RavensDagger

  Chapter Two Hundred and y-One - I'm Not Toug You!

  Aweuro our little waiting room after a sylph in white robes fussed over her on the edge of the ring. There was some magic used there, but Amaryllis assured me it was nothing but healing magic. Members of the Healiinels swore an oath to only heal, so there was nothing to worry about.

  “Are you okay?” I asked anyway as soon as she was close. Then, when she slipped into hugging range, I pounced and squeezed her tight.

  Awen giggled, and ed her arms arouo return the hug. “I’m fine, Broc. Well, mostly fine.”

  “Mostly?” I asked as I pulled back a little.

  She narrowed her eyes. “Yes, mostly. I had a few more tricks I could have used in there. I shouldn’t have held back as much as I did. He was a much better fighter than I am, but I think I could have made him bleed a lot more if I just pushed myself a little harder.”

  “But you did great out there,” I said.

  Awen pulled out of the hug entirely while shaking her head. “I lost, Broccoli. I’m not going to beat myself up over it, you don’t o worry about that.” She gnced bato the arena. “But I could have doer. I should have. I... I think I o think a little bit about it.”

  I sighed, but let her pass. Amaryllis hesitated o her, then carefully gave Awen a hug too. I couldn’t help but smile at that. It was nice seeing Amaryllis opening up, at least.

  “When I write to Rose, I’ll tell her that you were spectacur out there,” Amaryllis said.

  “Awa! N-no!”

  Maybe Awen was right too. I’d been thinking of the fights as games more than anything else.

  “Representing Lord Francisco Hawk...” Augustus was already in the tre of the arena. “Flein Bog!”

  That was the other sylph, the Hardened. I didn’t know what that css could do, and that retty worrisome. Plus, he was level 16. That was a good k ahead of me.

  The sylph stepped into the arena and gnced over to our side of it. He didn’t have any ons on him that I noticed. Did that mean he was a magic user? Or something else?

  “Representing Lady Amaryllis Albatross... Captain Broccoli Bunch!”

  I paused for a moment, only moving when I felt talons and a hand toug my back. “You do it,” Amaryllis said.

  “Kick his butt,” Awen suggested quite seriously.

  I nodded, my resolve made up, then I grabbed my broom and dustpan and moved into the arena.

  I came to stand across from Flein. “Heya,” I said.

  He o me. “Greetings.”

  I took only one moment to gnce up and around. The stadium seating was full. Nobles and a few more modestly dressed sylph, all pag in as close as they could. The only exception was a small box where I saw the princesses and Francisco looking down on us.

  Looking up was a distra I couldn’t afford, so I refocused on Flein again. “Usually I’d try to make friends, Mister Flein, but I really-really have to win this, okay? So, ah, maybe we chat after the fight? No hard feelings?”

  The sylph smiled. “No hard feelings, Captain Bunch,” he said.

  The referee g us both, then started an abridged version of the speech he’d given before the st fight.

  “Uh, I have a question,” I said when he was nearing the end.

  “Yes?” the referee asked.

  “Is there an out of bounds?”

  He nodded. “Going too far up, above the level of the first row of seats, will activate a barrier. Leaving the arena through the side-doors is forbidden as well, though those will remain closed for the duration of the fight.”

  “Alright, thank you,” I said.

  “Good.” The referee made a show of looking around. “The arena is cleared. There is no magi the air. Testing the magelights now.”

  I blinked as the arena turned red. It made the open space a whole lot more sinister for a moment.

  “If you see those lights e on again, you stop,” the referee said. He turo me. “Repeat my instrus about the lights,” he said.

  “If the lights turn red, I have to stop,” I said.

  He hen turo Flein who repeated the instrus without looking away from me.

  I bounced on the spot. I should have stretched more, I realized.

  “Are both batants ready?”

  We nodded. I shifted my grip on my broom and turned just a bit so that I was side-on to Flein in case he unched a spell at me. I had a pn f in the bay head already. I adjusted my gdiator’s helmet o time.

  “Dropping the kerchief now,” the referee said.

  The handkerchief fluttered down and nded gently onto the sand.

  That sand instantly shifted up and started to move of its own volition.

  ing magic gathered on my broom as I stepped to the side and flicked it out, firing a bright sing bolt toward Flein.

  Could I e his sand trol? If so, this would be an easy win!

  I wasn’t so lucky.

  Flein ducked to the side, then spun around on the spot.

  The sand around him eapt up from the ground and g to him, two long tendrils formed past his arms and sowards me with twin cracks.

  I hopped to the side, narrowly avoiding the two sandy whips. They rammed into the arena wall behind where I had been standing with two eg thumps. That... would have hurt.

  Flein wasn’t going to give me any time to e up with a pn. He spun around and two more whips swung out at me, one slig the air horizontally, the other snaking ht at my face.

  I jumped to the side, ears back to keep them safe, and rolled over the horizontal strike while the other cracked at empty air.

  I nded in a roll and bounced bay feet. I o react! Pushing my mana out, I created a burst of ing magic as another pair of whips approached.

  They kept ing, only a small portion shimmering away. The sand itself wasn’t something that was city, it was just pin sand.

  One of the whips sshed past my side and I hissed as it grated open a thin streak on my arm.

  I couldn’t stand still.

  Flein started to walk towards the middle of the arena, arms still spinning around to form new whips. He was going to cut the distand give me no time to react.

  I flung a rge fireball at him while bag up, then, in the pause where he ducked out of the way, I brought my foot bad kicked forwards. The end of my shoes met my dustpan in mid-air, and Flein cursed as he redirected his whips to bat it out of the air.

  The dustpa sailing far out of reach, and before he could reset, I darted toward the wall, sprinting all out with Stamina c through my legs. A whip snapped behind me a moment before I leapt up and nded feet-first on the wall.

  My legs sprung out, and I shot across the arena on a straight path for Flein, broom held wooden-end out towards the sylph.

  Flein flung his arm out towards me, a fresh whip f in the air.

  So I kicked out with one leg, a fireball streaking out of the tip of my foot on a straight path for his arm.

  He rolled to the side, but in doing so his whips fell apart into so much sand.

  I was close!

  I nded, rolled, scrapped across the ground, then shot out in the opposite dire right towards Flein who was rec from his own dodge.

  He swung his arm out toward me, and half a dozen ropey tendrils of sand formed in the air between us. They weren’t moving whip-fast, but there would be no dodging them.

  So I swung my broom at them. The haft glowed with ing magic as I put my Makeshift ons Proficy to work. The thin wood smacked though the sand, and the magic glue to it ed around Flein’s, disrupting the shapes where it hit them and turning the ropes into so much loose sand in the air.

  Flein didn’t shy away from my charge. He ran right up to me and, abandoning his rarikes, threunch at my head.

  I ducked out of the way of his punch, then smacked him in the side with my broom.

  The broom made a hawp’ sound, and little else.

  His clothes and skin were covered in a yer of caked-on sand.

  I side-stepped another punch, then started to back away as Flei swinging at me. He had a simple stance, legs a bit apart, arms cocked before him, hips swaying to give his punches more force. Like a boxer. But boxers didn’t have fists enclosed in rocky lumps of hard-packed sand.

  I bsted him with fireballs, but that didn’t seem to do anything at all.

  Flein ducked in towards me and swung an uppercut towards my . It was only the fact that I was taller than him that let me bend bad out of the way of the blow, but then he was right up in front of me, and he brought a knee up to smack me ihigh.

  I stumbled back, making some space between us.

  I was losing.

  He had the adva range. He was tougher up close, and hit harder too. All I had eed and a broom. I was faster, mile too, but no amount of cartwheels would help here.

  I had to try something else. Fire didn’t work. It wasn’t hot or hard-hitting enough. ing wasn’t doing anything other than wash his sand out. My broom with Makeshift ons Proficy could disrupt his whips and sand but not much else.

  Way of the Mysti...

  I o myself. That could be a solution, maybe, but I’d o get in close.

  I spun my broom around, holding it by the haft while the bristles were interposed between Flein and I.

  Wheook his swing, I pushed it aside with the broom. I didn’t just push my mana though my broom though, I pushed it into him.

  There was a weird moment there, like toug a carpet a moment after shuffling on it with big wooly slippers. Not a shock, but the impression that a shock was due.

  Nothing happened except that I shoved the punch aside enough to dodge it. But I had felt something.

  My new level in Way of the Mysti allowed me to trol an oppo’s mana, but it didn’t e with an instruanual.

  Flein swung his free hand around, and I squeaked as a rope of sand snaked out and almost caught me around the throat. My face almost met his rising knee eye-first as he jumped up into a kick.

  Ag on reflex, I pced a hand on his knee and pushed it back. At the moment the tact was made, I felt his magic moving. It wasn’t like my own, all friendly and . His was coarse and rough, and it felt like it wao pack itself in tight.

  Pushing off his krike was enough to unch me into a backflip. The sense of his magiished as I broke tact, but despite the distra, I still stuck the nding.

  I didn’t pause, cirg around him close enough that I could move in if he tried to make another whip and far enough that he couldn’t punch my lights out.

  Only two dozen seds had passed sihe fight started, and I think we each had a measure of the other.

  I was in so much trouble.

  But I had a really bad idea, and sometimes bad ideas were a great way to get out of a bind.

  It was a reckless idea too, but that’s how I fought most of the time anyway.

  Flein was the first to move. Sliding towards me on a wave of sand, his fist punched out and released a big poof of loose sand that filled the air before me.

  I tered with a bst of ing magic that didn’t do much. Some of that sand spshed through the front of my helmet and against my face. I had to blink fast to keep it out of my eyes.

  Flein’s quick motion ended with a heavy punch towards my middle. His fist had gained a long narrow bar at the end of it, giving him a bit more reach. I stepped back, grabbed his wrist, and pulled. At the same time, I grabbed onto his magid cast a spell.

  It wasn’t anything fancy. It was the sort of thing I’d dohousand times before. A wave of pure ing magic.

  The wave burst out of him and washed over me to no effect.

  I grinned.

  I’d just cast a spell with his magic!

  Better yet, the sandy struct around his fist fell apart.

  Flein pulled his arm ba a hurry, and I hopped forwards and followed.

  I saw his eyes filled with fusion behind a sandy mask as I jumped towards him. “This might tickle!” I shouted.

  I darted in and started to poke at him with my free hand while shoving my broom between his legs and behind his knee. Every poke turned his Sand-aspect mana into more -aspect, and with the ge his armour fell apart in big clumps.

  Flein wasn’t going to let me off so easily though. He reached out and grabbed my broom handle. I lost my grip on it as he tugged it away and immediately let it fall to the side.

  I might have been out of a on, but I had just gained a sed hand to poke him with!

  “Annoying,” he said.

  “Thanks, I’m trying really hard,” I said.

  And then Flein exploded, a burst of sand shoving off of him hard enough to send me reeling.

  I guessed that it wouldn’t be so easy to win here.

  ***

  RavensDagger

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