Fight, guys! You’ve got to get out!
Jackson’s eyes followed the green path through its twisting, confusing turns, but he saw no connection to a red or blue path or to a finish line of its own. There had to be a way to beat the maze. Almost two dozen tamers had already done it before him. But where was the green flag? Or, at least a switch or something to change path direction? Nothing seemed to lie ahead on the path but more obstacles and Djinn, either real or projected.
Growling in frustration, Jackson raised his hand to smack the glass on the observation deck and froze mid-swing. The glass was glowing with a faintly green tinge to it. The words of the female AI at the start of the challenge came back to him: “Return your Djinn to the tower when finished.”
A wild thought, a desperate hope crossed Jackson’s mind. He glanced at the clock — ten minutes and thirty seconds. Pushing the stress of the ticking number out of his mind, he reached out to widen and grow his connection with Scrappy and Asena. Both Djinn suddenly halted in their struggles and turned to stare up at him. Jackson pressed the connection further and looked down at the two Djinn rings sitting inside the slots behind the glass.
To recall a Djinn to their ring, a tamer simply had to will it while he or she was wearing the ring. No matter how resistant a Djinn was to returning to stasis, with enough willpower, a tamer could recall them from distance up to a hundred yards — more as technology increased with the gems and smart metals.
Jackson didn’t know if anyone had ever tried to return a Djinn to their ring without actually wearing the rings before, but he was desperate enough to try. As far as he knew, nothing in the rules suggested that recalling his Djinn to get them out of the maze was cheating. He also banked on the fact that the green tower was a finish zone as well.
Instead of sending a command out from his ring, Jackson focused on Scrappy and Asena in his mind while he stared down at their rings. The plan was to will them to return to their rings. Since there was no way he could get to the ring and put them on without breaking the glass. He felt pretty confident that wouldn’t be allowed.
Jackson poured out all of his emotion from the harrowing days at camp, his fears, his triumphs, his doubts, his exhaustion, his hopes. He dumped them into his two Djinn like water into two pitchers, followed by a single command. Return.
At first, Asena and Scrappy just stared. Jackson forced himself to look back at the rings, ignoring the clock. He poured himself out to them again.
The rings twitched.
His focused with all his might, squeezing his face like his head was about to burst.
A flare of light pulsed across both of the Djinn ring stones.
Please, Jackson begged in his mind. Please. For us.
Twin beams of light rose from Asena and Scrappy and shot toward the tower. They passed through the glass covers on the ring and were sucked into the stone before Jackson could blink. The rings shook once, twice, and then the lights faded. A soft hiss of air escaped and the glass cover slide open. Jackson let out a long breath and looked over at the timer as he picked up the rings. It read twelve minutes.
“Nice work, you two,” Jackson whispered under his breath as he sent both Djinn a mental thanks. They responded with glowing warmth; an intensity he’d rarely felt from Asena, let alone Scrappy. He felt his holo-watch vibrate as both of their Bonds increased.
The doors on the opposite side of the observation tower opened and revealed another lift. Jackson stepped inside and the car carried him across the maze to the opposite side of the fieldhouse and down a similar elevator. A long tunnel led him outside and he exited the building just before another tamer’s name was called to take the challenge next.
Outside, several of the camp staff waited, each holding a tablet. Jackson couldn’t read their faces to tell how well or how badly he’d done. He knew time was only a factor, but his twelve minutes should have put him towards the upper end of the pack, as long as his actions with his Djinn hadn’t cost him too much.
Coach Vanova stood with Briggs. Jackson couldn’t get a read on either of them — they weren’t mad, but they didn’t exactly look happy to see him. Almost…intense.
“Well done, Hunt,” Vanova said in a crisp tone. “I’ve just got a couple questions for you. And you’d better tell the truth.”
Jackson didn’t know what to say. Had they found out about Tak’s recording of the tamer times? His heart ran wild in his chest. Was he going to get the shaft because of Tak Rito again?
“What’s going on?” He couldn’t keep the shaking out of his voice. “Did I do something wrong?”
Vanova and Briggs looked at one another. “That depends,” Vanova said. “I’m interested to know where you came up with the idea to recall your Djinn to their rings.”
So he had cheated after all. Jackson explained his thought process, trying to defend his action as best he could. “The AI said to return my Djinn at the finish and I thought the tower was a finish point,” he finished.
“You didn’t get a tip-off from another tamer or a member of camp staff about that trick?” Coach Vanova asked. She still eyed him with plenty of suspicion — Jackson couldn’t tell if his defense had done any good or not.
“Oh c’mon, Vanova,” Briggs said. “Jackson doesn’t lie about…most things. If he says nobody told him about commanding his Djinn to return to their rings, then he’s probably telling the truth.”
“Briggs! You’re not helping,” Jackson said. “No one told me about the return. I was getting desperate and the clock was ticking up. I figured after my slow start, it was worth a shot.”
Vanova stared him over for a long moment as if her withered gaze could withdraw a confession from him like a dentist pulling a tooth by sheer will. “All right. We’ve got to do a bit more digging, but I believe you. Nice work. Please return to Barrack 4. You’ve got the rest of the night off, but you’re not allowed outside the barracks until the challenge is complete for all tamers. We’ll send out an announcement over the app.”
Jackson opened his mouth to argue his innocence even further, but before he could, Briggs grabbed him above the elbow and hauled him away at a fast walk.
“Wait. Give me a minute.”
Briggs said nothing but kept a firm grip on Jackson’s arm until they were well away from the camp staff. At last, Jackson shrugged free, still fuming.
“Cool down, kid.”
Jackson looked at Briggs, face burning. “But I didn’t cheat.”
“Nobody’s calling you a cheat,” Briggs said. “They were just a little…surprised is all. What you did was some pretty advanced stuff. Most tamers can’t do a long-distance recall for years. To do it requires you to really tap into your connection with your Djinn, without the help of tech. That was quite the feat and some quick thinking on your part.”
The sudden praise from Briggs out of the blue took Jackson by surprise. His anger vanished, but he didn’t know what to say or do.
“Don’t let it go to your head, though,” Briggs said. He clapped him on the back and seemed to find enjoyment out of bursting Jackson’s bubble. “There’s still a lot of camp left…but good work.”
CHAPTER 23
Camp staff didn’t make them wait. As soon as all of the tamers had gone through the challenge, the new rankings posted on the app and on the barrack screens. Although he’d known he’d done well, Jackson was surprised to find himself in the top fifteen. Appleby and Hayden were also standouts and placed in the top twenty.
To everyone’s surprise, Moto and Akamu posted their lowest scores of camp. Akamu brooded in the commons, and although he didn’t say anything to them, Jackson heard rumors that the powerful, yet slow, Tandile had wrecked his time. Nobody knew what happened with Moto — she disappeared to her room as soon as she completed the challenge without a word to anyone. There was also one other low score for Barrack 4, low enough they were heading home.
“I’ll be seeing you around.”
Tak held out a hand to Jackson. He smirked li
ked he’d just taken first place, not almost last. His single duffel bag sat at his side and he’d decided to catch the train that night out of camp rather than wait for morning. “I bet you’re glad to see me go, aren’t you, Jack?”
“I’d say it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy, but…”
Tak laughed. “Yeah, you’re probably right. This isn’t over, though.” He gestured around at the finery and high tech inside the barracks. “I was just getting used to the high life. I’m not going to give it up already. Plus, I still need to knock Akamu down a few pegs.”
Jackson shook his head. He wondered if he should send a tip to camp security and suggest they search Tak’s bag before they allowed him off the property. “You’re something else.”
Tak just grinned again and grabbed his bag. He made it to the sliding glass doors and then stopped and turned around. “You know, Jack, I never said it before, but I’m sorry about what happened in the Underground.”
It was the last thing Jackson had expected to hear. “Well, uh, thanks, man. I’m glad you —”
“Not saying I wouldn’t do it again, though,” Tak interrupted with a smirk.
Jackson rolled his eyes. “Glad to know some people will never change.”
“Oh!” Tak said, pointing to Akamu dramatically. “And if you happen to find a bag of Lutrotter crap hidden in your room somewhere, it’s definitely not mine and I have no idea how it got there.”
“Wait, what?” Akamu said, his face slowly distorting into a scowl. But it was too late; Tak was out the door and riding away on a cart.
Any elation Jackson felt about his performance during the maze challenge soon faded when the next week of camp rolled around. Players were given half a day on Saturday and all day Sunday off, but when Monday morning rolled around, it was right back into the fire.
Mornings began with individual exercises and light drills, followed by mock battles every afternoon. Now that they’d established a foundation with drills and conditioning, the focus shifted to the actual strategies and tactics that would be employed in battle. Most of the fights were one-on-one within the barracks and only went until what they called third HP — whichever opposing Djinn got down to a third of its HP first. That reduced the strain and added recovery of knockouts but also frustrated tamers like Akamu to no end.
“Why even bother if we aren’t playing to a KO?” he asked Coach Vanova after she’d ripped him out for going too far with his Tandile in a fight. “They don’t play any of the battles in League to first touch!”
Each time he saw the Tandile in action, Jackson felt a little less jealous that he hadn’t caught the Djinn. The Tandile was a nasty Djinn that seemed perfectly suited for its master. Neither Akamu nor the Tandile seemed overly fond of one another but they did make a deadly duo. Although Akamu had trained with his Flogadra for years, he proved just as lethal with the Tandile.
But Jackson had enough of his own problems to think too much about Akamu’s dynamic with his Djinn. There’d been a shift in Scrappy and Asena since the maze — he wasn’t sure if it was due to the brief expansion of their telepathic connection or their shared trials in the maze, but the Djinn no longer tried to kill one another when in battle together.
Of course, that didn’t mean they were the duo of the camp, either. Instead of attacking one another, both still worked individually to win the fight as if working to impress him on their own. This caused plenty of problems, like when Scrappy would dive in to attack of his own volition right when Jackson commanded Asena to release a Fire Bark, causing the Magglecaw to roast himself and provide handy shield for the opposing Djinn. Asena had run into her share of Scrappy’s Mocking Wind attacks as well when she refused to hold back against a weakening opponent.
Unfortunately, Briggs told Jackson there was no way to mentally communicate to more than one Djinn at a time. Jackson showed quite the skill at his level for toggling back and forth between commands for Asena and Scrappy, but he would have given anything for a way to give commands to both at once. He felt sure that would help the situation.
“Sorry kid, there’s not a shortcut this time,” Briggs said. “You’ve just go to work on their trust, for you and each other. Like I’ve said before, that’s just going to take them battling together.”
On the bright side, though, there were rare moments when it all came together. Once, only partially by accident, Jackson managed to command his two Djinn into a powerful combo move of Fire Bark and Mocking Wind. The resulting Fire Tornado completely toasted Miguel’s Katasolum in one hit.
A vibration on his holo-watch indicated that both Asena and Scrappy had learned Fire Tornado, which sapped both Djinn of 10 EP. He wondered if it would work every time, or if the state of the Djinn’s relationship with one another played a factor into whether or not the move could be executed. Jackson didn’t fully understand it yet, but it was still damn cool. Even the dressing down Jackson got from Coach Vanova for the knockout had been worth it.
In that one brief moment, Jackson felt a small portion of what he assumed it was like for the high-level tamers when they went into a battle. Most of the time, it seemed more like he was unsuccessfully juggling knives.
Although some of the tamers in Barrack 4 complained about the repetitive nature of battling day after day, Jackson couldn’t get enough. To him, each practice bout was another chance to test his Djinn together, to expand his strategies as a tamer and to learn about about some of the opposing Djinn he would no doubt be facing when the camp tournament came around.
When Thursday rolled around, Coach Vanova surprised the tamers with some new information regarding the week’s challenge. They’d known all along that their barrack would be facing off against another but there was an added twist thrown into the mix.
“Barrack 4 will select one representative to fight against a representative of Barrack 8,” Vanova said. “While this will have no impact on your personal scores, the outcome of the match will determine which barracks are given immunity for the third week.”
The tamers exploded in a dozen questions, shouting over one another until Coach Vanova blew her whistle and held up a hand.
“Quiet!” She pointed to Fiona. “You first, Sato.”
“This doesn’t even make any sense,” Fiona said. “What’s the point of assessing only one of us during a fight? How does that help you pick the best tamers? And how does giving an entire barrack immunity make sure only the strongest make it?”
Coach Vanova smiled. “Sato, you think we’ve only been assessing tamers during the challenge days? Every single drill, skirmish and exercise we go through, a member of camp staff is grading how well you perform and how well you handle the task. Barrack immunity might save you this week, but if you don’t perform well next, you’ll still be out in the individual ranks.”
They all looked at one another, clearly confused, although no one else seemed to want to challenge Vanova on the matter. Jackson was starting to think that half of training camp’s purpose was just to completely screw with the tamers mentally to see who could handle the pressure.
It seemed that everyone’s questions had been some variation of Fiona’s because no one else spoke up. Coach Vanova looked at each of them in turn.
“You will decide as a group which tamer will represent you in the challenge. I’ll ask for your selection tomorrow morning before the matches begin. Get some rest.”
As soon as Vanova left, the tamers broke out into a heated discussion concerning who would represent them for the upcoming challenge. Naturally, Akamu was loudest and pushed for himself. When Lucia asked him why in the world he should be the representative, he sighed like it was a painfully obvious fact of life that he was trying to explain to a bunch of toddlers.
“I’m the most advanced tamer here and I’ve got the strongest Djinn. What more do you need?”
“Someone who isn’t a major tool and actually cares about everyone else in the barrack?” Miguel suggested. Hayden, Lucia, and Appleby all nodded.
> Akamu threw his hands up in the air as if he were the victim of a grave injustice. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you wanted to lose. Who are you going to pick then? Jackie boy here, who can’t even keep his Djinn from trying to mate with one another during a match?”
Jackson felt his face turn red and he clenched his hands into tight fists. Akamu loudly pondered to anyone within hearing distance if perhaps Asena and Scrappy didn’t hate each other after all, and instead they were trying to express their raging lust for one another by fighting during battles.
“Hey, that’s not a bad idea,” Appleby said. “ Jackson — why don’t you represent us?”
“Um…”
Jackson didn’t know what to say but before he could gather his thoughts, Akamu cut in. “No. No way am I going to let him lose and cost us immunity.”
“Let’s put it to a vote,” Hayden suggested. “Whoever gets the most votes represents us.”
“I’m not sure that’s the best way to decide,” Fiona said. Jackson looked at Fiona in surprise. She shrugged at him. “No offense, Jackson. You’ve come a long way with your Djinn, but the battle might be scored not only on the outcome but technique and strategy throughout. We can’t afford to lose just because your Djinn decide they don’t like each other again.”
“Oh, and I’m sure you want to volunteer yourself to be the tamer for Barrack 4?” Miguel said, unexpectedly coming to Jackson’s defense before Jackson could even get offended by Fiona’s comments. “I’m not going to vote for you just so you can get a little more glory!”
“Glory?” Fiona said. “Since when have I ever been about glory?”
“Yeah, thanks for the back-up, Miguel, but that’s never really been Fiona,” Jackson said.
“Who said I was backing you up?” Miguel said. “I mean, I guess I am, but I’d just like someone who hasn’t had everything handed to her on a silver platter her whole life represent us.”
The next few minutes descended into complete chaos as the tamers argued back and forth with one another. Whenever someone seemed to reach a solution to the problem, someone else found an issue with it. The longer the conversation went, the more Jackson didn’t want to be the tamer picked. But he also didn’t want to see Fiona or Akamu selected to represent them.
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