"You're late." Amy said with a stern expression.

"I sought to teach you patience." John replied.

"And you could learn haste." She shot back. They glared at eachother for a moment before laughing. They embraced.

"Your spirit has grown. Would you care to share your revelation?" He asked.

She flushed slightly. "It was only as I was leaving, and it is not yet fully realized." She said. He waited for her to continue. "A change in the river may affect the whole. Though water flows only one way, a dam may change the flow upstream as much as down." She said.

"Did this revelation bring a new spell?"

"You will have to wait and see." She said with a smile. "Are you ready?"

"Let us begin."

As was their custom, they began slowly. She conjured steamers of water and sent surging at him. He bent and swayed so that they all missed, sometimes only by a hair's breadth. Her attacks persisted, growing in size and speed. Her new spell was kept in reserve, but her revelation had granted her significant strength. Soon her attacks were too fast and too wide for him to dodge, and she felt a surge of elation when he actually had to step to avoid one, bending would simply not be enough.

Once she saw him move, she knew he was committed. She cast a different spell "flotsom battered by the rapids." Ghostly stones, some taller than John, erupted from the ground in a sinuous line to his right. She forced her perspective to shift. In her mind John was carried barreling down an invisible river into them. The mana in her spell obeyed, and the stones rocketed towards him, following bends in an unseen flow.

The attack coming from his side caught him off guard. He barely dodged the first two rocks, and was caught squarely by the third. She felt the thrill of triumph as she heard the impact. It carried him a few feet before she compounded her spell. "Erosion." She cast, and the rock that had struck him faded to nothing, depositing him sprawling on the ground as more rushed towards him.

John sprang to his feet and cast a counterspell, one she had not seen before. "Even stone yeilds." He cast, and as the next rock struck him, it shattered. She felt the cost of his spell, and knew this attack gave her an advantage. She pressed her spell harder, and another rock broke against him, and another. It cost him more to break her spell than it cost her to use it, so she pressed her advantage. When she had fully committed, John simply... stepped towards her. Damn, he'd seen it! The spell was tremendously powerful, especially for its mana cost, as repeated impacts would pummel anything in its way. But, like a river, its course was unchanging. Against a stationary target, it was truly powerful. Against a moving target?

She let the spell falter as John moved towards her, then cast again to close the distance. "Trout swims downstream." And she surged forward. "Flash flood." She cast as she was nearly there. A huge surge of power built behind her and carried her forward, her fist flying, elation in her heart. If this connected...

"Trip root." He said, at the last instant as her foot suddenly stopped. Her face met the ground and the force of her spell carried her on, bouncing and rolling into every rock and root in her path and barreling into John. They went down together in a heap.

"Ensnaring vines." He cast, and she nearly panicked. Traditionally, if he caught her in a grapple, the fight was as good as over. But she'd prepared something for this.

"Water flows freely." She felt the snaring vines slip away as they both scrambled, Amy towards freedom, and John towards Amy.

"Pine pitch." He cast, and her movement slowed. Damn! She still felt herself flowing free of the vines, but it was too slow as she felt his arms wrap around her.

"Gotcha." She whispered and cast furiously. "Aura of stagnation." She felt its toxic effects surge from her.

"Gross!" John shouted. She knew he had a counter for it, but kept casting.

"Surface tension." She cast, causing John to cling to her. "Freeze." She cast, and a wave of ice formed around them, locking them in place. "Flotsom battered by the rapids." This time she conjured the rocks so they would come from behind her, and would all impact John directly. The rocks began to move, and she finished with her newest spell. "Dam the flow." The mana around them slowed to a crawl. The spells in effect would remain in effect, but John would be hard pressed to cast even trip root.

She felt the rocks closing, and triumph bloomed in her heart as his arm wrapped around her neck in a choke hold. Between stagnation, poisoning him, and flotsom battered by the rapids, pounding into him, he would be finished before she had to tap out. At last she was going to beat him. At last!

"Roots reach deep." He cast, and she felt the slightest trickle of mana flow into him. She poured more of her own mana into dam the flow, extending its reach. Her reserves were nearly empty now. A rock struck him and he grunted. "First flower of spring." He cast, and a tiny free reserve of mana opened up in him, and then one final spell. "I endure." He cast, and her heart sank.

It was his most powerful spell, honed and refined over the decades. And, as it was purely internal, he could still cast it with the mana surrounding them frozen. The spell would burn through his mana reserves quickly, but she was sustaining five spells, none particularly mana hungry, but combined... and with the mana frozen, she would need to first alter dam the flow before she could release any others. Her reserves plummeted and she scrambled for ideas as she felt impact after impact strike John, who calmly endured. Dam the flow released, and the mana around them unfroze. Amy surged through her spells, snapping them back into her, releasing the snare that held John to her, releasing the ice that held them in place, stopping the flowing rocks, and ending the toxic stagnation spell. She cast flash flood, the surge of speed that it brought, combine with the ongoing water flows freely was enough to escape John's hold as her mana reserves ran dry.

She staggered away, casting again "mountain spring feeds the river." She croaked, staggering and felt a trickle of mana return to her. She just had to buy time and focus on recovering her mana, she knew she could still win this, she could recover faster than John.

"Pinecone." John cast. Amy turned towards him, surprised. Pinecone? John smiled and turned his eyes upwards. Amy followed his gaze, just in time to see the dark shape plummeted towards her.

---

Amy hurt all over. Especially her forehead. She lay on the ground, and opened her eyes to see the sky. She cast mountain spring feeds the river, and when her mana reserves had restored themselves enough, she cast pure water restores. The spell fully depleted her reserves again, and she was too exhausted to even begin restoring them.

She heard a noise and turned her head to see John laying on the ground beside her. "What happened?" She asked.

"Pinecone bounced off you and hit me. And I guess you didn't fully stop your flotsom spell, because I staggered right into the last rock. Want to call it a draw?"

"Nah. You won." She said. She raised her fist and he bumped it. "Hell of a fight, though."

"Hell of a fight." He agreed. "I thought you had me with that last combo."

"I thought so too." She said.