Maledictus Ignis

Encore!

Dustin and Jeremiah continued their fight, Dustin has grown quite a bit since the start of the fight, adapting to everything he throws at him.

"Thunderstorm."

Multiple lightning strikes come down onto Jeremiah and one of them hit him allowing Dustin to get his first hit in the whole match.

Jeremiah is rather surprised at this and congratulates him.

"Bravo Dustin, you've improved at an exponential pace for someone your age, how old are you anyway?"

"17." 

"Seventeen?! Oh.. to be young again."

But that's unprecedented, I knew he was young however...

Dustin looks at him with a confused expression before getting in his battle stance again.

"Guess I have to step it up a notch." 

After saying this, Dustin feels Jeremiah's prowess become heavier like he was carrying a weighted vest.

"Let's play some music, Metronome!"

Dustin suddenly hears music begin, quiet at first, but slowly getting louder, Dustin is nearly hit by a full measure that comes flying at his face.

The hell is going on??

"Too slow, lets up the Tempo!"

The music speeds up.

"Ehh I'm not feeling this, lets change the Rhythm."

The music changes its pattern, making it harder to dodge.

"Argh!" Dustin grunts irritated

Now there were multiple notes, measures, and several different instruments flying towards Dustin at an alarming speed, with some of them hitting him.

"HAHA, now THIS is peak PERFORMANCE!"

Dustin found himself in a suit with a violin sat on stage with Jeremiah who was now using his cane as a bow to draw on a viola that he had, there were cheers, an audience could be heard from all around them, they play a beautiful duet, the audience cheering them on as the song comes to a close.

"Don't just sit there! Finish with a bang!" Jeremiah says, cheering him on.

Dustin plays the violin and it somehow sounds good, even without him never having played one before. 

Now the song was over, and the audience disappears, Dustin looks around and everything was gone, the stage, the people, everything. Was any of that even real?

He looks down and he's back in his training clothes and the violin is gone.

"What just happened." Dustin says blankly

"Weren't you listening? A performance!" Jeremiah says cheerfully

"I thought we were training..." 

"What that doesn't count?" Jeremiah said in a disappointed tone

"I.. don't know what to make of this."

"Man, everyone always has the same reaction when I show them my performance for the first time.."

Dustin looks at him and sees him sitting on the ground with his legs out and arms back.

sigh "I think I've had enough for today, how about we pick this up tomorrow?" Dustin suggested

"Ah well, I suppose I have as well, let's go see how the other two are doing!" 

Jeremiah propped up swiftly, walking to the door nodding Dustin over.

"Oh.. I should tell you something Dustin." He suddenly took a more serious tone

"Hm?"

"Had I not let you participate in the performance with me, you would've died."

Despite him saying it in his usual jovial tone, shivers run down Dustin's spine after he says that.

Could I have died so easily? It didn't seem all that dangerous.

"I-I see.." Dustin said

"But of course I wouldn't do that to you! I like you Dustin! I think we'll get along great in the future." His happy attitude gave Dustin a feeling of uneasiness now however

Jeremiah opens the door and they immediately look to their left and see the entire room is replaced with a hole where it should be.

"Oh dear." 

"Wh-WHAT?!" Dustin shouted

"It appears the room is missing." Jeremiah said unbothered

"You've GOT to be kidding me." Dustin facepalmed

"sigh This is why I insisted to Greyson that we have a modern prowess building installed, but nooo, "It's easier this way", he said, "We won't have issues like that", he said. This is just like that incident all those years ago." He rants

"Incident? What incident?" Dustin asked after calming down some

"Oh, you don't know about it? It was similar to this one, not that important really."

For some reason I doubt that...

They hear some laughing coming from 1st floor where the room is collapsed, looking down they see Luke laughing his ass off.

"HAHAHAHA man, what were you thinking?!"

He sat there with his hand on his face because he was laughing so hard.

"LUKE!" Yelled Dustin

He looked up and saw him and Jeremiah standing up there and he waved to them, only Jeremiah waved back.

"What are you doing?!"

"Taking a little break." 

"What happened to Cole??"

"He's right here." He raises his arm and reveals Cole lying under him with a runic circle on his back

Dustin zips down at surprising speed to see how he's doing while Jeremiah jumps down.

His tattoo has gone even further down, now it's spread to his chest and it's covering his entire arm..

"What the hell were you guys doing in here?? How did this happen?" Dustin began

"Now hold your horses, I know how it looks, but I swear it was his idea." Luke said pointing to Cole

"That's!.. That's not even the issue right now."

"Well, we'd been fighting for a while, and Cole was running out of juice, so he wanted to try some attack called "Blaze of Glory" I guess, and now he's all tuckered out."

"Oh, I see." 

"What were YOU two doing? We've been sitting here for a couple minutes you know."

"Why performing of course!" Jeremiah said walking up to them

"Of course." Luke said

Dustin sighs out of annoyance

Man.. these people are so strange, why are we training again?

"It's alright, I can cover the damages, I'm gonna have a talk with Grayson about installing a modern building, there's no way he can argue with THIS." 

Jeremiah says gesturing to the entire missing room

"In the meantime though, you'll need to find somewhere else to train while the new building is being built."

"Why don't we just train in some of the other rooms?" Dustin asked

"After this? I doubt they'd let us set foot in here for at least a month." Luke chuckled

"There is nothing funny about this." Dustin said 

Luke stopped laughing instantly.

"Hey!" A voice said from behind them.

They turn around to see Grayson and Alexis standing on the second floor.