21: How A Star Melts Ice

From what Nyssa could tell, everyone fighting was holding back a little. Instead of trying to overwhelm each other with power, everyone was, instead, trying to use technique. Of course, she couldn’t say for sure, but that’s what her gut told her.

Albion had a body with some pretty crazy physiological changes—it was near freezing and could change into ice, all while seeming normal with all its necessary functions. Given these changes, Nyssa assumed he could cover the entire training room with a layer of ice in his sleep. Now, however, he only froze a pool-sized patch around him.

The fight was unfolding with much more acrobatics than the previous one. Albion skated around on ice as he both summoned more ice while also transforming the walls and floor into ice itself. Sending an unending barrage of ice spikes towards Celeste as he skated, he grimaced as nothing he did could land a hit.

Celeste, on the other side, chased Albion through the air. Energy blasts lasered their way out from her eyes and from her hands, deflecting and destroying every ice spike sent her way. Occupied by Albion’s neverending attacks, she could only muster up a couple stray shots every couple seconds.

Up the walls, along the ceiling, and back to the floor. Albion traced a looping path over every surface of the training room—bar the area where spectators were watching. Waving his hand upward, he summoned a wall of ice to block a stray shot before leaping down from the wall to run along the floor.

“He’s stuck, not unexpected,” Conrad analyzed as various scanning panels swirled around his eyes. “He can’t hurt Celeste, but he’s using a lot more energy than her.”

Tilting her head, Nyssa motioned for Conrad to elaborate a little if he could. Conrad, happy to continue talking, began pointing towards fighters. “If you look closely, Albion’s hands are both ice right now. If he could make contact with Celeste, he could end it by turning her to ice, but I’m pretty sure he’d get absolutely blasted by energy beams the moment he got close. I’m quite sure both recognize the situation so Celeste is putting on the pressure by just chasing while conserving energy.”

“So, Albion needs to do something, but doesn’t have much he can do,” Titus summed up with a shrug. “We’ll see, he’ll probably try some deception tactic soon which’ll mark the end of the battle, no matter if he’s successful or not.”

Settling back down in her chair, Nyssa kept quiet as she watched the battle unfold.

It was... just nice to watch. Very colorful. Albion had gone from ice spikes to entire columns large enough to belong in a museum about ancient civilizations. Celeste, on the other hand, kept up her bright energy blasts as she coasted along behind Albion.

A couple minutes of colorful, high-speed dueling later, Albion came to a stop. Digging his heel into the ice, he turned and launched himself towards Celeste on a pillar. Before she could respond, he summoned a plethora of other pillars as well.

One smashed him downward, another pushed him back forward, and over the course of ten seconds he zipped around the floating Celeste. Having surrounded Celeste with a cocoon of pillars, he made a feint forward before traversing downward and leaping upward towards Celeste.

Celeste, to her credit though, saw through the feint and whirled around midair. Sending her foot deep into Albion’s side, she blasted him into the wall of the ice pillar cocoon and sent him clean through.

Falling towards the ground, Albion converted his entire body of ice. Summoning pillars to carry him away, he tried to to rescue himself to no avail as Celeste rushed forward and grabbed his face. “I concede. I’m not escaping an energy blast to the face.”

“Whew, you ran for a long time,” Celeste floated downward before setting Albion down on the ground. “I’m beat. Good job.”

“Thanks,” Albion groaned as he did a couple stretches. “I wasn’t going to beat you head on after all.”

“Yeah...” Celeste agreed while patting him on the back. “Good fight, you match up better against Titus, so good luck for that fight.”

“Mhm, I don’t mind losing much though.” Albion shrugged. “I’m a volume fighter, so I’ll perform better when I don’t have to hold back as much.”

“True, I don’t have to hold back that much,” Celeste walked along with Albion as they made their way back to the table. “Water please!”

Tossing a pair of water bottles towards the two returning fighters, Nyssa gave Celeste a high-five as she took a seat next to her. “You were very cool! Sorry, I don’t really know what to look for when I watch, but you looked very bright. I like the... show of it all.”

“I mean, that’s pretty much all there is to it.” Celeste leaned back in her seat as a long sigh left her lips. “Damn I’m tired. Albion is in much better shape than I am.”

“Does your whole star ascension thing not help?” Nyssa asked as Celeste’s hair faded back to brown and her eyes cleared up.

“Nope, it makes it harder to be honest,” Celeste confessed. “I have a lot of raw power right now, but not a lot of control. So it’s like dragging a heavy weight around. Or a super high pressure hose. I don’t know how to describe it, really. But it makes me out of breath really quite quickly.”

Covering her mouth as she laughed, she flashed a peace sign with her other hand. “I’m glad you thought I was cool though.”

Answering with an “Of course,” Nyssa reached over to grab a sip of water only to notice Conrad motioning towards the training area. “Oh yeah, we’re up next aren’t we?”

“Indeed we are,” Conrad answered as he got up and out of his chair. “We still have a lot of duels left to go though. Especially Titus.”

“Especially Titus?” Nyssa asked as she did a half-jog for a couple steps to get next to Conrad. “This is for him, right? So is he fighting more people?”

“Yeah, he wants to fight everyone at least once,” Conrad stretched his arms while doing a couple basic warm up exercises. “Anyway, we have so much time that everyone can spar to their heart’s content.”

“Well, I’m... not much of a fighter, but sounds good to me,” Nyssa extended a hand towards Conrad. “Hope we have a uhm... pleasurable spar?”

“Likewise,” Conrad returned the handshake. “Perhaps this can be a duel for her- I mean the heart?”

“Heart? The? What? Who?” Nyssa furrowed her eyebrows as Conrad walked off. “What...?”