an eyebrow. The instructor was observing carefully, a frown on his lips as he waited, only glancing away to check on Gregor to see if the youth was ready to call the match.

When Rainfist noticed the defiant scowl on the student’s face, I saw him sigh and lift the horn to his lips. The cat kin man’s ears laid back tight against his skull as he blew a firm note on the horn.

Guessing that sound signaled the end of the fight, I immediately released my grip on the hellhound’s muzzle and relaxed the sclerites so they would disengage. The animal was already unconscious, slumping to the ground in front of me, but I could see it already stirring weakly as it could breathe again.

“Match win goes to Liam the Human. Please clear the sands so the next competitor can enter,” Rainfist called, giving me a nod and a small smile.

I nodded back to the cat kin man and backed away from the hellhound as its eyes blinked open. The animal’s eyes tracked on my movements and it snarled, scrambling to its feet and preparing to lunge at me. I hadn’t released my shift yet and balled my scaled left arm up to block or bludgeon the creature, but Gregor had apparently finally pulled his finger out, as a flash of red light raced from the animal's paws and it vanished before it could go more than a few inches.

With the threat removed, I turned my gaze back to the scowling Gregor, but the wolf man was already stomping off with a frown on his face, his silk clothes swirling after him while the bright overhead light shimmered off the metallic threads in his clothes.

“Princess Rieka, you can dismiss your summon if you please. It is not required though, as Liam’s restraint is already known to us,” Rainfist called from his spot at the center of the arena. “Your next match is in two hours’ time, and you will be notified when to return to the sidelines to prepare. Please remain within the arena until after your second match.”

“Understood, Instructor,” Rieka replied with a bow. I could see her tail whipping back and forth behind my princess, so I knew that she was excited about how well the match had gone, despite her more reserved attitude while speaking to her instructor.

Kassandra was under no such restraints, though.

My grinning, redheaded lover struck with the speed of… well, of a snake. As soon as I was within range, Kassandra launched herself at me from her normal waist-high angle.

While she didn’t have the kind of tells that a cat would, with wiggling behinds and rolling shoulders, I’d learned to see the warning signs when my mischievous lover was about to jump on me. So when Kassandra sailed through the air to slam into my chest, my arms already spread to catch her and my left arm was flowing back into its normal shape.

The dwarf lamia hit my chest with a giggle and wrapped her arms around me while I let her momentum spin me to the right, which brought her trailing coils around my waist. Kassandra, used to my reaction to her attempts to tackle me, clung on tight while I finished the spin with her coil draped around my hips and squeezed tighter when I stopped moving to keep her position mounting me. Now that she was part way up, my lover had no problem using the coil wrapped around me to climb my waist until she could claim my lips with a kiss while wrapping the rest of her tail around me further.

Indeed, I had quite a lot of practice catching her like this, and barely broke my stride while tucking my arm under Kassandra’s bottom to support her human torso while the serpentine length squeezed me.

There was some rumbling from the crowd above us, as more than a few had spotted Kassandra’s affectionate greeting. While I knew that Kassandra didn’t care, I didn’t want her reputation to take any kind of hit either. She had enough people bugging her in the past for being friends with Rieka. I didn’t want to see any others causing problems for her now.

I wonder… does her kissing me count as bestiality for them? Considering I’m classed as a ‘summoned beast’ for the purposes here? The thought was so ridiculous, I couldn’t help but laugh as the other three girls fell in around me. Rieka was on my right, with Jane and Shayla on my left. I had forgotten about the fact that the fire-breath attack had incinerated my shirt until I felt a cool hand land on my lower back.

Kassandra had finished her kiss and was now snuggling into my neck while making little happy noises, so I glanced back quickly to find Shayla blushing furiously, but smiling, and not moving her hand one inch from its spot on my back.

Since having the gorgeous moth woman touching me did not bother me one iota, I just smiled at her and winked, which made Shayla’s blush deepen even further. Since her smile got wider to complement the blush, though, I called it a win.

“Okay, ladies. Let’s get us some seats and relax. We should pay attention, since you never know who might end up being our next opponent now that the brackets are going. I can appreciate them wanting to keep it concealed to plan, but I also can’t help but feel like this was a ploy to make those who wanted to exploit advanced knowledge sit through all the fights, too.”

“Probably,” snickered Jane, her long tail with its fluffy tip flicking back and forth animatedly as she led the way up the carved stone steps to the seating. The energetic mouse kin woman bounced from foot to foot even as she climbed the stairs and the difference in height brought her firm butt into view despite the fact she still wore her reserved skirts, as the bouncing steps echoed themselves in her bottom enough to make it obvious through the skirt.

“I’m just glad that you managed to get through that without getting hurt. You didn’t get hurt, did you?” Rieka asked, reaching out to stroke one hand over my right arm, which was rather tender from the heat of the fire but not actually burned.

“I’m fine. Had far worse last time, especially helping you with those flame serpents. Didn’t even lose my eyebrows this time!” I was rather proud of my achievement in that fact, so when Kassandra stiffened in my arms and started swearing under her breath, I grew worried.

“Kass, what is it?” Rieka’s sensitive ears had picked up the dwarf lamia’s words as well, and she had beaten me to asking about it.

“Oh, I just… we forgot to give Liam a task. That fight would have been an easy way for him to earn some more SP,” Kassandra grumbled, turning her pouting face up to me, which was just too adorable because her spectacles again sat crooked on her button nose because of her nuzzling into my neck earlier.

I kissed the frown off her lips while Rieka let out a relieved sigh.

“Okay, that we can work with. We just need to remember to make sure to give him a task before the next fight.”

“I’ve got a task for him,” Kassandra murmured as our lips parted, a wicked grin on her face as one hand began tracing over my abdomen. Kassandra wiggled her eyebrows suggestively, and I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at my lascivious lamia.