Teamwork (1)

Another month of training passed. It was mainly for Aavern. He picked everything up extraordinarily quickly and reached our level of skill quickly. Even though he was here, I started getting woken up by nightmares. Being trapped in black tendrils while Aavern was trying to reach me. Aavern trying to pull the others out of a cave while I looked on, unable to do anything. Rain pounding on the windows while I frantically searched the castle for any sign of life. 

When Aavern caught up in training, Azor introduced a brand-new concept: a spawning crystal. The boulders would be moved back to it using magic and it would "revive" them (as Azor called it) constantly throughout the battle unless destroyed. This added a new challenge to the battles. He specifically instructed us that we had to destroy it at the beginning of the battle to stop us from getting gradually overwhelmed and worn out.

He came up to us one morning after breakfast with a gleam in his eye. "Now, you all have a scrimmage."

"What's a scrimmage?" I asked.

"It's where you all fight against each other."

"WHAT?" everyone yelled simultaneously.

"Relax," Azor said, "It'll just be a friendly match. This is good for your training."

"Why can't we have more of those creature battles?" Dracoa asked, "Those are fun."

"Only Aavern and Cyil remember to destroy the spawning crystal."

"Spawning crystal?" Qassot asked. "What spawning crystal?"

"I don't destroy it because Aavern and Cyil go for it before I can," Dracoa said.

"That's not true," Aavern said indignantly. "You just go right for the creatures with this crazy look in your eyes. It's like you love fighting or something.

Azor sighed and rubbed his forehead. "Just… we're doing a scrimmage today."

"Okay," Aavern said, "What are the teams?"

"Aavern and Cyil versus everybody."

"THAT'S NOT FAIR!" cried everybody at once. We all began to chatter at the same time.

I said, "3 against 2!? You guys have an advantage. Riselus is going to smash all of us!"

Aavern leaned back on his two back legs and crossed his four front legs, "A dragon and a wyvern is not fair in the air."

"I can only dodge a few of Cyil's javelins at a time," Dracoa grumbled, "Now there are two of them!"

With a tone of complaint, Qassot said, "You guys are so tiny. How are we supposed to hit you?"

"I'm actually large for my age," Aavern said proudly.

"That's still very small," Qassot said.

"Hey!" Aavern pouted.

"I can't see them when they're flying," Riselus grumbled.

"Well, we can't even get close to you," I said.

"ENOUGH!" Azor shouted. "I know that that might not be fair but you should listen to what I'm saying next. I'm joining too."

Silence.

"I'm only using one weak spell."

Small bits of murmuring. This was going to be fun.

"And I'm going to be on Riselus's team."

More angry chattering.

"STOP IT!"

"You sound like the announcer," said Qassot, "Remember him?"

We all fondly remembered the announcer at the meetings.

"Hey. Stop it. It's time to-"

"Remember that one time he fell off the podium?" I said.

Everyone laughed and continued to walk through the past.

"HEY!"

"Yes?" Riselus looked at Azor, who was attempting to remain calm but was clearly angry.

"Just deal with the teams. Let's get started," said Azor.

Over the course of the training, Aavern decided to use the same tactics as I did, but had been trying out rocks which shattered on impact instead of javelins. He found them more fun. We would rocket up with three in our grasp, one per pair of legs, and fling them all over the place. 

"What's our plan?" Aavern asked.

"Plan?" I was confused. Azor never taught us to make plans.

"Everyone always rushes off to fight before we can plan how we fight."

"What good will a plan do?"

Aavern sighed. "Let's just make a plan. I throw rocks, so they're less effective against anyone in the air. You can hit pretty much anything with great accuracy, so you can go after Dracoa and Qassot."

"Good idea," I said. "Planning is nice."

Aavern rolled his eyes.

"We also need to have some teamwork."

"What?"

"Teamwork, you know, like working together?"

"We can do that?"

"Are you kidding me?"

The thought had never occurred to me. Whenever we fought in mock battles, everyone just kind of did their own thing in different corners of the field.

"So how do we teamwork?"

Aavern paused. "If you need help, call me, and I'll call you if I need help. If we can't beat someone, we both need to figure something out and work together."

I blinked. "Teamwork is that easy? When'd you figure this out?"

"Informants had to work together sometimes. The Qade Valley council taught us," Aavern said. "The hard part is getting everyone to do what they're supposed to."

I rolled over. "But since it's me, that won't be a problem, right?"

Aavern chuckled. "Well, maybe not a big problem."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Azor yelled something like "GET GOING YOU LAZY MOUNDS OF MEAT". At the same moment, a lightning bolt struck the rocks next to us. We glanced up. The other team had started moving. The scrimmage had begun.

"I THOUGHT YOU SAID A WEAK SPELL!" Aavern yelled.

"IT IS WEAK!" Azor yelled back.

"NO IT ISN'T!"

"IT'S THE WEAKEST ONE I KNOW!"

While they were distracted, I had picked up my javelin and slung it at Azor. Azor sidestepped. I groaned.

"Wrong target," Aavern said. "You're supposed to go after Dracoa and Qassot."

"Oh."

I looked up. Qassot was approaching carefully, shrouded by a cluster of bushes she was carrying, while Dracoa was rushing headlong towards me. I squeaked in surprise and threw my javelin the wrong way.

"Wrong target again," Aavern called to me. He was lobbing rocks at Riselus and Azor, giving them little chance to retaliate. Any lightning bolts Azor shot would hit the next rock Aavern threw.

"Wow," I said.

"Stop being impressed and hit the targets you're supposed to hit."

"Right."

Dracoa suddenly appeared in front of me. I panicked and stuck my javelin into her face. She immediately backed off. I flew upwards to get some distance and threw the javelin at Dracoa. She moved out of the way and it almost hit Aavern.

"Hey!"

"Sorry!"

"You need to strategize. Think about what you're doing. You're working with a team, not fighting on your own!"

"HOW DO I STRATEGIZE?"

"WHATEVER! YOU'RE SMART! JUST THINK!"

I thought for a moment. Dracoa was flying towards me, and Qassot was steadily approaching.

"What if I get Qassot to slam into Dracoa?" I mumbled to myself. "They didn't learn the teamwork Aavern told me about, right?"

I flew upwards again. Dracoa followed. I dove into a wide loop that would put Dracoa and Qassot in line with each other, then released my javelin.

"Your aim is getting bad," Dracoa taunted, dodging easily.

"Wasn't aiming for you," I said smugly.

Dracoa turned. The javelin had hit Qassot. I beamed proudly. I didn't get them to slam into one another, but figuring out better ways to win was fun. I put my mind to work again.

The sun was high in the sky when Qassot landed the first hit on me. The aerial dogfight we were engaged in led us away from Aavern, who was dropping the rocks on top of Azor from an angle he couldn't see. I did something similar; by using the momentum I got from diving in a circle, I could make extremely quick loops around Qassot and Dracoa while keeping my distance. The loop ended when I veered to avoid the ground and ended up smashing into a bush Qassot threw at me.

"Ow."

"Finally hit you!" Qassot said.

Dracoa came whirling down on top of me. I chucked the bush at Dracoa.

"Hey! You can't do that!" she yelled.

"Nobody said I couldn't!" I said gleefully. I then started flying again.

I ended up coming up with many different ways to hit Qassot and Dracoa without getting hit myself. While Dracoa could easily dodge my javelins, if I lined the two up, I could get Dracoa to dodge and hit Qassot instead. If I led them into Aavern's constant bombardment of rocks, they had a small chance of getting hit by Aavern or Azor.

"This is annoying," I heard Riselus say, "I can't do anything."

I flew over and landed on Riselus.

"Hello!"

"Where did you come from?"

"Bye!" I darted away.

"WHAT?"

Qassot's bush hit Riselus in the face at the same moment Dracoa's tail lash missed me and hit Riselus's head instead.

"I'M ON YOUR TEAM!" Riselus bellowed.

"Sorry!" Qassot said, "Cyil's just too fast!"

"He keeps running," Dracoa growled, "I'm not used to fighting a coward."

I giggled. "Not a coward, it's all strategy!"

Dracoa snarled at me and continued chasing me.

She got hit in the side with a lightning bolt that Azor aimed at me.

My javelin bounced off of Riselus's shell and thwacked Azor across the face.

Azor stumbled in surprise and got hit with a rock, sending another lightning bolt flying the wrong way.

The stray lightning bolt knocked Qassot into Dracoa, who had started yelling at Azor.

I flew back up to Aavern.

"So you figured out how to strategize," Aavern said.

"It's really fun," I said, still giggling. "Teamwork too!"

"That wasn't teamwork. That was us doing our own thing."

"Oh."

"Let's work together now. I'll throw rocks slightly to their left, and you aim your javelins slightly to their right."

"What will that do?"

"They will either dodge to the left to avoid the javelin and get hit with a rock, or dodge the right to avoid the rock and get hit with a javelin."

"Wow, how did you figure that out?"

"I… just did?"

"You sound so experienced at this!"

"I'm not, though. I'm just using my head."

"I'm also using my head and I can't figure that out!"

Our conversation was interrupted by another lightning bolt that hit both of us at the same time.

"Ouch," Aavern said. I gave him a leaf. He gave me a leaf too.

"Let's try out that thing you said," I said. I still had a few javelins left.

"Sure!"

We flew up and started raining projectiles down on the small cluster. We missed quite a few, but also landed quite a few hits as they stumbled around to avoid things and knocked each other into the path of getting hit.

"This is funny," I said.

"I feel bad for them," Aavern said.

By the time the sun set, we had won.