“Now then, Shall we begin?!”

Immediately, all the teams rush towards the huge mountain as they begin the race to capture the flag. The five colors in use are: Red, Blue, Gold, Silver and Ash. Each of these color classes have letters A to H assigned to them making forty teams altogether therefore forty flags also. Kiiara, May and Erraz belong to team Blue A; Dubnet, Kalium and Dia belong to team Red C; Serena, Tesla and Kevine belong to team Silver A and so on. While the teams rush, Kiiara’s team just stands and observes.

“So are we moving or what?” Erraz asks to break the silence between the team members.

“Of course, we are,” May answers.

“Everyone’s rushing to climb the mountain, however we don’t have time for that. We have to hurry, get our flag and capture another,” Kiiara says.

“We know already,” Erraz replies but is interrupted by Kiiara before he can complete his sentence.

“That’s why I’m going to fly us all to the top,” Kiiara continues.

“Huh? How?” May is surprised.

“Stay still and hold tight,” Kiiara instructs.

She raises her left foot and steps it forward, forcefully on the ground.

“Flame release: Dynamic style: Flame falcon.”

Instantly, fire emanates from beneath her feet, spreads to that of May and Erraz who are on opposite ends of Kiiara respectively and forms a huge falcon.

“Interesting skill you have here Kiiara,” Erraz comments.

“Why didn’t you use in the first stage?” he inquires.

“Well I can’t maintain it for long and it consumes a lot of elemental energy,” she answers.

“Let’s go,” she adds as the falcon took flight.

The flame falcon flying really fast, passes those at the bottom and mid-section of the mountain in an instant.

“Hoo, Kiiara isn’t slacking I see,” Serena says as she climbs the mountain with her teammates.

“And we shouldn’t too,” Tesla says.

“Gather round,” she says to her teammates.

Putting her hands on the ground, she says,

“Silver Storm: Cloud of Hermes.”

A silvery cloud having silver colored lightning sparking under it, forms below her feet and those of Serena and Kevine.

“Wow,” Kevine comments.

“Here we go,” Tesla says and they zoom off with high speed on the silvery cloud.

Some of the other participants also make use of their elements to enable faster and better movement while climbing the mountain.

“Everyone’s really going at it, huh,” Dubnet lazily says, observing the ‘battleground’.

“Yeah and we better hurry before our flag gets stolen,” Dia replies as they climb the mountain with speed.

“We won’t catch up to them at this rate,” Kalium complains lightly.

“Well, at least some are still below us,” Dubnet replies.

“We still have a chance,” he adds.

However, right there on the mountain, not too far off, is Dubnet’s team’s flag. Dubnet is quick to sight it.

“What? That’s out flag actually,” he alerts his teammates.

Another team already rushes to get the flag. One of the members is about to grab the flag when Dubnet suddenly appears in front of the member and lands a kick on his face. Another member comes rushing to attack but Dubnet dodges the punch thrown at him by the member and lands a knee jab on the second member’s stomach. He follows it with an elbow jab to his back and finishes the combo by throwing him to the side.

“Interesting, I took you for the lazy one,” the third member says. It is a girl. She has a plain hairstyle at the first half of her head however the other half downwards is packed in a curly afro style. Her hair and eyes are silver in color and she has a large silver headset round her neck.

When Kalium reaches Dubnet, he is surprised at the opponent.

“Princess?!” He exclaims.

“Argentum, been a while,” Dia says as she arrives where Dubnet is.

The girl, Princess Argentum is the princess of the Silver City which is also in Earthville Kingdom and that city is home to Kalium which makes Argentum his princess.

“Good grief, what a complicated situation,” Dubnet says as he takes hold of his team’s flag.

“There’s nothing complicated about this,” Dia replies and makes a rush for Argentum to attack her.

Argentum is holding the flag of her team. The other two members of Argentum’s team quickly dash to stop Dia. Dubnet quickly tosses their own flag at Kalium.

“I understand if you can’t fight at the moment but at least you can keep our flag safe,” he instructs and moves to defend Dia.

Each participant, in this second stage, is allowed to carry weapons specially made by the institution which are unable to make deep wounds on a person whether it is a sword, spear, glaive, and gun, whatever it is. Dubnet has a sword with him, so also Kalium, Argentum and her teammates.

As Dia makes a rush to Argentum, Argentum’s teammates pull out their swords, dashing to attack Dia from her two sides, one from her left and the other from her right. Dubnet quickly dashes to the one on the right and with his sword, blocks his attack. Dia dodges the swing from the one on the right, grabs him and tosses him over to Dubnet’s side. Before he can arrive, Dubnet kicks the one he is blocking and does a backflip, dodging the one coming from the right leaving the two teammates of Argentum to collide against each other.

Dia, on getting to Argentum, makes a fist to punch her however Argentum quickly counters.

“Silver release: Silver wall.”

Instantaneously, a thick wall made of silver forms in-between Dia and Argentum, separating them. Dia’s punch is going to hit the wall but diamond crystals from her fist covers her arm all the way to her elbow. This gives the punch a powerful effect and it breaks through the thick silver wall causing a large crack which ultimately shatters the entire wall to pieces. However, Argentum is quick to jump high in the air, with her team’s flag in one hand and using her other hand, she unsheathes her sword. With sparks of electrical current flowing around it, she quickly swings it down at Dia.

“Silver release: Lightning style: Electrifying crusher.”

Swiftly, huge amount of visible electrical current flows from her sword at Dia. Dia smiles and points her right palm in the direction of the attack.

“Diamond release: Static Style: Diamond shield.”

Instantly, out of thin air, diamond like dust appears and soon a thick shield of diamond covers Dia as the large amount of electrical current come pouring down. The dust created by the clash of the attack settles and Dia, with her diamond shield still intact and unscratched, is standing there unharmed. Argentum lands some steps back holding her flag behind her. She cannot see Dia since the shield is covering her. While behind the shield, Dia turns her palm sideways and immediately, a mini lance with a flat round head, made of diamond shoots from the shield and with full force hits Argentum’s left shoulder.

“Argh!!!” she cries out.

Another is released, which hits her right knee and brings her down. Another hits her right shoulder and another, her stomach all with full force.

“Argh!!!” she yells as she coughs out blood.

“Did you really think you could defeat me?” Dia asks as the shield splits equally into two, revealing her standing there.

As she stands, her long silky hair flowing with the wind and her beautiful eyes dazzling with the light, Argentum looks up at her with a fierce look from the distance, blood spewing from her mouth.

“Hand over your flag,” Dia commands, stretching her hand at Argentum to receive.

“Tch!!” Argentum hisses.

“You proud shi---,” she yells but before she can complete her sentence, a mini lance shoots from one of the shield’s halves, hits her forehead and knocks her out.

“Sorry Argen but you should know by now that against me, you can never win,” Dia says, calmly looking down at the now knocked out Argentum. She walks to where she lay and picks up the flag.

“That wraps it up,” Dubnet says placing his left foot on the other teammates of Argentum.

“Princess,” Kalium mutters with a sad look on his face.

“Hey you better choose which side you’re on. For the purpose of this event at least, you should know where your loyalty lies,” Dia says aloud to Kalium.

Kalium tightens his grip on their team’s flag.

“Not to worry, after this event you can go back to your lovely princess, Mr. Faithful knight,” she adds with a harsh tone.

“I know,” he responds with unhappiness.

Dubnet is silent as he stares at Dia for a bit then looks at Kalium.

“Alright, let’s go,” he says, breaking the silence and turns to leave.

“See Kalium I told you we still have a chance,” he adds as they leave.

“That’s right. We now have two flags in our possession,” Kalium replies.

“Remains at least a precious stone and we’re good to go except we want points,” Dia says.

“Oh yeah,” Dubnet says as he tosses an item at Dia.

“I found that after searching those two,” he adds, referring to Argentum’s teammates.

“Keep it safe, Dia,” he adds again as she catches it.

“That’s a precious stone!” Kalium exclaims with shock in his eyes.

Just by hearing her name from his mouth, Dia’s heart skips. Outside, she looks plain and unperturbed, however, inside she is already head over heels for Dubnet, dancing and rolling about.

“That means we already have all our items before even reaching the top of the mountain,” she says with a cough trying to keep it together.

“Sure,” Dubnet replies.

“However, it’s still not safe for now. This event, if you can observe, is not just about offence but also defence. Teams will surely be after us to capture our flags, the ones we have captured and invariably take whatever precious stones we have,” he adds.

“I see,” Kalium says while touching his chin.

“So we must be alert till we finish the event then,” he adds.

“That’s right,” Dubnet replies.

“Till the end, no one is safe and we don’t even know what type of obstacles await us,” he adds.

Meanwhile…

Kiiara’s team has now reached the edge of the mountain and are approaching the mole valley. The flame falcon is gone and Kiiara is panting a bit.

“Well at least we got our flag,” Erraz says, folding his arms.

“Over to you May,” Kiiara says and takes a deep breath.

“Alright,” May says and places her hand on the ground.

“Earth release.”

Suddenly, a large path of earth forms and connects the mountain to one of the platforms in the mole valley.

The mole valley is a terrain filled with several tall rocky pillars having large table top platforms and the bottom of this terrain is filled with water. However, from the top of a platform when you look down, what you will see will be thick fog due to the height of the pillar.

Once the earth path is formed, Kiiara, May and Erraz begin making their way to the platform. Abruptly, the platform they walk towards, begins to sink at a very high rate. The three start running with full speed to get to the platform and jump to the next before it sinks.

“Do all the platforms sink like this?!” May screams.

“I don’t think so. I think it’s just this one in particular,” Kiiara replies in a loud voice as they move in high motion. On getting to the platform, May quickly grabs the hands of the others.

“I can also use grasshopper just like big bro, not as fast as his though,” she says to herself.

“Here we go!!!” she yells.

“Elemental Release: Earth Style: Grasshopper.”

Quickly, using the earth, they launch to the next platform.

“Whew!!” May exhales as they land but to her surprise, when she lifts up her eyes, she sees danger starring her in the face.

The other platform now stops sinking.

“Tessa,” Kiiara says looking at the girl standing in front of her.

A girl with blue curly hair which covers one side of her face, having white colored eyes with tiny little dots of different colors in her eyes, having a plain expression stands in their front. By her side, there is a guy with medium afro hairstyle and glasses. He has tiny eyes which makes it seem like his eyes are shut as he smiles. He is taller than girl and has his arms folded.

“Cruise,” Kiiara adds referring to the guy beside the girl, Tessa.

“My sincere apologies princess but you know how this event goes,” the girl, Tessa, says.

“I know,” Kiiara replies as she tosses her team’s flag to Erraz who is fast enough to take it.

“May!!!” Kiiara shouts.

“I got it,” May responds and moves to reach for Erraz.

Kiiara, about to release fire from her mouth is suddenly attacked by Tessa who appears at her side and lands a kick on Kiiara’s face. This disrupts Kiiara’s attack and causes her to release the fire in another direction. By now, May has already grabbed Erraz and using the grasshopper technique, makes a jump to another platform beside them. Cruise, the guy beside Tessa, quickly follows them but is hijacked in mid-air by Tesla and they both land on another platform.

Cruise lands some distance from Tesla who is standing at the edge of the platform and is about to jump back to meet Kiiara. However, Cruise places his hand on the ground.

“Water release: Boiling waves of division.”

Immediately, from the water beneath, forms a huge wall of water so hot, you could see the steam proceeding from the water. This wall of hot water creates a demarcation separating Tesla and Cruise from Kiiara and Tessa.

“What a fast technique. To think you did that using the water beneath, impressive,” Tesla says as her eyes start sparking with silver lightning.

Meanwhile Kiiara has gotten up and is battling Tessa however, Tessa is quite fast for Kiiara and soon knocks her to the ground. Tessa then raises her hand and says,

“Sorry princess, I’ll end this now.”

“Star release: Comet blast.”

A dazzling ball of intense heat forms around Tessa’s raised palm as she plans to release it on Kiiara. From a distance away, at the edge of the first mountain, Serena stands, holding a long black lance. When she sees what is about to happen, she points the lance at Tessa and wraps it with lightning. Covered in lightning herself, she runs and like a javelin, throws the lance at Tessa with full force.

“Lightning release: Lightning lance.”

The lance wrapped in lightning, hits Tessa’s hand which has the star release, with a powerful force and explodes on impact causing Tessa to go off balance. Kiiara quickly seizes the opportunity and blows air from her mouth into the ground.

“Elemental Release: Wind Style: Breaking Gust.”

This causes the ground to crack and knock Tessa off balance the more. Instantly, Kiiara uses one of her hands to lift herself and subsequently, lands a strong horizontal kick on Tessa’s stomach. Without stopping, she spins around and uses Tessa as a podium to push herself high into the air. While in the air, raising her right palm up, she forms a large ball of fire (having the length of at least six feet as its diameter) around her palm, which is swirling with immense wind pressure.

“Flame release: Mini conflagration.”

Kiiara immediately, launches the huge ball of fire at Tessa who is trying to regain her balance but by the time she gets herself, it is too late.

“Oh shit!!!” Tessa lightly exclaims using both hands to shield her face in a crisscross manner.

“BOOM!!!”

Kiiara’s technique creates a massive explosion which breaks off half of the large platform, making Tessa to fall off into the water beneath. Kiiara then tries to land but slips at the edge and begins falling into the water beneath. From the first mountain, Serena, wrapped in lightning runs with full speed and makes a powerful jump. She quickly uses one of the pillars of a platform as a stepping stone, bounces off and catches Kiiara. Then, she lands on a pillar opposite the first one she stepped on and makes another jump to the platform Tesla is standing on. The wall of water is already gone by now as Cruise standing opposite Tesla, is in bad shape.

“My my, you two are quite strong you know,” Tesla comments.

“Sure, they belong to the special class just like myself,” Serena says while holding Kiiara on the shoulder.

“Thank you Tesla,” Kiiara replies as her teammates join her.

“Well you know, you’re cousins with Gerrar. So,” Tesla smiles and shrugs.

“I see I see,” Kiiara replies with a tired smile.

“Thank you Sis,” she says referring to Serena.

“Anytime Sis,” Serena replies.

“Don’t know why I’m so weak I still have to rely on you,” Kiiara murmurs.

“Now now, you’re not that weak, slow maybe. Sides, I know you’ll get a lot stronger with time,” Serena comforts her.

“Also if no one is weak, who will the strong protect?” she adds with a smile.

Kiiara smiles back and giggles.

“Lame,” she adds.

“Also remember that your flame falcon technique consumed a lot of energy, that’s what you said,” May adds.

“Anyway not to break the sisterly love but aren’t they supposed to be three?” Erraz asks.

“Come to think of it, yeah,” Tesla replies.

“By the way Erraz, you could have handled this situation yourself. Any problem?” Tesla inquires.

“My elemental energy is in a mess right now. Let’s just say I had a bad run-in earlier,” Erraz answers.

Suddenly…

“Ha ha ha,” they hear a laugh above them.

A guy seemingly small in stature, lands close to Cruise on the platform they all are standing on. Kevine however, is now on the remaining half of the platform Kiiara was previously on.

“Interesting, you think you can just get away easily right?!” the guy shouts out loud.

“I’ll destroy you all,” he adds.

“Rubber release: Expansion.”

Immediately, the guy begins to swell like a balloon being pumped and after a while, this guy who was about five feet ten inches in height, slim in size transforms and is now over seven feet with a very buff physique (like he had added tremendous weight).

“Wait Joe,” Cruise whispers while holding his right arm which is badly damaged. Cruise and Joe are standing close to each other. Cruise is a very calculative guy and does not want to drag the battle on as he notices he is at a disadvantage seeing the strong opponents before him.

Nevertheless, Joe does not pay him any attention and quickly jumps to attack Tesla with a punch. But while in the air, he realizes his body is moving backwards slowly.

“Huh?!” he thought to himself in astonishment.

Soon afterwards, he feels a powerful force and is ultimately pushed back a lot of distance away by this powerful force such that he is longer seen.

“Huh?” Cruise is surprised. He turns to the platform where Tessa was previously on and there, he sees Kevine standing with his palm facing the sky.

“Really you two shouldn’t just go off running on your own,” Kevine says out loud and exhales.

“Damn it. They also have Kevine on their team. This is bad for us,” Cruise thinks to himself.

“That was his telekinesis that blew Joe away just now,” he adds.

After some thinking, he quickly surrenders the flags his team had captured and the precious stones also. Kiiara’s team and Serena’s team share the items equally among themselves.

“Aren’t you rivals in this competition?” Cruise asks.

“Well, not in this event,” Tesla answers.

“Nowhere in the rules does it say that teams cannot co-operate together,” she adds.

“Seeing as it’s the best option for such an event if you ask me,” she concludes.

“I see you’re not just powerful but witty also,” Cruise complements while touching his glasses.

“By joining forces together, you’ll be able to gather as much flags and stones as possible and also eliminate potential threats in the Battle Royale Tournament,” Cruise analyses.

“Impressive, should have thought of that line of action too,” he concludes.

“I see you have it all figured out. Quite the smart one, Cruise,” Serena complements.

“So as it is, this alliance still stands right?” Erraz inquires.

“Sure the alliance between team blue A and team silver A stands until the end of this event,” Tesla answers.

“Fine by me,” Kiiara smiles and stretches with a yawn.

“Fine then, shall we get going,” Tesla says as they leave the area.

“My my, the battle royale tournament is going to be something else,” Cruise says to himself.

“With what I just witnessed from Tesla firsthand, these prodigies are quite monsters even against us in the special class not to mention against those in the regular class,” he adds.

“It’s going to be tough. I’d really like to see what happens,” he concludes.