I was woken up by a heavy weight suddenly compressing my chest. Through my blurry vision I could make out the shape of Ryo, inches away from my face.
I flopped my head back down on the pillow in frustration. "Ryo, what the hell? I was sleeping," I mumbled.
"Well wake up!" he yelled, jumping up and down on my chest. "Look! Just look at it! Isn't it beautiful?!" I sat up, dislodging him from my chest. He repositioned himself by my feet, facing away from me, two tails whipping around each other.
It took a second for me to realise what I was seeing, but then it hit me; two tails!
"Oh my god, Ryo!" I yelled, waking up fully, "That's amazing! When did that happen?"
"Last night," Ryo said proudly. "It's so soft and shiny and perfect," he crooned.
"Wasshappenin?" I heard Hunter mumbled from his bed. He looked over, blearily, his hair dishevelled. Needless to say, I found this ridiculously adorable.
"Ryo got his second tail!" I replied.
"Oh, that's great," he muttered sleepily, "Good job."
"Good job?!" Ryo screeched, "Philistine! This tail is one of my greatest achievements! It is a feat of immense power and strength! It is majestic in its beauty and grace! And you!" he jumped across to Hunter's bed and stuck his face next to Hunter's, "You can't even be bothered to look up!"
Hunter sat up in bed again and looked properly at Ryo's tail. "It's very nice, Ryo."
"Nice?!" Ryo screamed before jumping off of the bed and stormed off towards the door. "Nice?! Stupid freakin' humans, can't appreciate splendour when they see it. He jumped up and pulled the door handle with his body weight, before disappearing around the side of the door with a swish of the tails he was so proud of.
"I think I pissed him off," Hunter chuckled, before lying back down and going back to sleep.
"Do you really think it's a good idea to train with Maya?" Az asked as we walked towards the training field. "No offence Charlie, but she'll flatten you."
"That's why I th-think I should meet her," I replied, "If I'm gonna stand a-any chance in the next rounds of The Clash then I need help.
"I'm your help!" Ryo shouted, "I'll blast them all away with my fox fire!"
"Yeah but Maya's help might not be what you need," Olivia said, ignoring Ryo's outburst and glancing furtively towards Hunter who looked to be deep in concentration.
"What do you think?" I asked him and he looked up, shocked that he was being spoken to.
He paused for a second before saying, "I think Maya is probably the best person to teach you, even if she is a bit...volatile."
"We could help him?" Az offered.
"There's only so much you can learn from books and honestly, none of us have much experience with Evocation or Abjuration spells; those are two of Charlie's Foci and Maya is second only to Theo in both. And I don't see Theo offering to help anytime soon."
"But what if she takes it too far?" Olivia asked.
"That's why we're here," he muttered darkly.
"I can take her!" Ryo yelled, tails rubbing together crackling with fire and a red-orange lightning.
"Sure you can buddy," Az joked, setting off Ryo's mutterings about annoying, rude humans again.
We arrived at training field and Maya was already there. She was kneeling down, eye closed tight, brow furrowed in concentration. As we walked towards her, the air around her left hand started to shimmer as though the air around it was heating up, but in a perfect circle; force energy. She raised her right hand up and small chunks of rock splintered from the ground and began to coat the ball of force energy until it looked like a rocky sphere.
Maya stood up and launched the ball across the field; as it reached the arc of its flight, Maya closed her left hand into a fist and the ball exploded, sending rock flying in every direction.
"What the hell was that?" Olivia asked Maya, who glared in response.
"That was what's possible if you use your brain as well as your magic. Creating an orb of force energy, manipulating the natural elements, combining the two, keeping the force energy tethered to my magic as I throw it, and then making the force energy explode outwards. Simple spells, complex results."
"That's really clever," Az admitted, nodding appreciatively.
"Thanks," May muttered sarcastically. "Why did you bring them with you?" she asked me.
"Th-They w-wanted to come," I stammered quietly.
"To make sure you didn't take it too far," Hunter said.
"I'm not gonna kill your little boy toy, Hunter."
"I know you won't," he replied, "But you have a tendency to go overboard sometimes."
"Whatever, just stay out of our way." She turned to walk towards the centre of the field. Hunter squeezed my hand and smiled supportively before I followed her.
"You're wasting your magic," she said as I approached her.
"What?" I asked, perplexed.
"Your magic. You're wasting it." She sighed when I continued to look at her blankly. "In your fight, you used your magic to create elemental energy. You don't have to do that. You can use your magic to manipulate the existing elements around you. You use much less magic that way."
I didn't think lack of magic was my problem, but I guess she did have a point; there was no need to waste magic unnecessarily.
"H-How do I d-do that?" I asked.
"You channel your magic into the element you want to control. Like this." She gave a lazy wave of her hand and I felt the wind pick up and blow against me. "See? Easy and much easier than creating wind from scratch."
"I'm gonna attack you now," she stated and walked a few paces away from me.
"You're wh-what?!" I yelped.
"Attack. You. Now. Defend yourself." She attacked immediately after she had finished talking, launching a force orb at me which knocked me off my feet. I felt another hit me and I rolled across the ground in a manor than was starting to feel annoyingly familiar. I could hear my friends shouting something at us, but I couldn't make out what.
I tried to stand up but felt the ground beneath my feet shift and a pillar of rock raised under my feet, knocking me off balance again.
"You can't wait to stand up to cast a spell!" Maya shouted, "You need to defend yourself wherever state you're in."
'Fine,' I thought, 'If she wants defence, I'll give her defence.' I raised my hand and produced a ward just in time to deflect another of her force orbs, the shield cracking with the impact. Keeping the ward in front of me and funnelling more magic into the ward to repair it, I was able to get to my feet, where I activated my second ward and sent them spinning around me once again.
"Well, at least you can tether your magic to yourself otherwise those wards wouldn't be able to move or repair."
"I-Is that what I w-was doing?" I asked, surprised.
"Unbelievable," Maya groaned. "At least you've stepped up your game. Now we can really begin." Maya threw her hand forward and I felt a wave of magic cover me; it made my body feel heavy, as though my body was wading through mud. To my horror I realised the wards had also slowed down their spinning, and to my even greater horror, this allowed Maya to hit me with another force orbs between the wards and I went soaring, once again, through the air.
I did manage to keep the wards active so she couldn't hit me while I was down. I made it to my feet, sent the wards spinning again, and saw that Maya had created another of those rock covered force orbs. She threw it into the air once again and I knew what was about to happen. I stopped the wards from spinning and tried to bring one up over my head but it was too late; the orbs exploded outwards, pelting me with shards of rock.
But Maya wasn't done; I had my hands covering my face, so I didn't see her running towards me. Her fist made contact with the ward and it shattered immediately, her fist continuing through the barrier and making contact with my chest. For the last time that day, my body was launched across the ground. When I came to a stop, I was in too much pain to force myself to get up.
"You can't rely on one party trick!" Maya yelled, advancing on me, "Once everyone has seen it, they can counter it; I just did it three different ways! You need to be smarter about it!"
"Maya, that's enough!" Hunter shouted, running towards me with Az and Olivia on his heels.
"No, it's not!" she shouted, "He needs to learn to protect himself. This isn't just about The Clash!" She whirled on me and hissed, "You're precious Merlin isn't going to be here to protect you all of the time! You can't just call him up whenever you're in trouble!" and my heart beat raced with anxiety.
"Are you okay?" Hunter asked, his hands already glowing faintly with healing magic. He placed his hand over my chest, and I felt the pain mercifully recede.
"I'm leaving," Maya said, frowning deeply; she looked almost confused, but I didn't have time to analyse it much further as she turned and stormed away from us all.
"What was that all about?" Az asked.
"I have no idea," I muttered.
Stuff is about to kick off next chapter, we're not far away from the end of Book 1!