Master Versus Meister

The sun shone high in the sky, blinding Xentros as he walked into the courtyard of the castle. He looked around to find the spot his master and friend had taken up and finished his mental preparations. Last time these two fought was almost a year ago, and Xentros had no idea if he had improved to the point that he was better than Thee.

“Ah! The prodigal one arrives!” Thee announced as The young man walked into earshot. “I was beginning to think you chickened out.”

Xentros laughed at the obvious joke. “You know I love a good spar my friend. I would never back down.” Xentros drew his sword and leaned into his stance. “I am ready whenever you are.”

A smile spread across Thee’s face as he looked into the eyes of his student. “Then let this match, begin!” He sunk into his own stance but did not reach for his sword.

Moments flew by, but as Sheila watched it felt as though minutes and hours were going by. “It’s been years since I’ve personally seen them spar. With how powerful Xentros is, I can’t even imagine how good Thee must be if he will be able to keep up with him.” Sheila thought. As if on cue, both men charged towards each other.

As they neared, Xentros began to spin and brought his sword down from above his head onto his opponent. The clash between his sword and Thee’s dagger made a loud Ting noise was heard across the whole area. Xentros jumped back and charged in again. Split seconds before contact he pivoted on his foot and swung his sword from the side at his opponent. Thee jumped over the blade, and Xentros continued his spin, and on the next pass swiped his blade upwards. Seeing no way to dodge, Thee unsheathed his sword. his jump had given him a spinning motion, and his torso was now towards the ground, which he used as an aid to put his sword flat against Xentros’ stopping the motion. He balanced on his sword, doing a handstand.

Xentros smirked and pulled his sword towards him. Thee fell to the ground with the loss of his support and rolled away from Xentros. “Only a fool smiles in battle, Xentros. Have we not been over this?”

The smirk on Xentros’ face grew into a full on smile. “Ah, yes we have. And have we not been over that I am, in fact, a fool? My master, clearly you have not forgotten.” Xentros lunged at Thee, going for a stab. His sword was easily deflected, but Thee did not see the shadow spread across his vision until too late. The stab had been a decoy as Xentros created a wave of dark energy to blast him down. Xentros jumped on him tp try a downward stab, only to get pushed away by a chunk of ice.

“You caught me off-guard once, I will give you that. Unfortunately for you, it won’t happen agai-” Thee was hit from the side by a small torrent of water. He took a moment to cough out what had entered his lungs, and looked up just in time to see Xentros rushing him with frost falling off of his blade. He put his sword up as a shield between him and his assailant. “Perhaps I should watch my tongue in battle. You have advanced beyond what I had imagined. And you can even frost enchant your sword now! Excellent. I know you were having trouble with that.” The look of pride on Thee’s face made Xentros smile, before “But, I see this is going nowhere. It’s time I stepped up to the offensive.”

Xentros was forced back and onto the ground. He rolled out of the way as ice flew from the hands of Thee before he was hit in the face with the hilt of his master’s sword. Xentros scooped some dirt into his hand, and threw it at Thee, before rolling away and healing his nose. He stabbed his sword into the earth and brought it up with a coating of rock. Unconventional in the fact that it was no longer sharp, but that’s not what The prince of Death wanted.

Thee watched to see what his student was doing and upon realization came up with his counter plan. Thee was excellent in ice magic, coming from Lunaria. However, he picked up some of the other elements from Xentros as they were training. He summoned the wind to kick up the dirt around them, blinding Sheila from what was happening. The visibility inside was almost nil, and it gave Thee the perfect cover he needed. He dashed to the side of Xentros and went for a stab. He felt his sword start to enter flesh before it stopped abruptly. The wind stopped even faster than it started, causing the dirt to settle. Thee saw his blade an inch into the side of his opponent, but there was also a pair of hands gripping the blade.

Thee looked up and into eyes that were abnormally glowing. The usual red hue intensified to a searing and glowing red that almost looked to be ablaze. Thee new what this meant, and began to try and back off. He was forced to let go of his sword as dark-purple energy flew away from Xentros and blasted him halfway across the clearing. Once his senses returned he looked up to see the body of his student remove the blade from his skin and snap it in half. The shattered blade pieces snapped in half before the mindless body threw them at a high velocity.

Sheila blasted the pieces out of the air with a gust of wind and rushed in between the two men. “Alright Xentros, you need to fight this. You need to be in control so you don’t hurt anyone. You’re still in there, right?”

“Help me! Help me, please! I can’t do anything, I don’t want to attack you guys!” Xentros pleaded inside of his mind. He tried and tried to get them to hear him, but it was useless. After a few moments, he heard a voice come out of his mouth, but it was barely recognizable as his. “Attack… You… Attack you… Attack You… ATTACK… YOU!” Xentros watched as his arms were coated in the purple energy and formed into blades. He watched as his body moved menacingly closer to the frozen Sheila, and he saw as Thee was encased in the purple energy and brought closer to him.

“Xentros, you need to stop this. This isn’t you, you can fight it. Come on… Xentros… Stop!” Thee was just out of arm's reach, but that was close enough to the body of Xentros with his blades of magic. He thrust his left arm forward and stabbed into Thee’s right lung. His right arm pulled back for a thrust, but before he could release it, Thee was ripped from his vision and Sheila stood in his place with her arms in the direction Thee had gone. She then tackled him and held him as tightly as possible.

“Come back, Xentros, please! You’re going to hurt people if you don’t stop! You don’t want to do that, that isn’t who you are! Just calm down, please.” She looked into his glowing eyes, and the red darkened as he gazed back. From inside his cell, the real Xentros began to cry.

“Get away.” He thought. “I don’t want to hurt you. Please, go away! Leave, before something bad happens to you!” But all that came out of the physical mouth attached to him was “Bad… Something… Bad… You Leave… HURT YOU!” For the first half of the words muttered, Xentros’ eyes were almost the regular hue of red, but by the end, they were literally balls of fire in his skull. The magic on his arms started to condense into a purple skin, and his fingernails lengthened to be longer than his fingers themselves. Xentros was appalled at what he was becoming, and he cried more as he saw that Sheila wasn’t moving. His right arm raised above her head, and a ball of fire mixed with the purple magic coalesced in his palm.

“NO!” Thee yelled from his place on the ground. This exertion caused him to cough up blood, mixed with water from earlier. He saw as the right arm of his student dropped straight down towards Sheila’s head, but was surprised when he saw her body fly away from the corrupt Xentros before the ball collided.

“GET AWAY!” Xentros yelled from inside his prison. He thrust his mental representations of arms forward as if it would help in his situation. he knew it wouldn’t but he had no way of actually helping her. He had looked down at his shout, not wanting to see what he was doing to the girl he loved. He waited for the sounds of pain and agony but was confused when he heard none. He looked up and saw that Sheila was far away from him, laying on the ground looking back at him. He saw his left arm outstretched and noticed his vision was god awful out of his left eye. He felt an intense pain in his right arm and grabbed it, noting that his physical arm followed the same action. The pain of grabbing his arm was explained in a purple burn across the skin of his left hand. He fought as hard as he could to claim the right half of his body back from the curse. Finding no way, he did the only thing he could think of. He formed a large rock of stone and flung it towards himself, resulting in his vision going black.

“Xentros, no!” Sheila yelled, running towards his side.