Spaceships and Magic, What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Chapter 80: Ustrata Vs Boledo Part 2

While Boledo was busy clutching at their oversized eye in pain, Ustrata was already on the move to keep the momentum. 

The crystalline alien slammed their hands onto the ground palms down and began to chant. A blue shine started to appear on the ground where his hands were contacting the floor, slowly, and then much quicker as it crept toward the stunned Boledo. His spell was creating a crystal growth, and its target was the opposing alien. 

The growth grabbed onto one of Boledo's three legs and latched on hard before beginning to clamber up the alien's leg. At first it seemed as if the spell was converting Boledo's flesh into more crystal, but considering the rulings on lethality, I had to instead assume that it was some kind of encasement. Ustrata was trying to imprison the three-legged alien in a coating of crystal. 

Boledo had realised what was going on and began to panic. He flung his leg around wildly trying to dislodge the crystalline growth, but no matter how hard he stomped or shook his leg the material just continued to climb. Before long his entire body was encased, with only his head free, and even then his eye was now covered by three crystal-encrusted hands. 

"Surrender now, I do not wish to embarrass you any further," Echoed the booming voice of Ustrata. 

"I will never surrender to the likes of you!" Boledo shot back, struggling unnsucessefully at their bindings. 

"Very well, I have no choice," Ustrata said with a resigned sigh. 

The crystalline alien started to chant once again, his palms still securely placed on the ground. The crystal that was coating Boledo started to expand outward, wrapping itself around the alien's body in an ever growing mass. Ustrata was making sure that Boledo would never be able to escape, not until they allowed the three legged alien to escape. 

"I'm almost disappointed," I said, sinking down into my beanbag a little further. 

"Why is that, Jacob Lyre?" Yr'Arl asked, not taking his eyes off of the slowly unfolding fight. 

"Ah, I dunno. The last two fights have been ended this way, with one Initiate getting the jump on the other with some immobalising move. I guess I was just hoping for something a little flashier," I explained. 

Yr'Arl tried and failed to stifle a chuckle at my disappointment. 

"Suffice it to say, Jacob Lyre, not many other Initiates have such flashy abilities as your own," He said. 

I didn't even consider my abilities to be that flashy. All I did was move at near supersonic speeds and shoot lasers around the place, when I wasn't deflecting manna attacks with my manna resistant sword or throwing things around with a telekenetic barrage of manna constructs that was. 

Okay, maybe my powerset had leant a little bit toward the realm of spectacle so far. 

I turned my attention back to the fight. Boledo still hadn't given up and they were still concious, so while they hadn't moved in the last couple of minutes by the rules of the tournament they were still technically a part of the proceedings.

They also clearly weren't giving up. 

They had stopped struggling against their crystal bonds, which had now grown outward to around a foot in diameter, and instead had started up a chant of their own. At first it didn't seem like the counter spell was doing anything, but slowly it became more and more obvious that cracks were forming in the crystal even quicker than it could expand over them. 

Somehow the three legged alien was breaking the crystal from the inside out. 

It happened before I could even register what had occurred. One moment Boledo was trapped, and the next he had darted across the battlefield and had decked Ustrata so hard they had been knocked to the ground, their head bouncing off their own crystal prison. 

It was a mighty blow, but it wasn't enough. 

Ustrata melted into the crystal that they had formed on the ground and then emerged back out of it behind Boledo. It probably would have worked against just about any other alien in the group, but with Boledo's eye allowing him vision of everything around him no matter where it was, the attempted sneak attack was thwarted instantly. 

With a big meaty hand Boledo grabbed Ustrata by the head and flung him away so hard that the crystal alien left cracks in the manna resistant wall. Clearly they hadn't built the battle arena to account for intense blunt force trauma. 

Ustrata slid down to the ground, unconscious, and the crowd roared its approval.

"The unexpected results just keep coming," I said, "It really looked like Boledo was going to lose that one, I have no idea how he managed to get out of the crystal coating." 

"They were using some kind of physical ability booster spell," Akash said, "It granted them massive amounts of physical power for a short period. But it was a gamble." 

"A gamble?" I asked as Belana announced the results of the last fight and the two aliens were teleported to the medical stations of the Initiate room. 

I turned toward the two new arrivals only to notice that they were now both unconscious. Whatever Boledo had done in his fight seemed to have only had a limited amount of active time, and when that active time had run down completely it had left the alien exhausted and without any stamina at all. If they hadn't managed to end the fight as quickly as they had after activating the ability, it was very likely that Ustrata would have come out of the ring victorious instead. 

I'd have to remember that if Boledo and I ended up battling one another in the tournament somewhere along the line. I'd watch out for the self buffing spell and just avoid the alien until their tank ran dry. It was the perfect counter to such a short lived ability. 

I turned back toward the battle arena, ready and waiting for the next fight.