The Beauty and the Leela

Lady Bluesteed huffed for breath as she sprinted through the Wildertree Maze walls. She scrambled about the brush, escaping from the quiver of snakevines slithering for her. Some had wrapped around trunks ahead to form a barricade.

"Air wave: slash!" She shouted, frantically clicking her fingers into a rhythm to release her spell.

A folly of white air-blade strikes and slashes landed on the snakevine barricade to make it squeal and recoil with pain. 

The snakevines shrank to form an opening. Magic empowered her limbs, as she dashed through it to reach a clearing.

It was like from one frying pan to the fire. Where she found herself was being surrounded by rambling cane vine and briar patches. They moved.

She slumped to the ground, panting for breath and feeling exhausted. Her tight-fitting navy leather armor bodysuit was slightly restricting to her movements, and made her skin itch. The armor was her training prune.

"Four more." She looked worryingly at a purple pill in her hands, swallowed it and allowed the medicine properties to ease her discomfort while wearing the prune. 

She was determined to complete her challenge.

Kairo was an alien demon who had no magic, yet he used his smarts and physical strength to overcome all odds. When she watched him from the arena stands, battling Henka-guard in that strange but invigorating combat match, she felt encouraged by his play.

"He had no magic then, but he won. If he can win his trials, I can pass my challenge." She rose to her hooves and checked her navigator. 

The library wasn't too far. If she could make her way out of the clearing, it was a straight run through the rainforest.

"I can do this!"

"No you can't." Leela strutted smugly into the clearing from a teleportation array. Five heavily armed masked royal guards entered behind her.

The demon whipped out her two daggers and laced them with her fire magic. She tossed them at Lady Bluesteed to initiate a remote attack. 

The daggers danced in midair, making slash and stab attacks at the centurion. 

Lady Bluesteed countered the blows with her large blue metal hand-fan weapon, which she pulled off her back holster. The fan's spread area was able to deflect and shield the blows.

The horse-woman's fight only spurred on more crazy from Leela. After some intense moves, Leela yawned and stepped back. She ordered for her lackeys to join in on the fun.

Lady Bluesteed was seriously gasping. "I'm dead if I don't use this."

She pulled out a pocket parchment scroll from her hip pouch, and activated the properties embedded in the scroll's ink with her magic. Then tossed the scroll into the air. 

It rapidly drew an white intricate magical array midair, but it needed time. So she braced herself for the attacks, which came fast and furiously.

Her hand-fan suffered a beating as she continued to dodge and dance about to counter her enemies' longsword attacks.  Feeling heated sparks jab her skin, but she held on.

"Ugh!" She yelped when a sword struck her arm, but she gripped her hand-fan tightly and kept her fight going.

Leela began casting fireballs at her. 

Lady Bluesteed was doing all she can to fend off both the demon woman's and her guards' offense.

She yelped when a blow struck her on her back and she was knocked to the ground. 

Her eyes widened with fear when three longsword downward slashes and a fireball were racing for her face. Intense heat and static energy began itching her skin.

"Get back!" Kairo shouted as he tossed Zeus to counter the deadly attacks. It spun in a motion that deflected the slashes and fireball.   He recalled Zeus to make it fly into his hand like a boomerang.

Lady Bluesteed's eyes widened with awe and gratitude for Kairo's timely arrival. He stood heroically in front of her to counter blows that wanted to kill her.

"The alien." Leela raised a hand to her guards. 

They paused their attack and stepped back into a formation, allowing her to step forward.

Her eyes narrowed with pure hatred for the intruder. This alien that made her look like a fool to the entire Palace of Princes.

"Perfect. I can get revenge." She gave her guards the signal to resume their fight on Lady Bluesteed, wanting to mangle him into a pulp all by herself.

Kairo swung Zeus to unleash white blade attacks, which negated the magic to the guards' longswords; reducing them to dull and blunt metal.

This didn't stop the guards' offensive blows. Kairo struggled to counter them.

"Kairo!" Lady Bluesteed screamed when a longsword cut into his arm. Fortunately his cloak was around it to block the impact. But it still made him stagger backward to nurse his bruises.

"I'll forge an opening. You find a way to leave," he whispered to Lady Bluesteed.

She shook her head as she wobbled to stand, and held her hand-fan before her to continue her fight.

"This is my fight."

Kairo nodded. "Okay. Let's fight together and stay close."

She gave him a determined nod and looked fierce as she wielded her hand-fan to make slash attacks at the guards.

Kairo was facing Leela in a standoff.

"Rematch. I win. You die." Leela cackled as she laced her daggers with fire and lunged at him.

"Mind if we join in?" A woman cockily said as she and two men stepped through the summoning array Lady Bluesteed had activated earlier.

The woman was a feisty looking veteran with a slender body in red-black leather armor covering her neck.

She danced about the fight with matching spiky heeled boots, which she used as kick-stab attacks on her opponents, mixed in with her saber slashes and water-based blasts.

The other two men were Henka-guard and a listless, wiry yet good-looking man with mid-length fiery red hair that seemed to glow with magic.

They were like chalk and cheese when fighting side-by-side. Henka-guard used hard smashes, brute-force slashes with his oversized halberd. His listless moving comrade leisurely swung his dual axes to counter blows. Most of his attacks were enhanced with air magic.

But Leela ignored the combat between the guards and Lady Bluesteed. Her focus was on Kairo and the many ways she wanted to smash his head.

"Kairo, if you lose to her in any way, you can sleep with the shriekers."

"Not helping. If you want her defeated, teleport over and do it yourself!" Kairo snapped as he raised Zeus's blade to deflect a flying dagger attack with the flat.

"Fine! I'll empower your magic by feeding some of mine into your grimoire. You should be able to use a high level spell of mine for this fight."

"You can do that?"

"Only because of our link and my desire to see her fed to a mothervine."

A whirlwind of white energy surrounded Kairo, knocking Leela unexpectedly backward. Kairo felt Genie's magic boost his levels to an insane degree.

"You better not put me into another three-day coma!" he complained as he raised Zeus to absorb the magic boost.

"Relax. It won't do that. It will knock the crap out of that witch."

Leela cursed and shielded her eyes from the growing power surrounding Kairo. Her eyes narrowed when she felt Genie's energy oozing off the whirlwind.

Zeus absorbed the magic, lifting Kairo off the ground to tower over her. He raised the scythe high to release a mighty swing.

"Damn you Genie!" Leela cursed when she found her body pinned to the ground by white magic oozing off Kairo's weapon.

Her eyes widened when she saw the swift fall of Zeus's blade: she fisted a pocket scroll and scrunched it into a ball. Magic was released to make her disappear. The blade struck briar branches.

When the guards saw that their mistress was gone, they stopped their attacks and fled the scene.

"Chase!" Henka-guard shouted.

The guard woman ordered him to stop. "We need to assess Lady Bluesteed's condition."

Kairo slumped to the ground and slipped a healing pill into his mouth. He began to meditate to recover his energies, as he was doing so he felt Genie's magic slip away.

"Was that good enough?"

"Bah. She got away, the coward. You did great. I must say, that hook-polearm is a marvelous find. Was it at the stone ring?"

"It's the hockey stick that was made during the combat trial."

"Really? But it wasn't like this when you entered the valley."

Kairo deliberated on whether to tell him about his destiny experience. But saw no reason not to. Eventually, he would find out anyway. So he told him.

"It was upgraded to a polearm scythe? Wow. And this Rezenens Mage ability sounds quite handy." Genie's gleeful laughter rang about his ears, stirring a groan from Kairo who had grown used to the jarring impacts.

"You're Kairo?" The guard woman stood before him with her hands on her hips.

Kairo gulped as he took the woman's beauty: short boy-cut red hair, almond green eyes and round youthful face. He blushed, finding her fine curves highly alluring. Genie coughed in his mind to draw his attention back to the question. He nodded.

"Thank you Captain Abell-guard." Lady Bluesteed approached the red-haired woman and cordially thanked her with a bow.

Abell-guard nodded. "You did well Centurion. Not many prissy ladies could've put up a fight like that."

"Hah. That countess lost again." Henka-guard stomped toward Kairo and yanked him off the ground to knock him about with mate punches.

"If that's your way of thank you, I'd rather Lady Bluesteed's version." Kairo yelped and was able to move away from the bromance moment. 

He found himself next to the other guard, who yawned and checked his navigator.

"I think it's time to go back for a pint."

Abell-guard sighed, strutted up to the man and pulled at his ear to make him hop on the spot with pain. "We're still in the middle of the Mage Library. You get your pint after Lady Bluesteed passes her challenge."

"Come on, Abell. Why'd you gotta keep treating me like your kid? I'm your father!"

Kairo paused and did a slow blink as he looked at the two guards. They both looked the same age of mid-twenties.

"Then act like one, instead of the loser, listless squad mate I got dumped with." She huffed and turned to check their surroundings better.

"Father?"

Henka-guard nodded. "It's a long story for a pint at the manne."

"What are you guys doing here anyway?" Kairo politely asked.

Lady Bluesteed explained that she was there for her challenge to be an official court lady. Jan's personal squad was assigned to protect her if she summoned them.

"Wait. So no finishing school?"

Henka-guard roared with laughter. "Finishing school sounds brutal, I like it. Here, one round in the Mage Library is the prissy challenge to make a centurion lady."

"This is a prissy challenge?" Kairo wondered what hardcore would be.

Abell diverted everyone's conversations and attention to her.

"We better make tracks if we wanna reach the auditorium before night. You, runt, better come with us." She pointed to Kairo who nodded.

"Sounds good to me."

The men laughed.

"Hear that? Calling him Runt sounds good to him." Henka-guard bellowed.

"Whatever. Lead the way." Kairo rolled his eyes, too tired to banter.