"What was that?" Jessamine asked, her voice shaking.
She remembered fainting during the duel with Caspian, after which she had awoken in the gazebo, laying on one of the benches inside with her head supported by a jacked.
Caspian's jacket?
When she sat up, she had seen Caspian sitting on the bench opposite her.
"Welcome back, Jessie. Or do your friends call you Jess?"
"Jess. Who said we were friends?"
"Well, I won, didn't I?"
She had asked him what that magic was; the magic which let him step through space at will, which let him render all her physical movement ineffective with a snap of his fingers.
Jessamine had figured it out in the moment before she lost consciousness: the reason she couldn't move was that space was being warped around her, so that no matter how fast she ran, she could never actually 'move' from the place she started.
"It must be an instinctual magic," she continued, "but I didn't know that anyone had cracked portal magic to begin with, let alone found a way to make it instinctual. Am I right?"
Caspian hesitated, but only for a moment.
"…something like that," he said.
Jessamine's suspicions were raised.
"So it's not instinctive magic…" she muttered, before having a flash of realization. "Wait, is it runic?"
Hope said he had bullets which used teleportation runes—it's more believable than instinctive teleportation magic…
"Why would you think that?" asked Caspian with a wolfish grin. "Surely, the Societie Royale didn't send someone to infiltrate my research group and steal my secrets, did they?"
Jessamine met his gaze unapologetically.
"You realize, Mr. Dawson, that the Societie cannot simply leave someone like you alone. If you will not join us, we will be monitoring you. That is non-negotiable."
"I was under the impression that the Societie didn't want me, since I lost that duel to Ms. Blackstone."
"You can't continue that ruse anymore, you realize," she replied. "With the magic that you just used, you could've easily beaten that brat. You intentionally lost so that you wouldn't have to join the Societie."
"That is certainly one conclusion you could draw."
"Are you saying it's wrong?"
"I'm not saying anything, Jess," he retorted. "What is it you told me? 'Be careful when making assumptions'? Not very keen on taking your own advice, it seems."
This guy, thought Jessamine as she grit her teeth.
Well, at least I know how I can get back at him for that.
Caspian stood, retrieved his jacket, and began walking away.
"Same time next week?" Jessamine called after him, causing him to turn.
"Why would I accept?"
A devilish smile spread across Jessamine's face.
"We are friends, aren't we?" she asked innocently. "Besides, now that I know about your teleportation magic, I have another secret of yours that I can reveal to anyone at the school if I wish…"
Caspian sighed.
"That threat won't work a second time. Do you know why?"
Jessamine looked at the ground and nodded.
The power he just showed me—he could kill me before I even opened my mouth to breath a word of what I know.
It would be foolish to think I'd be safe if I put distance between us.
I don't think he'd do anything unprompted, though.
…why am I getting turned on?
Disgusting. Control yourself.
You're a di Cadenza. Act like one.
She looked back at the man standing in the gazebo doorway, her expression firm and resolute.
"Still, I would like to do this again."
"Why?"
I can't afford to lie.
"I am a Master-level magician," she replied. "Rarely do I encounter a foe I cannot vanquish, and whenever I do, I view it as an opportunity to improve my skills. I'm slightly dissatisfied with this outcome, as even though I now have a better understanding of your abilities, I didn't get a chance to practice. But a week's time should be enough to strategize and devise a countermeasure."
Caspian chuckled.
I want to see where this goes, he thought.
"Fine. But don't expect it to end differently."
***
"Alright, let's run that again."
Caspian, Lance, and Gwen, along with new research group member Hope Masterson, were testing the limits of runic technology with simulated combat exercises. The previous round had ended with Hope's victory over Gwen, which seemed to carry more animosity than should be expected from a sparring match, and Caspian was preparing to test the same technology in his upcoming battle with Lance.
The technology in question was a pair of short titanium-alloy daggers and a somewhat-bulky Kevlar vest. While Caspian had crafted the daggers and carved runes into them himself, the research group had requested the aid of the Magic Engineering Laboratory in bringing the vest to life: every square inch of the hardened-polymer construction was being utilized with maximum efficiency, either as part of a complex rune or to house an electrical component.
"That was a good match, Gwen, dear!" said Hope, to which the younger girl only hissed. "I liked your strategy, though the one issue with relying on teleportation is that the enemy can easily predict your destination—it's always the enemy's blind spot, where you have the greatest advantage."
Gwen ignored Hope and approached Lance, handing him the daggers as she took off the vest.
"Here you go," she said. "Good luck against Caspian, knucklehead."
"I won't need it, gold digger," he said with a jovial smile, fastening the vest straps in place and putting on a pair of thin cloth half-gloves, which were connected to the vest by wires running up his forearm.
Gwen raised a sarcastic eyebrow at her friend, clearly believing that he would fare no better than she had, but chose not to say anything.
Caspian and Lance took up positions a few meters away from each other in the testing laboratory.
"Sorry, Caz, but I'm not going to go easy on you!"
Caspian smiled.
"Me neither, Lance. May the best man win!"
"Alright, you two, are you ready?" asked Gwen.
"Yes."
"Yep!"
"On my mark—"
Each fighter entered their preferred combat stance as Gwen began the countdown. No one had noticed the silver-haired girl quietly enter and take a seat along the wall; none except Caspian, that is.
"Three…"
"Two…"
"One…"
"Mark!"
Immediately, Lance threw one of the daggers at Caspian and began running in an arc around his target, imitating the same strategy that Caspian had taken in his duel with Elisabeth. After a couple steps, he threw the second dagger. Caspian easily dodged both daggers, but Lance made a gesture with his hands—he pointed at the knives with two fingers, his thumbs tucked inside his fists, and rotated his fingers in a circle—and suddenly, the daggers were once again flying at Caspian.
When Caspian had first introduced his teleportation bullets to the group, he had also presented them with the concept of the dagger-vest combo that Lance was now using. The daggers themselves were rather simple, as the only spells they possessed were designed to 'link' them to the virtual rune created by the vest.
The vest itself was where the magic happened. The virtual rune it created was linked both to the daggers and to the gloves Lance wore, which allowed Lance to give commands to the rune via hand gestures. The main functionality of the vest was, of course, to teleport the daggers.
When Lance made the circular gesture with his fingers, he activated one of the potential spells with which the virtual rune was programmed: 'Replay.' The daggers were teleported some distance behind themselves while their momentum was preserved, enabling the same attack to be executed twice.
In this case, Lance was using Replay as an initial distraction while he moved to a more advantageous position.
Caspian dodged the Replay as easily as the first attack and started running towards Lance, drawing his semiautomatic pistol as he did so. Deftly loading a magazine of standard magical ammunition, he chambered a round and opened fire on his friend.
Lance was not shaken by the flashes of green light in front of him; his portable shield unit was working as intended, and he knew that he was protected from roughly five minutes' worth of sustained fire.
Still, I shouldn't waste the battery on my shield, he thought.
Gesturing with two fingers once again, this time drawing them towards himself, Lance activated the second of the daggers' three primary spells: 'Return.'
He grasped at the air just as the blades materialized in front of him, and in one continuous motion pivoted and hurled one dagger directly at Caspian.
Caspian dodged yet again, but this time Lance gestured directly at the dagger which was now embedded in a wall behind his opponent, and he reached out as if grabbing the dagger.
Lance vanished; Caspian whirled around, seeing that Lance had used the final spell encoded in the virtual rune, known as 'Report.'
While Replay relied mostly on the virtual rune within the vest, Return and Report had an additional dependency on the sensory gloves Lance wore. In addition to tracking the movement of his hands, the gloves also provided real-time positional data which allowed the physical positions of the daggers to be synced with the grasp of the user's hand.
When combined with teleportation magic, this function allowed the blades to either be teleported to the hand of the user, or the user teleported to the position of the blades.
In her fight with Hope, Gwen had used the latter function as a way of assuming positional advantage over her opponent, though this came at the cost of increased predictability. Hope had used her understanding of Gwen's strategy to her own advantage, which ultimately cost Gwen the victory.
Now, Lance was using a similar strategy with a different aim, and though Caspian had identified the strategy early in their fight, it would prove difficult to counter without going overboard.
Lance was using Report to keep a safe distance between him and Caspian, always teleporting to the spot furthest away from his enemy whenever Caspian approached. From that point of safety, he would then use Replay and Return to attack Caspian at range.
The goal was to exhaust Caspian's energy to the point where he would make a mistake and then capitalize on that opportunity.
A solid strategy, thought Caspian. He learned from watching Gwen's battle, as expected. Though his method is a little too iterative, not nearly experimental enough…
Neither Caspian nor Lance had let up their attacks; Caspian's magic bullets were blocked by Lance's shield generator, and Lance's daggers were easy for Caspian to dodge. It looked to the spectators as if the pair were in a deadlock, only to be broken if one of them made a mistake.
Indeed, that was the case, and both combatants were aware of the course the battle was taking yet neither offered a ceasefire.
Time to end this, Caspian resolved. Can't let her get too familiar with our strategies.
Caspian ejected his magazine and fired his last round at Lance, who had just used Report to put distance between himself and Caspian. Lance was disoriented for a moment because of the teleportation; Caspian used this momentary advantage to swap magazines without Lance's knowledge, this time loading teleportation rounds.
When Lance looked up, he saw Caspian kneeling on the other side of the room seemingly aiming his pistol above his head. Caspian fired, and before Lance could even register the sound of the gunshot, Caspian had vanished.
Teleportation rounds! Lance realized a moment too late.
As he turned his head skyward following the trajectory of Caspian's shot, Lance was greeted by the sight of a man falling with tremendous speed and an outstretched fist towards him.
I've lost.
Caspian's punch collided with Lance's protective helmet, and their bodies soon followed. Lance crumpled under the weight of Caspian's flying form, acting as a cushion and guaranteeing that both of them would have serious bruising the next day—but no injury more serious than that.
The two men hit the ground with a dull thud. Caspian rolled off Lance, and they lay next to each other for a minute, regaining their composure and chuckling.
"Man," said Lance with a deep sigh, "I really should've expected that. It's the same strategy Gwen used, except in three dimensions."
"I figured the only way to actually attack you was to use a weapon slow enough to evade your shield generator's detection, but with enough force to end the fight. My falling body seemed ideal."
"You're suicidal, you know?"
"I prefer to think of it as a creative combat strategy," Caspian replied with a laugh. "Plus, I didn't die."
"Not yet," Lance admitted. "But if you pull enough crazy stunts like that… eventually, something's going to get you."
"Someday, maybe. But not today."
Lance laughed, though there wasn't much effort put into the action.
"Good going, Caz. One of these day's I'll hold my own against you."
Caspian smiled.
"You'd better."
"That was a fine display," chimed in a third voice, one which Lance didn't recognize. "I'm sorry that I missed the first few matches, I'm sure they were even more entertaining than that."
Caspian propped himself up on his elbows and looked over at the newcomer.
"Ms. Angeloff, to what do we owe this pleasure?"
Natasha Angeloff smiled; something about the smile felt fake, yet it appeared genuine to everyone present.
"Why, I'd like to join your research group, of course!"