Stella put a hand over her staff and trained it on me. I took a couple seconds debating between the two daggers or forming one with fire.
I have a higher capacity. I smiled and stretched my arm out, fire filling a gravity mold of a sword. Once the cage of gravity was filled with a raging fire, I caught the blade. It was weightless, I tossed it between both hands testing it.
"This can work." I smoothed my horns back.
This is my first fight with a sword and now Jace wants me to fight like the festive knights. I lowered the weight of my body and shot towards him. My sword being directly pointed at the man's arms. Instead of dodging the attack he grabbed the sword with his hands. Twisted my hands off of it and threw a punch at my head from my momentum.
Stella's barrier came up immediately. The flaming shield instantly cracked and shattered beneath his fist. The second it lasted allowed me to not take the hit dead on but I felt my cheek burn slightly. I jumped back and up to Stella.
"He just burned me." I said rubbing my cheek and dispelling the sword that laid on the ground.
"He can do that to us!"
"He's so fast it burned. But his hand bled once he caught the sword."
I formed another sword. Shorter because the other took up six times as much magic and the gravity I used took some also.
Jace hopped up and down as he walked towards us. I went to put the sword up but it was too late. His speed increased significantly and he hurled towards us. My blade barely made its way from my shoulder towards his bullet-like hand. I pushed it down enough to not hit me but it pushed me back. Stella and I fell over each other and Jace wasn't done. He lifted his leg up perfectly vertical and sent it down towards us. I put more flames into the sword and let it explode. At the same time I grabbed Stella under me and made us weightless. We flew back fast and slammed into the wall behind us, softened by more magic.
My magic dropped significantly and my horns became ragged. My magic also decreased because of the explosion. There's hardly a chance to even employ a lie of being the same strength. Then a thought popped into my head.
"Stella, blow your shield up."
She looked at me weirdly, and I saw Jace start to hop, and spawned a flaming shield in front of her. I kicked off my shoes and got on the shield. Lowering my weight I took a stance. Stella blew the shield up and I was sent towards the now speeding Jace. I repeated what I did for my flaming weapons on my feet and significantly increased my weight as I struck the shocked Jace. My socks instantly disappeared under the fire.
Jace slid across the floor slightly and a few flaming spears followed up my kick. He dodged those. The heavy weight made me slam into the ground, and I felt my magic be completely used up.
I looked up at Jace while on the ground. Well at least it looks like Stella understood it too. I sighed. We didn't really win though.
"Very Nice!" Jace clapped looking at both the two exhausted dragons in front of him. "You two seemed to understand what to do when fighting someone stronger."
"You could have told us that." I said
"Now it's engraved in you. Oh and also I lied, weather eaters are uncommon but I've faced some before, and a bunch of dungeons filled with monsters stronger than me." Jace smirked, winked at us, and put both of his pointer fingers up.
I stood up and walked over to Stella. I pulled her up, magic sickness clearly stunning her. But her face also quivered.
"I think a couple trips to the hospital could help you get like me." I smirked.
"I don't wanna be a monster who's immune to feeling drained."
"What do you mean? Just because my magic is at zero doesn't mean I'm completely out. That's when the real pain begins." I laughed and Stella followed along weakly.
"So, explain to me what to do against someone stronger than you."
"You need to keep what you can do a secret and exploit their expectations of how the fight will go. Finishing a fight in one explosive move, that seems like it fits Fayha."
"Exactly! See you learned it better facing me. The festive knight's fighting style is simple and purposefully flashy."
Stella and I both looked at each other, dirt covered, skin red, bruised and drained. We smiled, matching rows of sharp teeth reflected off of each other.
Clapping and light knocks echoed down from the tall ceiling. The flaming sun stopped giggling and instead beamed with a wide smile. The flying stars circled around the pillar in the room. The stairs to the pillar connected and smoothed out.
"What a great performance! What I love more than very explosive and entertaining battles, are the ones where the losing side pulls out all the stops to win! What Excitement!"
The bouncing orange figure at the top of the room jumped once more and landed on the stairs. She glided down, like gum from a gumball machine. Her figure became more visible as she fell.
The orange from the woman came from her dress, which had a jack-o-lanterns face on it. Though it was under the sliding figure I could tell she had long white wavy hair, that had a handful of braids flowing down with her hair. Her skin was extremely smooth and was painted a nice warm brown color. Everything about her screamed warmth, joy and extreme elation. She had striped socks on too, now reminding me that I was walking around sockless.
The beauty reached the end of the slide and hopped out. Her flowing hair followed slowly behind her, making her look angelic and framing her body. Once she was close enough I could see two long round triangles tattoos on both of her flushed cheeks. She had three more tattoos, one running straight down from her chin and the other two running down the middle of her collar bone. Around her waist on the pumpkin dress was a golden rope tying the dress down and letting the bottom flow freely.
"Oh what a sight! You had Jace bleed even. He had to use a skill to harden his skin after." The very obvious Pumpkin Queen turned and pouted slightly at Jace. "What a little cheat."