Chapter 23: Competition
"Jane! Jane!" Archer yelled, and Jane gave a small scream and dropped the many books she was carrying.
"Oh my god, Archer, you startled me." She said panting a bit.
"I'm sorry, I just had to ask you- Have you seen Jay or Lonnie?" Archer asked as he helped her pick up her books.
"Ehm, I saw Jay practicing with Carlos and Alex at the tourney field about half an hour ago." Jane said.
"I already checked there, as well as their rooms, the S.A.S. arena and the lunch yard." Archer replied.
"Ehm, well then I don't know. You could try the library, I know Doug has recently been tutoring Jay." Jane offered.
"I'll try that, thanks." Archer said as he ran off.
And so, Archer bolted towards the library, having to dodge numerous students on his way there. Inside, he saw a bunch of other students sitting behind desks, it was nearly exam period. He spotted Aden sitting alone, copying notes on his laptop.
"Hey dude, have you seen Jay or Lonnie here?" Archer whispered when he got close enough.
"Eh, yeah. I think they're further back with Evie and Doug, I believe they're being tutored." Aden replied softly.
"Thanks." Archer said as he straightened up and headed for the back of the library.
He quickly noticed Evie's long, blue locks and approached the group's table.
"Hey Archer." Lonnie said softly when he kneeled down next to their table. "What's up?"
Archer signaled Jay that he should move closer and so he did. "I have just received word from the S.A.S. committee about the situation, and since this type of problem has not existed thus far, they said that they have no choice but to let me join the squad. I can play!" Archer said enthusiastically.
"YES!" Lonnie cheered as she jumped up from her chair and passionately hugged Archer. Many people had looked over when they heard Lonnie and started getting annoyed when she didn't lower her volume.
"This is fantastic! We have our squad now! This will be it, the year we finally bring the championship back to Auradon!" Lonnie squealed, and she was immediately shushed by all the other students.
"Guys." Evie said. "I'm really happy for you, but would you mind taking the noise and excitement somewhere else?"
Jay and Lonnie hastily grabbed their stuff and headed back out the library with Archer.
"When did you hear?" Jay asked as soon as they could speak freely again.
"Just now, the committee sent an e-mail with their declaration and they even threw in the entire book of regulations and restrictions." Archer answered.
"Haha, how nice of them. So, when will you be allowed to join the team?" Lonnie inquired.
"Ehm, I believe right away. The e-mail said nothing about restrictions on that." Archer replied.
"Amazing! I will schedule an emergency training for this evening right now. Both of you better be there!" she said with a pointed finger.
"I'm afraid I already have plans with my girlfriend at that time." Jay said smoothly, which caused a slight blush to form on Lonnie's cheeks.
"No excuses." Lonnie replied before briefly kissing Jay and then walking away.
"It's great to have you on the team man." Jay then said to Archer as they headed for the lunch yard. "We might even go undefeated this year."
"Don't count your wins yet. I have never played S.A.S. under official rules you know. Who knows, maybe some other school has got better fighters." Archer said.
"You may have never played an official match, but you're probably the greatest swordsman in the world, there's no way any simple S.A.S. player can beat you in a one-on-one." Jay said.
"I would like to think so, I do have a reputation to uphold." Archer said with a smile.
"I imagine that it will probably be a bit different from swinging Excalibur in a real battle." Jay grinned.
"Yeah, in a real battle you don't have to worry about making fouls." Archer replied.
"Imagine if you would be allowed to use Excalibur in the ring." Jay said with a dreamy look. "No one would even come close to standing a chance.
"I know, it sucks that I'm not allowed to bring an extremely powerful and ancient magical heirloom, which is literally sharp enough to cut through steal, into the S.A.S. arena. Who would have thought right?" Archer replied with sarcasm.
Jay laughed as they entered the lunch yard. Suddenly, Archer heard someone call his name.
"Archer! Hey! Archer!"
He looked back and saw Chad sitting on one of the tables, surrounded by a few other guys. Archer and Jay approached him.
"What is it, Chad?" Archer asked.
"Well first, congrats on making it to the team." Chad said as he shook Archer's hand.
"How do you know?" Archer asked.
"Lonnie just said it in the group chat." Chad replied, and he showed it on his phone. "Secondly though, why did you have to announce it today? Now Lonnie has planned an emergency training for tonight! I had planned to take Audrey out on a date tonight! What would you have me do now, eh?" He asked agitated.
Archer couldn't help but grin. "Move the date and hope she'll be understanding?"
Chad's face soured. "Hope she'll be understanding? You obviously do not have much experience with dating."
"Well, that's all I really have to offer. You can't skip training, Lonnie would skin you alive." Archer replied.
Chad shuddered at the thought. "You wouldn't happen to be able to persuade her to move the date? Or you, Jay? You're her boyfriend, just tell her the timing does not work out that well." Chad offered.
Both Archer and Jay pulled up their eyebrows. "Did you just hear that Jay? Chad asked if he could be the one to clean up after training for the rest of the year. How nice of him." Archer said with a twinkle in his eye.
"No! Wait!" Chad said as he put up his hands.
"That is really nice of him. We should tell Lonnie of Chad's selfless offer right away." Jay said with a smile as he and Archer walked away from Chad, his pleas of forgiveness slowly dying away behind them.
"Alright, everyone listen up!" Lonnie said as she addressed the entire S.A.S. squad, Archer included.
It was the evening of their emergency training and Archer and his new teammates had just finished changing into their attire and preparing the arena. All of Archer's new teammates had been psyched when they had heard he would join their squad and had welcomed him with open arms. They were now standing in a circle listening to Lonnie's opening speech.
"First order of business, we have a new recruit. Welcome Archer." She said, and she started clapping, followed by the rest of the squad. "I know he has joined a bit late, but you all know what he can do. I'm guessing that no one really has a problem with him joining. You have arrived quite late in the season though, so today will be a simple revision of all our tactical planning and potential team-ups. As always, give a shout if you see something that can be improved and never fail to help your fellow teammate. Everyone got it? Great! We start with warming up, everyone give me thirty!" Lonnie loudly said, and she blew her whistle.
And so, the training started. Archer and Jay finished their pushups first and Lonnie directed them to start with agility training. This simply consisted of a person standing right in front of you and throwing small balls in your direction, which you would have to dodge. This was an exercise introduced by Lonnie to improve a player's reflexes.
After the warm-up was done, Lonnie and the team introduced Archer to the tactics they had thus far conjured up. An S.A.S. match consisted of three events. A series of one-on-one matches, a series of two-one-two matches and the final match where both teams would take each other on in their entirety.
So far, each of the players had naturally practiced for their one-on-one games by simply playing against each other. Duos for the two-one-two matches had been made and Archer had to team up with Chad. Lonnie, as captain, would be excluded from the two-on-two matches. The preparations for the final match, where both teams would take each other on, were the hardest, both for the team and for the captain. Lonnie naturally had to join the fight, but also had to give council and instructions to her teammates, while the rest of the team had eight different challengers to take into consideration.
When they started the practice for the entire-team match, Archer quickly noticed how most of his teammates targeted him. He figured that they thought they would have a better chance of beating him if they were with more, but Archer had faced much worse odds. He initially had no trouble in beating his opponents but had seen that Lonnie had quite some trouble thinking of a solid strategy when the entire team was playing at the same time. He went up to her.
"I see you're having problems." Archer stated when he stood next to her.
"It's all just too chaotic, we have no real opponents, so we have to practice against each other, while we are actually supposed to help each other against our opponents." She replied with a sad undertone. "Will you help? You've been in the army, surely they've had to do similar exercises."
"True, but we had a larger force to simulate enemies. This is a team of nine! If anything, I would suggest at least splitting the teams up for now, it will be clearer for the players who they're up against and for you to see weaker points." Archer proposed.
"That's a good idea for now, let's try it out." Lonnie accepted.
The team was thus divided into two. With both simply trying to tag every player of the other team. This proved to be a valuable exercise for the players to get to know the strength of others in these matches. Lonnie, who for now stood at the sidelines, was able to more easily spot things that could be improved for both attacking and defending parties. Archer had to refrain himself from personally shouting instructions to his teammates, like he had done in the army, and instead kept giving council to Lonnie, who had eagerly accepted his tactical input.
At the end of the training, every member of the squad was exhausted, safe for Archer who'd had much more demanding exercises in the army.
Lonnie was content. Archer had seamlessly blended into the team and had even made a few pointers for the squad to further focus on in order to improve.
"Great job guys, as you know we have or first match in a week. I will be planning extra training sessions in order for us to be upmost prepared, so keep your schedules free. That's all for now, hit the showers!" Lonnie announced, and the rest of the squad applauded. "Oh, and Chad! Thank you for offering to clear the arena by yourself, that really shows initiative and team spirit." Lonnie said to Chad as she patted him on the back.
Chad gave Archer and Jay a dirty look as the latter two headed to the dressing rooms roaring with laughter.
"Don't be nervous Archer! You can take this guy! You know you can! We all know you can!" Lonnie nervously said as she stood in front of Archer.
They were nearing the final match of the first round and the score between the Auradon Knights and the Warriors of Olympus was perfectly tied at 4 – 4. Archer was up last, being described by Lonnie as their secret weapon. He would face the best fighter of Olympus academy, Axelion, a rumored heir of the god of war Ares.
Archer felt reasonably calm, unlike his teammates. Lonnie still stood in front of him, breathing heavily. Jay was pacing around beside him, shooting constant glances at the other end of the arena. Chad sat behind him, his hands cupping his face and with a dead-eyed expression.
After what seemed like forever, the referee blew his whistle and Archer stood up. Under thunderous applause from the audience he entered the center of the arena, mask in one hand, sword in the other.
Archer looked up and saw Ben, his troop and all the other VK's sitting front row. He waved and gave them a broad smile and they happily cheered him on. All the sounds and images around the arena and the stands became a blur as Archer sized up his opponent.
Axelion was larger than him, about half way between him and Alex. Archer had dealt with his type numerous times in battle and knew they tended to be quite sluggish. This fighter had a reputation though for being notoriously quick and having tremendous reflexes. Archer did not fear him though, he had not been beaten in single-combat for years and knew that fear would only cripple the mind.
He met his opponent in the middle of the arena and shook his hand. Archer gave a friendly smile but Axelion just nodded. The referee stood between them and ordered both to stand ready.
"Assemble." The referee shouted and Archer and his opponent both raised their swords.
"Salute." The referee shouted and they both retracted their swords before lowering the point.
"Masks down!" The referee ordered, and Archer did so, his vision had now now impaired by the impractical slits in the helmet. At this moment, he again noticed the tremendous amount of noise from around him but forced himself to ban them out.
"En Garde!" The referee ordered as he raised a hand and both Archer and Axelion took their fighting stands.
The referee lowered his hand and immediately Axelion jumped into action, coming into Archer with furious slashes from both sides. Archer blocked or dodged all these while taking a few steps back. At the right moment, he fainted left and spun around his opponent while dragging his left leg with him. With his opponent now out of balance, Archer quickly struck sideways, but only found steel on his path as Axelion managed to block his strike. Archer quickly moved back, not taking the risk of coming within the larger man's range. Axelion once again moved into Archer with some nasty strikes, but these were common practice for Archer and he had little trouble evading them. Archer waited a few more strikes before suddenly jumping into action. A loud gasp was heard from the audience as Archer ducked under a hard-left strike, the sword almost gracing his mask, turned around and buried the point of his sword into his opponent's stomach.
A thunderous roar went up from the audience as the referee blew his whistle and Archer moved away from his opponent. He then felt arms around his neck and knew that Lonnie must have jumped him. She was soon joined by the rest of the team as they all chanted Archer's name. He tried to suppress a smile but couldn't help but grin when he saw Jay rile up the crowd.
When Archer eventually got back to the bench, he saw that Ben, Mal and Carlos had all come down from the stands.
"That was incredible! Absolutely incredible!" Carlos said as he gave Archer a fist bump.
"Magnificent swordsmanship." Ben with an air of an expert.
"Would you expect any less of me?" Archer said sarcastically arrogant. He looked at Mal. "What did you think?"
Mal shrugged. "Mwah, I've seen better."
Ben, Carlos, Jay and Lonnie al gaped at her but Archer just smiled. "I believe I have been issued a challenge. Very well, more spectacle in the next round." He stated.
"NO! NO! No spectacle! We just need to win!" Lonnie urged, but Archer pretended not to listen as he performed a few warm up strikes.
There was a short intermission of fifteen minutes between rounds as the teams got together again. With the one-on-one matches, there was a coin toss at the start to determine which team captain would decide the first fighter. For this round there were two-on-two matches, in which the duos had been previously determined and would be randomly chosen. Archer was a duo with Chad, whose fighting style suited Archer quite well.
And thus, the referee eventually called a random duo from each side to the middle of the arena.
As it turned out, Archer and Chad were the first duo from Auradon prep to have their match against an Olympian duo Archer did not know.
Archer and Chad lined up besides each other opposite from their opponents.
"Assemble!" the referee shouted again, and all contestants raised their swords.
"Salute!" he ordered, they all retracted their swords and lowered the point.
"Masks down!" Everyone lowered their masks.
"En Garde!" The referee shouted as he raised his hand and Archer and Chad took up fighting positions.
The referee lowered his hand and they sprang into action. Chad moved behind Archer as he lunched forward. He immediately saw they took their opponents by surprise as they both darted aside. The first plan was for Chad to stay behind Archer and occasionally try to tap in with his longer reach while Archer would keep their opponents at bay. Since their adversaries had spread out however, they had to change tactics. Archer and Chad would now stand back to back, an opponent on each side, and Archer would make a move for his challenger. He did so and managed to drive him back, after which he immediately turned to Chad's opponent. Along with Chad, they quickly managed to disarm and tag him, leaving the other side with just one fighter. The fight was over quickly as Archer simply struck his sword, giving Chad a free shot at tagging their adversary.
The referee blew his whistle and the crowd cheered again. Archer and Chad grabbed and raised each other's hand in a manner of celebration as they presented themselves to an applauding audience.
Archer sat on the bench as he watched his fellow teammates perform. Auradon ran out 3 – 1 winners which meant there would be no need of a tie-breaker match.
After this round, there was once again an intermission of fifteen minutes, but this time none of Archer's friends showed up for support.
They were now in the last intermission. The final round would be nine against nine, complete teams against each other. Lonnie had given up on giving everyone pep talks and instead sat on the ground, silently mumbling to herself. Jay eventually started to worry and softly placed a hand on her shoulder, which she immediately shook off.
"I give up, she's now definitely lost it." Jay said as he joined Archer at the side of the bench.
"What do you mean?" Archer replied.
Jay breathed out loudly. "The past weeks she has talked about this match and nothing else. I believe becoming captain has been quite stressful for her."
"Didn't you have that problem?" Archer asked.
Jay shrugged. "I'm from the isle. I have been in much more stressful situations, I'm sure you've been as well."
"True. Commanding an army is not a proven way to lessen anxiety." Archer said with a vague smile.
Jay laughed when they suddenly heard a whistle and the referee ordered both teams to take position.
"Come on team! We can do this!" Lonnie said loudly as she joined her eight teammates in the arena.
The Auradon Knights positioned themselves opposite of the Warriors of Olympus. They once again raised their swords, lowered them and donned their masks. Archer felt the built-up tension in the entire arena when the referee finally gave the start signal.
The Auradon team immediately sprang into action, standing in a formation conjured up by Archer and Lonnie. They were joined by Jay on the front row, with Chad and his reach just behind them. The other five members took position behind them.
Archer had reasoned that in one-on-one combat, a warrior should always be able to play to his/her opponent's weaknesses. In a battle with numerous contestants however, an army should play to their strengths.
And thus, Archer had been joined by Jay and Lonnie as the strongest possible front and they slowly advanced forward. The Olympians had not counted on this, they had apparently trained on reacting to their opponent's tactics and had apparently planned on taking the group effort to one-on-one fights.
When the Auradonian formation approached however, they leaped forward, hoping to catch them off guard. This didn't work and the first four Olympian fighters that jumped forward had been blocked by the front line and subsequently tagged by those beside it. Within a minute, the opponents had been brought down to five men.
Archer immediately broke loose from the formation and took on two opponents at once, while the rest of the team took care of the rest. His two adversaries struck down on him simultaneously. Archer managed to block their strikes relatively easily before breaking the lock, spinning in between them and tagging them in the process.
When he looked over the 'battlefield' he saw that the rest of his team had also won their fights, which meant that the Auradon Knights had won the clash without any casualties.
The referee blew his whistle and a thunderous applause erupted from the crowds as Archer joined his fellow team members in a large group hug in the center of the arena. Archer scanned the crowd for his friends and saw them all jumping up and down in celebration. He locked eyes with Mal, who nodded and gave him a thumbs up.