Dual Duel
"Can you split your mind?" the Elf Lord asked with a smirk as his young opponent's image manifested in the blank no-man's land between their minds. Jolrael shrugged negligently.
"I believe so," Jol said dryly as his opponent frowned. "Or did you just discover that on your own." He dropped into a fighting stance, his blade appearing in his hands. The Elf Lord snorted.
"You're experience is obviously lacking, boy," the Elf Lord declared as the gray sky of the mindscape began to blacken. "This is not like a sword fight." Jol charged the arrogantly standing Elf Lord as the lightning crashed down from the sky and into him.
The Elf Lord smirked at the resulting dust cloud and prepared to lay on assualt on the part of Jolrael's mind that was fighting physically. Until he realized that there shouldn't have been a dust cloud. He glanced about and barely lept out of the way of a whipping strike as his opponent rose up out of the ground slashing.
"It seems you've learned some of the tricks after all," Fimore said reluctantly. He willed his image back away from the sword bearing youth.
"Whatever works," Jolrael said, smirking. The Elf Lord seemed bored as the predictable sword swings battered against the field he had erected.
~The fool doesn't understand the subtleties of the mindscape,~ the Elf Lord thought to himself. ~Predictable of a human. Just a mindless bug that can't truly think beyond the flesh.~
"You really should take me more seriously," Jolrael warned as he circled around to find an opening in the Elf Lord's barrier.
"You are a skilled swordsman, boy," the Elf Lord sneered. "But you are pathetic in this realm of combat. I shall crush you like a bug." Jolrael paused as he felt the ground shaking underneath him, just before a tremor split the ground under his feet. The swordsman dropped into the crack, Fimore didn't see the smirk as Jol vanished from sight.
Jolrael hovered just under the lip of the crack for a moment, before rising swiftly into the mindscape's sky. He beat the crack closing back up by only a few moments. Jolrael dropped, sword construct leading the way. The Elf Lord extended his barrier to cover the new direction of attack, and Jol had to swerve his dive to avoid crashing into it.
"At least your defense is much better than your offense," Fimore nearly yawned in boredom. He had this measely little mortal on the run. All was as it should be.
Jolrael landed smoothly and turned to face the Elf Lord, adopting an appropriately grim face. He shifted his blade almost absently in his hand. He smiled again.
"You really should take me more seriously."
In the battle, the new sorceress was becoming obvious to the Sailoon front of the battle.
"What is going on over there?" a soldier asked the mage next to him as there was suddenly a huge movement in the middle of the battlefield. A mass of elves and ice demons both seemed to be running full tilt away from somthing. In the haste of their flight, the high elves and ice demons didn't seem to care that they were supposed to be fighting each other as well.
"It looks like a woman in a tunic and breeches," the mage said, curiously. Then the ground underneath one of the fleeing flanks suddenly exploded upward into the largest digu volt ever recorded. "M...m.m...must be a sorceress."
"She has purple hair, doesn't she," both Sailoon citizens turned to face the Regent in total surprise.
"Yes, why is that important?" The mage asked.
"Never mind, just withdraw and find another flank to fight."
A few miles away two swordsman fought each other in a wide space devoid of any other fighting. It hadn't started as a clearing, but in space of time since they had started the duel, the space had been mostly cleared of trees. Most of the topsoil, and a great deal of the ground underneath it, had been stripped as well.
"A pity your mind is not as well-trained as your body," Fimore huffed. "This would be a much more interesting battle, if that were the case."
"Well, I could give you interesting," Jolrael said, catching his breath as well. "But I prefer to win."
"Typical human," the Elf Lord scoffed as he came in on the attack again. "Thinking brute force will carry the day." The swordplay continued towards a draw.
On the mindscape Fimore seemed almost completely in control as the mutually designed world about them was warped according to his whims. All the while he stayed safely in his little barrier.
"That's right little man," he laughed out loud. "Try to run while you still can. You shall only die tired." Jolrael ignored the commentary as he brought his sword down on the elf's barrier. The feeling of rigidity and resilience was much greater than when it had been first raised. Jolrael couldn't help but smile. He had been reinforcing the mental tower the entire time.
"You really should have taken me more seriously," Jolrael said as he dodged to the side of another lightning blast. The swordsman thrust his blade into the ground and smirked at the curious Elf Lord. It was a split second later that streamers of sharp-pointed metal erupted from the ground just inside the barrier.
"Elbereth!!" The Elf Lord cried as the metal obscured him from sight, curving inward at the top of the barrier. All that followed was a muffled scream that was cut off in choking gasp.
"One half down," Jol smirked as he willed his mind forward to seek Fimore's remaining manisfestation. One that would be engaged in fighting a battle of swords.
"Surprised?" Jol asked as he pressed his attacks forward. "I don't see why you should be." The Elf Lord said nothing as he parried and riposted, all initiative lost. Asusming he'd ever had it.
"How could you defeat me!" he said finally.
"Did you really think my offense would be so much poorer than my defensive skills," Jolrael asked. "I liked the way you'd shape the mindscape to announce every attack you were going to make." He added enthusiastically. "I suppose I needed all the help I could get."
"You insign..ack!" The Elf Lord winced, and his stance was suddenly non-existant.
"Can you fight on two fronts with only one point of concentration," Jolrael asked. A twist of his blade sliced through the sword gripped lifelessly in the Elf Lord's hands.
Jol smirked as the Elf began to return somewhat to awareness of the physical world. He snapped forward at Fimore's knee with his foot, and the joint snapped under the pressure. The Elf Lord toppled and shrieked for a moment before an answering smirk appeared on his face.
"I guess not," both Jol and the Elf Lord said at once as Fimore's body calmly sat on its knees in front of the young man. The two continued to speak in one voice as Jol set his blade in front of Fimore's throat. "I could kill you now, better yet, I could have you kill yourself. Understand that in there?"
Both of them snorted in amusement, as if a third person had spoken.
"But I'm not going to do it," the two said together. "You are, however, going to command an end to this war. Provided we deal with the mazoku, of course." They eerily laughed once in unison. Then the Elf Lord stopped and he glared in outright hatred at the young man in front of him.
"You dare mock a scion of House Feanor?"
"I mock almost everybody," Jolrael said honestly. "Except Luna Inverse, tried that once, didn't turn out too well. Now shall we find one of your mages or do we have to tell every bleeding high elf individually that you've surrendered." Fimore just glared at him.
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