Stage

The flames swept across the arena floor and surged up the walls, kept in the ring only by my will. They clung unnaturally to every surface, refusing to fade despite the lack of fuel, as I kept them burning on the lingering power of the spell and my Elementals. Maintaining such an enormous quantity of flames would have taken a massive amount of MP if I kept them going with Suryasta alone, but I didn't bother—instead, I kept the flames alive with Suryasta and set Levant to the task of fanning them higher, keeping the stadium floor a raging inferno.

Flare, I named it for old times' sake, like Magic Missile—a way of remembering the games I'd loved before. The flames roared around and over me as I walked through them, feeling their scorching heat but in a distant way—like touching a wall with fire on the side instead of actually burning. With my Elementalist title equipped and Elemental Mastery and Suryasta protecting me, I stood within the flames and was unburned.

The flames should have been blinding—and were, on several levels. Even with very little smoke rising from the stone, the sheer amount of fire, of light, left me unable to see with my normal eyes. The amount of heat cast off further reduced my thermal vision to uselessness. But I had other forms of sight, ones that did work, and used them to compensate. In the crowd around us, the people who'd come to watch the champion practice were on their feet, making enough noise to mess with my sonar vision as well. Shouting?

I reached out to Levant and the air shifted, sounds reaching me over the roar of the flames.

Not shouting, I realized then. Cheering.

They were cheering for me. My perspective shifted and I could make out faces, if with the colors all wrong. I scanned the crowd and heard the applause, saw their expressions, even Observed them to make sure what I was seeing was parsing correctly—but no matter how I looked at it, they were cheering for me, for us. Most of them were shocked, stunned, disbelieving, but they applauded the battle nonetheless, enjoying the scene they were being treated to. The stands were set high, to compensate for the sheer destruction battles between hunters could cause, and still very few people sat near the front rows of seats, but those few who did seemed all the more enthused by it. Hunters or trainees, they probably saw the fight for what it was, could watch and analyze the exchange of blows thanks to years of experience, and they cheered.

There were people recording the fight on their scrolls, as well, though a strangely excited part of me recalled what Grigio said, about the fights being broadcast. Would that apply to something like this, a simple training match? I had no idea, but maybe…

My hearing shifted and I heard different voices as Levant's attention was drawn to the only people in the crowd actually saying my name. Kyanos did most of the work, but his energy was infectious, enough so that he spread to the others around him and the people above him in the stands began to slowly use my name as well. Melanie and Ulaan stood beside him, expressions focused, and though neither seemed much like the cheering type, Levant carried whispers of support to me.

I laughed again, celebrating in the flames simple because they were celebrating for me. This fight wasn't over yet, I knew that, but this was…new. And nice.

Suddenly, the cheers increased in volume and I turned to see Pyrrha standing in the center of the flames, a figure of light and dark shades beneath my sight. She looked more than a bit ruffled now, her pony tail coming partially undone, but she appeared unharmed, thanks to the defensive effect of her Aura, but a quick Observe showed how much that blast had taken out of her. It'd taken a lot out of me, as well, to say nothing of maintaining it, but even beyond the attack's initial damage, I could see her Aura steadily, slowly declining in the flames.

Even so, she didn't back down. She could have run from the area, escaping to higher ground, but she stayed in the ring, prepared to fight.

"Shall we continue, Pyrrha?" I asked, stepping closer in the flames and letting them arc and lick around me. To my human eyes, she was nothing but a barely visible shadow and I doubted she could see me any better, but I didn't want to play keep away until her Aura ran out, not with this. I didn't even really care if I won or lost, but this fight…

Without a moment's hesitation, Pyrrha turned and cast her shield at me. Grinning fiercely, I didn't try to dodge or block—I attacked in turn. A Cannonball connected with the shield midair, sending it careening back towards its master, who caught it easily as she charged fearlessly towards me. I thrust my hand towards her, refusing to back down, and the flames before me suddenly intensified as a rush of wind streamed over them. The gust barely made her slowdown, but the flames crested over her like a wave, something she couldn't fully block with her shield. While her vision was even further obstructed, I hit her with a Cannonball, intending to push her back.

Instead, the ground beneath her feet cracked as she braced herself against the blow, halting for a minute before continuing her advance. Her spear came up and when she threw it, her aim was true for all that she could only barely see me. I saw her squint against the light of the flames, extend her arm with the throw, and knew that though she was all but blind, I still probably couldn't dodge.

Once again, I didn't even bother trying. With all of her strength behind it, the spear drove me off my feet, to the ground, and then carved a furrow in the arena's floor as it pushed me back. Her strength and control over magnetism became a force that even I couldn't stand against as I was now—I slammed full force into the back wall, barely slowing down on the way.

It didn't matter, I thought, quickly healing myself. She might have been trying to distract me, to keep me out of the fight until she could close in and try to end it, but if so, it wouldn't work. I wasn't alone in this fight—I was never alone.

Not bothering to cross the space in-between, Suryasta appeared to stand guard over me, gesturing with a hand. The flames right beneath Pyrrha's feet suddenly erupted upwards, throwing her into the air. Floating ten meters above the direct center of the arena, Levant started laughing, an echoing sound unheard by anyone but me. She extended her hands before her, as if reaching out for something, and the wind swirled on the ground below to catch the fire and send it swirling upwards in a storm that quickly took shape. In moments, two massive, burning hands extended from the ground below, Pyrrha hanging neatly between them.

Expression gleeful, the Air Elemental clapped her hands and the massive constructs followed suit.

Pyrrha mouthed something again, expression almost upset, and changed direction at the last second, falling faster than gravity alone should have allowed. She just barely fell below the hands, only to be thrown fiercely back to earth by the thunderous shockwave—a wave of wind and sound empowered by Levant. Pyrrha came quickly to her feet and started moving faster then I'd have expected from her—fast enough to surprise me until I noticed her skimming several inches off the ground as she 'ran.' Even so, Levant's fake hands did not fade, nor was my second spirit content to stop with something so small. From their base on the ground, the arms began to spiral up, into the still connected hands even as they began to loss shape and come together. In seconds, the arms had been absorbed into a massive sphere that hung above the arena like a giant star before suddenly falling towards Pyrrha, adjusting as she ran.

The warrior's expression tightened, but fear was evidentially a foreign concept to her, as she merely adjusted her stride slightly to keep ahead as she ran towards me. I rose as she came near, swords coming to hand once again and she drew back her spear and prepared to smash me into the ground. I knew my efforts wouldn't be quick enough to keep her from hammering me down, but I wasn't one to back down either. Before she could hit me though, Suryasta snarled—a strange, inhuman sound, between the roar of a tiger and of a massive fireplace. He reached out invisible to catch Pyrrha's face with an intangible hand, something that should have done nothing, yet which sent the redhead stumbling suddenly back.

As she moved, I was able to see why. Though he still had no form of his own, he'd formed a glove of sorts, overlapping the same space as his hand. He stepped forward as Pyrrha retreated, more flames rising up his legs, giving him a pseudo-manifestation. As it formed, it didn't look like him, though—or like a human, needless to say, though I thought I saw some subtle traces of myself in the design he chose. Instead, he chose to make something more impressive for his first real fight, rising into a form well over two meters in height, with four arms and a massive, bulky body as if he were someone wearing armor, though the flames all blended together. Mostly shapeless flames roared where his hair might have been, but some of it rose inconsistently into the shapes of horns, altering between those reminiscent of demons and animals. In each of his four hands, he formed a sword, each blade jutting straight out of a palm.

Barely hesitating, Pyrrha slammed her spear through his head, but with no material form to speak of, he wasn't the target. Dancing back a step, Pyrrha seemed to realize that, too, and attempted to dance around him and strike at me, Levant's burning orb getting closer.

In response, Suryasta…opened was the only word I could think of to describe it, lines across his body yawning wide as he opened straight down his body like a bizarre suit of armor waiting to be stepped into. Or maybe a mouth was a better example, as he lines the evidentially hollow interior of his shell with blow-torch like 'teeth.' He stepped closer to Pyrrha, trying to draw her in, and even she gave him a wide berth—and a rather ineffective blow to the head, of course.

Levant's sphere lowered, preparing to fall upon Pyrrha if she continued her advance and—having experienced firsthand my willingness to bring such a thing down upon myself—fell back a step with an aggrieved frown. As she did so, tube-like streams rose from Suryasta's back, rising up to connect with the sphere above him, causing both flames to brighten even as the effort on me lightened.

I exhaled quietly, rolling at last to my feet. I was pushing Pyrrha, I knew that—hell, I could see it, watch her MP bar slowly decrease—but doing so many things at once was a heavy strain on me, as well. I could just restore my MP with a Dust crystal, but I didn't really want too; I wanted to see how far I could get without such a thing, to know how far I could go purely on my own power and skills, as Jaune Arc.

Suryasta and Levant were doing an amazing job keeping her busy, but they couldn't get a decisive hit through her solid defense. I'd managed a few good hits here and there, but to win this without trying to draw this out, I'd need to be able to hit her for real—possibly several times. But how?

Levant lowered her sphere yet further, drawing it down to float only just above Suryasta's head as the Fire Elemental fought. Pyrrha kept her distance, edging around the sphere's motions and occasionally taking potshots at me. When she shot me in the face between a pair of rolls, Suryasta swung an arm at her, stretching it out to reach at her. She leapt over it, but Suryasta just extended his other arms as well, creating beams of flame out to the arena's wall and using them to chase Pyrrha.

It gave me an idea. Several, actually.

Releasing my swords again, I gathered power to my fingers. By this point, I had a lot of experience with manipulating Aura—gathering it, throwing it, compressing it, spinning it, changing it from one thing to another, the works.

Even so, this was new. I gathered the mana to my hands, forming a rough sphere above my palm. After quivering for a moment, it separated into three streamers of energy that I stretched and coiled tightly around one another, compressing it as I did.

A skill has been created through a special action! A skill to create a rope through application of mana, 'Mana Rope,' has been created!

I smiled fiercely as I dismissed the rope, glad that it had worked. And it that was possible…

I called my swords to my hands and took a deep breath.

And then I began to twist. I sank my thoughts and power both into the structure of the weapon, easing the Metal aura that gave it structure. As it loosened and became more fluid, I coiled the blades around one another, summoning another blade when I needed more. I gathered my power within the structure, causing it to grow even as I kept its image distinct. Once it had roughly the form I wanted, I reaffirmed its structural integrity with Metal, making it stable once more if in a bit of a…different way.

A skill has been created through a special action! A skill to cut down the enemy at range, 'Vorpal Lash,' has been created through the combination of Vorpal Sword and Mana Rope!

"Vorpal Lash, huh?" I smiled, releasing my creation and summoning my swords anew. The skill must have improved, because a single application summon a pair of blades. "Interesting. Let's try this again."