The Empire

The girl was strong, arrogant, but not nearly as trained in the magics as Ethelyn was, the runes Meeko attacked were basic, insignificant to her larger scale spells it was unfortunate for the cadet that she could not read the situation properly. The only advantage Meeko gained in her attack on the rune circle was forcing Ethelyn to stifle a laugh in order to continue her chanting. She was pretty close to breaking too, her eye twitched as she struggled to keep up the spell until she composed herself.

Meanwhile Ethelyn gained the upper hand, the girl finally revealed her aura. Ethelyn’s eyes glowed green as she looked the girl over. Meeko probably thought her aura was impressive, larger than many around her, she was aiming to impress, intimidate, over-power, perhaps even instill fear in her opponent. Too bad for Meeko there were a lot of cadets around, so yes a lot of people would have a smaller weaker aura than her but she clearly didn’t understand the concept of “Lieutenant”. Ethelyn had no reason to prove the girl wrong as far as size of aura was concerned for the moment, her aura remained the giant snake of green poised to strike it had been at the beginning of the fight.

Ethelyn’s sight allowed her to see the pools of aura on the girl’s body and they were far more clear now that the aura was free to roam. Ethelyn noticed the aura pooling in the tips of her fingers and smirked.

“Sssss’hra sssscu’ma Dracossssss” Ethelyn’s incantation came to a conclusion and the earth shook with the shear impact of her words. The smirk on her face turned into a wild smile as her green aura snake unraveled and entered the prepared vessel, the unharmed snake coiled around the more or less destroyed run circle. The vessel was far too small for the beast so the rocks more or less served as a skin rather than a body like in the other snakes.

“Finnosssssss” Ethelyn commanded with a hiss. The snake hissed in response and slithered toward its target with the speed far superior to any real snake. Ethelyn was done with her preparations now it was time to crush her opponent. Her feet shifted again as she drew out multiple earth runes in a small dance. She was closer to Meeko than the snake so after shooting two more needles at the girl she activated the runes beneath her rock from the training field shot up from the ground and encased Meeko’s feet locking them in place.

As Meeko was planted in the ground the snake converged on its’ target and made an attempt to coil around the girl. The second the creature came in contact with the large orange aura it began to open its’ mouth and began to “filter-feed,” sucking in the aura that came in contact with its’ mouth. The mutated snake was literally eating away at the girl’s aura.

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Daniel would finish it now! With this one rush. His step forward was solid, his body tensed where it needed to be and loose where it didn’t. His stance was solid, it was rigid, it was… moving… why was it moving?

Oof!

Daniel couldn’t’ hold his oxygen as he was smashed in the side, his whole body being carried away by the weight of the object that had hit him. No, not an object, that was human shaped. It was more than human shaped it was a bloody human! Daniel had just been cross sectioned and flung to the side by a flying body, sent airborne by some incredible force. To be fair though his day wasn’t nearly as bad as the poor unknown guy that was being used as a missile to attack… Wait a second… was that Caspian?

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Guhah!

Caspian spat up blood as the blunt broad blade collided with his chest. Well, it struck his own two blades first but the force that the man had struck with was enough that even after crushing his guard and forcing his blades to his chest it had continued and carried through his body. If he’d had a stronger or more proper stance he’d have only been struck. As it was he was airborne, and his inertia was in no way slowing.

Crack!

A sharp pain echoed through his body as his back collided with something solid and cold then continued through. It was a wall of Ice, created by a Magus who was battling next to where he and the Colonel had been fighting. He’d seen it erected and now he supposed there was a large break in it. But he wasn’t really slowing. That Colonel was strong, obviously being a Colonel he would be, but even or a Guardian this was crazy. He hadn’t used his strength throughout most of the battle until that last attack. And now Caspian understood why. And he still wasn’t slowing.

Oof!

Well, he wasn’t slowing until he hit something. No, not something it was someone! He was crashing into a person! He felt bad for whoever that was because the laws of inertia dictated that at least half the force he was struck by was now hitting that guy. Caspian couldn’t see who it was though because he just passed practically through him, however at last his speed and inertia was dropping below gravity as he lost the altitude of three feet to around two, then one. Uh oh. He struck the ground and tumbled, like a log. He’d been sent flying while standing straight up but in the course of his flight that felt like forever he’d turned to be horizontally bent above the ground. He’d flown a good thirty meters though, and it was another five before he came to a stop lying on the ground.

The dust around him and the blood in his throat made breathing almost impossible as he fought off unconsciousness, he felt blood pooling in various points of his body as he bruised form the attack and was pretty sure at least three of his ribs were broken. However as he pushed back against the impending concussion and fade out he couldn’t help but think back to what a third year had told him and his friends a few days before.

They were all sitting around at breakfast having a good laugh when Kevin mentioned that the Colonel hadn’t been challenged yet, which made a nearby sergeant but into the conversation. ”There’s a reason for that, you know…” she’d explained, ”See, the Colonels and Generals are actually all fifth years, while most graduate at their 4th they remain to lead the battalions. It’s all based on skills. But, there’s a discrepancy…” at the time Caspian had only half listened to the girl but now her words rang clear in his head and his body just like the throbbing sensation he felt all over, “See, the Generals are the highest ranked but they aren’t necessarily the greatest fighters, even though duels decide standing for the upperclassmen. It’s the students with the best leadership and GPA and stuff that become the Generals. But the Colonels… well…”

“Huh… they’re chosen for their training and combat skills…” Caspain hissed out as he finally got his consciousness settled and tried to push himself off the ground with a grunt, and failing for the most part. But he could turn his he’d to see the path he’d made in his short flight and wondered how he’d managed to survive.

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“Damn kids good…” Artemis commented to himself as he relaxed after his strike. The kid had been putting up a good fight previously. He’d even denied his offer of making it so that if the kid could land five strikes on him he’d concede as a Challenge to boost his stats, without losing any stats if he’d lost. Honorable but foolish. Still the kids reasoning stuck with him, ”Make it fifty strikes and then it might be a fair deal… kind of…” confident. Or was it assurance? Artemis was unsure, all he knew for certain was that his plan to gauge the kids abilities wasn’t going so well.

From the start of their fight Artemis had been restraining himself; at least strength and speed wise. I mean sure he could crush the Magus boy, spell-sword or no, with brute strength if he wanted but what would be the point of that? He was after something specific, he wanted to know something. This Polaris kid was under the radar all the way, but Artemis could see something else there. And, to add to it all, there was that thing he was hiding under his lapel.

He’d opened the battle by drawing both his weapons, at least the Cadet wasn’t cocky enough to think he could fight him with just one of his blades, but he wasn’t using his greatest strengths. Artemis was intrigued though and determined that he’d force the Cadet to show his hand, whatever it took.

Crushing the thin sheet of ice that remained of the wall between him and Polaris with his boot as he stepped forward Artemis let the long sharp tips of the silver swords he held dig trenches in the ground as he advanced on his opponent. “Well done. You used a mana field to break your impacts. You should be unconscious but because of those shields you can make you’re still in the fight. I got to say. You’re intriguing, kid.”

Caspian managed to pick himself up enough to sit as he looked at the man, his senses returning to him as well as a lot of pain, but through his teeth he managed to reply, “Than-k you, Sir, but you were still holding back on that last strike.”

“Not true… I hit you with near full force.”

“Y- ow- yes, you did, but your speed and form was off… on purpose.”

“Oh?”

Daniel stood himself and looked about, wondering who was still fighting as he felt a krick in his neck pain him. He glanced to Kai and awaited his opponent's reaction.