Sword and Snow

Things around the basin were quiet as the two teams prepared to face off. Relatively. There was plenty of excitement flying around the crowd gathered to watch. Even the Elders were watching, excited to see how things go. Vale was also sitting in the group, but he was sat among a whole bunch of the kids, rather than with the Elders.

“...Do we need a referee?” Cierra asked, as she stared down the opponent team.

“Elise?” Emery asked, looking at her only Earth Realm child not taking part. “You’re already standing by for healing - want to act as referee?”

Elise stood up from where she was sitting on the nearest bench to the playing field. “Sure.” She said, as an aura of Qi surrounded her. It was a simple technique that would help minimize any attacks that came her way, just in case.

“Just as a reminder to everyone, then,” She began, “No techniques above Earth Realm. Obviously, that also means no Domains. You’re out if you get hit by the ball, and the ball hits the ground. If you get hit and a teammate catches the ball, you’re safe. If multiple people all get hit by the ball and it touches the ground, everyone that got hit is out. If you cleanly catch a ball that someone threw without it hitting anything else first, the thrower is out.”

Elise looked between the two teams, who were still sending dirty looks back and forth for intimidation and taunts. “Any questions?”

“What counts as catching the ball?” Glenn said, mostly for the benefit of the others. He knew the rules very well.

“Catching the ball straight on with your body. Using any technique to dull the ball’s momentum or otherwise intercept it does not count. Anything else?”

“I think we’re good,” Cove said.

“Same here,” Enrik responded, waving Elise on.

“Very well.” She said, and bent down to gather the ball that was to be used. She slowly walked to the center of the playing field, holding the ball up as if she was carrying something more significant than a game ball. “Everyone get in the dead zones behind your back line.”

Everyone did so as Elise placed the ball dead center in the no man’s land between both teams. She slowly walked back off the field. Whether or not she did it on purpose, the slow pace heightened the excitement in everyone watching, waiting for the start of the game.

Once Elise was off the field and in place, she turned back to watch the field. Once she confirmed everyone was in the dead zones, she nodded. The whispered excitement from the benches reached a fever pitch as she finally called, “Begin!”

Enrik immediately stomped the ground, hard. He sent Qi through the playing field that had been hardened into stone, hoping to launch the ball back to his team.

Unfortunately, Mica did the same - and she was faster. Her Qi slipped through the ground much faster than Enrik’s, and a stone plate about the size of two square meters popped up and launched the ball back toward her team.

As everyone broke from the dead zones behind the back lines, both teams spread out in an attempt to minimize the chances of ricochet hits. But in that opening scramble, Glenn’s team made their first move. Kord, already decked out in his Qi gauntlets and greaves, jumped straight forward and punched the ball as hard as he could, shoving as much of his Qi into it as he could manage on such a short contact.

The ball took on a slightly grayish white glow as it absorbed his Qi and flew straight at Fia. The ball was approaching from the girl’s blindspot, thanks to Mica’s large stone plate basically being a vertical wall.

“Fia!” Briar shouted, as the one with the cleanest view of the ball.

Fia, to her credit, was very quick to react. She threw herself to the ground and erupted in Qi, which flowed out of her like water. It fashioned into a strange conch shell-like shape above her, and the ball struck it. Kord’s attack nearly erupted from the other side of the shell, but the ball was successfully stopped by the water, as it seemed to spiral down the grooves of the shell like a marble run. It was deposited neatly into Fia’s hand as she stood.

Kord clicked his tongue as Mica patted the boy’s back. “It was a good try.”

“I couldn’t get enough power into the ball with just a punch. I need more contact time.”

Mica nodded. “Catch this next ball and we’ll get you that extra contact time.”

Fia stared down the opposing team, clearly deciding who to target while pushing her Qi into the ball. The ball began to glow softly blue as it aligned with Fia’s water aspected Qi. Given the single ball in play and the lack of any real timer, she had time to not only pick her target, but also how she wanted to approach throwing the ball in the first place.

The conch shell shaped water melted into a simple, round blob for the moment. Once she was satisfied with the amount of Qi she put into her technique, she dropped the ball back into the blob of water. It sank in a little bit, then held steady as if it was floating in the middle. Fia wound her arm back, as if to throw something, and the ball in the water slipped to the side of the blob.

As she wound up, a tentacle of water extended from the blob and held the ball at the tip. Following along with Fia’s motions, the tentacle whipped around and launched the ball at high speed. It glowed like a deep blue sapphire as it shot straight toward Karn.

Karn moved to dodge the ball, and did so gracefully. In the same motion, they called up a gnarled tree behind them and shaped it in such a way that it should catch the ball, allow it to roll around the rounded center, and launch it back at the other team.

Karn’s technique worked like a charm. They correctly read the trajectory of Fia’s throw, and the gnarled tree caught the ball perfectly. The ball rolled straight around following the track Karn had laid out for it. It dropped the momentum a little - but not by much - and the Qi ball shot back out, hurtling toward Fia’s team.

Unfortunately, Karn didn’t pay as much attention to where he was aiming his return shot. The Qi ball flew straight at Avuri. Fia’s throw wasn’t all that strong to begin with; she knew that and that was why she had thrown at Karn. After losing a small amount of momentum inside Karn’s tree, the ball was easily caught by Avuri. And without any technique.

There was a pause as everyone stood relaxed. “Um…referee?” Avuri asked, with a slight grin. “What’s the ruling on a returned throw like that? Is Karn out?”

Karn dropped their arms to their side, looking hurt. “What? We didn’t talk about that!”

“I think it should count as an out.” Elise ruled. “You decided to return the throw as is. And we need to stop it from becoming just a technique volley like that.”

“I’m not opposed.” Glenn said. “Those are the official rules, to be fair. We just didn’t discuss it beforehand.”

“Going forward that’s fine.” Avuri said. “But we shouldn’t ‘gotcha’ Karn out of the game. We’ll do it next time.”

Karn sighed. “Thanks Momri…”

“That said…” Avuri quickly shoved a large amount of Qi into the ball and whipped it forward. Her ball flew much faster than Fia’s, and Karn was certain they were staring death in the face.

Then Avuri motioned upward with her hand, and a whole bunch of ice pillars rose from the ground. They were shaped to clearly direct the ball around, similar to how Karn’s tree had done. However, she had created many more of them than just one. The ball followed the direction of the first one, then a second, then a third.

At the speed it was moving, the ball was hard to track as it basically bounced between the pillars. It lost a little speed overall, but not enough to make it easy for the kids to track. Unfortunately, even with keeping the techniques used at Earth Realm level, the physicality differences were still significant.

Even for Stena, who was somewhat close to the Sky Realm, she wasn’t able to keep up as the ball bounced around and eventually crashed into her side. Cove made a dive for the ball, to catch it before it hit the ground, but didn’t quite make it there in time.

Cierra cheered and laughed, while Stena just looked at her mother with absolute betrayal etched on her face. “Momri? Why?” She whined.

Avuri smiled sadly. “Sorry, hunny. I honestly didn’t plan all that out with a target. You just got in the way of the ball.”

Stena hung her head and walked over to her team’s deadzone, which was behind Emery’s team. She took up a ready position, ready to help out her team if she got the chance.

Cierra decided to taunt her the entire way, teasing her about being the first one eliminated. When she turned to practically point at laugh at her younger sister while carrying on, Emery called her out on it.

“Cierra, stop teasing your sister. I can’t believe I even need to say that to a twenty-one year old…” Emery trailed off, shaking her head. When something tickled the edges of her Qi perception, she had to hide a smile.

Right as Cierra turned to say something to Emery, Briar shouted her name. In response, Cierra turned just in time to get smacked right in the face with the ball. She pitched backwards landing squarely on her rear end. There was a chorus of ‘Ooo’s as she sat up to show off that half of her face was bright red from the impact. The opposing team was laughing while Mica looked apologetic.

“I’m sorry, Cierra!” She yelled. “I wasn’t aiming for your head, I swear!”

“You deserved it though.” Emery said, picking up the ball as it bounced away from Cierra.

“Instant karma.” Avuri agreed. “What did Stena even do that you felt the need to taunt her like that?”

Cierra turned and glared at her sister, one half of her face looking comically red. “She stole the desert I made for today, and ate the whole damn thing.”

“I told you I was sorry!” Stena shouted, clearly exasperated. “I also didn’t eat it alone! I shared it with a bunch of our siblings. You can’t seriously think I’d eat an entire cake that size on my own!”

“Doesn’t matter. You’re the one that took it out of the cooler and ran off with it.”

“And I said I was sorry! I didn’t realize it was set aside for today because it was in the Array in the house’s kitchen and not the pavilion’s kitchen! It was an honest mistake.”

“As if that should matter!” Cierra shot back as she got to her feet. “It was clearly a huge cake, and it was the day before we were throwing a party! Put two and two together, you idiot!”

Avuri chose that moment to step between the two. “Alright, alright. Calm down, both of you. Cierra, Stena apologized. I realize that you’re still not happy about it, but since it was food that was eaten, she can’t exactly do anything else about it right now. And Stena, we’ll talk about how you plan to repay your sister tomorrow, after she worked for most of the day on that cake.”

“Sorry…” Stena said, hanging her head in shame again.

Cierra huffed and walked off toward the deadzone for her own team.

Astra, who had been on the side lines and sitting next to Talya and Gray, waved to Cierra. “It was a very yummy cake, Cici!” She shouted.

Several of the other children chimed in and agreed. Cierra still looked peeved, but a little less so now than before.

“It really was very good. I honestly thought it was store bought.” Mica said under her breath.

“I know, right?” Cove agreed.

They must have felt Cierra’s angry stare on their backs because they flinched and slowly turned to once again apologize to her before the game resumed.

Emery laughed when Cierra’s anger seemed to finally fizzle and she crossed her arms and huffed, annoyed, but no longer seriously angry.