Return of the Runebound Professor

“Perhaps we’re getting a bit ahead of ourselves,” Noah said, coughing into his fist as he took a step back. “Training doesn’t have to end in someone being dead, you know. That seems pretty counterintuitive. I’m trying to figure out the limits of my rune, not—”

Garina blurred forward. The movement definitely wasn’t at her max speed. Noah could tell because his eyes were actually able to follow the motion, if only barely. She appeared directly before him, her knee flying up to drive into his gut.

Noah doubled over as a pained wheeze exploded from his lungs. Flowers blurred by him in a streak of color as Garina’s strike sent him hurtling backward. He hit the ground with a grunt, rolling over his shoulder and skidding to a halt.

“Shit,” Noah wheezed.

She was strong. Pain throbbed in his stomach. There was definitely some severe damage to his internal organs. It felt like they’d all gotten scrambled from just one strike.

He shoved himself back to his feet, only to find Garina looming above him, her foot raising into the air.

Shit!

Noah flung himself to the side. A heavy thud from where his head had been a moment before marked Garina’s foot slamming into the grass — and from the sounds of it, he would not have survived the blow.

“I thought you wanted to train,” Garina said, turning toward Noah. “But I’m noticing a lack of motivation — and magic. You aren’t going to get much out of your rune if you don’t use it, you know.”

“I don’t think we agree on what the definition of training—”

Garina was before Noah again; her elbow was already just inches away from his temple and rapidly closing the distance.

There wasn’t even time to curse in his head. Noah flung himself out of the way again. Her speed was so ridiculous that he could barely even keep up with it… and she was going easy on him.

He hit the ground in a roll and rolled over, preparing to launch himself back to his feet. Before he could even start to rise, a foot slammed down into his stomach. Noah folded like a jackknife as all the air exploded from his lungs.

“Is this all you have, Noah?” Garina leaned down, pressing him harder into the ground with her foot. Her dark eyes bore into his like the void itself. “I was expecting more. Much more. Can you only fight when you’ve rigged the circumstances in your favor?”

“I do tend to prefer that, yes,” Noah wheezed. He tried to reach for his magic.

And then something strange happened.

His runes shied away from him. They didn’t want to emerge. Their power hid in the recesses of Noah’s soul like a small dog cowering from a thunderstorm. His magic was scared of Garina.

It wasn’t even the Apostle’s domain. She hadn’t unleashed it yet. If she had, Noah would have already been slammed into the ground by the sheer pressure of her existence. This was something else entirely. Garina’s mere presence had cowed his magic.

What the hell is this? I’ve never had my Runes straight up ignore me before!

“If you really do go down this easily, I think we might have to change the dynamic of how things work,” Garina growled, disgust darkening her features. “You are not even worthy of pretending to be my equal. You are all talk. Not every fight can be manipulated. I respect power — and I do not bend to the whims of worms.”

“Now you’re just being rude. What kind of training—”

The rest of Noah’s sentence was lost in a pained curse as Garina’s foot dug into his stomach even harder. He tried to buck her off, but it was like trying to move a mountain. Garina was impossibly strong — or heavy.

And, assuming he wanted to survive more than a few more seconds, he wasn’t about to vocalize the latter option. Noah had absolutely no delusions of his own physical strength. He wasn’t going to be able to budge her in the slightest. Not from a position like this.

“Pathetic,” Garina said. “You really are a good liar, though. You had me fooled. I didn’t think you were this weak.”

Noah thrust his arm out. The bow of his violin appeared within his grip and he slashed the razor-sharp string across Garina’s thigh. It was like trying to cut through steel. Her skin barely even reacted — but the violin still sliced a thin line of red across her.

A flicker of surprise passed through Garina’s features for no more than an instant. Noah drove his will through his mind, grabbing onto Unstable Pandemonium and ripping the cowardly rune from its hiding place.

It tried to flee from his grasp, but Noah wasn’t making requests anymore. He tore power from the rune and let it explode out from his palms in a wave of furious red lightning. The magic slammed straight into Garina’s stomach. Her shirt fizzled and burned as the magic tore a hole right into her stomach.

Garina staggered a step back and Noah instantly rolled to the side, thrusting himself back to his feet. He couldn’t help but feel a moment of disbelief. Despite taking a direct hit from Unstable Pandemonium, Garina’s pale skin barely been charred by the strike.

“Chaos magic,” Garina said flatly. “You. Why am I not surprised? Where did you get that rune, Noah?”

Shit. I barely even hurt her. I think my violin string did more damage than my magic did. Og was right. This is a bit pathetic. I’ve been using my magic way too much like a wooden club and just bonking shit with sheer magical strength. I need to push the rune so much farther. I know it can do more.

“Made it,” Noah replied. He ripped more power from Unstable Pandemonium. The rune quailed in Garina’s presence, but Noah didn’t give it any options. He gathered the power within his palms and clenched his fists.

This Rune has all the elements of everything else I’ve used to make it. There’s more to it than just chaos energy… but the chaos is definitely its strongest element right now. The problem is I don’t understand enough of how it works. If I can figure out what the hell it is that Chaos energy actually does, maybe I can figure out how to pull more potential from this thing.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Garina scoffed. “You want me to believe you made a Chaos rune? Unlikely. Someone’s helping you, aren’t they? That’s how you’ve gotten this far. But relying on other people’s power isn’t going to get you any farther.”

She blurred, appearing directly in front of him as her fist blurred toward his face. Noah leaned back, dismissing the bow of his violin as he vaulted backward to narrowly avoid getting his nose flattened.

A flicker of surprise passed through him when he landed back on his feet, face un-crunched. Garina had missed. A few of Lee’s lessons had evidently managed to lodge themselves deeply enough in his mind to show up during fights.

The distance Noah had made between himself and Garina evaporated in an instant as the Apostle’s foot slammed down beside Noah. Her body twisted in a powerful side kick that left Noah no time to dodge.

Noah let out a pained curse as Garina’s foot slammed into his stomach and he found himself flying once more. He rolled as he hit the ground, sending a wave of crackling chaos magic tearing through the air before him before he’d even risen back to his feet.

The magic slowed Garina for a moment, but only for long enough for him to stand. Then she was upon him once more. Noah twisted to avoid a punch, then crossed his arms in front of his chest a moment before Garina’s knee drove into them.

He staggered back, teeth gritted. His head spun and he was pretty sure several of his bones were broken, not to mention the amount of internal damage he’d had to have sustained by now.

“Can you do anything other than run and tickle me?” Garina demanded. “I almost preferred when you were squirming on the ground.”

Noah drank from Unstable Pandemonium, twisting the magic to his will. There wasn’t any time for him to sit around debating on what it could do. He just had to start trying shit until something worked. If he didn’t, Garina was going to beat the shit out of him until he keeled over and died.

What do I do? Not a Formation. That won’t let me practice, not to mention I don’t understand Unstable Pandemonium well enough to extract its full benefits in a Formation. I need to use this opportunity to figure out what the rune itself can do.

“Don’t get it twisted. I’m not tickling you,” Noah growled. He was barely even aware of the words spilling from his lips. His mind and body were moving nearly independently of each other. “That is a privilege saved for Moxie.”

Garina faltered for a moment, her features twitching in disbelief. “What are you talking about? Get your mind out of the gutter.”

Noah barely even heard her. There were too many thoughts — too many needs — bouncing around his head like a thousand rubber balls. He couldn’t decipher anything like this. And so Noah did the only thing he could think of. The only thing that would lock his focus in completely on the fight. He summoned his violin and placed the bow of the violin against its strings.

Then he sank into his pattern. His violin sang as the bow danced across its strings and his attention sank inward as he tried to dedicate himself to the song.

“Formations, Noah? Seriously? In a one on one fight? What, do you think I’m going to sit around and let you gather the magic to do that? Do you think I’m an idiot? Not that a Formation like that would be of any threat to me, but it’s about the principle of things.”

Wrong. Not a Formation.

She blurred forward. Her elbow blurred Noah’s for skull. He twitched out of the way, almost instinctively, and the blow passed by him, just inches away from his face.

Chaos is a part of music. It’s part of everything. But how can I use it? What can I do to properly use this rune? I — oh, shit.

Garina’s fist was heading right for his face. Noah slipped to the side. His Formation suffered for the movement. He’d missed a note. That wasn’t the end of the world and he made up for it a moment later, but there was only so far he could split his focus. There was no way to completely use his pattern like this if he wanted to avoid getting folded like a shitty lawn chair.

Garina bore down on him. She advanced relentlessly with a hail of strikes that forced Noah to continuously retreat to keep his skull from getting caved in. It took everything he had just to keep his balance and the song running.

Worse yet — Garina wasn’t even using magic. The only spell she was casting was punch. There was nothing for his pattern to steal from her, which meant he was at a bigger disadvantage than if she’d just been using her Runes.

“Change it up, Noah,” Garina warned. “This is growing old, fast. I have no desire to play games with a cockroach. If you really can’t do any more than this, I’m going to end this now.”

A spark of anger ignited deep within Noah.

You want me to change my song?

Garina’s fist slammed into Noah’s cheek. His head snapped to the side — but his legs didn’t budge. His hands didn’t stop playing. Not a single part of his body moved other than his face.

Blood welled in his mouth as the taste of iron washed across his tongue. Noah clenched his jaw and turned his head back to look straight into Garina’s eyes. Her fist pressed up against his cheek and into his teeth, still in the spot it had been a moment before.

“I choose the music I play,” Noah snarled. “Nobody else.”

“As strong as you are right now, the only thing you’re going to be choosing is if you prefer doing the Apostles’ laundry or washing the dishes,” Garina snarled. “And that’s assuming they don’t tear you to shreds after finding out how weak you really are. You’re nothing but an uppity Rank 5.”

Her other fist blurred through the air, heading directly for his face. Noah didn’t need to guess as to what would happen if the blow connected. If he got hit by that blow, the fight was over. Even if he made it out with the world’s worst concussion, her next strike would finish him.

Noah yanked power from Unstable Pandemonium as his bow sliced across the strings of the violin, sending power pouring into the instrument. Energy ignited within the violin as a brilliant, discordant note rang out.

His body instinctively braced itself.

Nothing happened. Noah blinked.

The punch didn’t connect.

Garina’s fist hung in the air, an inch away from Noah’s nose. A rippling pulse of translucent red energy swirled against it, like the waves passing out from where a stone had fallen in a lake.

A flicker of surprised passed through Garina’s features. She pulled her hand back as the note faded from the air. As it left, so did the barrier of red energy.

For a moment it looked like Garina was about to say something.

Then she punched him again.

Noah’s bow yanked back down across the strings of the violin. Another sharp note rang out, and another barrier of energy bloomed from Garina’s fist a moment before it could connect with his face. Her blow slammed to a halt, trembling against his magic but failing to push through.

Garina stared at him.

“Did you just turn pure chaos energy into a physical barrier?”

“Actually, I think I turned a chaos-infused musical note into a barrier,” Noah corrected, unable to keep the awe from his voice.

Turning a musical note into a magical or physical effect… the possibilities were endless. The Violin had never been able to do that before. It had just let him cast multiple types of magic at once. It wasn’t his pattern, either. That meant this development was because of Unstable Pandemonium. The rune could let him turn musical effects into real ones. Of course, he had no clue as to what the limits of that were, but this was exactly what he’d been looking for.

This is my path forward.

What might have actually been the beginnings of respect shimmered behind Garina’s dark eyes. “Not bad. That’s a new one. Maybe you’re a bit better than I—”

Noah punched Garina in the face.

That went about as well as he’d been expecting.

Her head moved an inch to the side as her cheek barely even gave under the strike. He was actually pretty sure he’d done more damage to his own knuckles than he had to her. It wasn’t that his punch had been weak. Garina just may as well have been made out of solid titanium.

That did nothing to make the punch any less satisfying.

Garina’s head slowly turned back to look directly at him, and her eyes promised death.

“You little shit,” Garina said, but the tone of her voice had definitely changed. There was something that almost bordered on acknowledgement within it. “I’m going to enjoy killing you.”

Heh. Worth it.