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A loud trumpet sound woke up the camp.
"Scouts report incoming attack from Oxford," a voice shouted outside.
"We have scouts?" Peter wondered, rubbing his eyes. His camp didn't strike him as well prepared.
"To the ramparts! We follow the plan!" Melinda bellowed.
"We have a plan?" he inquired again.
"Uhuh…" Peter grumbled, his eyelids still sticky and sleepy.
"I need ranged fighters!" Alchemy yelled. "C'mon, you lazy snails, move!"
Regina pulled the sleeping bag over her head. "I can go out like this!" she complained. "My hair is a mess and I have no antiperspirant left."
"Take mine," Peter offered.
Regina showed her eyes first, then stretched a naked arm and snatched the recipient. "It has aluminum!" she read the label and accused.
"I'm going outside," Peter avoided being dragged into an argument, exiting the tent after dressing in his usual light-hiking gear.
Alchemy floated thirty feet above the camp, and the students struggled to exit their shelters.
"They attack early," Dissection said. He had climbed into a tree to speak with Alchemy at the same height.
Looking over the rampart, Peter took in the impressive sight of the incoming attack. At a leisurely pace, about two hundred armored knights and a thousand archers advanced toward their camp. Five hundred feet away, the small army stopped, and the longbows began to shoot a hail of qi-arrows.
"Shields!" Melinda yelled.
Whether of energy or material, the protections appeared everywhere. The projectiles failed to find their targets and fell harmless on the ground. Peter ducked behind the wooden wall.
"Hi sweetie," Regina said. She appeared on the fortifications without him noticing and now was throwing qi-bolts together with the rest of the Spirit students. The enemy kept advancing and released another salvo. This time, a few students or normies in the logistics were hit and started to curse.
I can't make a difference without revealing my powers.
Luck was on their side though, as a second army appeared on the field. The Chinese. They attacked the Oxforders with gusto.
Hm… Why are they helping us?
Someone in the camp asked if they should stop firing.
"Keep shooting!" Alchemy yelled. "They're not here to rescue us, they'll take out as many Oxforders possible, get our flag, then go against Oxford while they're weak, making us fight in the first line."
The Asian assault had nothing of the order of the Brits, but it had twice the numbers and ferocity. The attackers pounced around the Oxforders, like a pack of wolves on a buffalo herd. And they worked in pairs: one woman, always the Body Cultivator, and a younger man, the Spirit. The first ones' fighting style was Kung-Fu, and the women used qi-claws emerging from their knuckles. Tiger Mothers was the result of Peter’s Inspect. Tiger Cubs, for the young males.
"Ew…" Peter shivered. "They train parents and kids together?"
"I’m traumatized only thinking about it!"
The incoming attacks nullified each other, with the Asians slowly gaining the upper hand. That was until a third faction came into play minutes later, and this one, Peter and all his college hated with passion. The Yalevarders. Divided into teams of four or five, combining normies—military—with Cultivators, they used both magic and guns. The rubber bullets tore down the Oxford archers, who were in the middle, but the Asians were next. There was no doubt who the winner of the battle would be.
A nightmare took shape in Peter’s mind: if Yalevard would make them their slaves, there was no more time for training or fun, it was going to be about emptying the latrines with a spoon or worse. Dartmouth was not a good place for normies, but Yalevard was worse. He had to do something. He gasped. The best plan was the simplest: to conquer Yalevard’s flag.
First, he looked around, to find the ideal candidate for the job. Daniel was a contender, but he lost the pageant unknowingly when Peter’s eyes met Kostel. The guard was keeping his distance from the fight. Obviously, like Peter, he wasn't interested in the Cultivators' games, but neither understood the stakes.
"I have a plan," Peter said to Regina, who nodded and continued to send qi-bolts.
He beckoned the guard to join him behind a tent—no one was paying attention to them anyway—grabbed the man’s arm and Warped a mile farther, atop the next hill.
"Dude, warn me next time!" Kostel complained. "What the heck was that?”
“A special move I learned in a manual. Don’t tell anyone, but I’m a sort of a Wild Magic user.”
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“I am one too!" Kostel beamed. “Brothers in arms, bro!”
"I need your help. If Yalevard gets us, we'll work for them for the rest of the week. Hard work."
That did the job better than expected. "What do you want me to do?"
"I'll explain it when we're there. Prepare to jump again."
Giving the guard a second to breathe, Peter grabbed the man’s arm and chained enough jumps to arrive a couple hundred yards from Yalevard's military-style camp, hidden by a thicket. There, he put Kostel down and Inspected the perimeter. The skill's new tier helped him observe the pattern of the patrolling guards, with their lapses.
"I'll jump on top of a guard and choke him unconscious. Then you take his clothes, sneak into the camp, and steal their flag."
"I dunno, man… that looks dangerous," Kostel scratched his chin.
"You’re the only one able to do it. As I expected, they left the more... err... mature guards to guard their base.”
“Why don’t you jump inside the camp?” Kostel insisted.
The truth was Peter didn’t want to risk revealing his skills, and Stealth was too Mana-consuming. “Jumping is the easy part, but untying the flag will take time. I look too young, you’re perfect. Manly and tough. C'mon… Think how Melinda will think of you if you save the day."
Kostel's eyes shone, and he rubbed his hands. "Let's do it."
When one of the camp guards, even more chubby than Kostel, entered their thicket to pee, Peter Warped behind him, grabbing the man into a chokehold.
The movies—Peter discovered—were all wrong. The man fought back, attempting to bite and kick while continuing to pee at the same time. The fight went on for a minute.
“Here, like that,” Kostel arrived, moving Peter’s arms into a position offering better leverage. Finally, the man collapsed.
Kostel took the man's vest and then tied the soldier tight with a rope and improvised a gag from a handkerchief. There was no way to use the man's pants, all wet and soiled, but Kostel’s tactical pants had the same color.
"Is he breathing?" Peter panicked, trying to feel the soldier's pulse. There was none. "Oh, my God!" he gasped. “He’s dead! Oh my God, Oh my God!”
Kostel moved Peter's fingers to a lower position. "We take first-aid classes," he explained.
"Thank goodness, he's alive… OK, off you go. I'll wait here."
Of course not.
Kostel entered the camp without any problem. Reaching the mast, the guard fumbled with the flag but retreated into an empty tent while two teachers passed by. He returned to the mast, did the job, hid the flag under his jacket, and returned to Peter as fast as possible without raising suspicion.
"Let's go," Peter said, grabbing Kostel for the jump. As usual, he Warped a few hundred yards away, and then they ran, Kostel heaving like a dying horse.
Meanwhile, the situation had evolved for the worse. The Oxford and the Asian attacks have been repelled, their troops now scattered around, eating snacks and mingling. About fifty Yalevarders were assaulting Peter's camp gates, and only three fighters were still standing. Jack, Daniel, and Regina.
The two men were flourishing pole arms, one of Peter's cleaver blades now in Jack's possession, while Regina offered them protection. She had a straw doll in each hand, and whenever a hit found her comrades in arms, the damage was soaked by the puppet, straws flying away. Their last stand was keeping the attackers at bay, albeit there could be only one ending for the fight.
"Surrender," a voice said. Up in the air, facing Alchemy, was one of the Yalevarder's teachers. Hearing his voice, the attackers paused.
Melinda opened her mouth, but Jack, crazed by the adrenaline, screamed first:
"Eat my dick, Yalevard! We’ll pee on your graves!”
"Yeah!" Regina and Daniel roared.
"Very well. The game is non-lethal, but that means many things. Break their legs," the Yalevarder teacher ordered.
Before the attack resumed, though, Kostel entered the camp, wrapped in the enemy flag. His back straightened, his eyes on fire, Kostel looked up toward Alchemy, and bellowed: "The ride of the Rohirrim has arrived, my liege. Victory’s ours!"
A second later, a loud voice thundered:
"Qi-Message. Camp Dartmouth had conquered camp's Yalevard's flag. For the rest of the Competition, Yalevard will follow Dartmouth's orders."
"No!" Yalevard's director screamed. "It can't be!" His students were letting out the average 'Fuck' or Shit!" With his head lowered between his shoulders, the Cultivator turned and floated away, followed by his troops.
"Not so fast!" Alchemy snapped.
"What do you want?" the man stopped, keeping his back to her.
"Send your remaining fighters to conquer the Chinese camp, and put the rest to move your camp around ours. You'll be our defense."
"But…" the man tried to object.
"But nothing. It's an order!"
Floating down, Melinda grabbed Kostel's face, placing a kiss on his half-bald forehead. "Good job, head of security," she promoted the man on the spot. "Tonight, we have a feast!" she yelled, pumping her fist in the air. "This is SPARTA!"
If she's happy…
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When night came, campfires lighted the plains everywhere. The fight was over, it was time to party, the students decided. Some brought speakers; music was all around, mixing in a discordant combination of styles, and silhouettes were dancing. People talked loudly, to get heard over the music... a very Earthy vibe, but on an alien planet.
At one of the smallest fires, Ariana, Regina, Naomi, and Peter ate whatever they could improvise by themselves. Ariana was sulking. Regina wrapped her arm around her friend's shoulders, then rubbed the girl’s back.
"I can't be with her ever again…" Ariana wailed. "Her lips kissed… that thing. Imagine him touching her everywhere."
"Enough details, we're eating," Peter interjected. "You sure?"
"Look at his face!"
Beaming in a new uniform, Kostel strolled around, his chest filled with more decorations than a South American dictator, Cultivator Scout badges one over another.
"You didn't mind when she slept with Jack," Naomi pointed. "There’s no difference, after all. Two eyes, two hands, two feet."
"Whatever…" Throwing her empty skewer stick in the fire, Ariana went away.
"Tomorrow is a free day," Naomi said. "We can train some more."
"A second. Hey!" Peter rushed off to catch up with Kostel, who was passing nearby.
"Hello, my friend!" Kostel greeted him.
"Yeah…" Peter grabbed the guard’s shoulders and whispered in the head of security's ear. "Heard you got a hundred ounces of gold reward from Alchemy—"
"Melinda…" Kostel sighed. "Such a beautiful name…"
"I want half."
"Err… I dunno man. I took all the risks after all… Ten percent?"
"Half. By tomorrow evening. Remember: I made you, I’ll destroy you," Peter hissed. Kostel mumbled something unintelligible and walked away while the youngster returned to his fire. "We train in the morning and I'll go scouting in the afternoon. I'm curious about the other camps."
"There’s no need for that. I asked around Yaleward. There’s a joint Australian and New Zealand Campus they consider the most dangerous," Naomi said. "The Aussies are mainly Spirit. They tamed spiders, to paralyze their victims."
"I have to check if I can tame one myself," Ariana said.
"The New Zeelanders are big guys, Body Cultivators," Naomi continued.
"A bit cliché," Peter noted.
"The bad news is they took the Chinese flag before the guys we sent. Lagos College took out a German one but was disqualified when they attacked a camp from the Balkans. They used people who were hit and should have stayed out. Two teams from South America were eliminated by a college from... I forgot… the name was strange... They're first place now, followed by us. Last is Tokyo, they played defense, like us, but nobody attacked."
"I wonder what we did to be included in such a select company," Regina said. "All the other teams are much stronger."
Worldwide? How many Colleges were on Floor Three last week?
But this means that—
I hate Cultivators!
Absolutely.
I will think of it when the time comes, Peter replied in anger.