Riding Out the Storm

Adelyn entered the stadium, and noticed how many eyes were on her. She had done shows for Rumia before, but this was definitely very different. It was like everyone in the city showed up to judge her in specific.

“Welcome to the master summoner and telekinetic genius, Adelyn!”

The announcer hyped up her entrance. Her chainsaw floated to her right as she grabbed it out of the air, revving it up. Her books floated to her left, flipping through their pages.

She then realized that if this was supposed to be a non-lethal tournament, then a chainsaw was going to get in the way of that. Regardless, she was ready for whoever she might face.

From the other side of the arena, another girl came to the center of the arena. Her dress was a snow white, covered by a coat. Her skin was quite pale, like a snow angel, with a staff in her hand.

“Headed all the way here from the City of Ice, we have Jophielle!” The announcer introduced the girl, who waved at the audience and then Adelyn.

“The City of Ice?” Adelyn asked. “How far is that from here?”

“Ahh,” the girl thought. “A long way away. So, I really shouldn’t waste this chance.”

Now Adelyn felt a bit bad, if she came from this far away then taking away her chances of winning sounded kind of mean.

But, she recognized that this was necessary or else she wouldn’t be able to get what she wanted.

“May the best spellcaster win,” Adelyn said. She quickly looked over her features once again. There weren’t any red eyes or fangs on her at least, though that did not mean she was in the clear yet.

They needed to begin the battle first, as the two of them circled around each other. Adelyn kept on waiting for her opponent to take the initiative, as she maintained her distance. This went on for a while, until finally…

Jophielle’s staff pointed at Adelyn, and with that two storm clouds seemed to form above her head. With that, a blizzard began to shoot out towards Adelyn!

“Igna!” With the opening of her book, Igna formed in the air. The flame spirit blasted the blizzard back, the heat overwhelming the cold. Jophielle getting quickly overwhelmed, she swung her staff and the storm clouds switched from ice… to water!

In a sudden turn of events, the Spirit of Flames was put on the backfoot by the change in weather. The water began to extinguish her flames, requiring Adelyn stepped back a bit. She needed a different summon, as she called back Igna and jumped to the side to dodge the water.

Adelyn takes a deep breath, before summoning Viridia. The spirit of nature came forth with its ceremony of flowers and vines, and which then reached to grab at Jophielle. She had one specific goal: to reach her staff.

“You seem to have some non-ice stuff for being from the City of Ice!” Adelyn said.

Jophielle raised her staff and a gust of wind blasted away the vines that came towards them, with a confident look.

“What? Do you think that we’re all confined to one ability? You shouldn’t make those assumptions.”

With her abilities, and the floating clouds next to her. Adelyn assumed that this girl had the power to control a miniaturized version of the weather. That would at least give her a basis to work with and know what was coming. Regardless, Adelyn called forth Luz to strike back.

The glowing radiant spirit emitted light beams out of her hands. She fired them at Jophielle, as the clouds stood in front of her to block the lights. She then realized the clouds had absorbed the beams that Adelyn fired!

“Shoot,” Adelyn realized what that meant, and suddenly a rainbow came bursting out of the clouds. A reflection of her own attack, but way worse! Adelyn did not have time to re-summon Viridia with such a sudden strike, so she simply attempted to use the metal of her chainsaw to reflect said light. This somewhat worked, as only the sides of her dress got burned.

Though, she had little time to recover, as the two clouds floated upward into the sky. The sound of thunder struck through the air before suddenly, lightning blasted out in all directions! The electricity fired wildly across the stadium, giving Adelyn very little cover at all!

“Golus! Right now!”

The large earth spirit came out of the ground, to immediately face a lightning strike head on. Luckily, that was always the intention. Those lightning bolts seemed powerful, and she felt like most of the other spirits would immediately get obliterated on a single strike. Thankfully, Golus could use himself as a wall, to give Adelyn some time to move closer.

Adelyn could have used the hydra as well, but risky with how winded she got at the tryouts. If any of her opponents could beat it, then she would instantly lose. It was not worth it.

Adelyn used her moving earth golem wall to keep on pushing towards Jophielle. Considering how she had not seen the girl throw out a single physical attack, she figured that she might have an advantage in close quarters.

“Quite hiding from behind that wall!” Jophielle said. “Your magic is impressive, but it won’t last forever!”

Adelyn’s chainsaw revved up, though she knew she could not use it to the full extent. She didn’t want her opponent to get seriously hurt after all. Her telekinesis was flexible enough to be able to use the butt of her chainsaw as the primary weapon. She would only use her chainsaw to cut through inanimate things.

She slowly kept on moving behind the golem wall. Lightning occasionally flashed right over her head, but it just barely missed her. However, she noticed that one of the clouds had disappeared from the sky. There was a lot less lightning barraging from all directions as a result, which Adelyn was thankful for. That was, until she noticed the fact that Golus slowly began to stop moving.

His movements froze to a halt, until it eventually stopped. But the other thing was, he was completely frozen to the touch.

“Ah…”

The spirit had been frozen over, and then a lightning bolt struck the golem head-on. The spirit shattered into a thousand bits of earth, leaving Adelyn and Jophielle face to face.

“Nice try,” Jophielle said, before her cloud released another blast of cold at Adelyn. The chill in the air was threatening to freeze her in place!

Adelyn had only a split-second to react, and she did. She grabbed her chainsaw and focused her telekinesis entirely on trying to split the blast apart so that it wouldn’t hit her. The chilly air persisted, however, forcing the two of them into a deadlock. But, Adelyn kept on moving closer. Her entire mind was focused on parting the unending wave of cold that aimed to freeze her solid. With that, she would hopefully get the chance to find a winning moment!

Just as she got closer, just as she raised the back end of her chainsaw…

ZAP!

Lightning struck Adelyn’s back, from the cloud that was above them. Adelyn had not taken care of it.

“AAAGH-” Adelyn shouted as she dropped to her knees. She shoved her chainsaw into the ground for stability, to prevent her from falling over.

“Oh my… by the moon, that was close,” Jophielle took a breath. “I was this close to needing a recharge.”

The remaining cold washed over Adelyn, but she held it off long enough that the cloud wasn’t pushing full power. A brief tinge of freezing overcame her person, but she still did not fall.

The lightning rain stopped, and the cold shower ended. The two clouds floated off away from sight. However, the fight did not stop. This was because Adelyn immediately felt the impact of the wooden staff against her cheek. It made her stumble.

She dragged her chainsaw out of the ground, though another strike pushed her back a little bit more. These hits weren’t particularly damaging, but they were moving her back. She was getting closer to just being hit out of the arena.

So, Adelyn had to fight back. She dropped her chainsaw, but then quickly picked it up by the bar of the chainsaw. Then, she struck back at Jophielle with a strike to her own side using the chainsaw’s body.

“Agh-!”

That one seemed to hurt Jophielle a lot more than she was hurting Adelyn. However, Adelyn herself was in a far worse starting position than Jophielle was. The two of them exchanged blows one-by-one, back and forth.

The previously magical battle turned to a physical brawl. Jophielle was attempting to push Adelyn out of the arena’s area, and Adelyn attempted to just knock Jophielle down. The both of them held on steady despite the blows. Though they were both getting weary, and closer to falling.

At the edge of the arena, Adelyn threw out one more blow at Jophielle. The weather girl was almost taken off her feet, but she just managed to stay afloat… and behind her were her two floating clouds.

“Shoot…!”

“Finally, they’re back…” Jophielle said. Out of them came two blasts of water, firing directly towards Adelyn. She tried to use telekinesis to part the waves, but it ended up being ineffective. Instead, she took a frontal assault of water to her face.

Planting her feet in the ground. She held steady, edging almost just out of bounds… until… the water stopped.

“Huh?” Jophielle looked at the clouds, but she didn’t see them anymore. Instead she saw two orbs of darkness, and Drach, the spirit of darkness resting in her shadow.

“Well, I figured you were gathering energy to recharge your magic. So… during our fight, I wanted to prepare something just in case those came back…”

“You still had this up your sleeve?” Jophielle responded.

“Mhm,” Adelyn said. “It was hard to bring him out while brawling like that… but now he’s here.”

The spirit of darkness manipulated Jophielle’s own shadow to grab her arm holding the staff. Adelyn capitalized by grabbing the other arm as well. Together, the two reversed their defensive position and shoved Jophielle out of the ring.

“Nngh-!” Jophielle then fell to the ground.

The announcer cheered, the crowd clapped, and Adelyn was the winner. She breathed heavily, then looked at her defeated opponent.

“Good fight,” Adelyn said, sticking her hand out. “Sorry I had to… knock you out of the tournament like that.”

Jophielle awkwardly looked to the side, but then she turned back to Adelyn and took her hand. Adelyn helped the other girl off of the ground, and smiled.

“Your magic is really cool,” Adelyn said as Drach faded away, alongside the orbs that contained both clouds. “I would love to learn something similar.”

“Thanks…” the ice girl nodded. “I appreciate it. It was a good learning experience.”

“Mhm! Every battle is one you learn from, so you can become stronger and better than before. I think you also helped me too, so I have to thank you as well. No hard feelings?”

“Yeah,” Jophielle nodded, smiling back. “No hard feelings.”

***

Adelyn and Jophielle exited the stadium together. They began talking about a few things regarding magic. They found a shared interest in the intricacies of each other’s abilities, but also Adelyn’s current goal for the tournament.

“You know, I’m going to need to go to the City of Ice one day,” Adelyn said. “If you’re going back there, then I might see you.”

“Really?” Jophielle said. “I suppose I could show you around.”

“Mhm! Maybe it will be the next city I go to for your governor’s approval,” Adelyn said.

“I… I wouldn’t recommend that. It is such a long trip that you should probably go to closer cities first. Lune, the City of the Moon is much closer. Plus, our governor is a lot more… fickle.”

“Ah, I see. Well, you should wait for me until then! I still have to win this tournament, first.”

As the two of them discussed, they headed into the waiting room. Adelyn saw a familiar blonde girl sitting at a table, waiting still.

“Joyce!” Adelyn said.

“Oh, hey Adelyn. Ed and Cozy went off to practice and maybe look for a cheater,” Joyce said, noticing them. “Did you win your match? And did you find the cheater?”

“Yeah. But my opponent here, Jophielle, is pretty cool too, so I don’t think she’s a cheater,” Adelyn responded.

“Eh? Cheater? What do you mean by that?” Jophielle said, confused.

“Oh right. I don’t think anyone told you. Rumor has it that someone is using vampiric strength to get an unfair advantage in the tournament,” Adelyn said. “Joyce, I, and some other friends are currently trying to figure out who it is.”

“Really? That’s awful. Imagine if I travelled all the way here to get trounced by a cheater,” Jophielle sighed. “One with vampiric strength too, unbelievable.”

“Mhm!” Adelyn said. “That’s why we’re going to catch them. The integrity of the results are too important!”

“It’s a bit hard, focusing on winning and all too,” Joyce said. “But I’m doing my best.”

“Well, I hope you guys catch the cheater then,” Jophielle agreed. “If you need any of my help. I’ll be in town for the rest of today and tomorrow.”

“No problem. Just keep an eye out for anything suspicious,” Adelyn said.

Despite everything, Adelyn had a determination in her eye, now that she was past the first round. She had to win this, and she wouldn’t let anyone down.