FireLeaf

Chapter Fifty-Four- Final Contest Day One (Part One)

First day of the contest. Leafy felt anticipated, but at the same time, really nervous. What was the challenge going to end up like?

All eighty students were gathered up in the lobby. Four was standing on the stage with the rest of the staff.

"Are you ready?" Four shouted.

"Yeah!" A few people, including Blocky's gang, cheered.

"No!" Match shouted.

"I'm scared!" Ice Cube said nervously. A girl with blue and green hair patted her back.

"I'm nervous, too, but let's try to find each other." she said comfortingly.

"Thanks, Book." Ice Cube smiled at her.

Leafy had decided to wear a long sleeve shirt and jacket, with leggings and her usual tall boots. She wanted as much protection as possible, but it probably wouldn't be enough. She needed to manage to snag some armor.

Firey stood next to her, looking nervous. But there were shadows under his eyes.

"Firey, you okay?" Leafy asked, "You still look tired."

"I'm... fine." he smiled at her unconvincingly.

"Firey, you'll need all the energy you can get for this contest, it's a life or dea-"

"I'm okay." Firey insisted. He rubbed his eyes was if trying to rid them of their dark circles.

Leafy tried to squash down her worry. Was Firey really okay?

"Okay, people!" Siren shouted, "Brace yourselves! The contest will be starting in three..."

Everyone readied themselves. Leafy took a deep breath.

"Two..."

The whole room seemed to be filled with a nervous energy, waiting for Siren to say one.

"One."

Leafy was teleported into the arena. It was so flawless, the transformation, that she almost didn't realize that she was in a new place.

Leafy appeared to be on a small island. She was standing in a small cave with a chest in front of her. There was grass covering the floor, and a few palm trees were scattered around the cave entrance. The island was no bigger than a house.

The chest was made of wood, with gold and gems dotted along the edges. A boat was tied to the dock, floating in the ocean of acid as if nothing was amiss.

Leafy took a deep breath. Her chance of survival depended on starting with this chest. Getting good items: she could head straight to the Central Island, which loomed ahead of her with towering runes and an extensive canopy. She could already see a chest in the closet rune, so she could head for that. If, unfortunately, she gets bad items, then precious time would be wasted trying to raid items from others. 

She rested her hands on the clasp of the chest and opened it. Inside, there was a small bag of jawbreakers, around ten of them. There were also two ham and cheese sandwiches, a large bottle of water, and... 

Leafy gasped. Her last item was a small square. She knew it was a collapsible weather-proof tent, the best means of shelter on the list.

She could start heading straight to the Central Island. The island to the left sat Woody, trembling. Leafy wasn't too worried about him, but Snowball on her right worried her a little. He could easily take her out with a right-aimed blast of snow, which would render her helpless. It was also a huge disadvantage that she didn't have the plant-growing abilities of her clan, for an unknown reason.

Come to think of it, Firey also doesn't have the usual flaming hair of his clan, either. she realized.  And his hair didn't really look that much like fire, just regular hair glowing at a higher temperature.

Leafy needed to outrun Snowball and beat him to the chest. So she ran towards her boat and jumped in as fast as she could. Using one if the leaves of the palm tree, she tied the water bottle and food against her back. She then put her tent into her pocket. She picked a jacket with zippers, luckily, so it wouldn't fall out.

Rowing as fast as she could, she didn't look back to see how far behind Snowball was. She silently thanked Tack for training her to be stronger, and she hoped her ability to throw knives and fight back would surprise her opponents. Fighting with strength and sharp objects and projectiles was more of a weaponry thing, not something people would expect a nature elementalist would do. They'd probably expect her to run around and throw flowers at them.

Hopefully that would work in her favor and back her less of a target. If she pretended to be weak and try to ignore combat. Firey and Pin could help with that.

Her boat cut through the acid, thankfully without any splashes of the deadly liquid. After a short amount of time, her boat hit the edge in the island. She jumped off and raced towards the chest.

Be wary, there might be traps. she thought, Don't make any dumb moves.

Leafy picked up a handful of rocks and started throwing them around the chest, which sat in middle of a cracked stone podium. The runes were in the shape of a small, Greek-styled temple. One stone hit the ground and caused a huge, jaw-like trap to snap up out of the ground. Leafy shivered. Good thing it was the rock and not her. After a few other throws and gaining the confidence that there were no remaining traps, Leafy quickly wove a net out of the loose palm fronds on the floor. She them threw it at the chest and flung the net backwards. The chest came crashing down behind her.

Leafy looked around to see if anyone was there. She saw a few people still at their islands, and some rowing over. Snowball was rowing towards Woody. Maybe he got bad items, or the was just trying to raid an easy target for fun.

This chest was heavy, and was hard to pry open. Leafy spotted a small, sharp rock under a few leaves and used it to flip up the clasp, sliding the rock into the small slit and lifting up. Inside, there was a potion- Leafy recognised it as one that would create a force field around her for ten minutes, and a small knife. Despite the small size, Leafy knew it would come in handy for an element of surprise. It would be hard to spot it, and that could be used against her enemies. She secured the potion near her other items, and carefully slid her sleeve down a little to cover the knife in her hand.

Satisfied, Leafy ran into the underbrush to find Pin and Firey.