The Purple Haired Craze

In Which A Third Duel Occurs

The break flew by and in no time at all, Skulduggery found himself facing Valkyrie from the other side of the fighting ring.

"This is a test of your elemental abilities, just to see how far along with your training you are, Miss Cain," said Mrs Crow, the headmaster's wife, who was also the Magical Combat teacher.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Get ready."

Valkyrie shot him a very scary smirk from her side of the ring, and Skulduggery wondered whether going up against her for the second time today was a good idea.

"Fight!"

Unlike their last battle, Valkyrie immediately attacked, which surprised him because he was not expecting this approach from her. She managed to propel herself up with a gust of wind and then pounced down on him from above. He only just managed to roll out of the way and then she was at him again, fire in her hands, swiping fiery punches at him. He brought flames into his own hands, allowing them to go down his arms slightly to help block the punches.

He suddenly felt the ground beneath his feet become unstable and he tumbled over. Puzzled, got up with some aid from the air and looked at the ground. It was all crumbly and uneven.

She took advantage of his bafflement by kicking twice, hitting his side and his face. He tumbled over again and she leapt on him, pinning him down again.

Skulduggery shoved two burning hands in her face and she jerked back, providing him with a gap in which he threw her off him and pinned her down instead. He held her hands back and her legs flailed, kicking him several times.

He was positive he had won, so he was very confused when suddenly he was on the ground again and Valkyrie was standing above him, a triumphant smirk on her face.

"What on earth did you do?" he asked, bringing his hand to his stomach which felt like someone had driven over it.

"Good fighters never give out their secrets."

"Cain wins the match," called Renne Crow, a huge grin on her face. "Good work, Miss Cain."

Rather than the faces around them portraying disbelief, most of the students were smiling and applauding Valkyrie. Skulduggery was tempted to sulk. Whilst it was fun to have someone challenging to train with, it still hurt his pride slightly to find that he was no longer top. Even so, he couldn't help but smile at Valkyrie as she helped him up again. "Your stomach okay?" she asked him as he balanced himself.

Skulduggery nodded.

Crow walked over to them. "Clearly Miss Cain is an incredibly capable young mage. How long have you been practicing for?" she asked Val.

"Four years."

Mrs Crow's eyebrows raised, but she said nothing, merely writing it down on her notepad. "Who's your mentor?"

Skulduggery watched her body freeze at the question, mirroring the expression she had earlier when Mr Callen had asked the same thing. "He doesn't exist anymore, ma'am."

"Is he a notable figure in the magical society, Miss Cain?"

"Not particularly."

Her responses were brief, as if she was incredibly unwilling to give out any details concerning this mentor of hers. Skulduggery looked around to see if anyone was watching, but everyone had immersed themselves into their routines for Magical Combat. Ghastly was over with the elementals, practicing against Erskine, both of their hands flaming. Dexter was over at the other end of the hall, throwing energy at fellow energy throwers. Saracen and Anton were both chatting together a couple of metres away, gists being difficult magical disciplines to practice and Saracen having just converted to using his obscure, unknown new adept discipline. Skulduggery figured they would get anger management classes for Anton soon and get Saracen to do mentoring for some of the younger students in the school during the period.

Skulduggery turned his attention back to Valkyrie, who had relaxed in the brief seconds when his attention had been diverted. Mrs Crow asked her a few more general questions as she always did with new students before assigning them their work for the next couple of lessons.

"I would like you to spar with Mr Pleasant on sparring days," Renne Crow told Valkyrie, who nodded, trying to take in as much information as possible. "On the days we don't have sparring, I would like you to develop your elemental abilities. I see that you are capable of manipulating earth which many students can't do yet and so I would like you to be able to teach them. I am not an elemental myself so it is difficult for me to train you. Instead, I encourage students to partner up with someone of a similar ability to work together and train each other, noting their errors and correcting them. For you, I suggest you partner up with Mr Pleasant here or possibly Alexis Kai over there who is also very practiced in the theory of the elemental discipline." Crow pointed out a tan coloured girl with beautiful black hair that was pulled back into a pony tail who didn't appear to be fighting practically, but more advising people. Valkyrie noticed that she was not built like a fighter, but looked slender and fragile.

"I'm presuming she isn't into fighting much," she told Crow.

"No, she is a pacifist," Crow responded. "She only fights defensively, but is incredibly good at analysing other people's movements and has memorised several technique books on several disciplines so she is our advisor."

Valkyrie shot her an odd look. "What's her discipline?"

"Linguist and Etymologist. Incredibly well versed girl. She's a good person to talk to if you need advice. You can get her to mentor you, or watch when you and Mr Pleasant fight so she can help you improve. You as well, Mr Pleasant," she addressed Skulduggery.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Help each other. You both have a lot of potential."

They smiled at each other.