13 Morning Entertainment

The twins had woken up early the next morning, refreshed and ready for their classes. They put on some shorts, and sport shirts, in order to complete the exercises that they had started doing during their martial arts phase. As they walked down, they noticed that there were very few people awake at the time. So they walked outside, with their spirits following and a growing peanut gallery watching them as they walked out.

They started with a run, and ran around the periphery of the school, they saw a hut surrounded by pumpkins, a willow that was old and brittle, yet still swayed in the wind. They ran around what looked like a rounded soccer pitch(Field for us Americans), and ran along the edge lake that was near the castle, before stopping next to the lake.

"Oslo, you know you need to work on your stamina, so enough complaining." John said to the bear, who had flopped down on the ground next to him. The bear made a grumbling sound in return, dreading the thought of more training. John laughed at his antics, as the twins shifted back to back, and a bloom appeared in front of Oriana.

The liquified bone matter formed a bar above them, and Axel^(11) flew to rest on top of the bar. Oriana grabbed the bar as John crossed his arms the bloom disconnected, and she started to pull the both of them up, John counting as Axel made chirps in time with the pulls.

They stopped when Oriana reached fifty. and the bloom reconnected to their legs, before they dropped to the ground and turned around, with John facing the bar. John did the same and the bar retreated, turning into a flat square platform with a 30 meter length (Approx. 33 Yards). The twins took off their shoes and socks, before they separated from one another and walked an equal distance away from each other.

Two bars appeared on the edges of the platform behind both of the twins, and it curved at the end as another bloom appeared on both ends and connected to their respective backs. (Pacific Rim as reference to connection on their backs.) By now people had started to wake up, and had noticed the duo outside, and the red-veined, white platform underneath their feet being an early morning beacon.

Oriana's hands and neck shimmered for a second, as if under intense heat, before revealing the jewelry adorning them. A similar instance happened to John, revealing the collar, chain, and gauntlets, as they set themselves into a fighting stance. Their armaments glowed, before Oriana's halberds appeared in her hands, and John's tower shields and armor appeared.

The castle-wide peanut gallery had started to come out of the school, and started to sit on the grass. Some were holding plates of food that they had grabbed from the Great Hall, and others filled plates with food that they and their friends could share as they sat in clusters.

"Martial and magic? Or only martial to continue training?" Oriana asked John as she tensed up.

"Martial, I still need to get used to my shields and claws, fighting with both at once is still weird." John replied, as his shields spun in place on his arms before settling down.

"Okay then." Oriana then turned toward the crowd and looked through them before finding a mop of red curly hair next to a waterfall of unruly black hair. "Potter!"

Harry jumped, not expecting her to call his name. "Yes?!"

"{Throw a sausage at our floor if you will!}"

"Why?!"

"{Just do it!}"

"Okay!"

He picked up a sausage from Ron's plate, ignoring the redhead's grunt of annoyance as he threw it to the arena. Time seemed to slow as everyone watching saw the sausage fall into a hole in the arena. When it closed, the twins seemed to fly at each other, with Oriana's Halberds splitting into chakrams that planted into the ground as she pulled, sending her hurtling at John, who was running at her, significantly slower.

When they met near John's side of the middle, Oriana pulled a halberd together as she sent it hurtling at John's left, who raised that arm, and swiped with his right. Oriana pulled on the Halberd she left in the ground, abandoning the strike on John's left, and retreating a few steps in order to evade the swipe.

The crowd had grown to where a few Professors started to watch as well, Flitwick and Snape being among them.

"Should we add magic? It seems that we need to use it to reach our full potential, and we've never fought actively using magic." Oriana asked John, as she pulled her halberd together.

John, who had nearly fallen forward due to his sister's retreat, was caught by his bloom, and lifted back to his feet as he nodded.

They reset their stances, and their armaments started to glow, John's skulls glowed red, and Oriana's chain's and threads glowing an aquatic green. John's tower shields lifted off of his arms and started to rotate around him slowly, as his claws grew in length and the skulls moved to the center of the shield. One end of Oriana's halberd started to separate, turning into a floating, metallic spider lily as the lines retreated back into the halberd.

Oohs and ahhs were prevalent from the crowd as they saw the transformations take place. They had seen the speed at which the twins originally started to fight, and were excited to see what might happen now. Flitwick wanted to see what two physically fit children who specialized in weapon foci would be able to do, while Snape was mentally cursing himself for earning their ire after seeing their small display.

"Potter!" Oriana called once more.

"I got it!" He called back, as someone handed him a sausage. He threw it, and time slowed once more.

When the hole closed up, both dashed to each other, and Oriana swung both ends of the halberd forward, the spider lily segmenting and flying forward to attack John, the other into the floor to repeat her earlier move.

John had crouched down on all fours, and was running to her with his claws digging into the floor below him, allowing him better maneuverability. He slowed down as he raised a hand in front of his face, which one of the shields followed, going horizontal, which blocked his sister's initial attack. He then swiped the same hand, and the shield moved to swat Oriana as she was still in midair.

She didn't panic, and raised the bladeless pole up, and the spider lily reassembled, spinning, as she flew to it, hanging in midair, before it stopped its rotation and she fell back down, attempting an overhead attack.

John then stood up, and the shield flew back to rotating around him as his arm relaxed, and the other flew above him, blocking the attack from Oriana. He swiped with his other hand, and the shield moved away to let Oriana fall onto his claws. She reassembled the two ends and blocked the swipe from his left as she then took it apart and attempted to gut him with the threaded end.

He parried the blow with his free arm and got close enough to partially cut off one of Oriana's legs with the other, much to the crowd's surprise, with Flitwick leaving to get Madam Pomfrey as he panicked. The leg was hanging on by a few fleshy strings, and blood was gushing out of the wound, drenching the arena in which they fought.

Oriana finished severing the leg by passing the lily through the tendrils, and stood up with assistance from the other halberd. She then stabbed the leg with said halberd and sent it flying toward John with a flick. A red charge started to grow inside the petals of the lily, and she flicked it forward, a spiky ball of red coming toward John, who had caught the leg.

He put both of his arms in front of him, and the shields responded, moving forward with the two skulls glowing like the gates of hell itself as a protego materialized in front of the two of them.

The spell blew up against the protego, with a small web of cracks appearing, which were quickly smoothed over as the petals and stamen of the lily clashed against the shields, doing nothing.

They opened, with John walking out between them. "Do you surrender?" He asked as he held the leg up, as if holding a trophy. Flitwick had returned with the Madam in tow, and she marched forward, attempting to stop them from injuring themselves further. She was stopped at the edge of the arena with spikes growing and pointing from the edge at her throat.

"Do not interfere!" Oriana shouted at her as she held on to the pole with the lily rotating above her head and pointed at her with the other. It seemed a stupid command, with her leg being held by her brother, and copious amounts of blood pooling at her foot. "Because I win." she said as she looked back at John. She then swung the threaded halberd back, and John looked at the leg in surprise as it twitched.

A blade flew back to nestle in the threaded halberd, blood dripping from it, mixing with the pool of her own blood. John's head fell from his body, the tower shields collapsing into a teepee as his body fell to its knees, and slumped to the ground underneath them, geysering blood around them.

"Never have I ever been able to break your defenses, and yet I finally managed to 'kill' you John!" she laughed. She moved toward her brother's body as the armaments disappeared into their reduced size.

John's body stood up and threw her leg back at her, which she caught, much to the crowd's horror. "I will admit that it was both my pride in my defense, and the fact that you thought of hiding a blade inside your leg, that you managed to beat me." John's voice was heard as his body picked up his head. The crowd saw his eyes open and say as he smiled to many screams, "Don't expect me to let it happen again."

Oriana moved her leg back in place, and stomped her foot as the arena shrunk, the blood disappearing from the surface. The bloom connected to her back started following her from the floor, as John held his head underneath his arm and started to walk toward his shoes as Oriana had done.

The spikes had receded when the arena started shrinking, and both Flitwick and Pomfrey had moved forward in order to check on them. The twins had just finished putting their shoes on as they stood up, with John still holding his head in his hands as they went back to back.

"Mr. Eumann, Mrs. Amaryllis, an explanation if you will." Flitwick said, as they reached the twins.

"It was a simple spar is all." Oriana said.

"A simple spar! You essentially killed your own brother! And you! How are you still alive! I don't think I've seen any kind of Black magic capable of keeping you alive like that!" Madam Pomfrey exploded.

The spirits, which had been sitting on the sidelines, stood up and started moving to the Madam, as Flitwick tried to stop her.

They walked into the twins as John's body grew, towering over the Matron. John held his head in front of her as it started to grow a snout and fur, while the ears moved to the top of his head. "I suggest you hold your tongue. Accusations like that would usually get you killed, but I'm not pretentious, so consider this your first and last warning."

Oriana moved forward, a bloom connecting the two of them together. "Simply, this is a bundle of arteries, muscles, ligaments, and some bones." she told Flitwick, as the Matron had passed out. "The arena was made entirely out of our bones, and since we were both connected to the Arena through the 'blooms', as we call them, we weren't really fighting each other to the death, as the blooms are connected to all our appendages. We were essentially controlling our own bodies, without really being able to cause permanent damage."

Flitwick nodded, remembering how the blooms continued following each twin. He then motioned to a few older students as John put his head back on his body. "Put Madam Pomfrey in the infirmary, she'll wake up on her own. Otherwise, here are your schedules, we've decided to pair you with the Gryffindor class, as you seem to have made a few friends. I'll be seeing you in class."

The twins nodded as the crowd dispersed, and headed to change in their room, before heading to get breakfast, and starting their year at Hogwarts.