A few hours later she hears a knock on her door.
"Laura, it's time."
Avery's voice calls to her as she's deep in thought. Laura gets up from her bed and opens the door.
"Let's do this Avery."
The two of them head to the entrance to the arena where they find Roderick waiting for them.
"Are you ready Laura?"
"As I'll ever be."
Roderick gives a slight chuckle before turning his attention to Avery.
"Did you tell her Laura?"
"Yes I did."
Roderick looks sullen.
"I'm sorry Laura but there's been a change in plans for the fights today."
"What kind of changes?"
"Well princess Vivian has changed some things. She's requested that you fight in every match today as a gauntlet style challenge."
"Huh, why?"
"I didn't ask why, I just answered yes."
"Do the other's know?"
"Not yet, I'm about to tell them.
***
Up in the suites reserved for the nobility, Vivian and the rest of the royal family sit in extravagantly fancy seats surrounded by guards and protective magic. The king of the kingdom, king Thomas is quite confused as to why his daughter has chosen this place to celebrate her birthday.
"Vivian dear I must ask you. Why did you choose the colosseum for your birthday?"
Vivian cutely chuckles at his question.
"It's quite obvious right father? It's because this will be the final time anyone will get to see that demon girl Laura fight in this place and I wanted to see how she does against the other top fighters. It's a once in a lifetime chance."
The queen, Queen Marie, frowns at Vivian's choice of venue.
"I personally find blood sport such as this to be abhorrent."
"Please mother don't be like that. After all Laura will be ours after this is over."
"I still have no idea why you decided to buy that demon. Out of all the things you could have asked for you choose to buy a demon colosseum fighter? It baffles my mind as to what's going on in that head of your Vivian."
Vivian brings a finger to her lips. "It's a secret father."
"Just so long as you keep that thing in check we'll have no problems."
***
Back in the area where the fighters wait to enter the arena. Laura, Eleonora, Kana, Royce and The Harbinger all stand waiting for Roderick to finish the introduction to the fights. Eleonora keeps stealing glances at Laura but Laura ignores her.
Roderick's voice booms out across the colosseum.
"We are now heading into our first fight of the day between Laura and Kana!"
Laura turns to her opponent.
"Is there anything you want to say before we start?"
Kana shakes her head.
"Not a thing. I'm here to put on a good show."
Royce smiles at the two girls.
"Make sure you two do that. Just don't make the fight so good to the point where every fight after pales in comparison."
The two girls nod in agreement as the begin to walk out.
"I can't believe they changed the matchups at the very last minute." Kana mumbles.
"It's the whim of a princess, there's nothing we can do."
"It's even worse for you isn't it, since you'll be hers after today."
"So Roderick told you?"
"No, Eleonora did."
"She did huh?"
"Yeah and because this is the first and last time we'll be fighting I'm going all out against you. No mercy from me."
"You say that like you were planning on pulling your punches." Laura chuckles as she removes her hood, revealing her horns to the audience.
The two reach the center of the arena and separate to opposite sides. They stare each other down waiting for Roderick to give them to signal to start.
"Begin!"
Laura immediately charges forward and Kana readies her two fans. Before Laura gets to her she conjures up a wall of ice to block Laura's charge.
"Ice wall!"
Laura swipes her hand through the wall of ice causing it to burst sending shards everywhere. The shards stop in mid air.
"Frozen bullets."
The shards all turn on Laura and come towards her at an incredible speed.
"A trap right from the start."
Laura uses her claws to swat many of the shards out of the air but more often than not they strike her. They leave superficial wounds on Laura that heal almost instantly due to her regeneration.
Seeing that the wounds she's inflicting have no real effect on Laura Kana readies another spell.
"Ice sphere!"
While Laura continues to fight off the ice shards six spheres of ice start to encircle Kana in a hexagon shape. She sends the spheres at Laura and encircles her. While still distracted by the shards Laura has a thin ice barrier form around her. The shards stop assaulting her as soon as the barrier is complete.
"Huh?"
"Combination magic. Frozen bullets plus Ice sphere, Hell Blizzard."
Instantly all the ice shards that stopped attacking Laura converge on her again blanketing the space inside the barrier in nothing but shards of ice.
Panting Kana readies another spell to use. Since she knows that hell blizzard won't be able to finish Laura off.
Inside the hell blizzard Laura receives more severe wounds, but they heal almost instantly. Nothing is fatal, rather it comes off as just annoying.
"Dammit, I got caught in a trap right at the start." Still the shards continue to assault her. "Damn this is starting to get frustrating."
Laura takes a deep breath to concentrate. She's studied magic with Groel for months and she doesn't want to put on a bad performance.
"Fine then Kana, how bout this? Inferno."
Being a demon Laura has a high affinity with fire and inferno is one of the most commonly uses fire spells since it requires little effort to cast.
A pillar of fire bursts upward from the ice barrier causing it to melt almost instantly along with the shards of ice. The entire arena gets covered in a dense layer of steam as the ice quickly turns to water and evaporates.
A second later all the steam is quickly formed into little ice crystals. Laura looks over to Kana who is breathing heavily.
"I think you've had enough fun already. Time for me to have some too."
Laura charges forward and attacks Kana, Kana in turn uses the ice crystals to try to slow Laura down but Laura tanks it and continues forward. Just before Laura reaches Kana she sees a smile creep onto Kana's face.
"Frozen fracture."
The space all around Laura transforms into a colorful world, like a painted glass a person would see in a church. She sees one Kana, then two, then three. All in all now ten Kana's are facing her. Each one seemingly identical.
"Wh-What the..."
Each one charges at Laura. She tries to dodge out of the way but ends up being stabbed by three of them with ice weapons. At the same time Laura feels something hard slam into her chest. a flail made of ice from one of the Kana's collides with her chest causing her to cough up blood.
Laura's consciousness fades.
"The winner of this matchup is Kana!"
The crowd goes wild.
***
Up in the seating for nobility the royal family are unimpressed by Laura's first match.
"She fell into a trap right at the start, she should have known that if you fight a magic user you need to properly assess the situation before attacking recklessly." One of the female knights says.
"Thank you for that insight." Vivian is unimpressed too but she's more forgiving. "She does have a lot of work to do, besides she's only 13. Putting her up against Kana seems to be a bad matchup for her."
The king scoffs. "That fight was quite boring. I didn't feel anything while watching it."
Vivian sighs, "I know what you mean. The fight was decided from the start. Laura fell into the trap Kana set and it was over. Hopefully the next fight will be better."
A few hours later she hears a knock on her door.
"Laura, it's time."
Avery's voice calls to her as she's deep in thought. Laura gets up from her bed and opens the door.
"Let's do this Avery."
The two of them head to the entrance to the arena where they find Roderick waiting for them.
"Are you ready Laura?"
"As I'll ever be."
Roderick gives a slight chuckle before turning his attention to Avery.
"Did you tell her Laura?"
"Yes I did."
Roderick looks sullen.
"I'm sorry Laura but there's been a change in plans for the fights today."
"What kind of changes?"
"Well princess Vivian has changed some things. She's requested that you fight in every match today as a gauntlet style challenge."
"Huh, why?"
"I didn't ask why, I just answered yes."
"Do the other's know?"
"Not yet, I'm about to tell them.
***
Up in the suites reserved for the nobility, Vivian and the rest of the royal family sit in extravagantly fancy seats surrounded by guards and protective magic. The king of the kingdom, king Thomas is quite confused as to why his daughter has chosen this place to celebrate her birthday.
"Vivian dear I must ask you. Why did you choose the colosseum for your birthday?"
Vivian cutely chuckles at his question.
"It's quite obvious right father? It's because this will be the final time anyone will get to see that demon girl Laura fight in this place and I wanted to see how she does against the other top fighters. It's a once in a lifetime chance."
The queen, Queen Marie, frowns at Vivian's choice of venue.
"I personally find blood sport such as this to be abhorrent."
"Please mother don't be like that. After all Laura will be ours after this is over."
"I still have no idea why you decided to buy that demon. Out of all the things you could have asked for you choose to buy a demon colosseum fighter? It baffles my mind as to what's going on in that head of your Vivian."
Vivian brings a finger to her lips. "It's a secret father."
"Just so long as you keep that thing in check we'll have no problems."
***
Back in the area where the fighters wait to enter the arena. Laura, Eleonora, Kana, Royce and The Harbinger all stand waiting for Roderick to finish the introduction to the fights. Eleonora keeps stealing glances at Laura but Laura ignores her.
Roderick's voice booms out across the colosseum.
"We are now heading into our first fight of the day between Laura and Kana!"
Laura turns to her opponent.
"Is there anything you want to say before we start?"
Kana shakes her head.
"Not a thing. I'm here to put on a good show."
Royce smiles at the two girls.
"Make sure you two do that. Just don't make the fight so good to the point where every fight after pales in comparison."
The two girls nod in agreement as the begin to walk out.
"I can't believe they changed the matchups at the very last minute." Kana mumbles.
"It's the whim of a princess, there's nothing we can do."
"It's even worse for you isn't it, since you'll be hers after today."
"So Roderick told you?"
"No, Eleonora did."
"She did huh?"
"Yeah and because this is the first and last time we'll be fighting I'm going all out against you. No mercy from me."
"You say that like you were planning on pulling your punches." Laura chuckles as she removes her hood, revealing her horns to the audience.
The two reach the center of the arena and separate to opposite sides. They stare each other down waiting for Roderick to give them to signal to start.
"Begin!"
Laura immediately charges forward and Kana readies her two fans. Before Laura gets to her she conjures up a wall of ice to block Laura's charge.
"Ice wall!"
Laura swipes her hand through the wall of ice causing it to burst sending shards everywhere. The shards stop in mid air.
"Frozen bullets."
The shards all turn on Laura and come towards her at an incredible speed.
"A trap right from the start."
Laura uses her claws to swat many of the shards out of the air but more often than not they strike her. They leave superficial wounds on Laura that heal almost instantly due to her regeneration.
Seeing that the wounds she's inflicting have no real effect on Laura Kana readies another spell.
"Ice sphere!"
While Laura continues to fight off the ice shards six spheres of ice start to encircle Kana in a hexagon shape. She sends the spheres at Laura and encircles her. While still distracted by the shards Laura has a thin ice barrier form around her. The shards stop assaulting her as soon as the barrier is complete.
"Huh?"
"Combination magic. Frozen bullets plus Ice sphere, Hell Blizzard."
Instantly all the ice shards that stopped attacking Laura converge on her again blanketing the space inside the barrier in nothing but shards of ice.
Panting Kana readies another spell to use. Since she knows that hell blizzard won't be able to finish Laura off.
Inside the hell blizzard Laura receives more severe wounds, but they heal almost instantly. Nothing is fatal, rather it comes off as just annoying.
"Dammit, I got caught in a trap right at the start." Still the shards continue to assault her. "Damn this is starting to get frustrating."
Laura takes a deep breath to concentrate. She's studied magic with Groel for months and she doesn't want to put on a bad performance.
"Fine then Kana, how bout this? Inferno."
Being a demon Laura has a high affinity with fire and inferno is one of the most commonly uses fire spells since it requires little effort to cast.
A pillar of fire bursts upward from the ice barrier causing it to melt almost instantly along with the shards of ice. The entire arena gets covered in a dense layer of steam as the ice quickly turns to water and evaporates.
A second later all the steam is quickly formed into little ice crystals. Laura looks over to Kana who is breathing heavily.
"I think you've had enough fun already. Time for me to have some too."
Laura charges forward and attacks Kana, Kana in turn uses the ice crystals to try to slow Laura down but Laura tanks it and continues forward. Just before Laura reaches Kana she sees a smile creep onto Kana's face.
"Frozen fracture."
The space all around Laura transforms into a colorful world, like a painted glass a person would see in a church. She sees one Kana, then two, then three. All in all now ten Kana's are facing her. Each one seemingly identical.
"Wh-What the..."
Each one charges at Laura. She tries to dodge out of the way but ends up being stabbed by three of them with ice weapons. At the same time Laura feels something hard slam into her chest. a flail made of ice from one of the Kana's collides with her chest causing her to cough up blood.
Laura's consciousness fades.
"The winner of this matchup is Kana!"
The crowd goes wild.
***
Up in the seating for nobility the royal family are unimpressed by Laura's first match.
"She fell into a trap right at the start, she should have known that if you fight a magic user you need to properly assess the situation before attacking recklessly." One of the female knights says.
"Thank you for that insight." Vivian is unimpressed too but she's more forgiving. "She does have a lot of work to do, besides she's only 13. Putting her up against Kana seems to be a bad matchup for her."
The king scoffs. "That fight was quite boring. I didn't feel anything while watching it."
Vivian sighs, "I know what you mean. The fight was decided from the start. Laura fell into the trap Kana set and it was over. Hopefully the next fight will be better."
