"I am sure all the ladies are fawning over him..." The sarcasm practically dripped from Tom's tongue.
"Look. Look." Teresa was staring at Tom. "He's jealous. Aww... So, cute. When are you going to start dating this butter ball?"
Eveline's laughing came to an abrupt end, as she began coughing. Strangely, this cough was perfectly timed with Teresa's statement.
"Are you okay?" Tom quickly leaned over and put his hand on her shoulder, to comfort her.
She accidentally looked into his eyes for a moment. Her pink cheeks made it seem as though she might have a fever.
"Are you getting sick?" Tom couldn't help but fuss over her.
"D... 'cough' Don't you have a fight to get to?" She was finally able to speak through the coughs.
"Oh." He looked up in time to see that his opponent was already standing next to the arena. "Crap! I gotta go." Worriedly, he looked back one more time on his way out of the crowd with Sylph in his arms.
"Well, that was good timing." Red remarked, seemingly offhandedly. A vein was protruding from his neck slightly, and his complexion was slowly turning red.
Alex on the other hand was gripping his stomach in convulsive laughter.
This helped to quickly calm Eveline's racing heart. A shadow fell over her face. "What are you laughing at?" She spoke very slowly. Biting off the end of each word.
"Come on..." Teresa rolled her eyes. "You know that was funny. Don't get mad at him, just because you are a little awkward."
Eveline would have continued on anyway, even with Teresa's comment. Except she saw Eluril.
The metallic looking pangolin was sitting up on it's haunches, pointing one claw in Alex's face repeatedly. She couldn't hear the conversation, but she was sure she owed Eluril one.
"Fine, I can be the bigger person." Eveline said to the others as she turned away from them.
"Yeah, bigger person... Sure... Such a big person, to let a pangolin fight your battles for you." Teresa quipped.
Eveline's shoulders slumped slightly. "Do you always have to have the last word... ?" She said to Teresa as she rubbed her temples.
"No."
Tom made it to the arena, just in time. Sendra called out for the contestants to enter the arenas.
As he walked into the ring and took his place. He stared at his opponent.
The opponent was not someone Tom recognized, even so, he was not worried in the slightest.
This boy was small, even by a fourteen year old's standards. He couldn't have been over four feet tall. The weapon in the boy's hand was a quarter staff. A small ram with large circular flaming horns paced back and forth behind the boy.
Every time the ram took a step a quiet hiss could be heard. It left black smoking hoof marks in its wake.
"When the fight starts I will be counting on you." Tom said to Sylph.
"When aren't you counting on me?" She flapped her wings hard, lifting her from Tom's arms.
"Yeah, yeah. You are the power house here." Tom rolled his eyes. Careful not to let her see. "Anyway, try not to hit me. Please."
Sylph scoffed at him. She knew that even if she did hit him it would barely do more than slow him down.
"Begin!" Sendra yelled once again.
Tom grinned as he raised his shield and readied his mace.
The flaming ram immediately charged Tom with his horns sheathed in flames.
Tom's stone salamander skin armor began to glow, as runes began to light across it's surface. Tom's feet began to sink deeper into the arena.
The flaming ram horns connected solidly against his shield, as flames exploded out on contact. The flames licked around the edges of the shield, but Tom didn't seem to pay any attention to them.
Tom's smile widened as he pushed the ram back with his shield and took a wide swing with his mace.
The ram reacted in time, and positioned it's horns to block.
Once again, flames erupted on contact. But Tom still did not seem to react at all. Even as the flames washed over his hands and face.
Before the flames had even died out, the ram's companion dashed around the shield and slammed his quarter staff across Tom's back.
The boy felt a strong connection. His staff was vibrating so hard, it nearly jumped out of his hands.
As the flames cleared, the boy looked up from his hands in time to see a mace swinging towards his face. Caught completely by surprise, he was barely able to position his staff in time to block the back handed swing.
His grip on the staff had already been weakened by the vibrations a moment ago. This swing nearly ripped it from his grasp. Gritting his teeth, he was able to keep hold of it.
"Any time now..." Tom sent to Sylph.
"Why are you in such of a hurry? Don't you want to show off a little for Eveline?"
For a moment, Tom honestly wondered if all spirit animals were this sarcastic, or was he just unlucky?
"Look, just because I am not harmed by these flames and impacts, doesn't mean my gear is safe."
It could be said that Tom was both lucky and unlucky with his cultivation path. He was lucky because he honestly had no options what so ever to confuse him, and his path merged perfectly with his fighting style. He was unlucky, because he had almost no control over his qi or his qi nebula.
While Tom was able to create wisp after wisp of qi during their week long cultivation marathon. But he was never able to control his qi at all. He could only create it.
Within a couple days the others had formed their nebulas, Tom hadn't. In fact there was no hint at all of one forming in his heart. All he could do was create more and more wisps of qi.
Eventually, after a lot of reassurance from the others, and a fair amount of worry from all involved, Tom slowly formed a qi nebula. Only his was formed in his skin.
Tom's nebula was stretched across his entire body, creating a barrier of qi inside his hair and skin. It was by far the largest qi nebula of them all. It also had the benefit of having the highest qi formation rate.
That all sounds great. Except, Tom couldn't control any of it. Not to mention the fact, that even when his qi naturally rotated through his body, it still couldn't go any deeper then the skin.
For the first day after forming his nebula Tom sulked nonstop. He would say things like, "what is the point of creating all of this qi, if I can't even use it!"
After a while Sylph got sick and tired of hearing him complain. Attempting to smack some sense into him, she carefully created a large ball of ice. It was the nearly the size of Alex's fist.
She carefully flew over head and strategically dropped her hail ball right onto his shoulder. She expected to see Tom get knocked over, or at the very least hop about in rage.
The reality was quite different. As the ball of ice contacted Tom's skin it also contacted his qi. The attack was automatically negated by a decent amount of qi. Tom literally only felt nothing.
Even if he had felt anything, it still wouldn't have mattered. Tom was beyond worrying about anything as trivial as a superficial wound. His qi had finally done something!
After some trial and error, they learned that Tom's qi nebula would automatically protect his body at the cost of his qi.
"Fine... But it is not my fault if you get hit. You know I am not good at aiming this." A chill crept up Tom's spine.
Tom quickly ducked like and hid under his shield. Everyone who saw this happen had the exact same thought, 'so that is what an over weight turtle would look like...'
Before he could even get comfortable under his shield, impact after impact began to hit it.
In the sky Sylph was completely stationary. Vortex's of freezing air whirled around her as shard after shard of ice began shooting toward the ground. The entire arena was being hit randomly. She truly had no ability to aim the attack.
That didn't stop it from being devastating though.
The diamond shaped ice crystals continuously crashed into the ground. Some would penetrate, others would simply explode into shards as they hit the ground.
Seeing the deadly attack falling from the sky, the flaming ram decided it was best that they had best be leaving. Deactivating his flames, the ram barreled into his own companion. Narrowly saving him from being skewered by an icicle.
As they exited the ring, a large shadow swooped down in front of Sylph.
Suddenly, a blinding flash lit the sky.
By the time that everyone regained their sight, Sylph was laying on the ground beside Tom.
Hearing the gasps and yells from the crowd, Tom poked his head out from behind the shield.
Before him stood a very angry looking Sendra.
"You are lucky that you did not harm anyone with that unrestrained attack." Her voice was as cold and emotionless as Sylphs ice crystals. "Do. Not. Use. It. Again." She slowly enunciated each word. "You have been warned."
After staring into Tom's eyes for a moment, she slowly turned and walked back to her previous position, between the middle two arenas.