The tension in the air was electric.
That static—sharp, humming— charged the atmosphere.
Two rivals, the strongest of their generation, stood on the brink of battle.
The victor was one fight away from supremacy.
A group of laughing kids had copied Kai's style of clothing, sitting in the stands having fun, livening the place up.
Another group leaned against the wall, surveying the crowd with an air of misplaced self-assurance.
They had tried to mimic Vaelric's look— and failed spectacularly.
Two fighters.
Two weapons.
Kai-
Vaelric-
The up and coming Augmenter versus the mysterious Caster.-
-
The crowd buzzed, their small frames like insects from the top of the stadium.
'Bugs, tasty…'
The bird clacked its beak, annoyed.
Its scarlet tail feathers ruffled.
With a lazy stretch of its wings, it took to the sky.
It had been here far too long already.
-
Kai could see it—just beyond the bars of the gate that kept him locked inside the Iron Maw.
The arena.
A vast expanse of stone and sand.
The sand would provide traction.
The hard stone beneath it—stability.
The sun bore down in great crashing waves. A hot day.
Better than a cold one.
Without constant healing, his non-magical limbs tore under extreme exertion in the cold.
He hated the cold, it reminded him of his mortality.
A weakness he had to fix—eventually.
But that was for the future. For now...
He could see Vaelric across the stadium.
His enhanced body had sharpened his vision.
Amber eyes met silver.
It was time.
-
Vaelric stood alone, as always.
In his holding cell.
A soft whisper, a flick of mana.
His eyes sharpened with a spell.
He looked across the massive arena—
Sand and stone... and, at the far edge, him.
Silver eyes met amber.
It was time.
-
The gates creaked, beginning to rise.
Slowly, but with increasing tempo, up until the great chugging of gears and whining of the rusted gates stopped.
An old artifact of the Barbaric Age, an age without magic.
The iron maw- rusted gates that worked on what scholars coined mechanical magic.
And now, they were open.
So Kai did everything that he could, his resolve hardening.
-ssshhh-
And they were off–
In a flash the handsome boy with the unique hair readied 3 spells.
Kai recognized them he'd seen these spells before.
'Haste. Shield. A classic opener.'
The silver-eyed boy shot back, away from Kai's advance—
The next moment a silver chain projected from the band on Kai's wrist, fitting smoothly into the grid of stone– pulling him with it.
In a second Vaelric has prepared twelve spells, various sizes of mana-bolt, a tier-one arcana type spell.
Neutral magic!
Kai's Mana-neglection could bat away elemental spells, but it would just mix with the neutral type.
This meant that in order to blast away Vaelric's magic Kai was forced to give up a bit of his efficiency to change neutral to wind mana.
Forgoing the plan to dispel the bolts, he decided dodging was his best option.
The dozen spells were upon him— and Kai hunched over arm stretching out as Keldreth broke through one of the spells.
Then he blasted off with a bit of wind mana and seven of the bolts shattered against the dense floor.
The last four swerved just in time– already headed for Kai!
But he ignored them for now, he had to close the distance to Vaelric.
A Caster's weakest range was a ten foot radius around them, at that point any of the spells they shot would damage their weak bodies as well, or waste mana as they washed over the resident mage's mana shield.
A combination of zigzagging wind and jolting blasts with Keldreth allowed Kai to finally approach Vaelric.
Behind his head Kai could see the translucent magic circle that powered the silver-eyed boy's magic.
It was strong, impossibly so.
It felt denser than Kai's mana-heart.
But there was nothing he could do about it, so he grit his teeth and continued his onslaught.
Whipping his weapon against the mana-shield at every chance he got.
It was hard to keep up with Vaelric's speed– the boy was very good at fleeing.
'He's. So. fast.'
His heart rate thundered to the heavens, chest heaving with each breath.
Both boys had used a lot of mana.
Vaelric's brow was sweaty, as he activated a magic circle on his robes, they fell away, revealing an outfit much like Kai's
-bang-
Keldreth latched onto Vaelric's shield–
Kai thumped into the mana shield, and began pummeling it.
Augmented by the wind his attacks were extremely fast.
A devastating punch made Vaelric fly backwards but Keldreth reeled him in again.
A kick to the side of the shield- it dimmed.
The silver-eyed boy's head crashed into the side of his own mana shield, causing it to shatter.
The magic circle behind his head dimmed even more, and now Kai could see a different source of mana…
A second flow of mana coursed through Kai's opponent—raw, dense, too erratic to be normal.
'Impossible!'
His grip tightened, the rings biting into his fingers.
This wasn't the fight he'd prepared for.
The shimmer of mana rippled over Vaelric's frame, the illusion cracking with a sound like breaking glass.
Frail gave way to something else.
Vaelric was strong.
Not just his magic–
His body too.
Lean, athletic, lethal.
If Kai was a lion, Vaelric was a panther—quiet, calculating, equally deadly.
-ssshhh-
The amber-eyed boy shot forwards, his hair rippling in the wind.
Vaelric stood still, casting three spells.
'Haste, Empowerment, Resistance!'
Vaelric's body, which had felt weaker than Kai's still, rose to new heights.
An impossibly powerful presence descended on the arena, as the veined fan levitated.
He reached out and took it in his hand, and with an elegant twist, the blade unfurled.
Ridged, metallic, and veined, coursing red blood pumped through the weapon like it was alive.
Because, alive it was.
Keldreth didn't seem so special anymore.
With its gorgeous cuff of gold, silver chains, and luxurious rings.
It felt weak.
The three spells had augmented Vaelric past the realm of reason.
'Two minutes…'
Two minutes and the spell would wear off, that's all he had to last for, two minutes.
Endurance was his strong suit after all…
A second later Vaelric shot off the ground, the stone beneath his feet cracking and breaking under the stress.
In an instant Kai's weapon had shot behind him latching into the ground, and pulling him away.
Spinning in the air until his back was to Vaelric, Kai began to outmaneuver the other boy.
With a shot of Keldreth to dodge a punch aimed at his side, and another to redirect his path, dodging an arcane bolt.
It seemed like while in this state, Vaelric's magic was extremely restricted, but not fully.
The boy lashed out with his fan–
Sending a pulse of hardened neutral mana at Kai.
The exchange confirmed what he'd already suspected.
'He doesn't have an affinity. He can't use anything that isn't neutral.'
A devastating weakness perhaps to some, but Vaelric wasn't just an average mage.
His resources and talent led him to transform his neutral-affinity into something more.
The solidified wave of mana passed just over Kai's head as he drew himself to the ground with a quick shot out of his weapon.
Spinning around, his right leg drew back, into an extremely low stance, and Keldreth's chain whipped around with his body.
The inertia slowed it down, but a green shimmer ran along the chain– gathering in the head.
By the time it had reached the other boy, it had become even faster than Kai had spun originally, Vaelric had barely any time to react–
putting his fan between him and the chain, it crumpled inwards, and a chilling crack resounded from the boy's leg.
It had broken, and Kai hadn't let up.
He pulled in the chain, and the two boys flew together in the air, gritted teeth, and swinging fists.
A simmering construct of mana wrapped around the Black Dragon's leg, bracing it.
And his foot turned out, the other leg whipping into Kai's face.
Blasting his arm up with wind mana he managed to block the kick, but his forearm cracked.
-ssshhh-
The healing pulse washed over the wound, aging it, but the will on the mana dispersed as the other boy grinned.
'He figured it out? How!'