Round 1: Preston Andrews vs. Sarika Warren

Out of all the times and places to be staring, now was probably the worst, but he couldn't help himself. There Preston stood, leaning lazily against his glaive, held tightly into the ground, looking this girl over. Black hair with red lowlights, dark clothes and pale skin. He was surprised in this crazy ass heat that she wasn't sparkling on top of everything else.

"Don't worry, dear. I'll go easy on you." He shot her a wink. Although he'd learned his lesson many times before, he wasn't about to take this chick at face value.

The Summer Tournament- a great way to get ridiculed and embarrassed, or earn respect. Either way, it didn't really matter, as Sarika just wanted to get through the first round...then the next...

'Dangit, am I really doing my first round in the Savannah? Kinda boring, to be honest...' Sarika thought as she saw the area for the first time. 'Hmm...what's his name again? Eh, my memory's not made for this...' Sarika didn't know what to think of her opponent...'Oh yeah, wasn't his name Preston?' As he first talked to her. 'Eh, that doesn't matter...maybe I should lay "low"...' 

After Preston's comment, Sarika only seemed to shrivel up, her bow caressing her back soothingly. 'Eh, couldn't hurt to try...'

Sarika simply raised her bow, and nocked an arrow. 'Then again, kinda boring... staying low sucks'

"Don't worry hun, that would make things boring, wouldn't it?" Sarika then straightened up and held her longbow up. 'I'll save my tricks for later on'

At first he thought she didn't seem to be the talkative type either, that was until the match had started and she immediately raised her bow straight towards him. Preston cracked a grin, taking an eager step forward and holding his weapon up. He liked this girl's attitude. "I suppose you're right," he mused, taking another foot ahead and narrowing his eyes. "At least we're on the same page!" The young man took off in a flash, literal wisps of lightning lashing out around him as he headed straight for her, closing as much distance as he could quickly between them.

"Oh shit..." Sarika said, as she saw Preston speeding towards her. 'Welp, guess the tricks are coming out now...' Sarika then pulled up a small but useful wall of dementors - creatures of darkness that eat away at happiness. 'Let's see him get past this.' In the meantime, Sarika ran farther away from the fight, and eventually climbed atop a rock. Sarika then drew up her bow, and waited. "...I can do this..."

Three times Preston had been in the tournament now and he'd thought he'd seen it all. Once he'd fought his own roommate who had impaled him with a mutant zombie stag. With the mindset he'd come in with, he'd thought his resolve would be unwavering. He thought. Low and behold, the next thing he knew, he was stopping straight in the face of several dark creatures that he couldn't put his finger quite on... He felt like he'd seen it in a movie once...

And then it hit him. They were dementors, from the old wizard movies. Never had he imagined his nerd-ery would come in handy at a place like this. Pres smiled, and he might have straight out laughed - hadn't these things seemed to actually worked to some degree. Just looking at them was depressing. Literally.

Unluckily for her, however, this wasn't Hogwarts and he didn't need some special spell to fight them off. The young man raised up his weapon, focusing his energy through the hot steel and setting it ablaze with blue lightning. In one large motion, he swung the pole as an extension of his arm, sweeping through the wall of creatures and spotting Sarika from her new perch.

'Well then...must be electricity...' Sarika thought as she infused the arrow she was about to shoot with something new she learned about while reading some ancient mythological books - pure darkness. This then turned the red arrow to black, while the texture reminded Sarika of liquid nitrogen, with black smoke surrounding it and leaving a small trail as she let the arrow fly straight towards Preston.

Preston allowed himself to smile again as lightning scared off the rest of the creatures away from him and out of his path, seemingly forgotten by his opponent. Electricity, yes. The young man was a living, bonafide Raichu incarnate. He let his weapon slide back down into his hands, breaking off into his run again even as she seemed to be docking her arrow straight at him. He remained unafraid. With the metal tip of her arrow, anything she shot his way could have easily been deflected in a heartbeat. But then it seemed to change before their eyes, turning dark and sinister, much like the Dementors that had just been thrown at him.

He began to swerve throughout his path the moment he'd began to feel wary and, as he'd suspected, his electric field hadn't done as much as he'd liked. The autumn grit his teeth as the arrow sliced through his skin, grazing past his arm and hitting the grass behind him with a dull thump. It'd taken a few moments for the red to run. He'd hardly noticed it at first, but instead of a hot, flashing pain there was an aching, icy freeze feeling that seemed to be slowly creeping out from his wound. "Bitch," he hissed under his breath.

Although he might have had the time to close the distance between them, and although he was more comfortable up close, he took no chances. Preston had had his fair share of chases in these tournaments and he didn't feel like having anymore. He reached his hand out. Bolts of thunder shot out immediately towards Sarika as he ran, determined not to give her any time to flee again.

As soon as Sarika saw the arrow hit Preston, she let a small smirk grace her face. She then started to run farther away from Preston until a bolt of lightning hit her left side, and she went flying. She tried her best to land on her feet, but settled for a roll before once again starting to run. 

"Damn, that hurt!" Sarika muttered. Since she didn't want to take any chances, she bent down and punched the ground, wincing when her left side flared up, and quickly jumped up and over the growing pool of darkness. Just for extra measure, she conjured a Thestral (with her being a rather large nerd) and jumped on its back. Instead of running farther away, she turned around and prepared to directly face Preston. 

"Eh, couldn't hurt," Sarika muttered to herself as she drew up her bow, instead fusing the arrow with demonic power, which reminded Sarika of lava...she didn't like to use that type of evil, because it burned...ice is better...

"Come out, come out where ever you are..." Sarika said, in a singsong voice. 'Heh, let's see if Preston is easily creeped out...' Sarika then started to sing, her voice quiet and gradually getting louder. "Ring around the rosie, pockets full of posies. Ashes, ashes. They all fall down."

A smirk of satisfaction rose to her face as he noticed his attack hit. Sure enough, just as he thought she would, the girl broke into a crude roll amd pulled herself back up, making another sprint for it - not near as far as before it seemed, however. Seemingly out of the ground sprang a new creature of hers, another wizarding one, he recalled. Preston couldn't recall the name of it, it was from one of the more obscure titles he thought, but he remembered what they were. The stupid winged horse things. Only those that had witnessed death could see them.

He paused, his mind lost elsewhere for a moment, and he wondered if that shit was really working or it was just a faux, or his imagination. Whatever. Preaton couldn't afford to get caught up in old memories right now. Soon as she sat up on the thing's back, she was already shooting another arrow his way.

Instinctively, he lashed out with his power, waving it's path but he was too close to dodge it. It went piercing through his skin, lodging itself near his shoulder. This one burned, unlike the last, and it hurt like a mother fucker.

Adrenaline brushed it off. He snapped off the end of the arrow and threw it into the dirt, gathering himself back together. And she just watched him, singing some old creepy ass nursery rhyme, like this chick was pulled straight out of a B-tier horror movie. "Enjoy this while you can," He called over. Preston took the glaive up in his better arm, holding it over him much like a proper spear. Whilst she got to enjoy the close distance, so would he - only his shots would hurt much more. He had the bigger toy.

The Autumn pulled his arm back and thrust his glaive into the air, aiming it for Sarika and her little pet. Chances were, either her horsey would get harpooned or this Gothic chick was going to get Rue'd (if she understood that reference too).

Sarika saw his glaive headed towards them both, so she had to act quickly. Since her Thestral was her only way of transportation at the moment, she quickly dispersed it, and tried to take as many steps back as possible before she felt metal pierce her left side 

'Why is it always the same side?' and she looked down to see the glaive stuck in the space between her ribs and her pelvis. 'Didn't hit any bones...' Sarika then proceeded to rip out the glaive. 'Damn, this is gonna hurt. The fuck...' Sarika infused the metal of the glaive with demonic power, and started to cauterize the wound. 

"Fuck!" was all she allowed Preston to hear, before she once again conjured her Thestral and began to get away on her "horse" with her newly stolen and burning hot glaive.

Preston reached his arm out, sparks flying out towards his weapon as he tried to pull it back towards him. It nudged, perhaps, but it was already underspell it seemed - for the time being anyways. No matter to him. He'd already gotten his hit in. There wasn't a chance in hell she could heal that wound well or quick enough to make a huge difference and he absolutely doubted she even knew how to use that thing. As far as he knew, he was the only one in the school with a weapon like it.

He gritted his teeth as she ran off again, gripping at his shoulder - which still ached and burned from her arrow's previous hit, internally grieving over the prospect over having to run after this chick all over again. The young man didn't seem to have much else of a choice now. He raised up his better hand, aiming the tips of his fingers in her direction as she tried to retreat away. "Why are you running away, Sweetheart?" he called after her. "The party's over here!" With a snap of his fingers and an echo of thunder, another strike escape from his hand towards Sarika and her precious pet.

This time, Sarika didn't have time to react before a bolt of lightning hit her Thestral. The Thestral simply turned to dust, rather than suffer before dying. 

"Oh, wanna play like that? Fine." Instead of sending waves of monsters, Sarika sent one wave of fog. The fog seemed normal, besides being pitch black instead of transparent. "Hey, you a fan of The Hunger Games? Hope so, or else you might get a bit of a shock!" Sarika yelled to Preston. It would be funny if he never watched the movies...but instead of that, there's no stopping point for darkness. It goes wherever it wants.

"I'll be nice for once. Have your hockey stick back, I don't want it," Sarika yelled and sent the glaive through the darkness (the only reason it passed through was because the blade was infused with darkness).