It has flames around each opening, and a cape with a fire print across it. His forearms have digital tattoos of fire that are in motion. Vernon keeps his composure but just barely, wanting to laugh but doesn't out of respect. It may or may not have been his choice to wear that outfit.
Vernon is called over to the HaLO reader. He puts his arm under the scanner confirming that it is him. His first match will be against the flamboyant captain he was just holding his tongue about. Hope's Ricardo Sanchez. Vernon's match is first. He activates his stasis band and it shows his health and mana, but there is something wrong with his mana bar. It looks like a visual glitch, and is going between full to double. It takes a few minutes for the readout to normalize. The last thing he needs right now is a technical difficulty. There has to be an update or patch he missed but its too late to get it now. A large Paladin waves both Vernon and Ricardo up close to him.
"Listen closely you two, this is going to be a one on one match. No restrictions. Just try to stasis the other, that clear?"
"Yes sir." Vernon and Ricardo say in unison.
The Paladin nods and steps back. Vernon closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. The big Paladin yells begin! Vernon opens his eyes and runs toward his opponent. Everything looks as though it is standing still. It’s disorientating enough that he runs right past Ricardo. Vernon turns to face him when Ricardo is hit with a gust of wind that almost knocks him over. Vernon charges his ice rune within one of his rings and aims it.
The charge feels instant and he can feel the rune is stressed from an overcharge. Enough for it to hum. Vernon imagines a pillar of ice in his mind, extending his fingers out. A white blue circle appears in front of his open palm, as the air around him gets colder. He releases the spell as Ricardo turns around to face him. The size and speed of the pillar was no where near what Vernon had imagined. It was more. Everyone stops what they are doing to catch a glimpse of what just happened. Ricardo doesn’t move. It lands in the center of his chest. The impact makes him look like a rag doll. His arms and legs flopping around like there aren’t any bones inside of them. Stasis activates before crashing into the shield wall.
The pillar and Ricardo’s cocoon collide with the shield wall for the second group. The wall sends out a angry hiss and sizzle followed by a pop echoing throughout the coliseum. The smell of burnt electronics fills the air. The Paladins officiating stop the surrounding matches.
Everyone stares at Vernon.
He doesn’t know what just happened. There was no way he put that much into a spell. If he did, he would be in a cocoon himself. The paramedics were called onto the floor and run for Ricardo's spinning shell. The announcer calms everyone down by saying he was lucky to have that stasis activate when it did. They get to Ricardo and see his condition. They begin to rush around, which to Vernon meant it had to be bad. It takes almost ten minutes, but the paramedics finally load him onto a stretcher and haul him out of the coliseum. Vernon hasn’t moved an inch since his attack. The now shattered pillar of ice slowly melting at his feet. He stares down the path and wonders where that came from. He couldn’t have that much power. Could he? Vernon tries to put it off in his mind. It must have been the rune he used. It had to be pre-charged somehow. It was the only thing that made sense to him. The Paladin official walks over to Vernon and raises his hand in the air declaring him the winner.
“Is he going to be alright?” Vernon asks.
“Yea kid, he’ll be fine. That was one hellava nice shot. Not many kids your age have that kind of rune mastery. Now go ahead and go to the side over there and watch the next match.”
Vernon is still dazed, but manages to walk to where the other students were waiting. The match was over so fast. He looks up and all the other boys are pointing at him, whispering to each other, and smirking at him. What could they all be saying? This isn’t the kind of attention he wanted. He even sees the officiates are glancing at him.
Vernon wants to go crawl into a deep dark hole somewhere, and try to pretend this never happened. A boy from the third group locks eyes with him, and Vernon stares back. The boy face is plastered with a grin, like he knew Vernon. He then nods his head. Vernon starts to think they might not be judging him. He might have just painted a huge target on his back as the person to beat. That is something he could live with.
Vernon thinks to himself. Bring it on!
Instantly Vernon feels a weight lifted off his shoulders, because this is what he wanted. To be noticed for his skills. He didn't want to hurt anyone but that was always a possibility. With his nerves finally at ease Vernon catches a glimpse of Duke dismantling his opponent. He waves to Vernon mid-fight. Duke turns to the crowd and bows.
Vernon's next three matches are all similar, he limits the use of his runes to the occasional dodge or ice shield. Focusing primarily on physical attacks. He is quicker and faster than anyone he goes up against. The training he endured must finally be paying off, because he has more strength and speed than ever before.
***
Vernon is taken aside with Duke and two other boys as they take down the shield generator from the middle of the floor. All of the vegetation and rocks are removed, leaving only dirt. The other students are instructed to go back to the locker room, and wait for the group matches to begin. Duke is called up first along with Timbur Higgins from Selina City. Timbur is built like a mountain, standing almost twice the size of Duke. His broad shoulders casting a shadow over Duke. Vernon doesn’t know what to make of Timbur. His eyes are a reddish brown tint, with long black and greasy unkempt hair. It matches his overall look of living outside of the domes.
Vernon knows he needs to watch the match closely. Hoping that he doesn’t have to fight his friend but getting himself mentally prepared to do so. Pulling up the list of the upcoming matches he sees his name alongside Vargas Mitchell. Vernon looks over and sees his opponent studying the two fighting in the current match.
Duke, showing off like normal, wind jumps into the air with a little spin. Mid-spin he quick charges every rune on himself at once. For most people this is a desperation move not an opener but Duke likes to be flashy. Quick charging uses more energy then you get out, the tradeoff is the spell coming out quickly. Which is why they call it quick charging.
Duke creates a fiery rainbow of spells and meteors launching them toward Timbur. He stays in place bracing himself by crossing his arms over his head and takes the full impact. Duke lands on the ground gracefully but collapses to a knee. Vernon can even see Duke starting to breath heavily, but that would have been expected. Duke had been working on this move for the past week. He told Vernon he wanted to be able to cast runes like he casts his spells. Vernon helped him with it, but they only got up to four runes at once. Duke has twelve on him, and Vernon was pretty sure he just used them all. No wonder he almost collapsed, Vernon thinks.
The cloud of smoke around Timbur begins to clear. He stands in the center of the cloud. His figure fading back into view, arms at rest by his side, with steam coming off his body. Standing tall he blinks a few times, and you can see the red hot rage building up from behind them. He takes a step forward with his eyes rolling back into his head. He falls to the ground face first. The official walks over to Duke, and declares him the winner by grabbing his right wrist and raising it in the air. Duke wobbles off the ground, and bows.
Vernon can see out of the corner of his eye Vargas shrugging. He looks to Vernon shaking his head.
“I guess your friend there doesn’t know how to win without overdoing everything?”
Vernon can hear the judgmental tone in his voice. Duke is his closest friend, the one he would walk into the bowels of an active volcano to save. To hear someone talk about him in such a way without knowing who he is was enough to get a rise out of him.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about but I thought it was a good match.” Vernon replies.
“Good in the sense that he wasted a lot of energy for the same result.”
Vernon catches a gl
impse of what he was trying to say and calms down. He was critiquing him not judging him. He takes a deep breath and a step back. There was no reason to get heated over a comment, and he was about to pummel this guys face anyway. That should make him feel better.
Vargas stands there five foot eight, small build but muscular. Vernon can see the tone of muscles in his arms. That means he was probably a mage. Vernon wasn’t really looking to jump to conclusions, but had to start somewhere. He thought his team was going to beat New Atlantis without any trouble, and he knew how that ended. He also didn’t get to watch Vargas’ other matches, where everyone was watching his.
The official walks over between the two. He asks each if they are ready. Vernon stares at Vargas who stares back. The official raises his right hand and then quickly brings it down shouting begin!
“You better be ready.” Vernon boasts.
He had to win all his rounds just to get here. The more w’s under his belt the better chance he has to get noticed. Plus he wants to have an all-out fight with Duke. Ever since he has known him they have had to hold themselves back. Practice, training, and even just messing around at home they have to watch themselves. He wants to push himself and his friend to see who can win and give the other a reason to try harder.
Vernon pushes his will into his boots, feeling a rush of adrenaline as the anticipation cranks up.
He continues, “Because here I come!”
Vargas yells out, “Try me!”
12
Vernon wind bursts forward, clearing the distance quickly. Dirt flying every which way behind him. Vargas looks to be in slow motion squatting, lays his hands on the ground. He jump backwards out of the way before Vernon reaches him. Passing over the spot he touched, activates a wall of lightning. Vernon gets caught in the middle sharp needle pricks shoot all over his body. He tries to stop himself but he hits the ground writhing in pain rolling uncontrollably from the momentum of his wind burst.
The dirt and dust catch up to him and cover every inch of skin on his body. Vernon coughs, trying to look past the cloud of dust for where Vargas when. He tries to stand, but his whole body feels numb and unresponsive. Vargas appears standing over him, looking down with a pleased look across his face.
“You have quite a bit of speed,” Vargas says. “But you’re not faster than I am, I can ride lightning. I watched how you beat your other opponents. You use speed to close the distance, and strength to overwhelm. Sadly, you won’t be able to be so predictable against me Rune Master Vernon Douglas. You’ll have to do better than that.”
Vargas gathers bolts of lightning in his hand in a bluish purple sphere, as electrical streaks shoot from his hand to the ground. Vernon doesn’t want to get hit with that, and wind bursts away. Dirt and rocks go down his shirt, scratching his back. He shifts his center, ignoring the dullness and pain, flipping to his feet. He doesn’t want to play around with this guy anymore, and wants to show him who he’s dealing with. All his ice runes glow bright white blue as he slams down his palm to the ground. Releasing the spell, ice flows out in all directions to cover over half the coliseum floor. Vargas' feet are caught within the ice flow, and freezes his feet to the ground.
“Let’s see how fast you are now!” Vernon shouts.
“Good play, but I think you have failed to realize what I really said earlier. I’ll repeat it for you, I can ride lightning.” Vargas replies with a smirk across his face.
Vernon watches as lightning arcs around Vargas’ feet, shattering the ice around them. He starts to hover a couple of inches off the ground standing on bolts of lightning.
The bolts stretch out from his toes toward Vernon. Vernon flinches bringing his fists up to cover his face, waiting for an attack. Arcs of electricity then start flowing out of Vargas’ back as if he spread skeletal wings of lightning. Vernon stands there in awe of the moment. He had never seen anything so cool before. He then smirks himself, because he still has Vargas right where he wants him.
“I heard you plain and clear, Lightning Mage Vargas.” Vernon says.
He hold out an open palm, then closes it quickly into a fist. The ice on the ground around Vargas pulls off the ground and closes around him. It comes together in two halves of a sphere and contorts into a rose bud.
Vernon yells with satisfaction, “Got ya now!”
He turns to takes a few steps away from the structure, but stops. Vargas may be caught but that does not mean he won. Vernon needs to finish this round now. He doesn’t want to ware himself out and not have anything left in the tank when he fights Duke. He takes careful steps toward the icy cocoon. With each step he readies a rune. The hum of each intensifies and the glow grows deeper. He takes the risk of over charging his runes. It gives him the chance to unleash a powerful spell, but If done wrong it can explode. At its worse he could lose a limb, or get some really bad burns. If done right, it can give him the edge he needs to knock this guy out with one hit.
He takes in a deep breath to steady himself. The smell of ionized ice lingers across the field. Letting the breath out slowly he takes aim. Bursting toward the rose drawing back his right fist, imagining an ice pillar. With a white flash of frost in his hands his knuckles begin to frost over in anticipation, the rune in his ring vibrating. His fist presses against the ice rose. Erupting with a furious rage of sparks and shards of ice.
Vernon loses control, releasing the spell without bracing for it. Shards of ice cut into him as the pillar spins him around in a circle.
Vargas stands there radiating. Steam comes off every part of his body as it melts and evaporates the ice. His wings spread out, as he builds up a counterattack. Vernon regains his footing quickly, only to be greeted with a blade of plasma swung at him.
It hits on his left shoulder, the weight of which takes him to his knees. The brightness of the flash, with the heat, and electrical shock from the blade were a vicious combination on his senses. Everything is numb. He can’t feel anything at all, and there is a rainbow of colored dots in his eyes. He dips his head and can see the ground break open beneath him with a bolt of lightning emerging. It connects with the underside of his chin sending him flying in the air a few feet off the ground, to come crashing down on his back.
Vernon lands with a thud as the air leaves his body. The shock of everything almost makes him black out. A volley of lightning attacks flies in as Vernon lays on the ground. Most striking the ground near him, a few hit their mark, but he couldn’t tell where.
Laying there unable to move, unable to feel his body, Vernon knows that he has lost this round. He closes his eyes and waits for the stasis shield to stop the pain. He lays there for a minute or so, and can her steps getting closer.
"You do know how to take a hit Rune Master." Vargas says softly.
"Just end it without too much gloating if you don't mind." Vernon replies quickly.
"As you wish, I will make it quick." Vargas replies.
Vernon wants to keep his eyes closed, and not watch what Vargas is about to do to him. Curiosity opens them anyway. Vargas reaches up with his right hand into the air. Clouds appear within the sealed coliseum and turn black. The gathered thunderstorm produces bolts of lightning. Forming a dome around Vargas' right hand. His left now pointed at Vernon with his palm open and fingers pointing toward the sky.
The cloud lights up like a cerulean sun, and forms a beam of pure lightning. It travels though Vargas' body like a conduit. His body infusing the bolt with more power shortens his wings as it dives into the ground. The coliseum's power flickers as a blinding flash of light comes from underneath Vernon.
***
Vernon is standing in the middle of a white room. He looks around, but there isn’t anything else there. He scratches his head, and tries to figure out just how he got there. For the life of him he couldn’t remember. He was somewhere, doing something, he thinks.
Of course you were somewhere doing something. That describes nothing. He thinks.
A large set of wooden doors appear in fro
nt of him. A beautiful woman is standing there next to the door. Her skin looks like circuits are running all over it.
Go ahead and open it. Her soft voice comes into his head. It’s your door.
“Who are you?” Vernon asks.
It’s nice to meet you, I’m… Her voice echoes in his head, but he couldn’t hear her name.
“I couldn’t hear you. How do I get out of here?”
Open the door. She says smiling.
Vernon shrugs, and places his hand on the knob. It feels warm, and makes him feel at peace. Like he was home. He turns the knob, and pulls open the door. A white light is on the other side. He looks back to the woman, but she’s gone.
“Now what do I do?” Vernon asks. I know I’m not walking into the light. He thinks.
***
Vernon's heart throbs as it begins to beats again. He gasps for air like he had been drowning. His eyes open and take a minute to focus though the coughing and choking. Rolling onto his back staring at the sky he tries to wiggle everything and he still can't feel a thing. Everything looks as though he has a pair of smudged covered glasses on. He gets this uncontrollable urge to stand. With everything numb, he can’t tell if he’s hurt anyway. Standing is hard when everything is numb, and when you combine that with a ringing that won’t stop its torture.
Vernon sees Vargas but couldn't make out what he said. He replies anyway, "That was a good hit but I guess it wasn't enough to finish the match."
Cypher Theorem Series Box Set: Books 1-3, The Zero Class, Shadow Moon, Dragon Fire: A Science Fiction Fantasy Page 8