Dravon ignited his arms and legs in the same manner that he had done in his fight with Marilyn. The fiery onslaught of combos that he unloaded on Jraken was starting to wear his younger brother down. Jraken had successfully blocked almost every attack, but his arms and legs now suffered from painful burns.

   “You’re going to have to produce stronger attacks than that if you plan on slowing me down!” Dravon shouted after taking another small fiery attack. He had endured several due to fighting more recklessly than usual. With the tenacity that he stayed at during the fight you would hardly know he had taken any damage at all.

 

  Jessa and Tyke’s blades clattered against each other as they continued to clash. Tyke stayed consistent with his attacks. Giving Jessa little time to strategize or restore her armor.

  She knew that she could not hold out much longer. Tyke was definitely more skilled with blades than she was. He was also over-confident in just how much better he actually was. She quickly decided she would try and use this to her advantage.

   Jessa started backing away which gave Tyke the impression that he was gaining ground on her. She focused her energy into the ground in order to manifest a small hole in the floor below one of Tyke’s feet. As soon as he lost balance, she gave him a hard kick in the side that sent him four paces away.

   “You little wench!” He yelled from the ground. “That was dirty! You are going to pay for that!” He vowed as he continued to rub where he had been kicked.

   “No, I won’t.” Jessa replied. She threw her arms out and manipulated the stone tile Tyke was sitting on. The tile arched out of the ground with great velocity, landing a couple paces away. Which catapulted a screaming Tyke just outside the arena.

   “There goes our unblemished victory.” Kortro said as he approached Jessa. He was accompanied by Bonette who stood beside him with her arms crossed.

   “Half of your teammates have been eliminated. Dravon is sticking it to the little fire prince you managed to recruit.” Bonette said with a smug face. “Hope is all but lost for you and your little team.”

   Jessa looked over the shoulders of her adversaries and saw that Jraken did appear to be having a hard time matching Dravon’s ferocity.

   “It’s easier to grab attention when it’s up to you to save the day.” Jessa said as she assembled her armor. “Taking all four of you out in one match will absolutely ensure my place in a Jhori Agency!”

   “Kids these days!” Kortro said as he also put on his armor.

   “You going solo?” Bonette asked Kortro.

   “Might as well. Ganging up on an opponent may have an effect on our score.”

   “Right.” Bonette replied with a nod.

    “Not that you’d be much help anyway. Your wind has already proven to be completely ineffective against her!” Kortro yelled back as he dashed toward Jessa.

   Sparks flew as the heavily armored warriors traded punches. Jessa grabbed one of the punches and threw Kortro over her shoulder. Rather than slam into the ground, he sunk into the floor as if it were water.

   Jessa had seen this technique before and knew that if mastered, it could prove especially useful in combat. She stayed light on her feet and prepared herself for anything. She tried to focus on the ground to see if she could sense Kortro’s whereabouts in the arena floor. Since he was manipulating so much stone around her, it made it difficult for her to pinpoint exactly where he might be.

   An armored figure rose slowly out of the ground a few paces from Jessa. Then two more armored figures rose up out of the ground next to the first.

   “Great.” Jessa mumbled to herself. Their armor was crudely made, but they still seemed to be identical.

   “I was wanting to save this technique for a real warrior, but since it looks like you’re the last person I’ll be fighting today, I’ll have to try my golems out on you. Now for a game I like to call ‘Where’s Kortro?’!”

   The golem that was gesturing was not the same golem that Jessa heard the voice come from.

   How stupid does he think I am?

   Two of the golems dashed toward her. As soon as they started to move, she could see that their speed was lacking. She had no trouble defending them off, but they left little to no openings for her to counterattack. Each time she blocked an attack and tried to retaliate the other golem would force her back into keeping her guard up.

   She focused as much of her energy as she could into the armor around her hand. At an opportune moment she launched the stone on her hand at the golem, who had not been participating in the fight, like a cannon ball. The golem exploded upon contact and debris flew off in all directions.

   A collective gasp came from the audience as many of the spectators were sure they just saw a young man explode before their very eyes.

   “Geez, lady.” Kortro lifted the armor from his face to reveal that he was one of the golems Jessa had been fighting. “Don’t think I would have been walking that one off. We’re not supposed to kill each other.”

   “Hey. It’s your stupid game.” Jessa said while focusing more stone into her hand to prepare another shot.

 

  Jraken and Dravon were lifted into the air from an explosion they had set off when their flame attacks connected on the floor beneath them. Jraken took advantage of their positioning and kicked Dravon back into the ground with great velocity. It was a much stronger attack than Jraken had performed thus far. He landed a few paces away from Dravon and stayed in his fighting stance.

  “I knew you’d been holding out on me!” Dravon shouted as he sat up from the ground. The arena floor was cracked where he had landed due to the force.

  “You just need someone to beat that power out of you!” He sprung to his feet and ignited his arms and legs once again. “I’ll not have a coward for a brother! Now show me what you can really do!”

  Dravon came at him once again and Jraken was quick to react. He threw flames at Dravon’s feet which forced him to jump. Dravon went to jump over Jraken, but Jraken anticipated this and shot more flame up at his airborne brother.

  Dravon had no choice but to fight fire with fire and met Jraken’s flames with flames of his own. When the flames met, they detonated, and the shockwave of the blast sent Dravon ever higher into the air.

  Jraken jumped through the smoke and flames that remained above him and threw a powerful punch up at Dravon. The punch was blocked, but not without knocking Dravon off kilter.

   As gravity started to reclaim the two warriors, Jraken got in as many attacks as he could while his brother was busy trying to regain balance and land on his feet. Much to his surprise Dravon was still able to ward off most of the attacks and both brothers ended up landing on their feet.

   The crowd cheered louder as their fiery fight raged on.

           

   Jessa fired another shot. This time she knew for sure she was aiming at Kortro.

   He caught the fist-sized rock and crushed it in his hand. “Might work on one of my unsuspecting golems, but not on me.”

The golem that remained, snuck up behind Jessa. It grabbed her and held her into submission.

“Damn it!” She knew that she was risking leaving herself vulnerable since she had to focus all her attention on Kortro, but she had not predicted that he would use his golem to hold her in place.

   “Caught. Now would you like to surrender? Or do we need to do this the hard way?”

   Jessa did not respond. At least not with words. Her actions spoke volumes. Something triggered when she became unable to move. Something she herself was not fully aware of. Panic rushed in and coursed through every vein. The more she struggled and realized she could not move the more frantic she got.

   Her heart and mind raced as she tried to think of a way out of this. She could not even eject herself from her armor because of the way she was being held in submission. Pretty soon the fear overwhelmed her. She could feel her mind slipping.

   I can’t move! I can’t move! It was the only thing that went through her mind.

   Kortro looked over at Bonette wondering what he was supposed to do. Bonette had a sick grin on her face as she watched Jessa squirm to get free.

   Jessa finally lost her wits entirely and let a horrific scream.

           

   Dravon leapt at Jraken with a fist of flame leading the way when he heard Jessa’s scream. He saw instantly a change in Jraken’s facial expression. When he reached him, his punch was swatted away with ease. When he landed, he looked down and noticed that Jraken’s palm was planted directly on his chest.

    “Sorry, brother.” Jraken said just before an enormous explosion was unleashed from his hand. Dravon sailed through the air and slammed into the arena seats that were positioned 50 paces away from the arena.

    The crowd fell silent as they tried to see what had become of Jraken in the explosion. A large amount of black smoke had filled the arena because of it. A trail of it had followed Dravon to the section of seats he had landed in. There was no trail of smoke on the other side, which lead the crowd to believe that Jraken had not been knocked out of the arena.

 

   Kortro’s armor golem that was holding Jessa in submission crumbled as all his attention was now completely fixated on what had happened between Dravon and Jraken.

   “Dravon’s out?” Kortro asked, looking up at the big screens and watching the instant replay. “Where the hell did the explosion even come from!? There is no space between Jraken’s hand and Dravon’s chest!”

   “Show yourself or I’ll blow you out of there you little brat!” Bonette shouted nervously into the smoke. She looked over to Kortro, but he was too preoccupied to look back.

   “Did you cause this?” Kortro asked Jessa without taking his eyes off the smoke.

   “Not my proudest moment.” Answered Jessa who was breathing deeply on her hands and knees. She knew she did not like being unable to move. She assumed most people felt the same way, but she had no idea just how much she hated being confined until today. She had never felt herself give in to fear so deeply.

   Suddenly two giant plumes of fire erupted from the smoke. Each one appearing to have the head of a dragon. The fires snaked their way over to Bonette and Kortro amazingly fast.

   Bonette threw up a wind barrier and screamed as the fire consumed her barrier and pushed her far outside the arena near the seats. When the fire died, she released her barrier and collapsed. All the hair had been completely scorched off her head. Other than that, she was unharmed.

   Kortro threw up stone wall after stone wall in front of the fire in an attempt to stop it. All he did was slow it down as Jraken’s attack consumed each wall and quickly turned them into molten rock.

   “No way!” Kortro yelled just before covering himself in as much armor as he could. The fire consumed him and pushed him outside the ring. Though, not near as far as Bonette had been sent.

   The smoke cleared quickly from the force generated by the large plumes of fire. Jraken fell onto his back totally exhausted and breathing heavily.

   Jessa ran for him allowing pieces of armor to fall off of her along the way. She did a power slide into a hug, and as soon as she did the stunned crowd erupted into cheers.

   “Jraken! That was amazing!” Jessa yelled as she gave him a kiss on the cheek.

   His face grew red hot. “Yeah. Well, you know.” He stammered to say.

   Kolzer and Hiali rushed the ring to celebrate with their teammates. As soon as they did Kolzer lifted Jraken up onto his shoulders. The crowd began to chant his name. Soon, the chanting changed from “Jraken” to “Number 1”. Indicating that several Elementi now thought Jraken to be the top student at the Jhori Academy.

 

 

   Jrax stayed alone in his viewing room as he watched Jraken’s team celebrate their recent victory.

   “You have a guest my king!” A guard yelled from outside the door.

   “Send her in!” Jrax knew it had to be Leader Laski. She was due to pick up the additional troops after the tournament. Though, he felt that she had arrived uncharacteristically soon. She would have had to leave the tournament before Jraken’s match had even started in order to arrive on Pyra just as the match was ending.

   In through the door came not Leader Laski, but Priestess Lys.          

   Jrax suddenly became filled with both dread and excitement. “I can think of only one reason why Darex’s priestess would be seeking an audience with me.”

   “Darex saw your son’s fight.” Lys said warily. He also knows that you’re being forced to give up more troops today. Troops that the Free Elementi desperately need. Call the princes home my king. Today is the day Jraken must choose his path.”

   “And should he choose to stay?” Jrax feared to ask.

   “Jraken may only choose freedom, or death.”