“How did he even get in here?” Jasper wondered. “If they expelled him for Blood Magic, you’d think someone would have been keeping an eye on him or something.”

“Who knows, but he’s clearly incredibly powerful,” added Max. “I mean, it’s crazy that a teenager is able to hold back all those experienced Pro Battlemages with that barrier. Just wild.”

“Blood Magic will do that,” revealed Calista, crossing her arms. “You know how vampires can absorb a victim’s energy and memories when they drink their blood? Well, Blood Mages can do the same thing. That douche up there has probably accumulated stockpiles of Mana and magical knowledge from multiple people, possibly corpses. That would explain why someone so young could be a match for the teachers.”

“It’s a shame - he’s so cute!” Linnie said with a smirk, twirling one of her braids around a finger. Jasper, Max, and Calista all groaned in unison and rolled their eyes. 

“How can you even tell from all the way down here?” Max said as xe shook xer head. 

“Tiefling sight is the best!” Linnie replied. Calista just nodded. 

“So how do we stop him?” inquired Sully. 

“We could all gang up on him, but we don’t know what other tricks he has up his sleeve,” Stormhawk offered. “He probably has some kind of contingency plan for that exact scenario.”

“Can anyone else make Mana Clones?” Selena asked the group. Almost everyone shook their heads.

“I can, but they always explode after a few seconds,” Calista responded. Then realization dawned upon her and her lips curled into a sinister grin. Selena smirked and raised her eyebrows.

“Let me guess - you’re thinking… kaboom?” the faerie girl asked. 

“Oh yeah, I’m thinking kaboom!” the tiefling replied, making an exploding motion with her hands. 

“You guys, I have an idea,” Dorian added, a lightbulb going off in his head at the mention of Calista’s exploding clones. The group looked at him expectantly - except for Stormhawk, who just sighed and rolled his eyes. “Okay, so what abilities is everyone best at?”

A few minutes later, Dhalsuphur uttered an annoyed groan as he spotted Selena flying towards him, holding Calista in her arms. 

“Ezia pal moritei!” they both chanted in unison, creating three Mana Clones each in the same flying position as them. One of Selena’s clones then spun around and tossed one of Calista’s clones towards Dhalsuphur. The silver-haired elf summoned another red energy hand to swat the clone away, but he wasn’t expecting Calista’s clone to explode on impact, which startled him. 

“Annoying gnats!” he spat as he was swarmed with more and more clones of exploding Calistas being flung at him by Selena’s clones. Each time he summoned a new energy hand, it was destroyed by an exploding clone, so he began summoning multiple energy hands at a time. 

Suddenly, Dhalsuphur looked confused as five of Calista’s clones gripped onto one of his energy hands without exploding. One of the clones grinned as their eyes suddenly released a blinding pink light that caused the elf to yelp out and cover his eyes with his free hand. Then, the illusion dropped - the clone who had released the pink blast was actually Emmett, and the other four were Jasper, Max, Linnie, and Sully.

Dorian had remembered Emmett’s ability to glamour objects and people and had come up with the idea to put Dhalsuphur on the defensive with Calista’s exploding clones and then send in the five of them glamoured as clones to catch him off-guard, followed by Emmett’s pink light to temporarily blind him. 

Jasper shot out green energy beams from her fingertips that became hard-light strings to wrap around the silver-haired elf’s body, binding him. Sully fired out a thin stream of soundwaves from his hand to assault the elf’s ears. Linnie used Psychic Magic to plague him with distracting thoughts. Max leapt off the energy hand onto Dalshuphur’s back, magically grew xer fingernails into sharp claws, and began rapidly scratching the skin on the back of his neck, causing him to shriek out. 

“Get OFF ME!” Dhalsuphur screamed out, igniting a red energy aura yet again that shattered Jasper’s strings and sent everyone flying away from him. He was breathing heavily as he looked around, but didn’t notice Stormhawk floating up behind him. 

“Azurai!” Max yelled out, activating the runes xe had scratched into Dhalsuphur’s neck and causing him to wince from the sizzling sensation. A moment later, Stormhawk fired a white lightning bolt right at the scratched-in runes, which were designed to significantly enhance electrical attacks. 

Dhalsuphur screamed out in agony as the lightning ripped through his body. A moment later, he lost consciousness and began falling out of the sky. Stormhawk swooped down to catch him as the barrier fizzled out, finally letting the teachers back into the Training Field…