Children of the First

Well, there we go. Finally. Sorry I forgot to post it yesterday. I forgot everything yesterday. This is a long chapter that follows straight from chapter 21, so you might want to start from 21 again... Since it's been so long since it was posted... Sorry about that. Thanks for reading and for being so awesome and patient and awesome.
Rock on. \m/

The game of “Pebbles-and-Jarn-are-way-faster-than-everyone-else-so-get-used-to-it” was over fairly quickly—Pebbles had led us through a short stretch of forest and stopped at the next field’s goal tower. As we came out of the forest, Retis and I were surprised to see that it was just the two of them standing at the top of the hill.

“Hey,” Retis puffed, looking around. “I think we’re in the lead.”

“Not anymore, you’re not,” screeched something small and blurry as it buzzed by my ear.

“What the hell?”

“Were we just passed by a rocket-powered dandelion?”

A Half-elf girl and a couple of Cats passed us before we made it up the hill, but we were still among the first to reach the goal tower. As we were catching our breath, I noticed a tiny man sitting on top of the goal tower.

“Oh shit,” I exclaimed far too loudly. “It was a fairy!”

“Hey, fuck you, asshole,” squeaked the tiny man, “I’m a Sprite.”

“Oh, sorry,” I said. “It’s just that I didn’t think fairies were even real.”

“They’re not. I’m a Sprite.”

“Right. Sorry.”

A little embarrassed, I put my hands on my head and started to walk around aimlessly—like I was still cooling down from the run—and gradually made my way around the tower to get a better look at the Sprite without him catching me.

He was about eight inches tall with short, dark hair, light brown skin, and ten or twelve long, thin, insect-like wings sprouting from his shoulder blades. The weirdest part, though (other than the whole “tiny flying man” thing) was how he was dressed; he was wearing an intensely frilly white satin shirt with silver piping along the seams, a glittery gauntlet that looked more like jewelry than sporting equipment, half-a-dozen rings, and no pants. His tiny tackle was hanging right out there in the breeze.

I didn’t have much time to contemplate his attire though; Roo had just made it up to the goal tower looking fairly miserable.

“Hey kin,” I said. “What took you so long?”

“Tripped… fell ina ditch an’ got tangled up in a buncha nettles,” he mumbled. “Took me a while to get out.”

“Hey, look at it this way,” Retis said cheerfully. “At least you made it ahead of them.” He pointed to the group of students Feral was chasing up the hill. Their expressions were a mixture of pain, fear, and… well mostly just pain and fear.

“Move!” Feral was shouting as they reached the tower. “Gai-damn finally. Okay, you, you, and you are all cut,” she said, pointing to three of the stragglers. One started to open his mouth in protest, but Feral had already stopped paying attention, turning toward us and leaving them to quietly shuffle off the field.

“Alright, now that you’re a little warmed up, we’re gonna split into groups of three and run attacks on the tower. Pebbles, Derrick and I will be permanent defense—”

“Where the hell did he come from?!” blurted one of the students.

“Don’t interrupt me.” Feral growled. “Derrick is one of the assistant captains. He’s also very sneaky. Now, as I was saying, Pebbles, Derrick and I will be permanent defense and the rest of you will rotate, one group attacking at a time while everyone else waits over by that rock at the bottom of the hill.”

My group consisted of a fairly heavy-built human and a tallish Gibri girl who seemed slightly bored by the whole experience. We were the third group in line, right behind Retis and two Half-elves (the latter looking none-too-thrilled to have a Saurian in their squad), so we had a few minutes before our turn.

“So… We should probably talk about some sort of strategy,” I suggested. “I’m Shawn, by the way.”

“Aaron,” the guy said, shaking my hand. “Good to meetcha.”

“I am Lu Greenshade, eldest daughter of Tribe Greenshade,” the Gibri said slowly.

Aaron and I exchanged glances before I moved on. “Right… Well, I figure we should try to split them up as much as possible before charging. Aaron, I’m guessing you can take a hit or two, yeah?” He grinned and nodded. “Good,” I said. “If you were to go up the center it might give Lu and me a chance to flank the tower—”

“Who the hell put you in charge?” Lu snapped.

I blinked. “Did you really just say that?”

“You think I’m such a fool that I’d let you come up with the plan so you can take credit for my win?”

“Hey now, we all want to win,” Aaron started, but she cut him off.

“Listen,” she commanded. “You two just stay out of my way, okay?”

“Don’t be stupid,” I said. “There’s no way we can just charge at them and not get knocked on our asses. At least tell us what you’re going to do so we can work around it.”

“I’m going to hit that little button on top of the tower,” she sneered.

“Whatever,” Aaron grunted. “Guess it’s just you and me, Shawn.”

We’d wasted a good bit of time arguing, so all Aaron and I had time to come up with was a diagonal attack with him blocking to try to get me in close enough to make a go at the tower. It’s not like we had a whole lot of options with only two of us.

We watched as Retis’ squad took their turn. They made a valiant effort at strategy—the two Half-elves attacking the center in an attempt to open up a path to the tower for Retis. It looked like it was going to work, too; the lane opened up and Retis charged, quickly gaining speed and rocketing toward the tower with his thundering gait.

He didn’t even make it halfway up the hill. One second, Feral and Derrick were both occupied with one of the Half-elves; the next, Feral was streaking toward Retis, who looked up just in time to see her foot catch him firmly in the ribs and send him tumbling down the hill.

“Ouch,” Aaron winced. “Remind me not to let that happen.”

“Good try,” I heard Feral say quietly as she helped Retis to his feet. “The idea wasn’t bad, but keep your eyes open or that’ll happen every time.

“Next group,” she called. “Go.”

As promised, Lu ignored us and made straight for the tower. Aaron and I came up the hill at an angle with me staying just downhill of him. When Derrick stepped up to block us, Aaron took a long, quick stride toward him and threw a left hook. Derrick dodged it, but not without losing his balance. In the second it took Derrick to recover his footing, Aaron and I had switched places and changed direction so that I was in front and Aaron was between Derrick and me.

Lu had Feral tied up one-on-one (and I have to admit it looked like she was holding her own), which just left Pebbles between us and the tower. She shot some kind of spell at me, but I was able to dodge the blue light and let it soar over Aaron’s shoulder. As we had planned, Aaron shot back at her, but instead of dodging and concentrating her fire on him like we had hoped, she reflected his jolts right back and took my legs out from under me with one long, graceful sweep.

Pebbles was grinning when I got up. “Puh-lease,” she taunted.

I glanced at Aaron; he looked surprised and a bit disoriented. When he noticed me looking he shrugged and held up his hands in the universal symbol for, “What’re ya gonna do?”

“Listen to your teammates next time and you might not get your ass handed to you.” Feral shouted after a crestfallen Lu. Aaron was grinning in satisfaction until Feral caught him, “What’re you smiling about, jack-ass? You lost. You have to learn to play short-handed—what if someone gets killed in a match? You have to adapt. You have to win while you’re losing. Next group, go!”

We scurried off the hill and joined Lu at the end of the line. No one said anything for a few minutes until Lu finally broke the silence. “What I want to know,” she said. “Is how she heard what we were saying from way up there.”

I shrugged. “Who knows what Feral can and can’t do?”

After we’d run through the drill a couple of times (with Lu slightly more willing to cooperate), Feral called everyone to the tower.

“Okay,” she said. “I saw some promise, I saw some things to work on, and I saw some garbage. You, you… you… you and you… you three… you four in the back, the shorter Nagiri and the fairy are all cut.”

“What the fuck?!” came an outraged squeak. “You’re cutting me? I’m faster, more agile, and smarter than anyone here!”

“You’re quick, I’ll give you that, but how do you expect to hit the button? You’re cut.”

“No I’m not! I’ll show you!” With that the Sprite shot up into the air about three feet over the tower and then hurtled downward, crashing into the button with a sickening smack and tumbling to the ground.

“See?” he said dazedly. “I told you.”

Feral looked at the button, which was glowing after being hit. She shrugged. “Fair enough, you can stay for now. The rest of you, go home. Better luck next time.”

As I watched them walk away I realized that Feral had said “the shorter Nagiri.” That one Nagiri had been trying out was surprising enough, but that there were two of them and that one had made it past the first cut was incredible. I spotted her fairly quickly—she wasn’t that tough to pick out. I don’t know how I had missed her before; I guess I was a bit preoccupied at the time. Good luck, I thought. I hope you make it.

“Now then,” Feral caught our attention once more. “There are sixteen of you left. Like I said earlier, I only need seven of you, but as many as twelve might make it past today. Now, since we have just enough of you to make two matches, that’s just what we’ll do. Derrick will stay on this field, Pebbles will take the one over, and I’ll be going back and forth. Treat them as if they were me; do what they tell you. If you don’t, or if you just piss them off, they’re fully within their rights to beat the living daylights out of you. I trust them, so their opinion of you matters as much as mine.”

She split us into two groups of three and two groups of five. Aaron and I were in the squad playing defense on Derrick’s field along with two Cats and a Wood Elf. Against us were Jarn, the Nagiri, and a Half-elf guy I’d seen earlier.

Retis, Roo and the others followed Pebbles over to the other field. “Good luck,” Retis called as he walked away. “Don’t let Jarn embarrass you too much.”

I flipped him off, which made him grin even wider.

“Alright,” Derrick announced. “You all know how this works; stop if I say stop, follow the rules, don’t get hurt. Oh, and one more thing, you don’t have armbands and your gloves are uncontrolled, so remember who’s on your team and be safe. If you’re dead, you’re dead—lying about it will get you cut. When both sides hit their button, the match will start. Attackers, get over to your post so we can get going.”

They started to walk away. “RUN!” Derrick shouted. They ran.

“Hi!” said one of the Cats. “I’m Laurel.”

“I’m Shawn, and this is Aaron.”

Laurel shook our hands so enthusiastically I almost laughed. “Glad to meet you,” she beamed.

The other Cat was a guy named Kesti, and the Wood Elf said his name was Erillen, but that we should call him Rilly.

We worked on our strategy while we waited for the match to start. The fact that I knew Jarn was a big help; I knew that he would be coming in the trees, and that they would likely try to lure us away from him, betting that by the time we realized what had happened we wouldn’t be able to stop him.

“Okay,” I said. “Aaron, I know you’re pretty fast for a big guy, but I’d bet that Jarn is going to lead their main attack and I’m sorry, but there’s very little chance of you catching him, so leaving you up here to defend the tower by yourself is probably not the best idea.”

“No, you’re right,” he agreed. “They’d be expecting that anyhow. So what do we do?”

“Well, the Cats are probably the best in the trees, yeah?” They nodded. “So I’m thinking you guys get up into the branches early and watch for them coming through the forrest; if you see the Half-elf or Nagiri, try to take them out as quick as you can, but if you see Jarn, don’t chase him or even bother to fire at him. Instead, just fire into the air over where you saw him; that way we’ll all know where he is.

“Aaron, I want you up here guarding the tower from halfway down the hill.”

“But I thought we agreed that was pointless,” said Rilly.

“It is,” said Aaron. “But they’ll be expecting it, so Jarn will be focused on me, right?”

“Right,” I said. “And I’ll be hiding just inside the tree line. So when you see where he is, you charge—and make a big show of it so he’s watching. Then, when you’re almost to him, I’ll come out from the trees and attack from behind.”

“But if he’s so fast,” Laurel pointed out, “what makes you think you can catch him?”

“I don’t think I can catch him, I won’t even really be trying to.” I noticed Derrick listening in, but tried to ignore it; I couldn’t be worried about making the team if I wanted to win… and make the team. “But Jarn will think I’m trying to catch him.”

“Ah,” said Rilly, smiling. “He’ll think that was our move, but really, I’m the move.”

I winked. “Exactly. He’ll get around Aaron and outrun me and think he’s home free, but Rilly will be waiting right behind the goal tower the whole time. Once Jarn’s in range, you’ll jump out and fire off a Slam or whatever you’ve got that will put him down in one shot. The rest is just clean-up.”

“Nice,” said Kesti. “Let’s do it.”

We did it. Everything went according to plan; Laurel killed the Half-elf in the first two minutes, and before too long we saw the gold sparks of a Jolt soar over the tree line.

“Ready?” I asked Aaron.

“Go, baby, go,” he grinned.

I hid in the underbrush near where we thought Jarn would be coming out and waited. Then I saw Aaron barreling towards me. Here goes nothing, I thought, and got ready to run.

Jarn popped out of the trees right over my head and shot across the field toward Aaron. I tore after him, only gaining ground when he slowed down to hop over Aaron’s head and jump off of his back, flinging the big guy to the ground. The second Jarn landed, my Jolt whizzed past his head. He looked back and grinned as I fired a second and third Jolt, which he easily dodged. That’s right, I thought. You can outrun me, no problem.

When Jarn was within twenty feet of the goal tower I shouted, “Now!”

Jarn must have been confused because he glanced back at me just as Rilly stepped out from behind the tower and fired some sort of gluey net over him.

“Fuck-Gai-damn-shit!” Jarn yelled as he hit the ground in a tangled mess.

I let out a whoop and ran up the hill to Rilly. “Beautiful!” I shouted. “Fan-fucking-tastic shot!”

”Hey, it was your plan,” Rilly said, grinning. “Though, I am pretty Gai-damn incredible, it’s true.”

Our celebration was cut short though, when Pebbles came sprinting up to us.

“Shawn, Jarn,” she gasped. “There’s been an accident, Roo’s hurt.”

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 18th, 2009 at 5:46 pm and is filed under Chapters, CotF Main Story. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.