Antoine grinned as he was surrounded in a spiral of dark fire. He could feel the heat, threatening to swallow him whole. A spell gathered in his hand, dousing enough of the flames to carve an exit.
Gerard was there, meeting him in a crash of steel that sent sparks flying.
Lightning danced with Antoine’s movements, charring the earth in tandem with his father’s dark flames. A spell on his lips summoned spears of ice above him. A flick of his wrist sent them flying, one after another.
Gerard cut the first down with ease. It was rapidly replaced with a second. A third. “A childish distraction,” he grunted, knocking them back with a swing.
Another. Another.
Shards of ice shattered across the battlefield.
Faster.
More.
Antoine was breathing hard, but so was the old man. He knew Gerard was going easy on him. His old man had more in his arsenal than just flames. Even like this, the challenge was exhilarating.
But it wasn’t going to be enough to earn him Gerard’s blessing. This was a nice warm up, but he needed to get the old man to take him seriously.
Antoine leapt back, an inferno of darkness missing him by inches. The resulting heatwave hit him with a whoosh. “Augh, damn it—” he hissed, his eyes stinging.
He drew a line with his sword, conjuring a wall of solid ice that he ducked beneath. He swiped his forearm over his eyes, casting a simple spell to soothe the burn on his corneas.
How long had it been since collateral from someone’s spell had broken through his magic defense buffs? His old man really was the best of his generation.
Antoine glanced up as the sky above him darkened. Unnatural, dark clouds gathered. Antoine tensed. He’d seen this before—
Gerard gave him no time, appearing in front of him in the blink of an eye. The dark mage's blood scattered in an arc from his blade, each drop sizzling where it landed.
They burned through the earth, leaving inky gorges in their wake. Gravity magic. One misstep and Antoine would be caught in an infinite freefall, trapped in a bottomless chasm.
Tens of demonic, clawed arms descended from the clouds, lunging towards Antoine. Each was larger than life, reptilian scales hands large enough to crush buildings. Their steel claws left deep scores in the earth as he wove between them.
His lightning scattered harmlessly off of them, repelled by their magic defense.
Gerard gave him no room to breathe. The duke was there, inches away from him, meeting him blow for blow. They ducked and wove between fire, lightning, and ice, with Antoine forced to work around the inky pitfalls of darkness scattered across the field that Gerard passed harmlessly through.
Gerard pressed him forward, steel and magic crashing against each other in blows loud as thunderclaps. Both danced between the unholy steel claws that formed cages around them as they went for Antoine.
His father was finally getting serious. Good.
Antoine’s eyes blazed. Dodging between steel claws, he called forth his own higher level magic. Glowing white chains erupted from the earth, consuming all magic in their wake, eating through Antoine’s and Gerard’s barriers alike.
The chains wrapped around the unholy arms, binding them to the earth. A flick of his wrist and they surged towards Gerard with a mind of their own.
Antoine let them, immobilizing the arms of Gerard’s unholy summons in pillars of ice.
He lunged sideways, narrowly missing being swallowed by the vortex of swirling dark flames that appeared in his wake. He swung his sword, sending an arc of electricity that bit through the flames, sparking towards Gerard.
Gerard went to deflect it with his blade, but a quiet incantation instead sent an explosion and wave of lightning through the field upon impact. Gerard staggered, his expression darkening.
He bit his thumb, calling forth—
“That’s quite enough,” Marlena’s chilling voice cut across the field.
Both Antoine and Gerard froze.
Around them, the magical barrier exploded, shattering into millions of pieces.
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