"Round two! Let's get it popping once more everybody!!!" Principal Khan shouted, gripping his long slender fingers around his Cast that was shaped into a rod-like microphone, "For the first fight of round two, we once again have Ver Fulgen Vaughan, the once lost girl of the Vaughan family, but really the Kraken Manifester of the Ethereal Realm after showing her dominance in the first round!" Just how long is this introduction going to go on...Ver yawned slightly and stretched her arms. The randomly allocated sights of battles certainly do not play in her favor this time. Unlike the vast open area of the frozen lake, the site of battle migrated further up along the mountain, and Ver and her opponent were dropped into the middle of a series of open caves by the chariot. However, the caves themselves are lit up by light Casts made personally by Principal Khan, and that at least ensured the participants of this round can actually see what's going on without exposing their locations. Though, in the same vein, if one is able to sniff out Khan's lights, they hold a strategic advantage of being able to hide out of sight compared to those that simultaneously. "And her opponent today! Another one that dominated in his first round, the Cursed Caster, the poisonous Ornate Dragon! Let's this fight...begin!" Principal Khan declared, his voice echoing within the confined caves as Ver crouched down into the darkness and extended her Kraken's tendril into the air. There's a gentle breeze that brushes through the cave's interior, and it brought forth a circulating airflow that also brought along a sense of slight moist. Surfing the Wave in the air, the Kraken's tendril started mapping out the layouts of the Caves bound by a bubble, once again created by Khan himself. "Let's see how this goes..." Ver murmured, her other hand gently brushing on the ground around her before her Whirlpool Purple formed underneath her feet, the thick purple fluid swallowing her whole and teleporting to the edge of her field of view. With several consecutive short-ranged teleportations, Ver was able to cut across the zig-zagging landscapes of the caves before suddenly, a pair of light Casts were sniffed out. There was a distinct wrinkle in the local field of the wave, as a distortion echoed along the surfaces of the Cave walls themselves, propagating towards Ver and immediately drawing her attention. Was that a trap? Or was that a show of strength? Ver wondered, reaching her hand over and feeling for the light Cast that's closest to her. It felt firm and warm, and its presence smoothly blended itself into the background Wave that gently fills up the air. So naturally elegant, yet so unmistakably artificial. Such is the apex of Cast making, and this is only a light. Ver rubbed her hands around it, feeling for its stiffness and resistance before applying a jolt of the Wave inward. The light flickered ever so slightly but returned to normal afterward. Hm...So it's really as expected from a Cast made by the Principal himself... Ver turned away when suddenly lines of darkened shadows slowly crept up and around the smooth Casts of light before thin black arms reached towards Ver's back. "Oh no you don't." The Kraken said, a much bigger tendril emerging from Ver's back and slapping the lines of darkness away. However, instead of splattering into countless pieces, the dark lines latched onto its arms and started spreading all over Ver's body. "Set it ablaze." Ver said, spinning around while transferring the tendril from a Whirlpool Black on her back to her front. Instant activation of flash fire spread through the arms as the thickened black fluid was set ablaze according to Ver's command. The dark lines were burnt to a crisp and dropped onto the ground. "There. You. Are." A playful tone sept through the walls around Ver as more and more dark lines started creeping from the darkness around her with more and more of the light Casts being sniffed out in waves around her. "My little squid~" The voice of her opponent sent shivers down Ver's spine, and she made a disgusted face before dropping straight down through her Whirlpool Purple and reemerging at the larger openings of the Cave where she was dropped off in. And as she emerged, a figure with dragon tattoos all over his body turned around with a surprised look before Ver sent forth a massive blast of high pressure water, hitting him squarely in the face and sending his body crashing into the wall. "I...ablahblah blurgh...find...bluarb-bluarb..." He threw his arms around as his voice was cut off by the column of water stuffing his mouth periodically, "STOP!" He yelled, his voice cutting through the splashing sounds of water before the tattoos on his body surged into life, the patterns of the ornate dragon glowing and sending out dark lines of Cast from his body. Ver reached out with her other hand, blasting apart those lines before they can form into the patterns of a Cast while keeping the man pinned down. "Watch out!" The Kraken warned as yet another dark tendril tried to reach towards her. "Is he even going to try something else?" Ver asked Kraken quietly before she jumped up into the air, "Whirlpool Black!" "I...CURSE...YOU!" The man yelled, all of the shattered dark lines letting out a black flash and surpassing the gentle dimness of the light Casts in an instant. Ver shut her eyes before switching over to her Wave sensing abilities when suddenly, a dizzying sensation caused her body to lose all sense of orientation and direction as her head started to spin. What the hell is this...Ver took in a sharp breathe, using the cold air to reset her strange and unfamiliar internal sensations before she reached her hand forward. It doesn't matter. As long as she could finish the man in a single attack, it won't matter what his trick is. However, when she called on the power of the Kraken and tried to draw out one of its flaming tentacles, there was no response. It was as if she's stuck in a ghostly forest at night, screaming her lungs out at the eerie ghosts nearby. Ver called on the power of the Kraken once more, reconjuring the black Whirlpool over her abdomen, but once again, nothing came out. Her heart sank slightly, and she landed firmly on the ground as the Ornate Dragon peeled himself away from the wall and jumped down to the pool of water created by Ver's Whirlpool Red. "What did you do?" Ver asked. "That was my Cast technique." The Ornate Dragon laughed, walking forward into the light, "My Curse Casts! This battle is over the moment you revealed your true power!" Ver looked down at the spinning whirlpool she held out over her stomach, and what he said appeared to be true. For some reason, it was as if the Kraken stopped responding to her commands...or rather... It was as if her calls never made it to its domain. She switched over to the other sets of Whirlpools, and all of it lost its functionalities. However, the base level of strength and power from the Kraken still remained within her, and there's still no problem when it comes to using the Wave. "You are able to disrupt the Wave usage of the others?" Ver asked, her expressions looking grim as she slowly started stepping back from the Ornate dragon, "Wait a second...weren't you the guy at the bath yesterday?" "Me?" The Ornate Dragon's eyes widened, and his body halted, "No...that was my brother...He's the lady's man, I am a bit of a...recluse." "Ah." Ver straightened up as the Ornate Dragon clapped his hands together before all of the individual pieces of the dark Cast lines slowly started to return to his body and it started filling up the tattoos in his body. "Why do you have to look so disappointed..." The Ornate Dragon said, a pained expression over his face, "I am just as strong as him! And my Cast Curse is far more potent! I will...I will defeat you, and I will show that to the entire world!" "Come at me then," Ver said, gesturing at him with her finger before she slowly drew out her Sky Splitting Sword. Then, as the Ornate Dragon conjured up a set of Cast armor around his body and marched forward, Ver also dashed ahead. With the snap of a finger, the Ornate Dragon activated the Curse Cast embedded within Ver's body, a wave of nausea rushing through her entire body. Her stomach tightened, and the breakfast threatened to come back up to her throat. That should get her real good! The Ornate Dragon thought. The condition of activation for his Cast Curses are the destruction of his Cast lines. That's what makes him special, as his Casts are made out of broken pieces of work, just like how he is. After the activation of the Curse Cast, Ver will have her connection to her most powerful Wave abilities severed, and the lingering effects of his Curses can then be reactivated to send waves of disorientating dizziness into the head of his opponents. In this situation, there is no way that she can... That was when the fat body of the Sky Splitting Sword slammed straight into his right shoulder. A loud crunch signified the snapping of his collarbones before his body was slammed straight into the ground, his face caved in and his arms nearly separating from his trunk. His throat gurgled with blood, and the glow in his dragon tattoo held out for a brief moment before dissipating. "Tsk." Ver spit out to the side and slammed the tip of the Sky Splitting Sword into the ground, "If you have something to prove to the world, you'd better come prepared." "What...how..." A handful of weakened words came out of the body of the Ornate Dragon before he slid his hands under and tried to press himself up, "...how you moving still...?" "Cause I have been living with a fucking headache all my life." Ver said, drawing the Sky Splitting Swords back, "If you truly intend to be strong, then you will learn to rely on more than just your given Wave abilities, even in this world dominated by the Wave." After all, that's how Wu is able to be strong. If he can do it, Ver can too. The eyes of the Ornate Dragons opened up wide, and as his consciousness slowly faded away, all his mind registered was the dashing figures of Ver as everything became more and more blurry. The girl with a dark blonde hair, black eye patch, and a full black battle suit...the girl of his dreams... With that Victory, the Ver fan club was born on the same day. By the time Ver made it back to the Winter Wars resort, Fatera had been warming up in the snow for the longest time. Then, the two smiled at one another without further exchanging a word. According to the brackets, Fatera and Ver will be facing off against one another should Fatera won her next match. In the same showing of dominance, Fatera finished her opponent in a single punch, and as yet another avalanche started flooding down the side of the mountain due to her ridiculous power level, she turned around and stopped it with her clap once again. And with that, one of the fated rematch between Ver and Fatera is upon us.