The Great

Evay Maver: The morning air sliced through my clothes and froze my very bones. We all raced into our carriage as we would depart early to avoid getting caught up in the massive carriage crowd that would leave the hotel later in the day. We raced by forests, lakes, and massive mountain sides as I watched Aurora, Lila, and Geon play cards. They laughed and Geon seemed to be doing alright with Savian for the morning, which was good. I looked at Savian and he stared out the window with an absent gaze. He was holding a picture of someone in his hand. I could just make out the girl’s face. She looked like a slightly taller and older Amie. She had the same black hair, and the same pretty face. She looked more regal than Amie though, in fact, she looked like a royal princess. Except for the fact that she wore a blouse and a straw hat. I spoke up. “Who’s that?” Savian looked at me but quickly turned his gaze back to the window.

“Why do you want to know?” His voice was flat and emotionless.

“Looks like someone I knew. What’s her name?” He didn’t look at me but he answered my question.

“Emmy. She’s from the countryside so maybe you’ve seen her around. They tell me you're from the country, right?” I nodded. I wanted to know more about Savian and what was up with his emotions. Every time we brought up his girlfriend he got really sad—and I had no clue why. If I was going to be his teammate I needed to fully understand him, which was ironic coming from me, but still…. “How long have you known her?” Savian relaxed a little,

“Since I was five.” Then it happened again, his face seemed to fall as an immense sadness etched itself onto his face. I wanted to comfort him, but I didn’t know how. Why was he sad? What was he thinking about? But it wasn’t my place to ask questions like that. I myself knew this better than anyone, some things take more than just courage to share…

“I had a childhood friend too. Her name was Amie. She died, she kind of looked like her. I liked her a lot, I guess we all have people from our past…” Savian looked at me and for once, he didn’t look indifferent or irritated. His eyes softened and he didn’t smile but he nodded. He looked out the window again and he spoke softly.

“We aren’t so different after all, huh?”

I saw the ships and the dock come into view as we boarded our ride across the sea. Geon had told me that we would be heading to Evina, the host nation for the tournament this year. Why did no one tell me this very important information before today? I didn’t even know that a country called Evian existed. I looked back at the Taegan shoreline, soaking in my last look of home.

When we got off the ship we were immediately directed to the arena. The arena was the biggest thing that I had ever seen in my life. We all sat in the center of the stage as marble stadium seats rose hundreds of feet in the air. The man presenting us with the tour gave us some information as we toured the waiting areas, our rooms that we would stay in, and the overall layout of the place. Apparently this arena hosted actual professional warrior matches, and was among the five biggest arenas in the world. It could seat over 500,000 people, a number that I couldn’t even fathom. As I looked around, the empty arena made me more nervous than the full arena back at home in the school championship. The sheer size of the place made me feel like my eyes were playing tricks on me. I looked at the others who were also in awe, and even Savian’s eyes were wide with surprise. We walked into the V.I.P box where world leaders and warriors would sit to watch the matches. We were even more surprised when we were informed that we could sit in here to watch the matches as well—assuming we didn’t have our own match that day. The tour guide left and we thanked him as we sat in the V.I.P box to rest. Geon spoke, “Half a million people….that’s a lot.” We all nodded and Aurora spoke.

“Yeah, that’s the main part I wanted to talk about. We’re very highly ranked coming into this. There’s not many teams better than us. So it’s a mental game, it’s us against us. We don’t psych ourselves out, and we win. Simple.” We all nodded and I felt a little more confident. It helped that I could use Gold’s Viel, if we really needed it I could blow this place to pieces…

Savian stretched and he stood up. “Well, if we’re done let’s go to our rooms. I’m tired.” He began to walk to the door when it swung open. Five people walked in, and by the looks of it, it was another team. A boy with messy black hair wore a fancy robe and pristine white gloves. He had a sly smile and his crystal black eyes gave off a devious glint. He looked rich, filthy rich…his clothes must have cost more than some people’s houses…Then two girls walked in. One had short, choppy brown hair, and wore a tattered, sleeveless, green tank top, and her cold eyes pierced into my skull. The other girl had long white hair and looked extremely bored. She had two golden bracelets on her wrists and wore a short sleeved shirt and loose black pants.Then the last two guys walked in. The first guy screamed trouble. He had disheveled, curly blonde hair and a crazy grin on his face. His fingers constantly twitched and he was so jumpy that I thought he was going to dive out of the window. But weirdly, when he walked in the room it felt like peace and quiet had silently disappeared. Things started to fall over, paintings that were perfectly fine before started to sway on their hinges, and I felt myself lose balance….

He was really weird, but the next guy made my heart drop. A huge shadow covered my entire body as an absolute giant of a human walked through the door. He had to nearly crouch as his shoulders met the top of the door frame…. He was ripped with muscles, his arms were the size of my torso, and his legs were the size of tree trunks. He had a rugged face and a military style haircut. He smiled as he looked down on Savian. “So, are you guys from Taegan? We’ve heard all about you.” His deep voice made the floors vibrate and his other teammates came to his side. “You must be Savian, the fastest man in the world.” Savian looked unfazed by the giant looming over him. “So light and airy, hmm…I wonder how hard I would have to squeeze to break those hollow bones.” The giant grinned and his eyes were filled with malice. He had a slight accent, and I assumed they all did. They spoke our language, but I had no clue what nation they were from…Savian spoke with an emotionless voice.

“I wonder how long it would take for you to catch me? Or I guess I should say, how many lifetimes it would take for you to catch me.” Geon came up to Savian’s side and I did the same.

The rich kid stepped up. “My apologies, Doner here is a little too excited for our matches. My name is Fellen, and this is Cain, Ally, and Mia.”

Lila and Aurora stepped forward. Aurora came to the front and faced the rich boy, Fellen. “Hi, my name is Aurora. This is Lila, Evay, and Geon, although you probably knew them already.” She spoke in a clear and steady voice. No hint of fear or nerves, with no hint of anger or friendship either.

Fellen smiled. “Yes, Geon Leventen. You’re very popular in Taegan, but I think you’re more popular internationally.” He pointed at Savian. “Although I must say, the girls in our school can’t stop fawning over you, Geon. You’d probably last two seconds in our school before being hoarded.” He gave a sly grin and Lila scooted closer to Geon, and grabbed his sleeve defensively.

But then, Fellen turned to me. “Evay Maver and Lila, you are the ones that are being talked about the most. You’re a healer right? Never been seen before in warrior matches…But you…..Evay Maver…are interesting. Where’s your white hair and golden robes? You look different.”

I gave him a cold look and spoke. “You’ll get to see it, eventually.” We all faced off, five against five, team against team. “We’re facing you for the opening match. We just happened to run into you. Well, we were trying to find you and I guess we got lucky. This is fun, so fun. I hope we get to enjoy ourselves, let’s fight to the end.” Fellen smiled manically and none of us backed down.

Aurora spoke. “We won’t lose. I hope you know that.” Fellen smiled and spoke in a menacing voice.

“I can feel it, the beginning of your downfall.”