The Wolf Mage

A Test of Strength

Simon faced Brad to begin the tournament. Rather than the crooked confident, worriless smirk that Brad usually had his expression was different. There was no smirk on his face. He looked serious, still confident, but more serious than usual.

“Is Brad okay?” I asked Hunter.

“Yeah, but don’t forget his father is here” he reminded me. Dave Evans, the command sergeant, was Brad’s father. Brad looked a lot like him; tall, muscular, blond haired and blue eyed. ‘I wonder if I look anything like my father’ I thought.

“It’s not a fight to the death, simply defeat your opponent until they either surrender or can no longer fight” Dale announced, “No forbidden magic is permitted please, and do your best” he added. Brad and Simon both shook hands,

“May the best win” Simon said.

“Good luck” Brad replied. They stepped back away from the other. Simon’s eyes narrowed, and Brad’s slipped on the greyish gloves in his back pocket. His hand went to the handle of his sword.

“Begin!” Dale exclaimed. Brad charged at Simon with his sword. Immediately he aimed for his arms, but Simon dodged. His speed made him almost a blur making it hard to strike him. Simon never made an attempt to hit back, but kept dodging. After endlessly trying to strike him a black cloud rose from the blade of Brad’s sword. Simon’s brown eyes widened as he tried to dodge Brad, but the darkness clouded his vision. Brad came in from the left, and body slammed Simon to the ground. Before he could fall Simon fell back on his hands, and flipped himself backwards a short distance away from Brad. I finally realized myself what he was doing by dodging. He was analyzing Brad’s attack patterns. ‘If Brad doesn’t do something quick, something unexpected, he’s going to lose’ I realized. Simon crouched down to the ground, and suddenly sprinted sprinted forward toward Brad. The sudden burst of speed startled Brad, and he staggered backwards as Simon began to hit him repeatedly with his fists. Brad was being beat senseless. Simon, using magical energy, increased his speed with it, but now was using his energy to beat the living hell out out of Brad. He traded speed for strength, if Brad could just collect his senses he could attack Simon while his speed was down. That’s when Brad’s shadow darkened, and the shadow-like human appeared behind Simon. A wall of darkness formed in front of Brad, hiding him for just a second from Simon. The shadow-humanoid grabbed Simon’s arms, but Simon elbowed it. Though his elbow went right through it, it affected Brad who was trying to body slam into Simon again. Simon came at him, and slammed his foot into Brad’s side. Brad was sent flying backwards, rolling on the ground.  He lifted himself up onto his hands, struggling to get up. He was back on his feet after a few seconds.

“I will not lose” he muttered as he came back after Simon again.

“I’m sorry bro, but its over” Simon told him. His speed was back, and in a flash he was behind Brad. In simple seconds his seed switched to strength, and he kicked Brad again. Brad was sent flying backwards again, struggling to get up, but this time he could not get up. Brad’s match was over. The matches went by, Luke fought Hunter, using his magic to enhance his strength and speed against Hunter’s sword. It seemed that Hunter had the advantage, but Luke’s speed and strength turned out better. Tobby fought Adam, his earth magic sabbers overpowered his battle axes. Despite Adam was clearly stronger than Tobby physically, Toby's earth magic was strong enough to cover this weakness.

Cody versus Trenton using wolf magic to beat his sword won. Trenton’s swordsmanship skills were nothing compared to Brad’s, and Cody took advantage of this to beat him. Derrick using speed and a dagger beat Gray’s wolf magic, and actually sent him to the infirmary with a few cuts across his chest. Tyler beat Toby’s earth magic sabbers using plant magic. Tobby was the unfortunate one that had to fight two fights because of the odd number of people. It didn’t take long to tangle Toby in vines restraining him despite his attempt to block and pummel him with earth magic. Erza was up against Dameon.