There's no time to prepare

You leap into the air narrowly dodging the flaming debris raining down around you. The smell of sulfur permeates the air and you forcefully cough as the soot in the air gets trapped inside your throat. You're standing in the middle of a fiery inferno, the whole court is covered in flames and chunks of concrete thrown about. In the air above you hovers Harmony, her eyes glowing red and two blazing wings spread from her back. With a flick of her wrist another ball of fire materializes out of the air and launches in your direction. You once again sprint away, narrowly avoiding another attack.

During your previous match you had your friends to help train you but they've all gone home for the holidays. You spent the night skimming through and learning a few simple deflection spells but Harmony's attack magic is too overwhelming for such basic defenses. You conjure up a mirror barrier hoping to deflect the flaming missile about to strike you but the barrier shatters upon impact and the **** of the explosion launches you across the arena. Although your dueling barrier is taking the brunt of the attacks, your muscles are still sore and in pain from being thrown around so much. You can feel your dueling barrier is almost completely depleted, you have **** but putting everything into one last stand before she's able to land another hit on you.

"While I do enjoy seeing you cower with your tail between your legs, I believe its time to end this, dog." Harmony taunts you from above. You need to get her back down to the ground and your level to stand a chance against her. She menacingly points her hand toward the sky as flames swirl into a sphere above her head. She's preparing her final blow.

In doing so, she's given you a moment to catch you breath. You take advantage and use the broken piece of chalk in your pocket to scribble a magical circle onto the stone beneath your feet. The circle emits a blinding blue light as the stone floor cracks into hundreds of smaller pieces that begin to engulf your body. In less than ten seconds, you find yourself completely covered in stone, from the tip of your head to the tips of your toes. Bigger chunks of stone protect you limbs and torso while smaller rocks protect your joints so as to not hamper your movements too much. The stone armor spell is a Wyvern dueling spell you were lucky enough to have learned from Liam before the winter break. It drains a lot of stamina and he instructed you to only use it in case of emergency as using it at the beginning of a match risks tiring you out and leaving you **** to quicker opponents. You've only ever been able to hold this form at full strength for less than three minutes so you need to act fast. Next you rub your palms together and whisper a Cerberus dueling incantation into your hands. A moment later your right hand pulls a whip made out of a perpetually swirling smoke cloud out of your left palm. The shadow whip is one of the few advanced Cerberus spells you've been able to master in training.

You lasso the shadow whip around Harmony's ankle and pull with all the strength you have left to bring her crashing to the ground. She's finally ****, you leap across the field for a follow up attack but Harmony recovers quickly and engulfs you in flames midair. You fall to the ground and shatter your armor into thousands of pieces. You slowly rise from the rubble to find yourself face to face with Harmony. What's left of your dueling barrier is flickering, you're one hit away from losing this duel. Harmony narrows her eyes, winds back her hand and slaps you across the face. Your barrier shatters, the sting of the hit lingers on your cheek.

"Now then," She doesn't even try to hide the wide grin on her face. "it begins."