Gabriel elbowed Alex in the stomach. “You think he’s gonna be okay?”
Alex nodded. “Yes. He might not be strong, but he listens to me and Francesca, and I’m sure he’s picked up some combat techniques, not just things applicable to tests.”
Gabriel looked nonplussed. “Francesca? I’d think Max listening to her would just confuse him. She’s uh…”
Alexander nodded. “Yeah. I know.”
“Hey,” Elza said, sidling up to the two of them. “You’re close with Maxwell, right?”
“Uh,” Alex said. He preferred to have an astute response to anyone asking him a question out of the blue, but the memory of Elza kissing him the night of the Pairing set him on edge. He recoiled slightly away from her.
“Yep!” Gabriel said. “What do you wanna know?”
Elza sensed Alex’s uneasiness, and pulled closer to him. Not close enough to touch - she pulled back just before that - but close enough to take the words right out of him. “How do you think Maxwell’s gonna fight? Will I need to kick his ass?”
Alex gulped, and Gabriel laughed. Light profanity was some kind of minor sin, but it happened, and Alex wasn’t surprised to learn that his Pair engaged in it casually. He wouldn’t be surprised by much of anything from her, he hoped, after the events of the last couple days, though he wasn’t willing to bet on it. “I don’t think so,” Gabriel said. “He’s a soft sort of guy, and while Alex and Francesca try to teach him how to be a brutally efficient soldier of the True Church, between you and me?” He looked at her with a conspiratorial grin. “It’s never gonna take.” He looked back to Alex. “That’s a good thing,” he said, as a clarification. “Not that you two are like, evil or anything. It just doesn’t suit him, you know?”
Alex nodded. He had to admit that Maxwell was better suited to research, or command of an inner diocese, not some place where frequent combat or difficult decisions were required. He just loved Maxwell, and wanted him to be well-equipped to deal with any scenario that he might encounter. “He’ll fight well, but he’ll be gentle. I don’t think-“
“Did you say Francesca taught him, too?” Elza asked. Her cheeks drew taut in something best described as a snarl.
He decided that a tactful misdirection was the best option. “I’ve been the bigger influence on him.”
Elza squinted at him, and after evaluating him for a moment, nodded. “Good.”
Alex, admittedly, had a similar line of questioning preoccupying his mind, and was devoting just about everything he had to figuring out the problem of how to ask the question. “How-“
“How do you think Tabbitha’s going to approach fighting Max?” Gabriel asked, usurping Alex. Elza rubbed her chin, thinking about this, and Alex’s head filled with the sparks of a gravel wheel spinning against a strip of metal. She didn’t do that. Elements of her were still taking up residence in his head, and he knew, even if he didn’t know, that that was an affectation, not a legitimate expression of her own. Not that he could say anything, but still.
“She’s gonna win,” Elza said, confidently.
Gabe waited for an elaboration, and received none.
“Yeah?” Alex asked, lamely.
On the strip of asphalt, Instructor Leor and Hashmallim Tessawyn helped the two of them into position, familiarizing them with the sense-implements and resources available to them.
Elza smiled. “They’ve got pretty similar motivations. You’re close friends with Maxwell, right?”
“Yeah?”
“And he doesn’t want to disappoint you?”
“Of course not!” Alex said. “I believe in him-“
“Great, great,” Elza said, not even looking at Alex. “But Tabbitha doesn’t want to disappoint Rosaline.”
Alexander frowned. “How is that any different?”
Elza laughed in his face. “Rosaline is far, far cooler than you are.”
Cooler? Alex thought. If “cool” was important in the slightest, he and Francesca would have a monopoly, the king and queen of knowledge of the glorious history of the Angelic Order of Saint Michael, of the Demetrian Order of Battle-Priests, of the True Church itself, able to tell you any bit of trivia and awesome factoids from the greatest people who have ever lived.
“She fights for every inch of ground she takes. Rosa was never as strong as you were, or as Percy was, but she’s been holding station with you this whole time. She struggles, but she makes it happen. I don’t know you, Alexander, but I know her, and she spends so much time with her head in the books, so much time training, that if there was any justice in this world, she’d be able to turn your innards into outards without a second thought.” Alex’s hackles were raised. He wanted to fight her on this. But she was certain. Whether or not he could argue it, it was a fact in her mind, and there was no changing it.
As much as he hated it, he had to drop the argument.
He didn’t.
“The willingness to fight doesn’t equate to skill, power, or righteousness,” he said, barely failing to suppress a smile at the corners of his mouth. He didn’t just pay attention in church. He paid attention to the words of Saint Aquinas, to the words of the other great academic saints, to the documents and histories of the Angels and Priests and heroes of days gone by. No matter what someone’s “personal beliefs” were, their “understanding of their own relationship with God”, Alex prided himself on having an objective viewpoint. It took hard work to be right all the time, mind you but that was the life he wanted. And if this girl was going to kiss him on the mouth, she was going to have to deal with the fact that he was, and likely would always be more knowledgeable that she was. “What if, for all they fight, and all they struggle, Rosaline and Tabbitha both lose?”
“Yeah?” she said. Elza placed her hands firmly on her hips. “What if I didn’t care about a God-damned word you-“
Several things happened in quick succession. First, Elza’s magic flared - he didn’t know to what purpose, but he could sense it, through whatever link remained between them. Second, feeling this, his did too, readying himself to strike back. Third, their eyes, their ears, all of Alex and Elza’s senses, were pulled towards the bleachers. Sitting there, staring at them judgmentally, was Julian, their Guardian.
“Do not fight before your match.”
The words rang out in their minds, as strongly as if Julian had been standing right next to them. The sensation was overpowering - receiving a psychic communication wasn’t something they were wholly unfamiliar with, as they’d been taught it in year ten, and refreshed and tested on it every year since, but the volume… it felt so loud that it nearly knocked them over.
All of this made them withdraw into themselves.
Alex counted this as a lesson to not insult Elza’s friends, or at least, to not be smug about it.
Gabriel sensed that something was off. “Are you two okay?” he asked, and in a surprising display of unity, Alex and Elza nodded as one. He shrugged, and the conversation was mercifully brought to a halt by Instructor Leor declaring the beginning of the duel.
Tessawyn, one of the Guardians, cheered. She stood out, even among her peers, as a superlative individual. As a Hashmallim, she was only equaled in rank by Julian and Cassandra (Francesca and Caleb’s Guardian), but unlike those two, she also struck an intense physical presence. It wasn’t uncommon for those with incredible skill in magic, like the high-ranking Angels, to neglect their physical fitness, as such things paled in comparison to their magical prowess. Neither Julian nor Cassandra were exceptional in that regard - at least in height, they hovered a bit over a hundred and eighty centimeters, but they were both gaunt, not even effectively filling out their clothes. They had a marked detachment from their physical forms.
But Tessawyn, Guardian of both Tabbitha and Maxwell, was superlative. She was over a hundred and ninety centimeters tall, and well-muscled enough that Alex could believe she could kill a demon without dipping into her reserves of magic. That didn’t diminish her femininity, of course - soft hair framed her face, and long, loose braids fell down her chest, along with a cascade of light brown hair down to her shoulders. Her smile was soft, her eyes were gentle, and her fists were like boulders.
“Fight hard!” she yelled. Neither of her wards seemed capable of doing so, and she continued. “Do your best! I believe in both of you!” That seemed to resonate, and the two of them squared up.
Maxwell was, well, Maxwell, and while he took on a fighting stance, he didn’t have much physical or magical presence. Alex knew that he could be better than the impression that he gave off, and he couldn’t help but root for his friend. Maxwell could be unstoppable in the right circumstances… even if those circumstances had never conspired to exist, so far.
Tabbitha, however… Elza believed in her totally. Alex had to admit that on a totally emotional-impression basis, she matched Maxwell well. Physically, she towered over Max- Up there in that hundred and eighty centimeter range, lanky, but in command of every inch of her body. Magically, while she lacked confidence - “She’s strong. Watch,” Elza said. He nodded. Alex wasn’t sure if Elza was still in his mind, or if it had just been a well-timed comment, but he didn’t want to test that, and so, tried to clamp down his internal narrative about how incredibe Maxwell was, and how much he believed that his dear friend could overcome any obstacle if given enough time to process it.
He had just enough self-awareness to know that he wasn’t very successful.
Maxwell and Tabbitha, well-trained by their friends, charged at each other.
Maxwell and Tabbitha, unsure of themselves, stopped about six feet short of each other, and did nothing.
They didn’t even pace. They just stared at each other.
“Let’s go, Max!” Gabriel cried out, and this just seemed to make things more difficult for Maxwell. He blushed at Tabbitha, and began mouthing something - presumably a spell - which failed to finish. Tabbitha, at least, tried for something a bit more aggressive - a binding spell, that would match the construction of Maxwell’s shoes to the asphalt strip, a fairly clever commonality, but it fizzled out. She couldn’t commit. And neither could Maxwell, to the few spells he attempted.
Mainly, they just watched each other, and quivered.
Leor looked to Tessawyn, and seeing the lack of answers on her face, decided that he, as a teacher, should probably intervene. The duel shouldn’t be aborted - that would throw off the whole idea of using a tournament to gain a better understanding of the students’ capabilities and their methods of solving problems - but perhaps it should be restarted, to give the two of them a more salient impetus, something that they could follow to find a path to actually fighting each other.
And at that moment, Rosaline cried out.
“You got this, Tabbitha!”
At that, Tabbitha straightened. Hardened. When before, her arms and legs could best be described as damp spaghetti, they became as iron rods. Her eyes turned from a doe-like softness to a canine glare. And she lunged.
Maxwell was entirely unprepared. Alexander and Francesca had given him plenty of strategic knowledge, taught him how to be the True Church’s next Napoleon, how to lead armies and crush the enemy, but they, and he, had never really prepared him for the unexpected. As such, he merely yelped at the sudden onslaught.
Tabbitha had no directly offensive elements to her magic. Nothing of flame, of ice, of lightning, the hardness of earth nor the sharp cutting of air. Instead, she felt unstoppable. Locked solid. She knew, in her heart, what she was, and that she must protect herself. She could have stood still, and none in their class could have knocked her down. But she turned that offensive - The pure, psycho-and-physio-logical defense crashed into Maxwell, kicking her body off the ground and her mind off their shared lessons at him, and Maxwell was driven into the ground, pushing up a trench a meter long.
“Holy Mother of God,” Gabriel swore.
Alex wouldn’t say that, but he agreed with the sentiment.
“THAT’S IT! GET IT, GIRL!” Elza cheered.
Tabbitha was in, at best, the lower fifth of their entire year, let alone their class. Max was no phenom, but she shouldn’t have- Alex was bewildered, as Tabbitha gently untied a shocked Maxwell’s bandanna from his arm, and held it up triumphantly.
“YEAAAAAAAAH!” Rosaline yelled, at the top of her lungs. The girl was only a few inches over five feet tall, but for Tabbitha, she summoned the volume of a herd of elephants. Tabbitha looked at her and laughed, still straddling Maxwell, who caught Alex’s concerned gaze. He gave Alex a thumbs-up, and that was enough.
It was a hell of a match.
“Tabbitha wins!” Instructor Leor declared, holding her fist to the sky.