* Round Two: Fight!

*

With a quick turn, I faced the unfamiliar voice and immediately noticed the pair of gargoyles that stood at the edge of the alleyway. Guarding the entrance menacingly with twisted smiles and flimsy wings, they posed like cheesy anime villains who had cornered the ill-prepared protagonists. 

A bit on the nose, don’t you think? I thought to myself as I eyed them closely. Like, what’s next? Is he going to monologue? We can probably handle two gargoyle LARPers.

That was when I saw the additional figure stepping up from behind them. A scaled creature with chiselled teeth and a familiar hungry look pushed towards the front of the squad. My heart suddenly dropped as my confidence rapidly disappeared.

The basilisk…oh, fug. Yeah, that changes things. Two gargoyles and a basilisk…very different odds.

Glancing at their clawed hands, I noticed all three wore thin, red wristbands. Thanks to my earlier stroll with the triop, I had learned that this meant these were upperclassmen, specifically students one year our group's senior, which put them in the D ranks. I had also learned that most of the time, these students were nothing more than bullies looking for extra credit.

“—What have we got here?” The second gargoyle finished his friend’s introduction.

“Hey, we don’t want any trouble.” I tried to persuade them.

From what I knew about writing these enemies into the world, they would more than likely be a dangerous meetup. And with our current predicament, there was a chance that one of us could even fall in battle, which would be bad for group morale—and me, considering I was the tank and most likely to be tribute.

“You hear that, Bralwynn, the little First Year doesn’t want trouble." The first gargoyle spoke once more. "Where’s your triop First Year? Why are you hanging with some misfit Second Years?”

“Who are you calling misfits, Calix?” Rionriv shot off. “It’s pretty impressive to hear that coming from a limp twig Druid.”

Rionriv! Don’t antagonize them!

The basilisk at the front of the group chuckled loudly, releasing a sound that was closer to a cat of equal stature preparing to cough up a boulder-sized hairball. Unimpressed by the comment, the offended gargoyle instigator slapped against the beast's haunch before pointing towards us.

Oh no. It’s go time—Fug me.

“You’re going down, Singlemoo—”

His head snapped back before he could finish her name as I struck him with a decisive blow. I could read the writing on the wall. We weren’t going to talk our way out of this, so I figured I should enact my first-strike rule.

Hit first! Hit hard!

Thanks to my innate agility, I bounded off the basilisk and landed before the gargoyle leader, before anyone had a moment to act. Springboarding up with a readied fist, I shattered the boy-made-monster’s jaw with a decisive strike. But I wouldn’t stop there, deciding to continue onward with a powerful kick. Connecting with its rocky chest, I watched as stress fractures splintered out from where my heel landed, forcing the beast back and down to the ground with me atop it.

“Go all out!” I screamed to the triop. “Just this once!”

For some reason, this triggered a sense of déjà vu. A trickle of trauma flowed from the dam as I faintly recalled the feeling of making a good decision only to realize it was a poor choice mere seconds later. This time, I felt it in the form of pain as the downed gargoyle that I currently stood on raked my leg with its chipped claws. Simultaneously, the one to the side entered my field of vision and bit down on my shoulder aggressively.

In an instant, blood poured from my body in two locations. As the stone bite locked down harder, something cracked that shouldn’t have, and I felt an excruciating pain surging through my right arm.

“Fuuuu—” I screamed and took a knee. “Man down!”

“Iz!” Aesandoral cried from the corner of my narrowing world as I saw her drawing her bow before nocking an arrow.

An unusual glow I had never seen before crackled at the edge of the arrowhead, igniting it with writhing emerald energy. Releasing the arrow, it left a glimmering trail in its wake before connecting with the gargoyle that had decided to dine on my bony ass body.

Then, I felt another new sensation filling my consciousness with dread—that of a section of my shoulder being ripped away in the jaws of a gargoyle.

“Gyah-AAHHHH!” I released a high-pitched scream as though I had undergone the worst wax removal experience known to man. “What the fuuug!”

As I cried, I watched the arrow pushing the beast from me. It pinned the creature against the alley wall, where thorny vines crawled from the stone in an instant. They bound the being, lashing against its limbs until the once free monster was completely ensnared and no longer a threat.

“You good?” Aes asked, nocking another arrow as she approached.

“Am I good?!” I cried back as blood poured from two separate parts of my body and wooziness began to settle in. “N-No, I’m not good!”

Pulling a healing potion from my bag, I downed the elixir, promptly burping peppermint.

“Bleck.” I instinctively reacted to the flavourful taste.

But once again, I had chosen the wrong bottle. Having only gotten flavour instead of healing, I was left with little time to grab a second potion as the gargoyle beneath me stood and took me with him. Grabbing at my chest, he raised me into the air before throwing me down to the ground and following it with a powerful punch.

Hitting the blood-soaked cobblestone, I tasted the familiar metallic tang in my mouth. I coughed up my own life essence over my face and shirt as internal injuries were added to the list of problems stacking up against me.

“Punk! I’m going to teach you a lesson.” The beast grumbled through his shattered jaw.

Raising a clawed hand, the bully prepared for a heavy swing against my head. And, as I watched, my life didn’t flash before my eyes. No. Instead, all I could think in that moment were the few logical questions that any sane person would have asked me about this part of my story—

So, wait, it’s okay to kill the student body? What if they didn’t have their student ID? Wouldn't they be permanently killed? Honestly...how is this appropriate for school? Like, where are the teachers to say this is too much? Who approved this as a good idea?!

Luckily, it wasn’t my day to be dragged back to the infirmary. On the other hand, the gargoyle ringleader would, as Sharzin’s arrow found its target deep within a narrow crack I had created in the bully’s rigid chest plate. Stumbling back, the monster collapsed limply to the ground.

“Awesome.” I coughed, blood spraying from my mouth as I reached into my bag and withdrew another potion.

This time, as I drank down the liquid, I felt the magical effects taking hold. They still weren’t enough to restore all the blood I had lost, but at least the mortal wounds had been closed. Feeling a little better, I sat up in time to l watch as Aesandoral released her next arrow.

This one pooled with a different form of energy. Instead of green, it was a liquid silver that exaggerated the sharpened tip of her arrowhead. As she released it, the arrow reached its target in the blink of an eye. Instantly, the struggling gargoyle suddenly hung stationary as the arrow pinned its head to the wall.

“Godsdamn—overkill much?” I exclaimed, directing my attention to Rionriv and the remaining threat.

Oh. MY god...

The sorceress, standing in the middle of the alley, had her hands pointed down at the basilisk, which she had forced against the wall. Blasting forth from Rionriv’s palms was fire, but not the tranquil orange and red of a campfire. No. The inferno that came from her was a blue flame producing the intensity of a propane torch. I watched in horror as she melted through the thick hide of the beast, bubbling its insides like a grotesque stew.

By the time my uneasy feeling had disappeared, the enemy was no longer making a sound, nor was it moving. But that fact hadn’t stopped her.

“My god…” I managed to whisper.

“Hey, Iz," She announced with a smile as she released the flame and listened to the crackling of cooked flesh. "You were right. Other elements are fun too! Look, I used fire!”

“I see that...” I replied, not even attempting to conceal my terror, before looking around the battlefield.

My stomach dropped as I couldn’t shake the thought that we had just murdered three kids. And as I felt the trauma of the experience beginning to form a new core memory, I watched as their bodies glowed and disappeared.

Ah, so that’s how it’s supposed to work. I thought as I glanced at my team, who had already begun tidying themselves up as though nothing was wrong.

“So…so do we need to report this now?” I eventually asked as everyone grew eager to move on.

“Report? What? The monsters? Noooo—” Rionriv looked back at the piles of sparkles that remained where corpses had once been. “Those wristbands act as restoration charms. They’re probably already awake with full health in the infirmary.”

“Do they remember what happened? Like the experience of almost dying as monsters?”

“The students? Eh, probably. But enough about this, I’m hungry.”

“Mimic café?” Sharzin spoke softly as she appeared.