The Echoes of Rivalry & Ruin (The Acamancy Series I)

Chapter 22: Two Weeks Until First Quarter Ends

Finding my groove in AEE has been all my life consists of the last few weeks. No matter how insane his bragging, smirking, natural abilities, and annoying nicknames make me, I have to admit that Calum and I make a great team. I find myself saying, well thinking, those words more and more all the time, but I still cringe every time the thought enters my head, which lately is too often. AEE during the off years of real competition allows for solo and team events, you can enter in both, one, or none, but of course I have decided to go all in and felt the need to enter in teams as well as doing all of the solo events.

For Artistry I am doing Poetry Waves. Which is literally what it sounds like: I use the movement of the water with its waves and then form shapes with the waves and the water and I use them to tell a story like a poem. I haven't fully worked out all of the full details and everything but I know that my story will be of my parentage. Starting with my mom and dad, dad leaves, mom and I on our own, helping mom pick up the pieces at a young age, Brian stepping in, Mom's growth, Leo joins us, happy family, all that. And for my Group Artistry I reluctantly agreed to work with Calum and help him with his Ice Sculptures. As it turns out he also enjoys reading fantasy novels and has a fascination with dragons so we will be using inspiration from that to make a massive sculpture featuring a castle, fire breathing dragons, and more.

For Sports I am surfing for my solo sport and pairing up with Baylee and Waverly for synchronized swimming as our Group Sports entry. Battlefield we will be allowed teams of 5 and all of our team is required to be in the same year, so we will be running our Fire Defensive attacks in our group from Defense Against Danger but minus Paxxon. Brynn will do vines alone, we have perfected the slick icy ground so we don't need her grass shifting and that allows her to focus on vines. Mal, Aspen and I have been practicing and we have gotten quite good at projection, and freezing basically everything. Lylah is a master at light reflection and blinds our targets for several minutes with one shot. We really are a great team.

Of course for Knowledge I again reluctantly paired up with Calum. We can have teams of three for some of the Knowledge events, and we have to go solo on others. So while I am careful not to give away too much information of the areas I shine over him so I can still edge him out overall, Calum and I have been shouting quiz questions at each other during Skills, AEE, Defense, and basically anytime we are around each other in order to prep for that portion. Specials are still a mystery. I was able to find some past line ups and get a sense of what it usually is and it seems to be either an event that causes everyone to swap to performing tasks typically done by other Mani's like having Water Mani's throw rocks, Stone Mani's run in a race, Ice Mani's Parasail, Wind Mani's Ski, Light Mani's garden, and Plant Mani's identify constellations, or something like that. That or they will make a level playing field for everyone the best they can by coming up with one event that has no way for any one Element Class to have an advantage,and everyone goes head to head. Occasionally they forget about Specials on off years and they will just do another round of Knowledge for extra points. But no matter what I am most nervous there because I cannot plan it, and I am a planner.

I've been able to keep busy between studying with and without Calum, practicing with the group, and one on one with members, and on my own, training with Theo and Baylee, hanging out with Mal and sometimes Mitch if he doesn't want it to seem too obvious he's still avoiding me, classes, chores, and of course spending time with Paxxon.

Things were a little rocky for a moment there, he disappeared on me again. After that weird interaction with Damon Ashbluff, where he went from overprotective and wouldn't leave my side, to just walking away from class and from me and not seeing me for three days, again, since then things have been back to normal. Paxx didn't do a big surprise apology like last time, but he did show up at my dorm and invited me to dinner that Sunday, we ate at his Oasis and even though I didn't ask where he went, what happened, what's up with Damon, or if he's my boyfriend or not, I still feel good about us. Chef made us a special meal that he packed up in a picnic and we ate in silence, cuddled and looked at the stars, kissed for a while in the privacy of the tree branches, and then he walked me to my dorm. Classes last week went smoothly, we had lunch together a few times, dinner together every day, sat next to each other in classes, he doodled while I studied or read and we just silently kept eachother company for more of the last week and a half. I don't feel weird about it any more, and even though he still hasn't said it, I know I'm his girlfriend and I couldn't be more thrilled about that.