Chapter 91 - The Core, the Duel, and the Vaults I (Patreon)

Felix groaned into his pillow, the warm blankets enveloping him like a hug. So cozy. So comfortable. So-

“SUTTER! If you don’t WAKE UP, you’re going to miss the tournament!” Erik practically shouted in his ear.

“What! I’m up!” Felix said, bolting upright. “Jeez, talk about a rude awakening.” He complained.

Erik crossed his arms and stared at Felix.

“Dude. This is literally the third time I’ve woken you up. You slept through your alarms, you’ve crashed back out twice, I thought you went to sleep at a good hour.”

Felix grumbled as he threw the covers off and shivered in the cold air.

“I did!” He snapped back, changing as fast as he could. “I don’t know why I slept in!”

Erik shrugged.

“Well, it’s the dueling tournament today. Maybe you were nervous?” He said.

“Maybe.” Felix tersely replied.

The year was coming to a close, and Dragon House ran an annual tournament for all the members, across all the years. In theory, it was a way to destress and have some fun. In practice? Felix wasn’t looking forward to getting his ass kicked by one of the upper years. Hopefully they’d be kind and merciful to the 1st years. 

Fortunately, it was single-elimination, so he’d ‘only’ need to duel once. He had no illusions about being able to stand up against one of the upper years. After his one match, he was free!

Free to study his ass off! The end of year exams were rapidly approaching. Fortunately, Beatrix had finished the ‘be high as a kite’ part of her ritual, and she’d pointed out that Felix’s study schedule was missing the tournament. He reluctantly penciled in 45 minutes for his name to come up and duel, then go back to working on Charms practice. 

Stupid wand was still too slow, and he was starting to despair that he’d never be good at the subject. There was endless magic in the world, and he could happily spend his entire life on rituals… it just kinda hurt for an entire branch to get closed off.

Felix shook his head. No sense being morose about it. Maybe whoever he was up against would beat him so fast, it’d be reasonable he didn’t get a spell off.

“Let’s go, let’s go!” Erik bounced around.

“Not afraid of something going wrong?” Felix asked him. The duels were, naturally, completely unshielded and unwarded.

Erik snorted.

“I’m not going to be known as ‘Morsin the Coward’.” He said. “First, it’d be political suicide. My retainers would never stand for it. Second. I can’t go my entire life avoiding any possible hint of someone taking a shot at me. Is it possible? Yes. Is it reasonable to avoid? No. Now come on!”

Felix and Erik rushed out of their room, and to their surprise, they weren’t the last ones falling into formation.

“What’s going on?” Felix asked, looking straight at the wall. Something about it looked funny, but he couldn’t quite put his sleep-addled finger on what it was. Wall, wall… well, it was a wall, yes.

“I have no idea.” Erik murmured back, keeping his eyes front as well.

Leona stormed out from the girl’s side a minute later, looking furious. Felix almost drew back, but then realized he was doing nothing wrong and stayed straight. Plus… moving would draw her attention. Like a T-rex.

Leona tapped her staff to her throat, then bellowed.

“Whoever’s fucking with the tournament, please stop.” She announced. With one last steely look around, she stormed back to her room.

The few members of Dragon House that had been bustling around paused during her announcement, then went back to what they were doing.

“Any idea what she’s on about?” Erik asked.

“No clue.” Felix said. 

It took 30 minutes longer than normal for everyone to finally, finally form up, and Felix was lamenting his lost study time. Well, maybe he’d be early.

Leona was in fine form, her nostrils flared as she practically breathed fire. After the siege event, Felix was glad it wasn’t literal fire.

“Dragon House! Fall in!” She roared, and everyone snapped to attention. The few people sitting down hustled to get into formation.

“For some reason, the polymorphic room has gone wandering.” She started. Felix blinked and realized what he’d been missing. There was no door on the wall. “This is simply the latest in a long line of issues that have plagued us this morning. No more! Curse or no curse, we will duel. To the stravolux field! For the hoard!”

The responding ‘for the hoard’ was nothing short of anemic, and Felix joined the rest of the house, busting out to the tournament field. A number of people joined the throng. Students who wanted to see the tournament or what all the fuss was about, a number of professors who were either watching or helping out, and about half of Unicorn House, who were on first aid duty. 

Or just plain dating members of Dragon House. Felix recognized Professor Cold. The man was as round as always, and eating a spring roll while he walked along with Dragon House. Chris and Beatrix had finally stopped dancing around each other, and were walking hand in hand down to the arena.

“I will win one round.” Alexandria hissed.

“We’re first years in a seeded tournament. We’re not beating any of the 8th years, that’s delusional.” Felix said, after it was clear nobody else was going to speak up.

“Hey! That’s not nice. I believe in you! You can do it!” Vivian said, with far too much cheer.

“It’s first thing in the morning. No coffee. How?” Sora grumbled out.

“Plenty of sleep! And like, how have you not adjusted to waking up at this time yet?” Vivian asked. “It’s been months.”

Sora just grumbled something that sounded like ‘caffeine’.

“Plus! It’s a seeded tournament, and Alexandria’s the best 1st year! There aren’t five 8th years, so she could get matched against a 7th year.” Vivian said.

“Oh yeah, 7th year, that’s so much more beatable.” Sora’s sarcasm was obvious.

The two bickered all the way down to the pitch, which had a localized rainstorm washing the place out. Felix’s eye twitched.

“We don’t always get a chance to determine the weather conditions in a duel!” Leona barked out, clearly aggravated by the change. “Here’s the pairings. I’ll give everyone five minutes to settle down before we get started.”

With a wave of her staff, the pairings appeared in glimmering letters, high above the field. Felix winced as Erik slapped him on the back.

“Bad luck, mate. Well, it’ll be over fast.” He said.

“This is my shitty casting coming to bite me in the ass, isn’t it?” Felix complained.

“I mean, yeah.” Erik said. “You’re objectively the weakest one in the House when it comes to dueling, it makes sense you’ve got the last seed.”

Felix stared at the glowing letters, hoping they’d shuffle around or rearrange themselves or something.

Nope.

His name was still up there, right next to the best person in Dragon House - Leona Thorne herself.

Felix whimpered.

“She’ll probably hit you with something quick and painless to end it. If not, I can kiss it better.” Vivian offered.

“Thanks.” Felix said, not really feeling it. Like, the idea of kissing Vivian was nice. His first kiss with her still haunted his dreams. But Vivian made it clear when she wanted to kiss someone, given how many different boys she’d ‘dated’, and Felix had never seen any signals that she was interested that way.

Plus, the whole impending ‘Leona is about to destroy you in front of half the school’ thing.

“Plus, I know you want to channel your inner swot and go back to studying, and you’re the first match.” Sora said. “Quick and easy out.”

“I have a chance.” Alexandria whispered. Felix was starting to feel quite green, and didn’t bother to correct Alexandria’s delusions.

“Plus, this will end your perfect record.” Sora said.

“My what?” Felix asked. Sora furrowed her eyebrows and tilted her head.

“Your perfect dueling record? You know, in Combat Class?” She said. 

“I have a perfect dueling record?” Felix asked. “I thought I missed half of them.”

“Well, yeah, that, and you’re in the last few duels most of the time and we run over, but when you do duel, you’ve never lost.” Sora said. 

Felix scrunched up his face as he thought. He was a shitty duelist… but wait. He couldn’t remember having lost a duel. Granted, it was usually because his opponent was wildly incompetent in some way - taking even longer than him to cast, being out of shape after running around in Combat Class and unable to say the words, just plain trembling and missing - but those were, technically, wins, against the weaker members of the class. Which was… huh.

Maybe a little more than half the class. Everyone in his coven was better than he was, of course, but Felix was suddenly looking at his class through slightly different lenses. Maybe he wasn’t utter shite at dueling and magic.

“For the first round! Felix Sutter versus our very own Leona Thorne!” A student Felix didn’t know started announcing the event.

“Sutter. Let’s go.” Leona said. She didn’t cast anything or otherwise stop the pouring rain from drenching her from head to foot. Felix hurried along behind her, and let the deluge hit him square on the head.

“Don’t worry too much about this.” Leona muttered quietly to him. “I’ll go easy on you.” 

Felix swallowed a nervous lump.

“Thanks.” He squeaked out.

Professor Cold walked to the sidelines with his sword focus drawn. He’d slung it over one shoulder, and he had elected to cast a number of spells to protect himself from the rain and the duelists.

“Take your positions.” He said, biting down on a chicken leg. “I want a nice, clean match from both of you, understand?” He asked. The crowd was starting to get rowdy, and Felix mostly tuned them out. There was only the match… and the rain, and the mud. But mostly the match.

“I understand.” Leona said seriously, not taking her eyes off Felix. She was already holding her staff up, and had assumed a dueling stance. Not the one taught in class.

“Yes.” Felix managed.

“MARRY ME LEONA! I LOVE YOU!” A shrill scream broke through Felix’s indifference. He wasn’t even the target, and his cheeks flamed in embarrassment.

“Three. Two. One. DUEL!” Professor Cold announced.

Felix tried to square up his stance, but slipped in the mud. Seven jets of light immediately pierced through where he’d just been. It would’ve been pretty, if he hadn’t just face-planted in the mud.

“Wooo! That’s my boy!” Chris shouted. “Lucky core go!”

A face full of mud, versus getting eliminated early and getting to study? Chris was absolutely nuts to think he was lucky. Plus, how had he even known!? Maybe Beatrix was whispering in his ear, the lovebirds.

Still, Felix didn’t want to just give up, that was anathema to all the hard work he put into things. Knowing he couldn’t stay there, he almost immediately rolled, somehow weaving through another half-dozen spells aimed in a beautiful spread at him. He stumbled up, slipped, the first time, but on his second try he managed to get on his feet.

Then he yelped as a root grabbed his ankle. He didn’t know why he tilted his head, but a jet-black stream of magic whizzed right past his cheek. He saw Leona stomping towards him, narrowing the gap and firing spell after spell.

Trapped, at close range, Felix stood still and let one of the spells hit him.

Then his mouth dropped open as the spell bounced off his chest.

“What.” He said dumbly, looking down at himself. He patted his clothes - had something been there?

Standing still and examining himself was not conducive to dodging spells, and another dozen spells ricocheted off him - even though Leona missed with another two dozen spells, fired from point-blank range at an unmoving target.

“Something’s weird.” Felix said.

“You don’t say.” Leona hissed at him. Felix startled back at the furious look in her eyes. She started chanting, and Felix had a bad, bad feeling about what was about to happen. He started to cast his shield spell, hoping it’d protect him.

He wasn’t able to finish casting it before Leona chanted.

“By the forge of Hephaestus, from the throne of Zeus, by the fury of Ares - rise, and let the heavens answer! KERAUNOS!”

The witch shot a bolt of lightning, thicker than his wrist, directly at Felix’s chest. Like all her other spells, it just bounced right off of him. Undeterred, Leona went straight into a second spell.

“Oh frozen realm of the nine worlds, crown of the giants, where winter reigns eternal and whose rivers run cold beneath the ancient stones, heed my call! Jotunheimr! Isaz!”

A frozen hell unraveled from Leona. The mud froze into ice. The raindrops in the air turned to hail. Professor Cold did not live up to his namesake, and cast additional layers of protection on himself. The stormclouds themselves froze and shattered like cotton candy.

Felix looked around. His clothes were frozen, but he wasn’t cold. His breath was misting in the air, but his lungs were warm. He shifted, and managed to unstick his boots from the ice. All the while, spells were raining down on him. Leona didn’t need to chant every spell, nor did she need to wave her staff. She cast at the speed of thought, trying to find a spell that would slip past Felix’s defenses, or simply overwhelm them.

The crowd was fucking loving it. Whoops, cheers, hollers - the whole nine miles. Silvery argentum animas were rushing off to the castle, as upper years called their friends to see the event. All over, with a hundred variants and a thousand different words, people were all saying the same thing.

“A first year is shrugging off Thorne’s best magic.”

Felix saw no reason to not take the win that was being offered. He squared up again, and started to slowly and carefully go through the wand motions for the floppy spell.

“Caut-” was all he got out before Leona changed her methods up.

She was quite close to him, and instead of letting him finish the spell, she quickly rabbit punched Felix in the face. He felt his nose break under the blow. He dropped his wand as his hands flew up to his face, trying to stem the flow of blood.

Leona hooked her staff behind Felix’s ankle and tripped him, following him to the ground. Stars exploded in his vision as his head hit the ice. She quickly put one knee on his chest and drew back her fist to strike.

“Yield.” She demanded, her face stony.

“I yield!” Felix immediately cried out, wincing as the words caused another spike of agony to go through his face. He’d put up a great showing, and had no issues quitting at this point. His face hurt. His entire body hurt. He was done.

He could practically hear Sora’s voice in his head saying ‘your face hurts to look at’. Rascal.

Leona got up and offered him her hand. Felix took it, and with a squelch, she pulled him out of the frozen mud.

“That was one hell of a showing.” Leona said, her face as kind and as friendly as Felix had ever seen. “What was that? Did you smuggle in an amulet or something?”

“I have no idea.” Felix said truthfully.

Leona frowned.

“What’s your core?” She asked.

“Errr…” Felix shifted his eyes around, not wanting to move his face and make it hurt more, seeing if anyone would get him out of this conversation.

“You don’t know?” Leona asked incredulously.

“No?” Felix squeaked out.

“We are fixing that right now.” She said.======

AN: The big reveal NEXT CHAPTER!! PLACE YOUR FINAL GUESSES HERE!