Natalia’s ice spread across the volcanic platform like a living thing, frost climbing in fractals and geotric patterns that would make mathematicians weep with joy. The sudden temperature drop made the crowd’s collective gasp visible, twenty thousand plus of white breath rising into the afternoon air.
Reyna moved imdiately, her body blurring with the kind of speed that ca from Olympic-level training since childhood. Lightning crackled around her hands as she summoned two marionettes on either side of Natalia, eight-foot-tall constructs of pure electricity that humd with enough voltage to fry a grown man.
But Natalia had spent seventeen matches worth of footage learning Reyna’s patterns, cataloging every micro-expression and tactical preference. She knew Reyna defaulted to a defensive double-marionette formation when pressured from the left because it allowed her to reposition right while maintaining offensive capability.
So Natalia deliberately gave Reyna the opening she wanted.
Natalia threw a telekinetic spike toward Reyna’s left side, intentionally telegraphing the attack enough that any professional fighter could read it coming. Reyna responded exactly as predicted, manifesting a third marionette to intercept while she shifted right.
Which ant Skylar’s smoke already wrapped around Reyna’s throat before she finished the movent.
The Phantasm Smoke appeared from nowhere, indigo mist that slled of clove cigarettes and bad decisions. Skylar solidified just enough to press a blade against Reyna’s carotid artery, the threat clear without being lethal.
"Got you," Skylar whispered, and her voice carried that flat, dangerous quality she used when she was genuinely serious about violence.
Reyna didn’t panic like most people would when a knife kissed their throat. Instead she smiled, that wild grin that said she’d been hoping for exactly this level of threat.
"Did you though?"
The marionette Reyna had created to block Natalia’s decoy attack suddenly reversed direction, its electrical form compressing into a single point before exploding outward in a flash-bang burst of light and sound. Skylar yelped and dissolved back into smoke, her concentration shattered by the unexpected counterattack.
Reyna spun and launched a straight kick at where Skylar had been standing, her boot connecting with empty air as Skylar reford three ters away, her face flushed and her violet eyes blazing with sothing between fury and grudging respect.
"Okay. That was good."
"Thanks. Been working on that one."
Kira materialized behind Natalia without warning, her Shadow Step ability allowing instantaneous movent through darkness. Her twin daggers carved toward Natalia’s spine in a killing blow that would’ve been illegal if it connected.
Natalia’s telekinesis caught Kira mid-strike, invisible force wrapping around her wrists and yanking them sideways. The daggers carved harmless arcs through empty air while Natalia spun, frost spreading from her palms and climbing up Kira’s arms.
"Not today."
Natalia slamd Kira into the platform hard enough to crack volcanic rock, then reinforced the ice forming around Kira’s body. Within three seconds, the Shadow Dancer was encased from neck to ankles in crystalline blue ice, her daggers frozen to her palms.
One down.
The crowd’s roar beca deafening, chanting Natalia’s na with religious fervor. She felt Satori’s presence through Sovereign’s Mandate, a warm pressure at the back of her mind that said he was watching and proud and probably also terrified.
Good. Let him worry.
Reyna’s smile widened into sothing genuinely predatory. "Nice. Kira, you good?"
The ice muffled Kira’s response, though her middle finger raised clearly enough through the frozen prison.
"She’ll live." Reyna summoned four new marionettes, surrounding herself in a crackling cage of electricity. "Just you and now, Queen."
Skylar reford beside Natalia, her breathing slightly elevated but her grip on her knives steady. "Plan?"
"Sa as before. Make her angry."
"My specialty."
Skylar dissolved into smoke again, but this ti she spread across the entire platform in a thick fog that obscured everything beyond arm’s reach. The crowd noise beca muted and distant, the volcanic heat dulled to a mory.
Natalia felt rather than saw Reyna’s confusion through the mist. The marionettes flickered, their electrical forms destabilizing slightly without clear targets to lock onto. Good. Confusion led to mistakes, and mistakes led to openings.
Natalia channeled power through the Cryo-Lich Ring and the new gloves Cel had given her, watching ice crystals form in the air itself. She pulled moisture from the atmosphere and shaped it into jagged spears that hung suspended in the fog like sleeping dragons.
Then she sent them flying toward where Reyna’s heat signature blazed through the mist.
Three ice spears converged from different angles, forcing Reyna to move or die. Reyna chose movent, her marionettes interposing themselves to block two of the attacks while she dodged the third with acrobatic grace that spoke of years of professional training.
But that dodge put her exactly where Natalia wanted her.
Skylar materialized directly behind Reyna, close enough to kiss, her blade pressed against Reyna’s spine. "Second ti’s the charm?"
Reyna’s elbow snapped backward faster than thought, catching Skylar square in the solar plexus. The Phantom Blade gasped and stumbled, her concentration breaking enough that the smoke dissipated entirely.
Sunlight flooded back across the platform, revealing Reyna standing in a defensive crouch with all four marionettes positioned around her like a fortress wall.
"You’re good," Reyna admitted, her erald eyes finding Skylar’s. "Better than your file suggested."
"Files lie." Skylar coughed, pressing one hand to her stomach where the elbow had connected. "Just like people."
"True." Reyna’s attention shifted to Natalia. "But I don’t think your ice princess is lying about what she can do. I felt that cold. You almost flash-froze my marionettes’ energy signature."
Natalia stepped forward, the platform’s ice responding to her presence by thickening and spreading in concentric circles. "Almost doesn’t count."
"Doesn’t it?"
The temperature around Reyna spiked as lightning gathered around her body in a corona of crimson electricity. Her marionettes grew brighter, more solid, their forms condensing from vague humanoid shapes into actual defined musculature made of pure voltage.
Natalia recognized the technique from match seventeen, tistamp three minutes forty seconds. Reyna was transitioning from defensive positioning to overwhelming offensive assault, planning to end the fight through sheer destructive power before Natalia could freeze her constructs.
Which ant Natalia had approximately four seconds before Reyna unleashed hell.
Natalia reached for Skylar without looking, their hands finding each other through muscle mory developed over three weeks of training together. "Trust ?"
"No."
"Good. Do it anyway."
Natalia grabbed Skylar’s wrist and poured telekinetic energy directly into Skylar’s Aspect, channeling power the way Satori had taught her to share strength through their bond. Skylar’s Phantasm Smoke exploded outward with enough force to shake the entire platform, indigo mist flooding the arena in a wave that consud everything.
But this ti the smoke carried Natalia’s ice within it, every particle of moisture freezing instantly and creating a fog of suspended ice crystals that refracted light in impossible ways.
The crowd couldn’t see anything through the frozen mist. Neither could Reyna.
Her marionettes fired blindly, electrical bolts arcing through the fog in random directions as Reyna attempted to compensate for her sudden loss of visual information. Lightning struck the platform, the railings, even carved scorching lines across the volcanic rock itself.
But none of it found Natalia or Skylar, who moved through their own fog with the confidence of people who’d planned for exactly this situation.
Natalia channeled everything through the Cryo-Lich Ring, feeling the artifact pulse with cold approval against her finger. She didn’t target Reyna directly. Instead she went for the marionettes themselves, reaching out with telekinetic tendrils and grabbing hold of their electrical signatures.
The constructs resisted, their energy fighting against her grip with the force of a hurricane trying to tear free from invisible chains. But Natalia held on, gritting her teeth as sweat beaded on her forehead despite the freezing temperature. She channeled ice directly into the marionettes’ cores, watching frost spread through their crackling forms.
Electricity and ice fought for dominance, voltage versus absolute zero, chaos versus order.
Natalia won.
The marionettes froze solid, their electrical forms locked into crystalline stasis that turned them from active threats into beautiful statues of captured lightning. They shattered when Natalia released them, dissolving into sparkling particles that rained down across the frozen platform.
Reyna’s voice cut through the fog, sharp with genuine surprise. "What the hell?"
Natalia didn’t answer. She dispersed the frozen mist with a gesture, revealing herself standing alone at the platform’s center with frost spreading from her boots in spiraling patterns. The Cryo-Lich Ring blazed with cold white light, her hair’s platinum streaks glowing in response to her emotional state.
Reyna stood ten ters away, breathing hard but grinning like this was the best fight she’d had in months. Her crimson hair whipped around her face in a wind that shouldn’t exist in an enclosed space, and her hands crackled with raw electrical power that made the air itself protest her existence.
"You froze my marionettes. My perfect, A-Rank marionettes that I’ve been developing for six years."
"They were fragile."
Reyna laughed, genuine and delighted and absolutely unhinged. "I like you. Sha I have to destroy you."
She summoned eight new marionettes in a formation that made Natalia’s stomach drop. Not defensive positioning or offensive assault, but a tactical pattern designed to control space and deny movent. Each construct positioned itself at a critical angle, creating overlapping fields of fire that would electrocute anything trying to cross between them.
Reyna had learned from Natalia’s counter and adapted imdiately, her genius-level combat instincts finding the solution in real ti.
This was what fighting an actual prodigy felt like, Natalia realized. Not soone like Julian who relied on breeding and equipnt, but soone who’d earned every scrap of their reputation through blood and talent and refusing to accept anything less than perfection.
Skylar appeared at Natalia’s side, breathing hard from the earlier exertion. Her violet eyes tracked the marionette positions with professional assessnt. "That’s bad."
"I noticed."
"Ideas?"
"Working on it."
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