Clash The Greatest Tournament Page 7

  Before Troo could recover from the crash Sandalphon landed down on the robot’s back, pinning it to the floor. Troo’s blaster turrets swiveled around to blast Sandalphon. Max saw them and had Sandalphon smashed the two turrets before they could fire. Troo was at Sandalphon’s mercy in that position, and the fight ended as Troo was demolished by a two handed attack by Sandalphon with Medens.

  The announcer declared Max the winner.

  Decon had thought Troo was going to win for sure. He had the upper hand the whole fight, Sandalphon was just too strong. Decon went over to congratulate Max on winning the fight. “Good fight. When I saw your fight against Gervasee I knew you were strong. I thought for sure Troo would be faster than Sandalphon in the air.”

  “That was a lot of fun. I was really worried there for a while. All the way up to the end you were beating me,” Max said

  “Your Sandalphon is just too powerful. Congratulations on making it to the semifinals.”

  “Thanks.”

  After his win Max went up into the stands to join his classmates and hang with Lizzy. When he got there they all clapped for him and congratulated him on his win. He sat next to Lizzy and they talked about his fight and the other quarterfinal fights. The next fight started and it was Femur the necromancer against Floosh the fire elemental.

  Femur was last years Champ and he had no problem beating Floosh.

  Max watched the battle intensely; Femur’s attack pattern was a unique one. He summoned skeletal warriors to fight for him. If the warriors were defeated, he would summon a larger skeletal warrior made out of the bones of the defeated ones. If that got defeated, he would summon more skeletal warriors and then make an even larger one again. He would keep doing this until he had summoned so many skeletons that he completely overwhelmed his opponent.

  “See I was right when I said Femur was going to be your next opponent,” TJ said, after Femur had won his fight.

  “You beat Femur before right?” Max asked Lizzy

  “I had beaten when he was still a beginner. Way back before last year’s tournament.”

  Degoth the necro draconian won the next quarterfinal fight. An air elemental, Spirit, won the last quarterfinal. Next week the four remaining Clash players would meet in the semifinals to determine who the final two would be.

  Chapter 19

  Gervasee’s revenge!

  The day after the semifinal fights Max called up Lizzy, to hang out at the Clash Center and have lunch together. By meeting at the center Max was hoping to get some fights in against people there to increase his battle experience. Lizzy had said that his lack of experience against many of the avatar types was one of his biggest weaknesses. Unlike his inability to bring Sandalphon’s gear he could fix his inexperience by just having more battles with different people. Max figured the Clash Center would be the best place for him to get that experience

  Lizzy showed up at the center a little after Max had, and they went into the store section to check out some Clash merchandise. In the store Max saw Jason, his first tournament fight. Jason had been looking around and happened to look over and see Max and Lizzy together. After spotting them Jason immediately came over to them. “What you doing with my little sister? Jason asked Max.

  “What?” Max was totally confused.

  Lizzy had been looking at some T-shirts and when she heard Jason talking was surprised to see her older brother. “Go away, Jason.” Lizzy said. She had her hands on her hips and was staring daggers at Jason.

  “No Liz we are having a rematch.” He grabbed Max by the arm and started dragging him out of the store and towards the gaming area. Lizzy came up and shoved her brother in the back.

  “Jason, go away!” She said. Max could see she was getting pretty upset.

  “Hey Liz, I’ll play your brother no big deal,” Max said.

  “Max you don’t have to.”

  “I want to. I want to show that it wasn’t just a fluke that I won.” Seeing the look in Max’s eyes Jason let go of Max and took a step back. “I want everyone to know that Sandalphon deserves to be in the finals.” Lizzy calmed down upon seeing that Max was willing to fight. “Let’s go Jason.” He walked over to a game station in the arcade section of the store.

  “I’ve been watching all of your fights. If you think that holding out till the end like you do all the time will work on me, you are dead wrong.” Jason turned on his band and Gervasee appeared on the holographic-field. Max turned on his too, and immediately got a fight request from Jason. He clicked accept. Jason looked at Max for a second, then pressed the button to start the fight. The station started the countdown to the fight.

  “I thought I told you to start with everything.” Jason said. Sandalphon once again had only his white fighting tunic on.

  “Fine!” Max was growing angry at the fact he had to prove Sandalphon was stronger against someone he already beat. Max was not sure why, but it seemed that his anger got Sandalphon to equip his armor, Medens and his wings all at once.

  Gervasee sprinted at Sandalphon. Sandalphon took to the air before he got close. Gervasee ripped off its manacles and shot the two chains from them into the air at Sandalphon. They caught him and wrapped around him like they done in their first fight. The chains shattered as soon as they wrapped around Sandalphon. Gervasee then shot out from its finger tips its poison coated claws. Sandalphon was flying too fast and maneuvering too much to get hit by them though.

  Gervasee began howling. Above Sandalphon at the highest point of the holographic-field a full moon came out projecting light over the field. The light effected Gervasee and he began to grow larger, the clothes it had been wearing tore to shreds, falling and landing at its feet.

  “This is new,” Max said.

  “That’s transformation one, I got one more,” Jason said.

  Max was curious as to what the second one would look like. Taking his focus off the match he imagined a giant wolf that took up half the arena. Max was brought back to reality when Gervasee began spewing acid at Sandalphon’s direction. Sandalphon dodged the acid.

  “Come on fight me” Jason said.

  Max landed Sandalphon on the ground, ready to fight back. Gervasee charged in and swiped at Sandalphon with his now transformed larger claws. Sandalphon blocked with Medens. Gervasee’s increased body size had brought him up to the same size as Sandalphon. He shot a point black acid spit at Sandalphon. It was blocked by the light bubble surrounding Medens, the acid fell into a pool on the ground around Sandalphon’s feet. Sandalphon used his wings to ascend and hovered above the acid pool. Gervasee came at him again with some more swipes. Max used Sandalphon’s legs to block the attacks and smashed Medens down on Gervasee’s head. The werewolf retreated back a step. Sandalphon flew up higher into the air.

  “It looks like Gervasee can take at least one hit from Medens now.” Max said taunting Jason.

  “Alright, last transformation,” Jason said, almost in a growl.

  Gervasee fell down on all fours and became a wolf completely. It stared at Sandalphon and snarled. Then he howled and springing out from his body came a pack of translucent ghost wolves. They raced towards Sandalphon springing into the air teeth bared, ready to chomp down on Sandalphon. Holding Medens in front as a shield Sandalphon flew through them all and dove right into Gervasee slamming him back. He pushed him back all the way to the wall of the holographic-field. Sandalphon stood over him and, using his foot held Gervasee down. Behind Sandalphon the ghost wolves were circling around to attack from behind. Before they could get to him, Sandalphon, grabbing Medens in both hands, brought it down hard on Gervasee breaking its hologram body to pieces. The ghost wolfs disappeared into wisps of smoke right behind Sandalphon.

  Jason stared at where his avatar had been defeated, with his mouth hanging open. He began to shake his head and with pain in a voice said, “Alright you’re good.” His humbleness ended there “But don’t you think I will let you go out with my sister.”

  “Be quite J
ason.” Lizzy yelled at her brother. “I can date whoever I want.”

  “I’m going to tell mom and dad.”

  “Go ahead, you big baby. Go get a girlfriend and stop playing Clash all the time.”

  “I got a girlfriend…” The look on Jason’s face said otherwise.

  Lizzy raised one eyebrow “Who?”

  Jason did not answer. He gave up. He sneered at Max then walked away. Lizzy turned to face Max; she was blushing a little, totally embarrassed. Seeing that some people were staring at them, she said to Max, “Let’s go get lunch,” and headed towards the exit.

  Max was feeling pretty good at the moment. He won his match and then suddenly got a girlfriend. He followed Lizzy out of the Clash store. Although it was still a little early they looked around for a place to eat.

  Chapter 20

  Lunch with girlfriend and Davis maybe coming home!

  Max and Lizzy had settled on getting some fast food at a burger place. While they were eating Max asked some questions to try and understand what was going on.

  “So Jason is your older brother.” Max said.

  “Yeah, sorry I didn’t tell you,” Lizzy said. “Jason had thought that during your first match you were acting weak to show off. He found that we were in the same grade and he was bugging me to ask you for a rematch ever since his loss. I had told him that I didn’t know you that well. Jason never wants to have a duel with me so I was a little jealous of you.”

  “Did you ever tell him that I only had my avatar for one day before our first match?” Max asked.

  “Yes, and that made him really mad.”

  “So… this was why you had been avoiding me at school?”

  “Yes, that and another reason.”

  “Another reason?”

  Lizzy brushed some hair behind her ear and started to look embarrassed. “Don’t make me say it.” She smiled like she was holding back a secret.

  Max took a bite of his burger. He wanted to know, but was not sure if he could get it out of her. He could wait and find out the other reason some other time.

  “Will you be coming home for the finals?” Max asked, he was talking on the phone with his brother Davis.

  “Yeah, Classes will be over a few days before the finals and I’ll be able to come for a visit for a while.” Davis said.

  “Cool, so I just got to beat Femur and then I’ll move on to the finals against Degoth or Spirit.”

  “Degoth? That name sounds familiar.”

  “Maybe you have fought him before, he is from the mainland. He comes to Collis just to participate in the tournament.”

  “Why does he do that? He should just go the tournament near him.”

  “I overheard people saying that he came to Collis because he thinks we are weak. And that he will be able to get into the state tournament easier by winning our tournament.”

  “The tournament system is so corrupt. Well, anyway, I’ll see you next week. Later.”

  Chapter 21

  Secret of the Clash arm bands!

  Max spent the week practicing with Lizzy in the school’s Clash club. Everyone from the club was really amazed at how well he controlled Sandalphon now. Max won most games, even when they went two on one against him. A lot of the kids, which had quit after the first rounds of battles in the tournament, had started to come back to the club meetings. Mostly they had heard that Max was going to the club meetings and they all wanted to have duels with him. Seeing them coming back to the club Ms. Roundabout started to get more involved as well. She had found an interesting article about Clash and wanted to share it with them.

  Ms Roundabout gave them a summery of the article “In the article the author claims that avatars are more than just for a game. The author claims that avatars are your souls. The author continues saying that every time we let the avatars fight they end up destroying our souls. What do you guys think about that?”

  “I don’t believe that for a second.” Max said. “The avatars are just holographic projections. Holograms are only light. The shapes for the holograms are made by computers. I don’t see how computer data is a soul.”

  “In the article the author doesn’t mention any of that. What she does talk about is how the Clash bands read your minds to control the avatars. The author claims that technology should not be advanced enough to be able to read your thoughts. Instead predicts that the bands are a channel to your soul.”

  “But the bands don’t read our thoughts,” Lizzy said. “They work off our nervous system. Our brains send millions of commands to our bodies, through our nerves every minute. The bands read some of those commands though the nerves in our wrists. They don’t read our thoughts, they read our bodies.”

  “Is that how they work?” TJ asked. He held up his wrist and looked at his band.

  “How did you not know that?” Lizzy asked.

  TJ shrugged his shoulders.

  “I did not know that either,” Max said impishly.

  Lizzy looked at Max “Well…” She thought for a second. “You are new to Clash. It is ok that you did not know that.”

  “So the author,” Max said. “Does he want us all to stop playing Clash?”

  “Actually, it was a female who wrote the article. And she does want everyone to stop. She use to play, clash and claimed it damaged her soul.” Ms Roundabout said.

  “Ms. Roundabout.” Max said getting her attention.

  “Yes, Max?”

  “Why did you read us this article?”

  “I thought is would be interesting.”

  “It was,” Lizzy said. “But I think this lady is just mad that she lost a Clash match and is making up stuff as an excuse.”

  “I would believe that if it were true. If you guys learned anything from this article it should be that even adults are not perfect and say crazy things.”

  Chapter 22

  Max fights to get into the finals!

  Saturday rolled around and Max felt ready to start his fight against Femur. In a blink of an eye it was time for the tournament’s semifinals already.

  “I got the will, you got the power, Sandalphon!” Max said, as Sandalphon materialized in the arena.

  “Rise Femur, my minion, and due my bidding,” Kurk said, and his avatar appeared in the arena across from Sandalphon. Femur was a necromancer of the necro type; it looked like the figure of death. He wore a black robe over a bare human skeleton and carried a white bone sickle on his back. Hanging from his waist was a book that dangled off a thick metal chain. He drew the sickle and held it in his right hand, then grabbed the book, holding it in his left hand.

  The announcer started the countdown to the fight, “Five, four, three, two, one. Clash!”

  Right at the start of the fight Femur could be heard casting a summoning spell. Five summoning portals opened up, they were circles of glowing hieroglyphs that appeared randomly all across the arena floor. Rising up from the portals were human skeletons. They came out stiff and unmoving, but as the summoning finished they animated. It looked like dust fell off them as they came to life, as though they had just come from a dusty coffin. Femur held out a hand and pointed a bony finger at Sandalphon. The skeletons all began to move towards the celestial fighter.

  Max knew of this attack. He had seen many other avatars fall from being overwhelmed by the onslaught of attacks from the skeletons. The way the skeletons had been summoned left them spread out around the arena. Compared to Sandalphon the skeletons were very small. Max, chose to fight the skeletons, one at a time, instead of running and getting cornered by them, had Sandalphon charged at the nearest bony construct. Using his long legs, he tripped the skeleton, and then smashed in its rib cage against the ground. Another skeleton moved into range and Sandalphon kicked it in the side sending it flying. The next one came in at him, he punched it in the head, popping off its skull, sending it flying away.

  The last two skeletons jumped at him together, he caught the one by the neck while the other hopped onto his
back. He smashed the one to the ground, and then reaching up over his shoulder, grabbed the other and sent it flying into the one he had knocked the skull flying from. The two skeletons collided and fell into a pile of broken bones.

  Femur cast another spell from his book and a giant summoning portal formed under Sandalphon. All the smashed skeleton bodies fell into the portal. Once they were gone, arising, in front of Sandalphon, was a large bone construct made of all the skeletons he had just smashed. It looked like a bone ogre, with two heads, and it welded a club that had the three heads on it. The bone ogre was bigger than Sandalphon, with Sandalphon only coming up to its shoulder.

  The bone ogre raised its club up as if to smash it down on Sandalphon. Max quickly had Sandalphon step in and catch the hand of the ogre, as it brought the club down. Sandalphon snapped off the hand that held the club. Sandalphon picked up the club. He threw the club at the ogre hitting its spine breaking it to pieces.

  Femur began to cast another spell from his book. Five more summoning portals opened up around the arena.

  Not waiting for the summoning to finish, Sandalphon ran over to the portals and began to smash the skeletons before they could move. He smashed three before the other two animated and ran over to attack him. Sandalphon grabbed one of the skeletons by its outstretched hand and flung it at the other. The two skeletons went flying and together smashed into the arena wall. Sandalphon then charged at Femur before he would be able to cast the next spell.

  “That won’t work,” Kurk said.

  Femur swiped out at Sandalphon with its sickle, as he got in range. It was a near miss. Then in a most inhuman fashion Femur sent the sickle into a series spins, in front and around itself, to stave off any attacks from Sandalphon. With no weapons or armor out yet, Max did not want Sandalphon to be hit by the sickle, and so held Sandalphon back

  Femur cast a new spell, around him a ring of mini portals were made. Out of the mini portals popped out bone spikes that formed a cage around the necromancer. Sandalphon punched and kicked at the spikes, hoping to break them to get at Femur. The bone spikes were too tough, Sandalphon could not break them. Femur cast a spell that made all the smashed skeleton bones disappear into the arena floor, and then the largest summoning circle yet formed behind Sandalphon.