Mystic Grove Academy

9- Tournament Blitz: Earth Elemental Battle Royal

The Next Day (Wednesday, October 31st):

Earth Elemental Studies Class - 2nd Year (1st Block) - Marcus P.O.V.

Oh man, it's Halloween and it's time for the Mud-Ballers Battle Royal! Every Earth Elemental in my class is in it because it's part of our grade for our class. Anyway, since yesterday, the talk of the campus is about Marcie and the fact that she pulled off a successful armatization has everyone with a spirit wanting to do the same. From what we were told last class, the battle royal will be split into groups of twenty with a time limit of thirty minutes or whoever's the last one standing. The bell rings starting my first class of the day and our teacher, an old frail white guy we call Mr. McConnell, walks to the middle of the room as we're seated around him. "Okay, you crazy kids," he starts out with us watching him intensely, "today we're going to do something a bit different to get you all ready for tonight's battle royal." We all wonder what he means when his hands suddenly glow a deep green as the room changes into an open, grass field (our teacher is something else). "By practicing in this here field."

"What exactly are we doing?" a white girl to my left speaks up wondering the same thing we all are.

"You will practice your moves in this field under my watchful eye and that of our Element Leader." Mr. McConnell stands aside as Mystic Earth Leader Mikaela stands next to him. "She will work with a select few of you who show promise to the top of our Element. Those she selects will work with her for the entire class. The rest of you will spar with your designated partner so get to it."

I decide to wait on Earth Leader Mikaela because knowing my team's connection with the Leaders, she's probably going to ramp up my training today; she hinted at this the last time we met after the fiasco with Mara went down. "What are you waiting for?" this guy's voice gets my attention. I turn around to Manuel Ennis, my best friend outside Elemental Storm. "Why don't we just start sparring already?"

I hate it when he's impatient; maybe that's why he always loses to me when we do spar. I shrug my shoulders wanting to release this built-up energy I have ahead of tonight's battle. Just when I take a offensive stance across from Manuel, a hand on my shoulder shifts my attention behind me. I turn around seeing Mikaela smiling at both of us. "I see you're eager to get started," she tells me in front of Manuel and three of my classmates she obviously gathered. She pushes the five of us into a group in front of her. "You five will do nicely. Now, I want you five to try and land an attack on me."

I know what's coming now. In my training with the Earth Element Leader, she always starts out with me trying to nail her with an attack but it's going to fail but nonetheless, I do it anyway so she knows what to work on. I don't know what relationships my best friends and teammates in Elemental Storm have with their Leaders but Mikaela is hardcore when it comes to our Earth Element. "Is she serious?" one of the girls in this group whispers to me.

"Like a heart attack," is all I answer as I focus my power. I always try to use a different attack every time we train and today is no different. I plan to try out some spells I've been working on that I'm going to use tonight. "I'll go first and by the way," I glance at Manuel and the three girls behind him, "don't hold back." I turn to face our Element leader cracking a smile as I do the same. I let the power build around me as I prepare to show off one of the new spells I've created - with Mikaela's help of course. "Dance of 1000 Vines!" I call out as these small vines spring from the ground. I send them to Mikaela as they continue to split into more vines.

And of course Mikaela raises her hand. "I see you've been working on this," she drops hints from our recent training session but the others behind me have no clue, "but you still have a long way to go, young man," she smirks back. "Petal Shield!" she calls out stopping my attack well short of her.