- First Round: Plug Games -

|Next Morning|

Hwaryun had made it clear for the two of them, Charlotte and Khun Aguero Agnes, that they can't tell anyone else that they were still alive. Therefore, they had to find a way to disguise themselves.

Charlotte didn't want to make things hard so she just tie her brown hair and wore the mask cover herself. Of course, this time, she should go with a different mask.

"Have you thought about your name yet?" Khun asked her.

"Xi" she answered shortly.

"Xi?" He echoed and raised one of his eyebrows.

"Means hope" she explained but instead of making things clearer for him, it seemed like it made things became more confusing. "When I was young, my grand.....brother....he would always call me Xi so I thought of using that name."

"Altaira called you with that name?" Khun gave him the doubtful look. He really didn't recall hearing Altaira calling Charlotte with that name at all.

It was because the one who used to call Charlotte with that name wasn't Altaira, but instead, her grandfather. Her grandfather would always call her 'Ah Xi'. Xi 希 means hope. So her grandfather would always call her with that name.

If her parents were busy with their works, then their grandparents were quite nice for Altaira and Charlotte. They were lenient and spoiled the two of them so when they passed away, it was a serious blow for both Altaira and Charlotte.

She still remembered that name and this time, she wanted to use it as her alias for the Workshop Battle.

"Well, do whatever that pleases you" Khun said.

"Does that mean I can go –"

"No."

|Archimedes Fourth Floor, Grand Stadium|

The two hosts from the Workshop began to explain about the rules for the Workshop Battle.

There were two rounds. The first round was an individual group battle and the second round was the team tournament and those who passed the two rounds will be the winner.

There were ten leaders chosen as the leader of the second round later. From all those ten gamblers or leaders, Charlotte found Shibisu and Khun, who was currently disguising himself as someone else. He dyed his hair yellow and wore the mask as well.

Those ten leaders were the one who scored the highest in the game One Shot One Opportunity game and they won't participate in any kind of battles. Their tasks were to gamble on the regulars who will win in each group fight on the first round. The six gamblers with the highest money or points would participate on the second round and on the second round they could buy teammates and formed their own teams.

The gamblers can't leave the room until the first round ended.

"So now....we'll start the battle right away" one of the hosts said.

The game was called the 'Plug'. The stick that one of the hosts was holding was the plug and among the regulars who were chosen in different group fights, three out of eight regulars had the chance of winning just by putting the plug that each of them will had later on.

The regulars chosen for the first group were mostly from the Team Sweet and Sour. Akraptor, Prince, Wangnan and Miseng were chosen for the first group.

Wangnan and the others were happy that Miseng and Prince made it. Since their names were listed on the first group, then they must have gotten the tickets to enter the Archimedes. Wangnan and Akraptor who were chosen for the first round were excited to see them again.

"Don't be too happy soon" Charlotte said to them.

"Hm, why is that?" Wangnan asked.

"They are kidnapped by that octopus right? Or Verdi, the name of that little girl?" Charlotte asked to Wangnan again.

Wangnan nodded his head, "Yeah."

Charlotte didn't know how she should say this to the others and tried to find the right words to say. She wanted to warn them, but she can't look too suspicious. Therefore, she said, "You have to be careful in the arena. There..."

"There what?" Akraptor asked.

Charlotte sighed, "Forget it. You will see it on your own."

And then, she walked away, leaving both Akraptor and Wangnan were both confused with what she said.

But when they arrived on the arena, they began to understand why Charlotte said those words.

In the arena, Miseng looked like as if she was being possessed. Her pink colored plug was stained with blood as she hit people back and forth and she swung it like she was playing baseball. She even aimed for Prince. Her strength increased greatly and it was hard to deal with her when they didn't want to hurt her.

The weird girl who kidnapped Miseng and Prince told the two of them that if they were willing to be her dolls, then she would give them extraordinary strengths. Prince didn't care about it since he didn't like the idea about being someone else's doll, but Miseng, she was different. She wanted to go stronger so she took the flower and then, she lost her consciousness and attacked everyone.

But fortunately they managed to calm her down. They managed to snatch the flower from her head and Miseng collapsed. The three of them were the winners.

After the first group, the hosts told everyone that five groups will be fighting in the same time.

Charlotte was on the same team with Rak and Dan who also had disguised themselves as someone else. Being carried by these two who got rid of their opponents, Charlotte felt that she didn't do anything else but to fan herself and put her own plug to win the game.

Well, she did do nothing to win. Rak was too excited to fight that he cleared the path for Charlotte while Dan, he did help Rak to get rid of the opponents. She just fanned herself and watched them finishing it.

She shut her fan and then pointed it to Dan, "You should have left some for me. If you defeated all the regulars for me, then Khun will blame me for doing nothing."

"Well, the point is we passed" Dan said. "And besides, the one is getting scolded is not me, but you right?"

Charlotte, ".........."

Charlotte scoffed and then turned her head around where she found her beloved brother Jue Viole Grace or the Twenty Fifth Bam among the crowd.

'Brother, wait for me' she pressed her lips together underneath that mask. 'I will get you out of there.'

In the nineteen group, everyone was able to see Jue Viole Grace's name. Seeing his name there, Jue Viole Grace descended down from the stairs and walked to the arena.

Chang assumed that Jue Viole Grace wouldn't do anything in this round since there were some regulars who wore shirt with the word 'FUG' on it decided to help him. He felt disappointed though. But Wangnan denied and said that Viole was different than the others.

And he was right.

Viole didn't like the idea about getting help from the other regulars and then, he blew everyone on the stage and declared that he wasn't their God. Seeing how he knocked the regulars who were also a group of liars, Charlotte couldn't help but to smile happily and fanned herself faster while cheering for him.

"Why are you looking so happy when your brother is currently sending all the regulars flying around?" Wangnan asked and sweated dropped.

"Of course I should be happy" Charlotte answered. "It's nice to see those liars and being thrown around."

From how Charlotte sees it, it looked like as if those regulars who pretended to help Viole were just afraid of getting beaten up by him and wanted to look good in his eyes.

Charlotte had never believed the said worshippers. Although they kept calling the two of them as Gods, but it was only because that they were the weapons and the only way for them to achieve their dreams. When they were no longer useful, then they would attack them like how they attacked Viole when Viole attacked his own "worshippers".

The round soon ended with Jue Viole Grace as the winner. Jue Viole Grace looked around, hoping that he would find Charlotte among the crowds. But Charlotte was currently disguising herself, so it was hard for him to find her. He sighed since he can't find his sister and left since there was no use standing on the arena for a long time.

The next round kind of surprised her. Among the names chosen for the next fight, they chose Altaira and Celeste instead.

"Altaira and Celeste?" Wangnan immediately looked at Charlotte. "Do you think who will win?"

"Seeing how much my brother cared for Celeste and how Celeste cared for my brother, then I guess the two of them will win" Charlotte answered.

She had heard from Khun that the two of them left the companion and built their own team. She guessed for these seven years, since they were travelling together, then the two of them must be very close to each other. Charlotte won't even be surprised if the two of them were dating, but it was just a certain white haired person would get mad.

"But then again, my brother is someone who likes to make things more exciting for his own amusement. Didn't the last time he risk to violate the wager just to bring Celeste and watch such an emotional scene between her and me?" Charlotte said. "Maybe they would fight against each other."

|Arena|

Like what Charlotte said, Altaira seemed to have his own planning with this game.

He decided to make a bet with Celeste where if he wins, then he would be taking her out to wherever he wanted to go. But if he lost, then Celeste had the right to take him to wherever she wanted to go. It was a win-win situation for him and Celeste didn't fail to notice that.

Although Altaira appeared confident in his relationship, but asking her to go on a date after the Workshop Battle wasn't something easy. In fact, he has been pondering about what he should say or what he should prepare. Whenever he had the chance to ask Celeste about it, he would be embarrassed or flustered and ended up being laughed by the trio.

Celeste had never tried to fight Altaira before as she was taught to not fight her own teammates unless her own teammates attacked her first. She was also curious about how strong Altaira could be since whenever they encountered with enemies, Altaira would simply walk away and told their three other teammates to finish them off. He also didn't seem to like to train as he spent his time reading comics or to learn how to cook with her.

In his former life, he was the young master from a well-known family. He never learnt how to cook as the servants would do the house chores for him and Charlotte. When he saw Charlotte learnt to cook on her own, he didn't care at first. But when he saw how Charlotte was able to eat whatever she wanted as she was the one who cooked them, he began to wonder how it feels to cook on his own.

But the first time he decided to cook on his own, he forgot to turn off the stove and simply walked away. Had Charlotte walked to the kitchen in order to steal the ice cream he recently brought at the time, then no one knows what will happen later. And because of this incident, he got himself the bad news and good news. The good news were that his parents who usually neglected him finally paid a little attention to him and he figured out why his ice cream would always disappear whenever he needed it. The bad news were that the attention that his father gave to him was not love or praise, but he lifted his stick and chased Altaira to beat him up. After that he wasn't allowed to cook anymore and after being beaten by his father, he lost his interest.

But recently, he eavesdropped on Estelle's, Raisin's and Estrella's conversation where they mentioned that Celeste admire someone who could cook, without knowing that he has been tricked by the trio, he left to try it again and almost repeated this incident again. So, ever since that day, Celeste would be watching, guiding and helping him so that he will slowly improve. The disaster turned to be a happiness for Altaira and the trio regretted their little trick as now, they had to watch them and became the third wheeler there.

The trio believed that Altaira loved Celeste the most so when they watched how Altaira decided to fight with Celeste, they all spurted their drinks in disbelief.

The lovesick Altaira who dared to fight everyone this world just for Celeste was actually fighting her. What could be more surprising than this?

Since Altaira was behaving weirdly today, they wondered if he was actually in the brink of the death because for what they know, people who will die soon will usually behave strangely and abnormally.

Celeste used the plug that she was holding as if it was her sword and her weapon. She held it tightly that it wasn't easy for Altaira to separate the two of them. If the plug falls from the arenas, then they would be disqualified as well. But Altaira wasn't that weak. All these years, he has been paying attention to Celeste a lot that he could memorize her pattern and when he got the right timing, he hit her plug until it flew high on the air. Then, he swung his plug again toward Celeste who jumped and landed right on the plug before jumping away again.

White butterflies scattered on the air as they distracted Altaira. Those white butterflies, although each of them appeared to be small but they were actually dangerous when they were together. Their wings were sharp enough to hurt Altaira and together, they were a nuisance for Altaira. When he was busy dealing with the butterflies, Celeste took this chance to get her plug again before greeting Altaira with it.

Altaira dodged it by jumping to his right. Thanks to Celeste's surprise attack, the white butterflies left him for a moment and then gathered on Celeste's back.

"Butterflies, huh? Never thought that you will be using it" he said.

But this one wasn't her fault for they promised to use all their strengths and any kinds of method to defeat each other. They didn't have to kill, just get rid of their plugs from the arena and won.

"All's fair on the battle" Celeste replied shortly and then rushed toward Altaira again.

Charlotte seriously pitied those who ended up in one group with them. Not only that the they were ignored by these two, but they were also knocked out from their fight without doing anything.

Celeste had her butterflies to assist her and also learnt swordsmanship while Altaira, he was actually a spear bearer but he was also good in close combat. Both of the parties weren't weak and quite strong. This fight, it will be hard for Khun to decide who will be the winner.

Being trained by FUG by some years, Charlotte was now able to see their movements clearly. In the Test Floor, she can't even see their movements because they were too fast. But now, she could see them clearly.

With the plug on his hand, butterflies bothering him and Celeste's fierce attacks, it was hard for Altaira to find an opening. He also can't reach for the holes to put in the plug and the first thing that he thought that he should do was to get rid of those butterflies. But Celeste's white butterflies were numerous. Whenever he got rid of ten, then a hundred would appear. Because of this, he decided to attack her when Celeste was careless.

Altaira knew that if Celeste was about to attack, then the butterflies would give her a way for it. He was sure after enduring several rounds from her attacks. But the time was too short for him to form a spear. He blocked her plug with his and kind of surprised her as his strength seemed to be stronger than before. And using that moment, he attacked Celeste who tried to jump backward to dodge it, but that didn't stop her from getting injured.

She looked at her wound and noticed how deep it was. But that didn't stop Altaira from attacking back either. He held his plug tightly and then used all his strength to swung it and this time, he succeed. He succeed in getting rid of the plug out of arena.

With this, Celeste was disqualified and Altaira won the round.