Emily pushes open the doors to a familiar training hall and steps in.

The scuffling sounds of combat fall silent as her presence washes over the room, and the mages grappling each other on the floor go still as their heads turn to the doors.

"Emily?" Agnes says, stepping away from where she was leaning against the wall and flashing her a manic smile. "You're back! How was the war?"

"It was-" Emily says, raising a hand to catch Agnes' leg as the woman activates her tattoos and shoots across the room, in the blink of an eye to her students, but at a crawl for Emily, "-fun. I've always wanted to fight a kingdom alone."

"Haha, I knew you'd enjoy yourself," Agnes replies, relaxing her mana flow and retracting her leg as she looks Emily over, letting her gaze linger on the mechanical arm that blocked her with burning curiosity in her eyes. "So, what are you doing here? Well done on your ascension and all, but I'm not sure I can keep up in a spar if that's what you're after. Not that I could before you left either."

With an amused snort and a blank stare, Emily shakes her head, flexing her hand and ejecting a long blade from the palm.

"I just came by to say hi and see if you wanted to watch a spar, actually. I promised Virgil some fun and thought you might be interested. Bring your class if you want, I'm making a show of it."

Agnes raises a brow, tearing her focus away from admiring Emily's arm to search her face for an explanation. She gets nothing and shrugs, turning to address her students.

"You heard the woman! Class is dismissed, but if you want to see what you're working towards, come along."

Emily leads the way out towards the closest transportation circles as Mensacus and Agnes fall in step on either side of her.

"This is my son, Mensacus, and my daughter, Silica," Emily explains after noticing Agnes' curious glances past her. "I sent my apprentice to collect Virgil; they'll meet us outside the city walls."

"Kids and apprentices? Damn, you've really been busy," Agnes chuckles before dropping into a whisper, unheard by the following mages. "Outside the walls, though? What gives? I assumed the new crest means you've made some kind of deal with the king, but I doubt that'll hold if you break our sworn secrecy."

"Oh, I did, but this is part of it."

Emily doesn't explain further, slipping into a casual catch-up instead as they make their way out of The Dome, picking up a few more curious mages, invited by their friends, on the way. A few of those following them bear the crests of families on Emily's list, but she lets them tag along all the same.

Outside, she gathers everyone on a platform of solid air and flies them over the city, letting more and more stunned citizens follow the casual magical display.

"So, any reason you haven't given yourself any of these yet?" Agnes asks, as they approach Elisime looming in the distance, tapping the twisting tattoos creeping up her arms. "Should I be worried?"

"Not at all, those were some of my finest work," Emily responds with a hint of pride bleeding through her dampening as she looks over the complicated patterns traced over Agnes' muscles. "I just haven't deemed it worth the effort yet. I'd need to redo them with each ascension, and I've been progressing very fast till now."

"Oh? You don't think you can reach the legendary fifth circle with ease? Colour me surprised."

"I never said that, but I do think runic tattoos could interfere with one of the processes I believe is required to reach the next level, if I'm not careful."

"Wait… seriously?" Agnes asks with wide eyes. "You know how to reach fifth circle?"

Emily flashes her a fleeting grin in place of a response, lowering the group to the ground below her ship. She sends up a machina signal as they touch down, releasing several Cutters and a swarm of bird-shaped drones from Elisime and sending them off into the distance.

"What are they for?" Agnes questions, looking up at the activity in the sky. "You using them in the spar?"

"No." Emily shakes her head, glancing over at a burning fireball arcing over Chroni, carrying Virgil, Pod, and half a dozen other mages towards them. "But what's the point in sowing fear if I have no eyes in the sky to watch my targets panic?"

Virgil touches down, dispersing his flaming ride and marching up to Emily with a battle-thirsty grin.

"Are you ready?" he asks, practically spitting fire in his excitement.

"Of course." Emily nods, stepping forward and waving everybody else back. "How about we make this more interesting with a few ground rules and a wager?"

"Sure!" Virgil beams, knocking his fists together. "What did you have in mind?"

"We fight till one of us surrenders. No pre-made weapons, including the attachments for my arm," she says, holding up her left hand and gesturing towards the ship above to make her point. "And we must both use fire alone, not a single other element."

"Those are just handicaps for you."

"Exactly."

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Virgil barks out a laugh, and the air around him quivers as his temperature rises.

"Sure. What about the wager?"

"If you win, I'll make you a single weapon of your choice," Emily says, beginning to stretch despite having no need, following her old pre-spar routine. "But when I win, you give me a fourth circle spell of your creation."

Virgil doesn't miss the confident taunt in her phrasing, but it only stretches his grin wider as he nods in agreement.

"Deal."

Flames explode from both of them as Virgil leaps back, shooting jets of fire from his fists to propel himself away and gain distance as he begins weaving runes around himself. Emily takes the opposite approach, bending the burning mana flowing from her skin into a set of gauntlets and charging forward, keeping pace despite not using any spell to boost herself.

She lashes out, driving her fist towards Virgil's stomach, but an explosion from his shoulder launches him out of the way, sending him into a rapid spin that he uses to throw a flaming kick towards her head. Emily meets foot with fist, parrying his blow but ducking and rolling to avoid the raging explosion that follows, forcing her back.

"Damn you're fast," Virgil mutters with a hint of awe in his tone, launching a burning spear that forms over his shoulder. "That a spell?"

"No," Emily replies, catching the magical construct and spinning, redirecting its momentum to send it rocketing towards her opponent's face. "Just me."

Virgil disperses his attack before it can hit him, his momentary distraction giving Emily a chance to close the distance again. She reforms her gauntlets into two batons and swipes at his legs, forcing him to flip out of the way to avoid losing his kneecaps. As his hands touch the ground though, the twisting runes forming around him pulse and a flood of mana rushes into the earth.

In an instant, the ground cracks open as a sea of tiny flaming sprouts push their way up through the surface. Emily jumps before any of them can touch her, tossing her weapons and letting go of their forms, turning them into two jets of fire that propel her back dozens of metres to leave the slowly growing field around Virgil.

The sprouts closest to him grow rapidly, blooming into flaming flowers that stretch up to his thighs, but the height of the plants reduces the further they get from him.

A twisting matrix of burning orange runes forms around Emily's legs, turning into tornadoes of fire that lift her from the ground as she kicks up and over the flower field. Virgil grins as she approaches, holding his hand out and flicking his fingers towards the sky.

Several flowers next to him burst, erupting in fountains of red-hot petals that block Emily's advance. She twists, driving a foot into the barrier and launching back to approach from a different angle, where the same thing happens again.

Some of the smaller flowers behind her tilt, aiming at her back before popping and shooting out their stems. They move so fast she barely has time to react, and one of them slams into her spine before she can deflect it, heating her thin armour but not breaking through.

Emily twists, dropping down to plant her hands on the scorching hot ground before pushing up into a whirlwind of feet, shredding the fires trying to burn her and giving her a moment to spread a dense mist of her own mana, rapidly twisting it into a massive spell. Virgil directs his attacks towards the magic circle she's trying to form, waving his arms like a conductor guiding his symphony, but for every rune he shatters, she forms three more in its place.

Their delicate dance continues for several seconds before Emily finally completes her spell, and the air fills with tiny orange fireflies sparkling with white highlights. The burning bugs disperse, targeting the flowers and detonating with small pops as they dismantle Virgil's control.

He clicks his tongue, raising a wave of petals and using them to try to intercept the bugs, but as he's focused on the magical tug of war, Emily slams her foot into the ground and shoots forward. She targets a small patch of broken flowers, slipping through a gap in the wall of fire Virgil raises to block her and pivoting to drive her foot into his chest.

The fire around her legs washes over him as he's sent flying back, and his spell shatters as he hits the floor in a roll, tumbling back to his feet.

"Hahaha, I really can't take my eyes off you," Virgil beams, patting down his fire-resistant robes and wrapping himself in a burning dome of heat as runes begin gathering above his head. "Block this and we'll call it your win!"

Emily recognises the spell he's constructing as Hibiscus Burst, the same single-target attack spell he used to nearly take down Calypso. Flashing him a matching grin and burning her machina to keep her battle lust going, Emily digs her feet in to meet his spell head-on.

She channels more and more mana into the flight spell around her legs, carefully switching out several of the runes forming it to change its purpose without destabilising it. As Virgil's attack is halfway to completion, her mana finally starts rushing out into the ground below, shooting down with the force of a burning sun. The ground beneath her softens and deforms, bubbling with heat as she pulls on the mana suffusing it, lifting the forming magma to create nine layers of roiling shields.

The beautiful, crimson flower above Virgil twists in on itself, compressing and rotating as it builds up pressure.

Their spectators are forced to throw up several water-based barriers to fend off the heat emanating from their battle, but they shatter the moment Virgil releases his attack as a wave of heat washes over them.

The Hibiscus Burst rockets forwards, boring into Emily's shields and shattering several layers that then fold back in towards the centre to smother the projectile. The scorching, melted rock applies so much pressure that the rotating, pure-mana-projectile disperses after penetrating only four layers, leaving Emily unharmed but dripping with sweat as she slowly lowers the molten earth around her.

It has cost her almost half her mana to change the environment so extremely, but the look of awe on her opponent's face, and horror on over half the onlookers, makes it worth it.

"Did you use earth for that, or did you really just make magma with a bit of fire?" Virgil asks as he steps forward to inspect the rapidly cooling ground.

"I'd never cheat in a duel," Emily replies, letting her emotions peter out and her face fall back to neutral.

"Crazy. Well, it's my loss." Virgil admits defeat, but the wide grin stretching his cheeks as he bends down to prod the ground doesn't show even a hint of dissatisfaction. "I kind of wish you'd agreed to give me some spells. I never even thought to try something like this. What gave you the idea?"

"I met a mage in New Denntimo with a dual affinity for fire and earth. She combined her elements to create magma, so I thought to do the same. Though achieving the same result without earthen mana is only possible due to my unnaturally large reserves. This was by no means efficient."

Virgil barks out another laugh and rises up to slap her on the shoulder, unbothered by her emotionless stare that drifts away to scan the watching Covenant mages. Emily sees fear and concern etched across the faces of those she's marked, along with a healthy dose of awe that spreads to those she has no argument with.

A spark of excitement ignites in Emily's heart, fed by a constant stream of machina.

She catches several of the marked mages starting murmured conversations they don't realise she can hear, complaining under their breaths about the excessive display of magic out in the open, so close to the city and the ignorant commoners within.

Perfect. Go report to your masters just how little I care for the norms they want to uphold. Let's see if they're more concerned with maintaining their hold on power or running for their lives.

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