The soldier pulled out his sword, holding it in a tight grip. He came at her with forcefully, each step he took louder and stronger then the last. Akilah could feel his anger raising, ‘great’ she thought. As the man stepped closer, Akilah prepared herself. She didn’t have weapons or even a stick to attack with. But she could feel the of excitement growing in her gut, it had been a long time since she had had a fight and she had been growing bored ‘maybe he’ll put up a good fight’.

The man launched for attack and Akilah quickly stepped back, ‘I guess this will be a game of defense’. Akilah jumped up forward and landed behind him, the soldier was caught off guard but quickly turned around, slightly discombobulated. She felt that her fighting skills were a bit rusty since hadn’t had any use for them in past years, and the fact that her opponent were trained imperial soldiers didn’t make the situation and better.

Akilah looked around for something that could be used as a weapon, as she didn’t want to use her magic in front of imperial soldiers. Therefore, she had to think of another, and think fast because her opponent was getting more aggressive. Akilah saw a branch with a sharp edge, the branch alone would not do much damage but if she managed to secretly strengthen with magic, it would become a reliable weapon.

Akilah had kept avoiding his attacks

“Come on and fight me! This is what you wanted right, fight me!”

Akilah ignored him as she was backing closer towards the branch. Once she got closer enough, she jumped into the woods and on to the tree.

“Oh, so you’re running away now! Are you scared, are you gonna run back to mommy!” The soldier taunted. “Come out and die like a man!”

The rest of the soldiers started laughing and added on with the insults. ‘Brainless idiots’ Akilah thought as she finished strengthening the branch.

“Don’t worry” Akilah shouted as she landed in front of him “I’m about to finish this alright.”

As Akilah began emerging from the behind the trees, the soldier that was fighting her inspected the object in her hand. Figuring out that it was a simple tree branch he began laughing hysterically.

“What is this? Is this a joke?” He said, “You’re gonna attack me with a BRANCH?” He said mockingly.

Akilah tiled her head, still unfazed by his remarks “Why are you scared?”

“Scared I-” He could not finish his sentence before Akilah began running towards him at an unimaginable speed.

However, it was all an illusion. The truth was that while Akilah was seemingly running around dogging his attack, she was creating hidden teleportation portals. She had calculation his pattern of movement and attacks and place each portal in a place where she could easily overpower him. The placements of portal were relatively close to each other, so to the untrained eye it looked like she was simply incredibly fast.

Her strategy was working, she could see the fear creeping through his eyes. Akilah was closing in and the soldier was preparing his attack stance. But she didn’t allow him to prepare, while closing in she teleported behind him, and in one second, she was behind him, he hadn’t even registered where she was before she stabbed him in the back. Blood splattered everywhere and the soldier collapsed to his knees. Akilah put her foot on his shoulder as she began pulling the branch out, and the kicked him forwards on the ground. Akilah turned and looked at the rest of the soldier, blood dripping from the hand that held the branch. “Who’s next?”.