I woke up in the infirmary. First thing I realized was that all my wounds had healed up nicely, no traces of being bitten and slashed by a tiger. All the slashed were gone, and my legs were no longer burnt. My skin was perfectly fine and I felt no pain. I assumed the medics had used healing magic on me to speed up the healing progress of patients.

“El? Are you alright?” Celestia, who was sitting on a chair on the right side of my bed asked.

“Urgh… yeah, I’m fine. My head is just spinning, that’s all.” I honestly answered her.

“Just give it a few minutes, you just woke up after all.” She responded.

I gave it a few minutes. When my head stopped spinning the room suddenly got cramped. Atlas, Nova, Jessica and Eve were present as well, making me jump a bit. Nova sat on a chair at the foot of my bed, glaring at me, like she did back at the stadium. Was that the only thing she ever does? It was seriously starting to creep me out. It honestly looked like she was trying to find the best possible way to cut me open. Jessica and Eve sat on the other side of the bed with equally worried looks on their face. Atlas leaned on the wall far away from the rest of us. He really didn’t like being with people huh?

“I guess I should start by giving a proper introduction. My name is Nova Eclipse, currently the school’s strongest.” Nova finally said.

“It’s nice to meet you, I’m-”

“Yes yes, Elenore Magnus, daughter of Orion Magnus and Grimoire Scarlet, younger sister to Zac Magnus, I know who you are. Everybody does at this point.” She interrupted.

I winced at that last part. She kept adding salt to the wound. First, she mentions Zac and then stats that everybody knows who I am.

“Furthermore, I noticed in your match that you are completely reckless and took moronic actions, taking very risky actions to gain the slightest possible advantage, with an extremely low payout. Your teamwork with Celestia is practically none existent; it’s surprising that you even won that fight.” She dragged on.

Yeah, I was starting to dislike her more and more as she continued talking.

“Can it Nova. Back in the day, you weren’t any better than Magnus. In fact, you were sometimes even worse. And please pick up a nicer tone of voice when talking to her. Her mother saved my life.” Atlas said with nasty venom in his voice. Nova instantly backed down like a defeated animal. “I’m sorry.” She whispered.

“Frankly Elenore, it is true that you were quite reckless in your fight with the Horn sisters. But I must admit that you were quite spectacular with your moves and actions. You certainly impressed the crowd. You showed us a fraction of how powerful your magic truly is; consider me interested in future fights. You may prove an interesting opponent. May we meet again.”

Atlas proceeded to leave the infirmary with Nova quickly in tow.

“Wait for me Atlas! Goodbye, every- Atlas wait up!” Nova shouted after Atlas and ran after him.

“Ok… someone flipped her switch.” Jessica joked. We all chuckled.

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“Nova sees Atlas in the highest possible regards. Nova admires Atlas’ magic art and fighting style. He trained her for a bit, so they share a student-teacher relationship you could say.” Eve explained.

“But isn’t it strange for the strongest in the school to act like that towards the second strongest? Shouldn’t it be the other way around?” Jessica asked.

“No, not really. Truth be told, Atlas may be stronger than Nova. In the Zone Games, a reason why Nova placed higher than Atlas was that Nova at the time had a better teammate than Atlas. But at that time as well, Nova was a representative of another planet: Skyria, so they faced off against each other and Atlas won that match. They’ve only teamed up together this ear. They’ll be a very difficult team to beat in both the Magi Magic Games and the Zone Games.” Eve went on.

She announced that she had to go meet with the student council for an important meeting. She shook each of our hands and left the infirmary, leaving only Celestia, Jessica and I were present.

“Hey Jessica listen, I’m sorry for hurting your sister like that. She was ticking me off, and I felt like I may have gone overboard.” I apologized.

Even though I despised Amanda Horn, for how she taunted me before the fight, and how intent she tried to badly injure me, I still felt bad for Jessica. They were sisters after all.

She shook her head. “No, no it’s fine you have nothing to apologize for. I should be the one to apologize for not keeping my sister in check. She honestly deserved the beat you gave her. Maybe it’ll teach her some restraint. I should go check up on her, make sure she’s fine. Cya around Chaotic One.”

“And then there were two.” I joked. “But was with that?” Chaotic One?”

“Oh, that? That’s the title the school sorta just gave you.” Cel explained. “Seeing how you made me burn the entire floor, injuring yourself in the process then charging towards Amanda despite your injuries and with barely any plan of attack? The crowd thought that was pretty ballsy and chaotic for you to do, so the name sorta just stuck.”

Yeah, I guess that made sense I admitted to myself.

“Now that you’re patched up; people can leave me alone and start bugging you.” Celestia sighed.

“What do you mean?”

“Well let’s just say you’ve become somewhat popular around the school. The new darling of Golden Sierra. Ever since the fight people have been bugging me of when you’d recover.”

“Wait how long have I been out for exactly?”

“About three days. Even with the help of healing magic, it took a while for you to get patched up.” Celestia replied.

She helped me get off the sickbed. She helped me move around the room a little. My legs were like jelly and refused to unjellify themselves if that was even a word; unjellify.

“Come one.” Celestia started. “You can’t keep your adoring fans waiting now.”

Celestia certainly wasn’t wrong; I had become the new darling of Golden Sierra Mana academy practically overnight. People would stare at me with awe or fear. Some asked to shake my hand or have an autograph. It was strange; I had only won one fight, by complete luck. Yet, here I was, being treated like royalty. Trevor and his gang avoided me at all costs, changing directions in the halls if they spotted me. But even more surprising was that Amanda Horn came to apologize, albeit forced by her younger sister.

“Listen Magnus…” she started, clearly uncomfortable with apologizing to me. I doubt she ever apologized.

I was in the hall, reading a book on a bench, waiting to go eat lunch with Celestia when Amanda appeared.

“Can I help you?” I asked her looking up from my book.”

I looked her up and down. She hadn’t changed much from the duel. Her hair was still a mess, with knots everywhere. Her school uniform was missing the tie we had to wear, and her shirt was unbuttoned, allowing you to see a bit of her chest. She till defied the rules I see.

“Uh yeah, listen I just want to…” she muttered.

“Want to what?” I asked again.

“Let me finish! This I awkward for me to do, I’ve only done this towards Jessica.”

“Alright then.”

“Look, Magnus, I’m just here to apologize for how I acted during the duel. I harmed you a bit too much. But I still stand by what I said before the fight.”

With that, she left me once again alone. A few minutes later I saw Celestia coming my way. I waved at her, she waved back. I made my way towards her until I was stopped by somebody who entered my field of vision.

“Follow me, Elenore Magnus,” Atlas told me.