I press my lips firmly together.
Jinx, however, does a flying leap up into the alcove above my locker – something he shouldn’t be able to do. The guy’s smile widens even further. ‘Dude – you are so going to regret betting on Team Gemma,’ he says to his friend. He gives me a wink.
I glare at Jinx for showing off, but I can’t keep a frown on my face for long. Since last night, I’ve been floating on air. My teachers give up on getting me to focus – they blame the Baku Battle, but it’s not the real reason.
I can’t stop thinking about Tobias.
Tobias and me.
It doesn’t seem real.
I can’t wait for the final bell, not only because it’s battle time. It means that I will get to see him. Jinx makes a beeline for the team box. He weaves through the legs of the other students, dodging their bakus – he really is useful like that.
Thanks, J, I think.
>>You always seem so surprised when I’m useful.
That’s because most of the time I don’t expect it!
>>You wouldn’t change me for the world.
And the problem is that you know it.
My knees won’t stop shaking, my legs juddering up and down like I’ve had way too much caffeine. Jinx purrs, attempting to calm me. He’s right, I need to relax before I see Tobias again.
It’s just going to be the two of us in the team box, after all.
‘Hey.’
My heart skips a beat as I hear his caramel-smooth voice. I spin around in my chair and match his wide grin. ‘Hey back.’
‘Excited?’
‘Can’t wait,’ I say. I bite down on my lip as he sits next to me, his thigh bumping up against mine. He leans forward over the barrier, so he’s looking down into the arena, and the fanfare begins.
Focus on the battle, Lacey, I tell myself.
The players lift up – and gasps are audible from around the stadium. Team Elektra have come in fighting. Elektra is there herself, with her level 4 captain’s baku – a cloud leopard – to go up with her teammate Terence and his bulldog baku, against the teams of three. It’s the only chance they’ll have of lasting the thirty minutes.
But they’re not the only ones using that strategy. Gemma and her tiger baku, Stripe, are in the arena too.
Team Tobias might be in big trouble.
The smugness on Carter’s face is unsettling. But between his boar, Hunter, Gemma’s tiger, Stripe, and Gemma’s third, Frank, with his German Shepherd baku, Bones . . . they seem unbeatable.
Beside me, Tobias tenses, his fists clenching together. ‘Dammit,’ he mutters. The buzzer sounds and instead of thinking about how close Tobias is, I’m swept away in the rhythm of the battle, the energy of the crowd. Using Jinx’s technology, I scan across the battlefield, able to pause and rewind key moments on impulse.
The action takes off as two cat bakus – a lithe Persian belonging to Team Dorian and the beautiful grey-white clouded leopard belonging to Elektra – go after each other in a whirl of claws and snarling teeth. Hunter is locked in battle with a Team Pearce baku, a lizard named Scythe, with Bones assisting. Scythe doesn’t stand a chance. It’s chaotic with twelve bakus in the arena, but bakus are going down like flies. After only five minutes, Team Pearce is out completely and Elektra and Dorian’s teams are down to one baku each. Only Team Tobias and Team Gemma are at full strength.
Even Ashley is holding her own, Jupiter hanging back as Oka and Lizard take down the other teams. I think the other teams have decided she is a weak link; someone they can pick off easily once they’ve defeated the other stronger bakus. They don’t want to waste any unnecessary energy on her. They want to use strength on strength, saving her for last.
‘Come on, guys,’ I mutter under my breath.
Jinx informs me that the status of the Persian, Lista, is now critical; the poor baku is on her last legs. I think she’s going to be totally beyond repair, thereby leaving Team Dorian out of the points. Two levels down, and not a single point scored.
With Lista down, the clouded leopard, Frost, turns to Jupiter, flicking his tail menacingly and baring his teeth. I see that Elektra has made cosmetic alterations to Frost in order to make him look more intimidating – with extra sharp teeth and dark, pointed eyebrows. I never really understood it before – the bakus were battling each other, so they surely didn’t care how menacing the other one looked? But now that I see it up on screen, I understand the importance of showmanship. He looks intimidating, powerful, and as the ‘underdog’ baku – the only one from a pointless team – he has the crowd on side. Poor Ashley is shaking with nerves now, even though I can tell she is really attempting to hold it together. Oka and River are engaged in a battle with Stripe and Bones, needing to use every ounce of concentration to take on the tiger. If they’re going to have any hope, Jupiter is going to have to step up in the battle against Frost and inflict at least some damage.
Ashley takes a deep breath and tries to draw herself up to stand tall. She wants to project confidence. Her battling skills have definitely improved.
The clouded leopard is lightning fast, rounding on poor Jupiter with barely a delay. Ashley sends commands for Jupiter to move out of the way, but too late – Frost swipes out with a sharp paw and part of Jupiter’s surface panelling is torn. Nothing too critical, but his damage level moves instantly to 75% on the jumbotron. Jinx winces as if he was the one hit, rather than Jupiter. I know the feeling. I pray that Ashley can get her head in the game and figure out how to counter Frost’s speed.
Ashley seems to remember some of her drills, and gets Jupiter to take aim at Frost’s tail. If she can dislodge the mechanisms there, the baku will be thrown off balance – making it much more difficult to move with speed and accuracy. No point moving quickly if you can’t move in the right direction. It’s an easier target than the body – we already noted in our opposition studies that Frost likes to show off by swinging his big bushy tail from side to side. All Jupiter needs to do is to get close enough to take a bite.
Ashley deploys a risky strategy, allowing Jupiter to be a bit more vulnerable, luring Frost into making another attack without thinking through the consequences. It works: the leopard leaps, taking aim at Jupiter’s shoulder, but Jupiter darts around to take a bite out of the leopard’s tail.
A cheer goes up from the crowd at the plucky move. Frost’s damage rate sits at 65%, and Jupiter’s drops to 50%. Not bad. This is exactly what Ashley needs to be doing.
‘Come on, Jupiter!’ shouts Tobias from beside me.
Jinx stands on my knees so his paws are propped up on the railing, peering intently into the arena and down at the battle between Frost and Jupiter. I shift my attention to the other raging battle between Oka, Lizard, Stripe and Bones. The boys from Team Tobias are making good progress and Bones’ stats are dropping rapidly. Gemma is barking orders at Carter, telling him to hold Hunter back. Hunter is pacing as if he’s itching to dive headfirst back into the action, and Carter looks equally frustrated at being left out of the action, his hands opening and closing into fists. But I can see Gemma’s plan. She wants to weaken Oka and Lizard as much as possible before sending Hunter in for the kill.
There’s a groan throughout the audience that snaps my attention back. Jinx hisses loudly, and I wince as his claws extend into the meat of my thighs. Jupiter has been hit badly by Frost – even with the tail damage, he’s a lethal weapon – and Jupiter’s stats drop to 29%. Almost critical level. I can see Ashley’s eyes dart to Tobias, waiting to see when she can pull her baku out of the battle.
But Tobias doesn’t look at Ashley. Instead, he signals something to Kai, who nods from his position in the arena. Oka suddenly switches tactics, leaving Lizard alone against Stripe and Bones as he goes after Hunter. Carter is taken totally by surprise, and the boar doesn’t defend himself – his stats knocking down to below the 20% threshold with one hit. Hunter is down and out, just like that. I let out the loudest whoop that I can.
Kai sends O
ka back to face-off against the tiger. Lizard is taken out by a direct hit by the Stripe’s paw. In the meantime, Frost gets one final swipe at Jupiter – dropping the baku finally down to 20%.
‘Get out of there!’ I scream at Ashley, jumping up out of my seat. Jinx leaps from my lap to the floor. She turns her head up to look at me.
Because I can see now why Carter looked so smug at the beginning of the battle. He’s been offered a revive chip by Dr Grant – he must have earned it doing some extra credit – and even though Hunter is out of action, with the revive chip he surges back up to 50%. With one target in sight: Jupiter.
Ashley isn’t able to drag her baku out of the arena in time. Hunter slams into Jupiter, the spaniel baku crumpling in on itself, all our careful repairs being turned into dust. Hunter isn’t content to just tear it apart. He stomps over the little spaniel, grinding parts between his teeth. It’s an unfair power-up, something that shouldn’t have been given to Carter, no matter what he’d done to earn it. The entire audience gasps at the impact, and I feel my heart lurch. Ashley releases a scream that is something primal: the second time she’s had to watch as her companion is ripped into shreds. But this time, as I watch Jupiter’s stats sink, I know if it continues this way, there won’t be any way to repair her. Carter is making absolutely sure of that this time.
Hunter is annihilating the baku.
Carter looks triumphant. He fist pumps the sky, drinking in the attention from the crowd.
But there’s more. Something is happening on the arena floor, something my eyes can’t take in fast enough for me to understand. There’s a flash of shadow, quick as a bullet, entering the damaged hole in Hunter’s side. The boar falters, twitching and convulsing, as something is destroying him from the inside out.
Carter’s face is a picture of confusion and horror, his jaw hanging open, watching as his baku’s stats drop to 0% – utterly ruining any chance he would have of using his baku in the final round. ‘What the hell is going on?’ his voice is a high-pitched shriek. ‘Gemma!’ he yells to his captain. ‘Attack whatever is doing that!’
I lean forward against the barrier to get a better view. Then a face emerges from the hole in Hunter’s side. A face that stops my heart. Jinx.
The boar collapses to the ground as Jinx hops out, barely a scratch on him.
Gemma’s tiger drops into a low pounce, her jaws snapping and snarling. But Jinx is impossibly nimble. With a few moves, he’s darted around Stripe, sliding underneath her belly and gutting the baku so that her electronics are entrails on the arena floor, her stats plummeting to 11%. Gemma has no choice but to pull her baku from the battle.
‘Lacey, what are you doing?’ Tobias yells, grabbing my arm, but I can’t look at him yet. I’m transfixed by the battlefield.
It’s all happened so quickly, the other bakus left on the field – Oka and Lizard and Bones – are still locked in battle. Frank pulls Bones from battle at 22% – still within repairable range.
Everyone is confused, the crowd tittering, Mr Baird and Dr Grant gesturing frantically at each other, all wondering who the rogue baku on the arena floor belongs to – but the few people who recognize Jinx all have their eyes tuned on me. Including Tobias. I finally risk a glance at him. The look on his face turns my stomach. His expression is thunder and confusion and even a bit of fear. All his carefully laid strategies – everything we discussed – have fallen to pieces.
I’ve changed the game.
Or rather . . . Jinx has.
Jinx stands, hackles raised, staring at Oka. Jupiter is behind him, saved from total annihilation, still attempting to stand upright. I remind myself that these are robots, not real animals – even as it pains me to watch Jupiter attempting to fight until her very last percentage point. Ashley pulls Jupiter from the arena before any more damage can be done.
I turn my attention to Mr Baird. He can black-mark Jinx, put a stop to this right now. Tobias is looking over at him too. But Mr Baird is looking at Jinx, his brows knitted together in an expression of anger . . . but also a hint of curiosity. Then he draws up the microphone and announces: ‘There are still two bakus remaining in the arena. The battles continue.’
I swallow, hard. That means that Jinx and Oka are expected to fight. But how is that possible? We’re on the same team. At least – I think we are. Tobias looks at me with disgust, pacing backwards until there’s physical distance between us, and I wince.
‘Jinx! Come back here!’ I finally find my voice.
‘Well, aren’t you going to go in?’
I spin around to see Jake, who’s standing behind the team box. He’s looking at me with one eyebrow raised. ‘I’m not impressed that you didn’t tell me you were the wild card. You know that this is going to ruin all my bets today. You owe me one, Lacey Chu.’
‘The wild card? But . . .’ I’m torn. I don’t know what Jinx is playing at, I don’t know what a wild card team is, but I do know that I need to somewhat pretend that I am in control of the situation if we’re going to keep up any semblance of normality. I have to go along with it. I avoid admitting or denying anything with a shrug of my shoulders.
‘Good luck, Lace. You’re going to need it.’ Jake smiles at me encouragingly – probably out of pity, to counteract the waves of animosity slamming towards me from Tobias’s direction.
I take a deep breath, then vault up and over the barrier. I drop down into the arena, landing with a thud. I walk into one of the circles. As I pass Kai, he hisses in my ear: ‘What do you think you’re doing?’
‘Nothing,’ I murmur as I move inside a circle. ‘This is all a big mistake, I promise you.’
‘Yeah, I don’t think your promises means very much right now. Shame I’m going to have to destroy your little baku. He was a cool one.’
I step into one of the silver circles. My face flickers up on to one of the screens, my fear and nerves writ large. Under my name are the words: WILD CARD.
It’s as if this has all been planned.
And once again, I’m the one that’s in the dark.
Jinx, what is going on?
>>I couldn’t let Jupiter be destroyed.
Even though I know he entered the arena to protect Jupiter, I’m filled with fury. Especially as now he’s going to have to take down Oka.
Let’s get this over with, then.
Oka doesn’t stand a chance against Jinx. Jinx knows every move Oka is going to make before Kai does – he knows all of his weaknesses, all of the ways to bring him down in the minimal number of moves. And Jinx is ruthless. He doesn’t stop at 25 or 30%, giving Kai an opportunity to pull his baku. He takes it all the way down to zero.
But of course, Kai thinks that it’s me. Any good will I might have built up over the past month evaporates with the final wicked swipe of Jinx’s paw that levels the husky baku.
The whistle sounds. The audience is stunned into silence – there’s no roar of applause. Unfortunately, I can hear every single one of my heartbeats resounding in my ear, loud as gongs.
Mr Baird is illuminated in the centre of the arena again. ‘Well.’ He clears his throat. ‘That was an unexpected turn of events. It appears that we had a wild card entry into the Baku Battles. That means there will be one additional team for the Baku Battles final at Moncha HQ this year.’ He looks down at me. ‘I hope that you and your baku are up for the challenge. At least, you’ve done well to start. Team Lacey – your team has been awarded two hundred points for winning the second round of the Baku Battles. The other teams have twelve hours in order to challenge you for a share of the points. Although, by the looks of things . . . I don’t think that’s going to happen.’
I suppose I’ve got my chance after all.
The chance to compete for the summer internship. To go behind the scenes at Moncha HQ. I’m the captain of my own Baku Battle team.
A team of one. Against an entire group who hate me.
I WISH THAT JINX COULD PICK ME UP AND fly me away to some faraway island where no one kn
ows me. I would give up my left arm to not be sitting at a desk on the front row of Mr Baird’s classroom, my butt falling asleep on the hard plastic chair, Jinx nonchalantly licking his paw at my feet, while the other team captains gather around Mr Baird’s desk and yell.
‘It’s not fair,’ says Gemma. She jabs her finger in my direction, and I think if she’d had a sword long enough, she would have stabbed me right through the heart with it. Instead, she suffices with pointing at me with her Shellac-ed nail. ‘There’s nowhere in the rules of Profectus Baku Battles that states this is a possibility.’
Mr Baird shrugs. ‘The rules are pretty clear when it says to expect the absolute unexpected. And there is a precedent with wild card entries – it’s a decision that comes from the upper echelons of Moncha Corp. It’s all registered in the system. I’ve taken it up with the Profectus board, and though they find it highly unorthodox, they don’t see a problem with another team competing at this stage. Don’t tell me you are afraid of a little competition, guys,’ he says, rubbing his unshaven chin, his shirtsleeves rolled up and stained with oil. ‘You still have until the morning to fix up your injured bakus to try and take back some points.’ He turns to Tobias. ‘Your team pulled off a miracle last round. Shouldn’t be too difficult to do that again, should it?’
I swallow, hard, not daring to catch Tobias’s eye. We both know he won’t have the companioneering skill to fix the broken bakus. I was his secret weapon.
Mr Baird continues. ‘Besides, almost all of you have level 4 or higher bakus left. Shouldn’t be a problem to defeat Lacey’s level 3.’
‘That’s right. Stripe was already weak by the time your baku entered the arena,’ says Gemma. ‘That was a cheap move coming in at the end. You must have known about this for ages. How long have you been preparing that strategy?’
They all turn to look at me now, and my cheeks burn. I didn’t send Jinx into the arena, is what I want to say. But that would open the door to questions I’m not prepared to answer yet.
Or, to be more accurate, questions I don’t know how to answer yet.
Jinxed Page 16
