Now that Lupos' first match of the day was over he quickly made his way to the viewing area to watch Wing and Lucio compete. He was only waiting several minutes before Lucio was called, as he also had the advantage to pick his competitor for the first round.

Standing opposite Lucio was a large, and somewhat chunky girl with blond hair and a gap toothed smile as well as a large polished spear. There was also a large tiger spirit growling on her left. Like Lucio she had also captured the flag for her team and had mutually agreed to a match with him. "Nice to meet you" said the girl smiling cheerfully. Lucio simply sniffed as if she was beneath him, refusing to reply.

Ignoring Lucio's poor manners the girl continued to smile as if nothing was wrong "confident are we? I just hope that isn't your undoing." Although Lucio was still ignoring the girl, anyone with half a brain could see she had dangerous glint in her eyes and thick callous's on her hand suggesting long hours of weapons handling. This could go very bad very quickly if Lupos didn't help handle it right.

Sighing he started to convey a message for Hugin and Munin in mindspeak "Munin I want you to work in obstructing the tiger, use darkness magic and shadows to create a blindside if you can. I get the feeling Lucio's bird is like his fighting, pointlessly elegant and completely useless in a real fight."

Lupos paused for a minute waiting for a reply when he heard a bemused "yes, but what about searching for spies?" from Munin. "if they were looking for me it'd be during my match. I'll keep a low profile for now so focus on making sure Lucio wins. Hugin I want you to use light magic to temporarily blind the girl when Lucio attacks to make it easier on him. Do it exactly at the time she attacks, that way she'll just assume Lucio's using light magic to his advantage rather than an outside interference."

Hugin cackled and Lupos couldn't help but let out a grin "whatever you say kid." Lupos struggled not to laugh and instead focused on the match. Below, the announcer let out a cough and then spoke, "Match Lucio Illio versus Maria Aela, let the match begin." the girl, Maria, was fast. No sooner had the announcer called to begin that she was charging at Lucio, spear raised.

Barely managing to block it with his so called "Elegant" swordsmanship, Lucio stumbled backwards nearly at the edge of the ring, Lupos groaned Lucio would need more help with this than he had hoped and the more help he gave him the more obvious it was. "Hugin I take back what I said, use light magic as much as you need to just try not to make it too obvious."

Hugin started cackling again, and though Lupos did indeed find Lucio's terrible swordsmanship against what appeared to be a trained veteran hilarious to watch, he knew it would give him a lot more hassle down the road if he lost. Snapping himself out of thought he redirected his attention back to the match, it was worse than he thought.

Although Lucio's spirit was barely winning against the tiger, it was only due to Munin's continual interference and if one had sharp enough vision and was paying attention they would notice a slight shadow that almost seemed to move to cover the tigers face at opportune moments.

However, it was the actions of the humans, not their spirits which was worrying, Lucio was being driven back slowly but surely, even with Hugin's help. Lupos sighed and made up his mind "Ok Hugin, Munin change of plans I want both of you to create a large and obvious opening for both Lucio and the bird with the dumb name to exploit."

"Sure," replied Munin quickly considering the options "but is that ok? If they still can't win we won't easily be able to help again." Lupos nodded aware the birds could still see him "It's fine, if they don't take hold of the opportunity we stop interfering altogether. It'll just be too obvious, it'll be a hassle and provide much more irritancy down the line. If he loses we can always help Wing win instead."

""Ok then."" stated Hugin and Munin in syncronisation. Lupos gave a small smile and continued to watch the match below, all of a sudden the tiger was blinded as was the girl. And though it was hard to tell for someone who wasn't paying attention it seemed Lucio was, for once in his life anyway.

Grabbing his sword in a large and pointless gesture Lucio ran towards the girl and taking advantage of her temporary blindness, grabbed her from behind placing the sword at her throat. "Winner Lucio Illio!" came the cheerful voice of the announcer as the crowd dissolved into cheers.

However it soon died down at a now angry Maria's accusation. "You cheated, someone in the stand used light magic to blind me I demand a rematch!" Lupos frowned, the girl was smarter than she looked this could be a problem. Luckily for the adults he didn't have to worry for long.

"Hmph what audience member? it was all part if my plan to have you believe that!" Lucio spoke proudly. "Huh?" echoed Hugin, Munin and Lupos "I used Fire heart to create a heat mirage giving the idea of light, you were tricked by my clever use of magic!" the audience burst into clapping upon hearing of the youths careful control over his magic and Maria accepted his explanation and her defeat with a bow.

"Then I apologise for my accusation and thank you for the good match." While all this was going on Lupos was standing shocked in the gallery while listening to Hugin and Munin trying to talk in mindspeak between breaths of laughter. "Oh God...it's..too...funny...all...part..of..my..plan." Lupos was trying as hard as possible to keep the grin off his face, while failing miserably.

Suddenly Lucio emerged in the viewing area and made his way over to Lupos "I can see your smiling in awe at my control over magic," Lupos was in serious danger of laughing now "but it's ok if you keep practicing I'm sure one day you'll be as good as me."

Giving what he assumed to be a winning smile, Lucio walked off in search of refreshments, while Lupos gave into his urges and burst into laughter. Five minutes later when he had finally stopped laughing he realised that he hadn't seen Wing at all since he arrived, looking down in the arena he realised Wing was in a match, if you could even call it that. Wing was standing relaxed stroking Athena and humming while his opponent lay on the floor sleeping, Lupos started laughing again.

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Author's note

Hi guys I'm really REALLY sorry the chapters so late I've been swamped with exams so used my time to do some smaller chapters on my smaller fictions rather than a big one on wolf's way. But I promise to update more now cause EXAMS ARE FINALLY OVER!!!! Hope you enjoyed the chapter and on a brightside a friend of mine has agreed to help me proofread the story from beginning to end so all the mistakes will hopefully be fixed by the end of this week :)