"By nearly unanimous vote Yasmina has become the class representative. Congratulations." Miranda announces, nodding at the girl who had 12 of the 14 possible votes, 2 votes having been cast on Leonhard, the earth magic user.
"Now. We only have 4 more days to get ready for the first tournament of the year." Miranda tells them.
"You said we'll learn about team structure and tactic, how will we do that in such a short time?" Henry asks.
"In front of everyone you have a screen. On it you will all go through a tactical assessment and once the results are in we will plan our strategy and choose everyone's roles." Miranda announces and the students go through the test with only three students giving up or not even trying and just skip through the test.
"Alright. Everyone's done. And this are our results." Miranda says, displaying the statistics on the monitor at the front of the class.
Most of the students have gotten a score of around 60-70%, with James being the only one with 0%, Tim, the fire magic user only has 10%. And Serena, the female martial artist only has 30%. The most outstanding result however is Lily's score of 92%.
"And from the looks of it we have a natural talent. Lily you will be our tactician during the match if this is fine with you." Miranda says supportively.
"Sure. I got this!" Lily says confidently.
"OK. From your assessment I have drawn up a general roster for the first round." Miranda tells them and they see a list with 5 rows, each one naming a specific role.
"OK, let's put Lily as tactician then." Miranda says, dragging a photo of the girl to the first row.
"Now, we have the defensive, offensive and support positions.
There are only three supports in this class at the moment, so I'll go ahead and fill them in." Miranda says, putting Lily, Tina who is the freckled redhead in the class and the smaller, Sam the black-haired girl who teamed up with James and Yasmina all in that position.
"Now we need to decide on the defensive and offensive positions." Miranda says, pulling up the rest of the students' pictures.
"What is the King role?" Henry asks, seeing the last category.
"The King is the objective basically. For the competition every class determines a King, which has to survive. Once the King is defeated, the rest of the class is beaten." Miranda says.
"For the King I would suggest Yas..." Miranda starts to say, but James cuts her off, saying "I'll do it."
"Are you sure? If you fall asleep during the match it counts as defeat." She says concerned.
"Yeah. Let me do it." James says.
"I don't know. I think Leonhard would be best for King with his earth magic." Tim suggests.
"Yes. That's smart." A girl agrees.
"How about this, the King doesn't need to be decided early right? As long as it's one of the defensive spots. Let me prove myself during that time." James suggests.
"That sounds acceptable." Leonhard agrees.
"Good then we will decide the King another day. Now for the rest of you I would suggest this placement." Miranda says, placing Leonhard, James, Serena and another girl in the defensive position with everyone else in the offensive position.
"Any objections? Please say so now because we need to train in a fixed group." Miranda asks, but everyone agrees with their position.
"Alright. Let's get right to it. To our training ground everyone." Miranda says.
When the class is about to enter their section of the training grounds the first class heads the opposite way.
"Ah, Miranda. Just the woman I wanted to see. I know you said no to a date the other day but how about a bet? Both our classes will compete in the tournament obviously. How about if you win I will not hit on you again, but if my class wins you have to go on at least one date with me." George suggests.
"What, how shameless!" Lily says upset, with most of the 8th class being pissed off.
"Fine. I accept the bet and I will hold you to your word and ask you to stay away from me once my class has won." Miranda says upset and annoyed, already having shot him down only days before.
"But of course. Come on students, let's go to town, I need to find a good restaurant." the teacher in his mid-thirties says, leading his class away while glancing at Miranda's class victoriously.
"Miss Loft. Why would you accept such an outrageous bet? This is unacceptable." Lily says once the 1st class left.
"I am only a new teacher. If I anger him he can have me removed before I even get the chance to teach anyone." The green-haired woman tells her class heavy heartedly.
"Alright everyone. You know what this means! We have to win this thing!" Lily shouts at her classmates with them agreeing pumped up.
The class then enters their training ground with Miranda and James lagging behind in front of the entrance.
"You could've told me he's harassing you." James says softly, leaning his back against the wall next to her.
"What could you possibly do? You're still in your first year and are everyone's laughing stock." Miranda sighs shaken up a little because her poor decision to agree to the bet dawns on her.
"I still have a lot of pull in the real world. I'm the second prince of a powerful country you know." He says.
"Real world huh?" Miranda chuckles at his choice of words.
"Yeah. I mean one letter and George won't survive until the tournament. Though I guess you're too good for that. Looks like we'll have to make sure to win the tournament huh?" He says.
"Looks like." She sighs, peering into the training yard where her students are doing warmups.
"I know you didn't choose your students besides me you know." He tells her.
"What does that change?" Miranda asks.
"It means you finally showed your trust in me." He says.
"Or maybe I pitied you." She teases him.
"That's fine with me too." He laughs, unbuttoning his white dress shirt.
"What do you think you're doing? Isn't one pervert assaulting me enough for one day?" Miranda asks grumbling.
"Yeah, yeah. Just help me turn this off." He says, dropping his shirt to the floor and presents his back to her, where an active magical array is constantly moving, a number steadily counting up after about 5 seconds every time.
"What is this? It's way too complicated for me." Miranda tells him shocked.
"Just ask Yasmina to come out here alright?" He requests.
"OK." Miranda agrees, looking at him perplexed and enters the training ground, reappearing moments later with the white-haired girl.
"What is going on here?" Yasmina asks amused, checking out his muscular body, before staring at the magical array on his back confused.
"What's that Miranda?" Yasmina questions.
"That's what I'd like to know too." Miranda says looking at James.
"Just do me a favor and use this on my back at the same time." He requests, handing them each an equally complicated magic seal on a piece of paper.
"Mir. You put yours on my right shoulder and Yasmina, you put yours in the middle of the circle and then you just push magic into the seals simultaneously." James says.
"Let's just do it. If I know one this after four years, then it's that James doesn't share his secrets." Miranda tells the girl with a sigh.
"Alright." Yasmina says, both placing the seal on his back and then starts to count down, before pushing their magic into the seal, which then interacts with the magical array and a tatoo like design burns itself into James back from the array's rim with him screaming and groaning in pain.
"Don't!" He shouts, pushing away Yasmina who reaches out for him to help him. Shortly after pushing Yasmina away with her looking at him in a mixture of worry and fear James collapses and falls over forwards, pushing over Miranda and landing on her thighs, the branding of a four tailed crocodile still smoking on his back.
"The the hell just happened?" Yasmina shouts, causing her clasmates to exit the training ground, seeing the branded James lying over Miranda's legs while Yasmina is knocked on her ass, holding herself up with her arms behind her.
"I don't know." Miranda says.
"We should bring him to the infirmary." Yasmina says worried, getting up.
"I'll do that. You and the others can start your training. I will join you soon." Miranda says, draping James shirt over his burned back before a magic circle appears in her hand an she raises it, James flowing at her side with the teacher heading to the infirmary.
"What did you do?" Miranda asks worried, brushing some hair out of his face when he's lying in a hospital bed face to his side while lying on his front.