Chapter 5- Quick Wits

But sir," I tried to tell him, trying to sound as sincere as possible, "I don't have any magic."

"Using all your magic before gym? What an idiot," one of my classmates said.

"Don't be mean, Rake. This is his first day here." A female voice said.

"Well, it was definitely uncalled for, but he is right." The coach said. "Using up all your magic is your own fault. It won't get you out of the fight."

Sigh. Well, I can improvise as long as my opponent isn't too strong.

"Jena," the coach said. "Hand me my clipboard."

"Yes sir."

A brown haired, scrawny girl in a tee shirt and jean shorts ran over to the built man and did what he asked. Then she ran back into the crowd of students. "Let's see, you can be against...hmm., that'll work."

"Okay!" He shouted. "The first match is Elijah Lutz vs Duran Ellos.

Everyone went silent.

That can't be good.

"C-coach? Are you sure about this? The new student doesn't even have any mana left. To pit him against someone like him...

Someone like him? What, is he special?

"Quit whining, it's simply to test the new kid. Maybe he'll surprise us all and actually win." The coach laughed a nasally laugh and a few others chuckled with him. Eventually, most of the students in the gym were cracking up.

Great, I guess I have to try my hardest not to get wailed. And I just got my arm fixed too.

A small hand slapped me on the back. I turned around, already aware that only one person was capable of such a powerless attack.

Luna was grinning ear to ear, as if she just overcame a triumphant victory herself.

"Don't worry! I believe you'll win!"

I sighed. "Oh? And how do I do that?"

She put her hands up and formed the shape of a rainbow. Except, between her hands, multi-colored stars were forming that took up the shape of a rainbow. "Magic!"

I think I just i felt a few brain cells die. I wanted to complain about how there was no way I could win without any mana but I figured I'd be wasting my breath.

"Come on, hurry up," the coach said. "I need you both in the center. We have many more matches after you two."

I looked over to Luna, who just gave me a big thumbs up, and then over to Conard, who looked like he has seen a ghost.

"Just surrender. There's no point fighting. Go into armadillo mode if you have to."

Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence.

I turned back around and walked to the painted area, which I assumed is where I'm suppose to be fighting. I started walking over when Luna stopped me.

"Hmm? Do you need something?"

She scrounged inside her pocket and pulled out a couple pieces of candy. "Take these with you!"

"But I don't have any-

She put a finger to my mouth. "Shh. Just trust me."

I shrugged and stashed them in my pocket. At least I'll be able to eat something sweet after I get my butt kicked.

I arrived in the center of the painted area and looked at my classmates. Weirdly enough, I never saw my opponent. I looked over to coach, who was just waiting patiently. Hopefully the guy played hookie and my fight would be canceled.

Sadly, I wasn't that lucky. Just when I was getting my hopes up the gym door swung open, slamming into the wall, and surprisingly the person who entered looked like a pretty regular guy. He was a fairly tall guy with short black hair with a ponytail at the end and crystal blue eyes. He was wearing black t-shirt with an unzipped dark gray jacket featuring the words death across the front and a black baggy jeans. He also had on beaten up sneakers.

"Duran! You're late again!" The coach yelled.

Duran waved his hand to dismiss the coach's accusations. "Yea, yea, can it will you? I'm here, aren't I?"

The coach gripped his keyboard angrily. I was afraid he was actually going to snap it in half.

Duran walked in and sighed.

"If you don't quit with that attitude I'll-

Duran shot an aggressive stare at the coach. "What? Kick me out? Please do. I don't want to be here anyway."

"Tsk. Cocky kid. Anyway, mock battles are today. You're up first."

"Oh?" he said like he was mildly interested for the first time. "Who's the unlucky person today? Can it be Rima for dropping and breaking my phone for the third time?

"It was an accident!" I heard a feminine voice yell from the crowed of students.

"Well it's always an accident, isn't it?" He yelled out loud enough for her to hear.

"Quiet you two!" The coach pointed over to me. "Elijah Lutz. Just transferred here today."

"And I'm his first opponent? What, did he pee in your cereal?"

"Shut yer trap and get in the ring, Mr. Ellos."

Upon hearing that, Duran switched from his carefree and nonchalant attitude to a look of pure malice directed at the coach.

"I told you not to call me that." Duran said, clearly agitated.

"S-s-sorry," the coach managed to get out.

However, Duran looked unsatisfied with his response. "As long as you understand." He said while shrugging and putting his hands in his pockets. With that, Duran made his way inside the ring.

That was clearly magic of some kind, although I don't have a clue of what it was.

He looked at me, clearly sizing me up. After standing in silence for a few seconds, he decided to break the silence.

He yawned. "You know, I don't particularly care about this fight, so if you want to surrender, you're free to go."

I smiled. "Thank you for the courtesy."

His tone got darker. "But, if you stay, don't think you're leaving here without a broken bone or two."

I'd rather not go to the infirmary right after I promised her I wasn't going to visit her too often. However, I don't like people like him.

"If it's alright with you, I think I'll fight."

"Fight? With what? You don't even have much mana."

He can see how much mana I have? No, even more confusing is he said I don't have much. I shouldn't have any.

"Enough talking you two! The coach yelled. I think it's time to start this match already. Elijah vs Duran begin!" He blew the whistle around his neck loud enough to encompass the whole gym.

I don't know what kind of magic he uses, but considering I can't use any, closing the distance would be the smartest.

Not wasting time, I attempted to sprint at him. Sadly, attempt may just be the best word to use because the second I looked in his direction my body tensed up and I couldn't move a muscle. Shadows engulfed my surroundings. Where Duran was standing was replaced by a man sitting on a dark pitch black horse. Except, instead of a head, darkness spewed out of his neck and it looked like the body was carrying a dark, round object in one of its arms.

I felt my heart pounding and a cold sweat drip down the side of my head. Every instinct in my body was screaming to run away but I couldn't even do that.

Just relax, I tried telling myself. Calm yourself down and this will all go away. You've dealt with this before. Just relax. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. When I opened my eyes, the horse was centimeters from my face. The horseman, who was now wielding a whip, was in position to lash me.

I closed my eyes again. It's not real, I told myself. It's not real, it's not real, it's not real. Calm down Elijah. This is clearly an illusion of some kind. I took one more deep breath and opened my eyes to see the familiar sight of the gym. Duran was standing exactly where he was before as if nothing had happened.

"Oh? You can still move?"

Confused, I tried moving my hands. To my amazement, he was right.

He scratched his hair with an annoyed look on his face. "Great, that means I'll have to actually fight." He complained.

Not wasting time, I sprinted at him, but still pacing myself to get a good view of my surroundings. Weirdly enough, he didn't move at all. He just simply watched me. I ran up close to him and threw a punch right at his face but it went through his head.

...huh?

He lazily threw a kick aimed for my head, but I caught it and threw it to my right, to hopefully twist him and throw him off balance. Unfortunately, that only set him up for a spin kick, which I swiftly dodged by ducking. I tried to counterattack and threw a punch at his chest but he sank into the ground and disappeared.

And then...silence. I looked around but couldn't see anything. Suddenly, the perimeter of the painted area became black. I tried to anticipate where an attack would be coming from but nothing was showing up. Or so I thought until a large shadow spike erupted from under me. I rolled away but another quickly followed. I kept dodging but one went to my new location each time, giving me no leeway to think.

Tsk. How do I get out of this? It doesn't even feel like he's trying.

At a certain point, after dodging one of his dark spikes, another appeared right where I was jumping too.

Crap, is he learning my movements?

I managed to barely dodge it, but I felt it pierce something. Like it graced my palm but I didn't even see a single scratch...did it pierce my mana barrier? But that doesn't make sense; I shouldn't have any mana left. Unless...

Flashbacks in my head went off in my head to when Luna patted my back. Did she somehow restore some of my mana? Is that why she gave me the candy?

A spike nearly split me in two, interrupting my train of thought.

"Don't die," I heard Duran's voice throughout the room, although I wasn't exactly sure where.

Guess I should try to use magic. Better than nothing. I unwrapped a piece of candy in my pocket and pressed on it. I felt mana surge into the candy and got a good feel for how much I had left. I had nearly half my mana back. Just what did the goofy girl do?

Not wasting time, I continued dodging spikes while popping the candy into my mouth, with one hand in my pocket, prepping the wrapper. On the candy I imprinted super senses to make dodging the spikes easier, to which Duran responded by increasing the speed and the amount of spikes.

Huh, I guess he really wasn't trying before.

After dodging a spike, I had a sudden sense to dodge to the left. Trusting my senses, I quickly moved left, just narrowly avoiding a long black whip that spawned from the ground. But rather than falling back down, it followed me, attempting to coil me like a snake.

I gripped the candy wrapper, which had super speed imprinted on it. Combined with super senses, this made dodging his attacks quite easy. Although using two runes at once did take a toll on me. I already felt my mana draining fast.

Duran, who didn't want to fight in the first place, clearly got more upset seeing as how he hadn't won already, as he created two more whips and increased the amount of spikes being launched at once.

Yeesh, how much mana does he have? I had to think fast. How do I win? He has more mana and while he's in those shadows, I can't touch him. And my speed is about to run out.

Crap! I spit my candy out, and it created a loud screeching noise that made everyone in the gymnasium tremble. Even the spikes and the shadow whip fizzled. Then the candy split into pieces and dissolved.

Tsk. That's why I don't like using super senses. It's side effect is so random.

But, I thought, looking around, it definitely had an effect on Duran. Which means sound reaches him even in that darkness. I wonder what else he's affected by. I guess I'll just have to test different things. Hopefully I find something before I run out of mana.

I unwrapped another piece of candy and plopped if into my mouth as I proceeded to run around like a chicken with its head cut off. His spikes were getting faster and I didn't have super senses or super speed anymore, making me a much easier target than before. I put my hands up and shot fire all around the ground, hoping it had some effect, to no avail. Not only did it have no effect, but the fire dissipated, which I guess is actually fortunate as I'd have to run around it.

A spike shot behind me and penetrated my mana barrier, lightly scratching my arm in the process and making me bleed a little, though nothing extreme. I felt myself breathe heavier. I'm definitely moving slower than before. I don't have much stamina left. And unfortunately it would seem he has energy to spare.

Last ditch effort then. This has to work.

"Don't you think it's time to wrap this up?" Duran asked.

"Definitely," I said through my heavy breathing.

The spikes were starting to get faster and more and more appeared. I used the candy imprinted with water and started spraying across every area covered with darkness. Eventually, I spit the candy out, which flooded the floor even more with water before sinking into the water itself.

"Useless," Duran said. "All your attacks are useless."

I smirked. We'll see about that, I thought.

I put the wrapper into my mouth with the candy, which felt gross. I hate having to do this.

Just as I did, the entire field of shadows became littered with spikes, forcing me to to jump into the air. As I did, a shadow whip shot at me.

"It's over." Duran announced.

"That it is." I said.

I raised my right hand to the ground and gripped it with the left to keep it steady. I've never tried this before because I hate doubling up on spells due to the mana cost, so hopefully this works. Normally, paralysis on its own is fairly weak. But if I double imprint it, it should become far more potent. In the best case scenario, it should give birth to lightning.

Out of my hand emitted a white stream of energy that penetrated the ground. As it did, it spread through the water, electrocuting the whole ground. The whip stopped centimeters before coiling around my neck and even the spikes staggered. The darkness on the ground was slowly withering away as I could see the floor again.

Sadly, I didn't account for falling down into the lightning. Luckily, I had good enough reaction time to pop the last piece of candy into my mouth, while spitting out the other candy and the wrapper, to create a mana barrier below me that I could sit on and not get shocked. The candy and the wrapper summoned two storm clouds that electrocuted the candy.

I sat on the barrier for a second, catching my breath and waiting for Duncan to appear. After waiting for thirty seconds or so, I found him on the floor coiled up, taking the brunt of the electrocution head on. To my astonishment, he recovered pretty quickly and was standing in no time. Man he's resilient.

Duran took a deep breath and started stretching. "Man you're annoying. Why couldn't you be a pushover?"

That's what I'm saying, I thought.

He summoned a whip into his hand and lashed at me. It didn't look like it would reach but somehow the shadow whip lengthened and stretched farther and farther. I rolled off my mana barrier to dodge it and onto the floor, which was now safe to walk on. Immediately, I ran at him full speed. He then summoned spikes in my way which I easily maneuvered around. I've had a lot of time to learn his spike placement. He yanked the whip back, and it flew at me from behind.

Thinking quickly, I turn around spit of my candy at the whip, and it formed a barrier around it, slowly crushing it as the barrier shrunk more and more. Then I turned back around and keep running at him. Duran threw more spikes at me from the ground but I was able to easily predict them. I switch the wrapper to my left hand and grip it tightly, imprinting speed.

"Just stay still!" Duran yelled.

I sped past his horde of spikes and appeared right before him. I charged up a punch, knowing he didn't have time to react, and shot right at his stomach, remembering how I couldn't hit his head earlier. He tried to block but didn't have any time to react.

Unsurprisingly, he went flying and barely escaped crashing into one of the walls.

I watched his body stay still as I wandered whether he was still conscious or not. After ten seconds of no movement, a loud whistle filled the room.

The match of Elijah vs Duran is over. The winner is Elijah!

Sigh. Piece of cake.