---Silves's POV---
The ringing of the gong startled me slightly, but no one moved. Which shocked me, expecting Echo to go rushing in to defeat the opponent quickly. Though the other guy seemed more worried that Cora, she was a powerful Siren. While her standard magic was weak, her vocal spells were phenomenal. She opened her mouth as she shoved Errol forward. Realizing that I would need to stop her from healing Errol or any other spells she might try to weave.
I created a thin wall of ice between them to block her line of sight, adding as much ice to thicken it as possible, before overcharging it and causing it to explode. Separating Errol and Cora, seeing that she looked dazed. I started weaving an ice shell around her, focusing on thickening it as much as possible before she regained her senses and started trying to get out.
Echo realizing that this was his chance shot forward and placed his trident under Errol's chin. As the gong sounded to signal the end of the match the ice around Cora exploded. She looked angry. Which made me feel bad for Errol, I knew a lot about Cora’s temperament. She was a perfectionist and planned for everything she could think of. The only reason we had beaten her so quickly, was because she either had not known about my ability to make ice explode, or failed to think it could be used in a battle.
Truthfully using my spell that way had worried me. Never having cast it that close to others, though this was more spread out than the little ball that I normally used. It also wasn’t condensed ice. If others contenders saw this fight that tactic might not work again. It was an element of surprise attack and the only reason I had been able to put Cora out of the fight so quickly.
Echo patted me on the shoulder. “Hey, Everything okay Silves?”
“What, yeah, just in shock,” I said lamely.
“That was impressive, using the shock wave to render them temporarily unable to fight.”
“Yeah, but if the others were watching, I doubt it will work again.”
“Hey, if it doesn’t it’s okay, this isn’t all on you, don’t forget that I’m here too.” He said with a smile.
I had to admit, his smile had worried me originally, but I was getting used to it. There had been a lot of incidents with other Sharkmer a while back and it had left me scared of them. Yet Echo wasn’t anything like the stories that were passed around, and it made me wonder if the stories were wrong. I knew Echo enjoyed eating meat, yet he never looked at one of the other mers or myself like we were food. There was something comforting about him being around, or at least being around me. While most mer-people were herbivores there were some that were omnivores and some that were carnivores. Most sharkmer were carnivores, yet I had seen Echo eat coral, so I was wondering if he was only half Sharkmer. Though I had been too afraid to ask, I knew that his family was a sensitive subject.
Feeling a hand on my shoulder caused me to look over and see Echo tugging at me. “Come on, we need to leave the arena.”
“Oh, right,” I said following him.
“Are you sure your okay? Did Cora get a spell off?” Echo asked worry in his voice.
“What? No, just distracted today, I guess. After worrying about the matches so much, having this one end so quickly was surprising.”
“I know right, that was great, did you see their faces as the wall of ice exploded.” He said with a chuckle.
Leaving the arena I smiled slighting thinking about our win. It had been bothering me for so long, thinking about how this match would go. Having it end so quickly was surprising to me, yet it gave me confidence that we could do better and might win our bracket like Echo thought we would. Though that would mean we would have the option to challenge the winners of the second year, which was almost terrifying to think about. Not that it would be bad to lose to them, but I had a feeling Echo wanted to win against them.
We found our seats in the stands reserved for the fighters and watched as they set up for the next match. The matches would continue over the next few days as we moved up the brackets. After each set of rounds, the day would be finished so that each team was able to rest before the next match. So overall it would be about 11 days, though it was the eleventh day that people were really excited about that was the optional matches. The winner of the year would get to challenge the second place winner of the year ahead of them. It was the second place winner because the first place winner would be challenging the year above if they wanted to. Most people did, if only for the chance to see how they compared to the year above them.
There would be another tournament at the end of the year to track our progress. Two tournaments allowed the public to see how our training was going and allowed them to see us in action. They had to trust that we would do our best to protect them, while many wouldn’t accept me others would. I would need to do my best to protect them all even if they didn’t like me. Glancing over at Echo, his eyes were riveted to the next pair, I had not listened to the pairing so I wasn’t too sure who was fighting. I didn’t recognize either of the Sirens either, which I felt kind of bad for.
“Team B will win the match,” Echo said simply.
“Why?”
“They are more relaxed and I know Solur is a strong Triton. While Team A seems more worried and apprehensive about going into the match. They are so focused on what will happen that they are not looking at what is happening.”
“I guess,”
Watching the two groups, I couldn’t see any of what he was talking about. They both seemed relaxed to me. Though Echo knew more about fighting than I did. At the sound of the gong, both teams launched into battle. Their fight took five minutes to complete. As Echo said, Team B won the battle. Solur was a good looking mer, dark green and black coloring. Alu was plain, brown and black and she didn’t stand out much. But her healing skills were stronger than you would have thought.
Team A put up a good fight, after the initial bout. Even Echo was surprised at their resistance. Cor was a blue and white mer, not much to look at, but some potential. His skill with a spear was decent, especially for a first year. Amu was a green and white mer, decent looking. Her healing wasn’t too strong, but she was great at obstructing the other sirens view. It just wasn’t enough to give them the win. Maybe with another Triton she could have helped, but in this first year, there wasn’t a lot that they could do.
Still, though, I felt their battle was better than ours. We didn’t really get to show off our skills, it had been over so quickly. Which left me feeling a little bad about it. Echo was happy with our win, I guessed any way he wasn’t complaining. Though he had been looking forward to the fighting and I had taken that away from him. Watching this match, I could feel his excitement. Even knowing that in our next match that tactic probably won't work again. There was a lot left for him to do.
Our other classmates would either be worried by our quick win, or they would think we got lucky and would be easy to beat. After all, if they think I’m the strongest one they might ignore Echo, though they were in the same class as him. They had to know that he was strong, didn’t they?
Time passed and Echo only got one of the matches wrong. During the lunch intermission, he couldn’t stop talking about it. I had to remind him that we were only first-year fighters, while in the future, he will probably be able to predict these fights, he had to remember that it could have been a fluke that allowed the other team to win. None of us had a lot of fighting experience, and it was easy to miss-time and attack allowing the enemy the chance to take the win.
By the time the matches were done for the day, Echo seemed more relaxed about it. Though he still paid attention to everything he could on the field. As if trying to memorize all of the opponents fighting styles. Sadly we wouldn’t be able to leave the academy this weekend for our normal training in the sea like we had been.
It was nice getting away from everyone on the weekends, being treated like a normal merman for one. Just getting to be me, even if we spent most of the weekend practicing our different magic skills and spells. I was able to hold my own against a shark, though I didn’t have the offensive ability to defeat it. I could keep it at bay. Even echo tried not to kill the animals we fought against. Unless he planned on eating it. Which he didn’t do around me after I had swum into the cave to see him with a fish in his mouth and I passed out.
Since then Echo seemed more guarded with me, and I wasn’t sure what to do to fix that. There was so much happening, especially now, that there wasn’t a lot of time to talk. Also, I was unsure what to say to make him more at ease, his eating meat did bother me. Though he wouldn’t hurt me, I was just unprepared. We had to talk soon, maybe after we won the tournament. If we were going to work as a team, and as friends he couldn’t feel that he had to hide a part of himself from me. We had to work together and that meant I would have to get used to him eating fish.
Taking a deep breath and looking over at Echo. This was something I could do for the first Mer outside of my family to treat me kindly.
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