The spirit of Devfronds

28. We meet the mysterious guard

"Our first contestant, daughter of the noble house of Olympia, Kiara!" The announcer announced. Okay, that was a very bad pun.

Kiara took a deep breath and walked into the doors, where a crowd of people were standing. The stage was very high, with twelve seats in the centre, and others higher up for the coaches etc.

She was wearing the land uniform, a green full shirt, stretchy black pants, leather jacket and combat boots. 

She had a bow and arrow on her back.

"Daughter of the noble house of Vincent, Emerald." 

"Son of the noble house of Phoenix, John."

"Daughter of the noble house of  Whitewood, Clarisse." 

And so it went, entering the water creatures after them, with their blue shirts, and everything the same as the land. 

And then, Susan's name was announced. Liza whispered, "Remember, chin up, back straight. You'll be fine."

"The daughter of the noble house of Knight, Susan." 

And she went in, in her white, cloud like shirt, with her golden-blue bow swung across her shoulders and similar quiver across her shoulder, he couldn't help but think of Artemis. 

"Son of honorary rulers of the air kingdom, representative of royals, son of noble house of Mckay, Calvin." He had just a moment to be confused about the added titles, before he was ushered onto the stage.

The spotlight found him, and he could feel the stares of all the people in the audience, and his cheeks warmed up. The spotlight followed him, and he didn't let his inner stage fear show. 

He went and took the seat beside Susan. 

The spotlight left him, and he was left in darkness. He leaned in to Susan and said, "You looked perfect."

"You looked like a tomato." Calvin's eyes widened, "I could tell because I know you well enough. You're lucky your light was red, it was fine." 

He heaved a sigh of relief. Unknown to him, was that somewhere in the staff, he had caused a turmoil, and he was going to face the tornado soon.

Lily and James walked onto the stage, both looking like they owned the world, and normal lighting returned, putting all twelve of them in even lights.

He felt the judgmental gaze of everyone on him, and he couldn't help but feel nervous. How did the games work? How did the ranking go? 

Was it going to be a knock out tournament, or a round robin one? Or maybe a combination type. Despite training for a whole month, there was so little he knew about the actual tournament, it made him feel nervous.

Which wasn't a lot, it didn't take a lot to make him nervous, but still...

On the other side of the castle, a guard called in favors to be replaced as Calvin McKay's personal guard.

A man, wearing a smart white shirt (what is it with elementals and white shirts?), brown pants, and a flowy red capes, walked onto the stage. He smiled at the contestants, giving each of the contestants a second of eye contact, before walking to the middle of the stage. 

"Good evening, audience!" He spoke, in an announcer voice, "Welcome to the second Inter elemental tournament!" 

Cheers erupted in the stands. 

The guard sat impatiently in Calvin McKay's room, listening to the announcer speak.

"I know, I know. The details about the tournament are about as unpredictable as what angels would say, but here we are, at the tournament. Now, some basic things you need to know.