Gabriel groaned, rubbing his throat, as he trudged back to the group. Alex and Max were looking at him with more sympathy than he deserved. “You did warn me. But, remind me, why are you two friends with her again?”
Alex struggled to find the words for his thoughts. Basically, she was awesome, incredibly passionate about the same aspects of history and magic that he was, competitive, intense, and better yet, able to keep pace with him, which was a fairly rare attribute. None of which would be an appropriate response to someone who just got utterly dominated by her. He had to admit, that amount of will to seize power was also intriguing.
“She’s mean, but she’s a huge nerd when you get talking to her,” Max said.
Alex nodded. That was a better way of putting it.
Gabe accepted this. “You two are the biggest nerds I’ve ever known. In a good way. She actually keeps up with you?”
“Amazingly, yes,” Alex said. There was maybe a 50/50 chance that she’d be mad if he revealed just how many late nights the three of them had spent watching old True Church newsreels, so he didn’t elaborate.
Gabe shrugged. “Fair enough, I guess. Who’s up next?”
Up ahead, Aleste and Percy were preparing for battle. Percy was, at the moment, a complicated bundle of frustration and relief. These duels were meant to be a way of letting their teacher and Guardians evaluate how they performed, how they approached problems, and Teresa had completely thrown that opportunity away for the both of them. Even if they’d been visible, she hadn’t really fought him, not properly at least. Once he physically caught up to her, tracking her up a tree, she’d given up, treating the whole thing like a game of tag.
But, this should make up for that. Aleste was a singular talent in their class - a brilliant student both of the academic sciences and of their magical application, morally on the straight and narrow, even by the standards of Arcadian students - the perfect measuring stick by which to demonstrate his not-inconsiderable skills. His command of the Irinaen language wasn’t the greatest, but he had an edge over the rest of his class in a region that most of them seemed to neglect - physique. The effects of first-level abstraction, while ignored as simplistic by many, scaled easily with the base physical strength and sensitivity of the user. As such, he maintained a robust exercise regimen, even inspiring several of his other classmates to take up recreational re-creation of historical sports with him, which unified the study of fitness and history.
Admittedly, he was still working out just how to apply that to his current situation.
Aleste, on the other hand, had been figuring out plans for this duel the second she won her last one. She’d been building up a small quantity of white phosphorus underneath her fingernails, shielded from the air by a lipid layer she’d sucked out of her own skin in order to keep the phosphorus from auto-igniting. If she wanted to light off an explosion, that’d save her the step of providing a magical ignition source, and every bit of efficiency mattered. Beyond that, she had quite a few tricks up her sleeves - figuratively and literally. As Instructor Leor and their Guardians lined them up, Aleste checked her alterations to the elements strewn alongside the asphalt strip they were to fight on. Sure, there were the pillars, usually comprised of solid metals, but she’d kept her perception open, and found that the toolbox of substances, at least in trace amounts, was much wider than what was readily apparent.
All was right.
Aleste’s reddish-orange hair nearly glowed in the sunlight, as a strong breeze that she may or may not have “encouraged” to blow kicked it out behind her, like a cape.
“Oh, so it’s those two?” Gabe said. “Then, who do you think-“
He was silenced by the near-simultaneous sounds of Instructor Leor announcing the beginning of the match, and a loud explosion.
“Sounds like Aleste,” Alex said, and from the smoke and glowing trails arcing through the air, Percy emerged, minus his bandanna. Aleste soon followed, holding it high.
“Yep,” Max said, feeling somewhat better at having lost early on.