Brave Warrior and Fire - part 2

Ardere and Lornard reached the tall wooden gates to the school for mages. The gates where open; the stone walls and the large gates that usually blocked the out the outside. They were open because it was the weekend and students where aloud to go to the nearby town. They walked through to the lush green grounds of the school. The school campus was massive and it was the largest mage school in the country and housed over ten-thousand students. It was a boarding school and most of the students where boarders and students where from ages thirteen to forty-three. There was such a large range in age because of the time it takes to achieve stage ten. There where ten stages which a mage had to reach before they are a fully-fledged mage. If you show a talent for magic of twelve then you are accepted into every mage school in the country. A stage is a level of magic that the mage is at and they have a tattoo somewhere on their body to show there stage in roman numerals. It takes three years to complete a stage so every other sixteen year old at this school was at stage two, But Ardere started at this school at the age of eleven because she was an extremely talented mage and excelled faster than most mages. Ardere is at stage five the recommended stage for making a guardian. The second year of stage three is the minimum stage that you can be to make a guardian because a guardian is made from the mage’s manner or magic but you must be in the second year of stage three because you learn how to make a guardian and healing spells. Ardere and Lornard hurried through the grounds, people gave them a glance and some gave them a strange disapproving look. Ardere flashed back to one month ago;

It was one month after Ardere had gotten Lornard as her guardian and she hadn’t told anyone. You didn’t have to tell anyone if you had a guardian or not, not even the superiors. So Ardere hadn’t told anyone and when you have reached stage three you get your own small room with two beds, but the bath room is shared between two bed rooms. So Lornard could sleep in the room with her without others knowing and she brought him food, he didn’t eat much. It was after school had finished and Ardere was walking back to her room, a man that was in her class came up to her he had a devilish smirk on his face.
“So you think you’re so smart hey” he said, Ardere looked at him
“Oh are you talking to me?” asked Ardere
“Yes stupid I am” said the man
“Uh ok” said Ardere as she stopped walking “So what’s up?”
“You think that you can just stroll into class; do you know how hard that I’ve worked to get to where I am? Do you?” he asked
“Uh no, I don’t know you that well so I don’t know how hard you work” replied Ardere, “But I’m sure that you’ve worked very hard”
the man slapped her on the face, Ardere recalled and put her hand where she was slapped, “Don’t give that that crap” said the man
“What crap, why did you hit me?” asked Ardere, she was confused and she wasn’t sure why her class mate hit her
“You come into class with your ‘I’m so good’ attitude it pisses me off you know that” he said, “and the way you answer the questions in class, you just have this know-it-all voice. You have this ‘I’m so high and mighty’ look about you” he grabbed Ardere’s dress and held her to his face, “I have news for you, you’re not as great as you think you are, you’re a fake and if you had a guardian it wouldn’t me a powerful and mine” said the man
“Hey, let go of her” said Lornard
“Or what” said the man then turned and looked at Lornard, “Who the hell are you?”
“Let go of her now” said Lornard ignoring the man’s question
“Or what?” said the man
“I will not ask again” replied Lornard
“What are you going to do, beat me up?” said the man with venom in his voice
“Yes apparently I am” said Lornard just before he threw a left hook and hit the man in the jaw, the man let go of Ardere and stumbled back but Lornard wasn’t finished. Lornard kicked the man in the ribs then grabbed his hair and pulled the man’s head to his knee. The man crumpled to the ground moaning.
“Master!” shouted a tall man with long orange hair and short brown fur all over him. “You bastard” the man came over to the person that he called master, Lornard took a couple of steps back “You dare attack my master for no reason”
“Uh no, I actually did have a reason, he smacked and abuses this woman, I told him to let go of her but he wouldn’t do as I asked” said Lornard
“What is she your master” asked the furred man
“Yes, do you have a problem with that?” asked Lornard
The furred man started laughing and Lornard tilted his head, “Your-you’re her guardian” the man laughed some more, “Oh, look not to be offensive but I thought that her guardian would more resemble me, I mean she’s a powerful and talented mage, but well I can’t say that you’re a runt because of your height and your helmet looks scary but look at you, you don’t have a lot of meat on you” it was true the furred man had a lot of muscle but it wasn’t an overwhelming amount of muscle, whereas Lornard was thin, but not stick figure thin a healthy thin.
“You don’t always need brute strength to win a fight you know” replied Lornard
“Yes I know that’s why I’m relying on skill as well” said the furred man as he drew his sword from his scabbard on his back, the sword was long and it had a large grip for two hands “If you can I recommend that you arm yourself”
“Lady Ardere I ask that you stand back a fair bit” said Lornard calmly, “My name is Lornard guardian of Ardere Hutchinson, what’s yours?”
“I’m Hōzukimaru guardian of Riley Timworth” said the furred man, Lornard nodded then put his hands together. Red lightning crackled as he pulled them apart and the pole was constructed between his palms. Then the lightning stopped and Lornard put his right hand in the centre of the pole and the pole extended.
“Will this do?” asked Lornard
“Well it’s going to have to wont it” said Hōzukimaru then he moved towards Lornard and swung his sword. Lornard blocked the attack with his pole then swung an attack of his own. Hōzukimaru blocked the attack then Lornard jumped back and threw his pole like a spear. Hōzukimaru dogged it but Lornard caught the ribbon and swung it to the side, the pole hit Hōzukimaru in the side of the head. Hōzukimaru stumbled to the side and Lornard perused him by swinging the pole again but Hōzukimaru deflected it with his sword. Lornard kept advancing and trying to push Hōzukimaru back but Lornard switched to defence when Hōzukimaru took a swing of his own. Hōzukimaru kept attacking and gave Lornard no openings.
“Just because you did your little crafting trick doesn’t mean that I’m scared of you. Hell if you want to win this fight you’ve got to have a blade because a blunt weapon won’t do you any good” said Hōzukimaru, Lornard backed away and gained some distance between him and Hōzukimaru.
“Ok then” said Lornard as he held the pole in front of him, he put his left hand over one end of the pole then red lightning crackled. When the lightning stopped and the end of the pole became visible it was more like a clover leaf pike than a pole, from the ball on the end was three blades, the longest blade was one at the top then there was two shorter blades at the side. Lornard stood the pike up, it looked like a cross, there were now two ribbons on the opposite end of the pole to the blades. “This’ll let me win now wont it?” said Lornard and he threw the pike like a spear at Hōzukimaru,
“That won’t work twice!” shouted Hōzukimaru as he dogged the pike, Lornard swung it and Hōzukimaru blocked from hitting his head but then Lornard yanked the pike back and one of the shorter blades was behind Hōzukimaru’s shoulder and when Lornard yanked it back the blade cut right through Hōzukimaru’s shoulder. Hōzukimaru cried out, dropped his sword and clutched his shoulder that was bleeding profusely.
“Good thing that I wasn’t doing the same trick again” said Lornard as he stood the pike up next to him.  
“What is this?! What is going on?” said a man in his sixty’s that was wearing black robes. “And who’s guardian are you” he said to Lornard
“He is mine Mr Web” said Ardere, Mr Web was a teacher to a number of classes in the school and he was a previous teacher of Ardere. Riley was sitting up now and he was holding his ribs and nose
“This is your guardian Ardere” he said shaking his head, “I’d expect better from you, you know that guardian can only fight each other in practice.”
“I’m sorry I know that rule, but I also know that a guardian has the right to defend their master and that is what I was doing” said Lornard
“Was this guardian attacking Ardere?” asked Mr Web
“No sir, but his master was and so I came to her defence” explained Lornard
“And because this guardian saw you defending your Ardere and attacking Riley he came to Riley’s defence, right?” asked Mr Web
“Correct” answered Lornard
“Can any witnesses testify what this guardian has said?” asked Mr Web and a number of students  in the broken circle around them raised their hands.
“Yes, what he said is true” said a student and all of the others that had raised their hands nodded in agreement.
“Right then Mr Timworth tomorrow lunch in my office, till then heal yourself and your guardian” said Mr Web then he turned to Ardere, “I need proof that he’s your guardian”
“Uh sure, hold on a sec my tattoo isn’t in the easiest place to get to with a long sleave dress” said Ardere as she pulled up her right sleeve and showed Mr Web the tattoo on the top of her arm, there was the same symbol that Lornard had on his right shoulder plate, the one with the cross and two snakes twined around it, this symbol was unique to Ardere and Lornard. All mages and guardians have an unique tattoo; this tattoo appears on a mage when they get a guardian. Under that was the Roman numeral for five, that showed Ardere’s stage. When a mage enrols in a mage school there stage tattoo appears on them, the number changes when a mage’s stage changes, no one’s sure how it changes but the theory is that because of the level of magic or manna in a mage changes so does the stage and therefor the number. The tattoos can be in different places but it is common for it to be on a mages and guardian’s arm. Mr Web looked at Ardere’s symbol then at Lornard’s and nodded.
“Ok then” said Mr Web,
“Mr Web this is Lornard, Lornard this is Mr Web” said Ardere
“Say your weapon it looks like your symbol” said Mr Web
“Huh yeah it dose” said Lornard, “but I don’t think I’m going to need this now” said Lornard then the blade’s started slowly disintegrating and the pieces floated up into the sky, getting smaller as they did. One of the ribbons also disintegrated and the pike was back to being a pole. There was a second where nothing happened then the pole started slowly disintegrating like the blades did, it disintegrated from the top to the bottom and when it was too short for Lornard to hold he let it go, but it didn’t fall it stayed upright and kept disintegrating. “Huh” said Lornard as the last bits of the pole disappeared, “To be honest I wasn’t sure what was going to happen but that was pretty cool”
“Yes it was, and you can fight and well. You seemed like you had used that weapon before” said Ardere
“I felt like I had used it before” said Lornard
“Judging from what you two are saying I assume that Lornard hasn’t fought before” said Mr Web
“Yes that’s true” said Ardere
Mr Web smiled, “Don’t worry fighting is an instinct for guardians, they will know how to use their weapon or special ability from the moment that they are made although it might not be clear till the fight. It is like they have brought a lifetime of experiences with them when they are made. Now that spell that you performed earlier, the one where you made your weapon, what did you make it from?” asked Mr Web
“Uh … nothing I just made it” said Lornard
“That’s interesting” said Mr Web
“Oh yeah now that I think about it, you just made it from nothing, you used magic to make it but didn’t make it from magic” said Ardere
“Huh?” said Lornard and tilted his head at her,
“Lornard you pulled of a spell that only people on the in the last year of stage eight can pull off.” said Ardere
“No that’s wrong considering the size and the fact that he changed the look after means that only a stage nine can pull it off” Mr Web pointed out.  
“Yeah that’s true” said Ardere
“Wow what?” said Lornard
“Exactly” said Mr Web, “I know about guardian being able to do magic up to stage five but I have never met one that can do anything above that. This is quite interesting. Lornard is it?”
“Yes it is” said Lornard
“Do you recon that you could try and practise some lower stages of magic and see if you can do them? Ardere can you teach him?” asked Mr Web
“Yes I can sir” replied Ardere

So Ardere had taught Lornard some basic magic, he was a fast, even faster than Ardere but he was still learning the basics. Ardere and Lonrard slowed down as they approached a large old building, it had a church like look about it but it was the building for the Magnificent Five. The Magnificent where the five most powerful and wisest sorcerers in the country. They basically decide everything and anything to do with sorcerers; they are a vital part of the government that runs the country. Today Ardere and Lornard were going to see them.
“Are you ready?” asked Lornard
“Ready as I’ll ever be” replied Ardere. The guards opened the door for them and thy walked into the grand hallway.