Patience...

Corban and I hid behind a tree close by Utta’s house, the bloodlust grew stronger and stronger, the air was hard to breath and my muscles ached.

Utta sat in the middle of the training ground looking out in the distance, until… he came.

Standing on her four legs her hair stood up so did her tail.

I look down at Corban, his hands were balled up, shaking from clenching his hands too hard.

-

Why haven’t they ran to the town yet?! But due to the sheer size of his aura, he would notice once they leave his aura.

Out from a tree, the man walked towards me, his hands were in his pockets and had a evil grin on his face.

“Hellooo, did you miss me?”

He put his arms out like he was coming over to hug me.

“It only took a day to find you, I think that’s a new record for me!”

He just needs to walk a few more metres then he’ll be within my range to send a prison from the ground; since he might be cautious from last time.

All of a sudden, he stopped walking right before entering my range. Of course…

“Listen, I just want the two kids, I’m not going to hurt I swear! I just need them to make an… exchange, then they’ll be free to do whatever!”

“What happened to their older brother?”

“Older brother? Oh yes, him… He is quite the fascinating person; in fact he is the one I’m making the deal with!”

“The only deal you’re making is one with me, now how about this… Either you walk away and never come near us again, or I’ll make sure you’ll never walk again.”

“WOAH! You are a feisty cat, okay… I choose… the latter.”

Stepping forward he barely entered my range, so I launched the prison I made before which surrounded him. YES! Wait…

The presence in front of me vanished and appeared behind me!

I created and sent another prison behind me, but his presence disappeared again.

“Hello again.”

His voiced ringed in my right ear, I need to make another prison—!"

On instinct I jumped away, but a small knife of sort sliced the top layer of my skin.

I used most of my aura to help create the prison cages, and I didn’t have enough time to focus it where the knife was going to land.

I made the two prisons disappear, and started to create another, due to my lack of mana and aura I made one that fit perfectly around the man, but this also meant I cannot not miss.

He just stood there, so I slammed the cage onto him.

It worked; he was==

A sudden sharp pain struck my head.

“Three things I learned when facing you last was…”

He put up a finger each time he listed what he had learned.

“You couldn’t or don’t like to kill, you have a specific range to your ability, and you can only make two prisons at a time which meant I only needed two illusions of myself.”

I stated to feel dizzy; the knife must have had some kind… of… poison.

I couldn’t see…

-

Circe had her hands covering her mouth as Utta fell to her side and laid there without moving.

The man touched the cage with his finger, and it turned into dust.

What do I do… What should I do? I have to go grab Utta.

I start walking but… my legs, I couldn’t move them, I tried as hard as I could, it felt like I was back in the forest with the minotaurs.

The man leaned over and picked up the fountain pen that he threw at Utta, then looked at us.

Circe spoke up.

“We need to get Utta, then run to the town.”

I agreed obviously, but I can’t do it, I’m not like Damian or Circe, I can never commit to anything.

“I’ll distract the man, on my signal you grab Utta, got it?”

“G-got it.”

-

Last night I found some heracleum mantegazzianum, which I collected its sap.

I was going to use it if anyone in the town tried to attack us but using it on him would make my day.

Throwing it at the man, preferably the eyes, would hopefully give us enough time to get away or even make him go blind then we can take him out!

Okay… I took a deep breath and started running.

I’ve been watching him the whole time, no way did he create another one of himself this one is real.

I got closer and closer, but he didn’t move at all, he just looked at me confused and almost fascinated.

As soon I go into throwing distance I took the cork out of the vial and sprayed the mans face with the sap, direct hit… YES!

“NOW!”

-

I had to run, Utta was counting on me, Circe is counting on me, come on…

COME ON!

I started sprinting towards Utta, I had to convince myself that the man was knocked out by Circe for my legs to even start moving let alone running.

Imagined the minotaur, it was going to slice Utta into two, while that was the reason why I was frozen, but the reason Circe is still here is because of Damian and he ran as soon as he heard Circe scream.

Eventually I got to Utta, I tripped on mud and slammed onto my side, but I brushed off myself scooped up Utta and turned to Circe.

She was half a metre above the ground.

The mans hands tightened around her neck.

No…

I was frozen again…

-

I thought I hit him! It hit directly on his eyes.

His hand is around my neck but he’s not choking me, if I let go of his arm which I’m hanging on, I probably would be, but he’s just holding me.

He then brings me closer to his face.

“You interest me… I’ll give you 30 minutes, lets see how long you last…”

He dropped me.

I quickly look behind me where Corban is.

“Corban! Let’s go!”

I got up and ran to the town, looking back once in a while to see where Corban was, it took him a while to get moving, but eventually he did.

We got to the town, people sat against the grey dirty stone buildings, which had a very tight road, the wooden signs where all rotten, so I have no idea how I’m going to find the Inn.

Should we even hide at the Inn; since Utta’s with us already?

Dammit… I wish Damian was here, he would know what to do, I’m not cut out for this, I’m not ready to be alone.

“Circe…”

I snap my head back, it was Utta!

“Utta! Are you okay? Where should we go?!”

“Why… did you… not run… away…”

Corban stepped in.

“We came back for you; we couldn’t leave you behind.”

“You… really are… just like your… parents…”

Utta took a deep breath between every few words, like she was gaining her strength back just to speak.

“We need to… get to… the inn… someone there can help…”

And I was going to keep running… what is wrong with me.

We kept walking down the narrow road, beggars tried to get our attention by shoving cups into our faces and spitting at our feet once we pass them.

Standing at the doors of the so-called Inn, the sign above said so, we all entered and there was cracked cobble stone stairs leading to darkness?

I don’t think this is the inn, we backed up, but someone stopped us, before I could look behind, we were pushed down the stairs.

“AHH!”

Tumbling down what felt like endless stairs, I started to hear faint cheering.

“YEAHHHHH”

“WOHHAHH”

Eventually we hit the floor, looking up, lights and cheering flooded the room.

“WELCOME NEWCOMERS AND OF COURSE OUR LOYAL PATRONS! THE FOURTH FIGHT OF THE DAY IS BETWEEN THE PHANTOM!”

The crowd cheered louder than before, Corban and I stood up.

It was a pretty large place, in the middle looking through the hundreds of people standing was a metal box cage, with the Phantom I assume waving his hands up getting the crowd to cheer louder.

On the left and right where rows of stone benches leading up to the roof, where there were there was a room with a large window.

“I told you… to go to the Inn!”

“We did! The sign said so!”

“Someone must of changed it… and not even those people up there have the guts to push us…”

Must have been the man, but he said he would give us 30 minutes!

“AND HIS OPPENENT… THE FIREBOLT!!!”

The crowd went even more crazy, we try to leave again, but standing in front was the man again…

“Sorry, I know I gave you 30 minutes, but I was soooo bored, so I led you here! Now trying to blind me with that sap was such a good idea I wanted to see both of you fight in action. So! Lets make a deal, and you know what?”

He waved his had and a piece of paper appeared; it was one of those old brown papers that people used to use to sign agreements on.

“Now, if each of you win one match, I will not touch you for one month… However, if you lose more than three matches combined you must willingly let yourselves be captured by me. If you try to leave before, or after losing three matches you will instantly be knocked out until I can collect you. Oh! Also the cat must also sign it, but she doesn’t need to fight I already saw enough of her. Do you agree with these conditions?”

We don’t have much of a choice, and I assume if we don’t sign it he’s just gonna to take us anyway.

“Sign the papers…”

“Utta?!”

“That’s our best decision right now, and you can learn how to fight in the process.”

Yeah, she’s right, and if we win a match each, one whole month should be plenty of time to find Damian who can beat this guy up… wait.

“What happens if you break the deal?”

“Oh, I’m glad you asked… My heart will explode instantly if I touch you after winning your two matches. Its all written on the contract.”

I started to doubt the legality of this contract.

“Don’t worry you two, this contract was made using mana, which means his heart will actually explode if he breaks it, it also means that you will be knocked out if you break it as well.”

The man waved his hand again; this time a quill and ink bottle appeared.

“So? What do you say?”

“You know taking the contractual mana to the literally sense is overdone in my opinion.”

Utta said smugly.

Utta then nudged Corbon to walk closer to the contract, she held her front leg out and the ink bottle poured on her paw, she then stamped it where you had to sign.

Corban signed it second, then as soon as I did the paper rolled up and disappeared so did the quill and ink bottle.

“I’ll be watching…”

The man then walks away, getting absorbed by the crowd.

I looked over to Corban and he was looking up at the roof.

I did as well and saw a feather quill right above me.

“Utta… what is that?”

“It must be in the contract, I assume its waiting for you to break the contract so it can knock you out, he probably also has one aimed at his heart. This is the most common way to increase your aura or mana, by creating a condition that has an equal exchange to what you want to accomplish. In this case he needed to put his life on the line to have enough mana to create these quills above our heads, but he probably just did that to scare you.”

We look at Utta with a blank face.

“I will explain more once we get the heck out of here! He never stated how long we could stay in this fighting club for, but I also don’t want to make him lose his patience.”

“Yeah, he doesn’t have much, also he didn’t say anything about not interfering with us right now or during our matches.”

“That’s true Circe, I think the best course of action is to get in line and sign up for our matches now, and analysis our opponents. We don’t have time to train for every possibility so we will watch each match, and I will teach you on how to counter, defend and attack, during the intermissions I will train your aura.”

We’ll win… we have too…