"Good morning," she sang.
"Don't you get tired, Ava?"
"Honestly? No, not as much as you, it seems," she replied, smirking.
Well, JiSoo wasn't getting any—not anymore. While her obsessed roommate exercised, she grumbled all the way to the bathroom.
The call of Tortellini's whistle drew every participant to the field. Contestants from all the schools appeared in their tournament uniforms. For this event, Animage wore yellow, Fire-Breather wore green, Kronos blue, and the Bravura students were decked in red.
Tortellini declared the start of the tournament amidst cheers from non-participants in the bleachers.
The field was divided into sections for the pre-games that would narrow down the contestants: the obstacle course, animal soccer field, race track, and war game field, rounded by the bleachers.
Animage's griffin mascot pranced up and down, and cheerleaders could be seen screaming names of their schools and waving fluffy pom-poms.
Ava looked up at the professor section and saw the wide gap left by Matilda. With a pinch in her heart, she stoically glanced away. She wouldn't ruin her day with thoughts of impending doom.
Tortellini ushered in the first contestants: junior league. Ava's blood zinged as she watched them run out to the field. Priya was among them, and Ava couldn't wait to see what she'd do.
"The rule of the game is simple. Don't. Get. KILLLLEDDDDD!" Tortellini screamed in the most playful voice Ava heard the portly professor use. Students clapped, cheered, pumped their fists.
Then the event kicked off with a race for the juniors, and little Priya dominated. Ava watched proudly.
Adrenaline made Ava’s armpits soak through her shirt as she watched them go off at Tortellini’s whistle. She flexed her arms as she ran along with them in her mind.
Ava slapped her palm to her face, disbelieving. The scoreboard showed Priya in her pegasus form in the lead, but the BSA tiger was coming to a close second. The other Animage students were far behind.
“Dude, we’re losing. What is wrong with these kids?” she shouted to a stunned Winta.
Startled, Winta shifted away from Ava, looking put off by Ava’s aggressive competitiveness.
“Winta? Did you hear me? Omigod, we’ll be last.”
“Omigod, it’s halfway to the finish line! Shut uuuup.”
“You are annoyingly calm, Winta. JiSoo is more fun,” Ava huffed, sniffed, and walked away to find JiSoo.
JiSoo was in the front row, hopping up and down--the only place where she could actually see because of her height. By then, the BSA cheerleaders were in front, cheering their classmates on.
“JiSoo, we’re losing!”
“No, Lena’s gaining on the tiger! Look!”
It was true, quarter to the finish line, Lena was picking up against the tiger…quickly. Her feet were in that spitfire speed only cat shifters could get.
“Yeah! Lena, Go! You’re almost there!”
“She can’t hear you, Ava.”
Ava wasn’t listening, she was clapping hard and loud. JiSoo caught her enthusiasm, grinning, jumping.
Priya made it to the finish line just as Lena pushed past the tiger and high-tailed it to the finish line after her. The crowd went wild. As soon as Lena hit the finish line, she shifted back to human, pumping her fists. The awkward, carrot-top girl waved to the crowd, grinning proudly.
With two Animage shifters finishing first they had their first win in the bag.
“That was close!” Ava repeated over and over. She would’ve gone over to congratulate them, but she had to get ready for her own competition.
When it was time for the senior league to go on, Ava led her team to an effortless victory at the races. No shifter even came close to beating the unicorn. Even Tarun, who finished second, was over a minute behind her—almost neck and neck with Kachi the cheetah. Although, to be fair, James performed impressively well as a speedy little hummingbird. Ava silently cheered him on even though he was now her competition.
Next, Tarun and Ava geared up for war games. Elaine and Obis had made it, too, as well as a pair of fourth-year fox twins. She knew there were students under that warpaint, but all Ava could remember were the ogres she had to eliminate at the school.
Tarun noticed her staring and drew her closer.
"I should tell you to give up, but I know you better than that."
Ava didn't look convinced. In short, she was ready to pull off her gloves.
"Would you like to quit?"
"Hey, I thought you weren't going to ask me to do that!"
"I lied, it got you to smile, so I'm not even sorry." He peered down at her sweaty face. "Are you sure you can do this?"
"Consider it done and over with," she retorted.
The referee for the war games was a professor with puffy eyes, snow-white skin, a lean body, and no smile dared cross his lips. He was the Fire-Breather athletic coach.
Ava was joined to a boy with twinkly eyes and a British accent. He grinned at her, those lines crinkling around his eyes.
"Hello, Ava."
"Oh! Hey, Jack."
Tarun ominously cleared his throat when the guy held on to Ava's hand too long, lost in her eyes.
"Prepare to be decimated." She winked coquettishly at him.
"In your dreams,"
"With you in them, losing."
Coach Jun Pyo's whistle interrupted their pitiful trash talk.
Ava, trembling with excitement, stood opposite her opponent of fate, Jack. Tarun faced off with a girl from Kronos.
The game was simple, fight off the known and unknown enemy, claim the flag at the finish line. There was always some variation every year, but Tortellini had taught them something extremely similar this year—probably not a coincidence.
Ava spun around to face the track and noticed some familiar faces on the other side: Kostas, Kachi, Angela, and James, but at the shot of the battle gun, she disappeared into the range. It was only a question of how long it would take now—not if she could do it. Armed with a strong wooden sword, she met every single blow Jack sent her way.
He was impressed, she could tell. Not just in the ever-persistent smile, but in the way he looked at her. Around her, the crowd went crazy. She could hear bits and pieces of the shouts—‘shitty Animage,’ was the only one Ava was intent on correcting as she pushed back against her current enemy.
Out of the corner of her eyes, she could see Coach Tortellini yelling herself hoarse, calling out instructions that Ava chose not to hear.
A perfect dropkick to the shins incapacitated Jack long enough for her to jet off into the track. An arrow whizzed past, dangerously close to her ears. She ducked, quickly, narrowly escaping that one and the next three. Looking back for a moment, she saw Jack shift into a wombat and try to follow her, but his back legs buckled beneath him and took him to the ground. Ava momentarily hoped she hadn't kicked him too hard, but there was no more time to dwell on that.
With her hair flying behind her, screaming with all the pent-up pain and fear from her fight with the ogres surging through her, Ava was unstoppable.
She slashed through the targets, jumped over obstacles, then got to where the flag was being guarded....
...by an ogre.
It’s just a game, just a game… she repeated the mantra as she flew over the last obstacle to him.
As she made to plunge her sword into the monster’s heart, to claim a victory she’d pictured all semester, the sword fell from her suddenly paralyzed hand. A uniform gasp of horror tore through the crowds as their champion stood before the unknown, weaponless.
Beside her, Jack had smoothly slain his troll and was on to the next target. People rose to their feet as Ava, instead of running forward, took the first fearful step backward, and the second, and the third.
The ogre, massive head lolling, chased her down the track, if he touched her, the game would be practically over for Animage—they didn’t stand a chance without her in the finals.
Tarun had already plunged his short dagger into his ogre—hearing the satisfying crunch as it went down. It was with horror that he turned back to see Ava chased by hers. And the rules prevented him from dashing in to rescue her.
By his side, Elaine danced with hers for a whole two minutes, until it went down with a loud thump. Leaving Ava, the sole Animage contestant, on the verge of losing in the worst possible way….
Chased by the enemy.
James, Winta, and JiSoo, stood on the sidelines, watching uncomfortably. They stretched out their hands, held each other as Ava floundered.
“She’s gonna make it, she’s gonna make it,” JiSoo repeated, eyes shut.
“C’mon, Ava!”
“No, no, what is she doing?”
James, dressed in the red and white BSA colors, should have looked odd among the Animage shifters, but he fit right in. Uncaring what his classmates would say, he screamed and rooted for Ava. It was obvious he didn’t regret not signing up for the war games. He would have been terrified facing an ogre. And this preliminary game was brutal. Nope, he was glad he stuck to racing and soccer for the preliminaries, thank you very much.
A few feet away, near the first target, Ava slid down and grabbed the arrow, whirled toward the ogre, and plunged the tip of the arrow into his heart. Her friends, the crowd, the professors exhaled with one breath.
Ava started back to the track, whizzed past the arrows, the flying knives, picked another one, and plunged it into the throat of an unprepared moss-green troll.
Heart in her throat, she whirled around to see how the other contestants did. She was the only one at the finish line, the closest was Tarun, struggling to stave off his own troll.
It took a minute to sink in.
She’d done it—she’d just won.
That same day, as the sun prepared to dip down the horizon, the judges called out the results for the first and second qualifiers. Only two schools would go on to the finals—the Elemental Trials—the following day.
When Levine rose to call out the names, the stadium went quiet.
Ava gripped Tarun’s hand in anticipation.
There was a moment of heavy, pregnant silence as the headmistress shuffled papers on the desk. Her twin, just to her left, was on the edge of her seat, stretching her neck in an attempt to glean what was written on the paper.
Animage needed the victory after all the hits they’d taken within the year. The Feeder, Madame Waters, Tarun’s suicide attempt, the fairy rebellion. Now, if Animage, the host school, didn’t even get to compete in the final trials on its own turf, and at its own centennial celebration, it would be mortifying. The school’s reputation would never recover from a blow like that.
Levine’s voice boomed over the speaker. “The points have been tallied, and I bring you the results of the just-completed Skills Tournament.”
“Whooooooo, yeah!” came from everywhere in the crowd.
“Okay, okay, pipe down… Drum roll, please?” Bills insisted. “Yes, thank you.”
Announce it already! Ava screamed internally. She was going out of her mind with worry. What would her stunt with the ogre cost them? Sure, she won Animage the first two senior-league games, but the war games had been too close. And Bravura had destroyed them at animal soccer at both the junior and senior level. Kronos and Fire-Breather Academy had accomplished some steep wins as well.
“We have two qualifiers bound for the finals, and they are…let’s see...”
“Ugh!!” people groaned.
“Bravura Academy with ninety-two points.”
The BSA students cheered. Everyone else held their breath—or so it seemed.
“And…our esteemed school that has withstood the test of time, Animage Academy with ninety points!”
“Yes!” Ava screamed, jumping into Tarun’s waiting arms. Relief that she hadn’t ruined it completely had her eyes feeling a little hot.
Tarun lifted her clear off the ground and twirled her in a circle.
Animage had held its own.
Now it was time for the real games to begin.
22
The finals were held the following day outside in the grassy field behind the school—not in the same location as the Winter Games or the Skills Tournament. The field was about a half a mile in diameter, and there were several small hills and dips in the land where they could set up the obstacles. Ava stared at the landscape in awe.
It was set up like a giant maze—much bigger than the one in the previous year’s winter games. And the maze was divided into four quadrants, one for each set of trials: Fire, Water, Wind, and Earth.
Alphas played this game, the cream of the crop, so the landscape looked like a maze of hedges, with tall, thick thorn bushes laced throughout, and the occasional trunk of a tree to jump over. The grass was long and lush.
Touring the field in her cat form, the ground underneath was soft and gave way to her weight as she tested each paw before she committed to a step.
On the bigger hills, Ava could see that scaled creatures probably hung down over them, making it nearly impossible to run across without getting hurt.
Across the field were the alpha fox twins—fourth-years—scouting around for the best place to hide. Ava had only ever interacted with them in passing, but they had made the final cut, and would be representing Animage alongside her.
Ava quickly realized that she didn't want to enter this maze blindly. She had to map out a plan for how she was going to tackle different problems as she encountered them and, predominantly, how she would get out of it. She should start pushing forward where she could get a good vantage point of the obstacles so that she could see if any more were ahead of her in the maze. Keeping that in mind, she headed further down the field until she found a small mound to scale so that she could see where she wanted to start. A bare, nearby tree looked like the perfect option.
The fox siblings spotted her and waved. Ava waved back at them and smiled before turning to survey the surroundings. It took a while for her to pick up on what they were trying to tell her, but she eventually saw it. The twins had marked out a path that stretched out surprisingly far in the maze starting from her mound.
Clever foxes. Maybe they'd be worth talking to.
She had just hopped down from the mound to head over to them when a loud voice boomed from the other end of the field.
“All competitors, please report to the sign-up table!” Bills shouted at the top of his lungs—no loudspeaker needed.
Ava looked behind her, and sure enough, the center of the field was covered by a crowd of students and talking teachers. She hurried over with her heart beating quickly.
James was already being shepherded from the table he signed up at. The teachers looked frazzled in the sea of chattering young shifters. Ava hurried over to join him.
“We're all here, so now I'm going to explain the rules of the trials,” Bills began. “I’ll try to keep it short.”
“The first part of the game is a maze race. The maze is about a half a mile, so it’s quite a bit longer than the maze in our last year's competition.”
A murmur spread through the crowd.
“And you will be given four hours to navigate through the maze. You will find that the maze is more intricate than the last one, and you will have to complete each Elemental Trial within it. Then you will be attacked when you come out of the maze on the other side. From there, you have three minutes to climb the hill and escape the attacking creature on the other side.
“For the next and final part, you will be in teams—two from each school, and you and your teammate return to the maze. When the two teams meet at the center, a time limit of thirty minutes will be set, and the remaining team will win. You have to work together as a team to win,” Bills continued. “And that's it."
Bills clicked his fingers and Levine appeared seemingly out of nowhere, holding a wooden chest, like the kind you would keep important documents inside.
“Now, the chest contains ma
gic stones we are about to place within the maze for you to find. These stones each have a different element, and you can use them depending on what you need.” Levine picked up one of the stones. “For instance, a wind stone will allow you to attack with strong gusts, and a water stone will allow you to summon liquid to drown your enemies. You will have opponents aside from one another within the walls of the maze. But having instant power doesn't mean that you are doing well, so let's try to avoid killing your opponent, okay?”
Murmurs of agreement came from the contestants.
“You will find different types of creatures in different areas, so be careful when you go in. You don't want to go traipsing through the forest when you know you will face a Red Acurus, a creature that you can see only with the Earth Stone.”
“What do you mean by creatures?” Another voice rang out from the back.
“An elemental creature is your basic creature, and they are like your minions,” explained the headmistress.
“Minions?” someone asked.
“Yes, minions. These elemental creatures act on direct orders and they obey commands. You can either give them an order to attack, to defend, order them to move to someplace—”
“What are the different types of creatures?”
“They come in a range of the basic elements like earth, water, and so on, as well as monsters that are a bit trickier to deal with.”
“And we can't kill the monster?” asked one of the fox twins.
“You can, but it takes a bit,” Bills interjected, “and the longer you engage with your monster, the more it will lash back. So you have to be careful.”
The students looked down at the stones in the wooden chest.
“Now let’s get on with it while Headmistress Levine distributes the stones throughout the maze.” Bills gestured for everyone to follow, and they all walked away from the headmistress and started to go to a door. As soon as they entered the door, the two teams were separated.
“Okay,” Bills said, “This is your first test. You will see creatures wandering around, and you are not allowed to kill anything that is not your monster. You get out of there once you find your monster, and not before.”
Animage Academy: Year Three ~ The Shifter Academy Down Under (The Shifter School Down Under Book 3) Page 14