Emilia

Sally took a deep breath and casted her first spell – which was promptly defended by Emilia.

Although Emilia had decided to not let her win she started with very light and obvious attacks. Sally seemed to be glad, and defended most of them.

She wondered if Sally would also be strong enough to break out of her petrification. Most who had a good defence were also good at fighting spells.Just to give it a test Emilia made sure to attack very harshly after a few rounds of back and forth – but Sally defended.

Sally's eyes went wide, and she laughed as she realized what she just had done. Emilia grinned back. Fighting Sally got more and more interesting, and she loved every bit of it.

“Don't underestimate me, Emilia! Defending such spells was always what I was best at.”, she still giggled.

‘Just wait’, Emilia thought and raised her wand with a devious smile. “Do you want to take that challenge?”, she asked.

Sally answered with a sparkle in her eyes and raised her wand as well – and Emilia casted. A row of spells shot towards Sally, who struggled, but still kept up her defence. Emilia tried to sneak her way around her massive shields as she launched the spells like a whip, harsh but precisely targeted. It took a few seconds until Sally's wall crumbled under the attacks that seemed to come from all directions. With one final, sharp attack she crushed the shield that had been weakened by now on nearly all corners around Sally and hit Sally right in the chest.

Sally's arms shot down her side, her facial expression neutralized and her legs stood in a perfect shoulder width apart. Emilia made sure to keep her friend standing straight with another spell so she wouldn't fall over in her immobility and hurt herself.

She walked towards her friend with a wide grin. “Don't beat yourself up for breaking in the end, you were extremely good!”, Emilia reassured as she saw the glistering in Sally's eyes, and hoped she wasn't angry. The only thing Sally could control now was her eyes and her breath.

“Remember when they tortured me in class? You said it must have been awful. I’ll give you a chance to judge by yourself”, Emilia whispered with a devious smile and put one finger on Sally's bellybutton. To her delight Sally's breath started to tremble and the sparkle in her eyes switched to panic. ‘She is ticklish!’ Emilia thought, and her cheeks started to burn. She couldn't help herself but to slightly wiggle her finger a few more times, making her friends breath even less rhythmical.

“Can you fight yourself out of it?”, Emilia asked and moved her finger away to give her a chance, watching her friend very closely.

She could feel Sally fight, could feel her struggle against Emilia's spell. When she almost slipped out she tightened her magical bonds around Sally and caught her in an even tighter shell. She laughed and Sally's eyes glimmered in anger.

“Come on Sally, you can do it!”, Thomas, the small and thin guy from before who practised a few meters away shouted.

Sally's resistance grew once more, and this time Emilia let her proceed until she finally managed to break the invisible shell around her centimetre by centimetre. Sally tipped as the last part on her feet broke. Emilia applauded her with a bright smile and Thomas clapped.

“Damn, you are really good today!”, Emilia praised.

“Hah! Oh my god, getting out there was soo hard!”, Sally said. She seemed very content with herself.

After she got up she pointed her index finger towards Emilia's chest and wiggled it a little. “That part, you’ll regret!”, she teased.

Emilia knew she wasn't mad. She kept getting better and better at judging her emotions.

“Well, your defence IS strong, so maybe we should focus on your attack a bit more. Do your worst!”, Emilia grinned and repositioned herself 2 meters away.

Emilia only defended this time, which was way easier than attacking. She figured that Sally didn't really like fighting, that she liked defending and settling conflicts. Maybe she took it too serious, Emilia suspected. In the end, what they did here wasn't a fight. It was rather a game than anything else. Looking around the room Emilia knew that for some, for example Jady, this was dead serious, but the duel between Sally and Emilia was rather for fun.

After some time of brushing Sally's spells away Emilia started to give tips. She hoped that Sally could also improve her attack.

“Are YOU scared you will hurt me?”, she asked after a while.

“No?? I'm just too dumb to attack… I'm just so bad…”

Sally didn't look too happy so Emilia tried to cheer her up.

“No you are not, your technique is perfect by now, but you lack motivation.”

“What is that supposed to mean??”

“That you try to follow what you have been taught, but you never switch it up. You aren't attacking me, you cast spells at a target for no reason other then casting them.”, Emilia explained.

“I… well, what am I supposed to do then??”

“You are supposed to play”, Emilia grinned. “Just like you do when you beat me at chess. Your goal shouldn't be to be ‘as good’ as I am, your goal is to find a weak spot and exploit the hell out of it. To predict what I am gonna do, no matter how good you or I am. Being good or bad also isn't really definable – if you win, you win, if you don't, you don't and sometimes you do, sometimes you don't. Simple as that.”

Sally thought about it for a bit.

“But… there's no weak spots you have”, she finally said.

“There is always a weak spot, you just have to fight with your head, not your magic. Everyone can get distracted and everyone can underestimate an attack.”

When they started duelling again Emilia already saw an improvement. Sally switched up attacks, sometimes they were quick and Emilia had to quickly flick them away, sometimes they were massive and Emilia's defence created a loud bang. In those moments Emilia slowly realized how much power Sally could build with her attacks. Her friend didn't know it herself, but Emilia knew had the strength in her, she just couldn't use it.

They were far into the non-verbal round when Sally seemed to regain some confidence. Her strong attacks were rare, but she seemed to have found another style – Sally's attacks seemed to dance around Emilia, rather than crash into her. She needed lots of awareness to not miss a few of them.

“You can cast them faster, like I did, or harder from all sides!”

Emilia wasn't sure if her tips really were too helpful but she at least gave it a try. Sally started trying them non verbal from time to time, but Emilia advised against it for now. She would have enough time to practice non verbal casting separately from this lesson, building a strong attack was more important for now.

Just like last time Sally was quite exhausted when the final duals started, but Emilia was satisfied with Sally's progress. Of course she made sure to tell her.

“What attacks were your favourite so far?”, Emilia asked.

“I don't know… maybe anything that casts fire?”, Sally responded. “Or water. Basically everything with the four elements...”

“Oh I see, that's why you made the floor slippery with ice last time. Well, then make sure to use them now too, okay? Do what's fun for you, and what feels best. Not all the time of course, but keep mixing them in. Try to surprise me – you are good at surprising me anyways”, Emilia added with a grin.