Just when it seemed that they’d never be able to agree on a tamer, Jackson spotted Moto Rine sitting away from the arguing group across the commons. An idea came to him and he loudly cut in on the heated debate.
“Hey — hey! Everyone shut up! Shut it!”
Everyone paused, surprised by the outburst. Jackson suddenly felt self-conscious with everyone’s attention on him. He cleared his throat. “I uh…I think Moto should be our representative.”
The other tamers looked at Moto, who glanced up from her personal holo-feed for the first time since Coach Vanova had left the barrack. “Huh? Oh, sure.”
“You mean you’ll do it?” Hayden said.
“Sure,” Moto said. “If you can’t find anyone else, I can do it.”
Akamu looked indignant. “Doesn’t — is anyone listening to this? Why should we pick her? She doesn’t care if she wins or not!”
“Let’s settle it with a vote, like we talked about before,” Appleby said. He tapped a couple of screen projections on his watch and pulled up a survey app. Moments later, he’d sent it to everyone in the group. “Pick who you want — the voting is anonymous. Sound fair?”
Akamu grumbled something about Djinn battling not being fair, but everyone ignored him. Jackson’s finger hovered over the different options. On the one hand, he knew he had a chance of being the representative for Barrack 4. On the other hand, his nagging sense of doubt made him hesitant. A moment later the feeling was replaced by anger. Why should he doubt himself? Dozens of perfectly capable trainers had already been sent home, and he was still there. He had just as much of a right to lead Barrack 4 as any of them. His finger hovered over his selection a moment and then Jackson tapped the screen, careful no one else saw his vote.
After a couple minutes of quiet pondering, everyone completed their vote and Appleby pulled up the results.
“All right,” he said, scrolling through the results, “It looks like we’ve got three votes for Jackson, one for Akamu, one for Fiona and three for Moto…so there’s a tie.”
“In that case shouldn’t we do a revote with just those two?” Lucia asked.
The other tamers nodded. Akamu just shook his head like they’d all doomed themselves by not picking him.
Once more, Appleby sent the poll out. Jackson stared down at the two names, his and Moto’s. In the first round, he’d voted for Moto. Part of him hated himself for not trusting in his abilities, while the other half told him it would be better to bide his time. No need to show everyone all of his strategies before the final competition that determined the actual roster result. Once more, his cautious side won out and he voted for Moto.
Appleby tapped his projector and the result lit up before them. Jackson: 3, Moto: 5.
They had their champion.
CHAPTER 24
After suffering a restless and anxious sleep, Jackson woke, opting to head down early to squeeze in some extra studying. He was surprised to find Hayden, Appleby, and Fiona all already awake. All three of them gathered around one of the holo-screens and Jackson realized with a twist of his stomach that the week’s rankings must have been posted ahead of the fight. It didn’t take long to find his name down among the bottom ten, in spite of his solid maze run.
“Oh, come on, man. It’s not that bad,” Hayden said when Jackson swore. “You’re not rock bottom — I’m right down there with you!”
Hayden’s comments didn’t help much. Jackson felt he hadn’t done that bad throughout the week — both Scrappy and Asena continued to improve and their team was coming together, slowly but surely. Okay, maybe extra slowly, but Jackson had faith they’d finally passed an important point. Apparently, the camp coaches thought otherwise.
“What’s up — oh, the rankings!” Miguel soon squeezed in around them and seemed pleased to find his name in the middle of the list. “Hey! Not so bad, eh? Man, Jackson, what did you do to piss off the camp coaches this week? You better hope Moto pulls through, you and Hayden are gonna need that immunity, son!”
Jackson caught Fiona’s eye. She didn’t say or do anything to suggest she was happy about his placement, but then again, sitting in the top five, she really didn’t have anything to worry about. With the amount of points Fiona had, it would take a serious catastrophe to knock her out of contention. Jackson knew she was vying for the number one position in camp and she still had a great chance of getting it. He, on the other hand, just needed to find a way to scrape by for another week. It wasn’t quite the way he’d imagined their rivalry continuing in the pros.
Soon, the rest of the barrack filed in and looked at their scores. When Akamu found Jackson’s name, he shook his head and tsked, a dour expression on his face as if he were disappointed in Jackson. “You’re going to wish you’d voted for me to fight by the time the day is over, I think.”
“You’re acting like I was voted the group’s representative,” Jackson said.
“No, but —”
“Just shut up, Akamu. We don’t need to hear it from you this morning,” Moto said, her voice more stern than usual. Was she actually nervous?
Following Coach Vanova’s instructions, they left the barrack at eight and crossed the grounds to the fieldhouse. Inside, the walls and maze were gone, revealing four Djinn battle arenas marked out. One was covered in sand, one with grass, another, turf and the last, pine needles. As soon as everyone was assembled, the camp staff randomly assigned each of the chosen tamers to one of the arenas. Moto faced off against Barrack 8’s Raz Khatri on the sand field. Jackson vaguely recognized him as the first kid he saw tackle the maze the previous week.
The matches were scheduled to take place one at a time. Unlike most of the one-on-one matches between the barracks, these special ones would be fought to KO (“Aww, come on!” Akamu grumbled to himself upon hearing this announcement).
Since Moto was second, Jackson had the opportunity to watch a match between two tamers from Barracks 3 and 6. They seemed evenly matched, but Jackson felt like he would have had a relatively easy time against either of them. A quick glance at his watch made his stomach sink when he saw they were from the less-successful barracks and in the bottom half of the rankings like him. The match ended in just under five minutes when the female tamer from Barrack 6 knocked out the Lambaa and Bobbity of Barrack 3. She’d been lucky and scored a couple of critical hits and hadn’t even needed to use her second Djinn.
When Moto took her place on the sand across from Raz, all of the tamers from Barrack 4 except Akamu stood up to cheer her on. Across the arena, all of the personal coaches for the Barracks 4 and 8 staff watched as well, while a panel of judges from camp staff watched from above in a hover pod connected to the corners of the fieldhouse with cables. A pair of video drones buzzed around the arena, displaying the match on the two big screens located at each end of the fieldhouse. Although the details was immaculate — the screens were larger than the floor plan of Jackson’s apartment back home — Jackson watched the battle itself.
A bell rang and both tamers released their first Djinn. Moto went with what Jackson had guessed was her secondary Djinn, a Scorbble. Raz released a Cryano, a Water-Elemental Djinn that looked similar to Asena.
“Looks like a pretty even match,” Fiona said. Jackson could tell she had a chip on her shoulder from not being voted in as the representative, but she still sat on the edge of her seat, eagerly watching the fight. “The Water and Earth Elements are neutral against each other. It’s going to come down to whoever has the most skill in Plain attacks and which of the other two Djinn have the Elemental advantage.”
The sandy floor of the arena played well into the hands of Moto’s Scorbble, Sebastian, and the Djinn burrowed into the sand in a flash of pincers. A moment later, even his stinging tail disappeared below the ground. Rather than trying to evade the attack, Raz commanded his Cryano to unleash a fountain of water all around it, creating a large puddle. The Scorbble burst through the wet sand in a spray but something about the standing water must have thrown of
f its senses because the Cryano only took a glancing blow.
“That was some quick thinking on Raz’s part,” Appleby said. Jackson nodded, afraid to take his eyes off the fight in case he missed something; anything that might give him an edge over Raz or Moto later on.
The two Djinn exchanged blows back and forth until it became apparent this would be a drawn-out fight between two quality tamers and well-matched Djinn. Jackson noticed that Moto, while commanding her Scorbble with ease, seemed almost bored with the bout. She displayed none of the animation, excitement or focus of a tamer caught up in the heat of the battle. Instead, it appeared she was just going through the motions. He guessed she wasn’t actually nervous this morning. Maybe she was just annoyed with Akamu.
Jackson couldn’t find too much fault, though — no matter how jealous he was of her skills — because it was working. Moto’s Scorbble blasted the Cryano with a face full of sand and then closed in, pincers flailing. Raz lost his concentration and broke off his mental connection, screaming at his Djinn to get clear of the sand. Too late. The Scorbble latched onto the Cryano and struck with its stinger; once, twice. A moment later, Raz’s Djinn wobbled and fell to the ground.
Raz recalled his Cryano and sent out his second Djinn. As soon as it materialized from an aqua green light, Jackson knew Moto had the fight in hand. Raz’s second Djinn was a Tadpog, a small, amphibious Djinn in its Basic form. Jackson guessed Raz had been focusing all of his training on his much more powerful Cryano and had also made the mistake of bringing two Water-Elemental Djinn to camp. This made him extremely susceptible to Wind-Elemental Djinn. And Jackson knew what Moto’s other Djinn was.
Surprisingly, Moto left her Scorbble — down to a third of his HP — out to fight the Tadpog. The little Water-Elemental Djinn hopped into the air on powerful hind legs and let out a large ribbit that turned into a spray of bubbles. Moto sent her Scorbble back into the sand, but the bubbles pursued and didn’t seem impacted by the ground. The Scorbble popped out of the sand a few feet away a moment later and collapsed.
Moto recalled the Scorbble without much concern and sent out her second Djinn — a Zanga. Jackson had only seen her use it a couple of times in passing and raised his watch to get a quick scan as the battle commenced.
Djinn: Zanga
Element: Wind
Zanga is an Intermediate-Form, Wind-Elemental Djinn. Native to the plains of Osmara, Zangas generally live in groups of four or five. Due to the thunderstorm-like nature of their habitat, they’ve adapted over the millennia and are able to create electricity of their own by rubbing their paws together or drying out their environment using Wind attacks.
None of that surprised him. What did surprise him was the Zanga’s level — 23.
Jackson couldn’t believe it — he’d thought the Scorbble was Moto’s starter Djinn based on its level alone, but the Zanga far outpaced it. Jackson didn’t know how long she’d been taming, but doubted anyone in camp could beat Moto’s duo. Perhaps even more surprising was Moto’s confidence. Briggs had told him that most tamers kept their Djinn levels hidden from other users. The fact that Moto didn’t showed that she either didn’t care or wanted others to know just how much stronger her Djinn were than theirs.
The Zanga bounced around upright on its powerful hind legs and threw out a couple of jabs into the air. Two quick blasts of wind struck the Tadpog and buffeted the creature into the sand. Jackson looked at the overhead screen and saw the display showing the Tadpog’s health drop drastically. To his credit, Raz managed to rally his Djinn, who dodged another Breeze Jab and rolled upright. The Tadpog sent a blast of bubbles into the Zanga’s face, only momentarily distracting the Djinn and causing little damage due to the the Tadpog’s Elemental disadvantage. Moto thrust out a hand and the Zanga bounced once and then struck its boxing-glove-like paws together. A boom sounded and a blast of lightning shot out from the connected paws. It hit the Tadpog square in the face and ended the fight immediately.
The rest of Barrack 8 yelled out in frustration. Moto’s Zanga, in addition to having an advanced move set, was also a level higher than any other Djinn the tamers at camp commanded. Many of them yelled out how unfair it was that a Djinn as strong as Moto’s Zanga was even allowed.
“That is enough,” Vanova said. “The battle was won fair and square. If anyone has a problem with that you can head straight to your room and start packing your things.”
Moto walked toward them, completely unaffected by the outburst. If Jackson hadn’t witnessed the match, he wouldn’t have been able to tell if she’d won or lost. Jackson didn’t think Moto was being cool under pressure — it legitimately seemed like she just couldn’t be bothered by it.
On the walk across the grounds toward the barracks, everyone congratulated Moto. Everyone except Akamu, that is, which was par for the course at this point. He hung back from the rest of the group and looked almost as upset that Moto had won as the tamers from Barrack 8. It wasn’t until Jackson entered his room that it finally sank in what the win meant: he would be entering the final week of the training camp. He had a chance of making the roster. All he had to do was make it through the coming tournament.
For some reason, it felt like a hollow victory, though. As Jackson told both Kay and his grandma on the holo, he hadn’t actually done anything. He’d muddled his way through the week, losing all of the lead he’d gathered in the maze and likely only survived the cuts because Moto had given them immunity with her win over Raz. Both Kay and Jane brushed aside Jackson’s comments and gave him variations of the same speech about how he hadn’t made it this far by luck. He tried not to show his frustration and ended both calls with a smile.
It was still only early afternoon but Jackson didn’t want to watch the rest of the barrack fights on the camp holo-feed, nor did he want to hang out in the commons. Miguel, Lucia, Hayden, and Appleby were celebrating like they’d just won the camp tournament or something. Jackson thought it felt a little too premature for such antics and honestly, didn’t want to hypothesize who might face who in the tournaments any more.
A knock came at the door. Jackson rose, preparing himself to tell Appleby or Miguel some excuse about catching up on his rest or needing to get some extra studying. Instead, Jackson was surprised to find Briggs when he opened the door.
“Can I come in?”
“Sure,” Jackson said. He felt a bit taken aback — in the weeks they’d been at camp, this was the first time Briggs had stopped by his room.
After a short glance around, Briggs sat down on the small couch and kicked his feet up on the coffee table. He let out a big sigh and broke out in a rare smile.
“So, how’s it feel?”
“How does what feel? I didn’t do anything.”
“Exactly!” Briggs said. “Best kind of victory. And you’re in the home stretch now. It was touch-and-go for a while there, but I think we’ve got a shot.”
Jackson didn’t really know what to say and didn’t feel like mustering any false bravado to match Briggs sudden and unexpected celebratory mood. Briggs must have seen the look on his face, because his grin faded and he sat up on the couch.
“For crying out loud, what in the hell’s the matter now?”
“I don’t know!” Jackson said in a loud voice. He threw his hands in the air and paced back and forth across the room. “This place is messing with my mind, I guess — I know I should be happy we’ve made it to the final week, but all I can think about is how I wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for a bunch of lucky breaks. The only thing separating me from the cut list is Moto Rine and literally one good performance in the maze — and I still feel like they think I cheated in some way.”
Briggs locked eyes with Jackson for a long moment and then just shook his head. “Are you kidding me? Have you looked around at the tamers in this place? Most don’t have half the talent you do with Djinn. I don’t mean fighting Djinn. I mean just connecting with them. Sure, you hit a bump when your Djinn decided they didn’t want to ge
t along. That’s nothing new — tamers deal with that all the time. You just had the bad luck of it happening right before you needed to rely on them at camp. That’s how the league works. They don’t want the tamers who can succeed when it’s easy. They want the teams of tamers and Djinn who can fight through it. That’s the whole point of camp.”
Jackson opened his mouth with a counter but then fell silent. He really didn’t have anything to say to that. He knew Briggs was right but something kept holding him back, a part of him that hadn’t existed before his loss to Fiona in the tournament. It was as if Briggs could tell exactly what he was thinking.
“What you’ve got to learn to do is shake off the losses, kid. Everyone gets beat. There’s not a single tamer with a completely undefeated record out there. The good tamers are the ones that get over it. The great tamers are the ones who use it for fuel instead of letting it mess with their head. Take it from someone who knows — it’s time you give yourself a little credit and believe in yourself and your Djinn. If you’ve got doubts and you’re holding back, your Djinn are going to know it at some level. They’re going to feel it. That connection you’ve got can be one of your most powerful assets, or it’s gonna doom you because your Djinn are feeding off what’s going on in your head.”
Jackson nodded. He had to admit he felt better.
Briggs stood up and clapped him on the shoulder. “I don’t always admit when I’m wrong, but I was wrong about you. You’ve got what it takes. What you gotta do is get it through your own head. What I tell you and what everyone else tells you only goes so far. It comes down to you. Now, you’ve got one week left. What are you gonna do?”
CHAPTER 25
After the next round of tamers were cut, Jackson found himself in the bottom twenty, number fifty of sixty to be exact. With only one week left in camp, he refocused his efforts on working as hard as he could to get Scrappy and Asena in sync with one another. Each day the pair showed some small progress, but in the back of Jackson’s mind he wondered if it would be enough.
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