Rivals

by Derek Alan Siddoway

  They exited the barrack and started across the dew-covered fields. In spite of his hoodie, Jackson shivered in the brisk early morning. Instructions in the training camp app had told them all to put on exercise clothes and shoes which weren’t exactly the warmest things to wear. Jackson bit back a yawn and resisted the urge to stretch. He felt completely worn out and the day had barely started.

  It soon became apparent that they weren’t the only barrack out and about in the field. Coaches led lines of tamers from each of the barrack houses onto the lawns and battlefields between the training camp buildings. When they’d reached the edge of the grass, Coach Vanova halted them and pulled a whistle out from underneath her jacket.

  “Your first workout is going to be real simple. On my signal, you will release your Djinn and begin running counterclockwise around the training facilities. One lap is half a mile. You will not slow down to a walk until I say so. Any tamer whose Djinn attacks another Djinn will be given extra laps. You are not allowed to engage in combat with any other tamers. Is this clear?”

  “Uh…coach?” Jackson was surprised to see Appleby raise his hand. “I get the whole being in shape thing but, uh, some of us really aren’t built for running. How does this help you know who the best tamers are?”

  A smile that couldn’t be described as anything but wicked curled across Vanova’s face. “Sounds like you want to do an extra mile, Barranco. Leave the assessment to the coaching staff. Any other questions?”

  Unsurprisingly, nobody had any questions, overcome as they were by a burning desire to get away from Coach Vanova as fast as possible. The whistle blew once. And off they went.

  CHAPTER 17

  Jackson knew it was going to be a long run from the start. Although he considered himself in pretty good shape — and he held his Djinn to the same standards, thanks to Briggs’s training — the drama blew up between Scrappy and Asena as soon as they were summoned from their rings.

  It seemed that every time Jackson got them focused and sorted out, one or the other would start the fight up again. A couple of times, he had to completely stop running and pull them apart. This drew the ire of the camp coaches who were stationed all along the perimeter of the grass to make sure that none of the tamers stopped running. Frustrated, Jackson ended up giving constant telepathic commands to Asena and Scrappy in order to keep them in line. If he kept Scrappy flying above his right shoulder and Asena running next to his left leg, they managed to run and not attack one another. At least for a few hundred yards at a time.

  Fortunately, the other tamers weren’t faring much better. Their Djinn didn’t attack their own partners, but with so many Djinn out in the open and passing one another, fights broke out between the different tamers’s Djinn. In one instance, Jackson was nearly blown off his feet by a powerful burst of wind only to stumble again when a tremor ran through the ground.

  Ironically enough, the one person who seemed like he was having no trouble whatsoever was Tak and his Lutrotter and Gruffoat, both of whom padded alongside him at a solid pace. Jackson remembered when he first visited Tak’s trailer several months earlier, the Lutrotter lay lounging in the kiddie pool. Jackson guessed that he was probably the most sane of Tak’s visitors, so his Djinn were probably used to being around odd people and abnormal circumstances.

  Throughout it all, the coaches and their Djinn worked constantly to break up the brawls and heavily berated tamers who couldn’t control their monsters. Jackson fared no better than the rest, but the staff seemed less concerned that his Djinn were attacking each other and not their opponents. Either that or they had bigger problems on their hands.

  This was for the best because Jackson wasn’t sure he’d be able to handle his Djinn if the coaches were yelling at him constantly. Scrappy was a particular deviant and enjoyed landing on Jackson or Asena while they were running — though whether or not it was to cause trouble or just hitch a ride, Jackson couldn’t tell. It was easy enough for him to brush the Magglecaw off with a stern command and a wave of his hand, but things weren’t so pretty when Scrappy landed on Asena. As one would expect, the very instant his talons landed on the Lyote, she twisted around and tried to bite his head off. One time, in the middle of a full-on run, she tried to snatch him off her shoulder. Scrappy leaped away at the last possible minute and circled above her, cackling and cawing with delight.

  And so it went. When he wasn’t keeping his Djinn from attacking one another or injuring him in the process, Jackson chased after Akamu — because while the coaches hadn’t said anything about this being a race, it seemed clear to Jackson that everyone had assumed their place at the head of the pack would be noted and tallied up as a part of their ranking.

  Though Akamu had gotten off to a smoother start, Jackson was determined to at least catch up with him, and for once, the powerful Tandile worked against Akamu. The Djinn was built for plowing through water with ease, not running long distances on land. Jackson could see Akamu’s frustration boiling as he constantly slowed down and waited for the Djinn, his Flogadra screeching with impatience overhead. When Jackson passed them with the fleet Asena and flying Scrappy, Jackson gave a small grin. But he was no fool. As he did so, he made sure to keep a wide berth. He wouldn’t have put it past Akamu to throw in a cheap shot while the coaches weren’t looking. He passed the younger Kaleo without incident, though, and never saw him the rest of the run.

  By the time it ended— five miles later, according to Jackson’s holo-watch — both Asena and Scrappy sported several minor injuries and a solid quarter of each of their hit points were gone. Jackson’s sides ached and his lungs burned from the exertion, but he’d finished within the top twenty tamers in the entire camp. A surprising variety of tamers were among the top finishers, including Tak Rito, who gave Jackson a thumbs-up as he crossed the finish line. As Jackson noted, a lot of them weren’t the same folks who had come in at the top of their respective barracks. Clearly, a lot of this was owed to the fact that some Djinn were horrible running on land, and in many cases — like Akamu — some of the more skilled tamers found themselves constantly having to wait as their weakest link caught up.

  Fiona wasn’t too far behind Jackson (he couldn’t help but wonder what had held her back), and the rest of his barrack trickled in with Appleby coming in near dead-last.

  When everyone finished, the tamers broke back up into their groups and were led by their barrack coach to a variety of different training courses set up both on the campus field and in some of the training building. Coach Vanova and Barrack 4 ended up at an agility course. Remote-controlled dummy-Djinn — large, padded shapes about as tall as a person — and drones swarmed at each Djinn in randomized patterns. Given the number of drones and training dummies, the real Djinn had no way of seeing everything coming at them at once. The exercise tested not only the dodging ability of Djinn but the speed in which they reacted to their tamer’s commands.

  Jackson breathed a sigh of relief when Coach Vanova announced that each tamer would go twice — one time for each Djinn. He could only imagine the total nightmare of directing Scrappy and Asena from the practice attacks while they sought to fight each other.

  The first two tamers went and Jackson paid special attention to the drones and dummies. Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be any type of pattern to their attacks. The training aides worked in conjunction with one another to bring down flying, digging and above-ground Djinn alike. Tamers had to react in the blink of an eye to a rush of one, two or sometimes three drones or dummies beelining their Djinn at once. Most Djinn took a couple of hits and a couple were even knocked out from the exercise altogether.

  When it was Jackson’s turn, he sent out Scrappy first. In spite of his troublemaking tendencies, the Magglecaw performed well — he was only struck once by a drone and managed to evade all the practice dummies. For the purpose of the exercise, flying Djinn had to remain only five feet off the ground so that they could remain vulnerable to the ground-based attacks as well.

 
; Jackson knew from examining Scrappy’s charts that the Magglecaw had high Speed — he’d allocated a sizable chunk of his DJP into Speed himself — but seeing them on display gave Jackson a renewed sense of confidence in his new Djinn. For the most part, Scrappy responded to his telepathic commands with little to no hesitation — at least as well as could be expected from a recently-tamed Djinn. When Coach Vanova blew the whistle to end the drill, Jackson allowed himself a small smile.

  Asena made the drill look even easier. Honed in underground fights, where the rules and Djinn fights were fast and loose, she’d developed a keen sense for incoming attacks and unconventional tactics. While she wasn’t as fast as Scrappy, she made up for it in overall battle experience. When the last drone buzzed away and the practice dummy retreated at the sound of Coach Vanova’s whistle, Asena hadn’t been touched once.

  A handful of the other Barrack 4 students clapped. Fiona wasn’t one of them and Akamu only rolled his eyes. But Appleby was cheering, Tak nodded, and even Moto Rine gave him a small polite head tilt.

  “Well done, Hunt,” Coach Vanova said. “But how do you think you’d do if we put both of your Djinn together?”

  The smile faded from Jackson’s face. He knew he’d have to cross that bridge sooner or later.

  Over the next few days, the tamers at camp sank into a routine: get up, go through training drills all morning and then spend the afternoons working on tactics and other classroom work. After day one, the home coaches joined the tamers for their drills. In spite of his less-than-calming presence, Jackson still appreciated Briggs being there to offer advice and critiques in a gruff, yet constructive, manner, even if he offered no easy way to get Jackson’s Djinn to stop fighting one another.

  “It’s all about trust, kid,” Briggs said, seemingly growing frustrated with the question.

  “I have trust,” Jackson said. “They have trust.”

  “Trust in you, maybe,” Briggs said. “But trust in each other?”

  Jackson opened his mouth to argue but quickly saw the logic. “So how do I get them to trust each other?”

  “How the hell should I know?” Briggs said with a snort. “Ain’t no two Djinn alike. Time is the biggest factor. Were you not under such time pressure to get these two working, I would’ve recommended a slow introduction over the course of a month or two. You had less than two weeks, and your trying to shove them in each other’s faces from the get-go — while the Magglecaw was still injured, mind you — didn’t help much.”

  “A lot of good that does me now,” Jackson said.

  He stopped asking the question after the second day, and while he couldn’t think of a way to get the two Djinn to trust each other during his time at camp without losing significant points, he logged that away in the back of his mind.

  The days of drills continued.

  Nobody mentioned any scoring, but Jackson saw Coach Vanova entering things into her tablet before and after each tamer and their Djinn went through their drills. He did his best, hoping it would be enough to keep his name off of the cut list ever looming at the end of the week.

  After the first day’s agility drills, the workouts became progressively more complex and varied. Instead of simple dodging, many of the courses and exercises involved multiple attributes at once. For example, one drill challenged the tamers to move a large square weight in any direction at least one yard. Appleby addressed the issue by commanding his Moldune to dig underneath the weight until it dropped into a hole in the ground.

  Drills were also personalized for different Djinn body types. Water-Elemental Djinn worked in the indoor pools and surrounding lakes or whirlpools and current pools. Earth-Elemental Djinn worked in a specified section of camp that allowed them to work their Element without fear of destroying some important part of the building. Wind-Elemental Djinn had courses set up on poles high in the air, and Fire-Elemental Djinn exercised in large furnaces and other Elemental setups. All were designed to enhance and strengthen a Djinn’s Elemental Power — at least, that’s what they were told.

  From what Jackson could tell, these drills didn’t do a whole lot to increase the Experience of their Djinn. How could these actually make them stronger if it doesn’t help them increase their levels?

  Coach Vanova smiled at the question. “Now we’re thinking,” she said before turning to the rest of the group. “A good question from Mr. Hunt here. Given how little XP these drills seem to give compared to battles, why bother with any of these when we can go straight into leveling up?

  “You may have grown up thinking that the base number of points your Djinn moves up in each core category when leveled up was random, but I assure you, it’s anything but random. If you spent a large chunk of your time in Level 5 working on Speed, when you make it to Level 6, your Speed will get a higher boost than it would have otherwise. In many ways, it’s actually better for us to work out the Djinn as much as possible prior to battles aimed at leveling them up. It increases their chances of higher stat boosts.”

  Of course, Jackson thought. Briggs had actually told him something like that during their first training session all those months ago. He hadn’t thought to ask more about it, and in the months that followed, completely forgot. No wonder Asena’s base core stat boosts had inched up only slightly in the levels she gained after the invitational. He hadn’t worked hard enough on any specific core stat before leveling her up. Her Experience came mostly from general battles — battles against lesser Djinn.

  “The goal here,” Coach Vanova continued, “is to try and get the most out of the levels gained here. Your Djinn are only low-levels once, and if you focus entirely on battles for Experience, you’ll end up with a sub-optimal partner.”

  At the end of the day, all of the coaches from the different barracks gathered their tamers together for what was called The Challenge. Tamers teamed up with their barrack mates to compete against the other groups in all sorts of games and contests of skill.

  Even just a few days in, Jackson became fast friends with many of the tamers in his barracks as a result of the challenges. He found it interesting that they all seemed driven by different things, and as different as those things were, they all wanted to end up in the same place. He tried not to think about the fact that many of them might not realize their dreams this season or maybe ever.

  The first few days of camp passed by in a flash. In a brief moment of idle thought, Jackson realized he hadn’t felt nervous or anxious since they’d started drilling on day two. He didn’t have time to. Sure, there were the tense moments that came before each new challenge and exercise, but other than that, Jackson’s life operated on a strict schedule: early mornings, workouts, drills, lunch, more drills, tests, the evening challenge, dinner, rehab, and bed.

  Usually tamers were given an hour of “free time” at night. Most used it to further study with their Djinn or do private work with their coaches. Jackson did both, but made sure to save enough time to call his grandma and Kay each night, even just to tell them hi before he went to sleep.

  “It sounds like you’re doing great!” Kay said. Her holographic head beamed through the blue light of the projection. “See, things are starting to look up.”

  “Maybe,” Jackson said. Tomorrow was Friday and he’d heard a rumor that the camp would be posting the new rankings list in the morning — a day earlier than everyone expected. Although he felt good about his Djinn’s performance throughout the last few days, he couldn’t banish the gnawing anxiety.

  “Are Scrappy and Asena getting along any better?” Kay asked.

  “Not really, but luckily, all the drills and exercises have been with only one Djinn. Briggs says it’s just going to take time. I usually get about an hour of free training each night to work on whatever he thinks I need.”

  “Oh? How does that go?”

  Jackson didn’t have the heart to tell Kay the he spent most of it keeping Scrappy from pecking Asena’s eyes out and Asena from toasting the obnoxious trickster Magglecaw with F
ire Bark. Though, on the plus side, so far Jackson hadn’t suffered any serious injures, either, other than a few toasted fingers. Though, according to Briggs, these were the necessary growing pains Jackson had to go through as a tamer — especially since Scrappy was his first new Djinn.

  “It’s easier to introduce new Djinn to each other once your starter realizes he or she isn’t the center of your universe,” Briggs had told Jackson earlier that week. He reminded Jackson of the various scars he had obtained from his Hurricanther in his early days. Hopefully Jackson’s injuries wouldn’t get that extreme.

  “It’s…going,” Jackson answered Kay after a long beat. “I’d better turn in. Everyone says Fridays are a big day before we do half-workouts on the weekend.”

  “Oh…goodnight,” Kay said. He gave her a sleepy smile and the projector winked out.

  The next morning, he awoke to a half dozen blinking texts on his watch from Appleby and a couple of the others. They were all short and basically said the same thing: the rankings were posted.

  CHAPTER 18

  Jackson made his way down to the commons with a tentative excitement. Part of him knew there was no way he could have been cut after his week’s performance but the other half refused to discount the possibility. He chalked it up to the ghosts of his loss in the championship round of the McAllister Invitational and hurried down the stairs. Not one of the texts he’d received from his barrack-mates had included a shot of the ranking list.

  On the bottom floor, Jackson passed by Akamu. He leaned against the counter eating a pear and showing no emotion, even with the morning news.

  “Curious to see where your place is?” Akamu asked.

  Jackson kept walking, but Akamu still got in another parting shot.

  “It was nice seeing you around!”

  Jackson did his best to ignore Akamu and twisted his way through the small crowd gathered around the posted ranking. For some reason, their rankings through the app had disappeared last night and were still absent this morning when the updates had been posted. Jackson guessed it was so everyone had to gather in the common room around screen but it felt a bit cruel for those at the bottom of the list.