The fight was gonna take place at a nearby arena, where you could schedule times to have the arena to yourself for training or in this case a duel. I followed the crowd and we filled into the available seats protected behind a force field I managed to get a seat that was the closest to the arena, right beside the protective shield. Sure enough, Nova was there, standing in the arena facing another opponent from another school.

The opponent was a guy. He wore a black school uniform with a red tie, which loosely dangled from his neck. On both hands, he wore black leather gloves. His pants were also black but had tears and holes on them. He had slick brown hair that looked like he dumped a barrel of gel on them. He had musky green eyes, like a swamp with is nasty color and gloomy trees. He gave off a somewhat aggressive presence, not like Amanda’s but more like somebody who has a dominant presence, someone who liked to be in control. It was a weird clash with his appearance, as he looked like some guy who would be up to mischievous activities.

“Who is he?” I muttered to myself.

“His name is William Banks. He used to be Nova’s old partner.” Atlas answered my question.

I nearly jumped out of my seat. Atlas was suddenly sitting beside me. He wasn’t there before.

“By the Beings At-”

Atlas shushed me. “Please refrain from calling me by name, I would rather not be noticed. Let’s give Nova and William all the attention ya?”

I nodded at his request. He didn’t really like showing his presence in public, which would explain why he was hiding his face and scars with a hoodie and using a fake lens on his black eye to give it the same color as his right.

“So why are you here then? Wouldn’t it be safer if you stayed at school or at your apartment?” I asked.

“It would be, but I am also intrigued by this fight. It is a duel of old teammates after all.”

“So what caused the break-up of the team?”

“You’re looking at him. I’m aware that Eve told you a brief history of Nova and me in the Zone Games. I and my old partner beat Nova and William when we faced off yes, but my partner got injured in a match that wouldn’t be healed in time for our next match so we had to resign. My partner was a third year, so my partner graduated and I needed to find another teammate to form a team. Nova was fixated on me beating her and came here to find me and demanded she be my teammate.”

“So why is William Banks here?”

“Probably to try and get Nova back. He’s a stubborn guy. He could team up with other strong magic users but he is devoted to having Nova as her teammate.” Atlas answered.

Damn. That guy followed Nova from Skyria just to get her back? That’s some dedication. It creeped me out.

“Nova! If I win this duel you will become my teammate once again!” William called out.

Nova snorted. “Why would I join you? My teammate is far better than you. I’d be insane to join with you.”

“I’ve trained myself. You’ll see that I am far stronger than last year. I’ll beat you and prove to you that you should be my partner!” He declared.

Nova just waved him off with a flick of her hand. She proceeded to nod towards the announcer and judge of the duel. The announcer nodded.

“Welcome everybody. You are all here to witness a duel between Nova Eclipse of Golden Sierra Mana academy and William Banks of Crescent Moon academy from Skyria. I will be your announcer and judge for this duel.” He announced.

The crowd politely clapped to both combatants. The announcer waited for the crowd to quiet down before continuing.

“Let faith and fortune rain down on both combatants! The Beings salute you all!” He yelled as the buzzer rang, commencing the fight.

William immediately broke into a run, making a sprint to reach Nova. Nova didn’t move but instead decided to stay in place.

“William here is at a disadvantage. He is a brawler; close quarter combat is his strong suit. He uses magic that is very similar to Trevor, A Physicalist.” Atlas explained. “Nova, however, she doesn’t have that limitation. She can attack from close range, mid-range or long range thanks to her magic. William packs quite a punch, I’ve had to fight against him after all, but Nova is stronger.”

I didn’t pay much attention to Atlas; I was completely absorbed in this fight. Glowing runes appeared on William’s arms and hands; they glowed red, scorching red.

“The difference between Trevor’s and William’s magic is that William can alter his runes. Trevor can only buff himself with his runes, but William can alter his. He can make them emit heat to the point where if punched; it will feel like you’ve been hit by a blazing inferno. He can make it fell like you’ve been punched by a speeding train, been electrocuted by lightning, have the air knocked out of your lungs.” Atlas explained further.

Back to the fight, William had Nova take on a defensive stance. He was absolutely unrelenting, throwing punches left and right with no sign of letting up. Nova had used her Veil magic to set up a rainbow shield in front of her to take the blows of William’s attacks. But William kept smashing the shield to smithereens, forcing Nova to keep putting one up.

“I thought you said that Nova would be stronger!” I exclaimed, seeing Nova not being able to throw in an attack.

“Back in the Zone Games, Nova was stronger than William. I guess he really did train a lot for this fight. But of course, only a moron would think that Nova is backed into a corner.”

Turning back to the fight, William was still dishing out punches, but at a slower, more sluggish rate. Nova, however, looked rather unscathed, except for a few bruises and cuts. William, on the other hand, was a waterfall. His hair was drenched in sweat, splattered over his face, covering his eyes, probably making it harder for him to see. Nova was willingly putting herself on the defensive to tire William down and it was clearly working.

“What’s wrong William? Getting tired? I thought you said that you had trained for this fight?” Nova taunted him.

William’s eyes narrowed as he growled. He clenched both his fists, put them together and lifted them in the air.

“Oh shi-” Nova cried with widened eyes.

She started to quickly back away from William, turning around to run away, but she was too little too late. William brought down both fists, slamming them on the ground. Initially, nothing happened, but then shockwaves could be felt, big shockwaves, powerful shockwaves. They were powerful enough to fracture the seats we were sitting on, even making a vendor lose his balance and topple over.

So sure enough, the shockwaves were more than enough to send Nova to the ground and her foot got stuck in a fracture in the ground that wasn’t originally there. As she tried to get up, she clearly broke her ankle, as it was twisted to an unnatural degree. Nova let out a cry of pain as the spectators gasped. Atlas visibly winced as the ankle broke.

William walked up to Nova huffing and gasping for air. He ran a hand through his wet hair, bringing it back, so it no longer obstructed his view.

“See? I told you I trained. You really shouldn’t have taunted me, Nova. As a result, you’ve got a broken ankle, that won’t be healing well anytime soon. Just give up, I’ve won.” William demanded.

But from Nova, he only got an unwavering grin and furious eyes. “Over my dead body William.” She exclaimed as she spat on him.

William wiped away the spit of his cheek with the back of his hand, shrugged and picked Nova up with his other hand, lifting her off the ground. “Have it your way.”

He proceeded to bring back his free hand, balled it into a fist and started to repeatedly punch Nova in the stomach. Nova winced in pain as she received punch after punch. If the damage was minimal, her ribs would be bruised, at the worst, her ribcage was completely shattered, under the strength of the punches.

“This is not going well for Nova, I may have underestimated William,” Atlas muttered.

Nova clawed, or rather tried to claw her way free from William’s grasp, but he stood firm, his hand still clamped around her throat. Spectators muttered among themselves.

“Disappointed. Nova is better than this.”

“Maybe that William fellow is simply better.”

“One-sided fight if you ask me.”

William suddenly laughed. “Hear that Nova? People think you’re weak, weaker than me.”

Suddenly William became absolutely quiet and so did most of the spectators. William let go of Nova and she quickly crawled away from him, to keep some distance, not that it mattered. Williams was on the ground, in pain, as he clutched a part of his body. Nova kicked him in the you know where. I looked around the audience, as pretty much all men; including Atlas winced as if they could feel his pain.

“Why Nova?” William groaned.

“Sometimes you gotta play dirty to win Will,” Was her reply.

William had a face of absolute shock and then anger. “YOU KICKED ME IN THE BALLS!” (He said it not me).

“Exactly, playing dirty. You may need to get those checked out by the way.” She joked.

“Asshole.” He grunted.

However, for how dirty Nova’s move was, she was still injured, while William would eventually get back up to finish the fight. He staggered and stumbled for a while, but he did eventually get back on his feet, slowly making his way to Nova, runes reappearing around his arms.

“He’s going for the finisher,” I called out.

Atlas didn’t answer back, simply staring at the field. I looked at the announcer for the fight, who hadn’t said anything since the fight started. Why was the fight still going on? Clearly, Nova was going to get badly injured.

“You lose Nova, it’s my win,” William stated as he brought back his fist, ready to deliver that knockout blow,

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that William,” Nova responded.

William struck, his blow missing Nova by an inch as she scrambled out of the way. She extended her right arm, opening her hand. Underneath William, a circle of light appeared, glowing with magical power.

“Game over William.”

“Fuck you!” William yelled, trying to lunge out of the circle.

Nova snapped her fingers together and the light of the circle enveloped William, blinding all the spectators including myself. A deafening explosion soon followed, with the light vanishing a few moments later. When all of us could see again, William was on the floor, unconscious and was suddenly tanned. Nova blew him up.

“The winner is Nova Eclipse from Golden Sierra!” The announcer exclaimed.

The crowd erupted in cheers.