After we were done having lunch, Blax wanted to talk with me in private. I don’t know the reason as of that moment but I just agreed to him without thinking much. We walked away from Hosuke and Kaym who were still rattling out their rivalries through a eating contest. Does those guys haven’t a single idea that what they were doing was wasting a lot of money?

I decided to ask Blax why did he asked for me, “What do you want with me?”

“Let’s just make it a simple talk.” Blax replied as we kept walking to our destination.

“Is something the matter?”

We finally reached our destination which was at the back of the school library building. There were nothing notable there except for two water tap spots along with a relatively big water container. There's also a pair of dumpster. Nothing interesting, really.

Blax finally replied back and said, “Listen, the next match is going to be a pair match. Meaning that we need two people from each team to participate. It’s going to be a Spell Ball game.”

“Spell Ball? Well this is something, alright.”

Spell Ball. It is one of the biggest sport known throughout the world. It even has its own world cup event every few years. It was so darn popular that it even created rabid fans that would tear each other apart whenever two different sides collide in a stadium. Basically, it is a game where the goal is to get as many goals as possible within the time limit. How do you get a goal? You score it by getting the ball into the goal. Pretty standard. The interesting part was that we will have to use magic during the match. Making the Spell Ball more fun. To make it more interesting, the ball can absorb magic at certain times and release it at another random time. It can be an advantage or a disadvantage for anyone who was leading the charge whenever the ball releases its magic.

“At first, I really wanted you and Lore to do this one but now that Lore isn’t here at all…I think I have to make some changes.”

I stopped Blax, “Blax, don’t worry about me...Or Lore.” I was unsure why I stopped for a moment there.

“Is something wrong?”

I hesitated but I answered him of course, “We got into a fight the other day. Lore decided that we should stop seeing each other and that we did. Now it just keeps getting worse with all of these happening.”

Blax looked a little disheartening after hearing that, “Do you miss him?”

“To tell you the truth. Not much really. I mean we see each other everyday in class. But when considering about doing something together, that’s another story.”

“Mistakes were made. You can’t change what happened. But still, you have the ability to switch your current situation into something even better.”

I nodded and said, “With that in mind, I wholeheartedly want to enter the next match. So who’s going to be pairing with me?”

“I wasn’t expecting that from you though.” Blax was surprised by my decision. “I was considering Hosuke and Kaym considering those two seemed to be getting better together.”

“I can see that.”

“But since you really wanted to do this, then I think it’s up to you on who you should pick as a partner for the Spell Ball.”

I gave a little thought and decided, “The next match after the Spell Ball is going to be a trio match, I presume. That means, The best decision for me to pick right now is Hosuke. Meaning that later on you will be pairing up with Kaym and Kin”

Blax nodded in agreement, “Excellent deduction, Rider. Even without Rulend on our side right now, you are still able to micromanage the team according to their abilities.”

“We have to min max the whole Group Stage. I mean why would they make four different matches with all of the matches combined requires 7 people for it. Besides that, we don’t want to tire out the others for another match. Who knows, there might be a tie-breaker and we will be forced to enter a death match to decide which team is going to the next stage.”

“Oh yeah. The sudden death match. That would be problematic because it will start quite early after the last match finish. Let’s try our best not to get the sudden death match happen at all.”

“Worse case scenario, we have three people getting tired when walking into the sudden death match.”

“We’ll see about that.” Blax patted my shoulder and walked away. “Let’s go back and see if we have a winner on the food contest.”

He left me all alone at the back of the library building wondering more about how I was easily letting go of my partner. It was almost like it was just yesterday that we were the best duo in school.

-

It was way after the qualifier stage, around the time when White and Hosuke was helping out with Mrs. R. Lore and I were lamenting over the fact of how awful we did back when we were fighting Team Buddyz.

“If only you weren’t caught in that stupid illusion. That just shows how weak you are…” commented Lore.

I responded by saying, “Me being weak? The last time I remember, I’m the one who makes the offensive moves between the two of us.”

“Now you are saying I’m weaker than you?”

“Isn’t that how it is?”

“I think I’m way better than you. Besides, I’m more smarter.” bragged Lore.

I replied back to him, “Now that just takes too far. Don’t you think? I’m the one who always do the dirty work while you stood beside me howling orders at me.”

“I only do so because you wouldn’t be able to adapt to the situation at hand!”

“I can do it myself!”

“We’re taking this outside the school, Rider Blade.”

We went outside the school area and made our way to a park nearby. Next to the park was a huge shopping complex which consist of many things for people to buy. Pretty self explanatory. In any case, we decided to settle our difference by fighting it out at the park over there.

“You ready?” Lore asked me.

“I’ll show you that I’m stronger than you.”

“Enough talking, idiot. You’re wasting your breath talking to me about useless things that I don’t need to know.”

“Can you please stop talking about my brain?” my tone was getting intense.

I summoned my sword from my dimensional bag and transformed into my dragon knight armor. Meanwhile, Lore summoned his shield and changed into his Charge Mode. Both of us ran into each other and clashed our sword and shield. Lore raised his shield upward while I continuously try to hit him from above. Every single strike I made was blocked by his shield. He doesn’t even try to fight back. That made me more pissed to the point that my sword started to form a burning aura around it.

This was because of the dragon knight armor I’m wearing. It gives out a fire energy to all of my body including the sword. The more damage I inflict, the more fire it will release. But there was one problem, it doesn’t last long until the fire starts to run out. That was what happened when I fought Lore.

“You should stop now. You do know that your fire won’t last that long if you use it too much.” said Lore as he slowly lowers his shield.

I started to breath intensely trying to catch my breath and replied to him, “I…won’t…give up now…”

“This is why I don’t like you. You’re too stubborn to even listen to me.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look at you. You look pathetic. If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t have been known as one of the duo.”

“And the duo wouldn’t exist without the two of us together. What is wrong with you! Why are we fighting each other?”

Lore turned his back and said, “I don’t know. I guess I made the wrong choice. I shouldn’t be partner with you. It was a mistake I made.”

“Wait…is the end of the duo?”

“What do you think, Rider? Is this the end for The Combination Duo? Because I think it is.” Lore walked away leaving me all alone.

A mistake he made he said. What does he mean by that. I really need to know. But on the other hand, I’d rather not bother myself with that person any more. He’s been using me all this time to gain popularity. Now that’s probably one of the reason why Lore seemed to be dating with that one girl from White’s classroom. Of course, that girl was a nobody. It’s not Rika, Rin or Izzy. It was just another girl from White, Rulend and Blax’s classroom.

But I better get ahead of myself. Because what’s matter the most right now was that I need to prove myself that I’m the better half of The Combination Duo. I’ll show you, Lore.

TO BE CONTINUED