Chapter 64: Rematch: Culmination Arc [25]
"THE THIRD AND FINAL CATEGORY WILL FEATURE A MAGIC DUEL FORMAT!"
Arthur’s eyebrows went up.
Same as the novel. He still knew that much — the third category format, the setup, the basic shape of it. The problem was that in the novel the team standing across from Xavier’s triad was supposed to be Class B. Elias. His rivalry with Xavier was the whole point of the final category. The crowd had been built for that match.
Elias was in intensive recovery.
Across the platform, Xavier was looking at Arthur. Not scanning the floor. Not watching the announcer table. Looking at Arthur, deliberately, the way someone looks at a calculation they haven’t finished.
Arthur looked back.
"THE RULES ARE AS FOLLOWS!" The announcer’s voice bounced off every seat in the coliseum. "EACH ROUND, ONE PARTICIPANT FROM EACH TRIAD WILL BE RANDOMLY SELECTED TO DUEL. THE WINNER OF EACH DUEL STAYS ON THE FLOOR. THE LOSER STEPS ASIDE AND THE NEXT MEMBER OF THE LOSING TRIAD STEPS FORWARD. THE FIRST TRIAD TO HAVE ALL THREE MEMBERS DEFEATED LOSES THE CATEGORY. THE TRIAD WITH AN UNDEFEATED MEMBER REMAINING WINS THE CULMINATION!"
Murmurs spread through the spectator rows.
"Basically if they pick that Almonth boy first he just wins all three duels himself."
"The other two in his triad just sit there?"
"That’s insane. That’s completely insane."
"NOW, FOR THE SELECTION OF OUR FIRST DUEL!"
At the far end of the officials’ table, a woman in a white coat raised both palms. A yellow sphere built between them, dense and slow-rotating. She held it for a moment, then tossed it onto the center of the platform.
It hit the stone and burst.
Two glowing orbs separated from the light and arced outward, one toward each triad, moving fast and targeted, like they already knew where they were going.
The first one hit Theodore in the chest and dissolved into a warm glow.
The second one found Calver.
"THE PARTICIPANTS HAVE BEEN SELECTED!" A beat that stretched long enough to be felt. "THEODORE VAUST VERSUS CALVER VESCH!"
The crowd came up hard.
Theodore shifted his weight. His breath came in slow through his nose and he held it.
Kreasial turned to him and hit the back of his shoulder with an open palm, hard enough to step him forward an inch. "You looking nervous right now? You scared of that little prick?"
Theodore exhaled. Set his eyes forward. "No."
Arthur looked at him. "Good." A beat. "Now go win." Another beat. "Take your revenge."
Theodore walked toward the platform. He stopped at the participant bench, set his bag down, unclipped it, and reached inside for his bellus. He lifted it out carefully and set it on the bench cushion. The bellus looked up at him with both eyes wide and both ears forward.
Theodore looked back at it and smiled. Small and easy. "Don’t worry. I’m okay now." He tapped the bench once with two fingers. "I got this."
The bellus made a sound. Short and specific, just for him.
He turned and stepped onto the platform.
"Well." Calver was already there, arms loose at his sides, the easy posture of someone who had already decided how this went. "Hello again."
"NO LETHAL HARM, NO BOUNDARIES, NO TIME LIMIT!" the announcer called. "PARTICIPANTS, READY YOURSELVES!"
Calver tilted his head slowly, looking Theodore over with the ease of someone who had already decided how this was going to go. "Honestly I was hoping for the other one. That Lestilaut, the dirty shot. No honor as a mage at all." He gestured at Theodore loosely. "But I suppose you feel the same way too, right? After everything?"
Theodore looked at him. Then looked down at the platform stone.
"I mean, come on. I know he’s your teammate but that guy has been in my class since first year." Calver’s tone was still easy. Conversational. "Trust me when I tell you, Vexis Lestilaut is not a good person. He bullies kids like you. Weak ones. Powerless ones." A small shrug. "You know this."
Theodore unbuttoned his collar. One button, slowly. He looked back up.
"You’re wrong." His voice was quiet. "Vex isn’t like that."
Calver blinked. Something shifted in his face, the ease flickering for just a second. Then he laughed. Short and genuine.
"Oh." He pressed his face into his palm. "You’re calling him Vex. That’s—okay. I get it." He lifted his head. "You’re still angry about the second category, aren’t you. Don’t know what he told you or what he did to make you heel for him like that, but calling him Vex?" Calver raised his right hand.
A rock lifted from the platform surface and rotated slowly above his palm. "That’s actually kind of sad."
Theodore didn’t answer.
He planted both feet. The air around him shifted, warmer by two degrees, and he raised both arms and the invisible compression around his palms was the only indication of what was building there.
"LET THE FIRST DUEL—"
A beat.
"BEGIN!"
The crowd erupted.
Calver extended his arm and the rock launched. Fast and flat and aimed clean for Theodore’s center mass.
Theodore raised both hands.
The rock stopped.
Just stopped. Hanging in the air four feet from Theodore’s chest, completely still, held by nothing visible. Not momentum, not physics, just Theodore’s palms up and the air around the rock having decided it wasn’t going anywhere.
The front rows went quiet first. Then the quiet spread upward through the seating in a wave, section by section, everyone arriving at the same moment of recognition at slightly different times.
Theodore pulled his left hand back.
He pushed.
The rock rotated in place, slow then fast, and launched back at Calver at a different angle and twice the speed it had arrived.
"Tch!" Calver snapped his arm up and a chunk of rubble from the platform floor lurched upward to block it. The rock hit his own makeshift shield and scattered in fragments.
At the participant bench, Kreasial’s grin had gone from wide to wider. "He’s using the advantage of his magic correctly."
"The simplest application of wind and the rarest to get right," Roz said from Arthur’s shoulder, both front paws crossed, fixing his bow tie with one hoof. "Wind magic can interact with anything that travels through air. Stop it. Redirect it. Send it back. Most wind mages never think past generating gusts."
Arthur was already smiling.
Calver reset. His jaw was slightly tighter. He raised both hands this time and the platform surface fractured in six separate points and an array of spikes lifted, dozens of them, the same formation he’d used in the second category against the same person lying on the stone bleeding. He pushed the whole array forward in one mass.
Theodore raised both arms.
Every spike stopped.
The entire array. Mid-air. Suspended across a ten-foot spread, each one held in place separately, Calver’s full combined output hanging there like it had forgotten what it was supposed to do. The coliseum held its breath. Even Kreasial stopped cracking her knuckles.
Calver stared at his own spikes.
He opened his mouth.
"What—"
"Didn’t you learn anything," Theodore said, "from two years in Class A?"
Calver’s expression cracked. "You—how dare you—"
"Wind magic can stop solid matter." Theodore’s voice stayed even. "Including earth magic." He looked at the suspended array. Back at Calver. "Including yours."
He rotated the entire array at once, each spike turning in place until they were all pointed back at the person who made them. Then he pushed with both hands.
The spikes crossed the platform at double their original speed. Calver lurched backward and threw up a full stone wall from the platform floor, thick and immediate, and his own spike array punched into his own defense and the impact cracked the wall down the center and sent fragments scattering across the floor.
Calver stood behind the broken wall, breathing harder than he had been a minute ago.
Theodore looked at him through the dust.
He intersected both palms and began a slow rotation, hands moving in opposing circles, and the air between them gathered and condensed and spun faster with each pass. The temperature around his hands dropped as the pressure built inward. The sphere that formed was small and tight, the air inside it compressed and heated enough by sustained friction to glow faint red at the center. Not fire. Not aetheric heat. Just physics doing what physics did when air was forced inward on itself with enough control to hold it there.
It hummed. Low and constant, the sound of something wound very tight.
Theodore’s eyes didn’t leave Calver’s face.
"Haven’t you learned anything at all?"
The announcer had gone quiet. The coliseum had gone quiet. Calver stood behind his broken wall with his chest moving and his hands at his sides and nothing left to answer with.
At the participant bench Arthur’s fist was closed tight.
He was still grinning.
Damn, Theodore. You’re so fucking cool.
