Valterion: The Space/Arch? Mage

Chapter 105: Improvised Combat (2)

Location: Magicon Empire; Magicon System; Terra; Imperia; FBC

“If you ever face a hostile A&D Mage, YOU RUN THE FUCK AWAY!”

Silence descends upon the classroom. Everyone stares at the tiny woman before us. Her outburst came completely unexpected. Who would have expected her to let out such a shout?

A minute later someone clears his throat. I think he’s called Hector. “Uh, why are we here then…?”

Olivia’s grin is back, and she jumps back onto the counter of the small coffee shop/classroom we’re currently in. “Excellent question. While it’s always best to run away, or in the case of our Space Mages, simply teleport away, there are situations where you can’t do that. For situations like that, we’re here in this course.”

Her gaze wanders again, and she looks everyone in the eyes – One after the other. “But you guys need to get this into your head. If. You. Ever. Face. A. Hostile. A&D Mage. You. Run. Away!”

I nod slowly, thinking about what she just said. She’s right of course. The purpose of A&D magic is to attack and defend. How can any other class of magic ever match this in combat? Now looking back, we were fortunate with our pirate encounter. Without Lucy’s A&D magic, the pirates’ A&D Mage would have cut the Stargazer in half! Improvising wouldn’t have helped at all.

Understanding dawns on a lot of faces around me, and Olivia nods once. “Good, you get it. Now let me tell you what to do if you are in a situation where you can’t run. Can someone give me an example of such a situation?”

A few hands go up, and Olivia chooses a brown-haired woman. “If we’re in a group, or with a lot of children or something?”

That earns her a thumbs-up from Olivia and someone else is quick to speak up. It’s one of the other Space Mages in this course.

“Why don’t we simply teleport the attacker away if we’re in a group and can’t run?”

“Good thought,” Olivia replies. “But most of the time, this option isn’t viable. You see, to teleport another Mage against their will, you need to be considerably stronger. At least one level of power higher. So, if the attacker is a Senior, you need to be a Master Space Mage. And you all know how rare high-level Space Mages are outside of Noble circles.”

Now everyone looks at me, and I blush.

“Yes, Sara here could probably go with that option, but this should always be the second option. At her strength, it’s easier to simply grab her own group and teleport away. In the heat of things, you can always misjudge your opponent’s strength which could lead to lethal consequences if you fail to teleport your opponent.”

A knock on the door interrupts Olivia. Her brow furrows and she waves her hand again. The door opens and shows a massive man with an even bigger beard. He looks young though.

“Yo Liv, did you forget the time again?”

Olivia’s eyes widen slightly. “Shit! Sorry Tony, I got lost in the flow, one second.”

She turns back to us. “Guys, this is Tony, he’s my fellow instructor and it looks like we overshot the first half of our lesson. Soo, we’ll be continuing in half an hour, see you soon.”

With that, she stands up and walks to the exit. Then she leaves with Tony. I look at Lydia. “Are you hungry?”

“No, not really… But we can go if you want.”

“Nah, I can wait as well.”

A few others come over to our table, including Kevin the A&D Mage. “So, what do you all think of this class?” He asks.

Hector, a tall and thin guy shrugs. “I kinda like it. It’s different, you know? Olivia seems nice as well, and competent. I can’t wait for the second half of the course today.”

I nod my agreement. “Yeah, I really want to see her fight… She’s so tiny.” I look at Kevin and raise an eyebrow. “You up for a spar with her later on?”

He stands up straight, a big grin on his face and lifts his hand. A small flame appears. “I’d be delighted to!”

That earns him a few laughs and Hector pats his shoulder. “Bro, I’ll ask you again once Olivia is done with you. She’ll surely wipe the floor with you.”

We spend the rest of the break with idle bantering until Olivia returns half an hour later. Before she can restart the lesson, Hector speaks up. “Hey Olivia, Kevin here wants to play training dummy for you later in the practicals.”

Olivia grins wolfishly and looks at Kevin. “Are you sure?”

He gulps but nods. “Yeah… I’ve got this.” Then he continues to punch Hector in the arm who just laughs.

“Alright, you get your chance in just a moment. I’ve got two more things to tell you before we can do our first practical exercises. First, does anyone already know martial arts?”

This time only two people lift their hands and Olivia acknowledges them. “That’s not surprising. Interest in martial arts has been on a steady decline in the past years. I do recommend looking into it though. Knowing how to punch things, or to take someone down without weapons could be the one thing to save you in the end.”

I make a mental note of that. It might be worth looking into learning something like that. Those kung-fu movies I watched when I was younger were fun after all.

Olivia jumps off the counter and stands now behind it again. She bends down and disappears from view. Then she stands back up, now holding a broom with a plastic handle in her hand? The hell?

She gives it a few test swings, before swinging it down on the counter with all her might. The handle breaks into a thousand pieces of course, and Olivia wears a satisfied grin. We all stare back at her in shock.

“That’s the second thing I have to tell you. Things break when you hit them. Especially when they are hit by an attack spell. But,” she pauses, bends down again, and produces a second broom.

“There is a way around it.” I feel a tickle of magic emanating from Olivia and settling around the broom, then she smashes it on the counter. This time the handle stays intact, and the whole broom bounces back from the counter.

“This, my friends is the Reinforcement spell. A spell we’ll all be learning over the following weeks. This spell can save your life! And the best part is, you can use it with anything. Hell, you can even reinforce your breakfast toast and club someone on the head with it.”

Lydia starts snickering next to me, and a smile finds its way onto my face as well. The picture of the toast is just so funny.

“Now, that’s enough talking, let’s start with the practical part.” She looks at Kevin. “Kevin, are you ready?”

He stands up and walks toward the counter. “I am.”

Olivia stands opposite him, broom still in hand. “Perfect, I won’t be using the Reinforcement spell this time, just to show everyone what improvised combat is all about. In the following weeks, we’ll do a few scenarios where we’re using the actual setting we are in, but for now, we’re just going to face off.”

She slaps her chest and a translucent shield forms around her body. “Okay, Lydia, can you count us in? And Kevin, do your worst, I’m shielded.”

Lydia stands up and starts to count. “Three… Two… One… Fight!”

Then all hell breaks loose.

Kevin immediately throws up a Shield spell around himself, then takes two steps back and lifts one of his hands. A red blade materializes before the hand, just outside his shield. He throws the blade toward Olivia with a flick of his wrist. The blade is fast, but Olivia has already dived out of the way which means, the blade flies past her, harmlessly.

It does fly straight for one of the empty tables in the room though… Before it can smash it to pieces, a small shield appears mid-air and stops the blade. I didn’t feel Olivia cast any magic… Was that some piece of Magitech?

Olivia meanwhile hasn’t been idle, and throws the broom at Kevin’s feet, right after she gets back up from her dive. It doesn’t even hit Kevin’s shield, as it lands right before his feet. His gaze still follows the flying broom, and so he misses that Olivia immediately starts running after the broom.

When he looks back up, it’s just early enough to see her flying kick connecting with his shield spell. Unsurprisingly, it holds strong, but the momentum Has Kevin staggering backward.

Olivia lands in a roll and grabs onto the broom again. Then she gets back up with a grin on her face. She proceeds to throw the broom at him a second time. This time, her aim is true. Kevin notices as well and casts another spell. A blast of wind throws the broom right back at Olivia. She grins even wider, steps to the side, and lets the broom pass her harmlessly.

Then she jumps over the counter and hides behind it. Kevin now also wears a confident smirk, and for the first time, he steps forward. He casts another two spells and is now surrounded by a few fireballs and arrow-formed pieces of stone. He jumps onto the counter and is about to throw his spells down at Olivia.

We all haven’t seen what she has done in the time hidden behind the counter, so we’re all surprised, when she stands back up with a fire extinguisher in hand, already mid-swing.

I think Kevin is surprised the most, as he forgets to throw his spells and even loses control of them. The fireballs fly off in every direction, where they are intercepted by the same Magitech shields from earlier. His stone arrows simply fall to the ground and splinter.

Olivia’s fire extinguisher continues on its trajectory and connects with Kevin’s shins. Well, with the shield around his shins. It still causes him to take a step back.

That’s the final mistake he makes, as his foot finds empty air and he falls off the counter. This also shatters his remaining concentration and his shield shatters when he lands on his backside. Olivia immediately capitalizes on this situation. She grabs a kitchen knife, jumps over the counter again, and mimes to stab toward Kevin’s throat. She stops far enough away from Kevin to keep him out of danger, but his eyes open comically, and he admits defeat.

His breath is heavy. “Holy shit, that was intense!”

We all just stare at Olivia. She completely outclassed Kevin. Sure, I don’t know how experienced he is with A&D magic, but he threw out a lot of spells. Spells that I didn’t even know existed a few months earlier.

Olivia holds out her hand to help Kevin stand back up. He gladly takes it, and returns to his seat, looking a bit embarrassed. Hector claps his back and whispers something into his ear. It must have been something nice, as his expression softens a bit.

Olivia wipes her forehead with a kitchen rag and sits back at the counter. “I hope you now get why I told you to run away if you can. It’s always like walking on a tightrope. One mistake, and you’re dead. Can someone describe what I did right, and what Kevin did wrong?”

I don’t need to think about it much, as it was pretty clear what happened, so I lift my hand. I look at all the others and notice that I’m the only one with their hand up. Didn’t they see it? Olivia nods at me, so I speak up.

“Well, I think it was pretty obvious. You pretty much controlled the fight from the beginning. You never let Kevin enter the flow of battle and always kept him on the back foot. The thrown broom was brilliant. It completely surprised him but was only a distraction in the end which opened him up for your follow-up attack. That was brilliantly executed. I mean you used his distraction and jumped him. Something no one would ever expect a non-A&D Mage to do. Then your tactical retreat when you noticed that you didn’t get his shield to collapse. Hiding out of sight is always good, it opens up countless possibilities as your opponent literally can’t see you anymore. Then the fire extinguisher to his legs. You used the one vulnerability he had and capitalized on it. In the end, the knife finished it, but the fight was lost way earlier. Kevin never stood a chance.”

There is a sudden silence in the room, everyone stares at me. “What?” I ask.

Olivia closes her mouth again after it dropped open. “That’s right… How’d you notice all this? I had a whole lesson planned to show you everything you just said.”

“Uhh, I guess I’ve got an eye for those things? I don’t know, those things simply stood out to me.”

“You might be a natural talent for this course… But this also opens up a lot of possibilities. As we now don’t have to deconstruct the exhibition fight, we can now continue with our first training exercises. Everyone, stand up please and walk toward the counter.”

Let’s see how this goes!