“The boy is well under control. Trust me, every precaution has been taken”

- Miraculously extant scrap of paper found in the burned-out study of the Regnus mansion. After the fire that claimed the lives of 32 out of 34 members of the household.

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Seeing the poles in the circle had given me just the tiniest bit of hope. My plan was to flit between the poles to dodge his attacks and hope he got tired enough for me to get a lucky hit in. I would have considered it a victory if I was able to achieve a single hit.

Unfortunately, I was quickly disabused of that notion. Grinning, the captain clapped his hands together and the ground rippled and pulsed outwards, casting all the poles into the moat. The crowd of spectators applauded while the air was polluted with steam and the hiss of a dozen burning logs of wood being instantly quenched by cold water. Now I had no cover. The captain adopted a boxer’s stance and stamped his foot down- sending half a dozen balls of earth into the air, hovering in front of him.

The sergeant had said that I would be fine if I kept my distance. However, that was easier said than done. The balls came flying in at insane speeds and I was barely able to dodge the first wave. To make matters worse, he wasn’t static in his movement, instead, he ran after me as I rolled, jumped and on one occasion, cartwheeled over and under the barrage of rocks. I didn’t have infinite stamina however and the rocks kept getting closer and closer until finally, I spotted a rock headed straight for my head as I recovered from a roll. This was it, I was definitely about to be knocked out cold, or worse, have my head burst open like an overripe watermelon.

My eyes were closed as I anticipated the hit but… nothing happened.

All I heard was a soft thud and the surprised shouts of the crowd. I opened my eyes to see the ball of rock, a few inches away from my nose but embedded in a wall of earth similar to those that appeared during my encounter with the swamp crocodile. The captain was surprised, but not surprised enough that he wasn’t able to send two more balls speeding towards me. I stood my ground this time and watched the balls smack into the wall of earth that had reformed and was now chest height.

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I abandoned my search for Maximilian as I made my way to the seating area. He was not here, which was odd. It was also a shame because he was the only one in the camp that was able to keep the captain’s excesses somewhat in line. I would have liked him here as a precaution. I had this nagging feeling that this was going to get… interesting.

Shit

I swore under my breath. For whatever reason, the seats were packed. I guess people would take any opportunity to slack off, but then again, it wasn’t every day that you got to see The Geyser fight.

Fuck!

The only space left available was predictably a tiny area around Lady Uro and Cust. Of course! No one would willingly subject themselves to that. Unfortunately, that was my only option, so I sucked it up and made my way over. I made sure to keep Cust between myself and Uro though. Yeah, it was rude and obvious, but I have been called rude and obnoxious, so it kinda fit my personality profile.

“Hello, Sergeant Igni!” Cust’s deep booming voice welcomed me. “ It has been a while, has it not? Good to see you” He beamed a perfect smile at me.

The only good thing in my opinion, that had come from Lady Uro’s presence in camp was the fact that Cust was present as well, providing a much needed silver lining to the horror of having to be around her.

“Afternoon Cust!” I smiled back. “ The captain’s going to kill you when he finds out that you still haven’t gotten a haircut”.

Cust’s bright red hair was several times the standard military length. It was genuinely amazing that he and the lady had been in camp for almost two months now and the captain still hadn’t been able to get Cust to trim it down.

“Ha! I would like to see the old grump try” he laughed. “ He had me cornered a few days ago, but I slipped into one of the medical tents when his back was turned”

“ Really? So that was why he was muttering something about disappearing Northmen the other day. He wasn’t pleased”. I mused. I inclined my head towards the lady. “Lady Uro”. I nodded.

“Sergeant Igni” she replied, without even glancing at me.

And that was that.

It was one of those situations in which two people didn’t like each other, each for good reasons. Both sides knew this and as such there was no need to pretend otherwise.

“So, what is this about?” Cust asked eagerly. “The kid just woke up, right?”

“Captain thinks that he’s hiding something about his abilities and identity, so he wants to see whether a duel would get it out of him” I answered, my voice tinged with just enough exasperation.

“ The kid is tough. I saw that firsthand, but I do not think there’s any more to him than that. He just seemed very lost to me when we saved him” he said, with a little nod to the lady.

“His wounds were terrible. It doesn’t make sense that he survived. Think about it. Gert said that he should be dead three times over”

I was a tiny bit agitated myself. I had seen him when he was brought in, and I had honestly thought that it was a waste of time. I was convinced that he wouldn’t last two days, yet here he was, three weeks later, squaring up with the captain and looking lively. Forty-five minutes ago he had needed my assistance to walk…

“ Uro and I see stranger things in this god-forsaken swamp every day we leave the camp. I do not believe he is a threat”

I sighed. Cust seemed to be one of those extraordinarily trusting people. It was admirable, but in my experience, healthy paranoia was a good thing. Kept you on your toes. If I had been less trusting and more suspicious of seemingly harmless favours a few years ago, then I wouldn’t be in this awful place. But hindsight is always perfect isn't it?

“ No Cust, she’s right,” Uro said softly. “ There’s something off about him. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it’s there”

You’re one to talk

Cust simply grunted at that and said nothing. I then focused most of my attention on the duel. The captain cleared out the logs, giving himself clearer shots at mystery man and was toying with him, like a sadistic red forest viper playing with its prey. To his credit mystery man was putting on a good show and dodging everything with incredible feats of athleticism but he obviously couldn’t keep it up forever.

“Hey, Cust” I called. “Help me think up a name for the kid. I keep thinking ‘mystery man’ but that’s a mouthful”

“Huh?” Cust was puzzled. “ He did not tell you his name?”

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“Nah, he says he doesn’t remember it. We have to call him something, right?”

“True, how about Lipka?”

“Nah, he looks more like a southerner”

“Cris?”

“He doesn’t really strike me as a heroic knight type. How about Vissen?”

“No!” Cust laughed “I knew a Vissen. He was awful. Luk?”

“No, had a suitor named Luk”

“This is difficult. How about Zed? I had a cousin named Zed. He grew beets”

“ Ohhh! That sounds perfect!” I gushed. In all honesty, though, I didn’t really care. I had gotten bored after about the second name. Therefore if fate had seen fit to make mystery man the namesake of Zed the beet farmer, who was I to interfere?\

‘Zed’ was getting visibly tired down below and the projectiles from the captain kept getting closer and closer to him. I had just turned to Cust to ask him how much longer he thought Zed could hold out when we both heard a sharp intake of breath from Lady Uro and refocused our attention on the duelling circle. Apparently, Zed had grown too tired to dodge and the captain had capitalized on the opportunity, but it didn’t work. An earthen shield had sprung up in front of Zed and it had blocked the captain’s projectiles.

“Ah, finally some real action,” Cust said approvingly. “What is the matter Uro?” he sounded worried.

I followed his gaze to Lady Uro who was somehow even paler than usual. She looked shaken and a bit wild-eyed.

“ Just now, just now!” she breathed. “ His ripples were much bigger than they have any right to be. Something doesn’t make sense. Am I making sense?” she asked. She really was flustered huh.

“Nope” I replied, relishing how petty I was being. “Not at all”.

Actually, I sort of understood what she was saying. Lady Uro was a Matchless and one of her abilities was a kind of magical sonar that allowed her to roughly estimate how powerful a certain object or person was. From her reaction, it was clear that something unusual had happened. Meanwhile, the cause of this disturbance was down in the dueling circle, he had stopped running and was now giving the captain the evilest grin I had ever seen.

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“Might want to change it up captain” I called out, smirking.

He simply grunted and charged me. The problem here was, I hadn’t really thought much further past agitating him and I was now at a loss. What to do? He couldn’t hit me with the balls sure, but I wasn’t certain my earth shields were going to stop him from simply giving me a beat down with his fists. It was clear now that I did, in fact, have special abilities. The shields were likely an automated self-defence mechanism that acted independent of any conscious thought, but surely there had to be a way to exert some control over them, right?

The captain was barely five feet away from me and I was running out of time. I focused my attention on the wall and willed it to move in a last-ditch attempt to avoid the forced rearrangement of my face and… it did. The earthen wall surged forward, colliding with the onrushing captain and knocking the breath out of him. Since I had no real control, the wall kept moving forward, threatening to knock the captain out of the circle. I was already mentally celebrating my unlikely victory when the captain somehow managed to erect an earthen barrier around the edge of the circle that stopped him from being thrown out. He then proceeded to punch…

Punch! his way through my wall and come charging towards me again. As he charged, the barrier he erected crumbled and orbited him. It was terrifying, but I was going to stand my ground again.

I was suddenly hit with an idea; couldn’t I hit him with one of the rocks that were swirling around his head? I could certainly try, so I desperately pushed my will out, directing it specifically at one of the smaller rocks orbiting him and tugged it as hard as I could.

The rock broke its orbit, shot out and struck his chest, not even half as hard as I had wanted it to really, but suddenly the crowd was dead silent and the captain stared at me with an expression mixed with rage and…horror?

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Wait, did that just happen?

Cust was wide-eyed between Lady Uro and I and gripping both our shoulders, as if for emotional support.

“Yeah, I guess it wasn’t just me that saw that. Huh, big guy?”. I honestly couldn’t believe what I had just seen. Glancing over to Lady Uro, she seemed to be surprisingly calm, considering her earlier outburst. Odd.

“Guess you were right, after all, Lady Uro. There’s something really weird going on here”.

She didn’t reply. Just nodded, and took Cust’s hand in hers, as if to comfort him. That tiny gesture was so disturbingly intimate that I couldn’t help but to look away. Perhaps more than anyone else, the captain down in the duelling ring must have been losing his mind.

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What the hell did I do?

The captain stopped his advance and walked back to the other side of the circle, he raised his arms and the water from the moat rose out and snaked around him. The ground trembled as large chunks of the circle detached and joined the water in swirling around him. This kicked up a cloud of dust too thick to see through but by the time the dust settled, Captain Larimar had three balls of earth-more than five times the size of the previous ones-orbiting him.

Oh shit.

There were no theatrics this time, he simply launched two of the balls right at me. I stood my ground, confident that my shield would protect me.

I was very, very wrong.

The balls got stopped again by the wall. I could see them for an instant, lodged tight in my automatic shield, a second later, however, they burst open explosively, drenching me in scalding hot water and sending me flying out of the circle.

I was on the ground outside the circle, in tremendous pain when I suddenly saw the last of the balls about to descend on me. This was it, the captain had lost his temper and I was about to pay for being an idiot.

The ball never descended.

As I watched, the ball was encased by a bubble which then shrunk, crushing it. I fully expected to be scalded beyond recognition by the boiling hot water that came rushing out but, as it turned out, I was also encased by a translucent bubble that turned out to be impermeable.

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“Oh shit, Oh shit, Oh shit” I panicked.

This was bad

I watched Captain Larimar walk to the edge of the circle and gather up the water in the trough. That last little impossible trick from Zed had done it, The captain was being serious now and there was no way that he was going to come out of the duel unscathed.

“Cust, Uro!,” I pleaded. “Do something!”

Cust made as if to get up, but Lady Uro’s hand on his shoulder kept him seated.

“No, there is no need,” she said calmly.

“What do you mean there’s no need?” I was aghast. “The captain might kill him if we don’t do something!”

“ He will be fine. There is no need for Cust to endanger himself” She replied coolly, affixing me in place with her violet eyes” I instantly felt weaker and struggled to stay standing.

“Haven’t I told you,” I began, gritting my teeth and pointing at her with my right forefinger. “ To never use that shit on me?” the tip of my finger began to glow with a dark orange light.

Cust calmly engulfed my glowing finger with one of his massive fists and shook his head at Lady Uro.

“None of that, both of you,” he said, pointing. “Look”

He was pointing at a figure clad in a lieutenant’s uniform that was rapidly approaching the duelling circle.

Ah, Maximilian

Uro was right. No need to do anything then.

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What was going on?

I looked towards the circle to see the captain trapped in yet another bubble and suspended in midair. The slender sergeant was nearby and shouting at a short young man with his right arm outstretched, who was facing the captain.

“Maximillian! Maximillian stop! Put him down right now!” she yelled as she approached him.

“You saw what he was going to do” he replied, his voice surprisingly deep and gravelly. “Why should I?”

“For one thing, he is your commanding officer,” she said. “Also, I think you’ve made your point” she pointed at the captain, who had his hands in a gesture of supplication.

Without saying a word, Maximillian released the captain, who fell gracelessly from about ten feet up. Turning around, he sighed and walked away, the soldiers that had come to pacify the situation hurriedly stepping out of his way. Meanwhile, the sergeant had reached me and was helping me onto a stretcher that two soldiers had brought.

“Who the hell was that?” I managed, it was getting harder by the second to ignore the pain from the punishment I had taken.

“Lieutenant Maximillian Regnus. I’m sure I don’t have to say this but stay away from him as well. He’s dangerous”. She replied, her face betraying worry at my condition.

“You don’t say?” I muttered, right before I passed out yet again.