The next day, the girls of Noctis Noir were back again at the amphitheatre for the next round. They gathered at the entrance by the large bulletin board with the list of battle schedules, waiting for their turn to enter.
"Good luck in today's match, Astrid!" said Luna.
"Alright. Let's find out who your opponent is..." As Lyria scanned through the names of the participants, Luna and Astrid stood behind her to watch the list. Lyria stopped at the name of the representative for Noctis Noir.
"Amelie!?" Everyone shouted in unison.
"It's Chris! Stop calling me Amelie!" The mage placed her hands on her hips.
"You registered yourself as a participant?" Lyria was shocked.
"But why?" Astrid asked.
Amelie did a peace sign. "To bring honor to the guild!"
"I don't get your logic."
"Sed said that it's possible to win with strategy."
Astrid nodded. "Well, that's true, but you're at a huge disadvantage with your level and extremely low defense."
Amelie did a double peace sign. "I'll manage somehow."
Luna frowned when she saw the name of the person Amelie was going to fight. "Check out her opponent. It's someone from Black Rose. We're done for."
"Oh hey! I'm fighting Jasmine!" Amelie was delighted to find out who her opponent was.
"At least one of us is happy."
Lyria led the way. "Come on, let's go find seats and try to come up with a strategy."
They hurriedly went back to the same seats they sat on the previous day. They stayed silent during seven consecutive battles before someone finally broke the silence.
"Any ideas?" Astrid asked.
"Nope," Luna replied.
"None here," Lyria said sadly.
Amelie wore the limited edition shades she bought from the robot maids. "I ride with the wind," she said while doing a cool pose.
The rest of the guild members sighed in unison. They all knew how miniscule their chance of winning was. It was also too late to change the participant.
The valkyrie announced the next set of names: "Chrosse of Noctis Noir and Jasmine of Black Rose!"
The Noctis Noir members were quiet. They were all expecting the worst.
"Leave this to me, girls!" Amelie winked and walked to the stage.
"C-Chris!" Jasmine lost her composure the moment she met her face to face in the middle of the arena.
At the area where the Black Rose members sat, Sed pouted and looked away from the stage.
Yaya tilted her head. "Is something wrong, Sed? You don't look happy."
"It's nothing."
The support priestess giggled. "Could you be jealous?"
"I'm not jealous!"
Back at the stage, Amelie noticed Jasmine's sudden nervousness, a new expression she hadn't seen before from the assassin.
"Jasmine, you don't look so well. Are you ok?" Amelie became worried.
"I'm fine, Chris. I'm just nervous because I'm fighting you," Jasmine replied.
"Oh. Well, I used to have stage fright before, so I totally get you." Amelie laughed cheerfully.
The valkyrie gave her command: "Commence battle!"
"Listen, Chris. I'm sorry if I end up hurting you so bad." Jasmine raised her katar, preparing to attack. "I didn't want to have to fight you." She swung her katar at Amelie.
Amelie jumped back. "Woah! That's dangerous."
Jasmine did another attack, which Amelie dodged. It was clear to both the Black Rose members and the Noctis Noir members that Jasmine was holding back. She avoided using skills.
As Jasmine did another attack, she accidentally tripped and fell forward.
"Jasmine!" Amelie exclaimed and ran to her. "Jasmine, are you ok?"
She raised a hand up. "Don't stop and help me, Chris! This is a match! We're supposed to fight each other!"
"But you fell and..."
Amelie accidentally activated her ultimate attack, Crimson Fire, as she was reaching out to help Jasmine. A large explosion covered the middle of the arena.
Although Amelie was just level 51, she invested all her points to Intelligence, which made her total magic attack almost equal to those who were at level 100. Most mages invested around a third of their points to Vitality to have more survivability. Amelie's equipment was also made for pure damage, while most mages preferred to have some equipment for survivability.
Jasmine's health immediately dropped to one, resulting in Black Rose's defeat.
Amelie covered her mouth. "Woops..."
"The winner is Chrosse of Noctis Noir!" announced the valkyrie.
The Noctis Noir girls stared blankly at the scene. They all thought the fight ended too quickly and unexpectedly.
"What just happened?" Luna asked.
Astrid blinked twice. "I don't know, but it looks like Amelie won."
"Should we... celebrate? I feel kinda bad for Jasmine."
The Black Rose members, on the other hand, were devastated by the scene.
"What is Jasmine doing?" Sed stood up from his seat.
"Calm down, Sed," Pio stopped him from running over to Jasmine and giving her a scolding.
Garth shrugged. "We just need two more wins, right?"
"You sure are calm about this, Garth," said Yaya, still keeping a calm smile on her face.
"I believe in you guys."
Sed's anger quickly disappeared. "Garth..." He turned around with a touched expression on his face.
Garth placed a hand up. "Don't hug me in public."
"Garth!" Sed hugged him.
"Please stop. I don't want people to misunderstand." Garth had an uncomfortable look on his face.
"Get off him, Sed." Pio peeled the second-in-command off their guildmaster.
Yaya jumped down to the arena and healed Jasmine back to full health. Lyria did the same and healed Amelie.
"I'm sorry, Jasmine. I have terrible control over my ultimate attack," Amelie apologized sincerely.
Jasmine shook her head. "No, it's not your fault. I should have concentrated more on the battle." She sighed. "Sed is definitely going to give me a lecture later."
Yaya giggled. "Not to worry. We can always distract him with food."
"I'll ask Pio for a favor and have him cook Sed's favorites."
They moved out of the stage. The next set of participants moved in and started the next battle. When Amelie got back to her seat, the other Noctis Noir members were still in deep shock from the unexpected turn of events.
Amelie flipped her hair and placed the limited edition shades back on. "Was I that impressive that you were all left speechless?"
"I have no idea how things became this way, but great job, Amelie!" said Astrid.
"It's Chris! When will you ever call me Chris?" Amelie sobbed.
The girls cheered and gave their princely wizard a group hug.
"All we need is one more win! Let's do this!" Luna raised her fist up into the air.
"I'll make some celebratory steak tonight!"