‘Okay,’ she said, keeping her voice down but loud enough that Melissa and Rochester could hear, ‘here’s the plan. This is a simple Capture the Flag scenario, he’s just reforming the playing area between each round to keep us on our toes. We have two ways of winning, namely, eliminate the other team, or take and hold their starting area along with our own for two minutes. Practically, it’s easier to wipe out our opponents, though I think the three of us could do it the other way.’
‘With you doing the attacking, I’m sure either way would work,’ Melissa said. ‘We’re really just holding you back.’
‘Subjectively, that might seem true, but you’re neglecting the tasks we need to perform to successfully win. I suppose, if I were alone, I could sit on my home location and take out the opponents as they attacked, but that’s the kind of thing which leads to stalemate. It so happens that, with the three of us, we have a near perfect arrangement for this kind of scenario.’
‘W-we do?’ Rochester asked, clearly quite genuinely sure that he was superfluous.
‘We do. You have a licence to use Sorcerer’s Eye.’
‘Uh, yes. It’s useful for–’
‘It’s useful for scouting. You’ll sit at our home base and send out your senses to discover what the opposing team is doing. When we know whether they’re holding their position or sending out attackers, or both, I’ll know what I need to do to take them out. Mel has a permit for Force Wall.’
‘Yes, but I can only make the weakest kind,’ Melissa said.
‘MagiTag pistols fire a spell equivalent to a Concussive Force spell at rank two, but without the actual force. Your Force Wall is quite capable of blocking an attack at that level and, at rank three, you have the coverage to put a wall around our flag area. They’ll have to smash their way through it to take the two of you out. And, if they managed that, they’d need to contend with the two of you shooting at them when they broke the barrier.’
Melissa gave a little start at that. ‘I hadn’t thought of it like that. Most people don’t have the strength to shoulder through a Force Wall.’
‘No, they don’t,’ Nava agreed. ‘I’m a little surprised that none of the other students have used one.’
‘Didn’t he say that Armour wasn’t allowed?’
‘Force Wall is a different spell. He forbade Armour because plenty of people could make themselves immune to the pistols using it. If he meant to deny us the use of Force Wall, he should have said so. Anyway, if Chess has them located and I do my job right, none of them will get close enough to try.’
‘You make it sound easy,’ Rochester said.
‘We’re not fighting seasoned professionals, Chess. This will be easy.’
~~~
A horn sounded just after Nava took out the last of the opposing team with a headshot from twenty metres. The opposition had decided on an all-out-attack approach with all of them charging through the maze of illusory walls the instructor had set up. Presumably, the plan was to use overwhelming force to take out Nava’s team before they went down themselves. It had partially been successful since Nava had had to double back to get the last one. He had been frantically trying to shoot Melissa and Rochester through a translucent wall of energy which was not going to budge.
Mathias was scowling when he came down to the floor of the training room, the rest of the class behind him. He pointed a finger at Nava. ‘Why are you in the support stream?’
Nava wondered briefly whether any of the teachers talked to each other. She had explained this before… Then again, Mathias seemed like someone who would not have been interested in the opinions of the support stream teachers. And it seemed like he needed a customised explanation. Or maybe she was just feeling vindictive.
‘Because killing people is easy,’ Nava said. ‘Keeping them alive is hard.’
‘I specifically stated that use of the Armour spell was not allowed.’ Apparently, he did not have an answer for Nava’s point.
‘But not Force Wall. MagiTag tournament rules allow the use of force barrier protection spells and mandate Concussive Force rank five or lower for use in the demolition of such barriers. Since you didn’t mention Force Wall, I assumed you were testing whether anyone would be competent enough to use it.’
‘I didn’t think anyone knewit. Otherwise–’
‘Melissa Connelly’s permit to use Force Wall is part of her school records. You didn’t read the data on your students before starting to teach us?’
Mathias stared at Nava for two more seconds. Nava stared back. He was a big man, probably used to his stare making students back down, or maybe cower in fear. Nava had been stared at by people a lot more impressive than Mathias Statham. He gave up, turning away as though she was not worth his time.
‘Put your weapons back in storage,’ Mathias said. ‘We’re going out to the shooting range to see how many of you can hit a target.’ Well, that was likely to be fun.
‘That was kind of intense,’ Melissa commented as she stepped up beside Nava.
‘Not really,’ Nava replied.
‘I don’t think he likes you,’ Rochester added from the other flank.
‘I contradicted his firmly held belief that support stream is for people who don’t want to fight. People don’t like their belief systems questioned. I’m reserving judgement on Mathias Statham until I’ve seen whether he has anything to teach.’
‘I don’t like him,’ Rochester said.
‘There are many things I don’t like, Chess, but if they’re useful they have to be endured.’
235/5/16.
It was the end of a theory lesson with the other member of the Mendel clan on the faculty and class 12C were being taken on a field trip. Okay, so it was not actually
