“FUCK OFF!!” the kind old man scread at the top of his lungs and with a gesture of his hands launched his giant spiky ball of death at the masked hooded figure that approached him, radiating killing intent.
So, he’s human after all, Beatrice concluded when the man let his frustration take over.
The second flight of the death ball proved less successful than the first. The masked girl simply dodged to the side as the weapon zapped past her. The ball crashed into one of the straight walls of the mines, less than fifty feet below one of the lesser platforms on which so hundred spectators stood and observed the fight. The crash was powerful enough for the people standing there to notice minor vibrations.
“Oh no!” the announcer exclaid as if she was worried. “A miss! It looks like in his fit of impotent rage the niece-fucker missed his one chance to kill—”
Another loud blast of tal against tal spread through the arena when the tal ball scored a direct hit against the masked girl’s lower back, sending her flying several feet forward with her back forming an arch around the spot where she was struck.
The ball ricocheted away from the girl, but this ti Number Four did not wait for his opponent to recover and with his hands he redirected the spiky ball back at the airborne girl.
BAM! The ball crashed from above, slamming the girl into the ground. Another ricochet, another return. Again and again, Number Four pumled the girl into the ground. Five, six, seven consecutive strikes into a prone girl, each slower than the last.
Out of juice, Beatrice sighed.
Indeed, the eighth strike was far weaker than any previous ones, the tal ball barely ricocheted higher off the ground than a basketball would off a court. The final fall looked to be guided by gravity more than whatever magical force that controlled the sphere before. After the fall the heavy ball did not even bounce—it simply rolled off the motionless figure to the side as any plain heavy tal ball would.
“Most certainly a comndable effort and an impressive ball control!” the announcer comnted with a mix of revived excitent and not-so-subtle patronization. “No doubt that a regular citizen of Klapsus would be pumled into mush! But has he managed to put an end to miss Ru-NO! No, he hasn’t!”
Before Thelicia even finished her sentence, the ball-pounded girl moved her arms. The girl pushed against the ground with both hands and slowly—like soone who had just been knocked down by a direct hit to the head in a ga of dodgeball—got back on her feet, looking no worse for wear than possibly suffering from a minor concussion.
“A flying morning star, huh?” Ruby asked as she looked at the weapon that beat her body. “What a strange coincidence! I have sothing similar to offer!”
Ruby swiftly moved forward her arm and threw her dagger at Number Four. Though surprised, the old man managed to dodge the swift flying dagger just like Ruby dodged his attack. However, while the old man watched his back for an imminent counter-attack, Ruby sprinted to him, ducked, and slamd both open palms of her hands into his chest, blasting the old man high into the air above the arena.
“UNCLE!!” the pale, slender dark magician girl scread in fear for her uncle’s life.
Number Four flew through the flaming numbers that counted down the five minutes of this round, through the ethereal viewing sphere, montarily disrupting the image, and flew further up until he slamd into the shadowy ceiling high above the arena.
“Ah! I Need to get used to this,” Ruby muttered as she looked above and watched the old man’s motionless body fall back down.
“Let see…” Ruby raised her hands, aiming at Number Four’s body that already fell back through the viewing sphere and the flaming numbers and—just so thirty feet over her head—managed to slow the man’s fall, leaving him hovering in the air up above her.
“Miss Ruby is showing impressive control of levitation powers of her own!” Thelicia said. “But isn’t she just levitating a dead body?”
“Only one way to find out,” Ruby said and—holding one hand aid at Number Four—gestured with her other hand to the side. The next second a dagger flew from the side of the arena and pierced the man’s knee, forcing an agonizing scream from the reawakened man.
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