by Eve, Jaymin
“Usually the fey shields with one of the defensive spells and the vamp runs,” Axl corrects. “The magic user is the one on the attack, more often than not, and the shifter herds them into place so that the attacks are not wasted.”
Wasted. “So if I use one of the attack spells and don’t hit anyone, I’m still unable to shoot again for twenty seconds?”
“Correct, and you will be vulnerable to an attack in that moment because you cannot defend yourself. The prime time to take out the other side is when they have their twenty second hold on magic.”
Okay. Got it.
Maybe.
I was starting to get the vibe that it was very much like paintball and capture the flag, where you protected your flag while trying to steal the other teams. All I had to know now was what we were protecting, what the spells were, and who was on my team.
“Asher and I can’t go together,” I said, looking between our group. I’d been trying not to show my disappointment at that, but clearly I failed.
Asher chuckled. “Technically we can—we’re born of the mixed fey-magic users race and I think we can represent either one of those.”
Axl nodded. “Yep, mixed race players are allowed, they just have to declare who they’re representing and then stick to strengths only from that race. It’s a gray area, but they won’t discriminate against those not pure. So you can go together. Team up with Jesse and Rone and you’ll be a pretty unstoppable force.”
Yeah, if Jesse, Asher, and I didn’t come to blows on the field.
“What about you?” I asked Axl. He was a wizard, and in that case couldn’t be on the team with us.
“I’ll find a team,” he said, “Calen and I will both have to see who needs a magic user.”
Like we’d summoned her, Larissa appeared. I hugged her hard. “Girl, I love your braid,” I said, admiring her thick strands threaded through with glittering ribbons and gems. They stood out against her blond hair and she looked gorgeous. She’d really been rocking new funky hairstyles ever since she went shorter.
She shrugged. “Trying something new.”
“It’s working for you,” I replied. The teachers called for teams to come forward, and I moved into action. “Larissa and Calen or Axl can be on a team,” I said, pushing them together. “Now you’ll just have to find a shifter and fey.”
It didn’t take long. The Atlanteans had always been treated like gods in this school. Long before anyone knew Asher was literally a god. Other supes wanted their approval … their attention. They definitely wanted to be close to them. Calen and Larissa found their third and fourth in seconds, and Axl was dragged into a team of people he seemed to know already.
Calen coughed close to my ear. “Nerd squad,” he said softly, his teeth shining brilliant white in the early morning light. “They keep vigil in the library with Axl when he’s not in our exclusive section.”
I snorted, shaking my head at him.
“Stay in your foursome and wait for further instructions,” a teacher shouted.
Rone and Jesse stepped up shoulder to shoulder with Asher, and I faced off against the three of them, sighing at the sheer volume of devastatingly handsome dude staring at me. How was this my life? Seeing them like this, all together … it was almost too much for my poor female hormones.
Come on, I was only human. Or whatever.
“So, what’s our plan, boys?” I asked, waggling my eyebrows, determined to pretend everything was normal, and maybe, just maybe we could have a little fun. “Are we going with brute strength, underhanded-borderline-illegal combat, or stealth attack?”
Rone’s lips tilted up, and there he was, doing his avenging fallen angel thing. He’d looked the same the very first time I met him, only scarier. His somewhat permanent scowl had eased over the past two years, but he still had a reputation, a rep that might come in handy during our first SSW match. If I knew supes at all, a lot of this game would be won mentally … long before we had to get our hands dirty.
“I think Asher and Jesse on defense, Maddi and me on offense,” Rone said quickly. “Maddi is fast and small. She’ll be able to slip through areas we can’t fit, depending where they hide their artefact. I’ll be quick enough to intercept any of the spells so she can keep going.”
I waited for Jesse to argue, because lately he seemed to just want to fight, but he didn’t say a word. He must have felt the glare I was leveling at the side of his face, because his lips twitched, and he flashed me the smallest smile. For a moment, he reminded me of the old Jesse, my best friend, and not this moody stranger who had taken his place.
It was gone just as quickly though, and he was back to pretending none of us existed.
“You’re team twelve,” the teacher said when he stopped by our group. He reached out and handed Asher a small gold statue. “Keep your artefact safe. If the other team gets their hands on it, you lose.”
It looked like it weighed nothing as Asher held it, but I sensed that it was damn heavy. “We’ll call your number when you’re up.”
He left and a misty magic washed over us. I looked down to find the number “12” emblazoned across my shirt.
I loved magic.
We followed the groups across the soft grass to stand closer to the main field. Once we reached the sidelines, I noticed that it was actually divided into multiple smaller fields. “They’ll play more than one team at a time,” Asher said, watching me while I tried to take it all in. “During a game, you might be rotated into a new territory. You’ll have to adapt, hide your artefact, and keep the other team off your back.”
I snorted. “So basically the only real rule is that there are no rules, and the umpire or ref or whatever you call it can make a split-second decision that screws everyone.”
“Right,” the three of them said together, and I didn’t let on how much I loved hearing them all in sync again. Just for a second.
Hopefully it wouldn’t be the last time.
Chapter 7
Eight teams went out into the four territories, crossing a magical barrier that encased them in their field. Two of the territories were mountains, one a forest, and the last the dark waterway, with snow along one bank and what looked like a steam field on the other. Depending on the race rules around the water, Asher and I would do very well in that area. But we didn’t get to choose.
It was all set out for us.
Team twelve wasn’t called in the first set of eight and that meant I was going to have a chance to watch them all in action. Learn the way I did best: observation.
At first the teams stood in the cleared zone in the center of their territories, one member from each team holding their artefacts. A magic user stood between them, dressed in bright yellow, making it very clear he was the officiate of this match.
“Your spells are as follows,” he said loudly, shooting some sparks into the air. In seconds, words started to form in the blue, cloudless sky.
Attack:
1. Stun (scrama)
2. Fire (firenze)
3. Confuse (amentra)
Defense:
1. Shield (shisense)
2. Camouflage (leta mina cora)
“Remember, you can use any of the spells, at any time, but with each spell you’ll be powerless for twenty seconds after. If you’re hit with a spell, it will stun or confuse you for twenty seconds. Fire will not burn your opponents, but it will send a ring of fire around them, stopping them in their tracks. It can also be used to burn through obstacles and the like.”
I sidled a little closer to Asher. “If we stick together, I could use the first spell, then you, then Jesse, and then Rone, right? And by that time I’d be free to do it again?”
Asher flashed some perfect teeth at me. “Technically yes, because in this game the rules allow vamps and shifters to utilize magic as well. But to be honest, most of the time they don’t bother with spells. It's weird for them and feels unnatural, so they stick to using their race strengths.”
Rone mutter
ed something about not being a fucking wizard and everyone laughed.
“Scowl and look scary,” Larissa said, patting him on the chest. She was in team sixteen, and was nearby, waiting for her chance to go out. “That’s your true strength.”
He tried to glare at her, but she was too adorable to stay mad at. “Is that all I’m good for?” he asked, in mock horror, his eyes softening as he stared down at her. Those icy blue eyes didn’t soften for many people, but they were practically melted pools of azure around Larissa.
Her return smile was so sweet, and that usually meant something asshole-ish was going to come out of her mouth. “You also give a wicked backrub and are super handy at reaching those high-up shelves.”
I loved my best friend. Larissa had come so far from the shy, broken vamp I’d met in my first year, the one shunned for mourning her mother. This Larissa was fearless, and I couldn’t be prouder of her.
Before Rone could retaliate, the matches got underway. The yellow-shirted officiate lifted his hands, sending words and numbers into the sky that indicated the draw system of what team played what. Lines connected those numbers and teams, and I assumed that whenever someone won, the eliminated team would disappear from the magical scoreboard in the sky.
“I wonder if we’ll play you?” I asked Larissa.
She shrugged. “Eventually we might. It’s a round robin style competition. The losing team gets knocked out, and the winners go on to face other winners until there’s only two teams left.”
Ah, that sounded like fun.
When the matches started, I paid attention. The teams directly in front of us—team two and team six—were in the mountain area. The vampire on team two dashed up as high as he could, no doubt planning on stashing their artefact in one of the rocky crevices. Vampires moved with superspeed and he was flashing about, confusing everyone about where exactly he was heading. On the other team, their vampire tucked the artefact into his shirt, heading in the opposite direction.
“How can anyone catch a vampire?” I asked, my eyes trying to track both of them.
Jesse made a disparaging sound and I lifted my eyebrows at him. Not that he noticed, since he was making a superhuman attempt to not look directly at me. He’d only slipped up once in days, and he clearly didn’t want it to happen again.
He did speak though. “Shifters can keep up with them.”
Sure enough, in the next five minutes, the bear shifter on team two, managed to pounce on the vampire from team six, and rip his shirt open. Only to find there was no artefact hidden inside. The bear roared, and it was so animalistic that actual chills raced across my arms. In seconds he was no longer a person but an actual freaking bear. No matter how many times I felt like I was finally getting used to this world, something new would then happen to surprise me.
Like, a two-hundred-pound person, turning into a six-hundred-pound bear.
“He offloaded it somewhere. Not bad,” Asher said, looking impressed. “I never saw it leave his possession, but we don’t have the best view from here.”
The witch on the opposing team managed to shoot a stunning spell at the newly turned shifter, freeing her vampire counterpart. A clock appeared about the shifter’s head; the twenty second countdown was on. The vampire was on his feet in a heartbeat, and with the witch they took off. She had a clock above her head too, unable to produce another spell until her time was up.
“I feel like this could go on for hours,” I said, watching as the teams went back and forth, searching for the artefact. Both vampires had hidden it effectively.
“The artefacts have a scent,” Rone murmured, leaning forward, a gleam of competitiveness in that gaze. “Vamps and shifters can smell it, but they have to get quite close. One of them usually leaves defense to hunt it down if it’s well hidden.”
The other team’s vampire was zooming up the mountain now, the witch right beside him, as well as their shifter. They must have been pretty confident in the hiding place, because all that was left on the ground was the fey chick currently zigzagging across the land, trying to confuse and evade the other team.
On the mountain, team two had spread out, with at least three of their members up there. I couldn’t see the fourth, but I assumed they were trying to find the artefact.
Team two made a big mistake though—they stayed too close to their artefact, making it obvious where the general location was. The moment team six knew, the witch sent out a ring of fire, trapping two of the other team. The shifter took out the third. The vampire only needed about fifteen more seconds to find the artefact then, slamming his fist into the rock and disturbing its hiding place.
His fist rose in the air, gold glinting in the sun. A buzzer sounded and noise exploded around the area. We’d all been watching intently, and I hadn’t even noticed that two of the other fields had finished their first round as well. Only one was left in an endless cycle of pass the parcel with their artefact, while the other team kept trying to stun and confuse to get it back.
“There’s always one team,” Axl said, shaking his head. “Their plan is redundant. No one can win this way, because one team isn’t even trying to find the other artefact. They have all four players working on keeping theirs safe.”
“What happens if no one wins?” I asked.
“After thirty minutes, there’ll be a change up, and the limitations on spells will end for one minute. In that minute you can cast any spell and use any race gift to try and win. Generally, that sorts it out.” Asher’s eyes lit up and I could tell he was hoping that would happen, bringing with it all the chaos.
We didn’t get a chance to see though. Our number was called up. We were against team thirty, so I gave Larissa a hug as we parted. Asher, Jesse, and Rone stayed close to me, all of us stopping on the side of our field. We were not in the water territory—we ended up in the forest zone, and my thighs were thankful that I wouldn’t be climbing any mountains this round. I didn’t recognize our officiate, but he was in their yellow uniform, so there was no way to miss him.
The eight of us gathered around and he ran through the rules quickly again. I almost laughed at the slightly green tinge to the faces of the other team. They looked like first years. Most of them probably didn’t even know how to cast proper spells yet.
I almost felt bad for them. Almost.
When the officiate was done, we went back to our half of the field, and I finally noticed—not sure how I even missed it before—that there was no sound inside here. I could see hundreds of students crowding around outside, but no sound reached us.
“No distractions,” I murmured, forcing myself to focus on the game.
“I’m going to camouflage the artefact,” Asher said as soon as we were huddled together, “and then hide it before anyone even knows I have it.”
I nodded. “You’ll be knocked out magically for twenty seconds, so I’ll go with you in case I need to defend you with a spell.”
“All four of us should stick together to plant the artefact,” Rone said, “only scattering right before we hide it. That way, they’ll have no clue which direction it went in, especially when it’s camouflaged.”
“We’ll have twenty seconds of it remaining hidden,” I reminded them. “Any idea where you want to drop it?”
Our half had forest, their half had forest, and then there was a grassy section that joined the two. “Up one of the trees,” Asher said looking between them. “I’ll search for a hollow to make it a little harder.”
“I’ll find the smelliest plants to stuff around it,” Jesse said, looking focused and determined. He wasn’t even scowling and that was a fucking nice change. “That will limit their ability to scent it easily.”
“Everyone grab a stone,” Asher murmured as the officiate announced the countdown. In three seconds, the buzzer sounded and we were off. “Leta mina cora,” Asher said softly, and then the artefact swirled for a beat, turning into a stone. We’d all picked up stones at the same time, and then we took off. Asher passed me
the artefact in perfect view of the other team—all who’d taken off after us. But I slipped it back to him as soon as we were out of sight.
The timer above Asher’s head was counting down slowly. When it got to five seconds we split. I took off into a particularly dense part of the forest. I wasn’t sure how much of this was real or illusion, but everything felt just as it would in an actual rainforest. Lots of associated scents and noises, even some insects and arachnids scattered around.
I couldn’t hear anyone pursuing me, so I planted my stone first, hiding it in the hollow of a giant tree. Its base was so large it was at least six feet across. I wasn’t sure anyone was watching me, but I played the part like they were.
When I was done, I exited the forest, ending up in the clearing between both sides. I was there alone, not another member of either team in sight—until a vampire dashed past me, and before I even registered what I was doing, I shouted scrama, sending the spell into him. He tumbled down, his body motionless.
I dashed toward him, thankful there was no telltale black shirt and broad shoulders that would mean I’d spelled my own team. I’d reacted so quickly there hadn’t even been time to really see who was running past me.
When I reached the vamp, the countdown clock was at ten seconds, so I quickly flipped him over, ready to frisk him. I wasn’t expecting much, because I figured they’d dumped their artefact straight away, like we had. But as soon as he hit the ground, the golden artefact tumbled out of his hands, and with a laugh I scooped it up and held it high.
They’d clearly thought we were all busy in the forest, and I’d not only ducked out at the right time but had somehow been fast enough with my reflex shot spell to hit a vampire at full sprint. Probably that was an extra skill that most supes didn’t have, but it wasn’t like I tapped into any of my powers. Pure instinct.
Thank you, Supernatural Academy, for developing those reflexes.