Their group pulled away from the rest of the students after they took the potions from Rauk. They stopped when they were sure they were out of hearing range and huddled close together. Their faces were determined, with vindictive excitement shining in all their eyes. Spreading rumors about Zir’elon and his group was fun, but never as satisfying as beating them to a pulp.

“Our focus will be on Kastrioti, Dunstan, and Coppercolt. Agreed?” Alistair asked, getting nods from everyone.

“Kastrioti will focus on me. He has some sort of fixation on me and this gives him the chance to finally fight me, since Rauk has refused to pair us up for a spar. He’s going to want to use this chance to try to beat me. I’ll handle him while the rest of you take care of the others.” Alistair began, immediately causing voices to rise in argument. Alistair raised his hands to calm the sudden mutiny.

“Look, it’s me he’s wronged. It’s my right to avenge my own honor.” Alistair chastised them.

“Doesn’t mean you should get all the fun, though.” Anya grumbled with a pout, her ears drooping on her head.

“And I won’t. Dunstan and Coppercolt were there too, so we need them taken out. Lili, you need to focus on Dunstan. His automatons are going to be an issue. With them, he can more than match our team.” Alistair turned to Liliana, and she frowned, unhappy that she wouldn’t be the one to face Zir’elon, but she knew Alistair was right.

Thanks to their attention on the trio, they all knew quite well what affinities they had and what their fighting styles were. Emyr was quite effective at digging up information when he was properly motivated by revenge.

“I’ll bring out Polaris for this fight.” Liliana said, drawing attention to herself as her teammates stared at her.

“Didn’t you say-“ Marianne started, but her eyes were dancing with a dark glee.

“I know what I said. I said that before we knew we were facing the trio of assholes, and I’d rather see them suffer than learn something from this. Besides, this is a chance for me and my bonds to experience what it’s like fighting against another tamer. Even if Dunstan isn’t real a tamer, it’s as close as I can get before the tournament.” Liliana justified her reasoning, even if she didn’t truly care about the experience. She just wanted to be sure they won as mercilessly as possible.

“Good, then we can keep Lelantos on Marianne and Emyr while I distract Kastrioti.” Alistair said with a nod, a cruel smile on his face.

“Marianne, you’ll need to focus on healing and supporting me and Lili. I need to keep Kastrioti well distracted so he can’t give orders to his team or give them backup. Lili will be fighting an army on her own, so will probably need the most help.” Alistair turned to Marianne, who had looked rather disgruntled at being labeled as necessitating protection. With the mention of Liliana needing help, however, her face transformed into determination. Liliana was amused that when it came to her friend, the only thing that mattered to Marianne more than getting a piece of the action was making sure she was okay.

“Anya, you’ll be on Coppercolt. He only has Earth and Metal, but he’s very focused on those affinities. He won’t be able to fight you head on in the sky, but he specializes in long range attacks, so be careful of that. His affinities mean he’s tough, close up as well.” Alistair gave Anya her assignment and the wolf girl perked up, excited by the prospect of a challenge and the chance for revenge. Despite only being their friend for a month, the girl was startlingly loyal. An insult to the people she had decided as her friends was equivalent to an insult against her, and Anya didn’t take insults well.

“Allencourt and Remrence will probably back up one of those three when we focus on them. Emyr, what’s the information on them?” Alistair turned to his best friend, and Emyr stepped up.

“Allencourt has Light, Illusion, and Water affinities. She has some buffing skills and spells she’s used on herself before, but her primary tactic is to use wide scale illusions to distract and confuse her enemies. She prefers to attack from the back when her opponents are distracted by her illusions. However, she’s got very low Vitality, so one powerful attack and she’s out. Best thing to do when she starts her illusions is to do a wide scale attack to guarantee you hit her.” Emyr eagerly gave them information on the first of the girls in Zir’elon’s group.

“There’s a chance she’ll try to hide her entire team. Which will make hitting the targets difficult. Emyr, do you have any other wide scale attacks than Nova?” Alistair asked the celestial mage. Despite likely knowing his friend’s spell list by heart, Liliana wasn’t sure if he was pretending to not know to spare himself the embarrassment or if he was doing it for the team’s sake.

“I still have a wide-scale Dark ultimate, but it will blind everyone and mostly provide cover and boosts to my Dark skills. I have a few area-of-effect Celestial attacks but nothing on the scale of [Nova]. They take less time to cast too, so I can get more of them off, but I’ll still need time to set up.” Emyr said honestly with a shrug. Alistair frowned and went quiet as he mentally rearranged his strategies to account for this.

“Polaris has a wide scale Illusion ultimate and Dark ultimate. His Chaos skills are all single target attacks. But if we can use a conflicting illusion, it will negate their advantage. No one will be able to see anything and it’ll be a stalemate until one or the other illusion is broken. The dark skill could work off of Emyr’s ultimate.” Liliana spoke up. Alistair perked up at the words, and Liliana could almost see the gears whirring frantically in his head as plans were made and discarded.

“We’ll do the illusion plan. That way we’re only down one more Quintessential skill rather than two. We’ll need to move quickly once it starts so they can’t fire at where we were. With me and Lelantos in the front, we can take any attacks they send. Nemesis and Anya can hold the sides with earth fortifications and brute strength. How long does the illusion last?” Alistair nodded as he vocalized his plan before he turned to Liliana.

“We’ll have ten minutes under cover before the illusion stops.” Liliana informed him, rubbing her hands together and bouncing slightly as she got excited. She could feel the victory just within grasp.

“Is that enough time, Emyr?” Alistair asked the boy.

“I can get off two, maybe three, spells. We should be able to take out Allencourt in that time, if not more of them.” Emyr confirmed with a dark smirk.

“Good, now Remrence.” Alistair instructed.

“Remrence has Earth, Water, and Muck affinities. She likes to trap her opponents and whittle them down. She doesn’t have many powerful spells or skills; she mostly focuses on traps. If she can immobilize her opponents, she doesn’t have to worry about overpowering them. Remrence can take her time while they sit without being able to move. She struggles with anyone who has flight based skills, as she can’t do enough damage to them in the air before they take her out. She has a few wide scale trap attacks that could get most of our team in one go.” Emyr rattled off the information, and Alistair grimaced.

“If I was Kastrioti, I’d have Allencourt use an illusion to cover the ring, then have Remrence trap us all while we can’t see, then pick us off. So it’s likely what they’ll do as soon as the illusions start. Me and Nemesis have Earth affinities, but that would be a control fight. We’d be constantly trying to change the muck back to earth, and that’s not a guarantee, and we’d be hemorrhaging Mana. I’ll need to get us on a crystal or metal base to ensure we’re out of danger. Lili, can Lelantos hold long enough for me to do that?” Alistair turned to Liliana again, and she frowned, turning to her bond, who had laid down behind them. He regarded her with one multicolored eye and nodded his head to her. He would hold.

“He says he can take being the tank for however long you take to keep us from being trapped.” Liliana confirmed.

“Good. Once Allencourt is taken out, I need Emyr to focus on Remrence, so we don’t all get trapped once vision is restored.” Alistair nodded at Emyr, who smirked, his eyes glowing with excitement.

“Lili, Anya, once Allencourt’s illusions break, you two head for Dunstan and Coppercolt. Since you two can get airborne, Remrence won’t be as much of a concern for you, and as soon as Kastrioti sees me, he’ll tunnel on me. Which will give Emyr the chance to send off another attack at Remrence.” Alistair shot out the orders to them, and Liliana fisted her hands before her. She was ready for this fight. Anya looked like she was about to sprint off and start that very moment.

“Marianne will probably be stuck with me and Emyr until Remrence is down, but once she is, Marianne will move between me and Lili to provide backup. Anya, if you beat Coppercolt before Lili finishes Dunstan, help her. Emyr will split his attention between all three remaining targets once his own are down.” Alistair finished and everyone nodded to the plan, if not happy with their assignments, at least satisfied. Alistair had put them all where they would do best.

Liliana shook out her arms. Her body hadn’t had time to come down from the adrenaline high of the first battle before the chance to fight Zir’elon and his friends reignited it. She couldn’t sit still with so much excess energy flooding through her. She knew this fight wouldn’t be easy, and she was already resigned to needing to use everything she had to win this. Dunstan was one of the few classmates she saw as a real threat in a fight for her. Even with Polaris, she knew this wouldn’t be an easy win.

“Time’s up. Kastrioti, Rosengarde to the ring.” Rauk called out, barely two minutes after Alistair finished.

Liliana looked around the room as they walked towards the new ring in the center. None of class S was blind to the bad blood between their group and Zir’elon, and even the students who sat against the wall looked interested. This fight would shift the power balance in their class. Neither group had gotten the majority of the support in their class, but today would reveal which side was actually the stronger one. As Liliana’s gaze traveled to their class, she was caught by a burning gaze. She paused for a step, looking at Koth’talan, and somehow she knew what he was trying to communicate through a look alone.

Destroy him. Koth’talan’s eyes screamed at her, and Liliana let a small smile slip onto her face as she inclined her head subtly at Koth’talan.

She and Koth’talan had come to an odd relationship. Liliana wouldn’t call it friendship, but they often found each other in the forest. After that day by the cherry blossom pond, Liliana had kept returning and Koth’talan either found her there or was already there. They’d both do whatever they came there to do, a silent agreement to share the space. Sometimes they talked, sometimes they didn’t. They hardly talked other than that, and Liliana never saw him outside of class besides in the forest. Where he spent the rest of his time, she had no idea.

She thought, though, that if they won this fight, it might tip her relationship with Koth’talan into friendship, something she was surprised to find she wanted. Not just because Koth’talan was powerful, as their last fight showed, or because he had information on Zir’elon that Liliana felt would be useful. No, she found she wanted to be friends with Koth’talan because she was beginning to genuinely like the enigmatic dæmon.

Liliana focused her attention back on the fight ahead as she stepped into the ring. As soon as their group stopped, she found Zir’elon’s eyes and with a wide grin; she tapped the stone holding Polaris, letting the kitsune materialize next to her. Zir’elon’s eyes narrowed and his lips twisted into a scowl. He didn’t speak up against it, perhaps learning from the last time he’d tried. Or more likely because he wanted to prove he was stronger than Liliana and her tames, no matter their rank.

“I thought we agreed I wouldn’t aid you today?” Polaris inquired.

Liliana finally broke her staring match to look at Polaris, and quickly as the shields dropped, she pushed the memories of the plan to Polaris, who understood the reasoning and his tasks immediately.

“Good, we’re finally teaching them that they’re the prey, not you.” Polaris said, his voice full of pride and mischief.

“Start.” Rauk called, and before the word had finished echoing around the room, the ring transformed.

Liliana blinked as the world shifted, turning into a twisted manor. She couldn’t see her friends, only walls all around her and a twisting hallway full of paintings of abstract landscapes that hurt her eyes to look at. Seconds later, the illusions shifted, the vision of a manor changing until the walls were expanded and covered with trees and underbrush. It looked like a noble’s manor had been abandoned and left to return to nature, walls broken by trees, floors cracked by roots. Liliana almost jumped when her teammates suddenly reappeared, barely moved from where they’d started.

“I built off the existing illusion. You should be able to see your friends, but I can’t warp the girl’s illusion so much that you can see them. I can only overpower her illusion to alter it because of the difference in our powers. The illusions aren’t physical, so you can walk through the walls and trees. They’ll still be able to hear you, and you them, so be mindful.” Polaris warned them, and based on the reactions from her team, she wasn’t the only one to hear him.

As if to reinforce his warning, Liliana heard a shout of surprise and anger from the other team before the noises were hushed. Allencourt likely reminding her team that she couldn’t disguise sounds.

Alistair held up a hand and motioned to them before he took off, running in a random direction, away from the shouts they’d heard, their team following him without hesitation. As they moved, Liliana could see spells and skills activating as her teammates prepared for a fight. She activated her own Set Up combo but held off on activating anything else.

Her naginata appeared in her hand as she ran, the weight comforting to her in this unfamiliar battlefield. Her steps picked up, but she kept to a few feet behind Alistair. She had low Vitality and her Speed wasn’t useful if she couldn’t see the attacks to dodge. As they moved, metal and earth whizzed around them, wildly off target, making it obvious their opponents couldn’t see them. Liliana ducked under a rock the size of her head as it appeared through an illusory tree, barely avoiding the attack.

The ground under them softened, and Alistair held up a hand to stop them. Rocks and metal arrows still flew through the air and their team shifted, even as their feet started to stick to the ground, so Lelantos faced the direction the attacks originated from and the rest of them huddled behind his enlarged form. Alistair dropped back and looked at the ground, his face twisting with the effort of covering a large enough area in a substance Remrence couldn’t turn to muck.

Crystals rose around them, jagged and sharp to cover their sides, even as metal slowly appeared under their sinking feet. Liliana had sunk down to her ankles, the sensation of being trapped making her want to take to the sky, by the time Alistair managed to build a platform of metal thick enough and big enough to hold them all and prevent their descent. He didn’t move even after they had ceased sinking and Liliana realized he was probably adding something under it to prevent Remrence from sinking the metal with them on top of it. Sweat beaded on his forehead and Liliana winced, knowing he was using manipulation skills, things that took far more Mana to accomplish than dedicated skills and spells.

“Done,” Alistair gasped out in a whisper, hands on his knees as he bent nearly double, gulping in air.

Marianne moved forward and pressed a hand to his shoulder, infusing him with a soft light. After a moment, Alistair straightened and moved to stand next to Lelantos, summoning his shield and sword. Liliana watched him activate skills and spells, his skin taking on a metallic sheen as a crystal shield appearing to circle his body.

Liliana kept her head moving, looking around for attacks from unexpected positions, her nerves drawn tight. The waiting was almost as bad as the not being able to see their opponents. She didn’t like this. She was used to fights where she could see her opponents, hear them. With the ring covered in illusions, she couldn’t see the threats coming, and it made her scared.

She couldn’t fight an opponent she couldn’t see, couldn’t dodge the attack if she couldn’t see it coming. Her fighting style depended on her being able to see the attacks so she could compensate for her low Vitality with high Speed so she never had to be hit in the first place to worry about her Health. Liliana activated [Battle Clarity], if only to tamp down on her fear before she did something reckless and stupid. Calm flooded her, and she relaxed.

“Ready.” Emyr whispered behind her, and Liliana turned.

His eyes were open, and he was smiling as he raised a hand. They couldn’t see anything, but seconds later there were sounds of something heavy hitting the ground in multiple places, shouts of surprise and screams of fear. The illusions of manor walls shivered for a moment but didn’t break, making Emyr frown before he closed his eyes and started on another spell.

Liliana looked at the rest of her teammates and saw a mixture of anticipation and fear on their faces. Nemesis was constricting slightly and releasing around her neck. The serpent was uncomfortable with not being able to sense her opponents. Lelantos was barely restraining a growl as his head moved from side to side, his nostrils flaring as he tried to scent out their enemies. Polaris was sitting, his expression bored, but Liliana could see his ears swiveling as he tried to hear the other team.

“Don’t shoot off any attacks. They might be able to find us based on the trajectory.” Alistair whispered out just loud enough for them to hear, his gaze directed at Marianne, who had summoned spikes of water that splashed to the ground at the order.

The random attacks from the other team increased in frequency and Liliana could see the ground around their metal platform bubbling as Remrence redoubled her efforts to trap them before Emyr’s next attack ruined their advantage. Alistair grunted as a stone collided with his shield, but he didn’t call out. With the added frequency of attacks, a few managed to hit their tanks as they waited anxiously for Emyr’s next spell.

“Ready.” Emyr called out softly.

This time, when he raised his hand, Liliana could almost see the spell. In a few places, they broke through the illusions, looking like falling stars before they vanished. Their entire group held their breath as shouts of surprise and curses rang through the ring until there was a piercing scream and the illusion of the manor dropped. The forest illusion remained, but finally they could see their opponents scattered before them. They were turning around frantically as they tried to locate the origin of the attack and Liliana could see one fallen body coated in a bright red shield.

“Go.” Alistair ordered and Liliana grinned as she took to the sky, activating [Wind Walk]. They could finally start.