Sister Swoosh thrust her spearhammer forward, and she slid across the room as if the floor was made of ice and she had rockets tied to her heels. I dove to the side, only barely managing to dodge the spearhammer’s smooth, curved head. Her weapon streaked past, less than a foot away from my head—and then a freaking bolt of lightning shot out of the tip!

 

My eyes widened in horror as it zigzagged out of her spearhammer and struck the wall behind me hard enough to send jagged shards of rock flying everywhere. A deafening BOOM rang through the Court of Dueling Wits a moment later, and the monks up on the balcony roared in approval.

 

I charged my shoes and leaped backwards, trying to put distance between me and Sister Swoosh. The moment my feet hit the floor, though, even more booms began to reverberate through the room. I flinched, thinking they were coming from Sister Swoosh. An attack from her spear, I could dodge—barely. But if she decided to start shooting lightning at me from across the room, I was done for. When I wasn’t instantly deep fried like a possum at a Louisianan wedding reception, though, I opened my eyes in surprise to see Sister Swoosh just standing where I’d left her. So what was making those…

 

Oh, shish kabobs.

 

“JELLY SMASHIN’ TIME!” Brother Humdinger yelled in childish delight.

 

I spun just in time to see the massive klaon bearing down on me, his equally massive hammer held out in front of him like a battering ram. Each footstep shook the ground, and I was forcibly reminded that we were, like, a billion feet up in the air right now. I didn’t have time to worry about the structural integrity of Jah Beryge, though, and hastily dodged a second time just as Brother Humdinger came roaring past with all the power and subtlety of a freight train. He crashed headlong into the wall behind me, leaving a perfectly Brother Humdinger-shaped imprint in the stone wall. For a moment I dared to hope that he had knocked himself out, but then he giggled and set to work peeling himself free.

 

I’ve fought maiams with more braincells than this guy! I thought, staring at him in disbelief.

 

“Henry, look out!”

 

My attention was pulled back to the situation at hand, and I turned to see Sister Swoosh winding up to take another lunge at me. Thinking fast, I charged up my shoes again, but this time I didn’t dodge to the side. When Sister Swoosh came rocketing toward me, I instead launched myself straight upwards.

 

For a second, I found myself face to face with Ethan and Jade, who had gone up to the balcony to watch the fight.

 

“How am I doing?” I asked.

 

“Henry, you need to—” Jade began to say, but got cut off when I fell back down again.

 

I raised Splatsy as I plunged toward Sister Swoosh, charging her up with power. These two were bad news, and fighting them both at the same time was even worse. My best bet was to eliminate one of them as quickly as possible so I could give the other all of my attention. I just had to hope that doing so didn’t cost me too much laughter.

 

Sister Swoosh glanced up at me as I prepared to turn her into Sister Pancake, and leaped nimbly out of my way just as I crashed back down—but she wasn’t fast enough. Splatsy slammed into the floor a split second after I did, releasing all the energy that was stored inside of her in a shockwave of glowing blue light. While Swooshie may not have been hit by Splatsy herself, the magic still hit her like a truck and catapulted her across the room.

 

“Ha!” I yelled, watching her fly. “Henry draws first blood!”

 

Then Sister Swoosh did a graceful backflip and landed catlike on the floor thirty feet away, her spearhammer already drawn back for another attack.

 

Aw, crapjacks, I thought as she thrust the spearhammer forward. I tried to leap out of the way again, but I could already tell I wouldn’t be fast enough this time.

 

Fortunately, Brother Humdinger saved me.

 

Unfortunately, he did that by smashing his hammer into me from behind and charging across the room with me stuck to it like a bug on a windshield.

 

I felt the air crackle as the lightning bolt flashed past, its thunder driving a nail into one of my eardrums and out the other. I couldn’t move, could barely keep my grip on Splatsy, and was only able to watch as Brother Humdinger raced toward the opposite end of the room as fast as his chunky legs could carry us. For a second, I thought he was going to trample Sister Swoosh, but the lithe monk (or would she be a nun?) slid easily out of his way as he steamrolled past her.

 

The wall was rushing up to meet us, and Brother Humdinger obviously had no plan beyond ramming into it face first again. I didn’t need Ethan or Jade’s so-called “common sense” to tell me that I wouldn’t survive the impact. I needed to get away, but how was I supposed to do that when I was stuck to his hammer like one of those spinning carnival rides?

 

The palm of my left hand was pressed against the sledgehammer’s cold iron head. An idea came to me, and since I had a clearly visible deadline looming in front of me, I didn’t stop to think about it.

 

Charging up my magic, I forced it into my left hand. It exploded out through my palm, unsticking me from the hammer and shooting me to the right. I somehow managed to roll across the hammer, flopping over the edge a heartbeat before Brother Humdinger went careening into the wall without me.

 

I hit the floor just as he hit the wall with a CRUNCH that any cereal company would have paid a fortune to use in their commercials. It would probably take him another few seconds to pull himself free, but I still had Sister Swoosh to worry about. Getting my feet back under me, I took off running back the way I’d just come. I didn’t know where I was headed or what I was going to do next. All I knew was that I needed to get as far away from where I currently was as quick as possible.

 

Sure enough, there was a flash of light, and thunder roared through the air a split second later. I jumped and spun, following the zigzagging bolt to where Sister Swoosh was standing on the other end of the room, and dug my heels into the floor to skid to a halt. Then, charging Splatsy up yet again, I drew her back behind my shoulder like a baseball bat and hurled her with all my strength at the thin robed woman.

 

Please let this work! I thought. If it didn’t, then I had just thrown away my only means of defending myself for no reason.

 

Splatsy whirled, becoming a shining blue blur as she flew across the room. Sister Swoosh saw her coming and sidestepped the attack. That was fine. I had expected that. What Sister Swoosh hadn’t expected, though, was for me to release Splatsy’s magic before she had hit anything.

 

The moment Splatsy soared past Sister Swoosh, I discharged all the energy I had crammed inside her. A ball of bright blue energy exploded out of her in the blink of an eye, faster than even Sister Swoosh could react, and she was blasted backwards. She struck the wall hard enough to leave a Brother Humdinger-style imprint in the wall—and as a special, unexpected bonus, the explosion sent Splatsy flying back in my direction. While it would have been awesome if I’d been able to catch her out of midair like some kind of bad molasses, I took what I could get and chased after her with my hands outstretched like a three year old chasing a ping pong ball while she skittered across the floor.

 

When I picked her up again, she felt heavier than she had a few seconds ago. She hadn’t changed, of course—I had. I was using my magic up at a dangerous rate, leaving my body weakened and tired. I wasn’t done yet—not by a long shot—but if I wanted to have any chance of beating these two, I was going to have to be smart about this.

 

I’m doomed, I thought.

 

“AGAIN, AGAIN!” Brother Humdinger roared as he finally pulled himself out of the wall. He turned and saw me standing alone in the middle of the room and raised his hammer with a grin. Either he didn’t see Sister Swoosh making rock angels in the wall a few yards away from him, or he didn’t give a half-eaten onion ring about it, because he charged at me all over again.

 

I ducked behind one of the nearby pillars. If this palooka was half as dumb as he was letting on, then maybe I could confuse him by running circles around the pillar like in one of those old cartoons. What I would do then, I still wasn't sure, but I didn't exactly have time to stop and—

 

Brother Humdinger drove his hammer straight through the pillar.

 

“Holy Mother of Sausage!” I yelled as huge chunks of marble began to fall from the ceiling. I leaped backwards to avoid it, and not a moment too soon because another one of Sister Swoosh’s lightning bolts flashed past a heartbeat later, striking one of the falling blocks and blasting it straight into Brother Humdinger’s massive gut.

 

“DOOOOF!” he grunted as the air was driven from his lungs. His face contorted with anger, and he grabbed the offending block and hurled it across the room—but not at me.

 

At Sister Swoosh.

 

“What are you doing, you idiot?” she cried, dodging out of the way. The block, which couldn't have weighed less than seven hundred pounds, hit the far wall and shattered into a thousand little pieces. “We're supposed to be working—”

 

“YOU HURT MY TUMMY!” Brother Humdinger roared, charging toward her with his hammer held out.

 

Sister Swoosh darted behind a pillar, and Brother Humdinger went barreling past her. I watched as he crashed into the wall again, suddenly feeling oddly left out—until I realized that for the first time since the fight had started, Sister Swoosh wasn't looking at me.

 

Sensing an opportunity that wouldn't come a second time, I sprinted toward her, charging Splatsy as I ran. She noticed the blue glow coming off of Splatsy as I drew nearer, and in one fluid motion she spun around and thrust her spearhammer toward me.

 

Time seemed to slow down. Electricity sparked and flashed as it zigzagged out of the tiny, curved hammer, coming straight for me. This time, though, she didn't have the element of surprise on her side.

 

I did!

 

I sidestepped her attack, letting the lightning streak past me on my right. Then I spun to face her. I had noticed something the other times she had attacked me. While her lightning attack only lasted for a fraction of a second, that was a fraction of a second that she was completely immobilized. In any other fight, that wouldn't have mattered. A split second of not being able to move was more than a fair trade off, considering how quickly she could move and how powerful that attack was.

 

But I wasn't just any other fighter. I was the Hunter, and McGus had taught me to seek every weakness my opponent had, then use it against them. So, while Sister Swoosh was busy blowing another chunk out of the wall, I brought Splatsy down on her spearhammer, shattering it like a toothpick.

 

Sister Swoosh's eyes went wide. “What have you—”

 

Then Splatsy hit the floor, and I discharged all her energy, blasting Sister Swoosh back with the force of a tidal wave straight to her face. I had hoped that would be enough to end the fight then and there, but she proved to be tougher than that. Performing another epic backflip, she landed twenty feet away, glaring at the broken spearhammer, then at me.

 

She stretched her mouth wide in a scream of rage. “You brat! Do you have any idea how much that—”

 

THOOOOM!

 

Brother Humdinger's hammer came down on her, squashing her like an insect.

 

“TUMMY AM AVENGED NOW!” he laughed.

 

I stared at him in horror. Opisthia had told me not to kill either of his fighters! Brother Humdinger hadn't just squashed Sister Swoosh, he had squashed my hopes of ever seeing my family again!

 

Then he raised his hammer, and instead of the smeared purple remains of Sister Swoosh, all I saw were a few glowing magic particles floating away in the breeze. Blue light flashed in the corner of my eye, and I turned to see Sister Swoosh appear up on the balcony beside Opisthia and the fat monk. She sat down, folding her arms with a petulant expression on her face, and Opisthia nodded to me. The message was clear.

 

You haven't done anything wrong. Now finish the fight!

 

I turned back toward Brother Humdinger, and he grinned at me as he raised his massive hammer for another swing.

 

It was time to end this.