34. The day of the spar

On the day of the spar, the snow had almost completely melted under the shining sun. The Sunclaw quarters were located in Somerville, in an area with artistic buildings surrounded by well-kept gardens. As I walked in an alley lined with silver daffodils and other winter flowers, I felt like I had entered some bigshot’s private ground. Well, it was the case.

I glanced back at the boulevard. Zeeta wasn’t coming. He said that, as a Beholder’s worker, it would be better if he didn’t show his face to a family he had been spying on. I kind of got his point.

“A-Are you nervous?”

Ray was stiff. I answered cheerfully:

“I’m fine. What about you?”

“…” Ray snorted. “Isn’t that obvious? I didn’t even manage to grasp how my power works.”

Well, that wasn’t surprising, since he had only decided to experiment with it two days ago. He had spent hours in the basement, trying to create those strange shadows of his, and Zeeta and I had done everything to help, but all our efforts didn’t pay off.

I shook my head, amused.

“You’re not used to it, huh?” We were walking toward the building with red horns on the top. I saw Lei waiting for us at the entrance.

“Used to what?” Ray asked, confused.

I smiled slightly.

“To going to a test without knowing all the answers. I’m pretty used to it. You know,” I added, “this is not an exam where you have to randomly check an answer. You spar to beat your opponent and show him he can’t mess with you. You don’t necessarily need to use your power to win.”

Ray had stopped in the alley. He chuckled under his breath.

“Answers are not checked randomly, Armen. But I get your point.” He went on walking with a gleam of determination in his eyes. “I won’t back off.”

“That’s the spirit!”

When we arrived, Lei gave us a thumbs up.

“It’s one minute to noon, as expected from Doctor Styxer’s son! Hi, Ray, hi… er… What was your name, again?”

“Armen.”

“Armen. A pleasure,” he said, holding out a hand. As we shook hands, his eyes sparkled. “Cold hands, warm heart, they say. Is that true?”

I gave him a defying grin.

“I never put a thermometer in my heart, but try it if you dare.”

Lei looked surprised, then laughed.

“Well, I dare! Okay, let me introduce you to Yordo.” He waved at a tall man, standing straight. “He’s in charge of organizing the duels. If needed, he can administer first aid, and if things get complicated, we’ve got two doctors and medical equipment, so do not worry, let’s just go all out.”

No, his words were precisely worrying us… We went into the building, and as we entered a large gymnasium, Lei added:

“Aya-aya, but I forgot to bring it up on the phone…” He waved at… a red-haired girl in tight-fitting black clothes sitting in the grandstand. “Sally said she wants to spar with you too.”

Whaaaaat?! The medusa wanted to spar with Ray? No way…!

“Lei!” Sally cried out. Her hair grabbed the rail of the grandstand, and she landed down before us, shooting Lei a withering look. “What’s the meaning of this? You didn’t tell me the one you were having a spar with was that monster!”

Lei cracked up.

“Hahaha! It’s twenty-eight of December, Holy Innocents’ Day, you all fell for it!”

He was laughing to tears. I… didn’t quite get the joke. Ray discreetly breathed out with relief. Sally was still storming, sending red hairlocks to her younger brother and tying him up.

“Curse you, Lei! I postponed my trip to London because of you! And the Holy Innocents’ Day is not even a Farskyer tradition!”

“I do the April Fool’s Day too… Buahaha, stop, stop, sis, you’re tickling me! Ow, c’mon, I know you want to see him fight too! Aw, aw, aw, it hurts, hahaha!”

Sally was squeezing his limbs. What a touching brotherhood… Stepping a bit aside, I saw Linah go down the grandstand and waved at her.

“Hi, Erma. You came.”

“I had to,” she replied, and she pointed her fist toward Lei’s nose. “I’m the only one who can control Brother Lei.”

“W-Wait, Linah, don’t!”

“Then, stop fooling around and get in position. Hear me? If you touch one strand of Armen’s hair, you’re dead.”

“What?!” he argued as Sally let him go. “But how am I supposed to fight him, then?”

“Armen is not going to fight,” Ray said. We all turned to him. He cleared his throat. “I’m going to fight you alone, Lei Sunclaw.”

The three young Sunclaw blinked in a sudden silence.

“But I told you I’m fine with fighting the two of you at once,” Lei protested. “I was looking forward to it. After all, he’s your—”

“Friend,” I cut him off before he made a blunder. “And as a friend, I came here to cheer him up. If he needs me, I’ll go in. That’s what we decided.”

“But isn’t that way too unbalanced?”

“What are you saying, Lei?” Sally smirked. “A one-on-one fight is better. If Ray says he can do it, then why don’t you let him dig his own grave? Since I came, I wanna have some fun seeing him crawling like a worm. I don’t think it’ll be that interesting though, since your power is so boring, Lei.”

Turning her back on us, she returned to her seat. Lei threw a glare her way, then grinned at Ray.

“Let’s do it, then!”

Linah took me by the arm, and we went to sit down far from Sally’s seat as Yordo stood beside the fighting court.

“Your pigtails are low today,” I noticed.

Linah nodded.

“Mm.”

She was fidgeting. Was she nervous about the fight? Yordo and Lei were explaining the rules to Ray. Those were simple: the participants couldn’t use blunt or sharp weapons other than their own body, they had to remain in the court, weren’t allowed to keep fighting after one of them surrendered, and had to stop right away if Yordo told them to. As for us, the public, we could not interfere, nor reveal anything about the fighter’s powers outside, nor naturally record any of it.

As Ray and Lei entered the fighting court, I said:

“Oh, Erma. Thanks for your gift. I’m wearing it right now. Was it something your grandma made?”

Linah lowered her eyes to the pentagonal pendant, then gave me an amused glance.

“No. I was the one who made it.”

I looked at her, amazed.

“Really? You’re a witch too? And there I was calling you Lil Witch without knowing.”

“Hehe, you’re wrong. Witches need to study like hell to do magic. I’m not talented enough.”

Her eyes riveted on her own hands, absent-minded, as if she was remembering some event in the past. Wait, did that mean she once thought of becoming a real witch? So cool! But… maybe she didn’t want to now? Studies weren’t made for everyone, I knew that well. After a short silence, I let out:

“Baaah… Nonsense. It’s magic enough if you made it.” Linah breathed in, surprised. I grinned as I added: “Since you’re not the handy type.”

“You…!”

She punched my shoulder. I whistled, flinching to the right:

“A scary witch has taken me for her punching bag, I’m done for!”

“You didn’t gift me anything for Christmas, so I’m taking what it’s due.”

Giving punches was like a gift for her? Was she a sadist? I smiled anyway.

“But I do have a gift for you.”

Linah widened her eyes as I took out a little box from my pocket. She accepted it, hardly suppressing her smile into a smirk.

“Why, I can’t believe you really bought something, Straw Head.”

“That’s rude. I did buy you two scrunchies last year.”

“Hm, true…”

She unwrapped the box and gazed at the present: two silver-colored earrings that had the shape of a snowflake. I’d found them pretty the day before when I had bought them but… would they be okay for Linah? When her blue eyes turned to me, I subconsciously raised my hands in self-defense.

“Don’t you like it? Don’t tell me they are too girly?”

“Are you taking me for a tomboy?!”

“Well, no, haha… Not really? Don’t hit me, please.”

“… I wasn’t going to, dummy.” She looked back at the earrings. Her lips curved. Then she cleared her throat. “They were cheap, huh?”

“Sorry I’m poor.”

“I bet you just bought the first thing you saw in the first shop you entered.”

“That’s mean! I actually spent one hour searching for a good gift!”

“It took me two days to make your pendant.”

“…”

“Heh.” Why did she look like she had won some kind of fight? She went on: “But thanks. I’ll put them on. Since I like cheap things.”

“You make it sound like you’re doing me a favor, Lil Witch. I’m hurt.”

“Don’t be, Straw Head, I said thanks.”

“Yeah, yeah…”

“Also…” She lowered her hands, stroking her new earrings. “If you had given earrings to a girl who wasn’t me, she would have misunderstood your intentions, you know?”

“Eh… My intentions, you say? But then, wouldn’t it be more misleading to gift a handmade pendant that took you two days to make?”

Linah looked at me as if in a daze, then at the court, then back at me, then snorted, averting her eyes.

“Strictly speaking, one day and a half.”

I was hit by her absurd answer. That was totally not the point!! Anyway, Ray and Lei had stopped talking between each other and were about to start.

“Don’t back off after you lose,” Lei smirked, his hands in his pockets. What did he mean, back off? Did they make a bet or something? The Sunclaw asked: “Ready?”

Ray gave a nod.

“Ready.”

As soon as Yordo gave the signal, Lei launched himself at Ray. As we expected, he was going for a close-range attack.

Ray already knew Lei’s power was magnetic, but he didn’t know more details about how it worked. Zeeta did. Or more exactly, he had managed to get the information through the Beholder. As expected of my dear stalker.

Basically, Lei could make objects attract to each other by touching them. But there were conditions. First, he had to touch the heaviest object of the two before the other; that is, if he wanted to glue Ray to the ground, he would have to touch the ground, then Ray. Secondly, he had to touch the objects directly, and the magnetic field didn’t work on all materials; that was why Ray was wearing synthetic clothes, which apparently were safe. Rock and skin weren’t, though. Lastly: once Lei had touched the first object, he couldn’t deactivate his power until he had touched the second target. Ray’s first plan was to make Lei touch his own body before his.

When he was just a few meters away, Lei touched the ground with his hands, did an agile and totally unnecessary somersault, then landed with his hands well separated from his body, like a street acrobat.

“Bet you can’t do this. What are you waiting for? Aren’t you gonna use your power?”

His lame efforts to conceal how his power worked made me smirk. Did he seriously think we came there knowing nothing? Ray hadn’t budged an inch. He was stiff. How couldn’t he? His opponent was taller than him, stronger, faster, and above all, more experienced than him… However, I knew he wouldn’t surrender until he had tried his all. Ray wasn’t a coward, he just didn’t like fighting, but if we had to go to that two-month training on Phoenix Island… he had no choice but to learn how to take on an opponent.

Ray adopted a fighting stance that he had just learned two days ago from Zeeta and me, and he said:

“Come at me.”