Summer Games ( VII )

Rhea, Year 817 of Avia, Day 228; 19:51

Karine circled back to Icarum with butterflies attached to her hands, arms, and legs.

Icarum looked up flatly, unamused.

“Didn’t you say you were going on patrol?”

“I was trying to, but these things just keep sticking to me.” Karine tried to shoo them off, but the butterflies didn’t have any intention of leaving.

“I thought we were trying to capture the butterflies, not the other way around.”

“Shut up.”

Icarum sighed. “We might as well put them in the jar. Another couple dozen wouldn’t hurt us.”

Icarum pointed to the eastern part of the stadium.

“Ilina and Lance are starting to come over here,” he noted. “We should probably move away.”

Karine glanced up at the holographic timer suspended in the air.

“We’ve got nine minutes left. As long as we stay on the opposite side of the stadium, they shouldn’t target us.”

“Do you know how Ilina and Lance know each other?” Icarum asked out of curiosity.

“They both did really well in the last Summer Games,” Karine answered, “so it’s natural that they’d team up for this one.”

“Though they did seem to know each other then, too,” she added.

“What’d you sa-?”

A boy with a grey mask approached them, and Icarum’s hornet immediately flew forward with its stinger pointed directly at the boy’s neck.

The boy raised his hands and wildly shook them to show that he meant no harm.

“Wait, wait, wait!” he shouted.

Icarum commanded his hornet to stop. Since the stadium was starting to get dark, he couldn’t really see what the boy looked like. But the boy’s voice sounded strangely familiar. “Khal?”

Khal nodded, relieved that they didn’t get into an accidental fight.

“Your friend?” Karine whispered suspiciously.

“He’s that guy I was standing with earlier at the start of the game,” Icarum answered.

“How many jars have you guys broken?” Khal asked.

“We’ve been collecting butterflies, so we haven’t broken any.”

Khal looked surprised. “Really? I didn’t think you would play defensively out of all people.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Icarum retorted jokingly.

Khal laughed. “Anyway, you guys have been watching the Eagle and the Swan, right? How many teams do you think they’ve taken out?”

“Around sixty by now, I think.”

“Sixty?”

“Yeah, why do you ask?”

“Carla and I have broken around twenty. That means that the game’s over after four more jars. Problem is, everyone left is pretty strong.”

“Get back here!” Khal’s sensitive ears picked up Carla’s raspy whisper from fifty meters away. He turned around with a concerned look on his face.

“Well, I’ll see you guys soon!” Khal flew off into the darkness, silently soaring through the air.

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Rhea, Year 817 of Avia, Day 228; 19:53

Carla was surrounded. Two teams of second-years circled her slowly, waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike. Her hands glowed bright red, radiating intense heat that forced her opponents to be cautious.

“If you’re looking for my jar, I don’t have it,” Carla uttered curtly.

One of the second-years chuckled. “We don’t care. And we can’t trust you.”

She was wearing a curved, brown mask and had flowing, blonde hair. She flew forward, evading one of Carla’s punches and kicking her square in the stomach. Before Carla could swipe back, she backed away and continued circling her.

Two of the second-years behind her noticed Carla’s frustration and decided to take advantage of it. They too flew forward, evading Carla’s slow-hitting attacks.

But it was all a feint. When they got close enough, Carla placed her right hand on the jumpsuit of one of her opponents and landed a left jab on the other. They both hollered in pain as their bodies sustained burns after impact.

The fourth second-year kept his distance, biding his time and observing their fight. He looked over to the blonde girl.

“She’s a cardinal, Jan. You’ll be fine as long as you have range.”

Jan nodded. She shifted her weight to her left leg as she flew forward, opting into using kicks rather than punches.

But before she could finish her attack, Khal flew out from the darkness and tackled her into the ground. With Jan taken out of the picture, Carla pounced onto Jan’s partner, slamming her burning fist into his pocket. As she expected, she heard the soft crack of glass as she finished her punch.

Khal returned to Carla and tapped her on the shoulder.

“You good?”

“Could’ve come sooner, y’know.”

Khal laughed.

“Congratulations to the sixteen remaining teams! If you still have a glass jar, you’ve made it to the next round.”

Carla and Khal smiled up at each other. They hadn’t expected to get this far in their first games. Finishing top thirty-two was an incredible achievement even for second-years, and a great opportunity to showcase their talent to the airship captains without holding anything back.

They flew to the ground where Noah, Asterum, Icarum, and Karine were standing.

Khal landed next to Noah and placed a hand on his shoulder.

“How’d it go?” he asked.

Noah shook his head. Asterum was looking down at the floor glumly, eyes focused on the blades of grass that swayed as the wind blew. Noah, on the other hand, had a fierce, determined expression on his face that Khal hadn’t ever seen before.

“There’s always the next Summer Games,” Carla piped up. “Don’t worry too much about it.”

Noah nodded.

As the group returned to the mountain they were staying in, Master Rhozo approached them slowly with his cane tapping against the stone floor.

“Icarum, Khal, and Carla, follow me.”

Karine returned to her faction’s waiting room, while Asterum and Noah made their way to the cafeteria, meeting Mia and Connor on the way. It was obvious that Master Rhozo wanted to speak to the first-years in his faction that remained in the Games alone.

He led them up a staircase to his private quarters, where he sat down at a wooden desk. The room itself reminded Icarum of Rhozo’s office back in their rebel base, only without paintings hung up on the wall.

“Firstly, I want to commend the three of you for making it this far. It’s a great achievement, even for second-years.”

The three of them beamed. Icarum was especially proud that his grandfather had complimented him for the very first time.

“As you all know, magic is a very intricate and complex system that takes years to master. As a result, there are a couple of magic-related topics that we don’t teach you until after your first Games.”

“Your first Games is intended for you to just gain some experience casting spells in an intense, competitive environment, which you’ll undoubtedly have to do when you join a crew.”

“But now that all of you have made it this far,” he continued, “I don’t have a choice but to teach you some advanced-level magic early.”

“The one-on-one rounds are dangerous,” he warned, “and you’ll need to know this to prevent yourself from getting hurt.”

Master Rhozo placed his cane on the table and stretched out his legs. “Now, who here can tell me how to cast a spell?”

Khal spoke up first. “You use some sort of command to activate it.”

“Very good. That’s what we call ‘Emitting.’ You bind your spell to some action, word, or thought, which triggers its activation. But this is actually the second step to casting a spell, not the first.”

“Does the first step have something to do with your affinity? My magic is stronger when I’m lurking in the shadows, for example,” Icarum stated.

Master Rhozo nodded. “You’re onto something. Keep going.”

“I remember you mentioned something about using aviales to cast spells when I first learned magic. Maybe you need to harness the aviales of your affinity?”

“Exactly. That’s what we call ‘Attraction’. It’s the process of bringing aviales into a certain radius from your body. For some spirits, like Cardinals, your radius is rather small. Aviales have to be inside your body for you to cast a spell. Other spirits, like Pigeons, have rather large radiuses. You can cast spells using Aviales that are meters away from your body.”

“But either way, you’ll have to use Attraction to gather aviales. Once they’re near you, they’ll stick to you like glue until you use them up. It’s why people with fire affinities will often burn a match or smoke a cigarette before a fight, and why people with water affinities will go for swims.”

“If you don’t use Attraction before your one-on-one fights tomorrow, you might not be able to cast any spells. Fighting a magic user without any magic of your own could get you seriously injured.”

“How did we make it so far without knowing about Attraction?” Carla asked.

“It’s highly likely that you used Attraction subconsciously. It’s incredibly easy to gather aviales of your affinity by just standing near it. Carla, you probably gained your fire aviales from the warmth of the sun before it set. Khal, you probably got sound aviales from the sound everyone was making during the game. And Icarum, you probably got shadow aviales from the darkness after the sunset.”

“So now we move on to our next topic: what do you do if you’re out of aviales, and there aren’t any aviale sources nearby during your fight?”

“The answer is ‘Transmutation.’” Master Rhozo answered his own question. “Transmutation is the process of converting aviales within your radius into different ones. The more you train this technique, the faster you’ll be able to perform it.”

“You all know how aviales are the building blocks of the universe, right?”

The three of them nodded.

“That means that no matter where you are, there will be some sort of aviale nearby. Given enough time, you’ll be able to convert them into aviales that are compatible with your affinity. And that’s where the aviale circle comes in. When converting an aviale, you can only change it into an aviale that is to the left or right of it on the circle.”

“For example, you wouldn’t be able to change a fire aviale into a water aviale immediately,” Rhozo continued, “but it would be relatively fast to change a water aviale into an ice aviale.”

“How do we use transmutation?” Icarum asked.

Master Rhozo paused, glancing out a glass window behind him.

“It varies from person to person, just like Emitting. Some people utter a phrase, like “transmute,” while others can perform Transmutation just by thinking it. Any other questions?”

“If aviales are too small to see, how can we tell if our Transmutation was successful?” Khal asked.

“Let me ask you this. How can you tell if you have enough energy to cast a spell?”

“Intuition, I guess.”

“Magical stamina functions the same way as physical stamina. But instead of feeling its effects on your body, you feel it in your wings. The lighter your wings feel, the greater your capacity for magic.”

“But what does that have to do with transmu-”

“The goal of Transmutation is to gain aviales that match your affinity, yes?”

Khal nodded.

“Then if the transmutation is successful, it’ll increase your magical stamina, making your wings feel lighter. With time, you’ll be able to sense the smallest variances in the weight of your wings and measure your magical stamina accurately.”

“Any other questions?”

The group fell quiet, lost in thought about how to use this new knowledge to their advantage in their fights tomorrow.

“I’d recommend that you try out Transmutation and Attraction in the training caves below before tomorrow. Other than that, I wish you the very best in your fights. It’s the very first time that we’ve had three first-years make it to the one-on-one rounds in the Summer Games, so I expect great things from you.”

In succession, Carla, Khal, and Icarum bowed their heads respectfully.

“Don’t worry, grand-” Icarum startled

“Master Rhozo,” he replied curtly.

“Don’t worry, Master Rhozo. I’ll win this whole thing.” Icarum had a wild grin on his face as he left the room. Khal and Carla followed, trying their hardest not to laugh behind him.