The day had arrived. I woke up before dawn and jumped on Teival to wake him up, “Teival! Teival! Wake up! It’s the day of the spar today!” I heard the muffled groans of discontent seep out of my master’s mouth before he turned on his side and continued sleeping. “How dare you ignore me?!” Displeased with his disappointing lack of enthusiasm, I padded on top of him and nibbled on his ear before licking on his cheek.

 

“Mmnh…Kia…stop…five more minutes…”

 

“Five more minutes?” I gazed out of the window to see the glow of the rising sun begin warming the sky in orange tones. Seeing as how we’d trained extra hard yesterday, I allowed him to remain in bed a little longer. As for our training, we had been putting in even more effort than before, while ensuring we kept to the curfew.

 

Compared with the last time I’d sparred, I felt faster and nimbler now. To be honest, it would be a major surprise if my speed and agility hadn’t improved, what with the amount of times I’d been running in circles, but I digress. Since Teival was still desiring his dreams, I took it upon myself to eat my breakfast without aid. It wasn’t at all me planning on having two morning meals by tricking Teival into believing I hadn’t eaten anything!

 

Unfortunately, my plans were foiled as soon as my nose had successfully opened the bag my food was stored in. “What are you doing, Kia?” I froze with my head plunged into the bag and my fluffy tail sticking out. I hoped my master didn’t notice me if I didn’t move. “You really are a glutton, aren’t you?” He gently pulled me out of the bag and scratched under my chin.

 

“I’m not a glutton! I was feeding myself since you were ignoring me!” I protested while forlornly looking at the containers of juicy bugs and insects. Teival must have fallen for my beauty as he hugged me before rummaging in the bag to give me some food. “Ah! Master is magnificent!” I wagged my tail in delight as Teival got dressed. Once we were prepared, we left our room and headed to the clearing from last time.

 

Arriving at the area, I noticed the confused – and sometimes angry – stares focused on us. Teival had covered himself with that cloth while I padded close to his legs, brushing against him every now and then to tell him I was with him. Getting closer to the group, one of the boys pointed at us before saying:

 

“Why’re you ‘ere? You wa banned from classes!”

 

Before my master could respond, Teacher raised his hand: “He’s here because I allowed him to be. I told him he could attend classes again if he proved he could hold his aggression in check – as well as defeat his partner.”

 

I watched as the boy sheepishly lowered his arm. My ears twitched at the mild mutterings coming from some of the children, however I was unable to make out what they were saying. Since the sparring session was pretty much the same as last time, I lay on the ground while waiting for everyone to collect a crystal. Seeing the crystals change colour one by one in the hands of the children, I eagerly stood up and used my wonderful eyes to locate our opponent.

 

Apparently, we were to fight against Michael. I couldn’t quite discern which was the crystal beast he bonded with, however I knew it wouldn’t really matter since I’d see it when we gathered. As for other pairings, Teacher ended up paired with the kid who chose the horned crystal beast – no idea what he, or the beast was called since I didn’t care – and Dinara got paired with Tabitha. To be honest, I genuinely didn’t know who I wanted to lose more out of those two since – in my humble opinion that was correct and should never be doubted – they were both malicious monsters. Saying that, due to a personal vendetta against Mr Stripey, I unfortunately somewhat vied for Dinara’s victory. It had nothing to do with me wanting to have the satisfaction of beating my sibling first! Nothing at all!

 

Shifting attention back to the actual spar, during my ruminations Michael and Teival had moved to a fairly clear spot and waited for the signal to start. Observing my opponent, I finally realised that Michael was the boy who chose the Crystal Mantis as his beast. It had large bug eyes that kind of creeped me out, two large scythe-like arms…or were they legs? It had a seemingly tough carapace, was slim and had many legs.

 

As we were waiting, Michael seemed to have decided it would be fun to say mean things to my master, however we simply ignored that ignoramus which served to rile him up. Yawning out of mild sleepiness from waking up so early, I did a light stretch to loosen my muscles before licking my paws to clean my face. I mean, a girl has to maintain her appearance even for a fight!

 

Teacher blew through a tiny crystal object that produced an incredibly shrill sound, which signified the start of the spar. Immediately, both Teival and Michael gave their orders to me and the mantis to fight. Although I wanted this to be fun, I knew that I had to take these spars seriously since I didn’t want to have my fur damaged like last time. Eyeing my foe, I didn’t charge forward initially, and instead adopted a battle stance while observing the actions of the mantis.

 

Of course, I didn’t need to wait inordinately long due to the mantis being surprisingly speedy. Within a second, the mantis had already reached attacking range and slashed its scythe-like arms at me with tremendous force. However, I managed to nimbly dodge out of the way with a timely roll to the side. My opponent didn’t stop there, though, as it followed up its attack with a pivot before slashing diagonally towards me.

 

Not wanting to get hit by those very sharp natural weapons, I rolled away again – resulting in a chuckle coming from Michael.

 

“Heh, looks like yer crystal beas’ is a coward, Teival. She’s too afrai’ ta even reetaleeate.”

 

“…”

 

“How rude of you?! I’d like to see you taking on these slashes! I, for one, would prefer to not be decimated to cubes of flesh!” I protested while dodging another slash aimed at my legs. I may have stumbled a little on a loose stone, however I regained my balance as rapidly as possible.

 

“Ha! She’s so weak, she can’t even stan’ properly! She mus’ be like tha’ cos her master is weak, too!”

 

“…At least Kia isn’t getting hit. Tell me, why is your mantis not landing any of its hits, if it’s so strong?” I heard Teival counter with, which made me feel happy. However, it seemed to have riled Michael up quite vehemently since he ordered my opponent to hold nothing back against me. Witnessing the crystal mantis cross its scythe’s together before they started glowing, I recalled how the crystal termites glowed before controlling the land which made me panic a little.

 

“Oh, crap!”

 

I hastily rolled away from the crystal mantis, and didn’t stop, until I heard a whistle-boom. Shaking my head from the dizziness associated with accelerating oneself through numerous rotations, I stared at where I had just been standing and saw the ground scarred by a deep ‘X’. “How did you do that?! Teach me so I can do fancy techniques like that!” I begged internally before seeing its scythes cross and glow once again.

 

Deciding that running might prove a better tactic for continuous dodging, I clambered to my paws and flew across the land – my paws barely touching the ground before propelling me forwards. “Argh! Stop firing those weird wind blades at me! Can’t you see I’m trying to not get hit?! Give me a break! I need a breather! Time out! Time out, I say!” Michael, of course, took this opportunity to give another snide remark:

 

“Is all tha’ ya taught ‘er to do was to roll‘n’run? Such cowardly tactics!”

 

“No.” I glimpsed at Teival to see how he was reacting, only to see him smile warmly at me before issuing his next order: “Kia, dig.”

 

“You want me to dig? Here?!...Oh! I get what you’re meaning! How very savvy of you, Teival!” Realising what my master wanted of me, I hastily manoeuvred myself to directly in front of the crystal mantis and dug. With my back to the crystal mantis charging up its next wind blade skill, I used my super sharp claws to dig at the soil at an unmatched speed! “It’s time for the curtains to close on your act!”

 

Behind me, I could hear the confused chittering from the crystal mantis as the soil entered its large eyes and temporarily blinded it. I continued digging a little more since I wanted to be completely sure my foe wouldn’t frighten me with a stealth attack. After a few more seconds, I heard Teival give a new order: “Kia, go for its legs from behind!” Ceasing my clawing at the ground, I jumped to the side before jumping a few more times to behind the crystal mantis.

 

My opponent, who was fortunately blinded by me, started flailing around in desperation from losing its vision. Michael kept barking confusing orders that contradicted one another, while I sneaked behind the mantis and swiped my sharp claws at one of its legs. It screeched in unpleasant sounding pain as the affected limb could no longer support any weight.

 

Leaping here and there, while keeping alert over the flailing scythes, I managed to incapacitate the crystal mantis through the disabling of all of its legs. “Kia, retreat to here.” Since my opponent was no longer able to effectively fight back, my master – in his benevolence – had ordered me to cease my attack. “Master is so nice!” I wagged my fluffy tail as I happily took in the scene before my entertained eyes.

 

“Michael, do you yield?”

 

“Never! You fough’ dirdy wiv me!”

 

“Quite literally.” I mentally responded while licking the soil from my perfect paws and claws. My ears twitched, alerting me to the Teacher’s arrival. Padding closer to Teival out of trepidation, I peered through his legs to sneak a look at Teacher’s expression.

 

“What’s all of the ruckus about, Michael?”

 

“Teacher! Teival chea’ed an’ has the gall to ask me ta yield!”

 

“You liar! We played completely fairly!” I barked in defiance whilst cowering behind Teival.

 

I watched as Teacher turned to examine our mini-arena before seeing the sad state of the crystal mantis that was still flailing around in its stationary position.

“You say he cheated, how?”

 

“By blindin’ ma Buggy wiv soil!”

 

“…How disappointing…To stoop so low as to accuse of cheating for using a basic tactic. Teival, congratulations. You won.”

 

I felt a wave of relief wash over my master before he crouched down beside me and gave me a big hug. He then began checking my paws and the rest of my body for any injuries while giving me many deserved praises of: “Good girl, you did very well!”, to, “I’m so proud of you!” Of course, I accepted these compliments with happy humbleness as I nuzzled Teival’s hands and licked them while wagging my tail. “Yes, master! Shower me with your affection! Tell me I’m the best because that’s what I am! Just ignore the minor blip we had with Mr Stripy!”

 

While I was being given the proper treatment a strong and brave crystal aardwolf pup like I deserved, I vaguely saw Teacher examining ‘Buggy’. Watching him stand back up after I had received enough attention from Teival, I heard him promise to have Michael’s crystal beast treated. He then turned to us and smiled stiffly.

 

“Since you proved yourself today, I’ll allow you to attend classes again. Here’s the reading material the others were given while you were banned. There’s some stuff on channelling mana, which is important to help develop your crystal beast.”

 

“…Thank you…Teacher.”

 

He then clapped his hands to gather everyone’s attention before giving some kind of speech detailing the results of the sparring session, along with some other boring stuff that I didn’t really care too much about. He then dismissed us all and gave everyone the day off to recuperate. Teival and I headed back home, suffering under the stares stabbing our backs from the other children – especially from Michael.

 

Entering our dingy room, Teival immediately took the cloth off himself and jumped onto the bed before lying down and opening one of the books Teacher gave him. I didn’t really care about any of that, though, since I was completely pooped from running and rolling all morning. Jumping onto the bed I settled into my usual sleeping spot on Teival’s stomach before yawning and closing my eyes. As I drifted off, I wondered what fun stuff I would get to do in the classes my master could now attend.