A few days ago I saw a flier on the side of some buildings and restaurants near the colosseum advertising for a tournament taking place at noon on Thursday, which happens to be today. The tournament was called the Rising Stars Rumble and was something that took place every six months to showcase the budding talent of some newly made summoners.

The rules were simple, any summoners who turned 16 within the time period between now and the last tournament would be allowed to participate with their summons in the single-elimination style tournament, each battle would allow for only one summon to be used.

Each battle would stop once a summon was knocked out of the ring, killed, or the summoner forfeited. I had heard about the tournament but had never seen it in person, but the tempting prize of the best 3 summoners receiving a tier 4 monster core and an invitation into the colosseum league was too much to resist.

So here I am, in line with lots of other young summoners waiting to get into the imposing stadium to fight until only one is left. I wouldn't have bothered to enter had Brutus and Jareth not recently evolved, having only tier 2 summons would be a practical death sentence against the summoners who have had nearly 6 months to get stronger and prepare for the tournament compared to my nearly 3 weeks of being a summoner.

Eventually, the line moved up and I finally managed to make it in half an hour before the tournament officially began. The seating area for the participants was on the opposite side of the entrance and had everyone packed in like sardines to fit them all.

I personally was smushed between two burly looking guys who had yet to speak a word, but they seemed to have no problem with encroaching on my legroom, but in all fairness, they probably needed the extra room to fit themselves in the crowded bleachers.

Luckily it seemed that most of the participants had at least showered or put deodorant on because, despite the crowded quarters, there wasn't an overwhelming amount of BO unique to large crowds of people. When noon came around, 4 referees came out of the employee tunnel and took their places next to the four circular stages within the colosseum grounds.

One of the larger refs came up and announced in a booming and commanding voice, "Welcome participants to the Rising Stars Rumble, you will be fighting to see which of you are the best summoners among your peers. There will be 4 single-elimination matches going on at any time in these 4 arenas, and a message will be sent to your watch alerting you to where you need to be for your match. You already know the rules by now, but to clarify; for each match one summon may be used and the match only ends when a summon is killed, knocked out of the arena, or the summoner forfeits. Now prepare to fight and do your best to wow the spectators, any one of them could become a future employer or sponsor."

With that succinct speech out of the way, beeps were heard within the crowd summoning some participants to come to the arena for their match. After each summoner had lined up, they were prompted to bring out their summon and once that was done the match would begin.

Most of the summoners brought out tier 2 summons that obviously wouldn't amount to much in this type of tournament, some of the only notable summons, and I was hesitant to even call those summons notable were; armored ants and boulder crabs.

One summoner, in particular, looked extremely out of place with a basic tier 1 slime out in the arena, its' opponent was an iron-hide boar that looked like it would tear apart the slime in one charge. Seeing nothing really of note to observe I decided to just relax and wait for my turn to come around, or at least for some unique summons to appear.

Luckily I didn't have to wait long and out of what must have been nearly five-thousand participants I was up in the 5th round to compete. The message on my watch told me to appear at arena one on the front-left side of the stadium, and so I ambled my way down amongst the throng of competitors in the stadium.

Deciding to not reveal all of my cards, I summoned out Jareth to compete. His strength was greater than the other summons I had seen competing so far, so I wasn't worried about him losing this round.

The main reason I chose him is that he doesn't have much to hide skill-wise, and so it wouldn't make a difference if someone was aware of his strength, no amount of foreknowledge would prevent a weak tier 2 from beating my menacing dark-skinned hobgoblin.

When my opponent stepped up to the arena and realized what summon he would be facing his look of apprehension was obvious, and after mulling over his choice for a few seconds he ended up bringing out a tier 2 spike tailed squirrel. Unsurprising to everyone involved, the moment the match started Jareth lumbered forward with his imposing iron mace and with one swing bashed the squirrel in the side out of the arena.

It would have been nothing more than meat paste had I not told him to hold back some so that he didn't outright kill the summon. I didn't want to be seen as bullying those weaker than me, it's not good for reputation and public image plus I had nothing against the summoner in particular.

With that round ending almost as soon as it started, I began to walk off to take my seat in the packed bleachers before the referee even declared my victory to wait for my next match. The matches continued to progress rather quickly as the day went on, and I eventually saw a few summons of note.

One was a tier 3 bladed mantis that a young and innocent girl seemed to own, another was a white-haired yeti that an older looking guy had, they looked to be strong competition and were the only eye-catching summons within my sight.

By the time 2 PM arrived most of the weaklings had been eliminated, which left only around a thousand participants out of around five-thousand.

My turn came once again, and this time I was pitted against a rather unique looking tarantula variant summon, it was a tier 3 shatter tarantula and looked to be made out of glass. The deceiving thing about this summon is how weak it looks, but in actuality, it had mutated to have the hair all over its' body be made out of a glass-like substance that would break off into its' opponent at the slightest touch, hence the shatter part of its' name.

If one was especially unlucky the glass shards would break off into a summon or monster's eyes, blinding them and causing excruciating pain. For this round, I once again brought out Jareth, but I warned him to remain distant from the spider and to move away as soon as he attacked to not be gouged in the eye by glass shards. I wasn't particularly worried about the glass breaking his skin as it was as tough as steel now, but his eyes remained vulnerable and could be exploited to take Jareth down.

With both summons in the arena, the battle had begun and it seemed like just about everyone in the stadium was focusing on this fight between two rather unique and dangerous summons. Jareth once again closed in on the spider, but was forced to halt his movement and shield his eyes from the glass shards that had shot out from the spider's body after it had turned around and rubbed its legs on its large abdomen.

The spider did its' best to take advantage of the situation and leapt forward intent on stabbing as much glass into Jareth as it could with its' entire body as well as baring its' fangs in order to poison Jareth as well. The stoic hobgoblin didn't remain immobile for long and began moving back as much as he could in order to avoid any ambushes while his vision was blocked.

His movements were partially effective and only the front of the spider managed to make it to Jareth, while the legs did their best to shank Jareth with the remaining glass shards, the fangs were not so lucky and were pushed away with the mace that Jareth had pushed out to ward off any attacks.

At a stalemate, each summon vied for dominance in an odd form of wrestling, the glass did its best to stab into Jareth when they made contact, but it was slow going as only a few especially jagged pieces managed to stick in at all, and even the ones that did go in barely made it past the specially hardened skin of the defensive variant hobgoblin.

The tarantula soon realized the futility of its' attacks and leaped away to regroup and come up with a new attack strategy. Unfortunately for it, Jareth rarely let any advantage go and charged towards the spider immediately in barbarian fashion with his mace extended out in threat. The spider had little time to think, but it was presented an opening to attack after Jareth over-extended himself when swinging his mace.

The spider tensed up into a ball and launched itself into the abdomen of the metallic summon, with the mass of the spider's body behind the attack many more shards managed to stick into Jareth, making him scream out in pain all the while looking a bit like a pincushion. This seemed to have greatly angered Jareth, and his eyes got a crazed and fervent expression in them.

He charged like a berserker and swung continuously at the arachnid until the spider could no longer dodge. After a few wild swings, the mace eventually made contact and the spider was hit with a devastating blow to two of its' eight legs which were ripped off from the force of the weapon.

The opposing summoner immediately declared his forfeit after seeing that his spider was crippled and would likely be smashed into a pulp in a few seconds by a currently very angry hobgoblin with a mean-looking mace.

I called Jareth over to me just before he smashed in the head of the currently crippled glass spider. He seemed upset at my order, but conceded to my command and came over to me with glass sticking out all over his abdomen and arms.

The crowd at this point went wild with cheers after such a dramatic and tense fight, but I ignored them in favor of taking care of my injured summon.

I rushed Jareth over to the side of the stadium and began the painstaking process of removing the sharp shards from his body. 30 minutes and about a quart of blood later, Jareth was no longer a pincushion and I recalled him in order to heal after giving him a shield bear core to reward him for the hard-fought battle.

Once Jareth was taken care of and returned to his core to rest, I walked up to the much emptier bleachers to watch the rest of the matches until it was my turn once again. As the battles progressed and more hopeful summoners had their dreams of winning the tournament dashed the battles became more intense and strong summons were becoming an increasingly frequent fight.

As the power difference between summons became smaller, the fights began to draw out and serious injuries became more common. Some of the summons had limbs cut or torn off, and there was rarely a summon that didn't bleed at least a little during their fight.

Everyone was determined to try and win this event, me included, and the atmosphere began to change from a lax competition to a war zone with everyone playing for keeps even at the expense of their summons.

I wasn't quite willing to sacrifice my summons like that, and was prepared to withdraw should the situation become too dangerous. Ultimately, I hoped that with my summon's plentiful hunting experience and newly upgraded forms they would be able to eke out a win even against some of the tougher competition. I had yet to bring out Brutus, he was the wild card that I would play against any opponent vulnerable to sneak attacks.

It seems that fate had read my mind as I was called out an hour later to compete and my opponent was the summoner with the yeti that looked to be rather strong but slow with a weak defense. Seeing this as my opportunity to let Brutus shine and allow Jareth to recover and rest for longer I brought out my recently transformed grim.

Brutus emerged from his pitch-black core as if ready to pounce on any creature showing a bit of weakness, his haunting eyes were adding to this effect and had clearly unnerved the summoner of the yeti. Having made it this far in the tournament, the summoner shrugged off the shock of seeing another tier 3 summon that had yet to fight in this tournament.

The match began as soon as the summons had taken their positions and the ref announced the start of the fight. The yeti was clearly a brute type of fighter, similar to Jareth but lacked the defensive skin that allowed Jareth to sustain his purely offensive attacking style.

The yeti predictably charged Brutus and reared back for a hammer fist blow, but the attack failed as Brutus easily outmaneuvered the heavy summon and sprinted to the side of the yeti. The yeti staggered from his failed attack which Brutus took advantage of by tearing at the left calf of the snow-white summon.

The yeti was quick to respond to the attack and Brutus was forced to release the leg or get hit by the lumbering summon's massive fist. If any of the attacks reached Brutus I'm afraid he would be out of the fight, but his style is suitable to quick attacks with constant movement making it hard for any attack to land.

Seeing that a drawn-out battle wouldn't be in my favor with Brutus expending lots of energy constantly dodging the blows from the yeti. I send through our bond that Brutus should shadow jump and surprise the yeti to finish off the fight before he becomes seriously injured.

Brutus seems to have listened as he gears up to run into the shadow of the ref that has loomed into the arena near Brutus. The Yeti is confused as to why Brutus is running toward the ref but follows along nevertheless, and is certainly surprised when it sees Brutus disappear into the drawn-out shadow of the referee.

Even more shocking not only to the Yeti but to its' summoner and the spectators watching the match is the sight of Brutus appearing out of the Yeti's shadow in a lunge that brings him right up to the neck of the yeti and brings the humanoid summon down to the ground while remaining latched onto its throat.

I warned Brutus to not go for the kill, but to immobilize his opponent since it is only a tournament. The summoner seeing that his Yeti could have its' throat ripped out at any moment reluctantly forfeits, to which Brutus releases the opposing summon and returns back to me with a grin on his muzzled face and a bright gleam in his eye. I praise him and give him a few pats on the head as if he was a pet dog rather than a deadly creature that managed to take down a summon twice his size.

The competition continued and the only other battle of mine before the final matches to determine the ultimate winner forfeited seeing as their chances of winning were extremely low after taking into consideration my summon's deadly and still relatively unknown abilities.

I was relieved to not have to fight another battle and exhaust my summons further before the final matches. At this point, another 2 hours had passed and only 5 summoners were left, all of them had strong or unique tier 3 summons that had allowed them to bulldoze through most of the competition that had at best a tier 2 summon if they were lucky.

I was anxious to begin my battles and get them over with as the long day had bored me for the most part and was filled with lots of waiting. I didn't have to wait long as only 2 arenas were put to use to give a bigger stage for the coming fights.

My first opponent was a stubbled boy who appeared to be trying to grow a mustache but it ended up looking like a fuzzy caterpillar on his lip. I remember from one of the previous battles that this guy had a wood variant golem, it looked menacing but wasn't actually all that dangerous as it's body was lightweight but weak, it moved faster than most golems but still had a large body vulnerable to attacks. This seemed to be one of the examples of variants not necessarily being stronger than their original monster type.

I figured Jareth had rested plenty already and since the wounds weren't severe they should have closed up my now, so I summoned him out and was amazed to see no indication that he was ever injured, it seems his healing factor had increased as well after his evolution.

The wood golem was brought out as well and the match between tanks began, blows were received on either side with each summon attempting to do as much damage as possible with no regard to any injuries they may receive.

This strategy had worked so far for the wood golem, but unfortunately for it Jareth not only has a strong defense, but he also has a weapon capable of greater damage than any fist could ever dole out. Jareth quickly overpowered the golem despite being the smaller of the two and the battle didn't end until Jareth was forced to demolish the wood construct in one giant overhead blow after the opposing summoner refused to give in.

This was my team's first kill in the tournament, and while I felt sorry for the summon my victory was far more important than a temporary death and some resulting weakness as a result of dying. The crowd went nuts after seeing woodchips fly everywhere after Jareth pulped the competition, I have to admit it was a bit satisfying seeing the amount of destruction one huge blow from my summon could create.

I was ushered off to the side for the next battle to take place and sweepers came out to remove what remained of the wood golem. The summoner was weeping while holding the dull summoning crystal of his golem, luckily the death wasn't permanent and would only result in any cores that had been fed to it or experience from fighting since its' evolution to be null and void.

The red-headed girl with the bladed mantis was up next in the arena I had previously been in and she made short work of the vulture looking terror bird that her opponent summoned, it had come a bit too close to the mantis when trying to attack and was sliced in two with one sweep of its' bladed arm. Rather than forearms shaped like scythes, this mantis had what looked like two roman gladii on its' arms, it also seemed rather adept with them.

Recognizing that this mantis posed the greatest risk to my summons I began to try and decide who I would bring out to face it, before settling on Jareth who I hoped would be able to match the dual bladed insect. 5 summoners were left after this round, and the red-haired girl with the mantis was lucky enough to be chosen as the summoner who got to sit out until the final round.

I had to face off against a grindylow with a spear in its' grasp, its sickly green skin reminded me of seaweed and the octopus-like tentacles clearly showed that this creature was meant to be aquatic, but seemed to be doing just fine on dry land. I brought out Brutus to fight the creature which would allow Jareth to rest and prepare for its' epic battle against the bladed mantis, there was no doubt in my mind that the summon would be either 2nd or 1st in the tournament.

Brutus took command of the battle tempo with many fake-out attempts towards the grindylow to see how it would react, it had an obvious ability with the spear as it managed to keep Brutus away with the threat of its' spear should he get too close. I had the idea that if Brutus could move the grindylow towards the shade he would be able to trick the summon with a shadow clone and get within range of the summon, and I transmitted as much to him.

Once Brutus got within range of the summon, it would no longer be able to use the spear to fend him off and the battle would be over. With the occasional test of the summon's defenses, Brutus prowled toward the summon, causing it to slowly but surely work its way to the other side of the arena where the shadows were plentiful.

Once the sea creature was in position, Brutus charge the summon for real and diverted from where the clone he had just created was, he managed to avoid detection by blending into the shadows and struck when the opposing summon thrust its' spear into the realistic illusion.

Feeling no resistance from the fake-grim, the grindylow began to turn around and search for the real one, but by then it was too late and Brutus had already grabbed the summon by the back of the neck and forced it to the ground face first. With no other option left, my opponent conceded and I moved on to the finals.

With the top 3 competitors chosen, the mantis girl and a boy with what appeared to be a rather deadly bristled boa were facing off to determine who would fight in the finals. Unfortunately for the snake, its' defense was much weaker than the carapaced insect and was quickly diced up after failing to rend apart the legs of the insect. With that short battle finished, one arena was being prepared and the girl and myself were allowed a break to get into fighting shape for the big event.

I went over to her to introduce myself since out of everyone at the tournament today, she is the only one with the potential to give me a real fight. "Hi, I'm Thomas, I didn't happen to catch your name during the tournament. I must say that I'm pretty awed by your bladed mantis, It's giving me shivers just thinking about fighting it."

She looks up at me from the bench with her bright turquoise eyes, and after a second of thought says, "Thank you, my name is Alex. I've got to admit that I'm pretty impressed that you already have two tier 3 summons, how long have you been a summoner for?"

I stop and think for a moment before realizing that I've been doing this for about 3 weeks, which is a pittance compared to some of the other competitors who have had months to grow strong. I now realize just how abnormal I am compared to most summoners, but with my rising growth comes increased dangers. I've nearly died twice now, when most others are safe in groups and don't need to worry about things like that.

Deciding on what to tell her, I settle on, "For about a month, I've been hunting on my own just about every day since my birthday, I've got to if I ever want to be strong enough to contend with the summoners who have been hunting for years. What about you, and do you have any other summons?"

She looks rather shocked at my revelation but composes herself and tells me, "I've been a summoner for about 3 months, and I have another summon, but I don't want to reveal it to you yet." I take her statement with grace and realize with a bit of embarrassment that it's not polite to ask about which summons someone has, that knowledge could be the difference between life and death and isn't given out so easily, especially not against someone who would be fighting her soon.

Deciding that I've talked enough to Alex for now, I go over to another bench and wait for the fight to begin. The referee that had spoken before comes to the middle of the now larger arena and bellows out, "Ladies and gentlemen, the fight you've been waiting all day for is about to begin. If each summoner will step into the arena we can begin our match." He then moves off to the side so as to not be caught between our summons.

I bring out Jareth and at him firmly on the back in encouragement, and just to provide a little incentive I promise him the four-armed hobgoblin core I won at the auction previously if he wins. This seems to ignite his will to fight and he confidently walks into the circle prepared to take on a dangerous opponent that may just rip him to shreds if he lets his guard down for even a moment.

Alex brings out her mantis to the surprise of no one and has it enter the circle as well. Jareth sets up in a sprinter stance and when the referee brings his arm down to signal the fight, both summons race off towards their opponent, neither one showing any signs of slowing down.

In a dangerous form of chicken, each summon barrels towards each other, and instead of crashing, they use their momentum and throw it into their weapons to do extra damage. The moment Jareth's mace meets the sword-like appendages of the mantis a great gust of wind is pushed out and even disturbs the dirt around the two deadly opponents locked in battle.

Both are deadlocked, but the mantis has more control over how much force can be put into the stalemate with its' two weapons. Jareth realizes this as well and quickly dives backward to avoid the incoming blades, he is quick to recover and gets back on his feet moments before the mantis once again pressures Jareth and pushes its' advantage.

There doesn't seem to be much Jareth can do to bring down the 7ft insect, I only advise him to use his head and try to out-think the summon rather than rely on brute strength. He seems to have taken my words to heart because instead of blocking the swords, he instead redirects them to the ground, which seems to have taken the mantis by surprise.

Knowing that he might not have another chance, Jareth brings down his still readied mace and smashes it down on the left shoulder of the overgrown insect. Noticeable damage appears on the shoulder socket, and even the crowd can hear the furious chittering and hissing coming from the injured bladed mantis. With Jareth tired and battered and the mantis down an arm, each summon appears to ready their final attack, they crawl increasingly closer towards each other making sure to leave no openings.

Each summon rears back, ready to swing their respective weapons once more, but then I notice a twitch in the "injured" shoulder of the mantis. I realize that it was faking its' injury and that if they attacked each other Jareth would be the one to die.

Before they can fully rear back for their attack I yell out, "I forfeit, the mantis isn't injured nearly as bad as it made it appear. It's my loss." Alex seems a bit stunned that I saw through the deceit but nods at my timely decision even if it resulted in my loss. As if to prove my point the injured shoulder of the mantis is shaken out and it appears to have most of its' range of motion back.

The awards are handed out with me getting 500 credits and an invitation to participate in the colosseum gladiator matches. Alex is beaming and receives the copper-colored tier 4 core of a stymphalian bird along with the same prizes as I received.

Despite having gotten second in the tournament I feel great about my performance and feel no shame in having lost to a clearly stronger opponent. I shake Alex's hand after the award ceremony and even manage to score her contact info on my watch, I hope that I can fight her again sometime soon.

I begin to head home and call Mira at her work to inform her of my match results, she squeals in excitement when she hears that I placed in the top 3 just like I knew she would, which is why I brought my arm away for my ear so that I wouldn't go deaf.

I make it home shortly after finishing the call and after feeding each summon a core, with Jareth getting his variant hobgoblin core despite losing, I head off to sleep after this particularly exhausting but exhilarating day.