Fayebel…
Seeing that man Frosk appear in the waiting room asking to speak to her made her feel nervous. She worried that it might distract her from focusing on her fight.
Whatever it was he had to say to her was bound to be important and she was struggling to push the thought of what it might be out of her mind as she walked onto the floor of the arena.
She took in a deep breath to try and calm her mind and looked up at her father, King Rohen, who looked down at her with an expression she didn’t understand.
There were multiple emotions flashing across his face at once that made it difficult for her to understand what he was thinking.
Guilt, longing, and even shame.
To see shame upon her father’s face was enough to freeze her in place as she stared up at him in confusion.
Fayebel had always known him to be a very proud man, and yet that image of him seemed so false to her with the way he looked down at her.
Her wanting to understand why her father looked at her that was was disrupted when the sound of heavy foot steps reached her ears.
She turned her head just as the Torrs, the Orc Prince walked towards her, towering over her at six foot seven.
Compared to her measly five foot five height, he looked like a giant.
Not only that, every visible cut on his body had healed in such a way that the scar tissue had hardened like dragon scales.
His red skin made him appear so menacing that he looked as if he were drenched in blood.
His thick brown hair shockingly well taken care of, even with the horns that poked out from the top of his head before curving backwards.
He wore black iron leg bracers, leather boots and groin armor, but aside from that he wore nothing above the waste aside from his sword belt that wrapped across his chest.
Her ears bent backward involuntarily to show that she was plenty intimidated.
Seeing this, Torrs smirked slightly and raised his hands as he tried to talk to her using sign language.
She held up her hand to stop him as she said, “I’m not familiar with Orcish signing so you’ll have to use your words,” she said and he frowned in annoyance.
When he opened his mouth to speak the muscles on his face strained with great effort as he forced out the words.
“Speak…is…difficult…mouth. Give…good...fight,” he struggled to say.
“I’ll do my best to entertain you but I will promise nothing, alright?” she asked and he nodded.
She had heard that Orcs had evolved in such a way that the more an Orc fought in battle, the more the brain power for linguistics were diverted for faster reaction speeds and heightened senses. Yet to actually see it for herself was something else entirely. It looked almost painful for the Orc prince to even speak to the point that she felt bad for him.
“For now, do not speak with your words. We will let our swords do the talking, yes?” she asked him.
His eyes widened ever so slightly as if to realize that she understood how difficult is was for him to communicate.
His eyes then became serious as it seemed he had developed some amount of respect for her and reached for his weapon and she did the same.
His sword seemed rather ordinary at first as it was only a regular Black Iron claymore. Sure, it dwarfed her falchion sword, but she expected something more terrifying for an Orc weapon.
But then, just as the announcer called for the start of the match, and the battlefield unfolded around them as Torrs prepared himself for combat.
She watched as the scars all across his right arm opened up as if they had never closed up and healed in the first place. Blood began to seep out of them and clung to his arm without a single drop falling to the ground.
She watched in disgusted wonder and curiosity as the blood traveled the length of his arm until it reached his his blade and hardened around it. It hardened until it formed the shape of serrated edges and a long double sided hook at the very end of the blade.
So that’s the Orc Blood magic…
She never had the privilege, or maybe misfortune, of seeing their blood magic in person. Much like how the Dark Elves have their Shadow Magic as part of their culture along with their innate magic that is part of one’s soul, the Orcs have blood magic. However, the difference was that Dark Elves have to be taught and learn to use Shadow Magic. Orcs are born with the innate ability to use their blood magic along with their secondary unique magic.
It almost felt like cheating since it allowed them to form weapons out of their own blood, enhance their strength and speed, and even regenerate from most fatal wounds.
This magic had been given to their race by King Dagon himself when they had served him during the Amaskian War. It was a slightly weaker version of the same magic that he used with his Bloodletter sword.
It sent chills down her spine to see that magic being used for the first time.
“Okay...that’s more like it,” she said with a nervous smile on her face and Torrs laughed jollily at her reaction.
Maybe I should follow suit and use my people’s magic…
She raised her sword above her head, spun it round in a circle, and swung it down at her side as the shadow realm unfolded around them.
Torrs patiently watched as she prepared her own magic to face his and seemed very impressed.
He is right to be impressed! Of all the Dark Elves of my generation, I am the most talented of all when it comes to Shadow Magic! My foolish brother cannot compare to a genius like me! Now let us clash swords, she thought to herself as she readied her magic.
Torrs brought his sword close to his chest as he charged towards her and slashed it the air horizontally, as if to cleave her body in two.
Using her precise control over the shadow realm, she folded it in on itself and opened a second layer of the realm within itself. His sword passed into the second layer of the shadow realm harmlessly in its attempt to cut her in half before it closed up.
Torrs’ eyes widened in disbelief as she swung at him with her own blade and a wave of condensed darkness followed as it split open his chest.
Yet despite receiving such a wound, the Orc Prince smirked as the blood from his new wound sprayed out as if it were being released from a pressurized hose and splattered across her face. It would have gotten in her eyes had she not opened the second shadow realm layer to avoid it.
As she closed the second layer, Torrs had already raised his sword above his head and was about to bring it down upon her head.
With her quick thinking, she bent the fabric of space within the second layer so that she could jump into it and pop out behind Torrs.
As she did this, she disappeared and he swung nothing but empty space as she reappeared behind him and plunged her falchion into his back and through his heart.
He groaned in pain but turned his head and swung his left fist to backhand her.
She then ducked under the strike and pulled out her sword as she dove into the second layer of bent space and appeared in front of him once again.
His head spun around and stared at her as he finally understood what was happening and took off at a run. If he made himself a moving target, it would be far more difficult for her to focus on bending the space of the second layer so she could get the drop on him again.
Hmm…
She then folded the space within the second layer in such a way that it would shorten the distance between her and her enemy and focused it so that it was always positioned right in front or behind her. The second layer will revolve around her constantly and turn when her body turns so that she would always have a way to escape his attacks and quickly launch her own.
Torrs stared at her as if trying to gauge her next move before he bared his teeth at her and released his own unique magic.
“RAAAAAGHHHHHHH!” he roared as gold lighting erupted all across his body and sparked from his horns.
The blood on his hands solidified into claws as he leaned forward so low that he looked like an animal on all fours, yet he held his sword over his back with his right hand.
His clawed left hand, sparking with electricity, dug into the surface of the shadow realm.
She looked at where his lighting hit and could tell that it was tearing away at the shadows and leaking back out into the spacial battlefield.
His lightning has the properties of light magic? How is that possible?
Before she could finish contemplating his magic, he lunged forward with such incredible speed that the air heated up around his body.
Instead of using the second layer to shorten the distance behind her to evade, she went forward as he would have cleaved right through her.
He passed right by her but not without the electricity flowing through his body hitting her own and causing her to spasm as she fell into the second layer and did not come back out into the first.
Torrs stopped suddenly as he looked around for her only to growl in anger as she was nowhere to be seen.
He roared in anger at what seemed like cowardice on her part, but truthfully she was having trouble moving.
As he roared, the lighting sparking from his body shot out from him in all directions and struck the area randomly as it began to peel away the shadow realm.
One of his bolts struck the ground only a few feet away from her face and even penetrated the second layer as it revealed where she had fallen.
Sensing her presence, he stopped his display of wild rage and looked down at her as he realized she had been almost completely incapacitated by his magic just by being near him.
His eyes had changed to display that he now understood what had happened and were almost sympathetic for a moment before it switched to cold focus as he tightened his grip on his sword.
He slowly walked towards her as he was getting ready to finish it but she was not yet ready to lose to him just yet.
Come on body, move!
He was only a few feet away from her now.
Move!
He now stood right above her and had raised his sword high above his head.
MOVE DAMMIT!
With all the strength that she could muster within herself, she could feel her fingers start to move again and she regained control of her voice as she shouted in defiance as Torrs’ blade came down upon her-
-and stopped in midair, just a few inches short of reaching her.
What is...happening?
As she looked closer at the sword, she realized that it hadn’t stopped but was rather approaching her at such a slow pace that it looked like it wasn’t moving at all.
She then raised her hand to smack away his sword before it could kill her and recoiled as electricity sparked from her own hand.
Torrs’ blade sank into the dirt as time sped up back to normal.
Rather than pick his sword back up, he stood over her completely still, in stunned silence as he stared at the lightning sparking from her hand.
Before he could regain his sense, she quickly used the shadow realm to gain some distance between them as she got back to her feet.
She then looked down at her right hand and noticed that the color of the lightning was different from Torrs’ own.
His was a gold color that stripped away the shadow realm while hers was a vibrant red color, much like the scarlet bolt of the Forrosans.
“W-what is this?” she stammered as she tried to make sense of this newfound strength.
Torrs looked at her red lightning and then pointed at her before pointing his thumb down at the ground. It was as if to say that even with her new power, she was no match for his own.
After seeing what his gold lightning could do, she agreed.
His magic could strip away the layers of the shadow realm on contact, which meant that hit and run tactics wouldn’t work on him.
She would need to do something completely new to match his strength. Looking at the blood all around his body that helped make him stronger and faster, she got an idea.
She reached out her right arm, which sparked with red lightning, and pulled the shadow realm towards her and let it envelop her body completely.
On top of all that, she released her own unique magic to its absolute fullest, “Swift Gale: Full Release.”
With the full release of her magic, the wind swirled around her and picked up speed so quickly that a small tornado began to form around her.
She tried to feel for her sword but realized that she had dropped it on the ground. When she laid eyes on it, she reached out her hand and it leaped to her hand as the wind pulled it to her.
Feeling the handle in the grip of her hand, she felt a comforting certainty that despite the odds, she was sure to win this battle.
Her eyes then laid upon Torrs who grinned in anticipation as he readied his sword once again before leaping forward at incredible speed.
Judging on the amount of released force coming from his soul, he wasn’t holding anything back either.
With the scarlet bolt aiding her, she slowed down her perception of time and could feel her strength growing in response to her will to win this fight.
As Torrs came flying towards her, she parried his strike and swung at her with the full force of the shadow realm and the winds she commanded.
His hooked sword released torrents of blood the cleaved through the ground as she effortlessly dodged in response to each attack.
As they continued to exchange blows, she could feel more of the scarlet bolt overtaking the rest of her body, and her power growing in response to both it and her desire.
She then started to feel him slowing down as he struggled to keep up with the steadily increasing pace she was setting.
Then, at the very apex of the fight, the two of the slammed their swords against each other but the compressed energy of her falchion split apart his hooked blade and his attack harmlessly passed her by.
He stumbled forward with his broken blade in his hand as he looked up just in time to see Fayebel’s blade cut him down.
His head fell to the dirt with a satisfied look on his face and she stood above him as his corpse fell at her feet.
I...won?
Overtaken by a feeling of exhilaration, she raised her sword above her head and roared in triumph.
With the match won in her favor, she calmed down her magic as the battlefield disappeared with Torrs standing up to nod to her.
Seeing him show such respect to her made her feel giddy as she looked up at King Rohen to see his face only to be met with disappointment.
He seemed proud of her for sure.
He smiled and his eyes said, good job kiddo, however, it seemed to lack genuine happiness.
Seeing him look at her that way caused her smile to fade and she had to wonder what she had done wrong as she left the arena floor.
Walking down the hallway, she suddenly remembered that Frosk had asked to talk to her and found him waiting at the entrance to the arena just as he said he would be.
Upon seeing her, he seemed excited to see her only for his smile to fade as she noticed the expression on her face.
“Are you alright? You look disappointed,” he noticed.
“I’m fine,” she lied.
“Well, given the fact that the announcers declared your victory, you should be over the moon. I certainly would be. Is something wrong?”
“I...no. Its none of your business. Anyways, what did you want to talk to me about?” she asked, her voice tinged with impatience which made Frosk wince.
She didn’t mean to be rude but her mood had soured when seeing her father’s reaction to her victory.
“Well...uh, I don’t know any easy way to say this…,” he stammered as he was struggling to find the words to express his thoughts.
“Just come out and say it will you?” she said, further annoyed by him.
He then took in a deep breathe as he paused before saying, “Fayebel. I recently learned that I am your father, and you are my daughter.”