Little did we know that the fact that we were granted permission to fight against third years had become the talk of all the other academies. Arriving at Muhlhauser on Xelo's back the whole area seemed to be busier than usual. It felt like it was tournament time but we still had several months until the official event.
We landed and found out that we were the first battle for the day which was in ten minutes. We had little time to do anything but go straight to the arena and head straight onto the main battlefield. The arena was half full which was significantly larger than I could ever remember a middle of the semester battle. Our first fight was against Hildred Academy, we had nothing on them and last year's fights were irrelevant as this team was a year ahead of us.
Their tank was an elephant, it was much larger than any tank we had seen so far but that was to be expected given the jump. The elephant gave out a resounding trumpet that gave the whole group a soft golden glow which I would imagine was a nice support spell. The other beasts all acted like they just received a nice refreshing boost to their bodies as they all seemed to stretch and shake out stiff muscles.
"Firmamentum Totalirous" I muttered and there were lots of reactions coming from the crowd. I then realized that most of these people watching had probably never seen us before. The casting of all my support skills minus blink was quite the sight to see as all the different colors and reactions would happen in quick succession.
They had a crossbow ranged damage with a squirrel for a beast and I would bet money that she was going to be quite quick. Adam identified her as being that and Abby should focus on her right away. The other ranged beast master they had was holding a staff and had a water faery. I thought it was the healer when Missy interjected to say that water fae do not have healing spells.
Their healer was a water snake which the beast master was holding a spear and a small forearm shield. It appeared that the healer was a front line melee that would make it different from most healers typically holding back and staying to the side of the fights. There were two other melee fighters for them. One had a light mantis holding a two handed axe and then another with a weird insect Wispy and I had never seen before with the human holding a longsword.
We lined up in the V formation that we had practiced where once the battle began Travis would lunge forward and place his first set of reflective shells as we all charged forward behind him in our positions. Adam and Abby were on the outside edge of the shells being the end points of the V. Joey, Maddy and myself were all in the center behind Travis but utilizing the cover and Light as a Faery spell we would lift above and fire then lower below the shells at different spots.
Their elephant and its beast master who was riding it charged directly at Travis having no idea that Travis had a unique ability in Earthquake. "Pop goes the weasel!" Travis shouted as the mounted elephant suddenly was lifted above Travis as it was still charging forward. We all moved out of the way but as the elephant came down from the spell we were attacking it with everything we had. Maddy was taught by Amber a energy blade that utilizes the energy that you specialize in and creates a small blade of that energy that can be directed at attackers.
When the elephant had been the closest to me I pulled my dagger out and stabbed the side of it thinking about the spell Earth Boulder as the dagger produced a massive ball of earth energy at the moment of impact sending the elephant toppling over sideways as it came down crushing the human to the point that they were kicked out of the arena to save the beast master's life.
The crowd erupted as no one was expecting to see a flying elephant when they woke up today. Travis called out the move forward as his shells disappeared and ten yards ahead he produced the next set as he lunged forward to get his shield in the middle. Abby and Adam moved forward to the edges and the rest of the white and gold combatants engaged us.
Adam was sending arcane missiles as he now had five missiles appearing at once and he was obsessing over how cool they looked. Abby was firing her lightning storm trying to get as many of them as she could at minimum stunned if not taken out like she had in the past. The combination of the two of them on the outside edge then Joey, Maddy and myself all attacking from the middle had the entire team on the defensive.
Any of their attacks that missed and ended up hitting the reflective shields would then be forced to dodge those attacks coming back at them. The V formation caused unique rebounds depending upon the angles that the attacks were fired so at one point, I believe I was the one they targeted, but I got below the shell in time and the attack hit the shell in front of me, bounced to the other shell and reflected back into their own healer knocking the water snake out of the arena.
The loss of their healer to their own friendly fire caused them to start bickering amongst themselves which we all took advantage of as they were distracted from dodging our attacks. Joey who had become much more proficient with the sais just from the past week of working with Vicky knocked out the two melee beast masters just as they got to the edges of the shell to attack Adam and Abby his sais connected to the back of their heads knocking them both off the ring.
Adam seeing the last two ranged fighters step closer together was their fatal mistake as Adam blinked behind them and in one motion was able to slice through both of their midsections ejecting both out of the arena. "Winner team Aracanum from Ghostrun Academy" The place went crazy as it was easily the biggest crowd outside of the tournament we had seen.
We exited and headed down to the waiting room and found that there were guards posted around every corner and vent to the room. It was as if they did not want anyone to bother us, or someone was sick of losing points at Muhlhauser. Either way it was nice to actually relax in the room instead of feeling like we needed to be constantly on the lookout for smoke to put us to sleep.
If the first crowd was large, the second crowd was humungous. The arena was completely full when we walked out for the second match of the day. There was a buzz about the audience that you could hear and feel emanating from them but as we entered the floor it was as if they had all been patiently waiting for us to arrive. The whole atmosphere shifted the moment the obsidian black armor took center stage.
"Firmamentum Totalirous"