A Dragon Knight? That was an interesting choice indeed. Rider’s ability, Transform is a offensive type ability where he can change his costumes and blade. He can’t change it instantly like Requip magic because Transform requires a few step in order to change to a different costume and blade. The first thing is you must already have the costume and blade kept safely. It must be owned by you. Then you will have to use a certain gesture or movement according to ‘the spirit of the costumes/armor’. For example, Rider drew a dragon face using his sword, that is why he is now wearing a Dragon Knight costume.

That’s pretty neat. But what worries me was that the moment he transformed, he instantly ran toward us. Without thinking much, Kaym used his magic, Devil Trigger and ran away from Rider. Rider swings his blade and misses Kaym who dodged it. Devil Trigger is an Offensive type magic where the user can have the power of a devil. What happened just now was that Kaym boosted his agility.

I can see that his Devil Gear was working well after all those training he got. Kaym’s Devil Gear, which he got during The Seven Month War when he decided to sign a contract with a devil. Now the devil that he contracted with is inside of him. It really helps a lot since his magic gives the ability of a demon. Visually, Kaym doesn’t look like a demon but he had an aura of demon flowing over him. Those aura that shaped like a horn and a tail really give it away that he was like a demon. His left eyes were also glowing yellow by the way.

“White, what are you doing? Help me!” shouted Kaym as he tries to stay away from Rider’s Blade.

“You can do this, kid.” A mysterious voice was heard inside my head.

“Who was that? I asked.

Kaym replied while deflecting Rider’s Blade with his Devil Gear that he has on his left arm, “That voice you heard was the demon that I contracted to, Demi. Don’t worry, only you can hear his voice right now”

“Pleasure to meet you, Chronomancer.” Demi greeted me.

“Chronomancer? What is that?” I asked Demi.

“I forgot you just got your magic recently. Maybe you should use it and help us, Chronomancer?”

I tried to ask him again, “Again, why Chronomancer?”

But he ignored me. Kaym and Rider were still swinging and deflecting each other. Then, I saw Lore who were still standing around observing them until he pulls out a shield from his backpack. The Blade and Shield Combination. Rider and Lore. Both of them have a tremendous chemistry. Lore’s magic, Change is a Defensive type magic where he can change his stances along with his shield. Some of the stances that he can change to is Support, Trap, Chase, Attract and obviously Defend.

From the looks of it, Lore changed his stance to Chase and headed toward me. Which means...He was about to pulverise me with his shield. I didn’t dodge it in time and got pushed away by Lore. He waited for me to stand up.

“What are you waiting for, White? Show us your new magic!” said Lore.

I’m not sure how one second was going to help me so instead I rely on my feet and ran toward Lore. Lore raised his Shield but I never intended to punch straight at him. I slide under him and now that I am right behind him I got a window of opportunity to punch him. Unfortunately. My fist were blocked by the Shield.

“My shield is too fast for you, White.” said Lore as he was grinning.

He pushed me away and ran straight toward me. I dodged his charge this time. At the same time I saw Rider was kicked by Kaym and fell down on his knees.

“White! You better do something. My Infinitum will run out soon!” shouted Kaym.

I tried to think for a way to stop his Shield. This time I grabbed a rock and threw it. Lore blocked it. As he was blocking it. I was already right in front of him. This made him surprised a little. I took the opportunity to punch his belly. Lore barely managed to jump away from my fist.

“Nice footwork there, White. I didn’t know you would do that.” exclaimed Lore.

I replied to him, “There’s more where that came from.”

I threw another rock but this time I intentionally misses it. This made Lore becoming more cautious about my next attack. He slowly walk toward me while still raising his Shield. It seems he already changed his stances to Defend. Now that he doesn’t use Chase, I can surely use the same strategy that I used first on Lore. I threw a number of rocks while running toward Lore. Lore braced for impact and kneeled down to prevent me from sliding under him. What did I do? I climbed his shield and jumped over him.

As I landed on the ground, I raised my right leg and went for a kick to his back. The kick was successfully connected. Lore rolled away from the impact. At the same time, Kaym was seen unleashing a demonic ball and threw it toward Rider who jumped away from it. Then, Rider touches his Blade and jumped into the sky. Seconds later he came from above along with his Blade which was burning. Kaym didn’t move but instead charged his arm and jumped toward it. Both Blade and Arms met each other while both iris were looking directly at each other. I sense a very powerful vibe from those two. After clashing, both of them jumped away from each other.

“Now this is what I call a duel” said Rider who was still trying to catch his breath.

“You can get it more if you join The Magic Duel.” I said.

Rider stretches his arms, “The Magic Duel huh? I’m not sure if I’m willing enough to join that since I already am going to fight at the Invitational. Too bad its going to be hard to catch up with my training when I have to focus on the Magic Duel. So I guess its a no.”

“But…” I tried to find my words but I could not.

Lore finally gotten up and walked next to Rider, “Yes. We cannot waste our time with the preparation of The Magic Duel. This ends now, White.

“Oh no.” said Kaym. “Here it comes.”

Wait what? What’s going on? Why did Kaym said “oh no”? Is something about to happen? I couldn’t think much because I was still trying to find a reason for them to join the duel. Lore raised his Shield and changed to his Chase Stance. He begins to charge up. At the same time, I saw Rider was also charging his Blade. They are going to do their signature Blade and Shield Combination. This was not good at all. I’m going to get some major injuries if I don’t run away from it. But I also heard that the combination was too hard to escape once you were locked in since Lore used Chase which automatically chases his target without fail.

There was no time I can escape from them. Unless, if I have some time. Some time. Maybe I can make them join the Magic Duel. Yes. I’m sure. Nobody will get hurt except maybe me. I ran toward them as they were charging towards me.

“White?! What are you doing?!” Kaym shouted.

I ran and I ran and I ran. Just as the Blade and Shield were about to hit me, I rolled besides them. Both of them turned back very fast since they already know my tactic. But what they didn’t know was how much time I got. I stopped the time and in that one second window I slide under them and then stood up and threw my whole body toward them from behind. Imagine a dropkick, but the dropkick was rotated by 90 degrees. Thanks to the training, it was actually 1.2 seconds.

“You guys can train for The Invitational. I’ll handle the preparations for you guys. In return, I’ll train with you guys too. How about that?” I said to them as we were all lying on the ground.

Rider was catching his breath, “No.”

“What?” I was so surprised. I thought that would work. “Why?”

“Because you lost, Kaym was blown away from the burst of our combination. Leaving only you with no powerful magic.” said Rider.

It was a very disappointing ending indeed. I thought we did it. But it seems it wasn’t our day today.

“But…” Rider continues, “We haven’t said anything about our reward for winning yet.”

At that moment, I can already tell that all of that wasn’t all for nothing. Rider and Lore stood up and pulled me up.

“Since we won this fight. We will join the Magic Duel, White.” Lore said that as he was putting his Shield away.

“But only on two conditions” said Rider.

“What is it?”

“One, you must join our training together with the rest of your team.” Rider unsheathes his Blade and puts it away to its scabbard. “And two, you must be the leader during the Magic Duel.”

Even though I already knew that I am the leader of Stardust, I was still surprised by their second condition.

Lore explains, “This is because without you guiding us with your bravery and quick thinking, we won’t make it through The Magic Duel. But with you being our leader, we are confident enough that we will at least make it through the devastating qualifying match.

Rider looked at the sky and said, “Ah yes, The Qualifying Round. An all out massive team survival match. The last 10 teams who survives the match will get to enter the true Magic Duel, the duel to decide who is the top team in our school. When that happens, The true ‘TRUE’ Magic Duel begins, The Crestia’s Wizard Championship.”

“Isn’t that a little too ambitious guys?” Kaym suddenly appears.

“Be it as it is. As long as we are together in the end, right White?” said Rider.

“Yeah.”

I can safely say that today's negotiations ended with a success. We decided to go grab a breakfast afterwards. It was a wonderful morning. Rider Blade and Lore Pidea. The Blade and The Shield. Have finally joined Team Stardust.

TO BE CONTINUED