ULTRAMagic Prelude

Chapter 28

Dragoslava had no idea what was going on when she was freed from her obsidian prison. She looked around, seeing a large court out in the open; but her vision was still adjusting, so it was difficult to make out what was going on. "What the... where am I? Desislav? Blood?"

"Drago, here..." Desislav looked a bit roughed up.

"Desislav! What happened to you?!"

He looked down at his injuries and sighed. "Things got a bit complicated."

"Explain, please?"

Desislav rubbed his neck. "So... The Unspeaker proposed a face off between us and The Lich. A best of three contest, with the winner... well we're not sure what happens next yet. Me, you, and Blood are going up against the Lich's elite commanders."

"Excuse me, what!?"

"Turns out he 'created' three beings to counter us, or so he claims... ha, counter. I've been scoping them out and I've already beaten my opponent." Desislav pointed to an individual that was twitching on the ground, clearly dead. "That sludge... thing."

"Oh... um, how did it go?"

"I will be so happy when the Lich is finally dead... That THING smothered me in whatever that sludge is. It nullified both my punches and magic. And then it turned the ground to sludge, gluing me in place. At that point I was starting to sink and it was preparing to impale me, so I used my armor to electrocute the damn thing."

Dragoslava was horrified yet impressed. She then noticed something in his hand. "What's that?"

He was holding what looked like a chunk of obsidian. "It's my prize... the ante got upped with the victor having the option to either take their opponents power or spare them..."

That was a bit unsettling for Dragoslava to hear. "They... they can't take out power, can they?"

"Personally I'm not going to let them find out."

Dragoslava then looked over to the stone stage at the center of the court. Blood-Wraith was facing off against what looked like a sleek, black and white humanoid. Things were not going well as he had been trapped in a weird, armor-like suit. It fully encased him, had barely any features, and completely randomized his powers. He could not form any strategy or land a successful attack. Adding insult to injury, the suit was strong and durable. No matter how hard he tried, he could not get it off.

Blood-Wraith's mind raced as he was battered around. Did he keep trying to pull the suit off? Or did he try to reverse engineer it? That latter seemed impossible to do and the former obviously proved futile. Upon shooting a fireball when he wanted to shoot a water burst, he had an idea. What if he went with the randomness and formed a strategy on the fly? If he could react in time, his random attacks could be devastating.

He needed to act fast as it looked like his opponent was preparing something. If it was another suit or a spell, he was most likely done for. Blood-Wraith tried to go for his sonic howl, but got his webbing instead. This could work. He quickly restrained his opponent and readied his next move. An attempt at fire breath became his sonic howl (because of course). With the humanoid disoriented came the final attack, a powerful train charge that was supposed to be a might form punch.

The Unspeaker and his audience gave a round of applause. "Match point goes to Deimos!" he declared from his throne. He then began walking down to the arena.

Blood-Wraith went over to his defeated opponent and offered to help him up. "Vexation? What was that thing you were going to use on me?"

"It was a coffin that would have sealed you away... Why are you speaking to me? You won, didn't you?" he asked as he reluctantly accepted Blood-Wraith's help.