I saw a projectile headed for Patrick, and it looked like it had slipped past his notice. Spinning on my heels, I fired a blast at the orb... and missed entirely.
My attack did manage to get very near to hitting Roland. On the positive side, Roland was on the opposite team.
On the negative side, he was looking at me now, and he was looking unamused.
On the considerably more negative side, he was carrying two canes — one in either hand.
I wish I’d thought of that.
The hail of spheres that came my way in the following moments was nothing short of terrifying.
I managed to dodge or deflect six, then seven, and then eight of them before one finally slipped through. It hit me in the shoulder with enough force to send a surge of numbness down my arm. I very nearly dropped my cane.
Fortunately, Roland seemed satisfied by that, turning away from me to continue his onslaught on the next opponent who was unlucky enough to draw his ire.
I ducked, nursing my numb arm, trying to assess my situation.
My direct opponent was gone. I was momentarily confused before I remembered that anyone else could have hit him while I wasn’t looking.
A further assessment told me that nearly half of the field had been eliminated. I felt a little less bad after that, but I still hadn’t made up for hitting that ally of mine. I glanced toward him, considering trying to help him to repay the debt, but he was already out of the ring.
It was hard to tell at a glance, but I was pretty sure our team was losing. Unsurprising, given the juggernauts on the other team. Goddess, even Sera was over there, standing a couple lanes away from Roland.
The lane to my left was empty now. I had room to move if I wanted to, but having Patrick next to me felt like an advantage.
How could I use that?
I stepped out of my lane without thinking to dodge an incoming sphere, only afterward realizing that I wasn’t sure if I could step back into my original position without breaking the rules.
Probably?
I glanced back at a judge, deflecting an errant projectile that was approaching at the corner of my vision. “Hey, can I walk freely between my old lane and this one now that this guy is out?”
“Yep, sure can.” The judge nodded.
I glanced at Patrick, then back to the judge. “The other guy adjacent to him is gone. Does that mean he can move around, including into my old lane?”
The older student frowned, scratching his chin. “Yeah, sure, I guess he use your old lane if he wants to.”
Good enough for me.
I stepped back into my original lane. “Patrick, we’re doubling up.”
He glanced to the empty lane on his right, and then back to me, his expression still focused. “Got it.”
He stepped into the same lane I was standing in, and we shifted our stances, facing outward at diagonals. We were limiting each other’s mobility, but we had complete coverage for deflecting enemy projectiles this way.
I made use of that almost immediately, deflecting the first projectile that approached us and scoring an unlikely hit on someone on the opposite side.
After that, I saw a couple of people staring at us, but fewer seemed to want to attack.
Good.
My right hand was getting sore from the mana I’d been putting into attacking, and I could tell that the other students were suffering similarly, slowing down their attacks and picking them more tactically. I swapped the cane to my left hand, taking a shot at a lone student on the far left of the opposite line.
It missed, but the student dodged directly into Patrick’s orb, fired only a moment later.
“Nice,” I called.
Another orb flashed into my perception nearby and bounced off the floor right in front of me.
I jumped right over it, growling at someone stealing my earlier trick, and looked at where it had come from.
Sera, obviously. Standing in the same lane as Roland. They had a different formation, though. He had his arms out to the left and right, cane in either hand, while she stood directly in front of him with her cane blocking the center.
She winked at me.
Oh, you want to play?
I was so distracted leveling my cane at Sera that I completely missed the orb coming in from my left. It smashed into my side, knocking me into Patrick. We straightened ourselves after a moment, and I noted that Marissa was the one who had launched the shot.
“One more point against Corin,” a judge announced.
“Focus,” Patrick reminded me.
I grumbled, falling back into my defensive stance as more blasts flashed around us.
It was less than another minute before we were practically the only members of our team left standing. The other team still had seven people, including Marissa, Sera, and Roland. Patrick and I had two other students with us, but they were far away and looked exhausted.
We needed to even the odds somehow. Even in a defensive position, we were far too vulnerable to concentrated fire.
In retrospect, it was shocking I hadn’t tried this earlier. “The lanes go all the way to the other side.”
I didn’t need to say anything else; Patrick had always been adept at picking up my lines of thought. Far better than my family, at least.
“On three?” Patrick asked.
“Resh that, on one. Go.”
We bolted.
A few orbs flew lazily through the air past us. I had to deflect one that actually came close to landing, but we crossed the room in a handful of seconds. We switched to back-to-back positions, facing the opposition.
Marissa and two others on my side. Roland, Sera, and two others on his.
Still bad odds, but now every projectile that didn’t hit us had a high chance of passing us and hitting members of their own team.
Our own remaining team members used that window to open fire on the people near Marissa, taking one of them out of the fight. I joined the assault, firing at Marissa’s unguarded side.
Without looking, she punched the orb out of the air, sending it across the arena to fade into nothing.
Okay, new tactic. Never fight her ever.
Patrick staggered into me, apparently having taken a hit. All four opponents on his side were looking at us. They took shots one at a time, conserving their mana while keeping us under pressure.