Jaux Ballad has always wanted to enter the realm of magic, but could not do so by regular means. In his desperation to become a magician he finds himself with more power, and more trouble, than he could ever have imagined.

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Tricks was the first to strike. She stabbed her pearl wand forward, and a beam of concentrated light shot through the air.

Desyi's defense was just as quick. The air directly in front of her dropped down by a huge amount as soon as she noticed Tricks had raised a wand.

The beam of bright light struck a wall of dry ice, releasing a great cloud of white mist from the sublimation of frozen air. The shining white beam could not fully pierce through the sheet of dull smoke-colored ice, instead Desyi was hidden behind the resulting smokescreen.

A suit of armor made from white ice leapt out from the smokescreen, landing dead in the middle of Desyi's side of the field. The tall grass she stood on began to freeze into rigid spikes under her feet, then the frozen effect slowly spread through the field like a pandemic.

Tricks was gone. Her invisibility spell had already been casted, letting her vanish from the battlefield.

Half a dozen shining bright orbs appeared high in the sky, and each began to rain down pillars of bright light at the armored Desyi.

The light did not miss their target, but Desyi remained standing unfazed. Her armor of white was barely affected under the glow of Tricks' light magic.

White had always been a difficult color for light to burn. It reflected so much of the energy away. The barely transparent nature of the dry ice also helped defend against Tricks' light. The little bits of dry ice that had been sublimated off the armor by the heating strikes were easily replaced with more frozen air.

"Not gonna do anything?" Tricks' voice echoed through the arena. "Just gonna stand there and freeze the place?"

"I'm not the wasteful type, Tricks." Desyi's replied, her voice slightly muffled behind the plates of her frost armor.

An array of large head-sized light orbs formed randomly in the arena, before they all flew over and danced above Desyi's head.

A blinding tower of light smashed down on top of the frost white armor. For several seconds, nearly every spectator had to look off to the side as the light glimmered with the intensity of the sun.

The grass beneath Desyi's feet had been thawed and burnt dry from the assault of light. Desyi's armor had also been smoothed out by the blinding attack, but the thin white gas surrounding her soon condensed back into the armor. If the grass hadn't been cooked by the tower of light, it would look like Desyi was still unaffected.

"Good gods I hate your armor." Tricks muttered with her eerie voice.

"Light's a lot more expensive to cast than my ice," noted the armored girl, "you're gonna have to use something else or you'll be tapped out."

In the seconds before Tricks' next move, the grass beneath Desyi's feet had been crisply frozen once more. A smooth layer of ice had covered most of the open side of the arena by now.

A loud thump abruptly filled the air, and Desyi was blasted off the ground by an invisible force. The armored girl landed into the field of sharp frozen grass, causing a loud crunch as the rigid grass blades shattered.

Desyi stood back up steadily, shaking her head a bit from the disorientation. Spikes of ice shot out from her chest and her back, anchoring her armored self into the ground.

Another loud thump sounded out as Tricks' concentrated air slammed into Desyi. The ice spikes did their job, keeping Desyi rooting in place.

A great man-sized block of solid white ice was formed and then thrown into the air. It had been aimed at where Desyi believed she felt the gust of concentrated air bursting out from.

"Sorry, already moved." Tricks taunted with a harmony of her voice ringing out around Desyi.

Another giant block of ice was formed, but this time Desyi didn't throw it. The block of ice hung up above her, rotating lightly in the empty air. Then Desyi started to form a softer ball of what looked like snow between her hands.

The large ice ball was thrown high up in the sky. It hovered just around the center of the arena, and then exploded out into a cloud of dusty snow. On Desyi's side of the arena, something that was invisible in the air was hit by the explosion of snow. White frost hung in the air, sticking onto a floating air platform and an invisible human shape.

"Whoa, crap!" Tricks yelled out as the giant block of ice was hurled at her.

The heavy chunk of ice punched straight through the air platform. Tricks' snow veiled body could be seen jumping off a half second before the impact, landing onto the frozen grass below.

There was a crunch of breaking grass blades when Tricks landed, which helped to confirm the invisible girl's location along with the coat of snow.

Desyi fired off two bursts of freezing wind from her palms, both focused on Tricks' location. Tricks turned visible again as the icy winds began to freeze her skin. Then a moment later the winds seemed to be blocked, and ice instead began to form over an invisible dome that surrounded Tricks.

Upon seeing the dome, Desyi stopped casting her cold wind. The ice spikes that there anchoring her down broke off from her armor, before she bent her knees in a stance that looked prepared to run. Desyi crossed her armored arms in front of her face, while a ball of fire began to form behind her.

There was a booming burst of force as Desyi's ball of fire exploded. The armored girl was launched forward by the blast, shooting to Tricks' dome like a meteor. There was a dull thump as the armor punched through the concentrated air. Both Tricks and Desyi were shot out from the other side of the dome, landing a few meters away from one another.

The frozen grass crunched under the both of the girls, but Tricks didn't seem to touch the ground. An invisible forcefield surrounded Tricks, keeping everything a few centimeters away from her.

Tricks thrust out her pearl wand, and Desyi was knocked off into the distance by another shot of concentrated air. The two girls were close to the side of the arena now, so Desyi's body crashed right into the forcefield that surrounded the entire battlefield.

Combined with the damage from her own explosion, Desyi's defense was starting to crack. More bursts of concentrated air were fired off from Tricks' wand, which kept Desyi pinned against the forcefield. The white armor steadily crumbled from all the blows.

All of a sudden, Desyi exploded. The white armor was ripped off and shot out in shattered shards. Tricks had gotten too close, and had also been thrown off her feet by the force.

Desyi's entire body, clothing included, glowed in shades of red. A cloak of flames surrounded her, causing the air to shake from all the heat. She was also hovering in the air with motion magic, and looking down at Tricks.

Desyi punched forward, and a ball of flames struck down next to Tricks. In the moment of impact, there was an explosion of force that flung Tricks over to the other side of the arena's river.

Tricks' concentrated air armor still held out, protecting her as she was launched into a tree. The tree audibly snapped from the intensity of the crash.

Desyi flew over to the forest side of the arena, before bombarding Tricks with two gigantic flamethrowers. A blaze flooded over this side of the arena, igniting everything that would burn.

Tricks flew up out of the fire, her hair and clothes slightly singed from all the heat. The armor of dense air didn't help much against so much fire. Both of Tricks' hands gripped her pearl wand, which was pointed right towards Desyi.

Desyi tried to follow Tricks with the flamethrowers that were blaring from her palms, but Tricks was able to strike first with a bullet of white light.

The bullet had been made from both air and light, which knocked Desyi out of flight.

Desyi fell right into the river in the center of the arena, causing the water to evaporate into a heavy fog of steam.

Tricks pointed her want at Desyi again, and then all the water from the river began to concentrate around Desyi.

Desyi's red glow faded as the water pushed in. All the concentrated liquid seemed to root Desyi in place.

The sphere of dense water didn't need any more magic from Tricks to sustain itself, so Tricks lifted her wand and closed her eyes in concentration. While Tricks was concentrating, the entire arena room seemed to dim a little bit.

The water surrounding Desyi was all boiling now, and a great pillar of steam billowed up to the sky. In a few more seconds, Desyi managed to wrestle herself out from the water's grip, having reduced most of the liquid into gas.

A tiny dot of light hovered over right in front of Desyi when she broke free. As soon as Desyi's eyes spotted the little dot, she immediately leap away, while ice just barely had enough time to coat her body in a thin layer.

Everyone closed their eyes and looked away as the sun seemed to flash in for another glamorous appearance. The tiny dot had released a grand display of unyielding illumination, sparing no one from being blinded.

When the massive flare of radiating light finally dimmed away, the audience carefully turned back to see the aftermath. Desyi laid with her back against the empty riverbed. Her skin looked heavily blistered, and her eyes were squinted shut.

"You alright there Desyi?" Tricks asked, half with concern and half with triumph.

For a moment, there was some silence, then Desyi reached into her robe and pulled out her ruby wand.

"Not done yet, roomie." Desyi whispered out as she raised the wand high into the air.

Tricks flinched and covered her face, having expecting something to shoot out at her.

All the ice that covered the open side of the arena abruptly disappeared. The fire that was raging on the forest side of the arena also simultaneously stopped. Tricks felt as raw heat seemed to rush in from the forest behind her, but it wasn't hot enough to do any damage.

Tricks raised her head, confused. She didn't know what was happening, and the audience couldn't see anything either.

Invisible to the naked eye, cold and hot air collided together in the center of the arena. The swift freezing winds brushed against the slower heat, and together the forces began to swirl. The steam from all the evaporated river water was caught up in the twisting winds, finally giving the unseen forces some visible shape.

A great swirling white funnel appeared in the center of the arena, which steadily touched down onto the ground and covered Desyi.

A tornado now spun in the very middle of the battlefield. The winds began to pick up, affecting the entire arena with gale forces. Leaves, dirt, and grass blades were the first to begin flying up into the air, painting the sky with debris.

Desyi's ruby wand continued to feed the calamity with different temperatures of air, fueling the strength of the storm. Tricks' flight magic was overwhelmed by the force, and her body was soon pulled into the chaotic winds.

The two rocks on the field were then lifted into the twister, shortly followed by the trees as they were torn out of the earth. Tricks' body was smashed against all the flying wreckage, the combined impact from all the different types of collisions injured Tricks. The dense air armor was no help against the sheer volume of random strikes.

For almost two whole minutes, Trick was thrown about like a rag doll. Then Desyi stopped fueling the tornado, and all the debris was flung back down to the arena.

Tricks landed roughly into the bare ground, which had been stripped down to rocky soil. She was moaning in pain from all her twisted limbs.

"You alright there, Tricks?" Desyi giggled as she sat up from the empty riverbed.