Chapter Nineteen

Draco returned to the waiting room, exhausted and covered in sweat and some of his own blood. His battle with Noah was intense, it was easily the greatest obstacle he had to overcome yet. The fight may not have been as long as some of his previous fights, but it took everything out of him and he barely won. He knew at the end of the fight it was all or nothing and he was gambling everything on Noah’s character.

If Noah had been mean enough to kill, Draco would have been dead, but he was sure Noah was not a killer. Part of Draco wondered though, if Noah had been a killer would he have been able to come out of the fight alive?

Fortunately for Draco there were no other fights that day, he went to his hotel room and crawled into bed immediately falling asleep. Lienna’s soft voice later woke him up. Her words were a light mumble of noises to Draco as he stirred in bed trying to get up.

“Draco get up, the sun has been up for a little while now you might be late.” Lienna said.

Draco got out of bed and saw outside the window the sun had already arisen, it was only a couple hours before mid-day. He didn’t have much time before the final exhibitions started. He took his breakfast on the go and some more food for a snack in case he was waiting long. He was still tired from his match yesterday and hadn’t had time to change the wraps on his hands, but he brought fresh bandages with him to change them while waiting.

The coliseum was already opened and Draco asked a referee if his number had been called. Fortunately for him it had not and he took a seat, a little more relaxed. He noticed the number of contestants were far fewer than ever now. In fact after doing a brief headcount Draco figured that today there wouldn’t be too many more exhibitions, at least not in this coliseum.

The entire day he waited patiently, but Draco was never called to fight anymore. And at the end of the day a referee came out calling out peoples numbers, followed by their name announcing they had qualified for the official tournament; Draco was one of them. The tournament would be starting in a week at the grand coliseum, this gave the contestants time to recover and enjoy the festivity.

Draco was fine with the week off he could use some good rest and time to recover. At first he was content to spend the week in the hotel relaxing, but with Galrin and Lienna not talking much that quickly became boring. So he decided to go out and wander around, try to enjoy some of the festivities.

For a short time he was enjoying himself even if just a little bit, but something that night sparked back memories of his last night with his father on Aeon Torris. He wasn’t entirely sure what it was either but it had ruined his night, and even the rest of his week. Draco ended up spending most of the week in his room in a meditative state to pass the time.

On the first day of the official tournament matches Draco was up early and waiting at the grand coliseum. The coliseum opened up soon enough and Draco was asked his contestant number when he got to the sign up counter. He told the lady and after she flipped through some papers and glanced at Draco a couple times she told him his fight schedule for the day. The first was in the morning a few hours from now and the second one just a couple hours before dusk.

With time to spare Draco returned to his hotel room to tell Lienna and Galrin his schedule of fights. “We’re going with you this time,” Lienna stated.

“Well as long as my opponents are not as tough as that last guy I won’t need you yet,” Draco said.

“About that last opponent, his name is Noah and he’s going to be helping you overthrow Ragnarock when the time comes.”

“How do you figure that, and why are you just now telling me this?” Draco’s voice carried his suspicion.

“I just found out a week ago. I was watching your fight closely when I sensed a powerful elemental coming forth near the end. I barely managed to pull it away from the battle if I had not you would have lost.”

“That light back then, that was you?”

“You’re welcome,” Lienna said half rhetorical. “More to the point the elemental I pulled from you was our old battle commander, Primordious. He explained to us everything, how he has been waiting for someone who would help him bring down Ragnarock just like us.

“I don’t know his partner Noah at all, but if Primordious trusts him so do I. With their help we stand a good chance at stopping the void ethereal.”

“I thought we already had a good chance of stopping him after we infiltrate them and surprise attack them?”

Lienna hesitated for a moment and said, “We did but there’s something else we withheld from you.” She had trouble continuing, her voice sounded sad.

“More secrets great,” Draco said ignorant of Lienna’s tone.

“Well Draco the thing is… we never had any intention of getting out of this alive. Me and Galrin knew this would likely cost us our lives probably yours too.”

Draco looked down at his feet and shook his head slowly, “All along,” He said. “You expected all of us to die all along with no chance of surviving.” He was mad but his voice came out sad and disappointed.

“You were willing to die for this anyways so what’s the problem?” Galrin asked.

Draco looked up his eyes red on the verge of tears; he stared at their cards because that’s where they were residing at this time and said, “You’re right I am willing to die for this if I must, but I trusted you. I believed we could get out of this alive, but you had given up on life already and were planning to die in the process of destroying Ragnarock.” The pain was deep. He felt betrayed.

“Draco listen,” Lienna protested.

“No save it! Okay I thought we were friends, thought we trusted one another, but I was wrong. I’m nothing more than a tool for you to use up, it doesn’t matter what happens to me in the process.” Draco stormed out of the hotel.

He went all around the capitol trying in vain to take his mind off the earlier conversation. The pain easily turned itself into rage within him and he shoved people out of his way for no decent reason. “Draco?” Lienna’s voice whispered to him.

“I’m not talking to you,” Draco said allowed not caring if anyone saw him talking to what looked like himself.

“You will get over it in time but for now you do have a match coming up shortly if I’m not mistaken?”

Draco looked around him for some sort of clock but there were none around, even still it didn’t hurt to return to the coliseum to check. The fight was indeed coming up within twenty minutes, which gave Draco enough time to speed back to the hotel retrieve his cards and return for his name to be called forth.

The grand coliseum was simply enormous; hundreds of yards of an open area surrounded with twenty foot walls which beyond them were dozens of rows of seats for the audience to watch from. The rows were packed, nearly the entire city must have gathered there this morning. The coliseum was devoid of any natural elements to enhance certain players, even the ground below Draco’s feet contained no decent source of Earth element energies to gather.

Here it was a fair fight and no specific magician with mastery over any element had an advantage, it was all a matter of skill and talent.

Draco stood next to his pillar, having taking in the rest of the coliseum he starred across to his opponent. There was well over a hundred yards distance between the pillars and thus the opponents. This made it so no match would end swiftly unless the gap in skills between opponents was tremendous. Draco knew though that both he and his opponent would have to remain near their pillars while their elementals clashed in the middle, and tried to either maneuver around to destroy the opponents pillar or destroy the opposing elemental and then rush it.

The match started and Draco calmly advanced forward stopping after he was just over ten yards away from his pillar. His opponent summoned their elemental first, an aether wyvern, it rose to the sky swiftly putting the sun to its back forcing Draco to squint as he looked up at it watching its advancement towards him. Draco summoned a dark sphere around him and his pillar as the wyvern charged down after him.

The sounds of a struggle were all that escaped the dark globe around Draco and his pillar. Even the referee had a hard time trying to find out what was going on without interfering with the match in progress. Soon the sounds dyed out and from the globe emerged a manticore, it was a bit tattered but still in excellent fighting condition.

Draco emerged from the darkness as his opponent yelled across the coliseum, demanding to know what Draco had done. “Darkness is the Manticore’s natural habitat, neither me you, nor your elemental may be able to see in that globe of darkness, but the manticore can navigate it perfectly and destroy any threat to it.”

The dark globe moved forward with the advancing manticore soon shrouding it once again. Draco’s opponent began to panic as the dark globe continued towards him at an alarming rate. He didn’t know if the manticore was at the head of the darkness leading the charge, or at the back safely waiting for the globe to overtake him so it could strike when he was blinded.

Not waiting to find out he unleashed a torrent of fire into the advancing globe of dark. It went in but nothing came out, nor did the flames do anything to illuminate the inside of it. The globe was upon him and he crossed his arms over his face in defense when the dark globe instantly vanished. Beyond it was no manticore, but instead Draco who had suffered some minor burns.

Draco had thrust his open palms at his opponent, and with the force of wind behind it, sent him flying far away from his pillar. Draco then turned and started hammering away at the pillar with a maddened furry; he still had some steam to blow off from earlier. By the time his opponent rose to his feet and prepared a counter attack Draco had smashed the pillar and won the match.

He returned to his hotel room after the match and shortly after cleaning up and changing clothes he climbed into bed and rested shortly. He later woke up as the sun was starting to lower. There were still a few hours before his next fight so he ate and planned for his next match as best he could.

The coliseum at night was lighted with dozens of Light orbs floating all about, high above the stands and out of the contestant’s way. It gave plenty of light for the contestants to see.

Draco’s next opponent was an older woman. She was very experienced and her elementals were tough, but Draco won using the combination of his manticore and chimera, the two had great synergy.

Through the next couple days of the grand tournament Draco pushed his manticore and chimera hard, he was determined to keep as many of his larger elementals a secret from the rest of the world, or rather Ragnarock, for as long as possible. He had managed to make it to the finals of the tournament, but his exhaustion and that of his two elementals had nearly cost him and he lost both the chimera and manticore against a powerful Light magician.

Now there was only one fight left for Draco before he could officially become a Ragnarock guild member. The final fight would take place tomorrow an hour before the sunset, this gave Draco plenty of time to rest and prepare.

On the day of the final tournament match Draco was feeling very anxious. He didn’t fully realize it himself but he was shaking a little bit, ‘finally,’ he thought to himself. ‘Finally it all comes down to this, no turning back, and no giving up.’

Lienna able to sense his anxiety said, “It’s all going to be alright, me and Galrin will be by your side at all times as we always have.”

He had too much pride to admit it, but knowing that and even just hearing it again made Draco feel at ease. He went into the coliseum for the last time; the referee started giving some grand speech about the best of the best. Draco’s focus was on his opponent, a pretty woman in her late twenties that Draco could tell.

Her hair was auburn and her skin fair and pale, she carried a look of arrogance about her. Draco was half tuned in to what the referee had been saying and he managed to hear him say, “And Tessa our champion for three years in a row.” Draco knew getting here alone could never happen on just luck, but to win three years in a row, she must be amazing.

Finally when the referee had announced the match to start Draco advanced forward as he did before keeping himself close to his pillar, but not hoarding over it like a fool. His opponent did the same except she seemed to step further away from her pillar.

The two starred off across the distance, he realized now she was waiting for him to act first and would probably wait all day if she had too. “Have it your way,” Draco said quietly to himself.

Using the energy he gathered he summoned his archangel in a brilliant light. It charged forth with great force towards Tessa. In another light of her own Tessa summoned a Silver Dragon which met the arch angle head on. The two clashed with great force sending a shockwave through the air that threw half the audience members in the stands back.

The archangel and the silver Dragon wrestled around in the air tearing each other apart and exchanging blasts of their own magic. The silver Dragon had the advantage, but Draco was fierce and for every gash on his archangel he returned with powerful smite blasts. In the end the two elementals destroyed each other.

Draco was out of breath and sweating, he could continue though, he’s faced worse. Tessa pulled out a small amber stone from her pocket and held onto it as its glow swiftly started to diminish. ”That can’t be!” Lienna exclaimed after Tessa discarded the stone.

“What is it?” Draco asked her.

“That’s a fragment of an ever life stone. I thought only Noah had one of those. Primordious was guarding the original structure so no one should have been able to obtain any.”

“Does it matter now,” Draco said frustrated. “She has it and it just restored all her energy spent meanwhile I still need time to gather my strength.”

“So does she, the fragment may have restored her energy but it does nothing to gather it for her. And she can’t tap into it for more so she has to take time to attain power to summon anything else just like you.”

“It’s all the same; unless we want to reveal you to Ragnarock prematurely I only have one option left, one last elemental strong enough to pull off a victory for me given the situation.”

The time to gather their energies was up and both of them had been at it for several minutes. Tessa was first this time, she summoned a lightning colossal followed shortly by a stone titan. The two elementals looked fierce and almost unstoppable together. “Well little boy, this is it,” Tessa called out mockingly “All cards are out I’m curious to see how you handle this.”

In response Draco summoned forth from an orb of purple and blue lights a massive Gravity behemoth. Everyone was taken aback by the summoning of the Elemental. Probably few alive today has ever set eyes on a gravity behemoth and lived to tell about it.

Both the stone titan and thunder colossus charged the behemoth attacking it with everything they had. A storm of boulder shards and an enormous electrical shockwave united to take down the behemoth.

The attacks were repelled by an unseen force several feet away from the behemoth. It then advanced ominously as the titan and colossus reluctantly retreated away. Tessa quickly realized the fighting would get too close to her if she kept having her elementals back away so she had them advance swiftly as they could to either side of the behemoth to try and get around it.

For an instant this almost seemed like it would work but the behemoth reacted, going after the thunder colossus first. It turned to face the colossus swiftly while the stone titan was met with an invisible barrier that threw it on to its back making the entire coliseum shake.

The behemoth’s horns radiated an iridescent purple as the thunder colossus was soon caught up helplessly in a dim blue field around it lifting it in the air and keeping it from moving or attacking. The stone titan was still struggling to get up when the behemoth shot forth an iridescent beam, channeled between its horns, decimating the thunder colossus.

It went out in radiance of sparkling blue’s purples and green lights, it was beautiful and somehow at the same time gruesome. For an instant Draco was distracted at the beauty of the elemental, even in death these creatures were a wonder of this world.

He turned his attention back to the stone titan who managed to get back on its feet now. His behemoth thrust its head towards the stone titan and up, battering it high up into the air with its gravitational powers.

The titan went above the coliseum and came crashing down, being pulled by the behemoths gravity force, like a meteor into the ground. It exploded into dozens of jagged boulders which went flying every direction. Draco managed to stop a majority of the jagged boulders before they reached the rows of seats.

Some boulders managed to elude him but fortunately there were gifted magicians in the stands who were able to safely stop them before doing anyone harm. Tessa also managed to protect herself and her pillar from the boulders but she looked as exhausted as Draco. He figured she had no more defenses left but just to be safe Draco had the behemoth shatter the pillar from afar with its gravity magic.

Tessa was defeated, Draco won the grand tournament and after the celebration ceremony held for the winner he was offered a membership into Ragnarock. He accepted and the next day, after becoming an official member, he was moved into one of the dorms for guild members where he had his own private and luxurious room just like all the members who lived there.

He was toured around the facility but was never taken to the basement; he didn’t bring it up either because it may be too suspicious. During his great tour he noticed something rather strange, despite the facility’s magnitude it seemed almost understaffed and there were not as many Ragnarock members as he expected there should be.

When he asked about the other members and why there were not that many around his tour guide’s smile transformed into a frown. Her eyes fell to the floor and Draco could hear plainly the concern in her voice when she said they were on important missions.

After the tour Draco was returned to his room so he could be measured by the guild tailor so she could make him his uniform that fit to his size. After getting his measurements done there was a knocking at his door. He called for whoever it was to come in and an older man who walked about with a cane opened the door and said in a commanding tone, “The guild master wishes to speak with you please follow me.”

Draco obliged and he was taken up many sets of stairs all the way to the top where a single hallway was leading to large white wood doors that were closed. The elder man said, “He is through there, no need to knock just go on in and shut the door behind you.”

Draco watched as the man made his way down the stairs until he was out of sight. Then Draco proceeded down the halls as he got closer the doors opened themselves for him and he went into single room beyond it. The room was bare save for a desk and a simple chair where an old man with medium length pepper hair sat in.

As Draco came into the room further the doors shut slowly behind him and he stopped halfway through the room, tense and a little on guard. The elder man smiled and opened his eyes, Draco saw that his eyes were nothing more than blank white sleights, no pupil no iris, nothing.

“Welcome Draco,” the man said. “My name is Darwin Petral, founder and leader of Ragnarock.”

“Thank you sir,” Draco said. “It’s a great honor to be here.”

Darwin scoffed and said, “Come now Draco let’s not lie in these final moments. Lienna and Galrin talked you into all of this did they not? They convinced you to come here and stop me from returning to your world again?”

Draco lost almost dropped his façade in that single instant. Did Darwin, the Ragnarock guild leader, know all along? No impossible he covered his tracks perfectly. But still something wasn’t right here, how did Darwin know Lienna and Galrin it couldn’t just be coincidence.

“Or perhaps Primordious tinkered with your brain and gave you the extra push to help realize who the true enemy is,” Darwin continued. “You know that poor young man Noah is subject to Primordious’ influence, but I don’t think he did much just give him a little push here and there.

“My clone, he never really had the heart to fully control the humans, unlike me. Quite the ambitious young man this Darwin was too. You know he willingly let me take over his body when the time came for it. He didn’t care what happened to him so long as all the elementals are eradicated, which they will be along with every other intelligent being on this planet.”

All Draco could say at that moment was, “You murdered my parents!”

Darwin crooked his head to the side and starred off at Draco, studying him. Finally he said, “Oh my now I see the resemblance. Your mother and father, they discovered what I was up to. It was too soon for me so I am afraid I had to dispose of them in an unorthodox method.”

Draco clenched his fists in anger, barley able to control himself from leaping out at Darwin and tearing him apart. All the years of anger and hatred he had been burning deep down, only letting parts of it out to fuel him in his journey; it rushed back into him. Somehow he managed to hold himself back just a bit longer.

“I will say your mother was extraordinary, you know she proved herself so amazing that when she discovered what was going on I couldn’t help but offer her a deal. If she joined me I would allow eight percent of all the life on this planet to live in their own utopia to see what they could become. She refused of course and almost escaped my clutches. And then your father, I’m still not sure how but he snuck in here and got through dozens of my members without using a bit of magic inside. I didn’t sense his presence until he made it to circle.”

“Enough!” Draco shouted as he slammed his fists onto Darwin’s desk, breaking it in two.

Darwin sighed and said, “I suppose I won’t even bother trying to make the same offer for you. Well no matter, before you try to uselessly destroy this host form I suggest you look behind you at your real problem.”

Reluctantly Draco turned his head to see nine Ragnarock members in the hall behind him. The doors had opened themselves silently during the conversation and this whole thing was a trap. He turned back to face Darwin but the old man was gone, vanished without a trace; it was only Draco left now.

Draco turned around facing the Ragnarock members. He knew the void ethereal was already in the final process of summoning himself back but the only way downstairs was through them. He pulled out his cards with his last remaining elementals, the aces in his sleeve; it was all or nothing now.