"Don't matter much to me darlin', now get on down here. Maybe we can't break those Seals just yet, but that special little strike of yours could break this barrier, hmhm."
That was true enough, the barrier looked much weaker than it had before the Opera House was wrecked. Without hesitating, Lyi assumed [Casting Stance] and, in the interests of the crowd's safety, used {Bind} to provoke the Force particles into moving. The resultant strike of [Rui - Di] was far weaker than if she had used the proper offensive spell, but a gap emerged in the barrier where her Rui Undea had pierced nontheless. She stepped through, the barrier sealing back up behind her as she ripped her weapon from the barrier.
This arena, despite the snow and illusion of a mountainpass, felt no colder to her than any of the others. The snow felt... wrong, it didn't crunch under her feet - rather, it was malleable. A slight tinge of annoyance emerged in her. She rather liked that crunchy feeling. It was half the reason she even listened to Beze's invitation.
Speaking of that man, there was no trace of fatigue on him from the previous fight. He was bouncing up and down rather than simply standing still, maybe some kind of strange Anshoran warm-up. Looking closely, he wasn't even armed. He slicked his hair back again, something he seemed fond of doing. He waved in the air with his other arm, closing his eyes and looking towards the ground.
"Announcer person, do your thing, get on with it."
"Ah, right! Looks like we'll be skipping that second pre-show today, folks, they just want to get right into the meat of it! Well, you all know him, you all hate him, thrice reigning champion of the Sealed division, 'The Prodigy' - Beeeeeeeezzzzzzzzzzeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee Haaaaklllllaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!! And as fo-"
"That's enough, thank you. You can shut it now. For the entire fight.”
"Not again..."
Lyi's Aura immediately skyrocketed to its absolute maximum length, the faintest of faintest Seals threatening to form around it. She didn't even care about this place, didn't know its culture, its people... but she could tell that this Beze was the worst of the bunch. Even his title, 'The Prodigy,' who did he think he was? Three years he had remained at this level, from what she could gather.
She didn't even wait for the countdown, nor did she hold anything back. Her Heart Core directly activated from her breath and she shot forward, a quick usage of {Bind} forcing her Rui Undea to stay attached to her hand. Just as she was about to stab into the man's side, his body flashed yellow and appeared just out of harm's way. As she passed by him, she heard five incredibly rapid clicks as multiple earthen walls boxed her in.
She felt a dull pain on her cheek as she crashed into one of the walls, though didn't have time to think about that as she saw further Earth particles gather beneath her feet. Barely stepping to the side in time for the spikes to graze past her, she smashed down the wall behind her with a swift elbow strike and jumped out. The very moment she did, a great wall of fire engulfed the box and collapsed into an explosion, the scraping winds pushing her back.
One of her ears twitched and on reflex she looked skyward. Two spikes of ice had formed directly above her, falling down and smashing on her wings faster than she could react. Though she was unharmed, she couldn't help but start hyperventilating. She needed more from her Heart Core if this was what she was dealing with. Beze wore cyan robes... but that was four elements she had seen...
"Myriad, huh..."
Beze finally looked upwards, directly at her, a flash in his eyes as he pointed with a snap of his fingers,
"Precisely, darlin'! Ah, what was it, that word for... right, Metoi,"
As he spoke those words, he clicked 9 times in a more complex pattern than even some of the spells she had seen from the First Step. A single particle responded, a fuzzy dark purple one that made Lyi feel an extreme sense of fear. She immediately dropped her weapon, clasped her hands and activated {Rapid} twice, moving up against the wall just as Beze flicked the small particle.
It tore through the air, passing her by, a small streak of a pure white space trailing behind it for a split second before it disappeared. She could barely hear Beze's anguished cries as she looked behind her at the damage that tiny particle had wrought. It was the tiniest of tiny holes but... there wasn't a point which it stopped, atleast not within her ability to see. That tiny little particle had torn through so many buildings with absolute ease... it must be Destruction.
She looked back at Beze, who had a tear through the finger he had flicked that Destruction particle with. Regardless, he was still summoning multiple [Click] spells, two ice spikes hovering directly infront of him. He swirled his healthy arm and clicked, causing a great burst of flame to shoot those spikes of ice forward. Now that she had time, Lyi activated {Redirect}, those two spikes flying straight past her and colliding with the barrier.
Her fear had faded. Thankfully, it looked like Beze had no idea how to control Destruction, which was the main threat. Time and Space, the other two elements which could be considered threatening, didn't even have an Apprentice level spell - their [Click] spells could only be wrought forth by a First Step. That didn't mean the battle would be easy, though; just far easier than it could have been. If anything, she could treat it as warm-up for the only other Myriad user she knew.
With {Rapid} still active, she stepped forwards and appeared directly underneath Beze, Rui Undea primed to pierce him. She thrust forward - Beze avoiding again by barely an inch with that same yellow shroud wrapping itself around his body. Two more swings resulted in nothing more than two more misses, forcing her to back off. Beze's faint moans of pain were suppressed by ragged breaths interlaced between chuckling, his healthy arm tracing a line through the air, swirling and finally pushing forward with a resounding click and a chant of "Sqa Met Di" - the resultant {Clickrend} being interlaced with small bursts of flame and blades of wind.
The attack shattered on the {Shield} surrounding Lyi, tiny traces of flame coursing through the resultant cracks on it. She had to admit, Beze was certainly talented. Closing her eyes for just a moment, she stepped forward and appeared before him once more, immediately entering [Casting Stance] and firing out a {Clickbolt}. She spun around with her Rui Undea, unleashing a horizontal slash in a full circle.
Just as before, Beze flashed backwards just out of reach with that yellow shroud. The translucent {Shield} around him burst into small shards the moment {Clickbolt} hit it, and just as he went to slick his hair back... the Lightning particles converged at Lyi's side and duplicated her previous attack. Beze barely noticed in time, a deep cut emerging in his side as those Lightning particles dissipated back into the air.
Lyi pushed herself back, collapsing before she hit the barrier. [Rui - Hilia] had a far greater draining effect on her compared to [Rui - Di], but... it had its uses against an unaware opponent. She looked up from the fake snow, watching Beze closely. However, the man was not casting, nor even covering his wound - he was just looking at it, one of his eyes twitching.
Blood sputtered out, rolling over the fake snow and coating it red. Beze's skin was slowly turning pale, but even still, as he was clearly dying... all she could see in him was anger. His Aura, previously not even wrought forth, burst out and surrounded him like some kind of shell. A distinctive Seal, its interlocking red lines constantly shifting, formed and swirled around his head.
Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.
That same uneasy feeling Lyi felt when Vato activated
The magic particles that surrounded him rested on his wound, much similar to how they would one of Lyi's and began slowly repairing it. Even the crowd, from the ones she could sense no magic from to the Custodians like Roch seemed to have no idea what was going on. As Lyi was getting up, Beze took in a sharp breath of magic...
"Savin' this for the Wing was the original idea. Darlin'.. if you hadn't nearly killed me, we would have had
In an instant, 2 dark clouds emerged above Lyi and Beze directly infront of her. She spun and tossed her Rui Undea upwards, the two {Clickbolt} smashing against it and dissipating harmlessly as Beze's fist smashed into her wing. She heard a creaking noise as Beze's fist bounced back from her wing, though a sharp pain spread from the impact point. Dropping low, she swept Beze out from under his feet and noticed two feathers drop from the fake wings on his back and dissipate into nothing.
Kicking the man away, she pushed herself back up and caught her Rui Undea, snapping her arm out and directly hitting him with a {Clickrend}. A small clump of feathers fell from the man's wings, a trail of dull gold following him to the barrier he had smashed up against. As she pushed herself to move forward two waves of earthen spikes interlocked directly behind her, pillars of flame bursting out the moment they touched.
All it served to do was grant her extra momentum, a translucent {Shield} emerging and protecting her from any of the damage. Beze swung his arm in the shape of a triangle, clicking at each line's endpoint for a total of three and yelling out "Tsom!". Lyi's eyes widened and she pushed her foot into the ground to stop her momentum, redirecting herself just in time to avoid a concentrated ray of Light particles. Even if it missed, small traces of burns emerged on her skin.
A brief glance at the line of burnt snow was all she was granted before an undamaged Beze launched himself from the barrier. Lyi barely managed to shield herself in time before the tremendous force from Beze’s fist slammed into her, just barely weaker than an equivalent attack of her own. She didn’t hold fast for long, however, as the man used his newfound strength to rip her Rui Undea from her hands with a smirk,
“You weapon fighters always forget {Bind}!” he called out as he thrust the weapon’s butt directly into her gut, a torrent of glistening golden blood trailing through the air as she crashed into the opposite barrier. She could only muster violent coughs, no amount of effort allowing her to get back up. She barely felt a slight scratch on her wing as her Rui Undea collided into it and slammed onto the ground with a clank, obviously thrown over by Beze.
She looked up and saw all of Beze's Aura disappear as tens of golden circles with complex symbols surrounded her. She recognized those symbols, those of {Radiant}. The symbols shattered and a dome of golden light surrounded her, her wings and hair immediately setting alight as her skin started to melt. No words could describe the amount of pain that this simple field caused her, one that was far and beyond weaker than the version of the spell she had felt from Hope. All of the magic around her constantly worked through the field to heal her, but it was pointless - by the time the field dissipated, she had no strength left in her.
The sheer concentrated Light particles had left her completely soaked in her own glowing blood. Globs of melted skin, burnt hair and wrecked feathers surrounded her. She had completely, thoroughly lost. In no word could she have imagined that Beze, an apprentice of magic, could cast a Second Step spell. Especially not {Radiant}, the one offensive spell that she couldn't have ever avoided.
Traces of her previous appearance could be seen, though the ambient magic was rapidly returning her to a normal state. Even as she was being healed, that pain did not fade. It felt like days that she laid there, but in reality was only a minute before she was returned to her former self. Failing to push herself back onto her feet, she couldn't feel any of her Aura - that single spell had completely annihilated any remaining control she had over magic, for the time being anyway.
Looking over to Beze, her hearing slowly restoring itself, she could see he was faring far better than her. The fake wings had faded, the dull gold coating the snow returned to red. His Aura was completely diminished. She couldn't help but notice something missing from his outfit, a purple feather that she had paid no attention to before. She looked down as she thought... the only feather that had that particular hue she knew of...
Her train of thought was interrupted by a small hand entering her vision. Looking back up, she saw Beze with a small grin on his face,
"Good fight, darlin'. Can't let a babe to combat like you win through birthright, though."
Clicking her tongue, Lyi took Beze's hand and let him drag her back up. She wobbled for a moment, before finding her footing and looked toward the man,
"H-how, {Radiant}? Tha-"
"A Second Step spell, I know, that wasn’t the real thing.
"I h-hate you.."
"Ha, not the first! You'll get over it darl. Go on now, ol' Roch will probably kill me if you talk to me any longer. ANNOUNCER MAANNN! PHHHAAARRRRR! My victory speech, please."
“I’m allowed to speak now?! R-right, by complete, undeniable domination in the duel, victory goes to Beeeeezzzeeee Haaaakllaaaaaaaaa! Roch, little Lyi over here migh- oh, he’s already on his way. This really isn’t my day…”
Lyi slowly managed to turn herself around, stumbling almost every step of the way. Extreme amounts of pain wracked her entire body, a burning sensation unlike any she had ever felt. If she could see them, she would have noticed that the most intense burning was concentrated around small specks of Light particles. Alas, the part of her eye that allowed such vision had barely even begun to repair itself.
She felt a tight grip on her wrist as she was dragged out of the arena, the faintest sense of pressure wafting past her every few moments. Taking a glance, it was Roch, Rui Undea in one hand and wrist in the other. The man’s anger issues were clearly seeping through the cracks as he was barely able to keep a calm face, that pressure she was feeling almost certainly being his Aura.
As soon as they entered the resting room that she was originally meant to enter the arena through, Roch forced her to sit down. He stood infront of her and laid her Rui Undea up against the chair she was sat in, folding his arms together and closing his eyes,
“So, what do you have to say for yourself?”
“I-I… what?”
Lyi looked up at the man, confusion in her eyes. She hadn’t done anything wrong, if anything Beze had done the wronging here.
“You nearly bleedin’ killed the man, Lyi. We do need him, y’know. Not to mention Vato, the medics don’t even know if they can resuscitate him.”
She did do that, that was true.
“I, sorry, I, uhm…”
“I get it, you’re really tough, your peers can’t really hurt you. But you can hurt us. Badly. Understand?”
“T-think so..”
“That’s not good enough. Listen, Lyi, I… I, damnit all, I can’t be mad at you, you’re just a kid. I’m not letting you fight anyone but me until you can hold yourself back, okay? Frir was supposed to get you registered to live within the city, too, did you get that done atleast?”
“Reg-“
“That’s a no… right, tomorrow I’ll take you to the registration office. Come on, let’s go home.”
Roch pulled Lyi back up, glancing at her Rui Undea. His eyes wandered down for a moment, before he picked it back up and strapped it back into the hold on Lyi’s back. Gaze lingering for no more than a few moments, he sighed and started to walk down the corridor out of the building, taking care to move the stumbling Lyi slightly sideways so her wings wouldn’t collide with the walls.
He drew his Aura back in and dispelled {Protective Wall of Wind}, a gust around Lyi unnoticeable to her fading away. He really messed up, letting her into that arena against Beze. The man was a legend. He had gotten far too ahead of himself, but Beze was the only Myriad-capable Mage on the entire continent that had a good relation with Poenticivt. Letting Lyi get practice in for when she would inevitably clash with her ‘family’… maybe it was far too early to even let her think about that. Even if Tulemti would soon lose herself again.