by Eric Vall
“Wow! He’s going with the ember eagle right off the bat!” Layla exclaimed.
Sure enough, Braden’s massive ember eagle erupted from the crystal and spread its magnificent wings as he smashed it to the ground. Fireballs shot out from their span and instantly took out a large chunk of the monsters that had gone after Orenn and Petra.
Micha gave him a thumbs up and launched a barrage of short light blasts from his palms. He picked off several of the imps that had broken off from the main stampede, but they were soon replaced with more. I wasn’t a mind reader or telepath by any means, but I definitely saw him swear.
The Shadowscape grew dimmer, and it was obvious that his tactic to rely on the light of the rift was a mistake. It seemed like a rookie mistake, but what did I know? Maybe there had been a more reliable source of light in his previous exam. Whatever the case was, the light in the Shadowscape continued to dim as he drew more and more energy from it.
I had missed whatever exchange happened between him and Braden, but the next thing I knew, Braden’s Ember Eagle had aimed at Micha and shot a fireball directly at his palms. It only took me a moment to figure out what they wanted to accomplish, though.
Micha caught the fireball in his palms and, with what looked to be a mighty scream, was able to redirect the light energy from it toward the slowly thinning hoard. With Braden there, as long as he had the Ember Eagle, Micah had an endless supply of light energy.
“That’s rather resourceful,” Nia commented with a smile. “I bet Braden thought of that.”
“You seem sure of that.” I eyed her out of the corner of my eye and smiled.
“I am,” she replied and leaned her elbows on her knees. “Braden is incredibly intelligent. What he lacks in bravado, he makes up for in book smarts.”
“Sounds like you’ve taken a liking to him,” I teased.
Nia nudged me with her knee. “I like your friends, Gryff.” She paused for a moment, then smiled brighter. “I suppose they are my friends as well now.”
“That is the truth.” I grinned at Nia before I turned my attention back to Braden. He kept his mana focused on the Ember Eagle while it sent a steady stream of fire blazing at Micha. It was a fantastic tactic, but it wouldn’t last forever. The rift was unpredictable. At any moment, a larger, fouler monster could appear.
Then the Shadowscape rumbled again, and as if it had read my thoughts, a giant monster I’d never seen before emerged from the ground. I could literally see the stench roll off of it, a green miasma, as it clawed its way to the surface. Rotted fingers pulled it from a gigantic hole in the ground, and monster-sized maggots crawled from its empty eye sockets. It was a giant skeleton with a rusted crown adorned to its head. There was nothing to hold it in place. It simply seemed to be stuck there.
I watched as the skeleton monster crawled from what seemed like the depths of hell. It had still only emerged half-way and had barely gotten a knee out of the hole.
I glanced to Braden and Micha who had just finished off the horde when they stopped to stare in horror. I didn’t blame them.
“What the hell is it?” I asked, but no one answered me. More importantly, where the hell did they manage to hide such a monster to unleash it into the mock rift?
The monster finally crawled completely from the ground and stood upright. It had to be upwards of sixty feet tall. It was the tallest monster I had ever seen for sure, and for the first time since we found out we had to partake in the Magicae Nito, I held genuine concern for Braden. This thing was no joke and, in fact, made his ember eagle look like one in comparison.
“He’s gonna choke,” Layla muttered.
“No, no. He’s got this.” I insisted as I shot her a quick glare, more for myself than for Braden at this point. “Come on, dude. You can handle this.”
It was at that moment I saw the distinct motion of Braden throwing down another crystal, but what came from it was hard to see in comparison to the other monsters, and that was saying something.
“It’s a… hare?” Nia questioned, and we all leaned closer to see if we could get a better look. Sure enough, it was indeed a hare. Its ears stood straight up, and it had rather large feet, but still somehow in proportion with the rest of its body. What looked to be jagged buck teeth jutted from its mouth. Overall, though, it didn’t look like much. My fear for Braden only grew.
“That’s a jaxare,” Cyra piped up from the other side of Maelor. She looked intrigued like the show had just gotten good, and she bounced her legs excitedly.
“Jaxare?” I repeated, and she barely spared a glance towards me before she looked back to the mock rift.
“They’re a pretty special kind of monster,” Cyra explained. “They don’t look like much, but they have one advantage to them that makes them deadly.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Oh? And what might that be?”
She turned her head to me then with a wicked grin. “They’re already dead.”
“Come again?” I shook my head in disbelief.
“They’re ghosts,” she went on, “so it makes them impervious to physical attacks. Essentially, they can phase right through them.”
“Wow. That’s awesome!” I brightened up and looked back to the rift. If Braden had something like that on his side, it would be interesting to see how he utilized it.
“Their teeth are the real weapons,” Cyra mentioned. “I’ve read that hunters that have the chance to loot them often used their teeth to synthesize swords and knives.”
“Are they that strong?” Nia asked from my other side, and she peeked around to look at Cyra who nodded enthusiastically.
“Only from what I’ve heard, which is that they can slice through diamond without flinching.” Cyra grinned, and Nia sat back again to watch Braden.
“Holy shit.” She mimicked my speech, and I laughed.
We quieted again as Micah managed to somehow bend the light from the ember eagle’s flame to make it rain firecicles. Like, icicles, but with fire. Fire rain. Whatever you wanted to call it, it was cool to watch. It illuminated the rift and ignited the ground around the skeleton monster.
I knew from Arwyn’s class that bone was weak when exposed to high temperatures such as a blazing fire. It made the bones brittle, and thus fragile and unable to remain stabilized. It was a good strategy, but one that would require a great deal of mana if Braden expected to char the skeleton monster from head to toe.
The skeleton monster reared back from the flames and took one of the bones from its body, a rib, specifically, and flung it at Braden’s ember eagle like a boomerang. The single bone alone was almost the width of the fire bird’s wingspan. The eagle managed to narrowly dodge it the first time, but it wasn’t fast enough to escape the return flight, and the bone slammed the ember eagle square in the side on its way back to the skeleton monster. The ember eagle flailed, and although we couldn’t hear it, we could tell that it was in pain.
As it writhed in midair, I could tell that Braden was beginning to lose control of the monster. Having both creatures out when he was only used to having one out at a time had sapped his mana fast, and he looked worse for wear. Instead of risking the loss of control of one of his most powerful monsters, he withdrew the ember eagle, which left only the jaxare.
I looked to where the jaxare had been, but I wasn’t able to find it. My eyes scanned the area around Braden and Micha in search for the tiny rabbit creature, but I came up with nothing.
“There!” Layla pointed to the skeleton monster, and at first, I didn’t notice anything significant other than the fire around the skeleton had started to creep up its legs.
Then I saw it. It wasn’t simply the fire that was devouring the skeleton. The jaxare was on fire itself. It ran at the speed of what my speed slugs could push out, maybe even twice as fast, and it raced up the skeleton’s body. It circled around each ankle a few times, then the knees. It was hard to see for sure what it was doing, but after the monster’s left knee buckled, I had a pretty good hunch.
“That’s ingenious!” Nia commented excitedly, and we all cheered for Braden even though we knew he couldn’t hear us. It was hard not to root for the good guys, especially when they were doing such a kick-ass job. All we could hope was that Braden could feel our positive energy and know we were here for him.
Little by little, section by section, the skeleton monster collapsed. Micha continued to use the light energy from the fire that remained around the skeleton monster to gather a ball of light that grew larger and larger. He was trying to bide his time as much as he could, and Braden and his jaxare were doing all they could to give him that time.
As the skeleton monster shrank to nothing more than its upper body, it started to drag itself across the ground. Its massive hands came down one earth-shattering slam at a time. The ground cracked beneath their feet, and Braden barely had a chance to jump out of the way before a crevasse split him away from Micha. I saw him lift his comm to his mouth, then shake it as though it wasn’t working. Damn, they even replicated the communication interference within the rifts? This exam held nothing back.
The skeleton monster continued to come, though. Bones trailed in its wake as the jaxare chewed off its joints one by one. It wasn’t long before all that remained of the monster were the arms and its head, and that was when Micha unleashed the ball of energy. He reared it back over his head and then let go. It flew at the skeleton monster’s head and made a direct impact. The bone cracked, and I caught a glimpse of the jaxare as it leapt away just as the entire Shadowscape was encompassed in light.
When the light faded, the Shadowscape had vanished.
Chapter 6
At the entrance of the arena stood Braden and the rest of the squad. Everyone was immediately on their feet as they cheered, even as healers that were on deck to check them for injuries and ailments looked them over. Once they were given the okay that there wasn’t anything severely wrong with any of them, they all turned to face the crowd and took bows in varying depths.
“What an extraordinary show, Takers!” the mystery announcer cheered over the rest of us. “Absolutely spectacular!”
The lot of us clapped and cheered, and Maelor pinched his fingers together in his mouth and whistled loudly.
“That concludes the first day of the Magicae Nito!” the announcer man continued. “We’ll see you all tomorrow night for round two! Goodnight!”
We filed in with everyone else and made our way out of the arena. Fireworks were still being set off over the top of the dome, and the vendors had already set up shop again along the path back to the main part of campus. Through the crowd, we saw that Braden and Orenn along with Micha and Petra were being bombarded by people giving them their congratulations and well-wishes. When we finally made it to them, I pulled Braden into a brotherly hug.
“You did it!” I cheered, and he lifted me off my feet as he returned the hug. I could feel the adrenaline rush through his veins, and his heart pumped a mile a minute as he squeezed me. I didn’t care though. I was beyond proud of Braden. He had put his book smarts to use and had come up with an amazing battle strategy.
Braden set me back down, and we went in for a high five.
“Man, you do that kind of thing all the time!” he exclaimed, and we laughed as we completely missed one another’s hands. “It’s wild!”
Layla hopped up on Braden’s back and hugged him around his neck. “I knew you could do it!”
I refrained from informing him that Layla thought that he would choke.
“How did it feel to have that kind of control in there?” Nia asked.
“Surreal,” Braden admitted, “but good. It felt good to call the shots and know my monsters’ strengths and weaknesses and how to handle each thing that came at me.”
I smiled brightly. “Braden, that’s what it’s like to tame the monsters, man. You trusted them, and they trusted you.”
“Yeah,” Braden agreed, then frowned, “but I almost lost control of my Ember Eagle.”
I dismissed his concern though. “You did the best thing you could have in that situation. It’s better to admit that you’re low on mana than to let a monster in your control run rampant, especially if that monster is a grade B beast.”
Nia and Layla hummed in agreement along with my statement.
“Thanks, guys. You all sure do know how to make me feel better.” Braden chuckled.
“That jaxare idea was freakin’ awesome!” Cyra bounded up to him.
“Thanks, Cyra.” Braden properly flushed and sheepishly scratched the back of his neck as he chuckled nervously.
“Man, I’d love to get my hands on one. Is it hard to control?” Cyra nearly burst with enthusiasm. It was nice to see her riled up over something that happened on Academy grounds. If things kept on this way, maybe she would have a change of heart and consider giving it a second chance.
“It’s a little tricky at first,” Braden explained, “but once I got a feel on its energy, it was really easy to maintain.”
“Sounds like you did some good work in there,” Orenn came around the crowd and clapped Braden on the back.
“I couldn’t have done it without Micha,” Braden uttered bashfully.
“Nonsense,” Orenn interjected. “We all have our strengths and weaknesses, and sure, it’s great to be able to rely on your partner, but you have to remember to give yourself credit where credit is due.”
Those were wise words, I thought.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Braden shook Orenn’s hand, but I noticed my response teammate’s face looked white.
“Everything alright?” I asked him.
“No,” Orenn whispered as he shook his head.
“What happened?” Nia asked. “Sorry, but we were all watching Braden and didn’t look at your--”
“It’s fine,” the muscular man sighed and waved his hand. “I made a bunch of mistakes.”
“Mistakes? You?” I almost couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he signed. “I’m sure I’ll be okay, but…”
“What hap--” Nia started to ask again, but he just shook his head.
“I’ll talk to you all later, okay? I want to go find Micha and Petra and congratulate them for carrying the team since I didn’t.”
“Uhh, okay,” I said, and the rest of us stood silently as the big man turned and walked away from us.
“Oh no,” Braden sighed. “I wonder what happened.
“Sucks,” Layla sighed. “At least it won’t affect your score. You kicked ass.”
“Yeah, but Orenn is such a great guy, I hope he passes,” Braden said.
“He will,” Nia said after she cleared her throat. “He’s on the response team. They won’t fail him.”
Now that Orenn had mentioned his other teammates, I realized that I couldn’t see them anywhere, and the crowds had started to thin. I looked up at the sky. The moon hung high overhead, and beyond the lights and festivities, twilight had settled in. It was late.
“We should probably get to sleep ourselves,” I stretched, and yawned as I did. I guess I didn’t realize how tired I actually was with all the excitement. “Worrying about Orenn won’t help us perform well tomorrow.”
“Bed sounds good,” Layla yawned as well and finally slid from Braden’s back.
“You said it,” Braden agreed and steadied Layla on her own two feet as she wobbled. “All the Takers have to get checked out by Meriden before they go to bed in case of injury, though. I’ll catch up with you later.”
“Sounds good to me.” I waved and turned to Cyra and Maelor. “You staying on the campus or heading back to the inn?”
“Nah, we’re headed to the inn,” Maelor responded with a guttural yawn that seemed to vibrate the air. “Bad enough ya got me to stay in an Enclave in the first place.”
“I don’t
hear you complaining when it comes to a comfy bed and good booze,” I retorted.
“Ya got me there, boy.” Maelor chuckled and ruffled my hair. “Go get some shut-eye. Cyra and I can see ourselves out of the Academy.”
“You sure?” Even though I was tired, I had still wanted to see them off.
“Yup,” Maelor insisted and started to usher Nia and me by our shoulders to the direction of the dorms. “We’ll be back tomorrow to watch the little one.”
“He means me.” Layla popped out of nowhere and slumped onto my side. I laughed and hoisted her onto my back. The poor girl could barely stand upright, much less keep her eyes open and hold any semblance of an adult conversation.
She let her legs dangle around my waist and held me close around the neck. It was almost to the point where I felt like I was going to choke, but with a slight adjustment, her arms fell nicely and looped over my chest.
“Get her to bed,” Maelor chuckled.
I nodded. “Get some sleep yourself, old man.” I smiled before I turned, and Nia and I headed back up the path, Layla already asleep on my back.
We were pretty quiet the whole trip. Sleepiness had started to settle in, and I caught Nia more than once trying to stifle a yawn.
When we came to the split between the girls and boys dorms, I looked to Nia. I didn’t really mind if I had to bring Layla back to my room with me, but I thought she might appreciate being able to wake up relatively nearby to her room.
Nia rolled her eyes at my unspoken question, and we somehow managed to get her onto Nia’s back without causing too much of a fuss.
“I have a big enough bed that she and I can fit comfortably,” Nia suggested, and I couldn’t help the smirk that crept onto my face.
“You sure you’re just going to sleep?” I teased.
“Yes, Gryff.” Nia rolled her eyes and shook her head before she turned to walk down her hallway. “This time, anyway.”
A lopsided grin spread over my features, and I chuckled. Maybe I had become a bad influence on Nia Kenefick.
She glanced over her shoulder and winked, and it took every ounce of my tired being not to follow after them. If I did, none of us would get any sleep, of that I was certain. Instead, I kept on my trek to my own room.
