“MILLY.”

“ANA.”

Emily ignored the startled glances of the bystanders and turned with a shout as she heard Ana’s loud voice calling her name. They’d been playing the game every day for weeks now in their spare time and hadn’t had many chances to see each other outside of it.

Emily quickly felt Ana wrapping her in a bear hug and lifting her off the ground. The girl had always been about fitness but lately, she’d been sticking to the gym like a fly in glue. It wasn’t like she was tall or muscular either, she was just physically strong. They’d both had a lot more time to pick up other hobbies now that they’d both dropped Andrew from their lives. They’d actually hung out with him a lot externally before the game released. Although, Emily was now spending most of her spare time playing Zodiac Online and eating out of boredom.

“So this is the place?” Ana checked out the joint from top to bottom, “I hope your friend is right about it.”

“I hope so too,” Emily had invited one last person to join them for lunch today, “Because if this isn’t the best fried chicken in the city I may never trust anyone ever again.”

The Living Chicken had been recommended to Emily by their friend and she’d been looking forward to it all week. Apparently her friend had inside access to all the latest food information. At least that’s what she’d claimed. Emily had her doubts and now she was finally putting it to the test.

They needed this rest. Ever since the bishop had confronted them in Zodiac Online the other day it had been non-stop training for them.

Archy, TidalWave and Seven.

Inside the game these were the three players that they had decided would fight for the city. In the first place, their whole team was high level enough to qualify, so the bishop had allowed them to pick three members to fight. The other two had already been picked from other players inside the city that were equal to them in level. Roxxy and Spark Joy weren’t geared towards individual fighting so they decided to take a pass, they were confident that even if the two other players weren’t tanks their team would be fine. They did, however, insist on getting good seats to view the fighting.

Third hadn’t been interested in the first place. He fully planned to spend his entire time in the library learning new spells. He could probably convince Lass to get a television or magic equivalent in there to watch the fights if he wanted to. Or just watch it on the forums if they popped up there.

Ana was insistent on spending her time inside the game training. She had seemed to take less joy in playing Zodiac Online since the fight against the Corruptor. Emily could relate with her considering what she’d been told about Andrew’s conversation topics over the phone.

“So this is your first time meeting them in real life, right?” Ana was curious about the newcomer.

Neither she nor Emily had actually met the foodie that had recommended the restaurant.

She knew that Emily still hadn’t met any of the friends she’d been playing with for the past few weeks. It wasn’t exactly a common thing to meet up in real life but Emily had grown especially close to this person since it turned out they shared a lot of the same humor and hobbies. Normally Emily and Ana wouldn’t meet with anyone outside of the game but this was a special case, they had a reason to trust the player. They were a fairly public figure.

“Yup.” Emily nodded enthusiastically, then decided to change the subject hesitantly as she remembered something, “Have you heard from Andrew?”

“Oh Milly,” Ana lifted her hand in a fist, “If he called me I can tell you which finger I’d tell him to shove up his-”

“Hey-hey-hey.” Emily laughed at her friend but then sobered up.

It had been a little under a month since the fight for the dragon’s treasure against Andrew and the players of Dark Horse and Colt’s Crew. Since then Emily had actually grown really close to the two groups, but Andrew had disappeared off the face of the earth.

“I mean it Milly,” Ana was angry just remembering him, “The moment he hits a little money from playing the game he completely ditches us and moves with his parents to god knows where. Then he goes and gets even more rich and famous by hitting who knows how many treasure spots. Not to mention that ridiculously named alchemy store franchise he’s got going on in Zhalnor. God knows how he had the time to set up all this.”

Andrew had actually become quite the well-known figure on the forums and online. Emily didn’t keep up with the forums that much but it wasn’t hard to find out information on the ‘shadow priest’ online. Some things were only known because Andrew had told Ana while they were travelling together. Like the fact that he was planning to go the Underground to find items and gold, and that he was setting up an alchemy chain. In fact, the alchemy chain was only in its fledgling stages but it was already selling items like hotcakes in Lum and in the Underground.

He had somehow done this all in record time too.

“He’s a time traveller remember.” Emily brought up the tidbit cheerfully.

She said it jokingly and she could tell that Ana felt embarrassed for Andrew as she thought back to the phone conversation.

“Which is the stupidest thing ever!” Ana was practically throwing a fit as she remembered the conversation she’d had with Andrew after the Corruptor fight.

They weren’t at all convinced he was a time traveller. And the truth was that they both also weren’t one hundred percent unconvinced he was a time traveller. Ana had first prescribed Andrew a visit to the psych ward over the phone call when he’d told her but then she’d gone over it with Emily and they both thought back over his antics over the past week they’d been playing with him and then in the weeks that followed.

Every day he seemed to be ahead of the crowd in finding hidden chests, hidden gold, dueling skilled players that had hidden themselves and fighting monsters that shouldn’t even be seen yet. He was rising at unparalleled speeds and was already becoming famous online as one of the foremost Zodiac players and explorers. There were rumors he was starting a guild soon and that it would be composed of only skilled players.

Every sign pointed to him having some kind of knowledge that they’d never known their friend to have access to before.

But it was definitely a hard pill to swallow. They didn’t want to admit such a thing was true. And if it was then what did that mean for everyone around them? So the girls thought about the situation carefully and came to a single conclusion.

The man was a complete dumbass.

“Ten YEARS.” Ana bellowed to the chagrin of the people waiting in line to get into The Living Chicken, “Ten years.” She repeated a little softer as she saw the angry looks, “And the idiot didn’t do anything except play a video game. He didn’t follow the news so he doesn’t know any major events, he didn’t grab any lottery numbers and he can’t even tell me which singers are going to be popular. The man’s a complete dumbass!”

Emily didn’t want to agree but the case was pretty stacked against Andrew. It was one thing that he claimed to be from the future but the guy had spent his entire ten years playing a video game he was only excellent in. He’d claimed to Ana that he’d been at least a top-five hundred player in the game by the time he died and had made his living farming gold to convert to real-life cash. That meant he’d spent almost twenty-four hours a day either playing the game or sleeping because of his lack of items and skills. He’d made up for his deficiencies with time spent inside the game. In return, he knew nothing about the outside world, instead of actually being able to use his time travel for anything useful.

The guy probably hadn’t even made a single dent in other people’s lives before he died.

They still had their doubts about his claims, who wouldn’t, but if they were true then it was so sad that it almost made them want to cry. They didn’t even know if they could tell anyone because nobody would believe something so pathetic. If they didn’t know Andrew so well they’d swear he was lying about not knowing anything about the future. Unfortunately, they knew he probably wasn’t lying when he said he spent all his life playing the game.

“I know, I know,” Emily nodded. They’d already had this conversation dozens of times over the phone, “God if only he hadn’t turned into such a dickhead it’d be a lot easier to take in.”

That had been Emily’s biggest gripe about the situation. She’d had almost an entire month to come to terms with the fact that whether Andrew was a time traveller or crazy he’d still decided it was a waste of his time to hang out with her. She hadn’t even done anything to him. According to what Andrew had said to Ana the only reason he ignored Emily so much was because he’d somehow forgotten about her entirely. She just hadn’t played the game enough to warrant his attention in the future and he hadn’t bothered keeping in touch with her in real life. Just thinking about it made her want to stress eat. She’d thought they’d been closer than that. A lot closer.

It was unfortunate that after finding out why he was being rude to Emily that Ana had slammed the phone down and stopped the call. She hadn’t been able to get back in touch with him because it took a week for her to calm down and he had already moved with his family to who knows where.

Honestly, both of them kind of wanted to tell someone else about the story just to confirm they weren’t overreacting. But they knew if they told anyone online then they’d be laughed off as liars, and if they told anyone in real life they’d be marked as crazy.

One day they’d spill their guts out to some poor sap and make them listen to their story.

“Well, I guess it doesn’t matter now.” Ana shook her head and reset her thoughts, “It looks like he’s doing well for himself. I hear his videos are getting millions of views now.”

“Millions of views? Psh. That’s nothing.”

Another voice slipped into the conversation as a newcomer put themselves beside Emily and Ana. The girls looked at them with surprise and then narrowed their eyes to make out the person's features. The newcomer was completely wrapped head to toe in clothes, with a beanie and scarf covering their face.

“H-hey guys.” The person hesitated under their intense scrutiny.

“Ohh,” A light popped off in Emily’s head, “Hey Archy!”

The archer from Zodiac Online was pretty much the same person in terms of physical build and height but the clothes covering them had thrown off Emily. Each section looked fashionable and higher-end than the picture she had in her mind of the player. There was only one major difference.

‘He’ Was a she in real life.

She was also famous.

“Oh-my-god.” Emily was excited to finally meet her friend in real life, “How did you know it was us?”

Archy snorted and suddenly Emily could see that the personality she had online was probably the same as she had in real life.

“You didn’t even change your avatar in Zodiac Online. You look exactly the same as Seven.” Archy was clearly grinning under her scarf.

“Call me Emily. Ohh,” Emily’s eyes lit up, “do I call you Magnolia or Archy?”

“Ergh,” Archy’s face scrunched up, “Neither please, I’d be happy if you call me Anita.”

“I’m Ana.” Ana decided it was finally time to join in the conversation, “IEatTortillas in Zodiac Online.”

Anita turned to her and scanned the girl with surprise, “Hey, you’re not a muscular, six-foot tall man.”

Ana turned slightly red. Unlike Emily and Archy she had completely changed her appearance online to be the opposite of her current one. The would-be hero character she was levelling online was actually becoming quite famous as well alongside TidalWave and Archy. But the others in the team had worked out she was a girl a long time ago. Although they probably still imagined her like a female version of her avatar.

Except for Anita that is. Inside the game, Archy was completely oblivious to IEatTortilla’s true identity, even though Ana didn’t even try to hide it from anyone and was constantly talking to Emily about it.

“Yeah, I lost a few pounds.” Ana joked, she was as fit as could be and had been for a while, “I’ll have you know that I really do eat tortillas. No lying there.”

Anita groaned as the line seemed to come to a standstill, “Good lord don’t mention food. I need some chicken in me now.”

They laughed but Anita seemed serious, “Actually, I think I can make it happen. Give me a second guys.”

Before they could ask her what she meant Anita had already walked to the front of the line and quickly disappeared behind a side door.

“So she’s the same as ever.” Emily remarked with a smile.

She had been worried that the Archy she knew online would be different from the person that she was in real life. It turned out that they were almost exactly the same people.

“Man, so that’s Magnolia. That name is way too fancy for that personality.” Ana was blunt but Emily knew she meant well.

It was also extremely true.

“That’s just her stage name.” Emily defended her teammate half-heartedly.

Magnolia. It was the name of a famous internet sensation that had appeared a few years ago and quickly made her name inside the gaming community as well as the world outside. Thanks to her cousin who had a job in video design and marketing when he wasn’t being an extremely loud blabbermouth she had quickly been able to release videos of her exploits in a previous popular virtual reality game.

She had played a dwarf and mixed with her personality and skills with the bow her videos had gained millions of views and nobody was sure how many followers she had. She was definitely a person who you would be intimidated to be meeting for the first time just based on her reputation.

That aura of intimidation was completely washed away once they connected Archy and Magnolia with Anita, the person. Honestly, Emily could see why she was so popular among the gaming community and the general audience. She was just so refreshingly honest and skilled inside the game that her videos were always sure to be a hit. It was like watching a professional gamer that also happened to be naturally funny and easy to connect with.

Then she had left the game and joined Zodiac Online and nobody knew why. Slowly her fans were migrating into a giant dwarf society led by her cousin in-game.

The Knights of Magnolia, Emily was amused to find out, was actually just a big fan club that has members all over the game now that Anita had revealed that she was in Zodiac Online. For the most part, they didn’t actually bother her but recently she’d seen a resurgence in popularity due to her latest series of videos which showed her dueling against her teammates and players who were extremely skilled. It had shut down any internet haters and caused her reputation as an actual gamer to soar.

Ever since the Corruptor fight and whatever Attracting said to her cousin it seemed like she had no intention of hiding who she was anymore. Although the team didn’t really care that much and happily still dueled her even if she did sometimes post videos of them online.

That was also why TidalWave, IEatTortillas, Colt from Colt’s Crew and Nastin from Dark horse were becoming more popular as well lately. The whole team had been featured heavily in the videos but these four players had stuck out to the general populace and they were being researched heavily by professional organisations and ordinary players alike. Nastin was already somewhat famous but the others hadn’t experienced anything similar. TidalWave had told Emily that a few organisations had already reached out to offer him jobs if he agreed to represent them in the Zodiac Online pvp competitions that were rumored to be announced soon.

Third, Roxxy, Spark Joy and Emily had declined to have their daily duels recorded by Archy. They didn’t feel like they wanted the attention and Emily didn’t feel like she was very video-friendly, despite Anita’s protests in-game.

Ana and Emily talked for a couple more minutes before Anita came back with a smile on her face.

“Hey-hey-,” Anita grabbed their hands excitedly and dragged them out of the line, “Stop waiting over here, we’re going in.”

Emily almost protested but then saw that there was a person at the door gesturing politely for them to go on through.

“Huh.” Emily had never seen that happen before, “Now I just hope the chicken is as good as you say.”

They walked through the doors and soon found themselves being ushered into a nice table closed off by walled on both sides except for the entrance. A television touch-screen with a menu displayed on it was hanging off the wall onto the table at their side and they started going through the menu excitedly.

“Damn.” Ana whistled, “This place is a lot fancier than I’m used to.”

The Living Chicken looked deceptively smaller from the outside. But maybe the long line should have given it away. Emily couldn’t believe there were so many ways to fry a chicken but apparently she’d just never been opened to this kind of world before.

Anita laughed at Emily’s wide-eyed expression, “I guess your face has just always been readable.”

“You got that right.” Ana agreed wholeheartedly, “You won’t believe the trouble she’s gotten into thanks to that. Poor kid in kindergarten had his heart broken when she completely failed to lie to him when he asked her out. I can still hear his heart cracking now if I think about it.”

“Oh god.” Emily didn’t want to be having this conversation, “Let’s change the subject. Please.” She thought about the recent events in-game as she finally entered her order into the screen, “So, only a couple more days until the inner-city competition. What’s that, like, fifteen players we have to beat?”

Ana and Anita stared at her in disbelief.

“What?” She asked defensively.

“Sev-Emily.” Anita spoke slowly, “Do you know how many cities there are in Zodiac Online?”

“In Zhalnor?” Emily tried to think of all the cities she’d heard of, “Like four or something right?”

Anita sent Ana a look to ask if Emily was joking but the fit girl shook her head with a smile on her face.

“There are fifty-five major cities altogether. Like, in the world of Zodiac Online. Only forty-seven have enough players to send to the competition so…” Anita did the math in her head, “There are around two hundred and thirty-five players that are going to be there. All of them around the same level as us and some are probably just as skilled.”

Emily tilted her head in confusion, “Can we beat them?”

“Ha.” Anita appreciated her friend’s forthrightness, “We can definitely beat most of them. But if there’s a lot of French and Korean players then we probably won’t be able to win the whole thing.”

“Koreans and French people? What do they have to do with this?”

“Milly, did you do any reading up on the professional gaming scene?” Ana giggled as she saw the confusion spread on Emily’s face, “The top rankings of all organisations have been dominated by those two nations for years now. You’ll hardly see a top ranker from somewhere else, even the top skilled players from other countries migrate to a Korean or French team eventually due to better pay and reputation.”

“There are two main organisations from both nations that have announced their move to Zodiac Online already.” Anita added to help explain the scene to Emily, “But we don’t know who their players are. Only that they’re veterans that have been playing at the top of the rankings in other games for years. They’re more than likely to skip this event because it’s not really that big and they’d want to hide their information. But we never know if one or two will appear so that they can show off or test their skills. Or heck, maybe they’ll just be bored.”

“Oh. So if we run into a Korean or French pro we’re screwed.” Emily nodded, “Gotcha.”

“Well, we’ve already met one.”

“What!” Emily couldn’t take in all the information she was receiving, “When did we do that?”

****

A bead of virtual sweat dripped down Troy’s* face as he narrowly avoided the oncoming flurry of sword strikes aimed at his head. He relied on the momentum of his movements to drag him out of the range of the enemy’s attacks and he tried to recoup his thoughts as he suddenly found himself running to safety.

Troy watched his enemy catching up to him and lifted his dagger, “Juggler’s Banq-”

“Repear’s Fury.”

Troy’s body blazed in black light as he was stopped from moving and he saw that he had become a ghost. He had died without being able to do anything. He hadn’t been humiliated like this since he had first joined Colt’s Crew and fought against Colt himself. Now he was finding more and more players were whooping his ass all the time.

He sighed and looked at his opponent who was light-heartedly standing around and tapping his foot on the grass.

[TidalWave: Level 42]

“You monster.” Troy revived with a smile, “How do you even improve that much in a week?”

TidalWave laughed at the compliment and stared directly at Troy with a grin, “I’m just having fun trying to keep first place in my team’s race.”

TidalWave and Troy looked over to the side and spotted several skilled players fighting each other in a series of duels. Troy grunted in astonishment as he saw Seven smashing magic blasts into Roxxy’s hovering shield without hesitation. The nimble magi was growing more and more confident in herself every day. Unfortunately, he only had one more day to duel this team.

The inter-city competition would begin tomorrow, and he hadn’t made the cut to enter it.

“Hey,” Troy interrupted his own thoughts as TidalWave began to move to his next opponent, “Why haven’t you guys come up with a name yet? A team name.”

Troy was curious. He knew that these players had all been together for around a month but none of them had decided on a stable name for themselves. Colt’s Crew and Dark Horse had constantly referred to them as ‘TidalWave and friends’ or by their individual names.

“Yes please. We’ll call ourselves Archy’s Crew plus One.”

Troy looked over to see Archy smiling and pointing at Third pointedly as he said the words ‘plus one’. Troy groaned. It was his turn to fight the archer. This was his worst match up out of all of the enemy players. His job was to assassinate quickly and maybe be good at close quarter combat but the archer rendered all his plans null if he knew that Troy was coming at him.

It was still good practice.

Gyro had suddenly decided that it was his sworn duty to enter the inner-city competition and had completely destroyed Troy in their inter-team fight to decide who would represent their city. He hadn’t expected the archer to actually become interested in the competition and then out of nowhere Colt also decided to become serious about it. Unfortunately, they had only been given one spot due to their team’s overall lower quality and level but surprisingly Colt had been soundly defeated by Gyro.

But then again, the archer was a Korean professional. So Colt had taken the loss with grace and given the inter-city competition spot to Gyro.

“Damn.” Troy’s next best practice partner to finally overcome Gyro in a duel was Archy.

He was the only archer that came close to Gyro in skill. Even Dark Horse’s Grenda wasn’t a match for the player.

“You wish.” TidalWave snorted at Archy’s suggestion, “We should have a team tournament and once Third wins it he can get the right to choose our name.”

Neither of them could deny that the wizard was stronger than them. Archy was naturally countered and before Third had secluded himself in the Magi Guild of Lum’s library he had dueled against TidalWave to show off his new ability. Needless to say, his new aoe defense skill was a complete counter to TidalWave. His aura step allowed him to almost reach impossible to hit heights but was limited. Apparently willpower only got you so far into the air before the winds decided to bring you back down to earth again. And it wasn't as fast as it had first appeared to be.

He had still destroyed the warrior.

“I will refuse any name that guy picks.” Archy’s expression grew flat, “You know his naming sense. We’ll be laughed out of the forums if we allow that wanna-be roleplayer to give us a name.”

“I think Dragon-slayers United is an amazing name.” TidalWave said without a hint of sarcasm in his voice, “It has a certain flair, you know?”

“Maybe if we had actually slain a dragon.” Archy rebutted and lifted his quiver to reveal a series of green-tinted arrows, “All we fought was a really big and tentacled cocoon. My damn awesome new yellow bow hasn’t even been usable since then.”

Troy coughed lightly and suddenly the two players remembered he was there.

“Oh right,” Archy sent Troy the duel request he’d been waiting for, “What do you think we should name the team?”

“No offense Troy,” TidalWave interrupted them, “But I don’t know if I can accept names given by someone from a place called ‘Colt’s Crew’”

“Ha.” Troy replied dryly, “Well you guys have seven members. Why not call yourselves ‘Seven’?”

“Nope.” “No way.”

They were resolute in their refusal.

“We might as well be calling ourselves Third’s turds if we’re including our teammate's names in the team name.” Archy brought his bow up as the duel began.

“Rich coming from you.” Seven’s voice called out to them as she heard Archy’s comment.

As an assassin normally Troy would begin at the farthest range to give Archy a chance. After all, archers had a difficult time in close combat and so they were given time to spread the distance and maintain a healthy stream of arrows. In this duel they had begun at a medium-range because Archy was simply that skilled.

Troy and Archy immediately switched into battle-mode and brought his dagger up while turning invisible...

… And was immediately struck in the eyes by two arrows that had been shot before he could even move.

“Damn it.”

Troy hadn’t even lasted a second before dying this time. He looked around and saw that Archy had already moved on to watch TidalWave’s match against his next opponent, Colt’s Crew’s archer Gyro.

Troy sighed deeply as he revived. None of his teammates were struggling against the enemy players like he was. Slowly over the past week of playing he could feel the gap between himself and the other players widening as Colt and the others kept up with their sparring partners and fought them as equals.

“I know how that feels.” A kind voice reached him as his next opponent walked up to him, “But Archy only did that because he takes you seriously.”

Troy felt surprised as he saw Spark Joy sit down next to him with a kind smile on her face. The iron guardian. They definitely hadn’t spoken much before except for the occasional duel together.

“Here.” Spark Joy didn’t waste time bringing out a small book from her inventory and passing it to him.

Troy took a look at the contents curiously and flipped through what looked like a series of numbered sentences. Each entry was a new duel against one of her teammates.

“It’s a journal. TidalWave got us all using the function. Apparently some of the others use it to record monster encounters, but I decided to record all our duels.”

[Duel 12 against TidalWave. He kicked my ass.]

[Duel 25 against TidalWave. He kicked my ass yet again]

[TidalWave Duel 75: He moves slightly slower after missing a wide swing. How can I force him to attempt one?]

[TidalWave Duel 324: I won! Finally.]

Troy whistled, “That’s a lot of fights.”

It was more impressive that she had actually even won a single duel, let alone the several her diary stated she won. She was a tank designed for non-pvp combat and he was a warrior designed for killing. That alone spoke droves about her true skill as a player.

Spark Joy nodded her head contentedly, “Let’s take a break for a while. Browse the forums.”

Troy tilted his head at her and she could see the confusion on his face, “Forums? Why?”

“It’s…”

Troy smiled as he saw Spark Joy struggling to come up with a reason. She had just come out of a fight against Colt and was clearly tired after the encounter.

“Something I like to do after losing too many duels.”

“Gotcha.” Troy handed her back the book and then opened up the forums in his menu.

The game creators hadn’t been too shy about plugging their official website into the game and making it easy to access.

“Oh hey, I know her.” Spark Joy’s eyes widened as she saw that one of the top posts on the forum was a video, “What’s her name… Magenta? Iris?”

“Violet.” Troy said with a charming laugh, “You were close. What’s this then.”

He clicked on the video and suddenly his expression turned grim. The girl wasn’t that unknown to them since they both liked to watch skilled players fighting online but it was the person standing near Violet that caused Troy to pause.

“Oh gosh, it’s that guy.” Troy muttered.

[Attracting: Level 43]

“You know him?” Spark Joy looked at the video curiously, “Is he as skilled as Violet?”

“You know him too.” Troy almost laughed at Spark Joy’s expression as she wracked her brain trying to remember the priest, “He was there at the Corruptor fight a month ago. You know, when you guys fought against us. He was on the giant monster’s head. He’s pretty famous now because of his forum videos?”

“Ohh…” Spark Joy nodded.

Troy could tell she definitely didn’t remember who Attracting was.

“He’s IEatTortilla’s friend and previous party member?” He tried a new tactic.

“Ohh….” Spark Joy definitely, definitely, definitely had no idea who this person was.

She only really remembered the people that were skilled enough to keep her attention online. Those were the people she wrote about in her blog and studied to make her analysis posts. Unfortunately Attracting just hadn’t done anything to get her attention. Then she remembered an event that had happened briefly in the Lum arena.

“I think I remember fighting a guy like that once.” She admitted. Although the memory was quickly fading again, “Maybe. Maybe it wasn’t him.”

Troy unpaused the video and showed it to Spark Joy hoping to trigger some memories.

Attracting and Violet were waiting patiently on the edge of a lake of lava and were staring into the middle intensely. Attracting was muttering as he lifted his priest wand and fired shadow claws into the lake. Each one sizzled as the purple mist forming the attack dissipated once it hit the lava.

Spark Joy and Troy tilted their heads in confusion as they tried to see what the duo in the video were aiming for. Then they both blanched as a sudden explosion caused lava to spew forth like a geyser. From the depths of the lake a hole formed and a massive red lizard suddenly roared into existence in front of Violet, causing the warrior to take a step back and evaluate the situation.

“TidalWave.” Attracting’s voice suddenly came through loud and clear as the giant lizard roared, “This is our official challenge to you.”

“Oh right.”

Spark Joy’s eyes flashed with amusement.

“I remember this guy now.