“Let’s fight for it,” I challenge.
“Done,” she agrees, and with that, she closes the fifteen feet of distance between us in one magic fueled leap.
Fuck, I really need to figure this flying thing out.
She swipes at me with a katana as she lands, and I guess that solves the weapons or no weapons question. I lean back, the blade slicing at the armor of my top, and call on my short swords. I cross them in anXand then arc them up, stopping her from trying to cut me in half. Her katana ricochets off of my blades, and I kick out at her. I land a foot square in her stomach, and my blade slices up her back in a clean line as she crumbles forward from the impact of the kick.
She hisses and spins away from me. I twirl my swords in my grip and let her go. I circle her slowly as she rubs a hand over her back and glares at her blood tipped fingers.
“First blood, you want to stop?” I snark with a raised eyebrow.
Suryn raises her own eyebrow haughtily and gestures with her sword to my chest. “Try again, you stray.”
I look down and notice a bleeding cut through my shirt at the bottom of my ribs.Well, shit, that’ll teach me to get all braggy.
I shake my head, amused. Round two.
I call on throwing knives and start to pelt her with them. She bats them away with her sword, and I up the ante by calling on Offensive magic. I rotate between throwing blades andorbs at her, and she rotates between calling up shields and batting away weapons. Suryn clearly has Elemental magic, hence the flying, and Defensive magic, hence the shields. I question whether or not she has anything else in her magical arsenal, when the ground under me goes from solid to ocean-like waves.
Conjuring a disk of magic directly under my feet, I do my best to ride the waves as I hurl balls of fire at her. Water shoots from Suryn’s hands, dousing my assault, so I freeze her water into dagger-sharp points and fling them at her instead. One of the ice daggers nicks her cheek, but I have zero time to celebrate the hit as a broken pole comes hurtling my way. I dive to dodge it, but the ground where I’m about to land turns into rock spikes.
Air comes at my call, and I use it to blow me out of the way of the sharp points. I use a little too much force, and it sends me spinning, so I shove a barrier out around me to keep anything else from impaling me while I try to find my feet. Then I chuck another barrier her way. Suryn flies up, avoiding my magic, and throws an axe at me. It bounces off my shield as I shake away the dizziness I have from tornado-ing myself away from the land spikes.
My barrier fractures from the hit of the axe, and the next thing I know, Suryn is slamming into me. She punches at the cut she gave me on my ribs. I grunt in pain and hammer her with elbow after elbow to her neck and shoulders. She stabs me with something, and I can tell right away that she’s hit a lung. She tries to fly up and off of me as I call on another dagger.
Oh no you don’t!
A whip appears in my hand, and I crack it at her. The braided magic wraps around her neck, and I yank her back down to the ground. Dirt plumes around her as she crashes to the ground with an oomph and a painful sounding crunch. Suryn writhes on the ground, and I can see that she’s struggling to catch her breath.
Well, that makes two of us.
I look down to see a long thin dagger shoved between my ribs. I pull it out with a grunt. The dagger poofs out of my hold, and I look over to see Suryn trying to get to her feet, watching me with a satisfied smile. I rip off my shirt to see how bad it is, but I can tell by how hard it is to breathe that it’s a nasty one. Luckily for me, Ryker helped me to figure out what Siah’s runes do. I activate his bite marks on my right shoulder and stare at Suryn with a bigfuck youin my smile.
Her eyes go wide as both of my wounds knit together in front of her. I take a deep breath as my magic heals the damage to my lung and surrounding muscle and tissue. I wipe at the leftover blood on my side. My skin is once again smooth as I pull my soiled shirt back over my head.
“How?” Suryn asks as she gets all the way to her feet.
“I’d take any of my Chosen over your purest blooded Sentinels any day,” I retort, and I call on another gust of wind and blast myself at her. It’s not as kickass as flying, but it’s effective. I go full missile and slam my fist against her cheek as I tackle her. She kicks me over her head. I flip and twist to right myself and then spin a roundhouse into her side.
Suryn grabs my ankle and drops an elbow into my knee. I call on my staff and swing it at her head, but she gets a shield up just in time. My staff connects to the magical barrier, and it sends nerve numbing vibrations up my arms and into my body. I let the staff go and shake out my arms. Suryn calls on her own staff, which has spikes ringing each end, and a flash of staff envy strikes through me.
I want spikes.
She steps back and starts spinning it expertly, like she expects the show alone to send me running. I smile.
“Whoa there, Gandalf. Please don’t smite me with your sweet moves,” I snark.
“You talk too much,” she growls at me as she charges.
My own staff appears in time to stop her spikes from connecting with my head, and the crack of noise the two weapons make as they strike one another sounds like an explosion of thunder.
Booms ricochet all around us as we strike at each other, and it sounds like the heavens are beating the war drums in our honor.
“You know the Sovereign is going to kill you,” I throw out there randomly, feeling the urge to talkmorenow that I know it bugs her.
“Oh no!” she mocks. “I guess I’ll just throw down my weapon and let you have the honor instead.”
I snort and spin, bringing my staff down high. She blocks the hit, but I use the momentum to allow the opposite end of my staff to nail her in the stomach. She grunts but doesn’t miss a beat as she swings her staff into my shoulder. The spikes don’t connect, thank fuck. I’m too close for her to hit me with either end, but it still hurts. I activate Siah’s runes again, and whatever injury was there heals.
