Looks like I had to deal with another run in with our student body president.

She was dressed in a shiny turquoise armor set, and was wielding a bright green blade covered in a swirly design. Dirt and soot painted her right cheek, along with a stroke of smeared mascara.

Yes, she wore make-up to war. No, she is not wimpy.

Gwen was locked in a heated duel against a girl who was almost a head taller than she was. She was tall and muscular, but Gwen was twice as fast. Gwen’s blade was nothing but a whirling flash of green steel as she wove underneath the other girl’s arm and knocked her flat onto the ground.

She was tired, but powerful.

Don’t forget. Gwen is also the student body president. At this wacky school, that title has to come with something more than doing beginning of the year speeches.

Her blue-green eyes flickered and met mine.

I readied my blade and held up my shield, trying to widen my stance to look threatening.

Gwen showed no panic, looking cockily at my amatuer stance. Her walk was that of a lioness hunting a gazelle as she prowled over to me.

I swallowed the whimper rising in my throat.

If I’m gonna die, I’ll die swinging.

I lunged forward with a swipe that I practiced behind the rock, and hopped back with my shield raised... only to realize that I had left my left side unguarded.

With an unholy speed, she took a frontward leap towards me, swinging her entire arm with sword attached, and clonk! ...the top of my shield cracked.

My grip slipped completely in my clammy hands. Before I could even figure out why she didn’t attack my open flank, Gwen swooped back in unrelentingly with a low blow to my feet from her left arm.

Her very toned left arm. The girl wasn’t just a snobby prep girl, she had actually trained up her muscles. Just staring at her arm in shock took me several seconds.

Then I felt the shield jerk out of my hand, shattering to the ground. Somehow, I managed to jump backwards just in time before Gwen’s blade sent a flash of green under my feet. I stumbled unsteadily, trying to get my footing before another attack came.

Slightly stunned that I was able to dodge, Gwen retreated half a step to renew her stance.

Thanking whatever higher power gave me the chance to get my wits about me, I took that chance to strike her hard. Gwen raised her sword, and our blades clashed together, a clang that cleaved the air of the battlefield. We both hopped backwards, blinking the dust out of our vision. Before Gwen could perform a counterattack, I bent my knees and leaped towards her with another downwards slash.

It was partially effective. Gwen obviously knew how to react to my blow, being an experienced fighter. However, she had been fighting for three hours straight, after all.

Yet she still dodged and followed the slash with a roundhouse kick. Except, they were slow.

Freed of the shield’s weight, I easily danced away from her next attacks. Gwen shot a blistering glare into my eyes. She launched forward and swung her blade at me from her left once again.

I recognized the blow as similar to the one she had used earlier. It was high shot to force down my knees, followed by a low swing to knock out the feet.

I ducked down to the left, dodging instead of intercepting the hit with my own sword. I pushed myself up with my left arm as soon as I touched the ground. Taking that small momentum with me, I brought Moonshine right down on her left shoulder.

Clang! Gwen hurriedly brought up her sword from the ground to block… but I knew victory was mine.

Moonshine screeches against Gwen’s blade as I pressed down with all I had, and it cut into flesh as I drew it sharply downwards.

You may or may not have come across that feeling when you do something that you are positive you could never do in a million years.

It was done. I had hit her first. Gwen stumbled back, holding her newly injured left arm gingerly while her sword fell limply by her side.

She had a large cut from shoulder to elbow, bleeding out… and stayed where she was.

The teleportation didn’t seem to be working…?

The unforgiving menace flaring in Gwen’s eyes penetrated my entire soul. She weakly clenched her green sword with as much strength as she could muster and hissed in pain as she gradually raised it back into an attacking stance. Was she planning to fight me to the death?

I backed away from her renewed malice, my rush of adrenaline scurrying from my veins. What was going on? Why hadn’t she disappeared yet?

A warm, strong hand gripped my shoulder.

I jolted back in surprise and swung Moonshine blindly at… Brianna?

“Woah there. Watch it!” Brianna laughed tiredly as she backed quickly away from my strike, the movement somewhat unbalanced. Exhaustion dwelled in her dimmed eyes.

“Congrats my girl! You won!” She cheered, giving me a fist bump. “That was insanely good for your first time on the field!”

That’s when I noticed a small nick on her left leg. “I… I what?” I stammered, looking up at the speedy fighter.

“WE WON!!!” Max yodeled from somewhere behind a rock, probably where he had been hiding after Gwen and I confronted each other. He scrambled over the boulder and torpedoed himself towards me.

“AAAAHHHH!” I screamed as Max barreled into me in a mess of thrilled laughter. I pushed myself off the ground only to be crushed by an energetic Amber. I went limp, my chest vibrating with quiet laughter.

“Can’t...breathe…” I groaned futilely. Amber seemed to realize my predicament and hurriedly let go with a sheepish smile. The manic energy in her eyes, though, only seemed to get brighter.

“Mackie! Do you even realize how awesome that was!?” she exclaimed, the tip of her sword covered in frost from some stray ice spear she had blocked.

Gwen, however, was not that friendly… at all. “She obviously cheated!” She screamed, falling onto her knees as she stared hatefully at her wound. “The newbies could never-”

“Face it, Gwen. They won this one,” Brianna said flatly, exhausted and irritated. Gwen shut her mouth and turned away stiffly, her arm still flowing with crimson ribbons. “It’s partially our fault too. We haven’t trained all summer.”

Gwen ignored her, calling out for her sister. “MOXIE!”

I saw the tiny shape of Moxie walk reluctantly towards us from the other side of the field. The hems of her sleeves were tinted with hints of fire. She wore a beaming smile from the victory we had earned, though the smile quickly faded away to dust as she approached her sister.

“Let’s go,” Gwen called, irritation and smeared lipstick in equal parts on her face.

Moxie followed, deliberately dragging her feet on the dirt defiantly.

Gwen’s eyeballs were almost bulging. “You won this time, Mackenzie. Next time won’t be so easy.” She spoke my name like it was the incantation for a catastrophic curse.

Amber and Max lifted me off the ground. “Won’t be so easy for you to ever win, alright Gwen?” Amber snickered.

I merely smiled lightly at Gwen.

Gwen growled, but waved impatiently for Moxie to hurry. Moxie made a disgusted face and made her way towards her sister with a slightly quickened pace.

Gwen sighed and ran a hand through her tangled hair, wincing when she pulled at a knot. “I was supposed to be teleported by now-” and she was gone.

Brianna lingered a few seconds longer to offer me a wry smile before she disappeared as well.

But not Moxie.

“I still want to hang out with you guys a bit longer. I don’t care what my sister thinks about it,” Moxie said, her innocent eyes holding a challenging edge.

What a crazy kid.

I laughed a bit, still somewhat shocked that we had been the ones to emerge as victors. “Of course! You can hang with us all the time! Come on!”

Moxie gave a shy smile, and joined our ranks. I laughed again and clapped Moxie lightly on the shoulder, before turning to gesture at our waiting counselor.

That. Was. Legendary.

Never, ever in my life… had I won, in anything… and here I was, in some mythical magic school, easily triumphing over a seasoned warrior.

Well, it was nowhere near an easy win. Gwen was tired. It was Moxie’s strategy that led us to victory. The other teams were also outnumbered. To be honest, that victory wasn’t mine to boast about. All this, however, did nothing to dampen my soaring spirits. I punched a fist in the air and let out a thrilled whoop that was cut off when unfamiliar eyes entered my vision.

A tiny, tiny, tiny ten-ish-years-old girl with surprisingly glowing tan skin was staring at us like we descended out of the sky with clothes made of gold and landed in front of her with snow-white wings and shining halos. Her bright pink t-shirt and striped yellow leggings seemed awfully oversized as she jumped with delight in front of us, a dazzlingly innocent smile splitting her face.

She could not contain her excitement. “Omigosh you guys were awesome! I can’t believe you took down two teams comprised of the most skilled fighters in the school! I’m Olive! Well, my real name is Maria but YOU can call me Olive! You gotta give me an autograph! Or a piece of your hair! Or some blood! Or maybe a shirt with your face on it-” She just went on and on.

Five minutes on the field and we have an obsessed fan already. Wow, that was fast.

At first, Max tried to be cool. “So… um, we gotta go…”

“Cool!” Olive chirped. “I’ll come with you! I can show you to the cafeteria to get a snack! There are so many different options of sweets… oh! And the boba tea drinks! They’re really good here! And I just remembered! They’ve added a new flavor to the ice creams!”

She looked up at us with huge pleading eyes, waiting for our approval. She had such a hopeful smile on her face. My heart melted into a puddle right on the spot. Darn this girl for being able to charm me that easily.

“Okay...” Amber mustered, rubbing the edge of her shirt nervously.

Max stared at her as if to say, Are you serious? She’s crazy!

“What?” Amber asked him with one raised eyebrow.

“Great!” Olive sang.

She didn’t seem to notice anything between us and skipped exuberantly down the path, quickly putting distance between herself and our group. She looked over her shoulder and gestured at us to hurry.

We quickened our pace, not wanting to keep our new fan waiting. As Olive turned again to continue her vivacious skipping across the burning battlefield, Max grumbled in mild annoyance. “I can’t believe this is how we won though.”

“What?” I asked. “Our victory was stunning, and it was genuine.”

“Well, to tell you the truth, it’s just not as cool as Olivia or what’s-her-name described.” He shifted.

Moxie gaped at him. “You were in a raging battle five minutes ago!”

“Well, yeah, but we only joined the real fight at the end,” Max sighed. “So raging isn't how I would describe that battle. We barely won.”

“But we WON!!! With barely any casualties! Have you ever heard of strategy?” Amber yelped.

“We should have got out there at first and attacked! It would have been cooler!” he pouted.

Amber sighed, holding a hand to her temple. “I’m telling you, the winners aren’t the ones who charge in with no strategy from the begini-”

“Please don’t fight!” Olive suddenly piped up from behind us.

We all screamed at the same time, startled. Max jumped three feet in the air. The cry reverberated through the empty battleground, ominous in this now-empty field.

“What?” Olive was slightly taken aback. Her tiny feet backed up several steps.

“We… thought… you were...in front..of us…” Amber said, her eyes wide and her voice breathless.

“Oh, I was,” Olive said, tapping a foot on the ground. “Then I heard you guys arguing.”

“Oh…” We all shared an awkward glance with each other. Did we just give our new acquaintance a bad impression? There was nothing we could do about it now.

Max stayed quiet as we continued trekking back to the main campus. Amber shot him annoyed looks every once in a while. I sighed and directed my attention at little Olive.

She was busy chatting with Moxie. The two girls were both talkative and outgoing; they made a great pair. I didn’t want to be weird and eavesdrop, so I started messing with Moonshine. The sword was the perfect weight and everything, but it was awkward just carrying it around. I should probably find a sheath for it later today.

We crossed back over Glowfly Lake, and the counselor smiled approvingly at us. A quick healing spell erased our bruises.

The cafeteria was as fancy as the White House. Huge, golden doors pushed open to reveal what was basically a five-star restaurant. A chandelier dangled from the ceiling, whirling silver ribbons of light shining down upon the polished tables.

“So,” Olive turned to Moxie as we walked across the regal red carpets. “What is your dagger’s name?”

“I didn’t get a dagger or a sword.” Moxie replied, slightly embarrassed.

“Really? I got a dagger, because we’re too small to have actual swords.” She paused for a moment, then the long bracelet on her hand glowed and turned into a dagger in her hand.

It was beautiful, just like my Moonshine. It was colored silver-turquoise, and had a realistic engravement of a clock. As she swung around the dagger, it squeaked with mechanical ticking noises.That was its name, too, apparently.

“It’s called Tick-tock. It matches my ability to see the future.” she said.

Future-seeing. Now that was a cool power.

A girl with long red hair passed by us and looked at Olive’s dagger like it was nothing. But she did say, “Sorry, Olive, but you know the rules. No weapons in the cafeteria.”

Olive looked down at her dagger, a slight air of gloom penetrating her enthusiasm. “Oh, sorry, Shelly.”

“I’m just reminding you. Don’t feel bad,” Shelly laughed and moved on.

And with that, Olive’s dagger turned back into a long, metal, turquoise bracelet.

It had felt normal the first time around, but this time none of us failed to notice it. Max, Amber, Moxie, and I gaped at her.

“Can our weapons do that?” Amber asked, just as fascinated as I am.

Max was completely speechless.

“Oh, you mean turn into a wrist gauntlet? Yeah! Just think of the word ‘gauntlet’ three times in your heads!”

We closed our eyes for a few moments, following Olive’s directions. When we opened them, all of our swords had turned into wrist gauntlets! Mine was silvery-white, Amber’s was bronze, and Max had a rose gold kinda thing.

“To turn them back into swords, just think ‘sword’ three times,” Olive instructed, “But don’t do it now, or you’ll get in trouble like I did. Swords aren’t allowed in the cafeteria.”

“OMIGOSH THAT’S TOO COOL I HAVE TO GET ONE!!!” Moxie shouted, causing Amber to flinch in surprise. We had forgotten about the other young girl’s presence in our awestruck wonder.

“Here, I’ll go with you!” Olive squealed. She grabbed Moxie by the arm and sprinted towards the cafeteria doors.

And off they went.

“What about lunch???” Max asked, peering at the cafeteria. I took one long look at Max, before nodding resolutely at him and reevaluating my opinion of the boy.

You know what? Max has his priorities straight. I was absolutely famished.