Mutation

The Tournament of Swords

Cling! Cling! Cling!

The sound of clinking metal awoke me from my stupor. I'd been staring into space as the first rounds of our tournament started. My eyes were burning so for a few moments, all I could do was blink.

Why are we having this tournament again? I wondered to myself. Oh yeah... Our academy was trying to find the strongest fighter. Why? To choose weapons first.

I looked around the gymnasium. It was a large room with square mats laid in periodicity around the gym. They were originally wrestling mats, but the worked for our purposes too: sword fighting. Or, in some cases, knife fighting.

This tournament was to decide the order in which we would pick weapons from the school's supply. We had trainee swords now, but the ones under the schools were fancy and had lots of abilities. I needed to get first pick.

We were an aggressive school, and by the second law of our world they had to teach us how to defend ourselves. Most of us didn't have the "magic" that the others had, and those that do aren't very skilled or have weak abilities. Quite a few of us have interesting mutations, though, so some of the teachers think there is a chance we have magic. A small chance.

My mutation is not as special to others as it is to me. Others can use their magic to do what I have to do with pure skill: flying. And I would probably do it better.

I followed the "teacher" who was motioning for me to follow her. I don't know why they even insisted that we call them teachers. They didn't even really teach us anything.

I followed her anyway. She led me to a mat in the furthest corner of the room.

This mat was older than the others. It's green surface was crackled and had lots of stains. It was worn down at the edges from lots of use, probably why it was in the corner.

The teacher who I was following was Mrs. Hoy. She had black hair, hazel eyes, and pale pink lips... And a tan lizard tail. It waved back and forth behind her, constantly moving for some reason. I wonder if it moves in when she's trying to sleep.

"Okay, Ashlyn. Your first opponent is Daxton." She pointed to the person on the other side of the mat. He looked at me and drew his sword. I did the same.

My sword was a crappy one. It looked like it could fall apart any moment. The blade was a dull silver color and the hilt was made of wood. The blade had many marks from where I had clashed swords with people. I'm actually surprised it hasn't shattered all ready.

We both stepped into the circle. I raised my sword into an defense position as he slowly raised to attack. I smirked and quickly leaped out of my defense position and lunged, jabbing twice quickly near his stomach. He thought I was gonna defend, so he wasn't ready.

He tried to defend against my attacks, just barely deflecting the first strike, but I nicked his right side with the second one. He was off balance and clutching his side with one hand, so I leaned back and kicked at him.

He brought his sword up to defend himself, but I was ready. Bending my leg, I hit the sword so that the arch of my foot was pushing against the flat of his blade. I extended my leg just as I hit to get maximum push. He fell on his butt out of the circle.

"Winner!" Mrs. Hoy shouted. Daxton stared up at me in surprise.

Daxton looked down at his side for a moment, where a thin line of blood had inched it's way down his waist and bloodied his light blue shirt.

"Holy crap!" Daxton shrieked after his initial shock was over. He got up and stared into my dark red eyes.

And then he reached behind me and touched my wings.