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The sky above shimmers through a water mosaic, and a large pot of thick miso soup packed with mushrooms is shared between three teenagers in a private soundproofed cabin.
Alden's official sponsorship of Natalie's restaurant raised many eyebrows four months ago, but it made for a great gathering spot, second only to the magical sauna.
Now, Max bit with closed eyes into a chunk of Lion's mane that tasted like unyielding hope, while Andrzej gazed with hollow eyes at his empty cup of strawberry milkshake adorned with tapioca pearls of mettle and perseverance. The bowl of the human wearing pink rabbit ears already twice emptied as he ladled himself a third.
"We will do this. We must." Alden's voice brought Andrzej out of his melancholy.
"We stand no chance, Alden. You and Max might be crazy fucks who already leveled thrice, but Marsha's a beast and could solo against us on her own, nevermind Mehdi AND Tuyet backing her up."
Andrzej's words echoed in the sound-proofed cabin, the lasting whisper holding a few seconds, capped by Max's gulp and subsequent sigh. His hand clenched on a spork as the tall boy raised his eyes away from his half-filled bowl and into the teens in front.
"Alden's right. We must win." He slammed the spork's handle into the sturdy wooden table. It still got a dent. "I overheard Lesedi and another CNH higher up. They're being pressured to drop us off the talent development program. Or at least increase the leveling requirement for lower ranks."
Andrzej's face paled further. "Shit. You and Alden might be fine, but I only leveled once since the year started. You don't think...?"
"They might," Max continued. "Which is why we must win here. If we prove we're worth it, CNH will have some grounds to ignore the complaints of those essholes.
"I think I can keep them in place for a bit, but my spells will break fast if they exert themselves. Do you think you can catch Tuyet's darts, Alden? Mehdi's fast, but I know he's been neglecting formation in favor of speed and perception lately, so Andrzej only needs to land a good hit on the head and he's out."
"I need a good wall for my Strikethrough to work." The Cudgel Meister in question stopped him. "Have you seen the arena yet? It's almost empty save for the middle pillars! My uncle found a few spells to make walls that work with the skill, but it'll be ages before I get any of them."
"I cahn hel with the wall."
Alden gulped with his hand up, then continued.
"I can bring a plastic sheet, and preserve it so Andrzej punches through. I don't think I can catch Tuyet's darts though. Not without five to ten minutes of concentrated meditation."
"That sounds quite useful, I'll even be able to see through it! This all hinges on Mehdi being caught in place by Max's fields. Can you even set them up fast enough?"
"Heh, don't worry about that. I got Colibri to let me set a few of them up beforehand." To Alden's raised eyebrow Max excused himself: "Hey, there's precedent! The instructors often give shapers some more matter and adjusters some more start time for this arena. Arguing for one or two uses of the slowdown field was easy."
"So. We all hide behind Alden's plastic sheet, Max keeps them in place, and I blast them. Easy!" Andrzej said with fake optimism. "Then Marsha ignores everything with her thousand points of strength and chops us all in half with a single strike. At least the miso is great. We can't lose if we have the hope shrooms."
Max thoughtfully nodded with both hands on his chin, and both elbows on the table. Alden, also pensative, nodded whilst looking at his own captured chunk of fluffy white shroom.
"You don't think I could somehow preserve this hope all the way to the match, do you?"
"Heh, you can do two things now, right?" Max pointed his spork at Alden's chunk, then tosses it at an uncut ball of lion's mane still on the self-heating bowl. "Keep that one one for me as well. It smells like courage."
Absentmindedly, Alden grabs the spork from the pot, preserves its white treasure, and tosses the tasty hope into his 'weird treats' backpack pocket. The spork makes its way back to Max's hands, who with a flourish and chant, leaves it hanging in the air.
"I'll have to layer a few zones to even keep her in place, but then she'll just throw her weird morphing javelin and it's the same thing."
"We need a Marsha counter." Alden thought out loud. Andrzej agreed as he started his second bowl.
"Lets re-list what we've got. I'll start." Max frowned, then raised a finger per spell of his. "A treadmill zone, a speed-up zone, a buoyancy zone, and a directional dizzying zone."
"I have a ridiculously sturdy cudgel with throughblow," In between sporkfuls, Andrzej listed. "increased strength and stamina, and a bit of perception and agility to aim it better through walls."
Alden continued "I can preserve entrusted objects, know where entrusted stuff is, and with a lot of concentration, make my skill take over my body to catch entrusted stuff. Oh, and screaming invisible balls for pest control."
Max eyes lit up, but before he could talk, Andrzej gulped and interjected "Don't forget about your deal with the Velras, Alden. You've sold your soul for a few combat wordchains, better use them!" The Polish boy chuckled.
"I have sold my soul for Peace of Mind, My Body Is My Assistant, and formal wordchain classes with a Velra prince who self-exiled from the grandwitch's cult."
"Maybe we can do this." Andrzej paused and blinked. "Nevermind, that was the hopeful miso talking."
"No that wasn't the hopeful miso." Max declared with an irritated pep. "Alden, how many of those invisible balls can you make? A couple dozen?"
"Yes, I could bring a whole bag of temper balls to hurl pest control spells at them. Maybe with enough overlapping screams, the spell with try to exterminate them as well."
"I was thinking we could keep Marsha tripping for a while. I don't think that esshole ever bothered to put any points into perception. Or if she did, it was only to catch Finlay."
"Hey! I don't think Marsha's an esshole, just..."
"An obnoxious rankist?"
"An overzealously headstrong battle junky who thinks nothing matters other than duels?"
"An annoying pest we should feed to victory." Alden interrupted before they got any more amped up. "And I tested the idea a while back. Doesn't work, too few balls to properly trip on them. When I tried it against Jeffy he never even noticed them."
"Aha! But did you have my treadmill pointed straight onto them, before that? We can..."
And as the day turned to night, three teenagers left a restaurant, with a belly full of hope, a head full of plans, three tuppers with leftover miso, and a warm lion's mane of courage preserved in the hands of a boy soundly asleep, as he dreamed of one day holding worlds against chaos.
A week later, the oval arena spread before them. A bit less than a hundred meters across, divided in halves by a series of regular pillar lines that blocked line of sight. A couple minutes remained before they could start casting spells, and a few seconds from there both teams would be free to move.
Max was pointing out key spots before the pillars that separated both groups. Andrzej would toss the tripping hazards there, then he'd coordinate with Alden to keep a lookout on where Mehdi and Marsha would come from. They expected Tuyet to take things seriously and simply wait out back, hurling darts from between the pilar lines.
Breathe in, breathe out, and casting time began. Alden made Haunting Sphere after Haunting Sphere, and the Cudgel Meister batted them near the pointed spots. A couple fist-sized slippery spheres should be enough to land some good hits.
Meanwhile, Max created two dizzying zones that'd make them look like they were all further right, to throw off Tuyet.
Before he could start on a third zone, Mehdi appeared from behind the leftmost pillar. Apparently he'd been wary enough of Max to not dare cross through the center, and he quickly accelerated once he avoided a nearby treadmill and felt the way was free. Andrzej mentally pinged the rest, then threw a screaming ball at Mehdi's face, which the other teen avoided by jumping high into the air.
By the time Mehdi landed, he was halfway to them, with a blow from Andrzej cudgel going his way. At the same time, Marsha showed up from the center pillars, and when Max finished his treadmill zone, he sent it to reinforce the zone Marsha stepped in.
With his threat detection and fast reaction, Mehdi mostly avoided the force punch aimed at his chest by jumping to the side. Without any such ability, Marsha confidently marched forward in the treadmill to throw her spear, and promptly had to catch herself as her foot stomped onto a silent Haunting Sphere.
Alden meanwhile prepared to pull a thin paracord he'd thrown on the field. The 'anti-Mehdi measures' were meant to catapult the agility brute upwards, where he couldn't evade Andrzej's blows. A dart clicked and exploded on the wall behind them, alerting that the misdirection had worked. For Now.
Mehdi caught up to them, just a dozen steps away, and before Alden could launch him up, the agility brute reacted to his threat detection and jumped forwards and up to get behind Alden's shield.
"Shit!" Mehdi screamed.
Turns out, his jump threw him further than his skill could see. And he couldn't see that he'd land right into a treadmill. But Andrzej did, and his next hit rang true, and his next. And his third as well, as the agi brute kept trying to not step on the stacked tripping hazards, but failing when his foot moved back onto them.
With that, the zone was spent, but by then Mehdi's concussion was too much, and he tried to punch Alden through the shield, rather than jump past. The plastic sheet held, and a fourth throughblow knocked him down. He'd remain knocked out for only half a minute, but the damage done would persist.
"He was sturdier than I expected."
"You hit him with the strength of pearls."
Andrzej and Alden quipped back and forth, as the trio ran away from where they just saw a second dart land. It left behind a could of sleeping gas, and they couldn't afford to test if it would reach them. Max had spent the time preparing a planned escape route that'd force Tuyet to triangulate their position again. A couple speed up zones that would only work on them, and another dizzing field, this one as large and strong as his skill would allow.
With that distraction, Marsha finally found her footing, and threw her spear straight at Andrzej's running head, her follow-up strike angled to hit both Alden and Max. And neither struck true, as she'd misjudged where the dizzying field was.
No matter, she'd just reverse call into the spear, and finish them off in a sideways swipe.
But Alden dropped the plastic sheet, and right before she finished her spell, he stole the Mutable Haft from her. And the spell fizzled away, with nowhere to go.
Enraged, she ran forward, ignoring how Alden seemed to be moving further and further left as just the effect of the dizzying zone, she correctly blocked Andrzej's blow - which looked like it came from the left - with her right forearm, and still got hit in the face due to throughblow.
Annoyed at the fly, but knowing her focus was on getting to her spear, Marsha stepped forward once more. In tandem, a dart almost struck true, crippling Max with a strike on his leg.
Regardless, the Adjuster managed to finish his spell, the last treadmill of the day. Right in front of Marsha, and nearby the Haunting Spheres that were still crying behind a fallen Mehdi. The Meister tripped again, and Alden took the chance to throw away the mutable haft and re-preserve the shield.
The Cudgel Meister's throughblows made the cudgel's force not even affect his preservation, which was a neat discovery that enabled the entire strategy. Without the interaction, every strike would have been tiring and weakening the shield, leaving it too frail to be used as a proper forcefield.
With it, when Tuyet's fourth dart tried to pierce, it nearly exhausted him, but the shield held, and so Andrzej could land a couple solid strikes that interrupted Marsha mid-cast from reverse calling to her no-longer-stolen spear.
They kept moving however, and Tuyet's fifth dart missed again. This time too far forward.
"Buoyancy and Haste only." Max warned mentally as he used his mouth to cast. "Lets make use of the treadmill that Mehdi barely dodged."
Another solid hit on Marsha's head, but she blocked the last and finished casting the reverse recall, awkwardly hurling herself across the air towards her spear. Away from everyone else, and once again across the dizzying fields, which were still going strong.
By the time she stood up again, the Cudgel Meister managed to score one more good hit. But then, instead of running at them, she turned right towards the pillars, and covered her face as she ran. Not even halway there she stopped, and after a few seconds threw her spear straight at them.
During this time, no darts managed to hit them. Max had setup a few 'anti Proyectile' zones of combined upwards haste and buoyancy, and darts six and seven veered upwards and past their heads.
And so did the Mutable Haft. The follow-up strike broke the buoyancy fields as it passed, but it was enough to prevent decapitation. Barely.
And only because they pre-planned to duck once those zones were out.
"Two more of those areas, then I'm out of haste." Max pinged. "But they should last a while longer."
After Marsha threw her spear - still blocking her head - she got hit with a retaliatory blow into her lower ribs, which she finally showed a reaction to, curving her body forwards. Then, rather than try her luck with recall spells, she started running with no longer any dizzying spells on the way.
The sudden screaming of a Haunting Sphere in front made her jump to avoid tripping. But she jumped higher up than expected, the vertical haste fields that redirected her spear, now redirecting her as well.
Right into a jump that'd have her land where Alden set his paracord. She quickly reverse recalled, and once more got interrupted.
The eight dart struck Max on the head, killing him before he could finish the next spell. And then Tuyet's voice could be heard, as she chanted to recall all darts to herself.
With some quick repositioning on Alden's part, Marsha fell hard into the thinnest single thread of the paracord. Her leg got split in half, but even with the blood loss, the system didn't consider her out until Andrzej jumped forward to land one last blow on her head and through her arms raised in a crossed block.
Then Tuyet finished her chant, and all eight darts flew back behind a pillar on the right side of the arena, furthest from them.
"I think we can hide behind the upwards haste until it runs out." Alden mentally typed out.
"And then what? Tuyet is stronger than either of us. I'm still surprised-FU-"
A dart had flown from above, bypassing the anti-projectiles zone, and getting Andrzej as he was busy kneeling and typing. It was of the sleeping type, and now only Alden was left.
Alden, who could feel his authority sluggish, and whose entruster had just fainted. All he had was a now useless plastic sheet that wouldn't take a quarter of a hit, and an equally useless paracord that he already knew to be useless against Tuyet.
So he dropped both, closed his eyes, and targeted the Meister of Darts, with the knowledge that she was throwing her darts at the Bearer Of All Burdens, as if daring him to bear them.
He was exhausted. He was wide awake, heart racing.
He felt his entruster's heart in contrast.
Calm. Centered. Sure. Slow.
Both hands on one dart, getting it enchanted.
The whisper of a spell, a command to sleep.
In exhaustion, what a fitting challenge to bear that would be.
Alden sat, ready to receive a new burden, and to do all he could to bear it without falling.
An arm swung, the dart was thrown, up into the air, the aim true.
His arm swung, the dart in his fingers.
Momentum halted, spell stopped.
The Bearer Of All Burdens was made for this. And such a small burden could be carried forever. He gave it back.
His entruster's heartbeat raised for one, two, three, back to normal, good.
She has the burden back, safely on her hands.
And the entruster looks at it deeply. And the entruster looks back.
Another dart. Another whisper of a spell.
This time, a command to blow up with force.
This time, the entruster dares me to catch a burden not aimed at the bearer.
Arm swung, dart thrown, up into the air, the aim is false. To the bearer's right.
Body swung, dart in hand.
Momentum halted, explosion too. He returns it.
The entruster looks at the burden passed back, and does not take it.
The entruster comes closer and closer, burden in hand, a command to sleep.
Heartbeat rising, now in tune, entruster runs towards me.
Arm swung, burden in hand, towards my chest.
Mine to take.
The universe understands her strength is full, her power a command on reality onto itself, and after a second, the shield break-.
They didn't push further. They gave me the burden, and grabbed another one.
Command to explode. Mine to take. They don't push.
Command to paralyze. Mine to take. They don't push.
No command. Mine to take. They push. I break.
Exhaustion takes over. Then the command to sleep arrives.
...
"Heh, told ya, the kid will grab bullets before graduation." - Instructor Waker to Lesedi, this time in an appropriate work setting. Lesedi concedes the point.
"If he'd done that before Andrzej fell, you'd have won!" - Jeffy to Max, failing to cheer him up.
"Why did you forget to use Traveler's Endurance? You wound me, Cottontail!" - Lute to Alden, with Haoyu on the side, after reviewing their duels in the sauna.
"Hey Andrzej, want some ice cream? That was a match to remember." - Marsha to Andrzej, the day after the duel.