“What was that?” asked Arson. Temper, Glory, Arson, and the rest of all left competing in the MegaPlex heard a roar that shook the ground, and seemingly even the air all around.

 

He stood at the edge of the jungle as close to the tower as he could be without being completely exposed on all sides. Many opponents lay defeated all around Arson, both defeated by him and his Gestalt forms, and other various conflicts that occurred before he arrived.

 

He was distracted by the roar and the growing smell of flames in the air, and thought to investigate, but was torn by the decision to go, the tower with the chest he’d tried to wipe from his mind, just within reach.

 

Go and see what’s going on over there, or climb the tower? Should I flip a coin or ask the gods above for a sign?

 

Before Arson could even manage to think to ask the maiden above, he received an answer. A familiar voice drew Arson’s attention from the faces of his equally surprised Gestalt forms. He turned around to see a party of three jogging toward him, one of the three was the same young man Arson had met before the prelims started, Orbit Crown. Arson scanned the massive young man at his side, and the young woman that led the pair toward him to gain as much information as possible about his potential foes.

 

Name: Tartaria Crown

Height: 8’11’’

Given/Registered Age: 22 Season Cycles

Registered Bio: One of the seven heirs to the Crown family. Tartaria Crown is a capable wielder of both the glaive and great

hammer. Notorious for his lycanthropic curse, this berserker is wild and unruly until his inner wolf is brought forth.

Registered Skillsets: Glaive Mastery, Great Hammer Mastery, Boiling Blood of the a True Alpha

Personally known info: None

Cultivation Level/ Tier: ?/?

Threat Level: Maximum* It is highly advised that you as a zero level Cultivator gain more experience before engaging any foe

beyond your level.

 

Name: Chozen Lilith Crown

Height: 7’1’’

Given/Registered Age: 21 season Cycles

Registered Bio: Chozen Lilith Crown is the heir to the Crown name and legacy. Known for her superior combat prowess,

instincts, and natural talent for any and all martial forms, she is the first of her siblings to master a combat style not centered

around a weapon.

Registered Skillsets: Mixed Martial Arts Mastery. Momentum Manipulation, Infusion fist* absorption affinity.

Personally known info: None.

Cultivation Level/ Tier: ?/?

Threat Level: Maximum* Opponents of this level are seen as outside the bounds of your current capabilities as a zero Level

Cultivator.

 

“Are you the one causing all the trouble over here?” Arson smiled at Orbit who looked around and withdrew a dazzling spear from his back.

 

“You know this kid, brother? Who is he?" asked the well toned young woman. The physique of a graceful warrior obvious in the definition of her muscles displayed with each subtle movement made. The group quickly coming to a stop three or so meters away.

 

“No, just shared a few brief words with him before the start of the match,” said Orbit. His head still swiveled constantly to check for incoming competitors.

 

“I can’t get a read on the two with him, but he’s in 13th place,” said Tartaria. The large young man’s eyes glued to Arson unmoving, unblinking; a building rage held there unprompted, unwarranted even.

 

“I am in 13th place, that seems a little…” Arson trailed off feeling the intensity grow between the siblings in front of him. Similar to the sensation he’d felt when fighting with his own siblings, only directed at him rather than the comfort he could not until that very moment acknowledge had been comforting.

 

“High, relatively so, as 7th, 3rd, and 2nd, we all may move higher if we manage to take you out of the prelims,” said Lilith, pointing toward herself, then Orbit, and finally Tartaria. Arson saw her fist clench in his periphery as well but ignored the signal, maintaining eye contact with her brother Tartaria.

 

“I don’t think we should do this here, if at all, this area is heavily—“ Arson tried to stop an altercation from starting, but before he could manage to explain himself properly the situation was taken from his control.

 

“What are the odds he did all of this,” asked Lilith. Tartaria pulled two weapons as tall as Arson off his back and grunted while he stretched. Arson believed that may have been answer enough until the giant of a young man spoke up again.

 

“Odds are he did all of it are low,” said Tartaria. The smile on his face grew, and he continued to stretch, even using the large weapons. For a single blink Arson wondered if maybe the young man stretched, knowing that he and his siblings had to run once more, but sighed knowing his luck, and Arson was incapable of ignoring all the drawn weaponry around him. No matter how beautiful a smile stood before him.

 

“Odds that he did most of it on the other hand… extremely high,” said Tartaria, and Lilith’s nod told Arson everything he needed to know.

 

“I just want to look inside a treasure chest. Am I really asking too much?” mumbled Arson too himself. Temper snickered behind him, the brawler’s own knuckles cracking, as Glory pulled a spear and shield from thin air.

 

“Well friends, it seems you have made your decisions. Shall we make this quick, I’d like to at least try and get to the top floor of the prelim tower, there’s a chest up there that I can’t seem to stop thinking about.”

 

…

 

The Crowns had never lost a fight. The Crowns had never felt fear… Apprehension, yes, but fear was not a familiar sensation to any of the seven siblings.

 

Lilith thought to move, but paused when the strange young man in front of her closed his eyes. The feint image of a sun flickered across his face, and the simple crown on his head pulsed.

 

Lilith looked at Tartaria, who very rarely controlled his battle lust. In that moment however his white knuckled grip on his weapons made her frown. Another glance toward Orbit revealed similar odd posturing from her other sibling that signaled something was off.

 

Lilith: Take out the weaponless one first, move in on the one holding the scythe next, then finish off the spear user.

 

The young man in front of her opened his eyes and smiled. He widened his stance, and lifted his scythe into the air, two seemingly armored hands rose unassisted from his shoulders to wield the weapon in his stead.

 

Lilith had mistaken the hands as eccentric armaments that clashed with his casual clothing, but as the scythe began to spin violently in the air above the young man Lilith knew there would be more to the battle before her than she was expecting.

Then… he charged. Her scan showed him as a level 0 scion from Maelstrom that charged Tartaria, the largest member of their group by far. She herself tried to intercede, but was forced to disengage from her brother’s side. A kick from the fighter who stood by the young man registered as Carter Gestalt in the tournament stopped her dead. Forced on the defensive, Lilith quickly grew frustrated.

 

“Orbit, move on this—“ Lilith’s glance toward Orbit as she dodged showed her brother Orbit also being pressured by the other individual with Carter. The large shield bearing man matched Orbit blow for blow with the spear, an impossibility that she wouldn’t have believed if she wasn't seeing it herself.

 

This isn’t happening… this cannot be…

 

For an instant Lilith’s mind froze everything around herself. She wasn’t aware of a full 360 degree area around herself, but the 270 degrees she could see painted a bad picture.

 

From what she could see, Orbit was amidst a teleport. Plasma making his cells vibrate at an accelerated frequency; her brother’s body becoming translucent in the instant before he relocated himself. Problem was, the large young man Orbit fought, had already grabbed his spear before he’d started to teleport…

 

Additionally, the large smile her brother Tartaria normally wore into battle was missing. The purely offensive fighter was being pressured by the young man named Carter in a way she doubted even she and Orbit could accomplish if they both assaulted Tartaria at the same time. Within the frozen moment of time she realized two things.

 

Even as Carter was frozen like everything else around her, vaulting over the blade of Tartaria’s Glaive with one hand, slapping away the head of his great hammer with the other, his eyes were locked with Lilith's own.

 

The intensity felt in his gaze, unbalanced her further. This young man was sure. Sure of himself, sure that he’d already won this battle.

 

Yet Lilith couldn’t help that if they lost here, it would be her fault. She never gave her all in a fight, she’d never had to. So who else could she blame now if this young man defeated her and her siblings, but herself.

 

No…!

 

Time began to move once more and Lilith, caught a fist with her open left hand, and tried to counter with her opposing hand against the smiling brawler in front of her. A kick was sent out in a flash, and Lilith was internally shocked that the brawler managed to block with a kick of his own, and break her grapple with a single movement.

 

Orbit teleported, but took his foe with him, and was immediately stripped of his spear once they arrived at his new location a yard behind where his opponent had just stood.

 

Tartaria was unbalanced after missing with both of his large weapons, and was punched several times from his waist, up his body, and eventually his shoulder and neck on one half of his body. The flurry of punches all thudded against his dense musculature. Yet the large young man’s grimace was enough to tell her those punches weren’t normal.

 

Pressure points maybe?

 

“Tar, Bit, I’m tapping in, we’ll lose here otherwise, I don’t know who this guy is, but he was probably sent here to take us out. Get ready!” A half dozen more strikes were thrown and blocked in a blink before Lilith drew on the power of all her dead ancestry. A swell of power filled her and all three of the Crown siblings began to glow with a grey light.

 

…

 

Arson felt he had this fight in hand, until the siblings all began to glow. A grey light rippled free of their bodies and everything changed.

 

The large young man he fought, grinned and then immediately roared in Arson’s face. His large body started to move at incredible speeds, which forced Arson to pull his living hands and weapon from their offensive position above the fight.

 

Jill, Jane, and Sky, blocked three strikes from the glaive, as Arson dodged the great hammer that now moved through the air as if it weighed nothing.

 

Temper used martial forms Arson knew he himself had never performed, to keep the now blurred figure of Lilith at bay. Wide kicks swept through the air; the companion to punches thrown so quickly Arson’s own eyes couldn’t follow them between the pair of brawlers that struck back and forward at one another.

 

Each blink that Arson took during combat showed him many things. One being that Glory wouldn’t be able to continue much longer fighting against Orbit. The youngest Crown member appeared all around Glory, a new spear in hand with each attack sent toward Arson’s largest Gestalt form.

 

Glory was able to block, disarm and counter all of the blows thus far, but even as Arson blocked another strike from Tartaria, Orbit managed to teleport above and behind Glory at the perfect angle to pierce his shoulder with a spear.

 

“”To me!” Temper and Glory, disengaged from their battles, and conductive waters started to pool at Arson’s feet while he defended himself from the now chuckling Tartaria. The young man having more fun fighting Arson than Arson could ever imagine or intuit naturally.

 

His pair of Gestalt forms quickly closed the distance and put their backs to Arson as more water pooled at his feet, all nearby now sloshing through a small pond the more they fought.

 

“Now!” Arson jumped into the air and curled into a ball the moment Orbit teleported. He and Lilith hadn’t truly entered the pond of conductive waters, but Arson knew what would occur the moment he did.

 

…

 

Lilith was confused, her mind had once more frozen everything around her. A sign that her perception was aware of potential danger, even if she wasn’t.

 

She didn’t see how she could be in danger. The young man named Carter had opened himself to attacks from all sides, his body in the middle of curling up aerially. While his two companions seemed to be dropping their guards, now even more vulnerable as they seemed to be sinking into the sand below the water that rose at all of their feet.

 

A shadow was cast over Carter’s companions from both his body and the scythe that seemed to be flying even higher into the air.

 

What could it be…

 

A flicker of sparks raced through the water at her own feet and Lilith’s mind seized on multiple realizations.

 

Lilith and her brother Tartaria were also standing within the water and weren’t sinking. Additionally, the announcers before the match never stated that the landscape would change during the prelim… so where had the water at their feet come from. These two details were already alarming enough, but the sparks in the water at their feet, alongside the plasma based teleport Orbit was using to close the distance…

 

“No—“ Lilith’s yell was cut off before it could truly even begin. Time snapped forward and the two who accompanied Carter were dragged bodily into either the young man’s shadow or the water below, in the same blink of time that it took Orbit to appear directly below Carter’s airborne acrobatics. Six became four when the two vanished, Orbit’s spear thrusted toward the twirling young man, in the same instant his plasma charged cells touched the water below.

 

The explosion sent everyone hurtling through the air. Lilith lost sight of everything forced end over end through the air. She didn’t see Tartaria’s body crash into the tree line, nor Orbit try to catch himself by teleporting out of his flight, bouncing off the ground repeatedly until he smashed into a pillar of the tower they stood beside.

 

Her mind’s own training barely was effective as she drained the momentum from her body, and eventually slammed into the sands below, a trench made by her body’s impact and gravity’s force dragging her across the ground.

 

She blinked and took in the destroyed stage where she’d just stood. Her sideways position on the ground was enough to give her a landscaped view of her surroundings.

 

Yet her eyes traveled upward to see Carter Gestalt hanging by the handle of his scythe, two flying hands keeping him afloat in the air, but not making any moves to carry him any further. The young man looked around and shook his head, still wearing a grin that somehow made her even more frustrated than when Tartaria wore the same expression.

 

“Sparks, that wasn’t what I expected…,” said Carter. Then his head pointed toward a random direction, the young man seemed to sniff, before his brow furrowed, and he looked toward the tower once more.

 

“Think…” he said as he ran a hand over his wounds. A potion in hand enough to close the cuts, and remove the bruises that lined his figure.

 

“Analyze…” said Carter, as his eyes took in the area once more. Lilith slowly able to feel her body once more as she watched unmoving.

 

“Move!”