Chapter Eighteen:

“Okay, so I have a list of the dorm members and they’re beyond useless.” Gwen ranted, talking at a hundred words a minute as usual. “Besides David and I there’s no one highly ranked.”

“Well, you’re not highly ranked anymore because you missed that exam.” Jess pointed out helpfully.

“Thank you, Jess!” She hissed. “Then there’s Brentley, he may be full of himself but he comes from a good family and still has a high rank. The rest of them are hovering around average.”

“Above or below average?” Jess asked.

“Average is average. A good or bad trash bag is still a trash bag.”

“Yeesh.”

“Don’t yeesh me. I'm sick of your slang! I was up all on night working on this information.”

“Shouldn’t you have studied?” Jess asked in surprise.

“I did both.” Gwen answered, brushing her hair furiously behind her ears. “The problem isn’t just that they’re average, it’s that none of them are trained for battle. They’re liabilities. Next up is Matt and he does have a high rank in the fourth year. But he's not in the military program. So... He's what, Jess?”

"British?" Jess guessed.

"Useless."

“What's his rank though? Close to you?”’ Jess asked.

“He’s ranked 8th. And it’s a big drop of in quality from seventh place on. But he’s not enrolled in any military courses. He’s on a generalized course, since he wants to be an idiot teacher or something.” Gwen said, still barging on straight to the dining hall. It was started to rain now, and the drizzle was soaking their hair and making it cling to their necks.

She pushed open the dining hall and sat down at the nearest table, ordered some tea and threw the order card in.

“So, who else have we got?” Jess asked excitedly. “It’s like the oceans eleven intro. You know, introducing everyone before the heist!”

“I’m gonna ignore that too.” She said, wiping her slightly curly hair out of her face.

“Hey! Your hair curls when it’s wet! Dad’s does that too. It looks nice curly on you.”

“We’re related, of course it does that.” She said, ignoring him. “Brentley and David are also military students and besides me, they’re our strongest assets. Then we have Tweedledark and Tweedledum. They’re from an old noble family but they both look like let downs. Their ancestors have a long history in the military so hopefully there's some potential. God, I hate this generation." Gwen seethed. "Children of peace really are weak, that's why they spend all their time making up problems. We need a good war again... Don't look at me! Look at the idiots you recruited!"

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

"Fine. Fine." Jess laughed. "What's wrong with the twins?"

"Kate said she’s hoping to enter the healing field and thankfully that includes a lot of military courses." Gwen answered. "Which is good because now we have a battle healer. It’s better to have more of them but we only have one, so we’ll need to ensure she’s trained and kept safe during the games.”

Hmmm.

“Kate as a doctor.” Jess grinned.

Gwen punched him sharply in the jaw.

“Ow!”

“Focus. We only have one battle healer!”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m focused.” Jess said, rubbing his jaw. “You hurt my teeth.”

“You don’t care about your teeth.” She said, taking her tea from the arriving tray. “You haven’t brushed your teeth in days. Your breath was vile.”

“I brushed it today- hey! You didn’t order anything for me?”

“You didn’t ask me to.” She grabbed an order card and struck something off randomly and threw the order in for collection.”

“Happy?” she asked.

“Thank you." Jess said, pleased. "Ooo, is that Rooibos?” he asked glancing at her teacup.

“It’s my rooibos.”

“Fine,” Jess said, holding his hands up in surrender. “Sharing bad. Okay, so what about Tweedledark?

“Very unhelpful. Refused to talk to me, I had to talk through her handler- Tweedledum.” Gwen answered.

“So, what course is Nora doing?” Jess asked. He was having a hard time picturing Nora doing anything beside decimating pancakes and sacrificing children.

“I have no idea.” Gwen answered. “She’s taking classes that have no correlation. But she is thankfully enrolled in a combat magic course.”

Okay, that fits, Jess thought. He did picture her sacrificing those kids with fire.

“That girl, Hana, is enrolled in an arts program and she's only in third year. Raj is just a first year, so he’s not enrolled in anything specialized yet. Khanyi is enrolled in a military course thankfully. That’ll be helpful. But her rank is still average. Fernando-”

“Oh, I know him. He’s like the Spanish Pepe Le Pew.”

“And he’s not military anymore.” Gwen said in annoyance. “I remember him, he joined military to show off, then flunked out last year. He’s doing a general course now.”

“So he’s still in military then?” Jess joked. “You get it? General course? Like military- General-”

“That’s stupid we don’t even have a rank of general. Those are human army ranks.”

Jess sighed. “So, is that everyone then?”

“Unfortunately.”

“I think we’ll be okay.” Jess said optimistically.

“How could you think that! Haven’t you heard anything I said?”

“Haven’t you heard Bob Marley?” Jess asked sagely. “Don’t worry, about a thing, coseverylittlething is gonna be alright.”

“Jess! I can’t help you if you’re not taking this seriously!” she fumed, forcing herself not to rise from her seat and charge at him.

“Fine,” he apologized. “What do I need to do?”

She bit her lip. “We need to train everyone. The serious dorms will be staying behind over the holidays to train.”

“You can’t seriously ask people not to have a holiday.” He argued immediately. “People need to see their families, have a break from studying.”

“They can have a few days off, just not the whole break. Even the top students will be staying behind to train. It’s not even about training combat magic. In the second last dorm games one of the tasks was to hunt for an object on a mountain side. It took two days of hiking and camping. Matt and Hana are hunkered in at desks all day. Combat is one thing but I don’t think they can manage a sit up, let alone climb a mountain. Let alone fight another mage.”

“So, training.” Jess said in a defeated voice, the reality of everything was setting in and he was not enjoying that. He slumped down on the table and put his head on his hands. “I'm sorry that I dragged you into this.” He mumbled.

“Don’t be sorry.” She said quietly. “Just make sure you don’t mess this up for all of us.”