The Conciege
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(TPOR) Chapter 134: A Chance To Step Up
🕑 Added 2023-11-27 05:17:49 +0000 UTCAsh backtracked, stumbled over her footing. Ronda was slightly impressed that the girl had yet to fall over since the beginning of the fight. By now her core was supposed to be running dry, becoming nothing more than a pittance. Still, the girl stood her ground.
Ronda ducked left, avoided an improvised spellform. It was a blast of earth and fire. In mages with stronger control it would’ve been a combined spellform that would’ve birthed a lava spell. That it came out as a bar of fire with rocks inside it was either a testament to Ash’s increasing drop in mana or her mental control. Maybe she was just a weak mage in summary. As an attribute mage in the VHF, Ronda had sparred with enough normal mages to be able to detect the signs.
She dipped to the side in a boxer’s stance, executed a switch step and struck. Ash barely raised a shield of water beside her. Ronda’s fist met it, striking with the force generated from the twist of her hips just the way she had been taught to throw a punch. Her fist struck the water. It reverberated through the shield, echoed through the disc of water. It was like slapping jelly if it was too strong. Ronda’s arm bounced back but she had expected it, been waiting for it.
Her second hand reached out, hope scrambled forward with it. Ash wasn’t the only one running low on mana. Using both her attributes at the same time for so long was taking a significant toll on Ronda’s core. Her mana reserves dwindled with each passing second.
She dipped lower, placing all her weight on her forward leg. As a mage her muscles were powerful, dense. But nature had upset the benefit in search of some level of equality. With denser and more powerful muscles as a mage came greater weight. The body distributed it properly so that a mage didn’t simply just fall through anything they stood on. An advanced mana displacement of weight attribution… or something. At least that’s how they had explained it for her back in training camp. Still, what it meant was that a mage’s muscles, when not reinforced by the mana in their core, acted just like a normal human’s.
Ronda’s forward leg put her entirely within Ash’s personal space. From this distance, all she needed was a powerful enough blow. Her free hand could accomplish it. From its distance from Ash’s body, Ronda didn’t have enough leeway to cock the blow all the way back. It would carry force but not enough to reach its full potential. Not for the first time, Ronda wished she’d had the mental fortitude to learn an intermediary rune, one of the ones that acted on the caster.
She threw her punch forward, struck Ash square in the stomach. Her mana continued to cycle out of her core, drawn by her constant use of her clairvoyant attribute and her puppet master attribute. She’d been using it the entire fight and was unwilling to turn them off now, regardless of how pivotal this moment was. If her blow struck true, the fight would be done.
The sound of her fist connecting to Ash’s stomach was loud even in her ear. It wasn’t the sound of a fist meeting a stomach. It wasn’t the sound of a well thrown punch. For Beta mages, it boomed throughout the training room like two boulders smashing.
Ash took the blow like a champion. She wasn’t blasted off into the distance or stagger back. Her reaction was something simpler.
…………………….
Pain flared inside Ash. She felt it in her core—not metaphorically. It was like someone has dropped her core on the ground and dropped a boulder over it. She braced herself against the pain, forced her body to withstand what was about to happen. Ronda’s fist connected with her stomach and she heard it before she felt it.
Her body reacted in the one way she wished it would not. The air was knocked out of her on impact. It left her lips in a strain between a gasp and a cough. Her body succumbed to the pain concentrated on a point in her abdomen, a pain it could not spread out across itself. Ash folded over Ronda’s fist, crumbled like a ragdoll.
The world around her dimmed as the lights seemed to vanish. The lights in the room flicked off, drowning them in darkness. Ash wondered something would go wrong. In the dark, anything could happen. She had clearly lost but she was far from trusting when it came to people. Ronda could easily decide to give her one more. Why? Because she could.
When the lights came back, they did so in slow and soft emergence like a flame slowly kindling. When it was at its brightest, it was as if it glared at Ash, stared her in the eye. Ash stared up in defeat and was surprised to find Ronda looking over her.
“Good to have you back,” the Olympian sighed in relief.
“What?” Ash asked, her voice came out weak. Her stomach also hurt.
“Well we kinda lost you there for a moment,” Ronda explained. “That’s my fault. Sorry. I shouldn’t have hit you as hard as I did. We’re the same category but I’ve been told I pack a mean punch.”
Ash’s lips tried to turn up in a frown but she couldn’t give it the attention required to achieve it. Her mind rested on something else, refusing, unwilling to accept what she thought the Olympian was saying.
“I…” she started but her words caught in her throat. “Did I?”
Ronda was already nodding not bothering to allow her finish the sentence. “You did.”
“How long?”
Ronda made a thoughtful sound that dragged for a few seconds. “Maybe fifteen seconds?” she said, unsure. “Definitely long enough for me to place you on the ground.”
Ash sighed in resignation.
“My loss,” she said.
Ronda scoffed, good natured. “You don’t have to tell me that. C’mon, let’s give the next group a chance to step up.”
Ash’s mind ran momentarily to who would be up next. It seemed the first was going to be the last. This entire thing had started because they had wanted to see what Zed was capable of, and by they she meant Festus. In usual fashion, Zed had somehow managed to talk his way out of playing the role of the opening show. It had forced the rest of them to fight, to be embarrassed. All except Chris.
“You guys might as well end the show then,” Ash found herself saying, placing an arm over her eyes. There was no shame in losing, she told herself that everyday. Those words might as well be meaningless because all she felt was shame. The fight hadn’t even been a close call. It had been evident from the start that Ronda was the superior fighter.
And we’re the same rank.
Ronda looked down at her, standing where she had once been squatting. There was a puzzled expression on her face. “What do you mean?” she asked.
Ash executed a half-hearted shrug. “I’ve seen Red fight. So unless you plan on giving him an axe or a tomahawk, don’t expect much out of him.”
Ronda turned to the glass, looking at their spectators. “Is he that bad?”
“No,” Ash shook her head. “You guys are just that good.”
Ronda was still staring, looking through the glass from the distance.
“I’ve watched him fight a few times,” Ash went on, explaining when Ronda said nothing. “I’ve sparred with him a couple of times too. He might be stronger now, but he lacks technique.” she finally found the will to pick herself up from the ground. She stood to her full height and dusted herself off. The ground was clean, left no dust. The action was naught more than something to fill the silence before she continued.
“If you’re expecting him to live up to your standard. Don’t.”
Ronda remained staring at the glass. There was a mild frown on her face. It was the look someone had when they were uncomfortable. Ash turned to the glass, looked through it as Ronda did. Before magic, she wouldn’t have been able to see much. She would’ve seen the people there, from this distance there would not have been details but she would’ve recognized each person easily. As a mage, however, her sight was vastly superior. She saw everybody clearly, saw the frown on Zed’s face as he stared at Ronda with simple green eyes.
It was easy to forget how mesmerizing his eyes could be in the wake of his shenanigans.
“Like I said,” she said, ending the one sided conversation. “Don’t expect too much out of him.”
Ronda made a vague sound in acceptance. It could’ve meant anything. Ash chose to take it as a form of acknowledgement for her words as she made her way out of the training room.
………………………..
Daniel’s lips were pressed in a thin line. He had a lot to say about what he had seen so far. Chris was the only one of any real worth. She wasn’t the smartest of the bunch in a fight or a true strategist, but she had battle IQ to some degree. He had seen it during the expedition into the forest and had seen it in her fight against Lenny. She reacted well under pressure. She was sharp and fast. Ash for the siblings, there was nothing to be said about them. Oliver was a mess of a fighter and Ash lacked too much in the way of confidence. Her entire fight seemed as if she was unsure of every action she took. It was odd considering she had been more decisive during the expedition.
He looked at Festus out of the corner of his eye and found the old man unmoved. If he was ashamed of what he had witnessed, he didn’t show it. He was as stoic as an old man could be.
Daniel contemplated if he should move on to the next group. All the while his mind contemplated just how stressful it would be to travel with this bunch. He wished the ship could take them all the way to headquarters in one go but knew that was pushing fate. To get back, they would need at least four breaks, maybe five. After all, the earth was far larger than it had once been. Also, their aircraft hadn’t necessarily been built for long distance travels.
If they ran into any significant problems on their way back, his team would be weighed down having to protect the new intakes. It was almost sufficient enough to draw a sigh from him.
“Are you ready?” Festus asked suddenly.
Daniel’s brow twitched, the only response to the Knight mage’s suddenness.
Festus turned his head to look behind him. His eyes met Zed and stayed on him. The red headed mage met his gaze with smiling eyes. Zed remained ever goofy.
“Maybe,” he said, impish.
Festus cocked his head to the side in contemplation. He frowned. “I was expecting you to have found a solution to your aura by now.”
Zed checked himself like a man checking if he smelled. After a while of lifted arms and surreptitious sniffing, he turned back to them.
“What’s wrong with my aura?” he asked.
“It’s lacking,” Festus answered easily. “If I met a mage with aura like that I would hesitate to teach them magic.”
“Why?” Zed asked, puzzled.
“Because it feels hollow,” Kid answered. “No… Hollow’s not the word. Before it was as if you had way too much aura for your body. Now it feels like you have too much body for your aura.”
“Not because your aura is small,” Jennifer explained. “More like you’re suppressing it. It’s odd.”
Zed still looked confused. “I have no idea what…”
His words trailed off in realization. He seemed to think about something, perhaps a solution or something else. Then his expression changed the way it does when a person comes to a realization.
He opened his mouth and closed it just as quickly, staring at nothing with furrowed brows. He gave whatever he wanted to say some thought, gave it some more before nodding.
“I think I might know what the problem is. Sadly,” he shrugged, “it’s not something I can fix right now.”
He got up from his chair and stretched dramatically, hands over head.
“I take it I’m next.”
Daniel said nothing. He gave it some time. Unlike when he had picked the opponents for the others this was different. Festus had held no intentions of testing the others in the beginning so anyone would work. Thus, Daniel had decided to test them for himself.
Waiting in silence, Zed turned to look around him. His eyes settled on Andre and Donny, the Olympian’s who had escorted him here. He gave each of them a wide smile, friendly, amiable, but said nothing. When he turned back to Daniel and Festus, Festus was yet to say a word.
“Same guys?” Zed asked.
Festus turned and looked up at Daniel. Daniel heard the question in his eyes.
“How about—”
Kid’s hand shot up instantly. “Why don’t I take a crack at it?”
Daniel had half a mind to refuse. Kid was nice, and he was nice to everyone. He worried his teammate would end up taking it easy on Zed, which would lead to offending Festus since he would not get to learn what he wanted to learn.
A glance at Festus showed the man in thought. He was actually considering it. Festus seemed to be coming to a conclusion when someone else spoke.
“Not you, tin can. I’ll handle Bloodbath myself.”
All the eyes in the room turned to the back where Chris was now on her feet, arms casually folded over her chest.
“You just had a fight,” Kid pointed out. “Against Lenny.”
“And I’ve still got mana to spare. Should be enough to go a round with Bloodbath.”
Everyone turned to Zed since Festus seemed disinclined to interrupt. They met an odd expression on Zed’s face. He still smiled, it was still mischievous in a trickster’s way. But there was an undertone to it. Something Daniel couldn’t quite place. Something wrong.
Chris returned his look with a cocky smile. “What do you say, Bloodbath?”
