It's finally the day of the Quarterly competition. I'm feeling ready for it and can't wait to get started. I never pass up a chance to get to use my elements. Ya, I may be restricted to just wind and nature, but I'll still have fun with it.
There is one thing giving me pause though. My friends, I might have to fight them at some point during the competition. Not only that, they don't seem to be nearly as excited as anyone else here.
"Everything alright you guys?"
Spyro sighs, "ya, we're ok, for the most part anyway…"
I cock my head a bit and look at Cynder to see if she'll give me a better answer.
"You see Sam, the last time we fought, was for our lives…. we're worried that our experience in the war may make us go overboard and seriously hurt someone."
Spyro looks away in shame from the statement and mumbles, "we can blast through these amulet's shields in no time at all. I don't want to hurt anyone…"
It ruffles my feathers a bit, but I try to approach this without sounding annoyed, "Spyro, I've told you this before. You will only hurt someone if that is your goal. And even if you use too much power in an attack on purpose or not, nothing will happen. Did you forget how heavily this place is enchanted? It's virtually impossible for someone to sustain any kind of permanent injury while they're on the school grounds or in its air. Unless of course one of us four decided to use our full power, but none of us want that, so there is nothing to worry about. Just go out there and treat it like one of your sparring sessions. I mean that's basically what it is, but your just putting a little more umph into it."
"You're right, and thanks, for being patient with me. I know that was like the 5th time you've given me that speech today."
"Don't worry about it."
Anyway, today is pretty busy, all of the regular classes have been put off until tomorrow. The air is buzzing with anticipation for the event today. It's literally set up like a festival around the arena. There's food stalls everywhere and dragons of all kinds intermingling. It was almost perfect. Except everyone would always avoid us. Not just Spyro and Cynder, ALL of us. I personally had some mixed feelings about it. On one side I thought it was nice that no one was bothering us, but on the other, we're unwanted.
Spyro and Cynder were both clearly bothered by it. Lumus on the other hand, I couldn't tell, which worries me more to be honest. I was about to ask her when the chimes started. That was the signal for everyone to head into the arena.
"Well, let's do our best guys. Hope to see one of you in the finals!" I head to my waiting section while they go to theirs.
We were told the day before which blocks we were in. Still don't get how I'm the only one from my class in this block. I guess I'll get a chance to fight anyone of them in the finals. I just hope they'll be ok.
It took me about five minutes to travel to my designated waiting room since I made sure we were hovering around theirs. We set it up with the guardians before hand and there will be at least two adults within sight of them at all times while they are in the waiting room. The waiting rooms themselves are spacious, there are benches everywhere and some gem dispensers for after the matches. It's like a football locker room, except without the lockers and a LOT bigger. It's a good 75 by 45 meters. Dragon size yeesh.
That aside, now that I'm alone. I hope I'll be ok… I'm getting a lot of weird looks.
"Hay, Freak, what are you anyway?"
I turn to look at who just called me a freak. It was a bright orange dragon with a yellow underside. Great, a fire drake, I mentally roll my eyes. Anger issues galore. He's got the typical build of a dragon our age and his horns shoot straight back from the back of his head. His tail blade wasn't anything special and his scales were a little dull.
"I don't like being called a freak; so if you want to ask me a question, ask me my name first and try again." I turn myself away from him but he still has my attention.
This drake gets visibly upset from this, "I asked you a question you stupid abomination. Answer it, or I'll put you in your place!"
Yup, called it. Anger issues, most teenage males have it, but fire drakes are the worst. So I continue to act like I'm ignoring him, but I'm not going to lie, I enjoy how easy this is to ruffle his feathers.
This, of course, angers him further. So he oh so logically decides to take a swipe at me with his claws. I flicked my tail and popped him in the nose. He stopped almost instantly and grabbed his nose whimpering.
A dragon's nose is very sensitive and I basically just took a whip to his. So I think he'll be down for a while.
I take a look around the waiting room and I get a few uneasy glances and a couple of glares. I roll my eyes and turn back to this drake who's whimpering on the ground.
"If you're done being a jerk, here" I reach down and he flinches away and I just keep going and heal his nose.
"I don't care to hurt people, but I will defend myself. Anyway, my name is Sam. What's yours?" I reach down to help him up.
He ignores my help and gets up on his own, "whatever", and he turns and walks away into the crowd.
Welp, I tried. So there are about 320 students enrolled and only about 64 decided to participate while the rest decided to do other exams later that week. So there should be about 32 first round matches then 16 second round matches then 8 third round matches 4 fourth round matches and then semifinals and finals. Soo about 60 matches? How are we going to get all of these done by the end of the day?
"Ok everyone! Pay attention!" That's our adviser for this side of the arena, "these are going to be timed matches! 5 minutes for every round except for semifinals and the finals. If time runs out before either contestant is down the one with the weakest shield loses!" So that's how they're doing it so that'll take a little over five hours maybe six for the time in between matches. "Now I'm all sure you're familiar with the rules! You must be wearing a protective amulet to participate and if you disable your opponents you must immediately stop any attack or face repercussions! The same goes for if they yield! Now get ready! We start now!"
Several cheers ring out, I join in on the excitement too. I just can't help myself.
Everyone is good and pumped for this now. However, I soon lose out on the excitement. I just checked the list and I'm the last match of the first round. Great, now I have to wait in here the whole time.
Spyro is up first on their side, Lumus is a few matches afterwards and Cynder is the last on their side. So, if they win, Lumus and Cynder will fight right before the semifinals and whoever wins that should be fighting Spyro in the semifinals.
I hope I make it that far. I may have trained with the Chronicler for six months, but some of these kids had to fight to survive. They have raw experience that I just don't have. My only advantage is my power output. I just need to hit them hard enough to break their shield and not give them a chance to move in. But how? All I can use is my wind and my nature elements. Nature can get me a tactical advantage and wind a speed advantage, but I don't do as much damage as I would like. What to do…. I'll just have to wait and see.
Meanwhile, Spyro and the girls were doing ok. With Cyril and Volteer both being in the room. No one tried anything with them. So all they had to do was wait for their matches in an uncomfortable silence.
This isn't worth it to them though. None of them have a desire to fight. They did it for Sam. He was excited to do this tournament with them so they each resolved themselves to at least try it. He was an unexpected friend, but an irreplaceable one nonetheless. So they each wanted to be good friends in return.
Thinking about it now though, they wonder if maybe they shouldn't be here. No one was being kind to them and Sam would have let it go if they had made it known that they were uncomfortable.
But he's been trying so hard to get them comfortable with being themselves. So they all came to a decision: they'll try their hardest to get to the finals and not just for Sam, but for themselves.
It was time for Spyro to go out for the first match. As he was walking out he turned back to Cynder and Lumus, "I'll see you guys at the semi finals" he flashed a smile and walked into the corridor that led to the arena.
Back over with Sam, who's dying of boredom. 15 matches have gone by and I still can't figure out what to do with myself. I hate that we can't watch the matches ourselves. I wanted to watch Spyro's match. I saw the guy that got his tail whomped after his match and apparently Spyro came up with the same strategy I did. Mind you he probably decided to use a powerful ability rather than engage in a lengthy combat to save his stamina for later.
Hold on a second, the 16th match is happening right now so that means Cynder is fighting. That also means I don't know how Lumus did…. I missed the results of her match.
A few moments later and a black dragoness limps into the waiting area and starts looking around. She makes eye contact with me and starts walking over. I get up and go to her so she doesn't have to go as far.
"Are you ok, miss?"
"Ya, I'm ok, but Elder Treevus told me to come to you to have you heal this for me. If you wouldn't mind that is."
"I don't mind. Here, let me see." I reach down and gently grab her ankle to see what's wrong with it. She hisses in pain and protectively retracts her paw. "Ok it's probably broken, but that's way too tender to touch right now. I can heal it from farther up your leg but it'll tingle a bit while I'm doing it. Is that ok?"
"No, it's fine. Go for it."
I place a paw on her shoulder and begin to send energy down her leg to see what's up. "So, what happened out there?"
"I was fighting Cynder, she hit me mid air and the shield knocked me out mid flight. She caught me before I hit the ground so this isn't as bad as it could have been so I'm ok."
"That's a relief, so I'm guessing you gave her a run for her money?"
"I guess so, but I feel like she was holding back. It kinda made me feel bad about myself, ya know?"
"Don't feel bad. She was only holding back on one element and that was her fear element. The shield can't exactly stop its effects so it has a chance to leave permanent damage and she doesn't want that. So she gave you an honest fight."
"Huh, I never knew. Thanks for that."
"No problem, so you're a shadow dragoness right?"
"That's correct"
"You must be pretty strong to be able to take on someone from the advanced class, you should be proud. And if you want I can talk to Cynder and see if she'll teach you some of the advanced spells."
"Sure, I would be down for that. She seems pretty chill too. The total opposite of what everyone is saying about her."
"Ya… that's for sure. Anyway, your ankle was just sprained pretty bad and there were a couple of pinched nerves so that was what was hurting so much. You should be fine now, give it a try."
She put her paw back on the ground and put some weight on it.
"Wow, I was expecting it to still be a little sore, but it feels perfectly fine! You're really good at this."
"It's nothing special, I just took some extra time on it since you were keeping me company. So, what's your name? Can't very well ask Cynder to teach you if I don't know."
"It's Shade, and your Sam, if I didn't mishear Treevus."
"Yup, it's nice to meet you."
"Hay, do you think you could set up a girls day out for me?"
"Why me?"
"Well, I don't know Cynder and Lumus very well so I would like to get to know them. I've obviously been misinformed so I'd like to right a couple of wrongs."
"Sure, that shouldn't be a problem, but you won't get very much time with her though. Spyro and her are practically attached at the hip."
She laughs a bit at that, "that shouldn't be a problem, my boyfriend is the same way"
"Well what if I keep them both distracted for you two, we can do a guys night and give you girls the evening to yourselves."
"That sounds like a plan, let's talk more after the tournament. Ok?"
"Sounds good."
She waved goodbye and went out to the stands to watch the rest of the tournament.
Now, which match are we on now….
"Sam! You're next! Get ready for your match."
I'm next Huh… WAIT IM NEXT?!
Sorry for the wait on this one everyone. I was helping put up Christmas decorations. Anyway, enjoy the cliffhanger ish end and I'll rush this next one to make it up to y'all.