21 Princely Battle

The bald instructor was smiling, his head raised as he yelled into a microphone at a non-existent crowd. A festive amount of confetti flew out of his hand and into the air as his yell came to an end. "Butterflies are born today, a cocoon of men will shape our dear Nikolai into an alchemist that can protect himself from being stabbed."

All the boys here started to make faces, no one able to look at my face as I stared at the bald man for a solid minute and he continued though his antics. "I'm totally going to punch him when I'm stronger." I didn't know I was in a long list of people wanting to do the same.

After five minutes he made made me out to be an aspiring hero that was seen only once every thousand years, and the others my mere stepping stones for my accent. This obviously made the group livid with the bald man, and itching to beat me down until their arms got tired. I had to hand it to the guy, he easily manipulated the group with just flowery words to his invisible audience members.

As he got done the others had a fire of passion burning in their eyes wanting to fight, myself being the only one unaffected. Checking over my equipment one last time I walked into the ring immediately activating my Princely Aura. This was the first time I had used it in public, and the air seemed to sparkle around me as I smiled at them.

The aura I found out was a rather large buffing spell that fueled my intent greatly, where I might usually attack with, 'I want to destroy this wall' turned fully into, 'My fist is blessed at birth and will pierce through the heavens!' Even with training, one had to fully believe it for it to have an effect so arrogance was truly power in this world.

The others started coming up to the arena one at a time, Zack seemed to be cautious, staring hard into my eyes.

"Pitiful, you get the privilege to fight this prince and you don't rush at the opportunity. I hope I don't take you down too quickly, so you can see my brilliance." As the spell took effect, my back straightened and my eyes slowly gained a disdainful look into them. Straightening my clothes, and fixing them I used mana to get rid of every speck of dirt.

The big brother grabbed the shoulder of the smaller one, keeping him from rushing forward. My changes too sudden for anyone to think it natural, a gasp coming from my blue haired friend. "A pride spell?!"

"So there is someone a bit educated in this backwater place other than me. How.. aduquit." With a step forward, I looked at my baldie, "Can I begin the slaughter now, or must we continue staring at each other until we're all bald?"

The instructor nodded and I vanished from where I was, Zack moved forward and slammed his shield to the air where I came crashing down my foot only inches from the older brother's face. Bending my leg, and connecting my other foot with the shield, a massive force blew the shield and Zack a few feet on his ass.

'Upgrade Jump Gained'

A grin come over my lips as I had stayed in place my feet going toward the ground the two brothers moved as one. The smaller one hand gone under me using his legs to push forward into a flaming uppercut. The bigger one had gone for a simpler attack, putting both hands into one large fist and throwing it down like a sledgehammer.

Waiting till the last moment my legs were wrapped around the big brother's arms, using it as a platform to lean back both of my hands gripping the younger brother's arm. My own arms got burnt suddenly the younger brother stopped before being teleported, all the lights on my belt going out.

'Upgrade Reaction Time Gained!

Seeing his brother 'die' his fists became faster as the ground became covered in spikes before suddenly he too disappeared. A golem came out of the ground suddenly catching me with a loud ground as I coughed up blood. "Fuck! You dare harm Crowley?"

One thing every superhero comic forgets, even though I was caught.. inertia is a bitch! My rib was at the very least fractured, my hand touching it as I was dropped to my feet by the golem. The group was standing there confused and shocked not knowing how either died.

"Not fair." Alex slammed down his foot seeming pissed, "It was all of us against you remember?"

The others looked at him in confusion, then back at my bemused face, "Familiars are considered to be the same as the master in the face of the law. I consider that fair."

Knowing that it's cover was blown a shadow spilled out of one of the holes made in the arena by creating the golem. As the shadow took form a small cat sat there, licking the back of its paw, "Lifegiver, the red one is observant should I assassinate him next?"

"It's been a month, how can you not know the difference between kill and assassinate yet?" I flicked up my hand, the golem breaking apart as it become a shield in my arm. Several marbles embedded themselves into the shield making it shatter, the odd rhythm making one of the marbles pass through as the shield blew apart my arm taking the hit and snapping.

Luci moves forward trying to get at the little girl but a shield smacked him away, making the cat land on its feel about ten feet away. The crumbling shield swirling and turning into a cast around my arm to make it not a hindrance. Pouring more mana into it a crossbow was fitted onto the top of it with a crank, pulled taunt a piece of my pants becoming the rope used, prepared wood coming from a bag at my back to become the base.

The metal balls flew up and into the crossbow, shooting them back at the little girl as a metal rod filled with spikes at the end. Since the shield of the party was distracted she ended up with the rod crashing into her head sending her teleporting out as her head snapped back.

This wasn't going as smoothly as I hoped, but I was still ahead, three dead only two left. Sadly this two fought each other so much their teamwork was amazing. Taking out a dagger, I knew this was going to be the hardest part, Luci appearing at my side licking its paw to groom itself.

The option to use poison, or a bunch of golems to wear them down but that would defeat the purpose of this fight. With a step forward, Luci got up trailing between my legs using magic to make it appear to fade out of sight when it crossed a shadow.

This was all or nothing at this point, the crossbow turning into a wooden shield as I quickly rushed them both. Daggers seemed to rain down on me from every angle as I got close to Alex, my own attacks being deflected by Zack's trusty shield. A stalemate was soon reached as hundreds of attacks came from both sides.

My face was bloody, small wounds accumulating across my body as I put more and more effort into offense, making my defense fall with each attack. "Now!" I shouted as the area around us was suddenly enveloped in light.

It was only a moment, but they both lost sight of me, my body seeming to disappear. Zack immediately put his shield above his head before he noticed a second too late that I hadn't jumped. Alex wasn't much help as a cloak had found its way wrapped around his head while he couldn't see.

"Dragon… Puuuuuuunch!!!" I yelled out as I forced mana into my legs, my fist smashing into the chin of Zack sending him flying into the sky, a pair of glasses shinning before shattering to a million pieces, as my body rose ten feet into the air. "Dragon Decent!" Mana moved from my legs to my arm in the cast coming down like a meteor, as it smashed into Alex his body went immediately limp the cast and my arm shattering from the impact. When my fist touched the ground an explosion of dirt and rocks went up in the air creating a cloud.

"Dear mother of all things unholy this fucking hurts!!" I held my arm, tears freely falling down my cheeks as I knew I had overdone it. 'I am never going to try to act cool again with flashy moves' I lied to myself.

A clapping sound was heard as rocks continued to fall all around me, the bald instructor looking quite impressed, "I have one question, why did you yell out your attacks?"

"How else are they supposed to know the name of the punch that defeated them?" Groans were heard from outside the arena area, Zack and Alex looked perfectly fine without a speck of dirt on them. "Wait, why are you guys not even dirtied?"

"If you wanted to make sure we had a mark on our body then don't kill us in less than a second." Alex shrugged, cracking open another beer before smiling. "Unless you want a rematch right now…?"

"Screw you…" I let my body slump, and collapse on the ground as I held my hand to the air, clenching it into a fist of victory one finger at a time.