back from the hospital
|Three days later - day before the tournament|
The class meets at the training ground early in the morning. When they arrive almost simultaneously, they see James with his chest wrapped up with bandages doing pushups with a painful grimace, wearing black cargo pants, black boots and dark blue fingerless gloves.
"Is he... not sleeping?" Henry asks looking at the sweating, grunting teen doing pushups on the other side of the training ground.
"Let's just wait for Miranda. She'll be happy to see him on his feet. Maybe that will brighten her mood a bit, despite her current situation." Serena says, all of the students having noticed her complete change of attitude after her bet with George and James hospitalization, the black-haired teen only having woken up last night.
"Hello everyone." Miranda greets the class gathered at the entrance.
"What are you all looking at?" She asks, Yasmina arriving moments after her.
"James? He's out of the hospital?!" Yasmina says happily and hurries over to the bandaged teen.
"Are you OK Miss Loft?" Tim asks the teacher who looks like she just got three years younger.
"Yeah." She says softly, the class relieved to see her moods lifted.
"Alright! One more day. Let's greet James and then get to it!" Lily says bossily.
"Hey. How are you? When were you even released from the hospital?" Yasmina asks James, stopping in front of him.
He jumps to his feet surprisingly energetic.
"I'm good. Sore but nothing that'll stand in our way for a win tomorrow." He says with a smirk.
"Are you sure? You didn't look very good yesterday." Yasmina asks worried he's pushing himself.
"I'm sure." He says.
"So you visited me when I was in the hospital?" He asks.
"Of course. Miranda also went whenever she had time." Yasmina informs him.
"She did?" He asks smiling.
"Don't smile you idiot. We were worried. What happened anyways?" Yasmina asks angrily.
"I'll explain later." He says, squeezing her hand while shooting her a pleading look and she nods her head in acceptance.
"Good to see you back on your feet bro." Henry tells James, fist bumping him with the whole class coming over.
"Yeah, we're all glad you're alive but we still have a situation at hand, so let's get back to training for tomorrow." Lily says.
"And I thought you were class rep." James tells Yasmina making her laugh lightly.
"I am relieved to see you back on your feet James." Miranda says, hugging the teen, with most boys staring at this jealously.
"I hope you haven't announced the King yet." He says, returning the hug.
"I was going to at lunch." She says.
"Good then you can still give me the role." He says confidently.
"What are you blabbering about? You're just out of the hospital. And you haven't been present for training once." Lily says annoyed.
"The King doesn't need to be present for training and honestly I'm this class's only shot to win." He says casually.
"Cocky words from the resident sleepyhead." Tim remarks.
"That's mostly over now." James tells them.
"Let James prove himself. His elemental fortitude always was better than mine. If he is truly better now why not make use of it?" Leonhard says, his large muscular frame sticking out in the small crowd.
"Leonhard is right. We agreed to let James prove himself to us." Miranda says, intrigued why James is so sure about being the tournament's king.
"Fine. I think it's just a waste of time but it's your call Miss Loft." Lily says.
"How are we going to assess you're better qualified though?" Miranda asks.
"Just let me fight against everyone." James suggests, shrugging his shoulders.
"OK, easy enough. Who wants to go first?" Miranda asks.
"You misunderstood. I meant all of them at once." James says.
"Hah, ridiculous." Tim laughs.
"Let him do it." Miranda says nodding, after seeing the serious look on his face.
"OK. We can practice our combination this way too. So it works out." Lily says, grinning sure of their victory.
"Alright. Go on opposite ends of the field then." Miranda says and goes up to the viewing platform which is on the wall behind James.
"Begin!" She shouts once everyone is ready.
"Formation C, Go!" Lily orders and 6 of the students rush towards James, Yasmina using her lightning enhancement to speed up and run along the right side.
"I call forth the icy chill of the past. Abysmal Glacier!" James chants barely reacting to the oncoming students.
He extends his right hand towards the group of all the students besides Yasmina and ice covers the whole floor starting from 8 meters in front of him, reaching the students 70 meters away in 2 seconds. Once the ice reaches their feet everyone is shocked when the ice starts to crawl up their legs until they're covered up to their elbows, both arms unusable for every teen.
"The hell is this?" Serena asks struggling against the ice without getting any result.
"Take this!" Yasmina yells, jumping off the wall, flying towards James with a lightning covered fist.
James catches the attack in his open palm and smirks, scooping up Yasmina and dashes towards the wall she jumped off from, magic energy shooting out of his feet like rocket boosters and pushes her against the wall.
He holds a magic circle in his hand and pushes it into the wall next to her head, vines spouting out of the wall, encircling her in a few seconds.
"The hell? I thought you're only good for sleeping." Lily shouts annoyed.
"I won." He grins, looking up to the shocked teacher and snips his finger, his magical vines and the ice dissipating in a shower of light.
"That was cold. Literally." Tina says, rubbing her arms.
"Sunray downpour." James says, two magical circles rotating around his wrists and he holds his hands out to his classmates, warming them up with sunrays shining down on them.
"I think we can all agree that James is the right man for the job afterall." Miranda says happily, coming down to the students.
"Why are you in the first year? That was high level magic. Something only few graduates can even do." Leonhard asks James.
"I can't tell you. But you can count on me winning this tournament for a friend." He says, looking at Miranda.
"Fine. I guess we should use you as King, but what combinations should be use then." Lily says already thinking about it.
"I appreciate your effort Lily, but for this match it's not necessary." James tells her with a gentle smile, making her blush for a moment, before shrugging it off and she asks, "what do you mean it's not nessecary for this match?"
"I will win this one by myself for our teacher. All you can do is buy time for the Kings to be exposed, since I assume we can't wait it out and hope they'll take each other out before we even have to fight since the 1st class will be coming for us from the get-go, because of their disgrace of a teacher." James explains.
"Miranda? What do you say?" Lily asks the woman.
"I trust James. Do what he said." Miranda replies, looking at James appreciatively, his classmates fuming with jealousy.