by Jess Bowen
“Finally!” Evan cried. He had very little patience. “Let’s go!”
“Wait,” Jared interjected. “Do you know who we’re facing yet?”
The lists of brackets had not been posted. Under normal circumstances, people would have known long in advance who their first opponent would be, but after the battle by the lake, Cassius had decided surprise was the best method rather than giving them all time to think up the worst possible damage to inflict on one another beforehand. This rule only applied to First Order, but in fairness, the brackets for Second and Third Order had also been withheld.
Dorian shook his head. “The brackets were handed out this morning, but only to the instructors. I don’t know any details, and you won’t either until it’s time for the First Order competition.”
“Since when do you not know what’s going on?” Cynthia asked, eyeing Dorian like he was holding out on them.
“Since my friendship with all of you conflicts with my ability to be unbiased as an instructor,” Dorian explained.
Evan snorted. “Your friendship with us? Or your relationship with Phoebe?”
Phoebe stuck her tongue out at Evan. “Both,” Dorian replied. “Now are you ready to go, or do you plan to forfeit?”
Evan looked horrified by this idea and immediately quit smirking. Cynthia and Jared laughed at his abrupt change of behavior. Dorian turned and started down the hallway, and Sebastian, who had been watching this exchange silently, jumped and hurried off ahead of Dorian and Phoebe while Evan, Jared, and Cynthia fell into step behind them. Once they’d left, only Lucy and Ethan remained in the hallway.
“Are you going to go down or not?” Lucy asked as she turned to face him.
He grimaced. “I haven’t decided yet. I can’t be what they are expecting.”
Lucy locked her arms around his waist, and Ethan noted that she almost couldn’t reach all the way around anymore because she was so tiny. “Hey,” she said in protest to this thought.
It was rare for them to have a vocal conversation anymore. Lucy’s voice and thoughts sounded the same either way, yet he still found her voice to be amazing. He smiled down at her. “Tiny but terrifying,” he amended.
She nodded, satisfied. Then she frowned, “They are not expecting anything other than you.”
Ethan shook his head. “No, they’re expecting someone like Dorian.”
Lucy sighed in frustration, a rare occurrence. “If you don’t go, what will they think of you then?”
He knew Lucy couldn’t care less about what “they” thought. But she knew his own fear of being seen as a coward would outweigh his fear of failing altogether. She smirked when she knew she had won.
“Fine,” he sighed. “Let’s go.”
He took her hand, and they made their way down to the training arena. When they arrived at the door, they hesitated; it appeared to be absolute chaos inside. Everyone in the entire village was seated in the tiers surrounding the arena along with every animal and being that lived there. They all talked loudly and excitedly as they watched those on the training room floor stretch and prepare for their matches.
Lucy squeezed Ethan’s hand reassuringly, and they continued on to the spot occupied by the rest of their friends. First Order was the last to compete, but they stretched anyway, because it was going to be a long day of sitting. As groups cleared off the training room floor, they moved to an open spot in the tiers and watched as all of Third Order grouped around their instructors. Dorian had to leave to sit with Cassius and begin the tournament. The noise level in the arena was too loud to hear the announcement of the brackets, but Ethan didn’t have much experience with Third Order, so it didn’t really matter anyway.
“There are so many of them!” Phoebe exclaimed as she examined the group.
“Haven’t you noticed them before?” Jared asked.
Phoebe shrugged. “I’m always focused on training when we’re with them. I guess I didn’t.”
“There’s only seventy or so; that’s not a huge amount,” Evan said, taking in the group on the floor.
“Well, there are only sixteen in First Order. I didn’t realize there were so many others either,” Ethan interjected.
“Why are there so many elves down there?” Cynthia asked.
Pairs started spacing themselves out as others stood at the edge of the floor to wait their turn.
“They must be refereeing. Eight matches at once are hard to keep track of for just two or three of them,” Jared said as two elves took a stance on either side of each pair.
In their beginning formation, the pair fighting and the two elves refereeing would form a cross if one were to draw lines to connect them. Cassius stood from his chair, which was positioned at the far end of the floor, opposite the entrance doors, and raised his arms for silence. Dorian stood at his right side to survey the slowly quieting crowd.
Cassius smiled before he began speaking. “Thank you all for attending the annual Earth Tournament. We have a fine group of trainees this year and what will surely be some interesting matches. Third Order will begin the tournament. My best wishes to all of you! Piper, whenever you are ready, please begin.”
Cassius sat back down as did Dorian, and Piper stepped forward. “We will have a quick review of the rules before we begin. First, if either referee commands your pair to end the fight, you back off and still your powers. Second, if your opponent should lose consciousness or surrender, the fight is over immediately. Third, there are three ways to win a match: pin, submission, or cause your opponent to be unable to continue with the match.”
All the trainees around the room murmured their understanding and acceptance of those rules. Piper inserted a whistle into her mouth. As she did this, all eight pairs of competitors turned their attention to one another. Some slipped into defensive crouches and others tensed their arms, ready to unleash their powers. Within seconds, Piper blew the whistle and the matches began.
The crowd was no longer silent. They groaned and cheered and gasped as a single entity. Ethan’s attention slid in and out. Watching eight matches at once was a difficult feat, even for his perfect eyes. Time passed fairly quickly as the entire Third Order battled. They weren’t too bad. Most of them performed poorly because they were nervous more than anything. Ethan only knew it was nerves because Phoebe kept murmuring “Don’t be nervous” under her breath as she watched. Interestingly enough, both Kara and Beth were eliminated in the second round and looked thoroughly disgruntled about it. Cynthia found the look on Kali’s face to be highly entertaining when that had happened. The matches tended to last between two to five minutes. With all the flashes of light and Elements colliding, it was hard to see anything most of the time.
Finally, one pair remained to compete for the Earth Tournament Third Order Champion Trophy. Those who had been eliminated were now sitting in the stands to watch the rest of the tournament. One boy and one girl were left, and the strain of their many battles was beginning to show. They were brought out some Revitalizing Elixir to give them back some stamina for their final fight. The girl was named Alexa, and the boy was named Calvin.
The last fight was much easier to watch since there was only one battle to focus on. The crowd silenced as the two squared each other up and prepared to fight. They were quite good, considering they were only in Third Order, and after neither one was able to prevail over the other after a few minutes of using only their Elements, they engaged in furious hand-to-hand combat. After only a few seconds, it was clear that Alexa was superior in her combat skills, and within a minute or so, she had Calvin pinned. The crowd cheered as Dorn, the Third Order instructor, announced the winner.
There was a brief ceremony in which Cassius presented Alexa with her trophy. She gracefully accepted it and then sprinted off to show her mother, who was sitting in the stands. Next, Drake brought out the Second Order to compete. Ethan noticed that those who had studied only their Element and had not studied with the elves, or did not have a strong talent, were elimina
ted early while the others went on to later rounds. Drake, the Second Order instructor, separated the Second Order into pairs.
22. Wrong
Ethan stretched and groaned. He had been in the same position for hours. It was a little past noon by the time the Second Order got set up for their first bracket matches.
I’m sorry, was I making you uncomfortable? Lucy asked as he stretched.
She had been leaning against his side with his arm draped around her shoulders. She pushed away when he groaned, but as his arm came back down, he placed it back on her shoulders and pulled her close again. He kissed her forehead, breathing in her wonderful scent, and twisted a strand of her hair around his fingers. She smelled like a breeze flowing through a meadow of beautiful flowers as it caught the scent of each flower and mixed them together in pleasurable waves.
No, I was just stiff. I think this is the longest I’ve sat in one spot in a very long time, he replied. She chuckled.
Even though there were not as many in Second Order as in Third, multiple battles at once were still necessary to get through every one. Once again the arena filled with various flashes of light and Elements merging together. The effects were a lot more intense since Second Order was more powerful than Third, and more than once, spectators scrambled out of an area of the stands as a stray water ball, threatening vine, or small tornado headed at them. After the second elimination round, Cassius called a halt to the tournament to break for lunch, which was brought in by the gnomes and set up on tables spread across the floor. Everyone hopped down from the tiers to grab a plate of food.
As Ethan and his friends stepped down to get in line for food, they all stretched out their stiff limbs.
“You know some of us are going to have to fight one another, right?” Evan said, suddenly looking solemn.
“It’s not like we haven’t before,” Cynthia pointed out. “We spar all the time during training.”
“This is different. When we step out there, it will be different,” Ethan said.
Phoebe frowned. “He’s right. If one of us is going to win, or even just make it to the next round, it has to be fair. We can’t hold back on one another. We’ll have to view each other as threats, not friends.”
Evan suddenly smiled and threw his arm around Phoebe’s shoulders. “I’ll try not to make you look too bad.”
Phoebe rolled her eyes. “Thanks, I’ll remember you said that when you’re lying on your back later.”
Everyone laughed. Ethan could see Jade walking through the crowd toward them.
“Finally,” she said as she spotted them. “After the Second Order Trophy is awarded, you all are to make your way down to the center of the arena.”
She waited for a fraction of a second for them to acknowledge that they understood before she moved on. Then they all grabbed plates of food and settled down to eat. Phoebe had her eyes closed and her head bowed as she slowly ate. She tensed and twisted every now and then, as though she was going over combat moves in her head. Cynthia hugged her knees to her chest and rocked back and forth as she scanned the tiers for no particular reason. Jared surveyed everyone who passed. Ethan could read his expression; he was sensing them to distract himself. Lucy’s thoughts flew by too fast for Ethan to catch anything in particular as she ran over strategies in her head. Meanwhile, Evan ate normally, completely at ease with the coming competition.
Dorian turned up after a while and settled beside Phoebe. The corners of her mouth turned up as Dorian silently traced the side of her arm, but she remained focused on whatever she was doing. A high trilling voice floated over the crowd in our direction. Phoebe and Cynthia stiffened, but otherwise gave no notice of the attention-drawing voice.
“This is completely a waste of time. It’s obvious that I am going to win. No idea why anyone else even bothered to show up.”
Kali droned on and on as she passed by. With each degrading sentence, Phoebe’s look of determination and fierceness became more and more defined. If Kali knew what was good for her, she would have kept her mouth shut. Phoebe was now channeling all her anger and irritation into her coming matches. When they had to send their plates back and Phoebe opened her eyes, even Dorian looked a little intimidated by the expression on her face.
The others seemed to be dealing with Kali in much the same way as Phoebe was, and they continued in silence as everyone returned to the arena. Dorian wished them all good luck and returned to his seat with Cassius. The third round of matches then began for the Second Order, and Ethan’s attention ebbed as he began to mentally ready himself for the matches ahead. Before he knew it, the last two competitors were sizing each other up in the middle of the arena for the final battle. It was two boys this time, and they were pretty evenly matched. The fight went on for nearly ten minutes before one of them was pinned to the mat. Cassius then awarded the trophy to the winning boy, Anthony, and once more took his seat to await the last of the matches.
Ethan was again dreading standing in front of all these people and performing. He knew that they were putting a good deal of hope into him and Phoebe, and he would hate to let them down by performing badly. He was glad that Lucy was so focused that she didn’t hear his worries. They got up and made their way to the middle of the arena where Jade waited for them.
“All right, listen up; your matches will take place one at a time so things don’t get out of control with too much power being thrown around at once. Here are the first eight pairs: Evan and Brit, Daniel and Maria, Orin and Kali, Jared and Kiera, Spencer and Lucy, Ethan and Julia, Phoebe and Aiden, and lastly, Cynthia and Leo. Evan and Brit, you’re first.”
Evan and a small, timid girl named Brit stepped forward to the middle while the others stood off to the side, waiting. Ethan could tell his friend was disappointed with his first opponent. There was little doubt that Evan was going to win this match. Brit was very small, had opted out of combat training with the elves, and didn’t have a talent. The match lasted less than two minutes. Evan shook her hand and made his way back to the rest of them. Next Daniel and Maria stepped forward, and Ethan felt sure that this match would be a toss-up. Daniel was fairly good, but Maria had an impressive talent, aside from her Elemental powers. She slowed him down to half his speed, which gave her an advantage for a minute before she lost her concentration and he overtook her.
Next were Orin and Kali, and Ethan didn’t even pay attention. He knew Kali was going to win; she was very good. He just hoped that someone was better so they wouldn’t have to listen to her gloat later. Jared and Kiera then stepped forward. Kiera had a good talent of speaking to inanimate objects, but that was no help to her in a battle, and Jared easily beat her.
Spencer and Lucy were next, and again, Ethan didn’t need to pay attention to know who would win. Spencer was still very scared of everyone and everything to do with his powers, and although Lucy felt sorry for him, she was easily the best and beat him in less than thirty seconds. She lost none of her concentration as she moved back to Ethan’s side.
Now it was his turn to go against Julia. Her Element was Wind, and she had also studied with the elves, but he just realized that he didn’t know what her talent was. Ethan mentally kicked himself. He should have had the sense to ask Jared before coming out here, or he should have paid attention during all the hours he had spent sitting around during class while everyone was studying their talents.
Lucy watched, but her thoughts were preoccupied. Oh well, it would be good practice for facing the unknown later. When Ethan arrived at the middle of the arena, everyone else in the room seemed to disappear as he concentrated on his opponent.
Julia seemed hesitant to attack him, so he threw a vine at her, which twisted around her and squeezed tightly. Just as he thought it was going to be an easy win, a sharp rock shot out of her hand and flew around her as it cut the vine, and she was free. She was a Conjurer. Her talent wasn’t very strong, she could only conjure rocks, but it was useful. Another sharp rock shot out of her hand at him, and he threw up h
is shield just in time to block it.
She was getting ready to throw another rock at him when he raised his hands, which caused the earth to shake, and she lost her balance for a moment, giving him enough time to take her down to the ground and pin her. The whistle sounded, and suddenly he was again aware of the noise in the room, and he looked around. He had won his first match. He walked back over to the others, sure that a ridiculous-looking smile was plastered on his face, but he didn’t care.
Lucy squeezed his hand and smiled as he made it back to her.
Phoebe and Aiden were next. Once again it was clear who the winner was going to be. Phoebe was the best out of the entire group and defeated Aiden within a few minutes. Kali looked dejected; yet another member of her group had proved less than adequate in her opinion. Lastly were Cynthia and Leo. Leo was very good with his Element and his talent of absorbing the fireballs Cynthia sent at him. Unfortunately for him, he was no match for Cynthia when it came to hand-to-hand combat, and she pinned him to the mat.
With the first elimination round complete, the eight remaining competitors were sorted into groups again. Evan was against Daniel, and they went first. Evan was very good, but Daniel wasn’t too bad either. Their match lasted for ten minutes before Evan finally triumphed over Daniel by knocking him out cold. Daniel was taken up to the infirmary to be revived.
Ethan could tell that Evan was exhilarated by the intense fight he had just been through; it was amazing that Daniel was the first one to have to go to the infirmary. Next Jared had to go against Kali, and while Jared competed well, he became distracted when she astral-projected a copy of herself beside him, which engaged him in combat before the projection disappeared. Kali threw a fireball at him and caught him off guard, causing him to lose the match. It seemed Kali had benefited from training with her talent, despite her earlier claims that she had nothing to learn. Now she was able to fight from her astral projection and her own body at the same time.
Ethan could see Phoebe and Cynthia quivering in anger. Lucy’s jaw tightened as Jared was taken to the infirmary to treat his burns. Evan almost left, but stayed in hopes that he would get his shot at Kali. Ethan didn’t have much time to think about it as his worst fear was realized: he was next and going against Lucy.
