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Marion Gaine was a legendary duelist. One of the first witches to actually win a Brammerly championship, she was seen as the cream of the crop when it came to witchcraft styled dueling. One legend, Siobhan Burke, said of her skill; ‘Her mastery of lightning materialism could make the gods jealous.’
But Marion had always said she would never force her children into dueling. She had found it naturally, and she wouldn’t force any of her children to duel, if she had them. And she stuck to her word. When Norah Gaine was born, she took after her mother, Krysta, and became an alchemist witch. And when Natalie Gaine was born, she became a wizard. Marion couldn’t train a wizard to be a duelist, even if she wanted to…
But that didn’t stop Natalie. She got into dueling, wanting to be just like Mam, and winning a bunch of awards. She found a wizard who was willing to train her, a wizard duelist by the name of Haoyu Li. He even made sure that when Natalie turned 16, she’d get into Casimir Academy’s illustrious dueling program, of which he was the professor.
By then, though, Natalie had already built a reputation as a duelist to be reckoned with. Her hybrid nature, combined with her ability to master fire materialism and her commitment to being a threat, she just kept dueling, and just kept winning. She wasn’t allowed to actually turn into a wraith on the pitch, but she was allowed to use any and all powers that came with her hybrid nature. And boy, did she use them.
All this to say that, while Norah and Krysta couldn’t make it, Marion Gaine was abso-god damn-LUTELY going to see her daughter’s first duel as a member of Casimir academy. Even IF it was a rainy, chilly October night, and she had to drive nearly an hour with her 14-year-old god daughter Evelyn and her 10-year-old daughter Charice. Eve was NOT interested, but Charice was excited, her little hair buns bobbing as she turned to spot the Arena.
“Mam, look!” Charice pointed to the sign outside of the arena. “Natalie’s name!”
“Yes, it is, love...are y’excited t’see Natalie?”
“Yeah!”
Eve rolled her eyes, “I can’t wait to see my circus-freak sister get creamed by some rich girl we all hate.”
“Evelyn, don’t talk about yer sister like that.” Marion said.
“She got trash talked by this girl all WEEK, Mam. I’m honestly impressed, she knows how to press all of Nat’s buttons.”
“Evelyn. Be civil.”
“We’re going to watch blood sport and you want me to be civil?”
“Y’may get a kick out of firin’ up Natalie, but I’m not so quick to temper.”
“Who’s Rebecca Brighton?” Charice asked, as the car pulled into the arena’s lot.
“That’s the girl Natalie’s going to be fighting. Apparently they don’t get along.” Marion responded.
“Is she mean?”
“No she’s not” Evelyn said. “She just doesn’t lie about things.”
“There’s a difference between honesty and slander, Evelyn, best y’know now.”
“Suuuuure. Either way,” Evelyn turned around, “She’s gonna kick Natalie’s butt.”
“No she’s not!” Charice said, crossing her arms.
“We’re not sure,” marion said, as she parked, “but we’ll never know if we stay in the car bickering about it. Come on, let’s get inside.”
The music in the arena was quiet, almost as if this were going to be a theater performance. This was typical, as magic dueling can be seen as quite frightening, and it was best to remain calm before a duel actually commenced. On the pitch, there were two huts at either side. One for each combatant, and their coach. The calm music and dim lighting was helping Natalie. This was a pretty stressful period.
“You’re going to fight her.” Professor Li said, adjusting Natalie’s shoulder cape and making sure her wand holster was tight. “You’re gonna get out there and duel your hardest, and you’re gonna beat her.”
Natalie nodded solemnly, untying her long, raven black hair and letting it rest on one shoulder. She wanted the scars and striations on her face to be visible. “Everyone out there thinks I’m a monster.” Natalie said, looking at her hands cracking her knuckles. She adjusted the sleeves on her dress, pulling them just past her wrist.
“Brighton thinks you’re a monster.” Li said. “Not the world.” he patted her shoulders. “She can say all she wants about you, your family, your past. But she can’t do shit about how bad you’re gonna beat her.” Li pulled away from her, and rang a small bell in a box, signaling they were ready to begin. The bell rang again. Brighton was ready, too.
“Prove that bitch right,” Li said, “And remind her that monsters don’t tend to take prisoners.”
And with that, the lights all around the Arena went out. The only things that provided light were the large sconces that provided fire light. The arena’s charms protected them from rain, but not cold. And as the lights fell, so did the temperature. And the duelists banners.
“ATTENTION, EVERYONE! Welcome to the Holst Rayne Casimir Memorial dueling ground, for the inaugural duel of the season! Tonight’s bout will be a duel between two powerful Casimir students!”
A spotlight came upon the first hut. The one with a purple banner, adorned by a silver fox.
“The first Duelist! Hailing from the Delstran town of Whipscutt, Massachusetts, leveled at class 2, an earth materilalist, one of the most skilled duelists in Casimir history! A round of applause, please, for no other than REBECCA BRIGHTON!”
The crowd cheered as Rebecca stepped out of her hut. She wore a thick, puffy purple dress, with the typical conical hat worn by wizards. She walked out, prim and traditional. Even her wand, though it was made of purple heart and blood wood, was stained all a uniform tanned brown, and carved with starmaps an sigils. She was what any delstranite would picture if they were asked to describe a female wizard. She walked to the white line in the middle of the pitch, and smiled eloquently, waving gently to the crowd.
Then, a spotlight came to the second hut, adorned with a black banner. This one featured a very prominent red wraith; complete with sharp teeth, red eyes, and facial scars and marks. This was, obviously, a custom seal.
“The second Duelist! Hailing from the Delstran town of Lornes, Iowa, Leveled at class 1, a fire materialist, and one of the most skilled youth duelists in Delstranite history! Give it up for the one, the only, the red wraithkin herself, NATALIE GAINE!”
Natalie looked like the villain of the story. She wore a sleek black dress, with black leggings underneath to provide warm. In fact, her whole ensemble was black, save for her cape, a bloody crimson. She wore a scowl as she walked toward the middle line, her ebony and pearl wand tight in her grasp as she pulled it from her holster for the salute. She looked...evil, almost. She cracked her shoulder and her neck, before standing at the line.
“So the monster’s finally come to challenge the princess, huh~?” Rebecca remarked, holding her wand out for the salute, pressing it to her own shoulder.
Natalie didn’t move an inch. “Don’t do something you’ll regret, Brighton.” Natalie repeated the salute, placing her own wand to her shoulder.
The two then walked back to their sides of the pitch, the sand softly crunching under their boots.
“Combatant Brighton, are you ready?”
Brighton shot something out of her wand, a silvery apparition of a fox climbing up the air and calling out, before disappearing. People cheered as they saw it, and Brighton teasingly blew the tip of her wand.
“Combatant Gaine, are YOU ready!”
Natalie twirled her wand and shot out a red mass into the sky. As it form, it was clear that the apparition was that of a massive red wraith, which screamed and fell down right onto Brighton. It didn’t hurt Brighton, and she didn’t flinch, but the message was quite clear.
“Distinguished guests! The duel begins...NOW!”
A firework shot from the middle of the pitch, and Gaine and Brighton both hit their stances. They were separated by about 50 yards, each one having 25 to themselves to play with. Should they get knocked out of the pitch, or cross the other’s line, the duel was finished.
Brighton had been trash talking Natalie the whole week leading up to the fight. It was considered a tradition, though, some of her comments about Natalie’s hybridity and her parents were seen as overstepping.
But it was too late for apologies. And Natalie was secretly happy for that.
The first spell was Brighton. She cast a wall spell, essentially building herself a wall of sand, to give herself the high ground. She made sure it was high enough to protect her, but if she put herself in danger, she could get points docked. So she made sure to keep it short enough that the judges wouldn’t balk.
It didn’t work, though, as the wall was quickly torn down. Natalie used a massive ball of flame as a wrecking ball, making it impossible for the wall to stand. She then used a grabbing spell, basically telekinesis, and SLAMMED Brighton to the ground. The sand softened the blow, but not uch. Brighton got the wind knocked out of her, and the crowd reflexively winced.
Brighton shot herself back up, and before she even regained her breath, sent a massive spike of rock toward Natalie, and broke it into several pieces as it crossed the line, to make sure that natalie would at least get hit by something.
Natalie DID get hit, by a small piece of rock that cut her cheek, but she quickly recoiled, and sent a thick jet of lava toward Brighton. In a stunning move, she paralyzed Brighton, then lifted her, then moved her away from the lava. Partly because you couldn’t actually kill someone in this sport, but partly because she was more trying to get Brighton to lose ground rather than actually hurt her. Less ground to play with, less chance of winning.
Brighton now had less than half her side of the field. She wasn’t strong enough to break through obsidian, at least, not without help. But she placed her hand to the sandy ground and made a massive hammer, SLAMMING it down onto the obsidian and cracking it. The good news? Brighton, an earth materialist, now had a bunch of sharp, hot ammo to use for free. The bad news? Since it was all lava rock, Natalie, a fire materialist, could just melt it again. She had to be careful with this.
But Natalie wasn’t here to be careful. She shot another spell, this time a heat wall. The goal here is to push the opponent back, and it was definitely doing its job. Brighton had to dig deep into the sand to keep herself from going out. She eventually managed to lock herself into the ground, but just lie paralysis, she could only hold a lock for about 5 seconds before points would get docked again.
Brighton, by now, was starting to run out of ideas. She could probably build up anther wall, sturdier, and just run out the clock, but by the time she could even thing of one, she saw another heatwave coming. This time, she had a plan.
Brighton used her wanted and gathered some of the obsidian, making that into a wall. But before Natalie could course correct and melt the wall down, Brighton had secured it with a layer of sand. And when that sand got hit by the heatwave, it fell away. But the wall of obsidian was hardened, to a point where Natalie couldn’t melt it down.
While all of this was happening, the crowd was going absolutely nuts. This was pretty fast paced and exciting dueling for two high schoolers. But it got even weirder when Natalie cast a firework spell right over the wall. Again, not to hurt Brighton, but to disorient her.
When the thing went off, bright light blinded Brighton’s eyes, a loud whistle flooded her ears, and a gust of wind knocked her flat to the ground. She huffed and slowly crawled toward the only source of light she could find, before getting up and dusting herself off, shooting a few rocks at Natalie, but missing each time.
Natalie knew she had Brighton pinned, so she shifted her focus to melting down the obsidian wall. She held her focus on it, and the wall slowly began to glow red. The heat, on that side of the pitch, would be dreadful. But Brighton, always clever, pulled dirt from deep under the pitch, and shielded herself with it.
It was an incredible sight, especially for such young duelists. A massive wave of dirt and rocks rising from the ground, a huge ball of lava reeling back toward Natalie’s side of the pitch...both of them knew that a massive ball of lava hitting a massive wave of dirt would do nothing. It was a waste of energy and time.
But gods above, would it be a cool show or what?!
When the lava and earth collided, there was a great force from the impact, blowing both combatants far back. Natalie used a fireball to keep herself in the pitch, practically riding the blast wave. Brighton, once again, dug herself into the ground. Both just inches from the line. What could stop these two?
Natalie quickly found out. She noticed a black rock hurling toward her, and flicked her wand just so, sending it careening back at Brighton. Brighton tried to do the same, make it into a volley, but her clever tricks were no match for Natalie’s powered. Her wand didn’t break, but she was thrown back into the trench. A mote, really, foam padded and filled with water, hit with a waking charm to keep a combatant from passing out in the water and drowning.
“DISTINGUISHED GUESTS, WE HAVE A WINNER!” The crowd cheered as light suddenly fell on a heavily breathing Natalie Gaine. She wiped her forehead and nodded gently, as Li came running out to her.
“You feel alright?”
“Aye.”
“Light headed?”
“Nah.”
“You feel like you’re about to puke?”
“I feel fine, Coach, honest!”
Natalie walked back to her small hut as soon as the next slate of combatants were announced. Siobhan Burke was going up against Sanyu Mbabazi for an exhibition match...that, she had to see.
“You WON!” Charice cried out as she ran up to Natalie, hugging her older sister.
“Sure did!” Natalie said, patting Charice’s head and smiling at her, “Did you like the duel?”
“It was AWESOME! It was so so cool! Could you teach me that lava thing you did? Pleeeease?”
“Heh, maybe when yer older, eh?” She asked.
“Natalie!”
“Mam!”
Natalie hugged Marion tight, and squeezed her shoulder, speaking to her in Welsh, “Good fight, eh? Betcha didn’t think yer daughter could pull THAT one off, eh?”
“I knew ye could beat ‘er, but that duel really was somethin’ else. Almost got worried for a second.”
“Almost.” Natalie winked and smiled.
Evelyn looked over, her arms crossed, “I have to admit. I was impressed.” She said, stretching and yawning. “Never seen a ball of rocks hit another one.”
“Never?”
“Not at that scale, anyways.” Eve said. She crossed her arms and tucked her phone into her pocket. “But I want to go home.”
Marion looked to Evelyn, “We’re gonna watch one more duel with Natalie, and we’re gonna go home. Alright?”
Charice smiled, “Yes!”
Natalie reacted similarly, high fiving her little sister. Evelyn just rolled her eyes, as they went back to their seats.