Chapter 12

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       "Alright children! Welcome to Sparring 101! I'm gonna cut to the chase, this is not going to be a bird course. Meaning you are not gonna fly right through this without putting any effort. This class is not for the faint of heart. You're gonna work, you're gonna sweat, and you better believe you're gonna bleed at some point." 
       "What is this, boot camp?" Mary whispered. I shrugged.
      "Now! Whatever those tour guides told you, could be true. But they probably didn't say anything about starting combat training."
My heart dropped. I thought he did. Didn't he?
  "It is true that we don't know what type of fighter you are, and we don't know what you can handle. So we can't tell you what armor or weapons you need."
     I let out a sigh of relief. Well, that's a relief. I didn't have to have my armor today.
     "But don't worry! We do have some spare equipment for sparring." He announced excitedly.
Wait, what?
      He then gestured at the equipment closet behind him, which was filled with a bunch of old armor. They definitely didn't look like they were created equal. Some was made of metal, others were made of leather-some of it even looked like equipment fit for baseball and football players.
       "It's not the best," he admitted, "but it does the trick. Now, what you need to walk out with: you need a helmet, body armor, and since we are strictly working on hand-to-hand combat today, you need to wrap your wrists and feet to prevent sprained ankles and wrists, yadda yaada yadda. It's up to you if you want to put on more, but you will be docked points if you don't have the bare minimum on. Everything in this closet is first come first serve, so if you want something specific, you better be the first. When you're ready, meet me back on the ground floor." Our professor, Professor Price, then walked toward the entrance to the ground floor of the arena. I was bracing myself for the shoving that come after the words «first come first serve». But there was no ruckus or roughhousing at all. Once he was out of the way, our class casually walked into the closet to pick out their armor.
      "Well then," Mary exclaimed. "I don't know about you, but I thought we weren't doing this until we figured out our fighting types and stuff first."
     "I thought so too," I admitted.
    "What is he thinking?"
    I looked at her as we exchanged confused looks on our faces. Mary shrugged and walked into the room as soon as someone filed out.
      I watched her search the shelves and racks as she casually decided what she was going to wear. "I guess this is how he's gonna try to find out," she concluded.
    "Doesn't it seem a bit sudden?" I walked in with her and began looking, not really knowing what I was looking for or at.
    "Are you kidding?" Mary asked, exasperated. "It's like a Baptism. With fire." She then tried to put on a helmet that had ear holes that matched up with her ears.
     "So this is new to you too?" I asked.
     "Kind of. But, then again, I've never taken a class where I was graded on my fighting skills."
     I nodded, and then proceeded to look, and saw some tape and gauze. I then tried to look for a helmet. All of the good ones were gone. What was left was what looked like an open faced boxing helmet. My heart sank a little when I saw the helmet protected everything except the top of the head, just like any other boxing helmet. I guess they got this from the human world as well. But how am I supposed to protect that part of my head? I sighed. "It'll do" I muttered as I grabbed it off the shelf.
"Here, try this." Mary then handed me what looked like a female police vest. I took it, since everything else looked heavy. "Thanks."

"Alright, now that we're all ready, let's get started. This is going to be a random draw. I'm going to choose someone random people to fight and we're all gonna watch. You each have about 3 minutes since it took you guys a while to get ready and I wanna try to go through everybody. I am not going to interfere with the matches! Also, no magic! This equipment is not the best and not everyone is covered properly. Besides, I wanna see what combat skills you got without using magic."
Oh thank goodness! Despite my small amount of knowledge on combat, at least I had a chance.
       He then directed his attention to the chalkboard on the wall behind him, which had everybody's names written off to the side. Everybody had ten tallies next to their name. "You will be docked points on this grid, which will lower your ranking in this class. You fall too low and you will be kicked out of the program. This ranking counts as your grade."
        Well that's great.
"Your rankings also sent for the guilds so they can decide to scout you."
        What in the world is a guild?
"Um, Mary?" I muttered. "What's a guild?"
"It's like a club. A very competitive club."
"Like a Sorority? Or a Fraternity?"
She squinted at me. "What's a Sorority?"
He put his hands together and rubbed them together as he scoped the class. "Without further ado," he pointed at two people, "you two. Go! Whoever double taps first, loses the match. The opposing person will then gain a point. Or, we as a class will decide who won the match when your three minutes is up." He then took out a pocket watch from his gym shorts pocket. The two students he chose jogged to the middle and got into their ready positions.
He held up his free hand. "3, 2, 1," as he said "go!", his free hand fell, and the two chosen students began to fight.
"Are you nervous?" Mary asked.
"A little..." I admitted. "I've punched bullies before when I was little, but I've never gotten into a mutual fight with someone."
Mary nodded, taking in my words.
"Are you?" I asked.
She shrugged. "Not really. I've wrestled with my brothers in and out of form. But I've only won on a few occasions."
"Oh really?" Someone chimed in, in a mocking tone. I turned around to see none other than the Brown Haired clown and his two long-haired goons.
The brown-haired leader continued. "And did you ever think that maybe you won only because they went easy on you?" He smirked.
I turned to look at Mary. Her ears were pinned back and her eyes were squinted. She looked determined to end his smart mouth from flapping.
I turned toward him. "Ooh!" He held his hands up in surrender. "Are you gonna teach me a lesson? Crumb-picker?" He then laughed. His minions didn't wait for long to join in.
My blood began to boil. I didn't need a dictionary to know he was obviously trying to get under our skin. But of all the things he could've said, Crumb-picker? Really?
       He continued. "I don't know which one's worse: the dog eating the scraps, or the Scrapper who picks up after the dog with her own hands. Disgusting."
I tried to remain composed. "I suggest you stop flapping that mouth of yours if you know what's good for you." I said, not controlling my iron tone.
"And I suggest you make me. What makes you think I would listen to a witch who doesn't even know how to use magic? You're better off cleaning up after me behind my feet like a beggar."
I had enough at that point, and I did something that I haven't done since I was little. Before I knew it, I had a hold of his shirt and held him above the ground with his feet dangling. I was surprised my my sudden action - appalled actually. It was impulsive, irrational, and completely out of my nature. And yet, the dangling jerk I was holding did not seem surprised in the slightest.
       "Wow! She's strong!" He announced sarcastically. "Probably from all of that manual labor! But you probably should get your dirty paws off my shirt."
Despite my surprise toward my own actions, I did not loosen my grip. Something in me was telling me to keep my grip and show him how serious I was. So instead, I answered him.
     "I'm good." I sneered.
"Elaine, I would do what he says." Mary said.
"Why? So he can keep on with his snarky comments?" The words practically flew out of my mouth without any thought.
"Miss Vega!"
Startled, I snapped out of it, and dropped him immediately. Hesitantly, I slowly turned toward the professor. He was towering over me, staring me down like a drill sergeant would at his troops when they did something wrong. I gulped.
"Please, if you're so eager to fight someone, why didn't you say so?" I could practically taste the sarcasm coming off of him. Without taking his eyes off of me, and smiled. "Miss Vega, you're up next, and your opponent will be Mr. Castillo."
I looked over Professor Price's shoulder. Behind him was what looked like a full grown man who was the size of a bear, and heavily built.
    Castillo is right, I thought. He's built like a fort! He is the castle! My heart dropped to my stomach as I predicted what was going to happen.
I am so dead.

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