198 - A Game? (Patreon)

“What on earth just happened?” 

Caleb's murmured comment made Elric’s stomach tighten, sharp-winged butterflies flitting about. He glanced at Lord Wesley's nephews. Both of them were sitting in abject shock, their jaws slackened. Lord Wesley, on the other hand, had a look of pure greed in his eyes and a self-satisfied smirk. 

"What is she?" Ian asked. 

“She is Arielle Blacksoil,” Wesley responded. “My sponsee, of course.”

"I've never seen that spell before," Caleb said. "Did she craft it?"

"I'm sure she did," Wesley said, bumping Elric with his elbow. "Our girl is quite clever, is she not?"

Elric could only manage a weak smile, his gaze travelling across the room's inhabitants, most of whom were also staring at Arielle with a mixture of shock, awe, curiosity...and some suspicion. 

That was what he was worried about. 

Luckily, she hadn't done anything that would call their lies into question...but they could tell there was something about her that wasn’t quite normal. 

Arielle nearly yawned again and glanced at the clock in the room, as spectators watched surprised silence. While they had all likely been expecting Arielle to win those battles, they probably didn't think she would drop three of their higher-level adepts within a few seconds of their appearance. 

One of them hadn’t even gotten an opportunity to call out the spell before she rendered him unconscious. 

And just as she did after every fight, she looked at the clock. 

It hit Elric in a rush. 

Was she timing each battle? Making sure that it lasted long enough so that it would appear normal? 

While someone else might judge it as her perhaps trying to finish the fight as quickly as possible, to break a record or prove a point, Elric knew it was mostly likely the opposite. 

Oh Arielle...

It wasn’t the time that was the problem. It was the complete lack of expression on her face when she cast, the near-total boredom. Elric knew it was because she was tired and sleepy, but to anyone else watching, it came off as a lack of effort, as though she did not take any of her opponents seriously enough to even try. As though she knew she could totally dominate them in her sleep. 

Each of her spells, which were adept-tier at the very least, seemed effortless to cast, and she didn’t even have to pay attention while casting.  And then there was the fact that she had managed to catch the invisible Darius Dove and had also accidentally yawned in Magnus' face.

Elric had to sigh deeply and cover his face after that, although Lord Wesley thought it was pretty funny. 

Even the assembly's speaker seemed somewhat confounded by Arielle, and the man had seen a lot in his long life.

Elric could only imagine what the others were thinking. 

“That cousin of yours is something else entirely, Elric,” someone murmured, and he turned to find it was Cinaq with another man Elric had only seen in passing once or twice. 

“How is she casting so fast?” Cinaq’s companion said. "I thought they said she was a beginner who only started learning magic less than a year ago. She acts like she's been doing it her whole life."

“Yes, but did you not hear the rumors?" Cinaq answered before Elric did. "Apparently, she has very rare cores that allow her to sense essences better than more people. Isn't that right, Elric?"

"What does that have to do with casting speed?" the other man said. 

Cinaq shrugged. "Well, if her cores are that sensitive, I suppose that helps her grab onto essences and arrange them quickly, doesn't it? Elric?"

"Something like that," Elric responded, since that was as good an explanation for her speed as any. 

“She's casting like a seasoned Master,"  Cinaq said, voice hushed. "Now I see why the council allowed her to attain the title. The Earthbinders will be getting another representative in the assembly too, going at the rate she’s going.” 

"She's not an Earthbinder," Elric said automatically. "Not directly anyway."

"Still. I can't imagine they wouldn't be interested in her after this display."

Elric bit the inner corner of his lip and nearly groaned. 

Cinaq was right, of course. The Earthbinders would be interested and the last thing he needed was them trying to lay claim to Arielle. Not only did he not want her anywhere close to his twisted family, but if they dug deeply enough, they too might discover that she wasn’t who they said she was. 

It's been one problem after another lately.

"Let's see," the speaker announced. "Are there any more challengers?"

“I challenge.”

Elric's head turned at the unfamiliar voice. A  tall, striking young woman who sat a few rows over toward the center of the room stood. She had flowing red hair and blue eyes, tanned coloring, and was wearing the trademark colors of the Pyronis royal family. 

Selena Gregor. The Calor Princess. 

At Selena’s declaration, the murmurs began. 

Elric frowned. She was a Master, wasn't she? Why was she challenging Arielle?

“Erm,” the speaker said. “Miss Gregor, I presume?”

“Yes,” Selena nodded, speaking confidently even though the room was full of people she had never met before, who were older than her and many of whom outranked her. “It’s my first assembly meeting.”

“Congratulations. You have shown more boldness than most would on their first day."

"Remember your first day in the assembly, Elric?" Caleb teased, and Elric managed another smile. 

He did remember. An argument had broken out as he'd sat in the very back of the room, trying valiantly to be ignored while being whipped left and right by the authority of angry mages.

Oh, how times had changed. 

But Miss Selena Gregor didn’t look like the type to sit at the back of the room, or cower in a corner.

“Well, Miss Gregor," the speaker continued. "I appreciate your enthusiasm, but these challenges are usually brought forth by adepts who seek to test their mettle against the newest Master.”

“I thought you said anyone could challenge,” she said. 

"I misspoke. What I meant was any adept. There is no point in you, an experienced Master, battling against her. You will obviously win.”

“I’m not sure it’s so obvious,” Selena said. "After all, she beat everyone else within seconds."

She stared pointedly at the body on the floor that was slowly rousing now that the slumber spell was no longer active. Darius Dove gradually got on his hands and knees, rubbed his eyes, and looked around him. His face turned red with embarrassment when he realized what had happened. 

He got to his feet, giving Arielle a wounded, albeit apprehensive, glare. 

"Sorry," she said, and for some reason, a section of the opposite benches laughed. 

As Darius returned to his seat, redfaced, the laughter spread infectiously, until a quarter of the room was at least chuckling, with Lord Wesley calling out, "It’s a friendly duel, Hexus. There’s no harm in seeing what she can do.”

Elric cut him a sharp look, but Lord Wesley ignored him. 

"There are rules, Lord Wesley," the speaker said. "We don't want an unevenly matched–"

"Those last three battles were clearly unevenly matched," someone else called out. "Come now, you've got us excited here. Give the girl a challenge."

"Yeah, let them fight." another said, and there was a chorus of acceptance and excitement drowned out the rationality of the few opponents in the room, which caused Hexus to call for quiet, without his gavel. 

“I’m not sure a new master like Ms. Blacksoil will be comfortable facing a seasoned master such as Princess Gregor,” he said. 

“Ask her if she minds," Lord Wesley slipped in. "Go on, ask her."

Hexus remained tight-lipped for a few seconds, clearly disagreeing. Nevertheless, he eventually relented. “Do you mind, Ms. Blacksoil?"

Elric was hoping Arielle would turn down the fight. She was clearly exhausted and had seemed eager to get this over with. 

If she had looked at Elric at that point, he would have given her a firm shake of the head, telling her not to engage in this particular fight.  

But for once she didn't glance at Elric. She was staring at Selena instead, and something passed over her face that Elric didn't quite recognize and could not interpret. 

It was the first time the boredom lifted off her features. 

“No,” Arielle said. “I don’t mind.”

***

Arielle didn’t know why Selena wanted to battle her, but she found herself curious about how it would play out. 

The last time they'd faced each other had been one of the more entertaining duels she'd had at the academy, even though it was merely a game. The only academy fight more challenging had been the trial against Professor Graham. 

But with Selena...it had been challenging in a different way. More intellectual way. 

It was fascinating watching how her power worked, how she used Calor in a creative manner, and how her cores seemed to push even her physical body to extreme heights. Maybe Arielle could get some spell ideas from her. She couldn't copy the spell exactly, of course. But she would make a Calor-Massa variant that was distinct enough that no one would recognize that it was stolen.  

As the other woman stepped down the stairs and took her position opposite her, Ari was reminded of the first time they'd sparred. Although this time it was different. 

Selena was not wearing her school robes. Arielle was not pretending to be an apprentice. 

But the same type of energy radiated between them, and the same kind of sparkle was in Selena’s eyes. 

“Is this another game?” Arielle asked, because she couldn’t figure out why Selena was here. There were no real consequences to either winning or losing. Arielle had not done anything to offend her lately, and Selena didn't seem particularly vengeful either. 

The other woman was hard to read. She didn’t look angry, but she didn’t look particularly happy. She wasn’t tense, but she also wasn’t relaxed.

“No," Selena responded. “This is too risky to be a game. It would be humiliating if I lost.” She smiled sadly, circling her. “Very humiliating. But I just couldn’t resist.”

Couldn’t resist what? Arielle watched her, confused. Selena was a Master. She was wealthy, and she had lots of friends and a lot of people respected her. What could possibly tempt her into a fight with Arielle?

“I just need to know,” she said and withdrew her wand. 

Arielle withdrew her wand too. 

And right before the speaker called to start the fight, Selena was wind. 

The wand had been a decoy because she used her speed rather than a spell, and had Arielle not already activated her shield spell, she would have lost already. 

But luckily Ari remembered from the last time they’d played this game. She knew Selena tended to vanish and attack without warning. 

"[High Fortress]," Ari said, but even before the words left her mouth, she'd already thrown up the anti-motion shield spell that Vittoria had taught her. 

Selena was right in the middle of thrusting the air dagger when the shield met her with a near-imperceptible hiss. 

It slowed her thrust, caught it, and then repelled her with an explosive force. 

She should have hit the wall, but she bounced off with remarkable agility, landing on her feet. Still invisible, she circled Arielle once more as someone from the crowd said, "So fast."

Arielle was instantly concerned. 

Were they talking about her or Selena? And if it was her, did that mean that she had cast too fast?

Hopefully not. She was a Master after all, and Masters were allowed to cast fast. 

"[Quick Slumber]," Arielle said next, but Selena got out of the way before the spell could touch her. Ari tried casting again, this time, before saying it, but Selena seemingly anticipated that and kept in constant motion, darting from side to side, so Ari’s wand could never settle on her. 

"[Quick Draw][Creature Control]," Arielle activated and combined both spells to cast faster, but as she threw out [Quick Slumber] she still missed Selena by a nanosecond. 

And again. 

And again. 

Even after she connected her hand movement to Selena’s motion like she’d done last time during their spar, using one of the Calors that followed her around, it still wasn’t enough. 

It seemed Selena had gotten faster. 

Without warning, Selena shot toward her like lightning, another attack with the air dagger. Her speed sent a ripple effect around the small space, a shockwave that slapped against the walls. 

Still, Arielle's shield kept her away. 

It slowed like it was supposed but Selena’s motion was accompanied by an intense wave of heat that clouded around her. Ari recoiled to avoid most of it, even though she knew her shield could catch it. 

Her shield protected her for the most part, but she was surprised that some of the heat made it beyond. Just a little bit, but it was enough to concern her. 

Shouldn't her shield have eliminated all of it? Or maybe not, since the heat wasn’t technically a spell, it couldn’t. It had been energy from Selena but not in spell form. 

Still, the shield should still have worked. It should have repelled Selena too, but she had already rocketed backward, before the shield could send her hurtling. 

Arielle’s mind spun and remained stuck on why the heat had passed through her shield. But she didn’t have time to think too long, because Selena was on the move.
This time, Arielle didn’t risk her relying on just her shield. She catapulted away, using an anti-magnetic connection to Selena’s motion to keep her away from her. 

“[Away].” She made up a spell name for the effect, even though she’d already cast the spell a second before she said it. 

From that point, Selena couldn’t get close and she seemed to notice that Arielle had used an anti-magnetic spell, because she began to sweep from side to side, shooting forward and then rebounding, making Arielle motion sick with her jagged pattern. Ari wondered why Selena wasn't casting spells anymore and why she kept attacking when she knew the shield would stop her. 

Did she have a plan for getting through her shield? 

Why was Calor pouring out of Selena’s EPUQ gathering in corners if she wasn’t using it?

What was she up to?

The answer came sooner than she expected it to. 

Arielle dropped the connection to Selena's movement because the zig-zag pattern was giving her a headache. She chose to rely on her shield and speed, while laying a trap for Selena. 

She needed the other woman to get closer though. 

Soon enough, her wish was granted and Ari found her back against the wall. When Selena got close, she shot to the side. 

The air dagger caught her anyway, just a little. 

After that, the strangest thing happened.

The anti-movement section of the shield spell didn’t slow down the air dagger enough. It pierced through her shield just a little before it disappeared. 

It happened too fast for Arielle to take note of how it did that, and she didn't have time to wonder because Selena was charging at her again.

She caught up and thrust her air dagger through Ari’s shield again. This time, it went through even deeper before the shield reacted and made it vanish. 

Ari saw exactly what happened then. 

The air dagger was coated with Vacu on the outside and Calor on the inside. And the Calor was more active than it should be within a bond. It somehow managed to maintain its bonds while shaking furiously, not as much as the dragon's Calor delta was, but enough that it was transferring some of this excess energy to the Calor embedded in Arielle's shield, making it more active and therefore weakening the bonds and allowing the blade through before the secondary mechanism kicked in.

She was actually sort of breaking Arielle’s spell. Not completely of course, and Arielle could always strengthen the bonds. But it was still pretty remarkable.

How was she doing that? Well, Ari knew how she was doing it, but how was she making her Calor so active within the spell?

More likely, the same thing she did to her body to make herself so fast without breaking apart. Selena's Calor cores had always been very impressive, and her Vacu cores weren't far behind either. 

Ari kind of wanted to see if the dagger would make it all the way through next time. 

But rather than risk it, she decided to put an end to this.

"[Spell Breaker]," Ari said, but once again before she could complete it, Selena was gone, clearing away from her. 

Nevertheless, [Spell Breaker] found her through the connection Ari had created with one of her external orbs, although it only scattered the orbs at her feet for a few seconds, before they came back together. It slowed her down by a fraction, because Selena’s speed must be a combination of her attributes, the Calor arrangement around her body, and some other third thing that Arielle could not tell. 

Probably the same mechanism by which she turned her body to wind. 

However, Spell Breaker was only meant to slow Selena down just enough for Ari to activate, “[Fly Trap].”

Selena jumped out of the way, but there was no escape from the manacles of air that formed around her arms and wrists, cementing her in place. The trap had the same antimotion component of Arielle’s shield, but it also had added Massa to weigh her down and prevent her from being invisble. 

When Selena had gotten close that last few times, Ari had paid close attention, using [Sensate] to evaluate her movements and examine how she managed to disappear even when standing still. She noted the sound of subtle vibration, a buzz, the tiny sparkles that were deflections of light. 

Using her exact frequency, Ari had created tiny links to match the anti-motion component of her spell to Selena’s speed, thereby eliminating it and making her no longer invisible. 

While she still didn’t understand everything about Selena’s speed, she was pleased that this, at least, had worked. 

Selena finally appeared out of thin air, no longer invisible, her intense gaze on Arielle with an almost glare, her face reddened. 

Arielle's still active [Sensate] ears picked up the conversation around her. 

"Incredible. Just incredible.

"Don’t tell me…she caught up to the Calor Princess’ speed?"

"How did she even see her? How on Earth did she trap her?”

“Don’t ask me, I've been lost the entire fight.”

Arielle terminated [Sensate] though the buzzing of conversation remained around her. She glanced at the clock. Nearly a minute. Not bad. 

She was somewhat disappointed that the fight was ending this quickly. She would have liked to explore Selena’s powers more, but maybe they could maybe have a conversation after, if Selena was willing to talk to her. 

She lifted her wand, and targeted the trapped Selena, who for some reason had her eyes closed while doing what seemed to be breathing exercises, inhaling deeply in and out in quick succession. 

"[Quick Slumber]." 

The spell shot out of Arielle's wand and hit Selena straight in the gut. 

But she didn't fall. Neither did she pass out. 

She just continued to inhale and exhale, inhale and exhale. 

What?

Arielle reactivated [Sensate] and her aura-reading charm. She soon realized that Selena was speeding up her breathing to counteract the effects of the slumber spell and the [Fly Trap]. Normal breathwork wouldn’t be able to counteract [Quick Slumber] but this was a different type of breathing. 

This breathing made Selena’s entire body vibrate with energy to keep her awake. 

Her face was red with the effort, her heart beating so fast that Arielle was worried she would suffer an attack. 

She was essentially an energy bomb waiting to pop, yet she remained standing. 

She even opened her eyes and smiled at Arielle. 

Before she even knew it, Arielle’s lip upturned in response. 

There was a rush of excited chatter around them, though Arielle couldn’t pick through most of it.

“Well, she is the Calor Princess after all,” someone in the crowd remarked loudly.

“Ms. Arielle has been holding her own too,” another responded just as loudly. 

Both those things were true. 

However, Arielle's true disadvantage here was that she was using Calor heavy spells against someone who was likely trained to withstand them and who knew a whole bunch of techniques Arielle didn’t. She could probably use other essence heavy spells to counter, but she was supposed to use mostly Calor-Massa today, to establish that as her base.  And while Massa worked well to weigh Selena down in the [Fly Trap] spell, it wasn't quite enough to overcome her sheer force of motion. 

Selena was something else. 

Arielle wondered if she should use other non-Calor spells to end this fight, but she watched instead, to see what Selena would do next.

What she didn’t expect though, was that, in a flash, Selena would be out of her bonds. 

Arielle’s brain was slow to realize that her spell had been altered, that Selena had twisted a small, Calor-heavy part of Ari’s own spell to form something else, to enable her escape. 

Arielle nearly gaped. 

Was Selena Gregor a Phasewalker?

"I see I surprised you," Selena said, as she landed on her feet. 

"You did."

"Good."

This time, when she charged, Arielle sped out of the way purely on instinct. Selena gave chase, and the Calor orbs around the place began to circulate as though in anticipation. 

"[Fire Petal, Repeat]," Selena whispered the spell, but Ari heard it anyway. It wove around her, sluicing in the shape of a petal.

Ari opened her mouth to use [Spell Breaker], but then she realized that the spell had woven and attached to parts of her shield spell. 

Selena had linked it to her. This spell must be a Master Tier spell, given the complexity of it and she’d managed to link it to Arielle’s spell at a Calor juncture.  Ari also realized then why Selena hadn't been using any spells before this. Because she knew Arielle would simply break them, and she also needed time to build up this spell that filled the entire arena. 

Did she think that by linking it to Arielle's spell, [Spell Breaker] would effectively break Ari's shield too?

Well, yes, given that was how [Spell Breaker] should work in theory. It wasn’t specific and it would simply dissolve all bonds in whatever spell she targeted. 

It would have been a sure win if Ari didn't know how to simply unlink the spell from her shield. 

But once she unlinked it, it triggered an explosion that rammed into her shield spell, an explosion that had likely been baked into another aspect of the master tier spell that Arielle hadn't had time to evaluate. 

Ari held onto her shield, even as the explosion rocked it. It released enough residual heat to almost burn through her shield and burn her. Almost. 

And at the same time, dealing with that and her eardrums ringing, left enough space for Selena to get close. 

The slice came from nowhere. Arielle was dealing with too many things to know for sure when Selena slipped past her shield, and also circulating many theories in her head, and in a blink there was a slash on her arm. 

She had only taken her eyes away from Selena for a couple of seconds and now she was wounded. 

“First blood has been drawn," the speaker said. 

Arielle looked down at her left forearm, where she'd been nicked. She almost couldn't believe it as she glanced up. 

"Wow," she said. “You got me.”

“I guess I did.” Selena didn't seem content.

She held out her hand and drew a smaller version of her fire whip, long, thin blue flame, crackling with energy. 

The onlookers remarked loudly, although Arielle couldn't entirely make out exactly what they were saying. They were likely reiterating the rules. No grievous harm. 

Even without that, Arielle wasn't worried. The cut on her hand was very shallow. Selena could very well have dug in deeply, but she didn't. 

It seemed she didn't want to hurt her. Nor was she trying to knock her out. 

Her moves were simply about trying to do…what exactly?

Did she just want to win for no reason other than to win? Was this exploratory for her too, as it was for Ari?

"Take this seriously," Selena said. "Okay?"

It wasn't an order. Selena was sober and her voice steady, but there was also something desperate, almost pleading about her gaze. She made the request seem like her sanity depended on it. It made Arielle pause. 

She could let this play out. In fact, it would likely be in her best interest to let Selena draw second and third blood, and that way she could go home soon and go to sleep. 

But she was no longer sleepy. In fact, she was actually kind of excited. 

This was one of the more fun fights she'd had lately, especially since she knew none of them would be injured grievously, and her opponent had such a dynamic, interesting fighting style that Arielle had never seen. 

Each layer of attack Selena launched was like a piece of a puzzle, and Arielle was really curious about how it all came together and how it worked in general. No one had surprised her this much since her battle with Gio, and she liked Gio far less than Selena. 

Not to mention, she did have a lot of respect for the other woman, the way she surprised her and pushed herself to the limit. She clearly had a curiosity and talent for magic too. 

Ari wanted to see more, know more. 

And now Selena was making a request, one that seemed genuine. 

Arielle steeled herself, coming up with a plan in her head to explore the depth of Selena’s skill and put in as much effort as she could afford, using mostly Calor-Massa against Selena's Calor-Vacu.

Who would win?

“Okay,” she said. “I will.”