Sister Hubbard’s Fatal Mistake
Rapid breaths echoed inside her helmet. Every breath in was warm, stuffy, and stale. Every breath out moistened the air further. Juliana blinked away the extra liquid on her eyes.
With a quick thought, she widened up the mouth holes in an attempt at sucking in more oxygen. A few slits for extra ventilation opened up around her cheeks.
Figuring out the exact balance between protection and breathability was more of guesswork than anything. Acquiring a book on medieval knight helmets might not be such a bad idea.
Acquiring one in the middle of a fight was, sadly, impossible.
Juliana dodged to one side, allowing a shard of rock to fly past her.
More of float than fly.
The rock lazily drifted through the air. Juliana actually hit it with her shoulder as she moved back to where she was before the dodge.
“You’ve got to work on that speed,” Juliana said. She ignored the small echo in her helmet. “An attack like that isn’t going to scare a cat let alone another mage.”
Jason Bradley grunted as he pointed his wand at the stack of premade rocks. One split into an arrow shape. With his wand trained on it, it lifted up in the air around chest height.
While she waited for her sparring partner to send another attack her way, Juliana hopped back and forth on her heels. She kept her heart pumping and her breath ragged. Armor was not light. Even with her muscles growing from carrying around several pounds of metal for several months, moving quickly still wore her down.
Professor Kines’ class had been enlightening in that, at the very least. They didn’t seem to be much good for anything else. She still wasn’t sure why half the students bothered to show up. Hardly anyone actually managed to put up any kind of fight, let alone a decent fight.
Jason was actually ahead of the curve. For a first-year earth mage, that is. Jordan might have him beat. Of course, Juliana herself was on par with at least third-year if not fourth-year students.
Out of the corner of her eye, Juliana saw Jordan send a rock shard flying at Shelby. His shard actually flew, though only just.
Shelby knocked it out of the air with a well placed gust of wind. Unlike Shalise, who seemed to focus entirely on lightning, Shelby embraced the air aspect of aerotheurgy.
A rush of wind hit Jordan square in the chest. Rustling of his clothes and a few locks of his brown hair–which he quickly smoothed back down–were the only indication. It didn’t hit him hard enough to cause even a stumble and it wasn’t sharp enough to damage his protective vest.
Most of the first year aerothurges were much the same way. All of them had more trouble forming their element into actual attacks.
The rock Jason tried to attack her with finally reached Juliana. She ducked out of the way and continued her quick hops from side to side.
Jason groaned as the rock shattered into the floor. “How can you have so much energy. You’re just toying with me.”
“Knocking you on your back in a second isn’t going to help either one of us.”
“You did it to that one kid on the first day.”
“Tony?” Juliana glanced off to one side where the third-year ice mage was engaged in a rather heated duel with his fourth-year brother. “He wasn’t taking this seriously. You’re at least putting an effort in.”
He scuffed his shoe against the ground. “Not a good enough effort.”
“Now, let’s not get whiny or I might knock you down. You’re better than most of the first-years.”
“Not better than you.”
“I was trained by my mother.”
“How did she teach you?”
Juliana paused their dialog as she racked her memories. Eventually she shrugged, though she wasn’t sure how much of the shrug was visible through her armor. “Don’t remember.”
“How can you not remember?”
“I was a little girl. Do you remember how you learned to walk or talk?”
He shrugged back at Juliana.
“You cast an invisibility spell on one of your pranks, right? That’s some high level magic. Use it on those rocks,” Juliana gestured towards the pile next to him. “It is much harder to defend against something you can’t see. Even if it doesn’t hit hard, at least it might hit.”
Jason took off his helmet and ran a hand through his red hair before replacing the protective gear. “My dad taught me that,” he said with a light blush. His small smile slipped off his face. “It won’t work on these. The enchantment disguises an object using its surroundings. It falls apart as the object is moved.”
“Focus more on power then,” Juliana said after a minute. “When I do it, I put a huge burst of power behind the rock and leave it alone. Physics takes care of the rest.”
Juliana flicked her wand at the earthen floor. Three blunted spearheads burst from the ground. They angled themselves at Jason and launched off, one by one. Once the final spearhead fired off, Juliana raised both her hands in the air to show him that she wasn’t controlling the projectiles anymore.
