Soul of a Human

Saphine hid behind a metal pillar after firing a lance of water at Ranbor, hiding from the retaliatory fireball, she could feel the metal pillar slightly heating up, so she changed her cover while attacking again. While she moved Ranbor fired again at her, but this time she just used a spell of her own to cancel the fire spell and give herself some cover from the emitting steamcloud. Only brawn no brain, she thought to herself, Ranbor hasn´t moved once this whole fight, just using fire spell after fire spell. Well if he wants to tire himself out, it would be fine by her. Ducking behind another pillar she readied her next spell, hurling another lance of water at the still-standing Ranbor, who in turn tried to block it with a wall of fire, but wasn´t just fast enough.

She smiled to herself at the hit and changed position again as Ranbor shouted enraged. "You bitch! How dare you!"

Saphine stunned for just a moment, shouted back "This is not how you should address a lady, you boor! It is your fault if you just stand there!" as she evaded another firespell.

"I´m a high noble, I will not hide like some scared commoner!" He answered her and she shrugged to herself. If he wants to be that way, then she would let him.

Maybe losing will bring him down a peg or two, hurling another water stream at Ranbor, who now put more energy in his fiery shield and blocked.

Like this their duel went on and got more and more heated, as somehow Ranbor kept up that high energy output, while Saphine slowly got close to her limit, this is when she knew she had to do something, she gathered most of her remaining energy and unleashed a tidal wave flooding the whole arena. With a shocked expression she witnessed Ranbor withstanding this spell.

That´s when she heard him chuckle and raise himself into mad laughter, Ranbor unleashed a grand spell himself instantly evaporating every trace of Saphines´ water, breaking through her quickly raised water sphere shield and almost burning her to a crisp. Luckily the protective magic of the arena saved her life.

°Holy shit, how much power does that ass have?! But at least he should be low on energy now.° The human said, but Mor was unconvinced.

°Are you sure, I don´t see any sign of exhaustion on him.° With dread both concluded, they probably bit off more than they could chew. Still, they had no time to fall into panic, as they would be up next and a teacher came to get him.

As Mor entered the arena once again he noticed that the sand in the arena was glittering and a closer look, revealed to him that almost all the sand had turned to glass and some of the metal obstacles had a kind of runny look. Mor´s gaze fell on his next opponent a girl whose name he also didn´t know. As the gong sounded again the duel was on, and again Mor exploded into movement getting into cover and taking a look at his opponent, who was nowhere to be seen.

°Where is she?° Mor asked.

°How would I know?° The human said.

°Let´s keep moving, standing still is just an invitation to get hit.° they began to move again, holding a stone in preparation for an opportunity to attack.

Suddenly a spear of stone shot up from below, almost hitting Mor as he jumped to dodge, and still he could not locate the girl.

°Could it be, that she´s using our first trick?° The human asked, and Mor agreed.

°But why can she see us?° He asked back and as soon as his feet hit the ground another thorn of stone shot up to skewer him, ripping through his robes from the close hit.

°The ground! She can somehow see us if we touch the ground!° The human said and Mor sighed.

°What can we do about that? Flying is not something we can do with our energy reservoir. Also attacking while flying is not possible.° Mor asked as they had to dodge another attack.

°Well either we keep on moving and hope her energy runs out before our stamina does, or we need to do something more proactive.° The human put forward.

°Great, what proactive thing do you have in mind?° Mor asked.

°I don´t know, I didn´t think that far ahead.° Came the answer from the human.

°Great, how to be more useless...° Mor chided as they again dodged an attack.

°Shut it, if you don´t have a better idea! Rather dust of the stamina recovery magic we trained and get that shit going.° The human complained and as Mor began concentrating on the spell the human kept moving and dodging.

The Headmaster watched in amazement, as the boy Agaton was moving while using some kind of healing magic and thought to himself, that this should be incredibly hard, but dodging attacks while doing so should be impossible. Was this evasive action maybe trained as some kind of reflex, but even then how would you go about something like this and all that while seemingly channeling some sort of body enhancement magic to move like that.

"This boy is too interesting." He whispered as a wide smile grew on his bearded face.

Then another close hit ripped up Mor´s robe around his chest revealing Mor's toned body, and a gasp ran through the stands mainly, the Headmaster noted, from the female students, for some kind of reason.

°How are we holding on to our energy reserve?° The human asked, moving their sweating body out of another attack.

°We´re still good, but we should do something soon. We don´t know how much energy she has. So much for "tired herself out in the last round"° Mor said.

°I have an Idea, maybe she forgot to use the stone slab to close her hidey-hole. So let's get water into this arena, and where it seeps away faster than somewhere else she is probably hiding.° Mor nodded and stopped concentrating on the healing magic, while the human dodged another attack.

°This may cost more than we would like, but I also have no better idea.° Mor said, as he channeled more power to water the soil of the arena, and as they watched for suspicious places as he channeled another spell to give them more jumping power and the human jumped.

As they looked around while being up in the air, they saw a hole open up and their opponent surfacing from the ground, looking surprised for a second.

°Found you.° The human said, and Mor grinned.

They touched down on the ground and sped towards the hole, coming up from her blindspot, stopping just behind her and Mor let out a little cough. Their opponent turned around shocked and Mor smiled.

"If you don´t want to get hurt, could you please give up?" He asked her sweetly and the human added in Mors´ mind

°Yeah, it´s over! We have the high ground!°

She sheepishly looked at Mor, blushed, and looked away. In a tiny voice, she said "I give up."

Mor then reached down offering his hand, which she took and pulled her out from her hidey-hole, giving her a smile, she shyly repayed.

"Why did you come out from your hiding spot?" Mor asked and she looked to the ground.

"I thought it would get flooded, and I didn´t want to drown." She told him dejectedly and Mor laughed.

"I understand you very well. This hiding spell is great for dodging many things but it´s dark and cramped, and letting water flow inside, is not something I want to experience."

°Hey lover boy, back it off!° The human interjected which confused Mor some, he was just happy to have won, and she was a graceful loser, so he wanted to be nice to her.

"What´s your name?" She asked in her quiet voice and got another smile from Mor as a reward.

"Me? I´m Mor Agaton." Mor answered.

"The commoner?!" She said shocked but instantly put her hand on her mouth. "I´m sorry. I´m Clare Celestyne. Nice to meet you Mor, but we probably should leave the arena, the next contestants are probably already waiting. Maybe see you sometimes at school?" She asked and Mor happily agreed.

Finally, the chance to make his first friend.

°I thought I was your first friend.° The human interrupted again.

°Yes, but this is something different, we are not only friends we are partners.° Mor said and they left the arena exchanging a last hand wave with Clare.

He was brought back to the stands, and the tournament went on as expected, but halfway through the second rounds, the Headmaster called a stop and closed the tournament for the day, as it got pretty late. The next duels would be continued on the next day. For today all students would be recommended to get some food, look to the infirmary if they got hurt, and get to sleep. Homework and reports would be extended with the duration of the tournament. This made the losers of the first round somewhat happy, as they could just enjoy the show for the next day until the tournament was concluded.

Mor took the recommendation to heart and quickly got a new robe from the school store, food from the mess hall, and retreated to his room. After doing some evening stretches and cleaning up before falling into bed and instantly drifting off into dreamless sleep of the exhausted. The next morning Mor felt rested and ready for the next duells, but as he went to get breakfast he felt someone watching him, but no matter how suddenly he turned to catch his stalker, no one was to be seen.

°What´s up with you?° The human asked, as Mor spun around again.

°I feel like we are followed.° He answered, and the human snickered.

°Stop being an idiot and get breakfast, I´m hungry.° The human instructed Mor and they got on with their day. As they ate their breakfast a familiar figure waved to Mor and came towards him.

"Can I eat with you?" Clare asked and of course, Mor agreed, while the human let out a whistling tune.

°Shut it, parasite!° Mor chided the human, happy to maybe have found a friend.