Fated Ones: The Waking God

(3) Pants for the Win

As Zay and Lennon strapped some light armor on me, Leslie gave me a rundown of what was going to happen to me in two hours. "Your opponent's has had since Thursday to adjust to the air here. You have like an hour and a half." He rolled out a rack of weapons and started to go through them. "All you need to do is make him concede to you. No killing or maiming. Most Grandstone brats faint at the sight of their own blood so just try to do it where he'll see it."

"Do what?" I knew the answer, I just needed to make sure it was the right one.

"Cut, stab, slash, as long as it draws the blood," Zay explained as he tightened my shin guards.

"Here," Leslie handed me a battle axe. It had looked like a toy in his hand. I almost dropped it when he gave it to me. It wasn't heavy; the axe was only ten pounds. I just didn't expect it to actually weigh anything.

"Is this real?" All I could do was stare at it.

"Yeah, you want something else?" He held up a sword and a mace (not the spray, like the actual medieval weapon). He was serious. He was serious about all this. At first I thought he was just pulling some elaborate joke on me because of my carelessness with that ninth grader. He was going to send me on my way with real axe and some leather armor.

"I like the axe," I squeaked. Leslie asked you to do this, I had to keep reminding myself. Like I said, if Leslie, if the giant called Leslie Craft that could topple anyone with one punch, needed my help I was prepared to do whatever. Dude was like my idol.

"Thought you would," He ruffled my hair. "Now, when the time comes just go out there and treat that snob like one of your bullies." I still had about an hour and twenty minutes so Andras taught me how to hold the axe and the best way to attack with it and all that jazz. I could barely follow his movements. Like I said, it felt like I was under three hundred feet of water with nowhere to go. It took every effort to just breathe regularly. After my half lesson, Leslie told me to do a few pushups or sit ups. Apparently physical activity helped with the assimilation process. Truth be told, it did become easier to breathe and move a bit.

"It's time." Deon walked in. "Don't lose. Copperview pride is on the line." Gee, thanks for the pep talk. Now the weird air pressure wasn't the only thing resting on my shoulders.

"You can do it." Leslie walked me to the door I would be going through in minutes. "You outdid the best trainees here. All with silly string too. You can handle one punk kid." And we walked out the doors...to a giant freaking arena. I stood there like an idiot, dumbstruck, over how awesome it was. The grounds where all the fighting took placed could've easily held a football field. Seven foot black walls boxed us in and about seven rows of rising seats started where the tops of the walls ended. In those seats were a bunch of well, kids. Ranging from like eight to eighteen. But they were all geared up like I was. The older kids had more armor on, some even seemed to wear personalized armor fit perfectly for their body.

"This'll be over quick," a snort came from in front of me. "He barely knows how to hold his weapon." I looked down to see that I had switched the placement of my hands. Feeling the color run to my cheeks, I quickly corrected it. "Come on Copperview, just make it easier for everyone and forfeit now."

"You're right Leslie." I gripped the axe tighter. "This will be exactly like facing a bully." I walked out onto the field and I heard about a hundred or so boos and hissing all around me. Yeesh. And I thought being a new kid at Copperview was bad. From the all the different ways these guys were glaring and making rude gestures at me, it wasn't hard to figure out I wasn't wanted there.

"Fighters! Are you ready?" A voice boomed. Whoever was announcing was super into it. So, the dweeb fifteen feet away from me held his dagger up high. The crowd cheered. When I held my axe up...I think you can guess what happened. I had no idea why I was fighting some snobby, stuck up brat with an axe. All I did know though, was I was going to beat the crap out of him. A bell dinged and more cheers erupted. No doubt they were all hoping for my demise.