Lance threw his arm to the side, and an armored sword made of fire grew out from his palm. When he grabbed the hilt with both hands, he dashed toward me, wasting no time.
We engaged in close combat with me on the defensive and him the offensive. His sword hummed past me as I maneuvered through each succession of swings, and then he went for a side kick to my ribcage.
I lowered my arm to block and he, in turn, shifted his armored plates to reinforce his kneecap, down. But before it struck, he created boosters from behind his calf to fortify the blow.
Not expecting that sudden mass shift, I was pushed back again like at the start of the match.
As I recoiled and dragged through the grass, Lance raised his leg and the armor over it had begun shifting, reforming it back to its normal state.
The fire still burned the gardens we occupied, spreading with each step he took. It appeared that he can also engage and disengage his magic, like a Condition type user, without disengaging the active armor on himself or armor that he's using. Once he touches the thing or person, he can continuously awaken their defensive properties at will. Though, he could no longer change my arms into gold weights like he had earlier because of my Tantra. And the thing I noticed with my own Tantra was that if I was caught off guard with a spell, it had a lingering effect. But once I was aware of it, it activates subconsciously to it like a defense mechanism. Had he still been able to do so, and if I was a normal mage, that alone would have put me in a bind.
His display of magical control and battle prowess was impressive to say the least. I'd wager besides, myself, Asura, 1st Exec, and maybe Raeyn, he could best the other Black Wolves in a head-on battle—Aces included. Belle had done well choosing her 1st Vice Captain.
Lance and I clashed again, strike after strike, he grabbed the smoke, and it turned to armor, both to counter and block my attacks. I broke through, but he had disappeared with the release of fuming smolder from his armor.
Lurking behind the gray, the color of it changed, as did the attribute, from flame to smoke. From the smoke, back to fire, to even plant—he could control it all in armored form.
His ability appeared similar to Zeke's Molecule magic, except instead of just merely manipulating, he was changing the properties along with himself, and could perform his magic in different sub-types like Condition, Anatomy, Transmutation, and Elemental.
It was harder to gauge how his attacks were going to land as opposed to when. He wasn't shy when he fought; each strike was direct and intentional—I could see it coming a mile away. The problem… was in what method I was going to receive it.
It was like being attacked by a knife only to be then struck by a missile less than seconds later. And it was because of such a tactic, he was able to push me around as he had.
He was truly experienced in almost all aspects: magecraft, physique, battle prowess, control. I saw no crack in his armor.
We engaged close combat again as he shot out at me from the smoke, and I went for an offensive block. Lance repositioned himself mid-air just as quickly, and what was meant as a deflect, became his catapult. His armored boot contacted my fist and he flew up so fast, adjusting himself to land upside down on the stone ceiling of the garden ruins while the drone birds scattered at his arrival.
When his boots touched, he turned the ceiling into armor and shrouded himself in stone while simultaneously contorting the rest of it into something more. Two faces of armored beasts emerged from both sides of him as he chanted,
"Bastion Magic: Titan Stonefall!"
Suddenly, as if emerging from a different dimension and passing through a pool of stone, the faces pressed through with endless hands of giants following after them; becoming a sea of fists headed down toward me from above.
I looked at it all and raised my hands upward with a psychotic smile whipped across my face and let it all fucking fall. It felt like a mountain crumbling over me to no end. And soon enough, the ruins—the garden toppled down in a wave of debris and smoke.
The eradication took thirty seconds to end as the crowd eagerly watched our battle with held breaths.
Daz watched like an amused kid while Sirus had the expression of a statue, and the Royal King stroked his chin with lips pressed.
From where the Black Wolves were sitting, they all looked as if they were engrossed in some movie or play.
Belle raised her fist like she wanted to react, but didn't know who to cheer for. So, she loosed a sigh instead. One of both worry and confliction.
Overhearing her sister, Alice responded, "I'm sure Greed is fine… right?" She gulped silently after. She had seen him take on many attacks, but not ones so… brutal.
Lance fluttered down and landed on a hill of rubble, watching where he had last seen me.
He watched as seconds ticked and he squinted his eyes with impatience.
He clicked his tongue as he said out loud to the waiting announcer, "This battle is over—"
Before he could even finish the thought, he felt a small stone hit the side of his temple.
His eyes darted to where it was thrown. And it was there, he found me. Sitting on another hill of rubble with my leg crossed, ankle to knee, and my elbow propped there, hand holding the side of my head up.
"Yo." I said nonchalantly to him as I threw up a peace sign when our eyes met.
He ground his teeth and frowned disgustedly at me for a while before finally losing it.
He clasped his hands and chanted,
"Bastion Magic: Ironwind Zephyr!"
Before I knew it, I was locked in this position with my peace sign still in the air. I saw it for a second, but just as quickly as it appeared, it faded into invisibility once more.
Fuck. I thought. He caught me off guard again!
As if he defied the boundaries of his magic, he had turned the air around me into armor, locking me in place. I supposed he could awaken the defensive properties of air, too. Talk about a broken ability.
I saw the Idiot King stand from his seat in my peripheral like some astonished child. And I'm sure if Asura was here, he'd be doing the same thing, too, right about now.
"Cockroach."
"Kiss my ass!"
His eyes flared with wrath as he released his hand sign and made another, and another, and another in consecutive motion.
No way…
"Bastion Magic—"
He's casting…
"Stone Altar!"
Multiple…
"Blazing Rampart!"
Fucking…
"Hollow Vine!"
Spells… at once!
In a matter of seconds, I was coffined in a layer of spells as a combination of elements wrapped me in some giant, mechanical-looking tree.
It clattered and clinked like some machine as gears rotated and steam spewed out and then back in—inhaling like it was alive. Absorbing the air. Absorbing the smolders and cinders left over from our previous quarrel. And then the thing began beating like a fucking heart.
With one final hand sign, he chanted with utter command in this tone,
"Bastion Magic: Heavenly Monarch!"
With one last heartbeat, the tree ignited and detonated upward. Its explosion traced each branch like it was following some designated route, disintegrating the rubble of the battlefield to smithereens.
Cubes of stone and debris suspended in air for a time and then shot out in every direction, crashing onto the inner barrier and causing a ripple of collisions from within.
The crowd flinched as if forgetting the barrier was between them as a dome of smoke shrouded us once more, and the announcer hung from his seat, shouting, "Where did they go!?" through the mic.
Within, Lance flounced through the swirling darkness with sheer disgust rooted on his face.
And when the darkness blew past me, I was covered in black coating from my jaw down with those infamous jagged teeth taking its place there among it all.
"Just what the hell are you?" he asked irritably. "WHY CAN'T YOU JUST DIE!?"
I raised my head and looked at him solemnly. "That's a lot of hatred for one person." I said.
"Shut up. What the fuck do you know? You act like the world is your oyster. Like you aren't some commoner with no magic! It must be easy living life when you haven't gone through any struggle of your own!"
I clenched my fist and breathed slowly, remembering my agonizing past. Being beaten by my own siblings and my 'father' whispering in my ear how worthless I was.
"And yet you get everything handed to you on a silver platter. What did you do to deserve it?"
His words were careless. But he was insulting me, so I didn't feel the need to retaliate. I only glowered with dead calm eyes that he did not understand.
"I don't get it," he said almost like a contained whisper after all that yelling. "Why did she choose you? What's so special about you!?" he raised his voice at the end.
And all I could think of was Belle's cold hand on mine as we both died that dreadful day. Those beautiful sky blue eyes faded and devoid of life.
"No idea, but…" I said gently, which caught him off guard for a second. "She was the first person that made me feel like I wasn't alone."
When I said those words, it was like the sun had found us even though we were still wrapped in black dust and storm. And for a sliver of a second, I swore I saw his armor crack. Not physically, but in a spiritual sense…
But just as quickly as the expression hit him and his eyes danced around like he was trying to understand the answer, he shook his head and closed his eyes.
His aura exploded and he clenched his fists tightly, frowning while keeping his head lowered for a moment. The aura felt different, like the magic he was now using was not his. His hair turned from blond to red and so did his gold armor as it shone a crimson hue. Around his neck, a necklace fluttered with a vial at the end of it by his face.
"I am utterly sick and tired of how you proceed to mock me. I've always had a problem with you since the day I met you at the Kingdom's Guild Meeting."
I readied myself, raising my fist slowly and taking a long, drawn-out step.
"I don't care if I am disqualified after this match, or if this colosseum crumbles… I am destroying you. I am proving that I am the one who is meant for Captain Belle!!"
He formed an unusual hand sign, and at this time, armored pillars shot out from the ground all around him. They were red as well and towered over his head.
From the top of them, golden lightning shot out and connected overhead. It began forming a vortex at its center, taking all the black dust that continued to blaze around us into it like some black hole.
My black Tantra coating shrouded over the rest of my face, covering me entirely now. Body surging upward as if being carried by my own black aura, and my silver cross earrings chimed unendingly within the thick wind.
It was so dense that any normal mage in this situation would have passed out from the lack of air; left utterly to watch as Lance cast whatever devastating spell he was preparing.
I had finally taken a step as his aura intensified further and space and time seemed to bend at his will. Then he chanted with a voice so altering, it sounded otherworldly,
"Forbidden Bastion Magic: Demonic—"
Before he even finished his sentence, I was in front of him as he witnessed me with utter bemusement. Without a moment's notice—that even a blink was enough to miss it—I appeared like I had stepped through a portal in the ethers to meet him there. Defying all logic. Laws. Like I had become like Tantra and rejected sensibility itself.
Not even sound could keep up as I reeled in my right fist and shot it directly at Lance's face. Time seemed to fade as silence deafened and all color was lost, leaving only black and white to blossom from a stroke onto a blank canvas.
My arm extended and the black dust had split open behind him, letting light enter through this darkness. The ground shattered in a cratered trail all the way to Daz's barrier, shattering it and then shattering the barrier behind as well, making the smoke escape at a rapid pace. The audience gasped as everyone's attention shifted to it for but a moment. All the while, Lance's armored pillars disintegrated into shambles like they never existed.
He stood so still with his hand sign disengaged, and my fist inches away from the bridge of his nose, crackling with restrained force. Mouth gaped and eyes trembling, his proud armor had been torn off, exposing a skintight mock-neck underneath and that vial for a necklace.
One more inch… that's all it would have taken to end it all.
My black coating, too, had faded away completely.
Shadows had formed over my eyes as I slowly lifted my head to meet his shivering hazel ones. My voice sounded off, low, steady, and personal—like a whisper as he clung on to each word, "This is for Belle."
The smoke dissipated rapidly through the hole from the barriers, and before Lance could even process what I had just said, I leaped out of the smoke and landed gracefully in front of the stunned crowd who were all darting their eyes back to the battle. With the smoke leaving us and exposing the eradicated arena, both Lance and I were finally in better view for all to see.
It was then that I stood up straight from where I had landed, dusting myself off nonchalantly all the while before raising my hand. A sure and easy smile whipped across my face as I proclaimed,
"I give up."