Shortly after their prayer, Sophie went and got into her typical sparring gear, which was especially designed back in Harmonia. She wore black pants, a white shirt with slits in the back, for her wings, a bra specifically designed for her wings, a black hoodie with matching slits and she had Zander bring out her light armor, dual katanas and lightweight boots.
Zander was anxious and nervous, yet excited, because he hadn't seen his wife in action since the B rank beast trial. He honestly felt she could have handled a S rank beast, and told her that often.
"So, the thing with Tempest, when I sparred with him is he's annoyingly patient. Remember, he's not a normal Chimera, he has the head of a lion and the body of a polar bear, but he's a lot faster than you think he'd be. Don't let him get you pinned in a corner. He can also jump fairly high, will have the ceiling closed and choose a room that won't give you much of a flight advantage," Zander explained.
They walked together, hand in hand, to the same training hall Zander had his spar with Tempest, and Sophie just kept telling herself,
"Be yourself, be yourself, he won't expect the pink magic. Confusion worked, I wonder if it's like a charm based magic or something?"
As they entered the hall, they were surprised by the fact Ethan declined to watch, out of respect for his potential opponent. The rest of the council, including the King and Queen also arrived, as who didn't like to see a great spar?
Cyrus would be the official for the match, with Zander on standby just in case anything happened. Ethan was also outside of the room, just in case his magic was needed for healing.
Sophie gave Zander a kiss, and went to her starting spot, and gave a polite bow to Tempest.
Tempest bowed back and said, "I look forward to this spar, if you're anything like you're husband, this should be beneficial for both of us."
Cyrus, eager to impress the council and his parents, took his officiating job very seriously and pointed toward Sophie and asked, "ready," then Tempest, "ready" and stated,
"Both competitors have agreed to a spar. Because of the Chimera's spiritual beliefs, the challenger, Sophie, wishes to fight Ethan the Holy Chimera, but must first defeat Tempest Shroud. Let the match begin!"
Sophie transformed right away into her adolescent phoenix form. Her feet were talons, tearing right through the lightweight boots but her pants only ripped at the knee and below, where her feathers formed, and her hoodie only ripped to her elbows, where her feathers formed and her radiant white wings were on full display.
Tempest immediately rushed in, which took Sophie off guard and with a giant swat, Sophie was sent flying into the special training walls, which still bent in and cracked, as she fell on her face.
Tempest went in to finish it right away, but Sophie quickly used her wings to change her position, and kicked off her feet, shooting fireballs at the ground where she was.
The fireballs were more of a distraction, as the smoke made it difficult to see where Sophie went. She was faster than Zander when flying, which was something Tempest did not expect.
"That fricken hurt, I thought this guy was annoyingly patient? He must have known Zander would give me a rundown on his spar with him and completely changed his strategy. He's a smart guy," Sophie said.
Zander asked Juno if this was typical, as Juno officiated Zander and Tempest's match.
"Yes, if he has fought someone close to someone or someone with a similar style, he will change his strategy completely knowing the opponent is expecting one thing, then his opponent receives a different strategy altogether," Juno explained.
Sophie did have one advantage. That was that no one told Tempest about her pink magic. As Tempest charged at her again, she dive bombed, swinging both of her katanas, throwing them to the floor, which made Tempest change direction, and after watching where the Katanas fell, he looked back at Sophie, right in the eyes.
"This is my chance!" Sophie thought.
"Standstill!" Sophie shouted, and everyone in the room froze, except for Sophie. She had stopped time, momentarily, which gave her enough time to put both hands on Tempest's mane and yelled "Scarlett's blaze!" to which ignited his mane in pink flames. As she stepped back, time hard restarted again, and everyone was confused as to what just happened.
The last thing they remember is hearing Sophie yell standstill, and now they were watching Tempest's mane burning with brilliant pink flames.
Confused, Tempest used his water magic in his blue mane to put out the fire as best he could, but had to consistently deal with Sophie's attacks, using her talons and her claws.
Tempest managed to put the flames out, and smack Sophie with the polar bear end of his back with a hip thrust, which sent her flying into the wall again.
They were both injured, as Sophie had spit out blood and Tempest was clearly shaken by the fire from his mane. He was panting from the heat and bleeding from the claw and talon attacks.
What surprised Sophie, Zander, and Cyrus was that Tempest's blood was a dark yellow color, almost gold, but not quite, and it made them wonder how much difference there was between the faction leader and Ethan, nicknamed the Holy Chimera.
Still confused as to how he started on fire, Tempest charged in, only to have Sophie repeat the fireball tactic, which Tempest couldn't believe he fell for again.
This time, Sophie locked eyes with him and shouted, "Confuse," to which Tempest started stumbling uncontrollably.
It's like he couldn't get his body to work correctly, and when he cast an ice lance, it just shot off randomly and wasn't fully formed.
Next, he tried to swing his front paw, but he actually lifted his back paw and fell flat on his face. Sophie immediately flew over and put a claw to his neck.
Cyrus swooped in and said, "Match, Sophie!" and Zander immediately attended to Sophie's wounds and Tempest's wounds, casting healing beam on both of them, at the same time, which didn't go unnoticed by everyone in the room.
"Healing beam, level 3. You are healing two people at once, energy consumption will be doubled per minute. 20 energy used per minute."
After about 2 minutes of his healing beam, both of them were good as new, and they both thanked Zander, and Tempest was eager to ask Sophie about her new magic.
Zander now understood what Sophie said when she said, "will explain later," after her spar with Bruno.
"It's just something I picked up in training and I kind of go with my gut," Sophie trailed off as she immediately collapsed and engulfed in flames.
Much like Zander, she was screaming in agony, but Zander was there, both hands on her, using one of newer, combination skills, "healing aura," which combined healing beam with a relaxing aura to ease the person's pain.
"You are using Healing Aura, 30 energy will be used per minute, 440/500 energy."
Sophie's body relaxed and the screaming stopped, but Zander noticed her heartbeat was weakening.
With silver tears falling from his eyes, he screamed,
"You can't die on me Sophie, you just can't. Tej told me you would be safe with me here, stay with me, fight through it, I want to see you in as the beautiful phoenix you were born to be!"
Ethan immediately entered the arena and also put his hands on Sophie, not because he didn't believe in Zander, just to make sure that Sophie's heart didn't stop.
About 15 grueling minutes later, Sophie laid on the floor, naked. Zander quickly opened his dimensional void and got out a giant blanket, partially transformed his arm to allow his flame to grace the blanket and he cast a spell he shared with Tej, "Safety Flame,"
"Safety Flame, when active, will emit a safe, controlled flame on any object the user casts it on. 0 energy cost to use. 10/500 energy. You are not in direct sunlight, you energy is low."
"Juno, I hate to ask, but can you conjure up some fire magic for me to eat?" Zander asked.
Laughing, Juno sent one of her stronger spells, dragon's breath, at Zander to which he quickly opened his mouth and swallowed.
"His wife is naked on the floor, covered in a blanket, that he just pulled out of thin air and set on fire, then asks me to feed him fire, what's next, a dragon shows up?" Juno said while laughing.
"About that dragon…" Sophie finally spoke. "There will be one coming here on November 21st. I suppose we need to have a council meeting, right Zoey?"
Zander, feeling much better.
"You have eaten a strong fire spell, your energy has been restored by 200, 210/500 energy."
"Yes, we should probably have a council meeting but don't keep us waiting, show us your full phoenix form!" Zander said in excitement.
Sophie smiled and fully transformed. She stood about 11 feet tall and pink feathers covered her entire body. Her talons had sharpened significantly, as did her claws and her head feathers were silver, like her hair, and longer than the other feathers, but looked pretty, as they were intertwined with the pink feathers from her body.
Her wings had also grown around 10 inches, and her face was also somewhat recognizable, but she too had a full beak. Red flame emitted more vibrantly from her entire body, and she took to the air and flew around and tried to speak, but all that came out was a "caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaw," which was meant to be "this is amazing."
She landed near Zander, on her feet, and much like he did for her, bent over and gave him a kiss on the cheek with her beak. Zander returned the kiss with a kiss on the top of her beak, much like Sophie did for him.
"Magnificent," I can't fault myself for losing to something that strong and beautiful," Tempest said.
"I guess there's no need for a duel with me, then," Ethan yawned.
"No, thank you though. Maybe another time," Sophie said, as she reverted into her human form and quickly picked up the giant blanket and wrapped herself in it. "This is nice and warm, I like it."
After the match, everyone decided to rest for the night, only to be woken up around 6 AM by Zoey.