It’s well past noon at this point. I don’t think we’ll be getting lunch today, and depending on the timing and length of the written test, dinner might be out of reach as well. And it doesn’t help that the trauma of the past 24 hours of my life is now settling in all of a sudden. Thinking hard on the subject, I can only think that the PTSD has been magically subverted. Or maybe not, and I’m just a lot more resistant to this sort of thing than I have any right to be.

Regardless, there are only four more people left in this bracket, and thus, only two more fights. At this point, I’m getting a little tired of watching people get the life ever-so-slowly beaten out of them, and even the fast paced battles are getting boring. Glancing over at Ivan, resident evil wizard and slave-owner, it’s easy to see that he is too. He’s asleep. And drooling. If he wasn’t already racist, evil, and overall just a really shitty person, I’d say he was making a bad impression. I mean, I can hear him snoring.

But that's fine. It means I have more time to laze around, and immediately I turn towards Tobi upon realizing that we have time to talk. “So, back to what you were saying,” I say to Tobi, “I think it’s magic.” “And what gives you that idea?” he shoots back. “Well, I don’t think any of us were this aggressive back on Earth, so…” “Well, considering we already know that magic can influence behavior, I guess it’s possible. Really, now that I think about it, that’s the only thing that really makes any sense, isn’t it? That’s a good guess I would think.” He thinks I was being smart. Now, he’s not really wrong, but in actuality, this whole magic thing is making me giddy, and if there’s a chance that something is magical in nature, I will seize on it with every fiber of my being.

“Now that we’re on the subject of magic, how do you think that works?” He asks me. “I don’t know. I’m guessing you expend MP in order to exert your will on the world, but I really have no idea.” “Yeah, me neither. Well just talking about it isn’t gonna get us anywhere. Oh, and…” he points across the coliseum at the stirring Ivan.

Now awake, and without missing a beat, he snatches up some more names, and calls them out: “Kriss McDiebich, against Melissa Dutch,” before promptly collapsing into his seat again. I have no idea what could possibly have him so tired. Maybe it’s because he’s been constantly doing magic to make us all more angry! But no, he was asleep that entire last fight, and I doubt that you can keep slinging fireballs while snoozing. But again, I don’t know anything about magic. I’m not a wizard, mage, warlock, or any other form of magic-user, despite what my class would have you think.

Shit. I got lost in my thoughts, and didn’t even notice that my opponent was in the ring already. She’s… a squirrel I think. That’s unfortunate, to say the least. She also looks quite tasty, almost maimable. Wait, hold onto that thought, me. I can’t go slipping into an animalistic rage right now. Come to think of it, where is that thought even coming from? As far as I know, I’ve never thought of squirrels as “Tasty”, let alone “Maimable”. This is an issue, but not one that can be considered right now, because my bushy-tailed opponent is already sprinting at me, her two daggers raised.

I snap out of my stupor, and drop into a fighting stance. I dodge the first blow, a quick stab at my throat. She means it too. That wasn’t the kind of strike you make on someone you don’t intend to kill. It’s clear that she sees me as someone who needs to die. Another dagger lashes out at my wrist, and I can’t yank it back in time. A line of red blood leaks out of my slashed arm, and I leap back.

A pain filled “Fuck!” escapes my lips, and I raise my staff, finally ready to fight. I take a step forward, and launch a kick at her stomach, which connects wonderfully, causing her to stumble back with a grunt. ‘I need to take this seriously’ I think. Immediately after that, I feel something leave me, and several hundred glowing ghostly figures, images of myself and Merissa, appear in the air around us. I’m surprisingly calm about this, and it doesn’t seem like Merissa can even see them.

She’s not moving though, and upon closer inspection, neither am I, nor is anyone else. I look around, or rather, I try to, but I can’t. I can’t move at all. I catch movement in the corner of my eye. It’s Ivan. He’s looking around (lucky bastard), bewildered. Suddenly, the world catches up with me, and I’m back in the thick of it once more. Having had “time” to relax and gather my thoughts, I know exactly what to do.

I grip my staff like a baseball bat. It’s hardly an orthodox stance, but it doesn’t need to be. Merissa, still reeling from my blow to her belly, doesn’t look up in time to see the end of the staff hurtling towards her head.

*CRACK*

With a sound like I just concussed an elephant, or perhaps more aptly, knocked a baseball out of the park, my staff shatters and the squirrel-girl drops like a rock. Maybe I went a little too hard there. In a daze, although not as much as Ms. Dutch, I wander back up to the stands where my friends are waiting. There’s some stuff I need to think about.