Two sets of eyes stared back at me, one crimson and the other silver. They were the two I had met earlier, Remmy and Daxton. They were here to represent their own house. The House of Fire and Stone. My sapphire eyes went to Remmy who stood there, crouched and ready. Daxton on the other hand, stood with both hands dropped to his sides. He still wore a scowl on his face, but it was a lot less prominent than the one he had worn before. And I noticed now, he also wore the uniform that represented their house.

  “Begin!” came Kaivos’ voice from below.

  They wasted no time at all.

  The ground shook and I could only guess that it was some kind of earth magic that was the culprit here. Remmy with his hand on the floor, never allowed his gaze to stray from me. I wondered what he could possibly be thinking.

  “Pay attention!”

  My eyes snapped to Daxton who was sprinting towards me. One of his hands was balled up in a fist and held by his side. Flames erupted around it! Ten feet… five feet… he swung at me.

  I twisted out of the way, pivoting on a heel.

  Daxton twisted mid swing, almost connecting with my face and if it wasn’t for the barrier I held up, it would have. Instead, his fist connected with air. He hopped backwards as I dropped to the floor and swung my feet towards his. Unfortunately I missed. Daxton had probably guessed what I had been about to do.

  “I thought you were a summoner,” he said.

  I was a summoner, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t do other things as well. Summoners could often pull the abilities of the creatures that had contracts with and it was very common for them to learn how to fight hand to hand. Most wanted to be out there, with the creatures they had become fond of. Made friends with.

  “I am,” I said.

  My barrier went up again as several small bullets of earth flew in my direction. They hit my barrier and disintegrated.

  “Then why don’t you call something to help you like you did in the other match?”

  Honestly? The reason was because it took a lot of energy to summon a creature. More energy than it took, to just use their abilities. I also only had a total of four. Four creatures to summon, two of which needed rest and the third and fourth? Well, I would only call Nyx if I felt my life or the life of someone I cared about was in danger. That wasn’t here though. The fourth creature, I was just waiting for the right moment.

  I dropped the barrier and sprinted to where the vampire was setting up his next earth attack. Pulling the same kind of trick that Daxton had used, I swung out a fist surrounded by swirling air. It went through his barrier of dust he had conjured up, but the vampire was too quick! I leapt backwards and out of my reach.

  “You seem like a nice person, Christina,” he said. “So let me give you some advice.”

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  “What if I don’t want your advice?” I said as I threw a blast of air in his direction.

  “I’m going to give it to you anyway,” Remmy swung his hand like he would a knife and cut through my blast of air. “This place is not for someone like you?”

  Someone like me? What was that even supposed to mean? I know I had only been in Aurys academy for about an hour at this point, but that didn’t mean I haven’t noticed some things. Like how young Shue was. How young a lot of kids were, but also the teenagers like myself and the adults, like Remmy. There were people here whom I thought might be in their fifties, yet they were not teachers. They were students just like us.

  “I’m not sure I know what you mean,” I said.

  “I mean, you are skilled, I’ll give you that, but there are some who are even more so. And those people, They are not like Daxton and I,” he said. “My advice to you, would be to forfeit and join the infantry corps.”

  The infantry? I shook my head. There was no way I was going to do that. “Yeah sorry Remmy,” I said. “That is your name right? Well, I’m not going to do that.”

  Remmy sighed and shook his head. “Thought you might say that, but I had to try.”

  “Behind you!” Senza shouted in my mind.

  I rolled out of the way as Daxton brought a foot down, right where my head had been moments before. Where his heel had connected with the hard floor, there was now a small hole.

  “It’s not that I’m not grateful or anything for the help Senza, but…”

  “But…?” he asked.

  “I told you specifically not to help me because-”

  “It feels like cheating, I know I know. But you know that I should technically be out there with you.”

  Senza was right. I should have brought him into the arena with me, but I chose not to. Not because he’s an otter but because of what he is… or wait, that didn’t sound quite right. All that mattered was that there were reasons I could not bring him into battle with me, especially one like this where there were too many eyes watching.

  “We’ll talk about this later,” I said as I turned back to my opponents.

  The rest of the fight was a blur to me. Fighting two people who were far more skilled than I was, was extremely taxing. Daxton would rush in - I was starting to guess now that he was a battle mage - and throw a fiery punch or kick in my direction. There were a few that actually managed to break through my barrier and throw me back a little. Once, I even almost fell off the arena and that would have been it for me.

  Avoiding the earth attacks from Remmy was easy enough. All I had to do for those was either jump into the air, aided by the wind from one of my summons, or either throw up a barrier or twist out of the way.

  Remmy threw more of those earthen bullets in my direction and with the sweep of a hand, they were gone and then so was Remmy. Somehow, my attack managed to get past his own shield and it threw the vampire off the platform we were standing on. A grin crept up my face as I dodge Daxton’s next attack. A fist to the face.

  “Alright!” Kaivos yelled. “Alright Daxton! Your battle with her is over.”

  Daxton stood up straight, looking not at all pleased with the outcome of this. His scowl was piercing as I met his gaze once more. Then he took his leave, down the stairs he had climbed up to get here.

  Kaivos came over to stand before me. “You are skilled with what you know,” he said as he crossed his arms. “I think any house would be lucky to have you, but I believe here, that you belong in Fire and Stone.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “Fire and Earth magics… well… I don’t have any summons that can use either of those elements.”

  “Then I guess you’d better get some,” he said as he led me down the stairs. Remmy was waiting at the bottom with his arms crossed. “This is Remmy, go with him and he’ll get you situated.”

  I nodded and then gladly left the arena behind as I followed Remmy out of the colosseum.