Old Legends Beginnings: Trials 3

Old Legends Beginnings: Trials

With a final good luck to Julies, James and Robert moved over to their side to look at the bracket. While looking over the bracket they both sighed realizing that they would not be fighting each other during the first match.  With the realization, they both started heading down the corridor to the rooms. With a peaceful silence they walked through the corridor until they started reaching rooms where they looked for their own rooms. Robert had one of the first rooms they came to. Wishing each other good luck James continued on as Robert stepped into the room.

James thought about if they both won their matches they would end of fighting each other during the day while walking towards his combat room. When he finally reached it; he put all thoughts of his roommates aside and walked through the door to his first match. He found a white room about twenty feet high with a short male with glasses standing at the other side of the room.

Once James stopped about fifteen feet from his opponent, a voice came out of some well concealed speakers: “Please state your names before the fight.”

“James Hail”

“Thomas Chevalier”

With the introductions out-of-the-way, they heard a count-down for the fight to start. As soon as the count hit five Thomas started shifting and at zero his shift was completed. Thomas looked similar to ogre with too small of glasses on. James just about laughed until the ogre moved to five feet away from James in a few seconds. Seeing that laughing now would ruin his chances of winning, he bit his lip and called forth some of his own power.

With a short amount of time to work he pulled up a wall of air to stopped Thomas before he could get the punch in. Even with the wall up, James was pushed back a few feet. Glad that he stopped the first punch he sighed in relief. Then he heard Thomas laughing with a gruff, horrible sounding voice at the end of it. “Hahaha, you think your measly wall would stop my force?! Heck I pushed you back several feet without even using much of my strength.”

While Thomas continued laughing, James was making a plan and had a smile of his own when Thomas spoke again. “Why are you smiling? You should be shivering in fear by now realizing that my strength will overcome any breeze you can pick up in here.”

“I would lose if I started ‘shivering in fear’. But while you were laughing I got a few ideas on how to beat you.” James said with a much larger smile than before.

“Right… You believe you can beat me with that stupid wind of yours? Give me a break; actually I think I will give you a break. How about your arm and a leg for instance?” Thomas spoke furiously.

“Oh sure speak your bluster now, but you will be the one on the ground soon.” James said as he dodged an obvious punch towards his mouth. “But I guess you will have more appreciation for a weak wind soon.”

With that the show boating came to an end as both fighters started moving faster and faster. Each threw punches and kicks, but James had a slight difference to the ones he threw. Every punch, kick or movement they made was stirring up the air around them, and James was using that current to make his movements swifter and his attacks stronger. Finally when they were both moving at incredible speeds, James put the final part of his plan to work.  Instead of dodging outwards like he had been doing before for Thomas’s attacks, James went forward towards Thomas. He pulled the furious wind towards his right and threw a punch right into Thomas’s sternum.

Thomas could not breathe and his eyes opened wide before he fell over transforming back to his normal form. James sighed as he was declared the winner. He wondered how Thomas’s had not realized what was happening while they fought. James went through the strategy he had used as he followed the yellow line as another person went to check on Thomas.

With the increase in wind speed James’s force had also increased to a point where he could actually stop the ogre. James figured he could create the currents he needed after seeing how the speed of the ogre at the start, but he did not know how resistant to damage he would be until they actually started throwing more punches. As they kept fighting James was steadily increasing the amount of wind force he was hitting with until he finally saw the ogre pull back after one hit. After that hit, he just had to be patient to get the right time to dodge into an attack which would allow him to hit Thomas’s sternum to stop the air flow into lungs. After the hit all James had to do was keep the oxygen away from ogre until he passed out.

After he finished going through how the battle had went he realized that he had reached the infirmary. Since he only received minor injuries from a few punches, James was healed quickly and sent back to the main room to see where he would fight next. When he made it to the main room, he looked around and noticed that it was pretty empty. He looked at both brackets to see that everyone that had won was already in their next fight or on their way to the next room. He saw that Julies and Robert had made it passed the first round. Once checking where his next fight would be he headed off to see what his next fight would be like.

He made it to the room and walked in pretty fast since he was still using some of the wind from his last battle. He did not want to make his opponent wait long, plus he wanted to use his powers more now that he was out of his old place of residence. After walking into the room, he noticed that it was identical to the previous room he was in, with a tall, brown-haired, skinny but muscular male in it.. Once he got about fifteen feet away from his opponent the speakers went off again: “Please state your names before the fight.”

“James Hail”

“Archer Kettle”

With introductions out-of-the-way, the count-down began. Once the count-down hit five, Archer had some goggles on before the clock hit four. James realizing that Archer was most likely a speedster decided that his strategy from the last match would not work this time. With a deep breath and release of the wind around him he pulled on another part of his power.

With the timer just hitting zero, James felt a sudden shift on the ground. He threw up a giant wall of rock, dirt, and parts of the floor in a half circle in front of him. He did not feel a hit on his wall, but he could also not tell where Archer went. With a quick realization that he was probably in the air, he walked into the wall and formed it around him in golem like appearance. He felt a shudder just were his head had been a few moments ago as if it was hit with a tremendous amount of force.

“I would not have guessed you would be a rock man,” Archer said. “I suppose it would be easy to get past the first round in that form.  But you must have just run out of luck if you think you are protected by the hardness of your skin.” He continued with a few solid hits to the upper legs and lower back of James.

James felt the hits slightly, but decided to play along that they hurt more than he was. He needed to see what Archer’s powers truly were or else he might step into some trouble. “Well good thing you are a speedster or this make for a short match.” James said while watching Archer appear for a short moment.

“Who said I was speedster?” Archer said while appearing just in front of James. James threw a punch and realized he was gone already. Than he felt another hit on his head in the same spot from the first hit.

James realized his error of assuming Archer’s powers and decided it would be best to work more on his defense until he figured out what he could do to beat Archer. James created a dome from the floor and placed it over where he was standing. He withdrew from the golem and went into the floor while creating two more golem to complete his plan.

Once he camouflaged his face he moved his body to the wall and withdrew the dome over his golems. Each golem was staring a different direction so they would be able to see Archer coming from either way.

“Wow I did not know you could split yourself like that.” Archer said surprised from the other side of the room.

“Oh I am just full of surprises. Do you still think you can take me easily now?” James projected from the center golem. He was constantly moving his body through the walls to try for a better angle. After a few hits to his golem he decided that looking from above might be his best option to figure out how Archer is hitting him.

Finally on the ceiling, James looks around the room for Archer and spots something odd in the bright room. He creates a diversion with his speaking golem by making a few more golems out of the other two. While his golems are splitting apart he makes one that would fit him and walks into it on the far right of his golems.

“Do you think your cheap vanishing act will fool me Archer?” James says from all of the golems.

“Er… What do you meaning vanishing act? I am over here and going to hit you from behind again!” Archer replies. About half the golems turn around to face Archer, while the other half rush the other way.

“No not that way,” Archer laughs nervously,” can’t you see I am over her?”

James just continues until he reaches the shadow on the floor and uses two of the golems that came with him to grab Archer. James speaks from a golem standing on the other side of the room: “I am guessing a project that can project a form that you desire of yourself.” Archer attacks the speaking golem midway through and it crumbles to the ground from the blow to the head. James resumes speaking from a different golem. “The form you project can probably be anything you could have been, but you do not have the ability to move when you are in this form.” James says as he hits Archer’s real body in the stomach.

As James brings his fist back for another punch, Archer disappears from across the room, and the real Archer appears in front of James slumping over. “I guess that it takes a little bit for the other form to disappear after your real body gets hit,” James says as the speaker announces him as the winner and he steps out of his golem. He starts putting his golems back to their original forms and placing them in the proper floor places as Archer comes back around.

“Man you throw a strong right!” Archer says and goes on with, “How did you figure out where I was?”

“Your real body was casting a real weird shadow on the floor, while your projection did not have a shadow at all.” James states as he heads out the door. “Oh you should probably get your body healed too. I think I cracked more than a few of your ribs with that punch.”

With that James followed the line to the infirmary as someone saw to helping Archer out of the room. He thought of how that battle could have been easier if he had been using his wind powers instead of his earth powers, but put it out of his head as he was cleared to fight again. He made his way to the main room to see that Robert was beaten, but Julies made it onto the third round. With the scanning of the brackets done, James headed to his next room to fight in still holding on to his earth power.

This time when he walked into the room, he walked to about fifteen feet from his opponent. Then they were requested to introduce themselves like the previous battles.

“James Hail”

“Kris Ash”

Then the count-down began and James got a good look at his opponent. Kris is a fire haired, medium build guy that had the same colored eyes as his hair. It also seemed like his hair was moving like it was actually a live fire.

The count-down reached zero as Kris hit with fire right away. James had been paying attention to his intuition about Kris and decided that switching to a different power was probably better than remaining earth. His change was just in time to douse Kris’s fire before it reached him.

“So you must be a water elemental user. Ha it goes with your name if you can make ice out of it,” Kris says from across the room.

“I guess you could say that, and Fire for you Ash.” James says with his own laugh. “I guess we could just say it is coincidence that Hail vs. Ash is just a big joke to the ones running the show.”

Both students laugh about this until they decide finishing the fight would probably be the best thing to do at the moment. They both nod to each other to confirm they are ready to continue. James pools the water in the air and cools it around Kris’s body to create a cold, damp, ice prison for Kris before his flame could even have a second life.

“Well, I give up.” Kris says while shivering. “I do not feel like being frozen or drowned right now so let’s call the match so I can warm up.”

James smiles as he is declared winner of his third round and lets the ice and water go back into the air. “Well that was the quickest one so far. You have any idea who is left?” James asks as they make their way to the door.

“No idea James. My matches have been long like yours it seems. Let’s go check who is still in after being cleared by the infirmary.” Kris says as they get to the infirmary.

James agrees and they get cleared by the infirmary quickly since neither of them really received damage in their fight. James and Kris make it to the brackets to see three others heading down a different hallway. James checked the girls’ bracket to see if Julies has finished her third match, but it looked like she was still going. He then headed down the hall the other three went down while holding onto his water power.

He started listing off which types he had fought so far while walking to his next room. An ogre shifter that was durable and quick, a projector-illusionist that has good diversity and a fire elemental user that is smart with a good sense of battle tactics. James could not wait to see who his next battle would be against. He finally reached the next room, calmed his excitement, and walked in. Now that both contests knew what to expect they did not even wait for the speakers before stating their names.

“Roger Brosturm”

“James Hail”

With introductions out-of-the-way, the count-down began. James decided that he would switch to the next element so he would have his favorite in the final match. As the clock hit zero both fighter were prepared and moving towards each other. Suddenly, James threw out a stream a fire. It was heading straight towards Roger when he felt something hit him once in the stomach that stopped his fire abruptly. Then, he was hit in the head which made him black out.