She spins and throws another punch at me. But something is off, some of the noers on her Avatar are glowing. A horrifying thought pops into my head and I dodge, letting the arc of energy Adelia had just released pass by my face. But it isn’t over yet. With how close she is to me currently if she releases another one of those arcs I won’t be able to dodge anymore.

With a thought, I summon Hilla’s Barrier around her just as she releases another arc. It hits the barrier and dissipates. Letting out a small breath of relief, I smile at Adelia. Instead of looking defeated, she smiles back at me and then makes a fist. A noer glows brightly on her Avatar as she punches the barrier. The moment the punch lands I immediately know that no matter how much I try to reinforce the barrier it would be futile. The barrier shatters and she walks out laughing.

“I knew you would try that sooner or later. You really have no idea how Avatars work do you? If you did you wouldn’t have tried that.”

Crap. I had thought this would be easy like all our fights had been so far, but she obviously came prepared today. Alright, time to get serious. Remembering Justin’s teachings for the past few months, I search my mind for a noer that I could use to fight that also wouldn’t hurt her. In the end, I settle for a noer that could be used to control fluids. With that as my base, I begin to think of all the combinations I can achieve even as my fight with Adelia continues.

Once again she tries to come closer to me but this time I am not going to allow that. If I let her get too close it’s as good as game over for me, at a certain distance the arcs will just be too fast for me to dodge. At the same time, I direct a burst of air at her that only serves to slow her down. We continue like that for some time but slowly she begins to gain the upper hand. The reason is simple I am trying hard not to hurt her while she is going all out. We are currently fighting on our own, without any sort of protection or safeguard. If I were to go all out now and an attack mistakenly hit her, she could die, but if I don’t do anything she’s just going to keep pushing and with how she’s not holding back, if I were to be reckless for even a moment I could get gravely injured myself.

In the end, I make a decision. I release a large burst of air that pushes her backward while also moving backward, at the same time I activate one of the beads on my Mage Bracelets and a small point of light appears above a finger. I point it at the ground in front of Adelia and fire. Then I close my eyes and block my ears.

A moment later I hear a loud roar as the ground beneath my feet trembles. The moment it stops I act, using Glide to dash toward Adelia, who is still shrouded in dust from the previous explosion. Pointing a finger I activate another bead and wait. As she recovers from the effects of the explosion she notices me and the little point of light floating in front of my finger.

I give her a strained smile and in return, she raises her hands in surrender. The constructs on her arms fade away. I store the point of light back in the bead before proceeding to massage my pounding head. Finally, this stupid fight is over.

“Holy shit,” Tobi exclaims walking over to the crater made by my Ultimate. He jumped into it and walked around for a bit before walking out. “How did you do that?”

I raise my hand to show my Mage Bracelets. “I stored some spells in here in case I ever need it.”

At that moment I spot Bella and Han walking toward us. Both of them had slightly confused looks on their faces as they noticed the giant crater and the disturbed look of the surrounding.

“Hey guys,” Bella greets. “What happened here?”

Noah appears in front of her from nowhere, whether or not it’s his real body, I don’t know. He leans forward and says in a conspiratorial tone. “Ian and Adelia decided to show their appreciation of each other. What you see is the beautiful result.”

“They had a fight?” Han sounds, “Why, what happened?”

“Nothing happened,” says Tobi. “Adelia was just being as usual and Ian just showed her who’s boss.”

“You know you have a big mouth for someone who is so weak.” Adelia scowls at Tobi.

Tobi smirks. “Yeah, I’m weak for now, but it’s not going to be like that forever.”

In response, Adelia summons her Avatar once more and shoots an arc at Tobi. Once again Tobi teleports away from the attack. At this point, I decide to put an end to things.

“All right Adelia, that’s enough. Stop attacking your teammates. What if that attack actually hit him, you realize we’re in the Lands right? Far from any place we can get medical care. If anything happens he could die, so please, stop.”

Adelia stares at me expressionlessly for a second before dismissing her Avatar. I nod, pleased.

What follows is a few seconds of silence which is broken by Bella. “Well, I’ll be choosing my Yang partner in two weeks.”

“Really? They think you guys are ready?”

Bella smiles. “They do. We’re fast learners.”

“Do you know who you’ll choose?” Tobi asks.

“Well, there’s this guy-”

Noah suddenly perks up. “The one you have a crush on?”

“No-”

“Woah,” I say. “If you want my advice, don’t do something like that with someone you have a crush on. It’ll make your relationship unnecessarily complicated.”

“I don’t have a crush on him!” Bella interrupts. She turns to Noah. “And I don’t remember ever telling you I have a crush on someone.”

“You didn’t,” Noah admits, “I was just making an educated guess.”

“Well keep your educated guesses to yourself. Anyway, I talked to him and he doesn’t mind teaming up with me. We even have unique skills the other doesn’t have so we’ll both benefit from each other.”

“You have skills?” Adelia sounds genuinely surprised.

“Yes, but they don’t have to do with combat so I doubt you’ll be interested in them. He is good at combat though so once we merge I’ll naturally become good as well.”

“But it’ll be his skills, not yours,” Adelia points out.

“Wrong,” Tobi shouts, “it’ll be their skills. Both his and hers.”

For a moment Adelia looks like she is contemplating sending another arc his way. Bella continues. “Anyway, in two weeks I won’t be the weakest member of this team anymore.”

Tobi and Han look at each other, neither saying a word.

At that moment the air in front of me ripples and a second later Kane appears. He looks around, his eyes stopping on the crater for a second before moving on to land on me. Behind me, the rest of my teammates stop all the chitchat as they gather around him.

“There will be no training today,” he says all of a sudden. “You have a mission in four days, the day after Christmas. Use this period of time to prepare yourself however you see fit. On the day of the mission, we’ll meet here, at nine in the morning, normal earth time. Who did that?” He nods toward the crater.

“I did,” I answer.

He nods. “Well, see you guys later.” Then he disappears.