Competition day came around fast. We did the five mile run and then everyone went their separate ways to shower and get ready. The corridors were pretty quiet. Everyone had gone to the gym early to get seats and the rest of the class was soaking up the fame. Might as well let them live it up while they can. Crushing defeat can be kind of humiliating after all. This was going to be so epic. I had heard the shit that they were saying about us and I wasn’t going to feel bad about my group wiping the floor with them. I opened the cafeteria door, and found them gathered there waiting and they looked fucking awesome. Madam Nines had done an awesome job on the leathers. Everyone had their weapons and they looked bad-ass! This was going to be so fucking awesome. I wish I had a camera. This must be what parents feel like when their kids go off to college.
“Everyone ready?” I asked looking around. I was met with a round of nods. Everyone was in the zone. “You know the plan, go in fast and put them down hard.” I said leading them out of the cafeteria. Just before we walked out the doors I turned and quickly said “But let’s not permanently hurt anyone though okay?” That at least got me some laughs. It was a real concern though.
It wasn’t far to the gym and we had fallen into a formation as we went. Kyle was by my side. Liam and Sykes were slightly behind and to our sides. The rest of the group were in two lines of three. Britt had the centre of the rear line and had fallen slightly further back guarding the rear. When we reached the gym door, we didn’t even stop, we just strolled straight through and the noise which we had been able to hear from half way down the corridor fell into complete silence. There were a few giggles and some were whispering but most just watched us with intrigue. The rest of the class sneered at us superiorly and it took genuine effort to not just laugh in
their face. A marked arena had been drawn out on the floor in the middle of the gym. We took position on the nearest side. The rest of the class were already on the far side facing us. Caleb and the headmaster were on our right hand side and the bleachers which were filled with the rest of the school were to our left. A section of the front row had been left empty, presumably for those who would not be fighting. I already knew that there were three years of students at the school and that we had only about fifty in our year from the fighting class. That left probably about a hundred students sat in the bleachers. Most sneered at us. Some looked on with pity. I don’t think that there were many who looked like they thought we had even a chance at winning. No one that is apart from Trent who I spotted in the second row and what looked to be about three of his friends. He was pointed over to me and clearly filling in his friends about what he had seen. When he looked across at me and met my eyes he gave me a sheepish smile and I smiled and gave him a nod before turning my attention back to the arena. I felt Kyle bristle beside me and murmured across to him “Don’t worry honey just scoping out any other potential recruits.” I looked up into his eyes and leaned slightly into him, now was not the time for PDA’s. He smiled down at me and gently bumped my shoulder with his own.
Caleb stepped forward into the arena and addressed the rest of our class. “The nine members of the first year class who have been chosen for the competition step forward into the ring. Everyone else take a seat in the bleachers.” He shouted. Caleb stepped back to where he had been stood with the headmaster and they murmured quietly to each other while the rest of the class sorted themselves out. I saw Sex Shop Barbie and her friends take a seat in the front row of the bleachers with everyone else. Isaac, the douche bag, was unfortunately one of the nine remaining in the ring. The headmaster looked over at us and gave us a respectful nod. I really needed to take that meeting with him to discuss my magic more but if I was honest, I had been avoiding him.
The headmaster stepped forward and took the same position in the arena that Caleb had to address the school. “As you all have heard we have an experiment running with the first year fighting class looking at some different training methods. That experiment has morphed into this
competition. Caleb has continued with the same training method you’ve all had. Aria here has taken a select group and introduced a different method. If Aria’s group prevails, we shall be introducing an Elite training scheme to the school.” He nodded across to me and I grinned back at him. I saw one corner of his mouth twitch. Yeah, he knew we had this in the bag. There were a couple of murmurs that ran across the bleachers. Most were no doubt people talking shit about us. I glanced over at Trent’s group. He was nodding to his friends and they looking sceptically at him. At least we had one person who believed in us. I wish I could watch all their faces as my group wiped the floor with the others but I know I won’t be able to tear my eyes away from the fight.
“Elites!” I shouted and my whole group snapped to attention. It was so fucking awesome. “Discard your weapons and take position.” Everyone removed their blades and placed them on a few of the empty seats of the front row of the bleachers next to where we stood. I glanced over at Britt and raised one eyebrow “All of them.” I pointed out and she grinned and removed a dagger from her left boot. We were basically made to be best friends. Everyone took up the position we had already discussed. The three guys made up the front row forming a barrier between the other fighting group and our girls who were stood behind pretending to look nervous. I moved to the side line keeping my back to the bleachers. I wanted a side on view to see how the manoeuvre looked when they performed it. I stood with my legs braced and arms crossed, Caleb was directly opposite me and seemed to have adopted the same position. This must be awkward as hell for him and I would have to make sure that I spoke to him afterwards to make sure that there weren’t any hard feelings. While we didn’t have to adopt any kind of tactic to win this competition, I’d still made sure that everyone knew what they needed to do to be as efficient as possible. This was going to ensure that we put them down fast and assured their humiliation. I should probably feel bad, if anything I just felt a little giddy and my magic was like a warm embrace as it gently rose in anticipation and support for my fighters.
“On three,” Caleb shouted. The other group didn’t even bother to take any position. There clearly wasn’t a plan. They just stood wherever and I’m
pretty sure one of them was just flexing his muscles. Gross. “Let’s keep this clean” Caleb warned. At his warning I saw the look on Isaac’s face. They may not have had a plan as a group but he sure as hell seemed to have one. “One …” everyone tensed, “two …” my girls were doing a good job of looking afraid, it was almost comical, “three!” Caleb shouted. My three guys took two steps forward and the entire other group, as we had known they would, ran to them. Just as they were about to collide the girls split into two groups of three and took off down the sides of the arena, and that was it, before anyone had even had the chance to throw a punch, we had them flanked and surrounded. They were too stupid to even realise their mistake. My nine closed in squeezing the other group into close quarters and the fight began. Kyle, Liam and Sykes took out one each of the other group with just one punch each. Isaac had fallen back into the middle of the group. The fight was brutal and three members of the other group were down in the first few minutes. Caleb had chosen his biggest and strongest fighters. All men. It made no difference at all. Britt had swept the legs from one of his fighters and dropped a knee into his chest. While he was curling up, no doubt struggling to take a breath, she lunged forward and delivered a brutal punch to his left temple and he was out like a light. As she looked up Isaac was the next in her sights with his signature sneer on his face. He deserved far worse than what she was about to give him but at least this way she wasn’t going to get any blow back from the teaching staff. Just as she climbed to her feet and took a step forward I felt magic rush past me and saw the ground in front of Britt freeze just before she could put her foot down. As she stepped forward her foot slipped out from under her and she fell down to her knee saving herself from sprawling out on the ground. I whipped around in a rage. Someone was interfering and of course that person was the first that my eyes landed on, who was stood at the front on her feet, with one fucking idiotic hand still stretched out in front of her. Sex Shop Barbie had no fucking sense at all if she thought this was going to have a happy ending. The fact that she would dare, that she would come after mine. My magic flared and the rage slammed into me. I strode towards her seeing red. Her friends had the sense to take a step away from her. She didn’t even have the common sense to look scared. She just sneered at me and lifted her other hand. A blue ball of shimmering light shot towards me. The rage that had me storming towards her wasn’t going to let that stop me and with my left hand I batted it away. It flew away from me and slammed
into the gym wall, blue electricity crackled across the surface. At least by this point she had the sense to look worried, whilst everyone in the stands around her quickly moved away. They could see what was coming. If she had any brains she would have dropped to her knees and begged for my forgiveness. Instead she lifted her top lip in a sneer, pulled back her hand and this time threw a ball of fire straight at me. My magic flared higher. I had never ridden a wave of rage this strong before. My left hand automatically whipped out in front of me again and this time I caught the fireball. Everyone gasped. I didn’t see what all the fuss was about, it didn’t even hurt. It did look pretty with the way that the flames curled around my fingers though. It looked even prettier when I crushed it and the sooty magic crumbled like dust between my fingers and fell to the ground. Now she looked fucking terrified. Grabbing her by her collar I hauled Sex Shop Barbie towards me. My magic wanted to bury a dagger in her heart and twist but I satisfied my rage by pulling back the other hand and punching her straight in the face. Her nose crumpled underneath my fist with a satisfying crunch, blood spewing over her face and her eyes rolled back in her head as she immediately passed out. My fist bunched up in her shirt prevented her from collapsing to the ground and I left her dangling from my hand. I glanced over my shoulder back at the arena and seeing that the fight was already over I threw her limp body back at her friends. “When she wakes up tell her that the next time she raises a hand against me or mine I will remove it from her arm.” I growled before turning and striding back towards my group. The other group were on the ground. A couple were moving but most were unconscious. Mine didn’t even look like they had broken a sweat. Britt was standing triumphantly over Isaac and a part of me was crushed that I had missed her victory but I knew she would give me a blow by blow commentary later. It had taken less than five minutes. The gym was silent apart from a few murmurs in the crowd. I strode back to my group and gave Britt a congratulatory pat on the shoulder and she beamed a huge smile at me. Kyle took me in his arms and pulled me tight to his chest, dropping his nose to my neck he inhaled my scent.
“If she had hit you with her magic, I would have ripped her arms off.” He growled into my neck holding me tight against him.
“And we would have held her down for you to do it.” Liam said stepping up behind me and rubbing his cheek over the top of my head.
“Well that was definitely impressive” the headmaster said from somewhere behind us. Several staff members had started seeing to the other group of fighters and most of them were starting to struggle to sit up, either having injuries attended to, or drinking some water and looking sorry for themselves. Caleb and the headmaster had walked over to join our group. “I will see that Della is dealt with appropriately. Once she wakes up that is.” He said raising an eyebrow at me. I just smiled at him. These were my fighters and I would stand up for them. In a louder voice he addressed the rest of the school. “Well, it seems that the Elite training program is a definite success.” He smiled over at me. “Aria, would you be willing to extend the program to any other students?” he asked.
I looked around at the rest of my group who were already strapping their weapons back on and were proudly standing tall. “Trent from the second year is taking the Elite’s up to ten, I can take seven more after him.” I said looking into the stand of spectating students. There was definitely a lot of puffed up chests and overinflated egos on display and I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at them. I met Trent’s eyes and gave him a nod and he grinned back at me as his friends patted him on the back and congratulated him. I scanned the crowd and met the eyes of any female student that looked remotely interested. “If you want to try out for a place you can met us on the front steps 5am on Monday morning.” I heard a few remarks about the time and added “If your delicate arses can’t get out of bed at that time then you’re not what I’m looking for.” And I immediately turned my backs on them and gave my attention back to my mates and those stood with us.
“Why seventeen?” the headmaster asked.
“Including myself that gives us three squads of six.” I replied with a shrug. “You will have to break up your original nine.” He pointed out.
“Yep” I said before turning my attention to Caleb who had remained silent at the headmaster’s side. “You want to help me draw up a training plan?” I asked him.
“Sure, maybe you could look over the training with me for the others as well.” He said with a smile and I released a breath in relief. He had known that we were going to win and we had spoken about it before but I didn’t want him to feel bad once we beat his group in front of the whole school.
“Would you like to join us for a drink Caleb?” Kyle asked him, just as the back wall of the gym exploded inwards and all hell broke loose.
