The Non Mortal Games

12: Metallucia: The Sages

I walked into the training room and came upon a scene of complete and utter chaos and destruction. Chaos and destruction that, if I had to guess, had been caused by one Magicia Hexopia. Exhibit A turned to me. I said, "Magicia Hexopia, aka the Dragon Whisperer. Why am I not surprised to see you here? I wanted to do some training myself, but it seems you've destroyed everything there is to train with. Fanjollytastic job."
"Oh...yeeeaaahhh...I did kind of...sorry about that," Magicia said, looking at Makenna to avoid looking at me.
"Well, now what are we supposed to do? Set another screen on fire?" I put my hands on my hips.
"Uh, I don't really know," Magicia said.
"Perhaps you should have considered that before you destroyed the training room. The Capitol are going to go mental when they see this."
"Um, the trainers can already see it, so it's too late for that," Magicia said, kicking the remains of what appeared to be a rope trap of some sort.
"Well, I might as well play with what's left of this place," I said. I noticed a throwing knife on the floor and I used my metal manipulation abilities to make it levitate, then fly at the wall directly above Magicia's head. She yelped. "Metallucia Silveria!!! Don't do that! We're not supposed to kill each other before we even get into the arena, you know!"
Meanwhile, all the trainers had fainted. "Oh dear," I said as I noted their unconscious forms.
"'Oh dear?! Is that it?!" Makenna yelled. "You just...made a knife fly across the room and almost stabbed Magicia!" I covered my ears at the loud noise. I had very sensitive ears. While that was useful when it came to, say, hearing someone (or something) approaching, it also meant I was more sensitive to noise.

Since Magicia had destroyed most of the things in the training room, we practised attacking and blocking with weapons and our auras. One of us would attack and the other would make a barrier with their aura. After that we practised blocking attacks from powers. For example, I would throw a fireball at Magicia and she would block it. One time my aim had been a bit off and the fireball had hit Magicia's barrier at such a funny angle that it had bounced off the edge of the barrier and into a wall. It caught fire, but Magicia used some magic to put it out. "Perhaps we should do something else. We don't want to destroy this place too much, do we?" I said.

Suddenly a voice said, "Wow, what happened in here?" I turned to see the dryad from the previous night. Naturia, that was her name.
"Magicia happened, that's what," answered Preston. Naturia gazed at the room, the burnt wall, the unconscious trainers, the mangled-beyond-repair dummies, the broken lights. Okay, yes, I caused the wall to get burnt, and yes, my knife stunt had made the trainers faint. The rest of it was all Magicia though. When Naturia saw the unconscious trainers she ran over to them. She put her hand on the forehead of one of them and a green aura appeared around her hand. The air began to smell of flowers, so I guessed that was the scent of Naturia's aura. Suddenly, the trainer groaned. Her eyes flicked open. She sat up and rubbed her head. "What happened?" she asked.
"Metallucia happened, that's what," Magicia said, putting on a (very fake sounding) English accent. I whacked Magicia with one of my wings.
"Ow!" She yelled. "Why do you have such hard wings? I'm surprised you can even fly with them."

Meanwhile, Naturia was reviving all the trainers. There were four of them in the room. One of them screamed when she saw me and ran out of the room.
"What on Earth did I miss?" Naturia asked.
Magicia pulled the knife out of the wall and said, "I think a better question is 'what did I miss'. Because that thing almost stabbed me in the head!"
"Oh for Pete's sake, I deliberately missed so it wouldn't stab you in the head! We are friends I guess, and we aren't supposed to fight until the games start." Magicia threw the knife in my direction, however, unlike when I sent it Magicia's way, it didn't miss. The knife embedded itself in my arm. There was a little bit of pain. I grinned at the two of them, who were staring at me in shock and horror. "Watch this," I said, pulling the knife out of my arm. Magicia, Naturia and the three remaining trainers gasped as my skin healed itself. Within fifteen seconds there was no sign of the wound. The three trainers fainted. Again. Naturia rushed over to them and revived them. Again. Magicia just stammered. "H..h...how...how did you...?"
"I'm the Sage of Metal. It is my element. I have complete control over it, and it can do me no harm. I hear there are others out there, other Sages who wield complete power over things, but I know not who they are."
Magicia said, "This explains everything." Naturia just gasped.
Then Magicia said, "Oh my gods. You're not going to believe this, but..." Magicia took a deep breath.
Magicia said, "I'm the Sage of Magic." At the same time, Naturia said, "I'm the Sage of Nature."

Something told me that this year's Hunger Games would be very interesting indeed.