The Duels

The students began to separate into groups of four. Kaos and Vasai wound up with two larger students, the female being tall and muscular, while the male was of considerable weight, despite being of average height.

While Kaos was sizing them up and trying to find weaknesses, Vasai began chatting away, and quickly broke through the gruff scowl on the muscular student's face.

Looking at the heavier student, he realized that, while he looked rather unathletic, he was holding a large war hammer like it was a toy. Even though the hammer was made of wood, Kaos didn't want to think about what kind of pain it would inflict if he got hit by that straight on.

"Listen up!" Dren'Dek yelled over the students who had begun talking quite loudly, "In your groups, take turns dueling each other one at a time. You all know how duels work, so I won't waste your time explaining it.

Dren'Dek counted the groups in the room, and began turning a wheel on the wall of the room. Some of the hexagons making up the floor began to slowly rise up, making small, fence-height circles which were going to obviously be used as small dueling rings.

"I don't care the order or who fights," Dren'Dek said loudly, fighting for the attention of the students, "as long as everybody gets a few good duels in, I'll have a good idea of where you are physically and skill-wise. Now get to it!"

Kaos and Vasai looked at each other.

"You first." Vasai said, pointing at Kaos, who was both excited and a little worried.

The muscular student nodded at the heavier one, and hopped in the ring. She was wielding a wooden halberd, and looked to be the strongest out of their group in both physique and confidence.

"And no using wishes if you can help it!" came Dren'Dek's voice from across the room.

Kaos gripped his short sword tightly in his right hand, and vaulted the small wall using his left. The ring had to be less than twenty feet in diameter, making it seem impossible to get out of range of the muscular student's halberd.

The student stuck out her hand and smiled a bit, "Nolly, from the Sen class."

Kaos gripped her hand and shook it, "Kaos, also from the Sen class."

Nolly smiled a bit, realizing that all the students in their group were Sen students and shared a common goal and skill level.

This thought also took a bit of pressure off of Kaos, and he visibly relaxed a little.

"I want a clean fight," Vasai shouted, leaning over the ring, imitating a boxing referee, "the rules are as follows, hit hard and play dirty!"

They both chuckled, and stanced up on opposite sides of the ring.

"3. 2. 1. Go!" Vasai shouted, waving his arm and jumping back away from the ring.

Nolly made the first move, hopping forwards, and swinging the halberd in a massive arc. Kaos ducked in time, but the whoosh of the wooden halberd reminded him that this might hurt more than the arena did, and he would have to play things on the safer side.

Kaos closed the distance, taking a few quick swings at Nolly, who blocked them using the middle of the halberd. After both had made a few more feints and quick jabs, Kaos made another rush to close the distance, this time only giving a few inches between them.

He used one hand to latch onto Nolly's halberd while swinging heavily with his short sword in the other hand. He almost made contact with it, but Nolly loosed one hand from the halberd and caught his other arm, locking them face to face.

Kaos realized he had made a bad decision as Nolly's knee met his stomach, knocking the wind out of him, and causing him to drop his short sword.

"I'm calling this one" Vasai shouted, swinging his arm downward towards Nolly, "Nolly gets the victory!"

She extended her hand and helped Kaos up, "weapon advantage" she said, smiling a bit.

"Weapon nothing" Kaos responded, still catching his breath, "I'm just thankful you went for the stomach and not the balls"

Both chuckled a bit, and hopped out of the ring. Despite not having any hard feelings towards Nolly over the fight, he still didn't feel great about losing his first fair scrimmage. He clearly had a long way to go.

Vasai hopped over the wall dexterously, and took his side of the arena, brandishing his wooden, rapier-like miniature lance.

"I have no idea what that thing is," Nolly whispered, leaning over towards Kaos, "has he ever fought before?"

"I really don't know?" Kaos replied, realizing that he hadn't actually known Vasai for long at all. "I also haven't seen the weapon before."

"That's because it's a custom job by one of the faculty members." came Dren'Dek's voice from behind them. The group ceased their activity and turned their attention towards Dren'Dek as he continued speaking, "It's called a Needle and was meant to be used as a quick, short-ranged piercing weapon, but the faculty member never really used it. Did you know what it was when you got it?" the instructor asked, raising an eyebrow towards Vasai.

"It looks kind of familiar," he replied thoughtfully, "but I mostly chose it because I just liked the weight and shape"

"I don't think anyone has used it before in this class so I'm not sure where the real version is, but if you prove proficient with it, I'll go through storage and see if I can find it for the future scrimmages."

Vasai nodded, and the heavy student resumed his attempt to get over the short wall.

Looking back to Kaos and Nolly, Dren'Dek began to speak again, "So, Kaos, when you are up against a longer ranged weapon, you are usually going to be at a disadvantage and should try to use the crossbow. Given the lack of a crossbow, you did almost everything you could correctly. Your main mistake was getting too close to your opponent. You judged her by her weapon, and forgot about the fact that she has a physical advantage. Your arms and legs are weapons too after all."

Kaos nodded, and realized that his mistake was pretty foolish to discount the physique of his opponent and treat the battle as if he were solely fighting a halberd.

Turning to Nolly, the instructor continued, "You are going to want to either be making space or taking space between you and your opponent. You fought well, but be sure to think more about tactics in the future, you have some good strength, but that won't be enough to get you into the Dek class."

Nolly nodded again, and the professor turned to face the ring where Vasai and the other student stood ready.

"Begin!" he said, swinging his hand down, and walking away to a different ring that had just finished their duel.

There were a few moments after the round started that both parties stayed still, waiting for the other to make a move first. Perhaps being a little put-off by how casually Vasai was acting in the ring, the heavy student swung a powerfully wild swing at his opponent, accompanied by a loud grunt.

This student was serious, and if Vasai got hit by one of those swings, there was a chance it could be really dangerous. Kaos looked at Nolly, who seemed even more worried than he did, and quietly asked, "Should we get Dren'Dek?"

"Maybe a good idea." she responded, dashing over a few rings to the instructor, and pointing back towards the heated swings of the heavy student.

By the time Dren'Dek had walked back over, the heavy student had somehow turned up the intensity and speed of his swings. Although the swings were heavy and fast, Vasai had managed to dodge all of them with catlike reflexes that Kaos hadn't expected him to have.

"Are you not going to stop them?" Kaos asked, looking at Dren'Dek, a little worried.

"You can heal him if something goes wrong, right?" Dren'Dek replied, looking back at Kaos.

"Yeah, I guess, but this just seems… a bit much." Kaos said, a little less worried than earlier, now that Dren'Dek was watching.

After one particularly large swing from the hammer, Vasai made his move, closing the gap between them, and leaping over another hammer swing that was aimed for his legs. He came down feet first on the torso of his opponent, toppling him over, and landing, standing on top of him, with the Needle pressed up against his upper chest.

Neither Nolly or Kaos expected to see a move like that from Vasai, even after his display of incredible reflexes. Vasai hopped off of his opponent's stomach, and plopped down to a sitting position on the wall, breathing heavily.

"Dang, Bon! You really gave me a run for my money!" Vasai said between heavy breaths, "If I had any heavier of a weapon, I would've been screwed!"

Kaos knew that this was obviously an attempt to make Bon feel better about his loss, in fact, this was probably one of the worst weapon matchups Vasai could have had, but he had won it anyway.

Bon, however, did not appreciate this attempt, swinging his hammer wildly as he got up, catching Vasai off guard, slamming into his chest, knocking him backwards outside of the ring, and sprawling onto the ground.

"It's not over until the ref calls the match as over!" Bon shouted, his face red. He whipped around and his red face quickly turned white as he saw Dren'Dek standing beside Kaos and Nolly.

"The element of surprise is part of battle right?" Bon said, trying to salvage the situation.

"So is losing." Dren'Dek replied coldly, "and you evidently haven't even learned how to do that well… but you had better learn it quickly."

"Yes sir" Bon said quietly, beads of sweat rolling down his downturned face.

Dren'Dek turned towards Vasai who had gotten back up, but was still trying to steady himself.

"Kaos." Dren'Dek said, gesturing for Kaos to use his wish on Vasai.

"Hold up!" came Vasai's voice, as he staggered to a more stable standing position, "I'm good!"

"You sure?" Kaos asked skeptically, already halfway to him.

"Yeah man!" Vasai replied, turning his head upwards and breathing a long deep breath, "He didn't really hit me as hard as he could've, it was the fall that knocked the wind out of me."

Despite the impact and the fall, Vasai didn't seem to be dangerously hurt at first glance, but Kaos knew that he was definitely hiding the pain to make sure Bon didn't get in extra trouble.

Dren'Dek narrowed his eyes a bit at Vasai and then Bon.

"Very well." Dren'Dek said, nodding to Vasai, and then walking back to the ring he had previously been observing.

"Good game!" Vasai said, trying to ease the tension between everyone, extending his hand over the ring towards Bon, who gripped his hand tightly.

"Sure…" Bon responded a little resentfully under his breath.

Vasai walked back over to Kaos and slapped him on the shoulder, seemingly unphased by what had just happened.

"I'm gonna sit this next one out," he laughed, and motioned for Kaos to hop back in the ring.

The rest of the class went by fairly normally, with Kaos getting occasional wins against Bon and Nolly, but still losing the majority against Nolly. Bon seemed angrier and a little embarrassed the next few fights, but he didn't swing as if he was trying to kill somebody anymore.

Vasai had clearly been hit harder than he was letting on and sat out the remaining matches.

Why Vasai had covered for this idiot was something Kaos couldn't figure out. Maybe he was some kind of saint, or maybe he just hated to see conflict. Either way, Kaos took note of Vasai's odd lack of vengefulness, and decided to ask him why he let Bon off the hook sometime when less people were around.