Part 5
Collin watched from the balcony as Erica stared down her opponent. This was the Level 6 Hermetic Bi-Annual Tournament Finals, and it looked like it was pretty exciting so far.
Erica hadn't done anything yet. Collin had forgotten her opponent's name, but he wore a green cloak and so was probably in Green House. They had arrived there late, after the introductions. The four of them, Collin, Rich, Hal, and Dan had sat at the bottom row of the bleachers, right beside a stone pillar. It was close enough to the ring where they could almost hear what the combatants were saying. Up until a moment ago Erica and her opponent had been arguing about something. The guy facing Erica was tall, with shortish black hair that fell often into his eyes and he held a weapon in his hands that looked like a long pole with a blade on the end. He had said something about hating to fight women, then had said something about "heaven forgive me, for I gave it my oath that I would not lose here". This seemed kind of a stupid thing to promise heaven, or anyone, but then again, he was new.
After that the man had rushed forward and began swinging at Erica. At first, Collin thought he was just really bad. It looked like he kept missing, over and over again. But after a minute or two, Collin realized something weird was going on. Erica hadn't moved an inch, Collin was certain of that. But she WAS doing SOMETHING. Just by looking at her face Collin knew that much. It looked like she was crapping her pants or something, the way she was clenching her teeth.
The other tall guy would run at her in a blur, way faster even than Rich, and swing for Erica's mid-section. But the blade would approach Erica, and then suddenly it would be on the other side of her, a few feet away, with her utterly unharmed. Collin had heard Dan talking about a different Sphere of magic other than the one Collin knew a little about- Forces. The sphere was called Correspondence, and Erica must be using it here. She was messing up the way space in front of her corresponded. So when that guy swung his weapon at her, the space right in front of Erica was linked to a space to her side, instead of to the space she was in. So he could obviously never hit her doing what he had done. Hadn't he figured that out yet?
After a minute when the guy stopped to catch his breath Erica seemed to relax, and took a leap backwards, landing lightly on her feet. When she spoke, her voice came out strong and clear. This was probably so that most people in the stadium would hear.
"If that is all you can do, then you are a dead man. Goodbye."
With that she reached into the folds of her baggy shirt and cloak, and threw several small somethings, straight at her opponent. She then stepped back and waited. Her opponent instantly flashed out of the way, moving like a whisk of air.
Collin rubbed his eyes as he tried to find where the knives went. His eyes moved backtowards Erica. She clearly thrown knives. Two of them. But now they were moving no faster than walking speed. They were only halfway between Erica and her opponent. Their speed must've slowed down monstrously after she threw them. They never had a prayer of hitting the tall guy Erica was fighting. What was going on?
The man in the ring blinked a few times. Then he laughed in a way that echoed throughout the arena. He seemed relieved and cocky, at the same time.
"Ha! You thought that would hit me? I'm faster than-"
Erica cut him off. "No, but I'm working on that."
With that, she reached into her cloak again, and threw four more knives, two in each hand. Only she threw them away from her and up, over her head, so they sailed up towards the balcony. Collin blinked in surprise. What was she trying to do, kill people in the audience out of spite? Someone should.-
Abruptly the knives disappeared. They reappeared over her opponent's head, traveling in the same speed and angle, only this time reversed and shooting diagonally down towards the man's face.
He gaped in horror, and then zipped out of the way. Almost too late, he turned to see that he had nearly run head first into the slow moving knives from before. Instantly, two of the four overhead seemed to come to life, snaking off course directly towards the now-leaping man in green. Two of the knives shot under his dodging leap, but when he landed, the other two of the set were still up there, above his head. They had slowed while the other two flew. The moment he landed though, they went from walking speed to sprinting-speed shooting directly for his eyes. He rolled out of the way, but one caught him in the leg, piercing him below the knee. He cried out, but kept moving.
While all this was happening, Collin was only half watching him, he had his main vision on Erica. She now had two jewel encrusted daggers in her hand, both glowing gold at the ends. One was pointed at the cluster of four, now down to three as one was sitting in the man's leg. The other was pointed at the other original group of two. They were moving forward still, now at a crawl. She had swung her left arm in an arc, the point of the dagger in her hand directing the two knives before they hit the ground. They swooped up, missing the ground and flying into the air, like fighter jets. That is when she pointed the left dagger at the other set still in the air and then directed that new group. When one of the daggers hit, she directed the remaining one up into the air where the other two were waiting. Then she directed the group of three. They maneuvered up and around, following Erica's point, hurtling towards the man on the ground.
Meanwhile the now-wounded man from Green House had his own problems. The three knives that he had dodged immediately flew back around at him, at a slow speed, right after they missed him. He managed to bat down all three in a hastily swung arc from his weapon. It moved so fast, it looked like a flash of light.
Almost at that exact instant, two things happened. One- the original set of slow-moving 2 knives sped to intercept him, causing the swordsman to whirl to face them. Second, Erica ran towards the man's undefended back, her left held in the air clutching the dagger with the glowing tip, directing the last set of knives in the air, and her right holding the gold dagger back over her shoulder, in preparation to throw it.
Having just recovered from his blow against the other group of three, the man leapt backwards at the last second, just barely noticing the swooping daggers in time. At that exact moment, Erica immediately threw a dagger dead-on towards the man's back. As it was about touching the man's back, it suddenly stopped.
It was lilke a light switch turning on. One moment there was nothing there, the next, a bearded man in white, sitting on his chair and all, appeared right behind the man in green. In his left hand, he held the jeweled dagger, in his right, he held the man in green, as he slumped over the man's lap, panting heavily.
There was a lull in the crowd, as they all gaped at what had just in transpired. Then everyone around Collin, in Blue House, were on their feet, screaming in exultation.
After a minute, when the jubilation had died down, and members of Green house had taken the Erica's opponent from the Judge, he spoke.
He sighed. "I thought I told you no killing, Erica." He said, exasperated.
Erica was already walking away from him. "Do you really want to fight beside someone as weak as that?" was all she said. And with that she stepped off the ring.
After that, they had climbed down the peculiar ladder that seemed to drop down directly into blackness, and appeared above another arena, identical to all the rest.
Kristyna was already fighting there, in the level five tourney. She had her brown hair bound in her usual two pony tails at each side of her head. At the moment Collin spotted her, She appeared to be cornered. The man she was fighting had filled the entire arena with plants. They moved and pawed at Kristyna whenever she moved close. She had only a small island to herself now. Abruptly the man disappeared into the foliage, so Collin could no longer see him. Instantly Kristyna reached into the big pouches on her hips and pulled out dough. She pulled it all around her in a tight circle, and it turned hard, just as Hal had described to Collin.
A dozen small objects abruptly flew out of a spot in the artificial forest in the ring, way off to Kristyna's left. They impacted with the fortress Kristyna had made, going off with a machine-gun flurry of tiny explosions, like firecrackers.
As soon as they all exploded, the wall turned to dough again and flopped down at Kristyna's feet. What she just did couldn't be easy. Collin thought back to during his fight, and how hard it had been to keep bringing up squidy. It felt like everytime he did, he had just run a mile at a sprint. Kristyna was breathing hard now. Obviously this wasn't the first time she had blocked that attack.
A blonde haired man wearing the robes of Blue House over to Collin's left suddenly stood up and yelled. "Kristyna, Don't Worry, you can do it! Come on!"
Kristyna looked over at him and smiled. She seemed to whisper something under her breath. It looked like she said "watch this".
She turned back to the matter at hand. Though she was breathing hard now, she calmly scanned the expanse of concealing plants in front of her. Her eyes moved sharply to a spot off to her left. Was the underbrush moving there? Had she seen something?
She reached into her pouch and chucked something fist sized at the area. What was that? It was roughly round and brown and-
Suddenly Kristyna did the last thing Collin expected her to do.
She winked, right at the spot she had just thrown that thing, whatever it was. Collin noticed something shimmer in the air above the still moving object. Was that water?
Collin heard Dan, who was next to him, say something under his breath- "boom".
Then came one of the loudest sounds Collin had ever heard in his life. It shook his jaw with the force of it, and the entire arena seemed to rumble. It sounded like a jet engine firing up. The area where Kristyna had just winked at erupted in light and fire, the explosion tearing plants up in the air, burning. A man flew out of the spot, catapulting through the air and landing hard on the forested ground. He was on fire, and he was a little charred.
Quickly the judges put him out, and announced Kristyna's victory.
Collin, Rich, and Hal all turned to Dan, wide-eyed.
"That's the way you do it, Kris" he said, smiling.
He laughed when he saw the guys looking at him. "That was the same trick you heard Erica do a few weeks ago when she fought James, the boy over there rushing Erica on the stage. She thought of it all by herself, I didn't even teach it to her. That fist sized thing she threw at her opponent from Orange house was sodium. When she winked, she created a small amount of water around the sodium. The two don't get along too well, as you can see. Welp, if you'll excuse me, I have a score to settle."
And with that, Dan grinned at them and walked back to the ladder where he climbed up.
Collin and the guys had nothing to do but follow. They went up 3 levels to the Level 8 tournament. The guys took up their spot again, in seats right in front of the ring, so they could hear what was going on.
After the fight was announced, Dan stepped onto the ring, looking casual.
His opponent was a bald man, with a blonde goatee who looked like he was in his thirties.
Dan addressed him. "You hurt my friend last year."
The bald man laughed. "What, that freak from Blue House? With the swords? Ha he was a weakling. I would have killed him if the judges hadn't intervened. This is a tournament you know. If you don't fight hard, you'll just get wacked by the technocrats."
Dan shrugged. "Sure, but you hurt him after he was already beaten. Just figured you should know that I think it was a dumb thing for you to do." Dan still had his hands in his pockets. He looked more like he was taking a stroll in the park than fighting in a ridiculously high ranking tournament. Collin was suddenly afraid for him.
The bald man grinned. He pulled a tuning fork out of his pocket with a flourish. "This is my weapon. Impressive, isn't it?"
Dan shrugged. He reached into his cloak and pulled out a hip flask, non-chalantly.
The bald man frowned. "Hmm. Are you going to use that as an augmentation, for fire perhaps?"
Dan looked at him like he was crazy. "Heck no. Why would I do that?" And with that he took a long swig from it.
The bald man stared at him and then his face became angry. He wacked the tuning fork off the sole of his boot, and held it in front of him pointed at Dan.
Dan suddenly stopped drinking and looked sick. He snapped his fingers, and disappeared. The man laughed as he spun around to find Dan's knew location. "Ha, running away huh? I change the frequency of the sound waves from the fork after I hit it. It goes directly into your inner ear, putting off your balance."
"Neat" said Dan, taking another swig from his hip flask. He then knelt to place it on the ground next to him. And stood up. "Ok, let's end-"
The man got angry again. He hit the fork on his boot again, and put to the ground sharply, his face contorting with effort.
Suddenly the ground split at his feet, moving outwards towards Dan, splitting and spreading, cracking up the ground and sending pieces of the floor into the wide hole. Dan yawned and snapped his fingers again. He disappeared right as the crack got to him.
He appeared several feet away, clear of the cracks in the ground. Dan's hip flask had fallen over in the miniature earth quake, and liquid was pouring out of it.
Uh oh, Collin thought. He knocked over Dan's booze. Not good. For him.
"Stop moving around, you coward! You're just as inept as your stupid friend, and the rest of your worthless house!"
"You're an arrogant jackass." Dan snapped at him, from his new position. He then composed himself, and dusted off the debris and rock dust that had hit him before. He relaxed and addressed his opponent a final time.
"I'm sorry, but you are clearly a bad leader. You encourage the weak to become stronger. Not hurt them for our own ego. Not kill them. I'm afraid I can't let you pass to level eight. It would be dangerous for Hermes."
The man grew angry once more, and lifted his hand to strike his fork once more.
But this time Dan reached into his pocket and flung several small objects directly at the bald guy. They stuck to the guys shirt. What were those things?
"What the hell are you-" the bald man started.
Dan made a sign in the air in front of him, and then there were 5 Dans, in a rough circle around the man with the tuning fork. They raised their hands in tandem, and blistering fire flew out of them engulfing the man in an inferno of flame. Collin raised his hands, the heat was so strong he could feel it from here, as if it were right in front of him. He noticed the pillar off to his left, the one that supported the balcony over his head was glowing bright white, and the fire that blew out into the audience was blocked and dissipated.
Collin squinted against the bright orange cloud of flame, trying to see what was going on. He could barely make out the man in the middle of the fire. He had his hands raised, and they were glowing white. A nimbus was surrounding him, as if he were staving off the flames. He gasped with effort, and abruptly his hands dropped, the flames were too much. He screamed in agony as he fell over, the fire burning his flesh and sending it up into the air as smoke.
The flames winked out, and a medical team rushed onto the ring.
Dan winked back into one person again, and calmly walked over to get his hip flask, slipping it into his cloak. He walked back to where his opponent was still smoking, the medical team working over him. He was still alive- his force shield had only failed at the last moment.
Collin saw Dan's lips move in a whisper.
"Don't mess with my friends" was what he had said.