Not Like This

Kaos surfaced out of the sand, once again properly landing on his feet. He was pissed.

"I assume we lost?" came the voice of Nolly who was in the process of standing up.

Kaos looked at Vasai, who had been the last one alive for confirmation of the team's loss. Vasai shrugged and nodded in confirmation that he died too.

"When the wings disappeared, I was halfway to the watchtower, and the fall got me." Vasai explained.

"We would've had them if the arena hadn't thrown a building at me!" Kaos grumbled at the unfair treatment.

Then he remembered the words he saw after he died.

[NOT LIKE THIS]

It was the same thing that his so-called 'intrusive thoughts' had been yelling at him moments earlier. Was it a coincidence, or did he just imagine it? Either way though, something weird happened with the arena and that much was undeniable.

Kaos recalled the moments before he turned to sand. In all the other matches the arena had stayed static throughout the battles, only changing in between fights, but it had changed during the fight unexpectedly. It even changed in a way that even ended up killing him. He had seen magic recordings of a few occasions where arenas had acted in unexpected ways like that, but they were very rare. Although there weren't any points on the line, it still sucked to lose exclusively because the arena threw a fit.

"I felt like there was nothing I could really do there!" Gilt yelled in frustration, "I may have a longbow, but that doesn't really help me much when they have longer range, and lots of cover!"

"I just fought pretty bad." Nolly chimed in, disappointed.

"I spent most of the time just running back and forth" Kaos said, "Like most of the time I wasn't fighting, I was-"

"It was fun though." Vasai cut him off in a calm, but slightly stern tone, "The arena was cool, we learned stuff, and it was fun. Right?"

"Yeah…" Kaos replied in a hushed tone, followed by agreement from the other two team members.

"Vasai," Kaos smiled, "You can either have a bad personality, or be bad at stuff, but you aren't supposed to be able to get both."

The group chuckled, and began to walk out of the arena as the next group entered. Sure they had lost because of some weird arena glitch, but they still had one more scrimmage to get even better before the first real arena game, and if he had some way of getting just a few more points, he would easily make it into the Dek class.

"Gilt," Kaos said, realizing they hadn't cemented him as a part of their more permanent team, "you wanna stay on our team and practice together, or you have something else lined up for the actual games?"

Gilt thought for a moment and then replied,

"Yeah, I mean I don't really have other plans, so I guess I will unless something crazy happens. I'm in the combat class right after early morning combat class, which one are you all in?"

"Also that one." Nolly replied furrowing her brow at Gilt as if trying to recall if she saw him there.

"Well… that's awkward…" Gilt responded with a chuckle, "I guess there's a lot of people there so I didn't recognize you, but I'll be looking out for you all next time. I gotta meet up with some people though, so I'll see you later."

After a few quick waves from the other three, he left towards the food court.

"So I guess we'll all be seeing each other tomorrow morning for combat class then?" Kaos asked, realizing that although his body wasn't injured, there was still a significant amount of fatigue.

"Early morning combat class is honestly not sounding fun right now." Nolly said, squinting her eyes and shaking her head.

After they had parted ways, Kaos had made a beeline for his room, ready to get some rest. He kicked off his shoes and flopped directly on his bed, ready to fall asleep, only for his mind to once again start thinking about the golden words that appeared after the arena's strange behavior.

The voice in his head had become a lot clearer recently, and he wondered if it was the mental strain of his current classes combined with constant combat training outside of the classes and studying.

Depending on the style of arena game, he figured he could use his wish to weasel his way into the Dek class, but at that point he was still a support, and there would come a time where he couldn't rely on other people to get points for him. He was powerful as is, but he couldn't see a way to get stronger himself. So what if he could win with his wish? Sure he wanted to win…

"But 'not like this'…" he mumbled to himself, remembering the words the voice in his head spoke, that he later saw in the golden sand.

"Maybe the arenas are powered by people's thoughts or something?" he thought to himself, unable to wrap his mind around what had happened, and figuring his intrusive thoughts were better left undisturbed.

There had to be something more, some way for him to become stronger, some way for him to use his wish for himself. Magic engineering had proved helpful with Mallyjax's crossbow, but he knew he didn't have the skills at it to make that his ticket to graduating from the Dek class, and general magic had still mostly been theory and textbooks so far, but there was still a chance that could help him out.

He wanted to fight. Not hide behind other people while they used his wish to win. There had to be something he could do.