by Jakob Tanner
When Max and Harold returned to the Zestiris climber’s outpost in Caesaria, they were surprised to find the common room empty.
They knocked on their teammates doors.
No response.
“You think they’ve gone out?” asked Max.
“Maybe they’re still training?” Harold shrugged.
Max was getting an uneasy feeling in his stomach.
Where is everyone? he thought, anxiously.
They returned to the lobby of the outpost and spoke to one of the clerks.
“Have you seen—”
“Max! Harold!”
Max turned and saw Casey rushing through the doors. Her face was red and her eyes were watery.
Blake followed behind her.
They both looked completely distressed.
“Sarah’s been kidnapped,” said Casey, gasping for air. “The cat-folk have kidnapped her.”
Max turned to Harold.
The mentor nodded his head.
“So, it looks like it’s time to show off the results of your training. Go.”
27
Sarah squirmed and shivered in the corner of the cold damp room the two cat-folk had thrown her into.
They’d put her arms behind her back and tied special mana binding ropes to her wrists.
They applied the same ropes to tie up her legs as well.
“Please...don’t...hurt...me,” she cried.
Her mind raced with fearful thoughts. What were these cat-folk planning on doing to her? What did they want? Why were they doing this?
The door to the cellar they’d thrown her into swung open and light from the hallway outside illuminated the cold dark room they’d left her in.
The two cat-folk grinned menacingly from the light of the doorway.
They stepped towards her.
“Look Mirabel,” said Gregoire, lifting up a silver knife.
He punctured Sarah’s bare arm and dragged the knife down as the girl squirmed and cried out in pain.
“Now watch,” smiled the cat man, his tail wagging behind him.
The open cut Gregoire had created began to close, the festering blood disappearing, until the arm was clear and smooth as if it had never been cut in the first place.
“How fascinating,” purred Mirabel. “She heals back no matter what you do. She can be endlessly tortured...”
“My thoughts exactly,” purred Gregoire. “What should we do first. Chop off her—”
The door to the cellar swung open once more, illuminating the room.
Sarah couldn’t see behind the two cat-folk looming over her but she thought she recognized the shadow of the boy who had just entered.
Then when the newly arrived person spoke, she knew who it was straightaway.
“GIVE ME BACK MY FRIEND!” screamed the boy. “RIGHT NOW!!”
The two cat-folk turned away from Sarah and took in Max standing in the doorway. Their feline tails had suddenly gone sharp and pointy, their focus now fully on the boy in front of them.
They suddenly stood in fighting stances, ready to take Max on.
“How irritating,” said Mirabel. “We’ll have to take out two members of the human team then.”
“Keep talking,” said Max, “and I’ll make you regret those words.”
Sarah caught sight of Max between her two kidnappers. His face was red with rage.
She’d never seen him like this.
He was so full of anger.
And power.
He was more powerful than he was a few days ago when she last saw him.
Had he finally completed his training with Harold?
Max took a step forward.
“If you let my friend go,” he said, “we don’t have to fight.”
The two cat-folk snickered.
“As if,” said Mirabel. “If you want your friend, you’ll have to fight through us.”
Max sighed.
“So be it.”
Suddenly, Max burst into a cloud of shadowy smoke, disappearing from the front of the doorway.
He emerged right in front of Sarah with his back turned to her.
Lightning crackled around his arms and he slammed a punch into the floor, sending the hostile lightning rippling outwards from him and towards the cat-folk.
Mirabel and Gregoire both jumped backwards from the attack.
Mirabel snickered and went invisible.
Then, a few seconds later, a throwing star emerged out of nowhere heading straight for Max’s skull.
Then, amazingly, as the throwing star got within inches of Max’s head, energy reverberated outwards, and within a blink of an eye, Max held the projectile within his fingers.
Gregoire shivered.
“How is that possible?” he said. “You caught a hostile projectile and you didn’t even know where it would be coming from!”
“I guess you could say I have nine lives,” Max snickered.
“Don’t you dare make a cat pun in front of me,” said Gregoire, who suddenly multiplied into three doppelgängers of himself.
Max unsheathed his mana claws and stretched out his arms.
“Come any closer,” said Max, “and I’ll swirl in a circle, taking out all of your clones, yourself, and wherever your invisible accomplice is hiding.”
“Hah! You’re bluffing,” Gregoire shouted. “I’m a full rank higher than you at B-rank. Your mana claws won’t be able to penetrate my toughened skin.”
Sarah looked worried for Max.
The cat-man wasn’t wrong.
Even still, Max said with dead seriousness, “Do you really want to call my bluff?”
Keeping his eyes on Gregoire and his doppelgängers, Max slowly crouched down.
With one hand, he used his claws to shred the ropes that were binding Sarah.
“Max,” she cried. “I knew you’d come.”
As concerned as he was for his friend’s well-being, Max didn’t have time to chit chat.
Through the corner of his eye, he could see Sarah’s body healing itself. Bruises and cuts disappearing slowly.
Max placed his hand on one of those cuts and then checked his profile. The message he was hoping for awaited him.
Add Regenerative Healing to your arsenal?
Max went through the prompts on his profile and then looked up to the cat-folk and grinned.
Those two torturers still think they have the upper hand.
28
With Sarah freed, Max stood up ready to take on the cat-folk once more.
Those two weren’t going to let them walk out of here so easily.
“Well, if it’s a fight you want,” Max muttered, “it’s a fight that you’re gonna get.”
The invisible cat-woman was a problem he would have to deal with first.
Lucky for him, they were in a small room.
Even invisible, there wasn’t much room to hide.
Especially from the wide thick radius of Max’s mana claws.
He swirled sending his bright powerful claws around the room.
Gregoire held up his arms to block.
“I told you that won’t work against me!” yelled Gregoire.
But his anger was cut off as a yelp of pain came out of nowhere and Mirabel suddenly reappeared falling to the ground in pain.
Three long gashes had formed in her arms.
“It’s invisibility,” said Max. “Not invincibility!”
The cat-woman fell to the ground, screaming in pain.
She was now out of this fight, which meant Max could focus on Gregoire.
“You think taking out my partner will help you,” said the cat-man. “Think again, fool. You’re still up against a B-ranker.” He then grinned to his two doppelgängers. “Three of them actually.”
The three Gregoires rushed Max.
They threw out punches but with Max’s temporal defense, he could sidestep each attack with ease.
“You keep thinking you have the upper hand,” said Max, “because you’re
a B-ranker.”
Lightning began to course around his fists.
“But you’re forgetting that I can borrow moves and this lightning is from a C-rank monster and, also, guess what? I double its power too!”
Max slammed the ground again, sending the chain lightning rippling across the floor.
Two Gregoires burst into smoke while the real remaining one jumped and dodged the lightning attack.
Max rushed forward with insane speed and grabbed the wrist of the real Gregoire.
“If you harm us,” squirmed the cat-man, “you’ll be removed from the tournament.”
“I guess I’m willing to take that risk,” said Max, “seeing that you guys didn’t have a problem with breaking the rules when it came to my friend.”
Gregoire stared into the blue eyes of the red-haired human climber.
Bloodlust and rage filled the boy’s face.
“You’ll be disqualified,” he said, squirming. “Please...stop...”
The kid wouldn’t listen to reason or begging.
Who is this monster of a climber?
Gregoire had never seen anyone this powerful at C-rank before.
This was beyond comprehension.
Suddenly, Gregoire’s arm—the one the boy was gripping tightly—began to burn with immense pain.
He squirmed and looked down to his arm and saw his flesh begin to turn black and gray.
The pain was only getting worse.
“What are you doing to me?” screamed Gregoire.
His skin was melting, burning into a puddle like plastic.
It was different from being on fire though. It was like his flesh was decomposing.
Disintegrating.
Will I even have an arm in thirty seconds?
He honestly didn’t know.
Max gritted his teeth as he triggered his new ability against the B-rank cat-folk climber.
He desperately wanted to explain triumphantly to the sinister cat-man every step of his newly evolved trait, but he knew that would be foolish.
Still, it was quite something to see the fusion power in action.
He had combined Harold’s time manipulation ability with Sarah’s regenerative healing trait to create something completely new.
The result?
A new move called Rapid Decomposition.
It used temporal manipulation to rewind the effects of regenerative healing to make it an offensive move.
Gregoire screams filled the cellar.
This was it, Gregoire thought. Death awaits me and I didn’t even get an opportunity to torture that girl.
“STOP!”
A new voice rang out and the pain in Gregoire’s arm disappeared.
The human team’s A-ranker—the old guy—was holding the red-haired kid’s arm tightly.
“What are you doing?” said the kid with gritted teeth.
His eyes stayed focused on Gregoire. The boy was full of bloodlust.
“Did you see what they were going to do to Sarah?” shouted the boy. “Are you really going to hold me back?”
The old man sighed and turned to the girl.
“Sarah, the coast is clear. Blake and Casey are waiting upstairs. We’ll meet you up there in a minute.”
The girl got off the ground and hurried out of the room.
“You can’t finish them off here,” said Harold.
“Why not?” seethed the boy.
“The cat-folk were clever. The whole area is surrounded with bystanders if things went wrong for them. We’ll get disqualified if you harm them further,” explained the old man.
Gregoire snickered.
“Yeah, do what grandpa says,” said Gregoire. “And piss off!”
SLAM!
The old man threw a massive punch into Gregoire’s gut, sending him flying and smashing against the nearby wall.
“Only my friends can make fun of my age,” said the A-ranker.
The red-haired boy caught his breath and seemed to be calming down now.
He stared at Gregoire once more with determination in his gaze.
Finally, the young man spoke: “We will finish this in the tournament itself.”
29
Max and the rest of the team sat in the common room of the outpost in silence.
The tension was high in the room. Everyone was there except for Sarah who was resting and Harold who was checking on her with one of the outpost’s hired healers.
“I hope Sarah’s okay,” sighed Casey.
“If she’s not well by tomorrow,” said Blake. “We’ll be in a bit of a pickle with the team match. I’m not even sure they’d let us compete under those circumstances.”
Max didn’t respond. He was trapped in a swirl of his own thoughts and anxiety.
Why did they have to send my childhood friend on this tournament with us?
An E-ranker can’t handle the dangerous situation we’ve been thrown in!
Everyone in the common room lifted their head when Harold stepped out of Sarah’s room alongside the healer.
Max watched Harold and the healer exchange a few murmured words before the healer walked down the hall and down the stairs.
“How is she?” asked Max.
“She’ll be fine,” said Harold. “Her ability means she’s already rapidly recovered from it all. She’ll be good to compete tomorrow. If it had been any of the rest of us, we might have a problem.”
They all sighed with relief.
“We have one other major problem, though,” said Harold, sitting down on an empty couch in the common room.
Everyone turned to look at the old man.
“What is it now?” asked Casey. Toto on her shoulder had perked up at Harold’s words as well.
Max sighed.
This entire tournament is a massive problem, Max thought to himself. We were told the United Floors Alliance was meant to keep the peace amongst the different floors and yet this tournament felt designed to keep everyone at each other’s throats.
“What problem are you talking about?” asked Blake, lighting up a cigarette.
Harold cleared his throat and then answered the question they were all waiting for.
“Tomorrow is the first round. Most likely a team free-for-all match. Due to the necessity to train Max the last few weeks, we haven’t practiced as much as a team as I would have liked.”
The team went silent.
The old man raised a good point. They hadn’t really done that much practicing as a team. But then again: they had proven they could work together when it really mattered.
Casey and Blake’s thousand paper phoenixes attack was the first example to spring to Max’s mind.
Max’s thoughts then turned dark.
Did Harold not believe in us?
Max thought about those horrible cat-folk who had kidnapped Sarah. He was eager to crush them in the next round if he could.
He didn’t want to hear about how they weren’t ready.
“Don’t worry gramps,” said Casey. “We’ve been working on a few ideas and strategies we can go over. It’s not like we spent the last month sitting around while you and Max trained. We’ve been working hard. Isn’t that right, Blake!?”
“Heck, yeah!” the flamebringer said. “Don’t worry about us, Harold. Let’s just hope you don’t hold us back!”
“Why you little insolent—” said Harold raising a fist, before stopping himself. He suddenly chuckled to himself. “Alright, show me what you’ve been working on.”
Max and Harold then looked over the different team strategies and squad ideas the rest of the group had been working on.
They brainstormed for an hour or so and then finally Harold yawned.
“Alright,” said Harold. “We got a big day tomorrow. It’s important we get our rest. It’s bedtime and that’s an order.”
They all nodded with steely determination.
The excitement for the tournament’s first round could be felt in each of their beating hearts.
Tomorrow, the real games began.
30
The following morning, Max and the rest of team Zestiris walked out into a giant arena packed with spectators.
The stands were filled with Caesarians, Elestrians, Boldrin, cat-folk, frog-folk, and more.
Max had never seen so many different tower races all convened in the same location like this before.
The rest of the teams entered the arena from other sides of the stadium. They were mere flickers in the distance currently.
Max’s heart was thumping in his chest. He was beginning to feel the nerves.
Regulus and Hermia—the organizer’s of the tournament—stood on a floating podium at the center of the arena.
“WELCOME EVERYONE!” shouted Regulus into a microphone.
The arena roared with applause.
“THE DAY IS FINALLY HERE. THE FIRST ROUND OF THE UNITED FLOORS ALLIANCE TOURNAMENT!!!”
The spectators continued to scream, clap, and whoop.
“And to mark the tradition,” said Regulus, his voice growing more serious. “Let us welcome the one and only, our divine protector, to announce the beginning of the games. Let’s give our honored guest a big round of applause. Let’s hear it for SABRIEL!!!”
Max didn’t think the crowd could get more amped up, but with the announcement of this new guest, the audience was going crazy with excitement.
“Who’s Sabriel?” asked Max.
The next three words that Harold said with a surprising casual aloofness made Max’s body shudder with awe and fear.
“A tower god,” answered the old man.
It wasn’t just the sheer notion of a tower god that made Max feel physically shaken, there was a massive ripple of power coursing throughout the arena.
Emerging from the clouds above was a beautiful blonde woman adorned in medieval metal armor, riding on top of a white winged horse.
The excited cheers of the crowd died down as everyone was overwhelmed with amazement.
“I mean,” Casey muttered, “I fly around on a paper crane. No one is calling me a tower god.”
Sarah turned to Harold. “But I thought this tournament was about consolidating power amongst the lower floors. Isn’t having someone who lives and occupies power on a much higher floor of the tower going against that idea?”