mock fight

After leaving Miranda, James heads towards his dorm room, where eats something, preferring the peace in his room over the noisy chatter from the always overfilled cafeteria.

After a quick lunch he heads over to the 8th training ground, where he immediately lies down in a corner and sleeps.

|Half an hour later|

"Hey. Are you OK?" James hears a female voice asking while he's getting shaken awake.

"Hmm. Why wouldn't I be?" He asks, wiping the sleep out of his eyes and sits up against the training area's wall.

"I don't know. You were just lying here." The girl, which turns out to.be the white-haired girl which inquired about the battle simulator replies, looking at him with curious purple eyes.

"You are who again?" He asks, stifling a yawn, while looking her over, the girl being about his size, has a fit athletic body and white hair gathered in a short ponytail behind her head with two bangs covering her ears.

She wears a dark green tank top, an open grey sports jacket, black sneakers and black stockings under a dark purple skirt reaching a little past her knees.

"Yasmina Stray." She introduces herself, offering a handshake which he returns.

"So, why weren't you with the rest of us?" She asks sitting down next to him, while motioning to the group of students gathered at the training ground's entrance.

"The cafeteria is too noisy." He replies, looking at a digital watch on his wrist to see how long he slept.

"So you are a prince huh? I always Imagined them to be more... well more." She laughs, making him crack a genuine smile.

"I get that a lot, well mostly followed by no offense but for a beautiful girl like you I'll let it slide." He says glancing at her with a smirk.

"Well to get back to your statement, if you are looking for the handsome leader prince type then I can refer you to my brother. Though the stuck-up douche probably won't give you the time of day." He says, making her laugh.

"You are funny. Anyways, is there a reason for the constant sleeping?" She asks curious.

"I'm tired." He says, shrugging his shoulders, with Yasmina smiling at this.

"Gather everyone." Miranda says, entering the training ground, which is a large field with gras and white walls build around it, only the entrance area being left open.

"Come on." Yasmina tells James, bumping his shoulder and joins the rest of their class.

"First, I think it's easier if we go by first name basis from now on OK?" She suggests, receiving some nods from the small group.

"Good. And now I want everyone to present their expertise and if possible, perform a few spells." Miranda says, taking out a clipboard and opens the first student's page, asking him to present his skill. This continues on until only James and Yasmina are left on the list. Up to that point the class has 3 martial arts favoring students, 2 support magic user and only 2 experienced offensive magic users, the 6 others having not such a strong knowledge of a specialty but none of them have weak magic reserves either.

"Now then Yasmina. It's your turn." Miranda says.

"Wish me luck." Yasmina says, stepping away from James and stops in front of the group like the others.

"My magic is Lightning. I can use offensive techniques and augmentation." She informs everyone, holding out a ball of lightning and throws it at the dummy Miranda set up earlier.

"Nice. What augmentation can you use?" Miranda inquires.

"Speed and reflexes through my lightning affinity." She answers.

"Good, thank you. And finally, James it's your turn." Miranda says, flipping to the last page.

"Yeah." He groans, switching spots with Yasmina.

"So, what can you do?" She asks curiously since she never has seen him use magic much.

"A bit of everything, I guess. Though my specialty lies in weapons combat I'd say." He shrugs his shoulders, creating a spear of light, twirling it around himself a few times before it turns to a burning double ended scythe and finally into a wooden staff, which he then leans on tiredly.

"You shouldn't hide your abilities James." Miranda remarks, noticing that despite him repeating the first year for the fourth time and never showing any interest or intention to study he's quite strong, judging from his elemental control and magic reserves, which are even larger than her own.

"Cool." Kai, a shorter but muscular Asian teen says impressed by his quick display of weapons techniques.

"Well, now that everyone is a bit familiar with each other's abilities... I want you to fight." Miranda says, dropping her usual cheerful attitude.

"Why?" One of the students asks.

"Because I need to know how well each of you adapts and handles a battle situation." Miranda informs them.

"You will begin in 2 minutes. Attacks are only permitted to cause minor injuries." Miranda informs them and steps away, going up some stairs to a small platform on the back wall from where she has a good view.

The students are splitting up in groups frantically to provide initial protection until they'll have to fight each other. This results in 3 four-man groups, one being the three martial artists and one support magic user, the group having two guys and two girls with one of them being the supporter.

The next group is the two experienced mages, besides James and Yasmina. The other two in the group are friends of one of them. And the last group, consisting of all girls has the other supporter with them, who is the freckled redhead who asked about James earlier.

This leaves James, Yasmina and a black-haired girl with a bob cut and a smaller figure left.

"You girls also want to team up to make things even?" James asks the two, who look at each other before nodding.

"Alright. Begin!" Miranda shouts a minute later, watching from above.

The group of martial artists then storm towards the all-girls group, supported by the other girl in their group, giving them increased defense and flexibility.

The two experienced mages and their friends set their sights on James, Yasmina and the other girl since they have the smallest group.

"Who do you want?" James asks, blowing into a white six-shooter construct and aims at the approaching group with one mage creating a fire ball and the other one stops in place, raising his hands with an earth ball to break out of the ground.

"I got the earth user." Yasmina says, her calves lighting up with blue electricity and she speeds over to the earth magician, throwing a low powered lightning ball at the teen.

The black-haired girl from their group engages one of the other guys, creating roots which crawl up the teen's body, holding him in place with two lianas holding his arms. By the time Yasmina looks back to James he hasn't moved and both other attackers are lying on the floor, having gotten knocked over by his down powered air bullets, which basically are a strong gust of wind.

The black-haired girl of their group is the next one to disqualify with Kai stopping a punch in front of her face and only flicks her nose with a quick smile, before he and the two other martial artists continue in their spear formation and head to James.

"Take out the support." James tells Yasmina who nods and tackles over the busty blonde, making her drop her magic.

James then uses his six-shooter to knock the three martial artists over by firing his remaining four bullets in rapid fire.

With them out of the competition only James and Yasmina are left.

"How do you want to do this?" The girl asks.

"I have an idea." He says after thinking for a second.

He waits until she's near him again and holds out his left hand, palm facing up and strikes down on it 3 times slowly, saying "Rock. Paper. Scissors. Shoot.", with Yasmina joining in at the paper. "I win. Paper beats rock." She smirks, slapping his fist with her flat hand.

"Ohh, the mental stress." He says dramatically, falling over in a show.

"Good enough?" He asks, looking up at Miranda, who nods giggling, shaking her head at his ridiculous performance.

The teacher comes down to the students who all gather again.

"I will tell you my analyzation tomorrow. You have the rest of the day off." She tells them and moments later George steps into the training ground.

"Hello Miranda. Beautiful as ever, are you ready to head back?" He asks, putting his hand around her lower back.

"Sure." The green haired teacher replies, waving goodbye to the students. Noticing the small frown on James face, though she's clueless what caused his change in demeanor.

"You were pretty good out there. How come you never moved on to the next classes?" Yasmina asks James.

"Because I didn't want to." He says, looking to the sky with an exhausted sigh.

"Do you want to this year?" Yasmina asks.

"Probably should." He murmurs, his mind replaying George's and Miranda's interaction.

"Cool. I'm looking forward to working with you then." Yasmina says, offering another handshake while striking a pose, her other hand at her hip and leaned forward slightly, teasing a glimpse at her cleavage.

"Did anyone tell you before that you're very beautiful?" He asks, his mood lifting because of her.

"You did a few minutes ago." She reminds him when he shakes her hand.

"Well, I meant it." He says grinning, before yawning again, making her laugh heartily.