The second semester also meant we could form teams to start to create a cohesive unit. The teams would consist of six individuals and your make up would be up to you but the overall goal was to make sure that everyone's weaknesses were covered by someone else's strengths. I for one had no physical beast to manifest to help attack so I would be considered a support beast master.
Adam and his arcane wyvern combination were considered offensive beast master, while Travis and his turtle 'Tim' were considered as a tank beast master, Joey and his red panda 'Po' were known as a support beast master like myself. We knew we needed to find two more offensive beast masters but we weren't sure who and given the current lunch antics we weren't sure if anyone would want to join us.
The signup wall for the teams would have you place your team name and then list your 6 beast masters below the team name. Many had already been filled out when Joey noticed that there were a couple other teams that had four beast masters but not full. He recognized one of them as all four were roommates as they were right across the hall from us. To be honest I could have at least said the same if I had seen them, granted I couldn't do it by name alone.
Adam signed us up as Arcanum for the team name which threw me off for a minute till I realized he was referencing basically himself and I. Joey and Travis weren't arcane beast masters by any stretch but I didn't know there was another meaning to it. I thought it just sounded cool to be honest. As we signed we noticed that after two beast masters were added the rest of the lines for signatures suddenly said 'Requests'.
I signed last and I then touched the 'Requests' button as my eyes were saying it had options if you interact with it. Then a list of different types of beast masters were listed with tank beast master having a red line through it. "Healing support, offensive ranged, and offensive melee are our three options to place on the two lines of requesting available beast masters to sign up. I say we put an offensive melee and healing support for the last two? Do you guys agree?"
Travis agreed instantly hearing me saying we needed a healing support beast master. He knew he would be getting hit the most and the better support he had the easier his job was. Adam offered up the idea of a second tank beast master instead of a damage beast master. I informed him that the option was marked off as filled. "Support Ranged and Tank are both marked with a red line and I can't select them if I try."
I went to submit the requests and it stated only the team leader could do so. I looked at Adam, "Well you signed first and gave us our name so apparently it needs your consent to select those options, no one else can mess with it." I informed my roommates who all gave the same look of 'well that makes sense'.
That is when it started, a few minutes after we left the sign up board, an announcement was made over the campus intercom that our team had been summoned to the arena. The beast master of an owl, who was running the arena, did give us a look that told me he felt bad for us. I asked him if it was allowed since we only had four so far, he replied that once a challenge is summoned it must be carried out, that three were the minimum required to take on six. Our one and only saving grace was that only first year students could challenge first year students so Devin's bribe had to go to a first year team.
We arrived to find a huge section of third year students gathered in the stands to see the fight. They knew at minimum they would get a chance to see how they can pick on us further, at best they would get to see us get completely humiliated not having a full team. I feel like that was the moment that both Adam and I hit the same wavelength on how much we were going to dominate everyone in these arena battles.
I knew the same wavelength was met when I stepped up to him and gave him my support spells before the battle began. The fire burning in his eyes told me he was ready and it was about to go down. His enormous claymore sword was easily my favorite thing to add fire weapon to, it would always give off an intense amount of heat in the initial casting.
"Knowledge, wisp flame, iceskin, barkskin, electric armor, electric aura, fire weapon" I chanted as the countdown started from 10 above our heads. I then felt my body grow a bit in a weird quick way as the ground seemed to be further away causing a slight disorientation. I blinked a couple times to get my senses back and realized that Travis had let out a weird growl/screeching/scream which was a buff to increase the size of everyone making them stronger and tougher by 20%.
"Wisdom, panda tribe, aqua fur" Joey spoke and suddenly I could hear everyone's thoughts and then we were communicating between ourselves in our brains which I later found out was the panda tribe support spell he cast. The spell aqua fur gave us 10% resistance to elemental damage and wisdom gave us a 5% increase to our intellect.
The other team consisted of a full squad of six beast masters all looking extremely confident especially having the cheering support of the third years in the stands watching. I wish I would have known what got them so excited to want to face us so badly that day but man it felt good to wipe those smiles off their faces.
Their tank was a bear, they had a hawk and a leopard for damage, a weird tree beast master was their healer giving them all a more advanced version of my barkskin spell. The two others were support or damage I'm not sure but they didn't do anything as Adam took them each out almost instantly. He had learned how to blink himself and the two standing on each end were his targets. He also had learned to expand the distance of the blink which is what caught everyone including myself completely off guard.
Before they realized they had lost two and one of ours was no longer in their sight the four remaining had charged forward as it was their plan to surround us. Adam now had a cooldown on his blink spell so he was now running from behind them. Travis's turtle lunged at their bear to block its path with his turtle wall. Tim sat on its butt and then expanded its shell outward creating a barrier between half of the others blocking the healer and tank from the two offensive beast masters.
I was shocked at how he was able to pull it off as the hawk and leopard with their masters were trapped behind the shell away from their tank and healer. Joey had lunged at the hawk so I attacked the leopard. Arcane missile to start of course, made contact with the leopard's mid section causing it to roar in pain and summon itself back to its master.
He was hoping to stay in the fight and not be knocked out if his leopard were to die, this opened up for a nice arcane missile to his chest giving me my first squad kill of my life technically. I went to fire another arcane missile at the hawk but Joey had just stabbed the beast master with his sais to boot him out of the arena. Tim pulled his shell back once both were dispatched and went back to Travis to allow us to now surround their bear and tree.
Adam had been unloading arcane fire on the bear while Dante blinked to its backside forcing the tank to defend all sides. I felt like since it was a tree I should use fire so I sent a fireball that made direct contact with the tree beast. It shuddered and did a shimmy that the fire dissipated upon the end of the dance. I was kinda shocked but also thought it was pretty cool looking but sent another two fireballs to end him before anyone else could attack the tree.
The golden light signifying the death of the beast appeared as the beast master was shoved out of the arena with only the bear left Adam stopped to look up at the third years. He then pointed at Devin knowing he was the ring leader while Dante took the final killing blow bite on the back of the beast master.
Joey, Travis and I were all cheering as we won but Adam had a look like we had just lost. I was confused at the time on what was going on because I thought we just did something pretty incredible being outnumbered and not losing anyone in the fight. I didn't understand how torn up he was that all of his childhood friends were now treating him this way because he went to a different school.
The cheering stopped as the campus intercom informed us that we have been summoned for a second team battle in the arena. The beast master in charge looked down at them realizing they were up again and wondered what was going on. He had been working the arena for a decade and he had never been busy the first day of sign ups, usually the first week to two weeks there would be zero fights as everyone was trying to figure out team builds.
Seeing the growing crowd build up in the arena was also drawing general interest from everyone around the academy as there usually wasn't this much activity during the morning hours. The other team entered the arena with a similar smirk on their faces as the previous team, further pushing my mind into more options of what they could have been offered. Those thoughts were instantly erased when two more beast masters entered the arena and instead of walking to the other team they walked up to us.
"I thought we would have more time than this but I am Maddy and I have a life faery so I am your healing support. This is my best friend Abby who has a lightning wolf and is your offensive melee. We were both shocked to see that a team needed exactly what the two of us were so we signed up and then were notified that we were late for our first battle. Getting here just at the right moment we at least saw what you can do so we will just help where we can on this one." Maddy, the girl I had a huge crush on, just gave an introduction that I still can hear her voice say to this day.
My mind went blah blah blah when I went to speak myself, causing my roommates to laugh as they knew I had a crush. "Let's do proper introductions later we get to battle again it appears. The best thing is that we can only be challenged once more today as any and all teams are only allowed three battles a day. A part of the responsibility of that owl working the scoreboard." Joey pointed out the beast master working the controls to the arena for the last decade.
Dune beetle for a tank, a raven and a fire ant for offensive beast masters, to be honest the support beast masters were plants that I still have no idea what they did other than a bunch of buffs it appeared to do before the battle started. Once it started they all had bows so they were attacking with their bows and it didn't appear that any healed.
I redid my chant as they are removed when the fight is over plus needing the two new girls to get the buffs. Joey and Travis redid theirs as well then Maddy spoke a few words that changed my interest in her from crush to obsession. "Faeries bond" she muttered ever so softly but the feeling of your mana pool being doubled was an incredible sensation for me, can't speak for the rest of the team. I would call it my first orgasm to be honest but I was only ten.
The battle started the same way as the last with Adam blinking to the two edges and assassinating them each. That is when I realized that the three archers were triplets as the one who lived screamed in agony as he felt his two other parts receive killing blows. They had a connection that caused the pain felt to be translated to others and being kicked out of the arena hurt especially the first time. The scream startled his three teammates who now turned around to look at what happened.
I honestly didn't think it would have been that easy to pull off but I am assuming this team didn't watch the first battle at all since Adam did the exact same thing and now left their backs to us. I unloaded as quickly as I could center mass on each of their backs an arcane missile each. The dune beetle has a natural resistance to arcane magic so he survived but the two girls that had a raven and a fire ant both were ejected out of the arena.
Abby had charged quickly, her lightning wolf giving her insane speed lunged at the triplet that wasn't fully recovered from the pain of feeling two killing blows simultaneously. She had simply lunged her short sword into the chest of the archer sending the third out of the arena. I glanced over to see all three grabbing their chest rubbing out the pain together.
Once again we had one beast master left and thus far the beetle had only lived through an attack to his back. He hadn't thrown an attack, he looked around at the fact he was completely by himself and raised his hands looking Adam in the eye "I yield, I forfeit, you guys win!" The owl above ejected the beetle out of the arena and all of us just started laughing.