A Vague Interest

Dael'Jun crossed his arms thoughtfully. Headmaster Finch was clearly uninterested in most of the matches, but there were a few that did seem to catch his eye. Most notably the match that Kaos participated in.

The strange thing about this was Dren'Dek also seemed to be invested in this match somehow. Granted Kaos's team did look like one of the strongest teams in the Sen class, but to get both Dren'Dek and Finch interested probably meant something else.

"I noticed that last game caught your interest." Dael'Jun spoke, breaking the heavy silence of the booth they were in, "A particular student you were watching?"

"Indeed." Finch responded, eyes still fixed on the shifting arena.

Then it was Dren'Dek who spoke up, "That Vasai kid is quite a find. I doubted it when I saw you gave him a full scholarship but he's really somethin."

"I didn't." Dael'Jun paused for a moment before looking from Dren'Dek towards the headmaster. "Headmaster?"

"Finch." he replied

"Fine then," Dael'Jun continued, "Finch. I assume you were the one who gave him a full scholarship?"

"So it would seem." Finch responded, finally drifting his gaze from the arena to the conversation at hand.

Dael'Jun knew that this wasn't normal for Finch, despite being the headmaster, he rarely ever used his academic powers to grand students scholarships of any kind.

Maybe the three of them had been interested in the last match for different reasons. He had his bet with Kaos, Dren'Dek was their instructor, and Finch clearly had some sort of interest in Vasai.

It wasn't long until the next round started, and it was Kaos's team again. If their team won this, they would all go to the next round which would be individual duels.

Dael'Jun wasn't a fan of switching formats halfway through the arena games, but Finch had assured him that this kept teams from carrying "dead weight" as had been a problem in the past.

Kaos was in the dark Cube rushing back towards the surface of the arena. Last match had gone well, but this match was round two. Round two meant that they were against a winning team from round one. Most likely this would be a team that was a bit more trained and had more combat oriented wishes.

He readied himself to land on his feet, but this time the ground was uneven and he crumpled before getting up to see not just his three teammates, but four enemies as well.

"They're here!" he shouted as he, Nolly, and Gilt all struggled back to their feet.

He ran for some of the only cover there was, waist-high sandstone walls about a foot in thickness. Just as he slid behind the short wall, he heard an arrow whistle by where his head had just been.

"They got archers!" he called out, taking a moment to peek one eye around the barrier.

The arena had taken the shape of a long rectangle, with both teams starting at each end. There were many small sandstone walls littering the middle area of the rectangle, with only a few sandstone cubes around the very center being the height of a human.

"Everybody good?" Gilt called, receiving a positive response from everyone on the team.

"Nolly, now would be a good time to use that shield!" Kaos called out as the large form of Nolly sprang up from behind a nearby wall, holding her large kite shield.

A few arrows made a metallic "clang" off of the shield and she gave a somewhat nervous grin to Kaos who motioned for her to move up to his wall which was slightly ahead and to the right of hers.

Still holding the shield covering the top half of her body, she sprinted towards Kaos's wall, dropping into a slide once she got close enough.

Peeking around the barrier, Kaos was able to spot all four enemies. Two had small circular shields and were making their way slowly down his side of the arena. There was a spearman and an archer running together towards the bigger pillar in the middle. Presumably to get the archer a height advantage.

"The archer is going to the middle!" he called out.

"On it!" Came a response from Gilt who bounded into the air in the direction of the middle of the arena.

In this moment, Kaos realized his mistake. He had mentioned the archer going to high ground, but he had neglected to mention the spearman escorting him there.

As Gilt began to fall through the air towards the enemy duo, the spearman reeled his arm back, and threw his spear, piercing through Gilt's upper chest and sending him spiraling to the ground.

He landed just behind a wall, so Kaos didn't see him turn to sand, but he knew that hit had been fatal.

"Not a scratch on em' and we're down a man." he grunted under his breath before jolting up from behind cover to fire a few shots at the two slowly advancing swordsmen who ducked behind cover, avoiding the arrows entirely.

Before ducking back behind cover, he glanced towards the spearman who had outstretched his hand to catch the spear that was flying back to it.

"Okay, that guy knows how to use his wish." He grumbled, not seeing a way out of the situation.

"Kaos!" Nolly whispered beside him, "Let me try something!"

Nolly was still not very profficient with her wish, but Kaos felt that if this went poorly, then he at least wouldn't be to blame, so he nodded.

Nolly took out the kite shield again, and broke into a full sprint towards the two swordsman who had begun advancing again. The swordsmen saw that this was a two on one and didn't retreat, but still readied themselves for whatever attack Nolly had planned.

Just before she reached her opponents, she dropped down to both knees, holding the shield at an angle. She should have lost her momentum before she hit, but evidently her practice of her wish had been working at least to an extent. Her shield crashed into the legs of her opponent, flipping his whole body over her as she kept sliding underneath eventually, skidding into a haphazard roll and coughing up some specks of sand before getting back to her feet.

While she had knocked one of the two down, he was still definitely not dead. She grabbed her shield with both hands and swung it all the way over her head, flinging it at her opponent who raised his shield to block, but still being knocked to the ground anyway.

Rather than taking out her large halberd, she grabbed the first opponents short sword off the ground and lunged at him as he was still struggling to his feet after having the wind knocked out of him.

The stab went through his stomach and he turned to sand without being able to put up a fight.

After seeing the direction the fight was going in, Kaos jumped from behind his barricade and ran towards the remaining enemy while taking a few shots at him. One of the shots found its mark in his opponents leg who went back down on the ground, giving Nolly an easy opportunity to finish him off with the short sword.

Kaos gave Nolly a thumbs up and then felt a thump in his upper chest and realized he had been hit by an arrow. He saw Nolly swivel around, but the spearman was already close.

He didn't see if the spearman's attack went through before his body turned to sand.