Accusation

Adelyn took a deep breath. This was her chance to get into the finals. It was her last obstacle that she needed to pass, until she was in the finals.

She hoped Ed would make it into the semis, that way they could rest easy. But, she never could be too certain.

“Hey, Adelyn,” the voice on the other side of the arena said. Joyce stood on the other side of the arena, looking straight back at her. She still had her cloak up, as if hiding her face from the crowd.

“Hey, Joyce. I wish you good luck!” Adelyn said, cheerfully. Her chainsaw floated behind her, as well as her books. Joyce responded in kind, her sword coming out of her sheath and glowing. Soon, it overtook the sword itself, becoming more of a bright yellow beam rather than a sword anymore.

It was so bright that Adelyn was impressed. Only Ed and herself used light magic in this world, so she must have been another rarity. The audience most likely already saw this magic before, so they were simply waiting for the fight to begin.

“Good luck as well,” Joyce said, before swinging her sword. As she did so, the blade of light expanded massively and headed straight towards Adelyn.

“W-Woah!” Adelyn said, immediately moving her chainsaw directly in front of her to block the attack. The chainsaw began to rotate to try and cut through the blade coming at her, and the two attacks began to clash.

However, even with her telekinesis, Adelyn could feel her grip weakening as the weight of the blade pushed her down. She dropped to her knees, and then rolled out of the way, as the light blade slammed onto the ground.

“Shoot-!” Adelyn said as she got back up. She shut off her chainsaw and began to open her book. With one call, leaves scattered around the arena as Viridia was summoned onto the battlefield. The Spirit of Nature called forth dozens of vines from the ground to tie and restrain Joyce, to hopefully end this fight quickly.

With one slash, every single vine was cut to pieces. To Adelyn’s dismay, it seemed like there was no quick answer to this problem.

“Okay, let's see if I can try to get Viridia to do this…”

Adelyn channeled the energy from her body and into the spirit. She began to try and command it in a completely different way. Viridia touched the ground and began to call her magic forth.

Smaller animals began to come forth from the ground. They weren’t true animals, but more phantoms. It was called from the stories of her memory, and they were numerous. Wolves, boars, and snakes began to form around from the ground. They all began to run towards Joyce from every direction, hoping to overwhelm the girl from just sheer numbers.

Joyce looked at the approaching horde and spun around, her glowing sword expanding outward and spinning. Another flash of light overcame Adelyn, and by the time it faded, all of her creatures that she summoned dissipated. Viridia also became a victim, as Joyce looked at her with a serious expression.

There was something about her that was different. She was disciplined, and powerful. Adelyn accepted the challenge, but she would not underestimate it.

“Golus!” Adelyn summoned the earth spirit onto the battlefield, as he crashed into the ground with thunderous force. It sent out multiple spikes of rock into the air, aiming to force Joyce to move to a more vulnerable position. Joyce responded with a powerful slice, cutting every spike into two and going towards the golem.

Adelyn stood behind him, she was prepared for this happening too. The golem raised its arms and threw a massive punch at the beam of light, in an attempt to split it apart. The two forces clashed as the summoner climbed on top of Golus. She grabbed her chainsaw by the blade, and then leaped over the blast!

Golus himself fell, but he served his purpose well. Adelyn got up close to Joyce and managed to strike her with the handle of her chainsaw. The blunt hit however, didn’t seem to phase her outside of the initial stagger. Her long golden energy sword retracted inwards, returning to a normal—albeit still glowing—blade to strike back at Adelyn!

Adelyn instantly flipped her chainsaw around, her blade clashing against Joyce’s. The two of them began to push against each other, and Adelyn’s chainsaw began to rev. However, this sword was something special, as Adelyn felt even her own strength faltering her!

“Tch…!” Adelyn pulled her chainsaw back, narrowly dodging the first sword strike. She didn’t have time to blunt her weapon, so she just quickly turned it off and did another slash. The two of them traded near-misses for a brief period of time. However, Adelyn fell backwards. She was being overwhelmed in this clash, for quite a few reasons.

Joyce was strong, any traded hit felt like her weapon was about to break in half. She tried to use her telekinesis to keep it together, but it was taking a toll on her.

Joyce was fast. Adelyn had to defend far more often than she could attack. Every time Adelyn could even attempt a strike, it felt like Joyce did two back. This was stressful, and hard to keep up with.

Joyce was skilled. It felt like any single opportunity she had, she took it. Any tiny mistake that Adelyn made was amplified tenfold, with a strong hit attacking her side, almost causing her to fall directly back onto the ground.

It was frustrating, and it felt like the only reason why Adelyn wasn’t down on the ground right now was because of her own stubbornness. She was this close after all, but even still, it felt out of her reach.

The golden blade kept on striking her, pushing her back. Adelyn stepped further and further backwards and closer to the out of bounds. She couldn’t find an opportunity to summon anything, and she was worried that Joyce would destroy it immediately anyways. This was looking worse every second that passed and she didn’t know how to get out of this.

But, she had to try somehow. She was never too great at applying her telekinesis to other people; there was always some messiness involved with trying to push against people’s own magical energy. However, there was something she hadn’t tried.

She clashed against Joyce’s blade once more, her chainsaw pushed against the powerful golden sword. Adelyn’s feet were planted into the ground, but the force was pushing her backwards… almost out of bounds.

One hand moved off of her chainsaw, and attempted to push Joyce’s hand off her sword. The hope was to make the girl lose balance and allow Adelyn to recover. Her magical energy was imposed onto Joyce, and she pulled on her hand

Two things happened at once. First, it felt like Adelyn felt a magical force pushing against her own, a reaction that was caused when trying to directly mess with another person’s body. Joyce’s own energy pushed back against her, and it hurt her head. The second thing that happened was that Joyce’s grip slipped on her blade. Adelyn’s strategy worked.

The summoner rolled out of the way and onto the other side of Joyce. She tried to get a sneaky nudge to force the girl out of bounds, but the girl responded with her own slash, forcing Adelyn to jump back. But regardless, Adelyn was out of peril for now.

She immediately took a moment to summon Drach. As the shadow spirit was called forth, Adelyn had hoped that the darkness that began to form around the arena would smother out the light. Unfortunately, Joyce was too powerful for such a trick to work. The sword of light cut through the darkness around her, eliminating it entirely.

Drach was also soon brought to the light, and Joyce approached her once again. Her little telekinesis trick had only brought her time. But, she needed to fight like her life was on the line. With a rev in her chainsaw, and the calling forth of Eira, they moved forward together to strike at Joyce.

They clashed, and Joyce quickly began overpowering Adelyn once more. However, Adelyn quickly moved out of the way to let Eira do her work, freezing Joyce’s arm as a result. The girl casually shattered the ice that covered her arm, and quickly struck at Adelyn before she could get the chance to attack.

This cycle repeated a few more times, with Adelyn attempting to apply pressure but Joyce refusing to let her get an opening at all. Adelyn also had to keep on switching her chainsaw on and off, to cut through attacks but not harm Joyce if anything happened. The two girls sweated as this raged on… until Adelyn changed her plan of attack.

She backed off for just a moment, and let Eira jump in front of her. The frost covered Joyce’s entire body and froze her solid! However, considering Joyce’s strength, this was far from a KO. Adelyn switched off her chainsaw and flipped it around, preparing to once again use its handle as a club.

She readied up and swung, but a flash of light burst out of the ice prison and countered at Adelyn immediately. Adelyn was thrown back, and before she knew it she was on the back foot again. Joyce’s energy blade was about to push her out, so she had to flip her chainsaw over and rev it quickly. She didn’t have time to think… just defend!

And… the next thing she knew, her chainsaw had cut through the girl’s chest. A gash of blood shot out from Joyce and splattered onto Adelyn’s face. It wasn’t too deep, just the tip of the chainsaw… but it was a notable wound that caused Adelyn to feel sick as it splashed on her.

Joyce stumbled back, looking at the wound.

“A-Ah… I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to…”

Adelyn tried to sputter out, but she felt sick. Nauseous, and she couldn’t figure out why. It was like her body was completely rejecting this entire scenario, and she wanted to throw up. Why was she feeling so sick… so awful…?

Adelyn collapsed to her knees, and tried to keep her sickness within herself. But it was something… something otherworldly. She didn’t know if it was what she did or just the blood, but it was hard to maintain composure.

Trying to keep herself composed, Adelyn tried to push herself off of the ground… despite the sickness. Her head turned up, and she looked at Joyce staring back at her. Her eyes were shocked, but surprisingly… not at the wound.

Adelyn couldn’t see the wound. She swore she hit her with her chainsaw, and it caused a pretty bad gash. But there was nothing besides a rip in Joyce’s dress and some blood on her clothes. It was like she wasn’t even hurt at all, and that wound never happened.

The rip in her clothes confirmed that something did happen, so what was going on? Adelyn pushed herself up to her feet, barely standing. She didn’t know if she still had enough fight in her to continue this battle, but she had to.

However, just before the two girls could continue fighting, another flash of light appeared between them. An intrusion in the fight, preventing either of them from moving forward. The crowd murmured in confusion, as they looked at the interruption.

The flash eventually cleared, and they finally saw what stood behind it. Edward was standing in front of Adelyn, with a light blade pointed directly at Joyce. A serious expression came across his face as he approached the other girl with a glare in his eye. He moved slowly, but with a purpose, as if he figured out something that nobody else had at this moment.

“Do you wish to explain yourself, Miss Cheater?”