Clash The Greatest Tournament Page 8

  Out of the summoning circle rose a bone giant was twice as tall as Sandalphon. It wielded a massive two handed club. It swung the club down. Sandalphon side stepped the slow attack and grabbed the club. Sandalphon pulled it from the giant’s hand. Before he could turn it around to use it against the giant, it swung in and slapped the club from Sandalphon’s grasp. The giant then punched down at Sandalphon, he caught the blow, holding on he pulled the giant forward to the floor. Sandalphon ran over to the giant’s club to use it to smash the bone spikes that protected Femur.

  Femur had begun another spell and 5 more summoning portals opened up around the arena. The bone giant was getting back on its feet as Sandalphon readied its club to use it against all the skeletons. The club was a little big, but Sandalphon had no problem using it in two hands. He began smashing the smaller skeletons around him. The bone giant then came in range. Sandalphon attacked it with the club. First he destroyed its knees, then as it was falling destroyed its spine, and as it lay on the ground he brought the mace down on its head. The rest of the smaller skeletons came at him and he easily knocked them to pieces with the club.

  Sandalphon went back over to Femur and brought the giant club down on the bone spike cage, attempting to break it to get to Femur inside. The club broke apart when it hit the cage.

  “This bone shield is stronger than the skeletons,” Kurk said. “It will take more than that to break it,”

  “These skeletons are weak,” Max said. “Bring something stronger out for Sandalphon to fight.”

  “Alright, I’ll let you pick: the centipede or the knight?”

  “Knight.”

  “How about both!”

  Femur began another spell, all the smashed bones disappeared from the arena floor and two summoning portals opened up. Out of one came a skeleton dressed in steel armor with a shield and sword. The other was a 20 legged monstrous centipede whose whole body was made of skeleton’s bones. Max noticed that it had a pincer for a mouth and a spiked tail, things he would have to watch out for.

  Sandalphon rushed the centipede and tore off two of its legs, then kicked the bug back. The Knight came up behind Sandalphon; he turned and parried the Knight’s attack with the centipede’s leg. Sandalphon then kicked at the knight’s shield, knocking the arm of the knight off. With a double swing, he smashed the knight to pieces with the centipede’s legs. The centipede had recovered and came at Sandalphon, low with its pincer, and high with its spiked tail. Sandalphon jumped on to the centipede between the two attacks. Sandalphon stomped down through the centipede’s back breaking it in two.

  “Your skeletons are weak. Bring out the strongest guy you got, I’ll even wait for it.” Max said. Max was getting a little over confident. This was the first time he has had the upper hand in a fight while Sandalphon was not using any of his gear.

  The bone cage around Femur disappeared as he began his next spell. This time two portals opened up in the air over Femur’s head. Out of the portals appeared two colossal bone arms. Sandalphon stood only as tall as the hand of one of the arms. Max noticed that Femur had to keep channeling the spell to keep the portals opened. One arm moved in to slap Sandalphon; he drove forward ahead of the blow. The other arm came down to crush him, he jumped to the side. As he dodged the one hand, the other hand came in to grab Sandalphon. Sandalphon pushed the fingers aside and grabbed its wrist in a bear hug.

  Max had Sandalphon put all of his strength into bending the wrist. The other monstrous hand came in behind him and seized Sandalphon. Max did not have Sandalphon stop trying to bend and break the wrist. The other bone arm tried to yank him off, but Sandalphon held on. Then, as Max bent all of his will into Sandalphon, the wrist broke, cracking the massive bone, the hand fell to the floor disconnected. The other hand yanked Sandalphon once more and he went tumbling across the arena floor.

  Everyone in the audience was stunned at the strength Sandalphon had just displayed. Even Kurk was left with his mouth agape. This was something he had never come across. He had come up with a bunch of different strategies to defeat Sandalphon and any of his gear. He would never have imagined losing with his best attack, just to Sandalphon’s strength.

  In his bewildered state Kurk had stopped paying attention to Sandalphon. Where as Max had Sandalphon come over to Femur and with a kick crushed the necromancer to pieces. At the last second Kurk saw what Sandalphon was going to do, but he was already too late. He was not angry or sad though, Max and Sandalphon were strong, he felt that they could win the state championship.

  He congratulated Max on a job well done. Then gave him a bit of advice. “Watch the next match carefully; Degoth is just as strong as Sandalphon. I would never have imagined there would be two avatars so strong in this tournament. After Jason sees this fight he is going to want a rematch. A lot of us were surprised to see Gervasee lose. At the club meets, he beats us all real easily, all the time.”

  “We already had a rematch and I beat him. And I am going to beat Degoth or Spirit or everyone else,” Max said, wearing a boastful smile

  “Ha-ha, you beat him already. No wonder he hasn’t said anything about you all week. Congratulations on making it to the finals I guess my Femur’s rein as champion is over.”

  Chapter 23

  Degoth shows his power!

  Logan, with his avatar Degoth, was the other semifinal fight and his opponent was the air elemental, Spirit. Spirit wore tight fighting white clothing, that covered every inch of its body, except for a small slit around its white glowing eyes. Spirit was ranked the third fastest in the tournament and everyone was waiting to see how Degoth would handle a fast opponent. Right at the start of the fight Spirit took off moving across the arena floor, as it moved it left translucent afterimages of itself, the afterimages made it hard to determine what direction it was moving in. Spirit got close to Degoth, then disappeared for a second and a set of afterimages moved to either side of Degoth. Spirit reappeared in front of Degoth, and hit Degoth with a double punch to the face.

  Degoth’s shadow stepped out of the ground and grabbed at Spirit. It looked like Spirit was caught, but it had only been one of his afterimages. The real Spirit could be seen floating across the arena floor far from Degoth.

  Degoth raised one of its maces and sent out a black shadow wall across the arena to Spirit’s side. Quickly it sent out another black wall to Spirit’s other side. Spirit was trapped in between the two walls. With its other mace Degoth sent out waves of black energy between the walls at Spirit. As they came flying in Spirit dodged them and only its afterimages were hit. The black energy passed right through the afterimages to hit the far arena wall.

  Being trapped between the two shadow walls Spirit had no where to run to, and one of the waves of black energy finally hit it. It did not do much damage, but it looked like it slowed Spirit down and its afterimages disappeared. More waves of black energy hit Spirit and Spirit fell to the ground. Degoth breathed a torrent of black fire down at the prone Spirit, engulfing the avatar in flames and destroying its hologram body.

  Degoth would move on to the finals.

  Chapter 24

  Being popular is nice!

  When Max showed up to school Monday, it was just like after his first battle with Jason, when Sandalphon beat Gervasee. Everyone wanted to have a Clash duel with Max after school. He had so many challenges he had to set them up across multiple days that week. Everyone said that they were rooting for him to win against Degoth.

  Max went over to Lizzy’s locker to hang out before class started. Hanging out at her locker in the morning was starting to become his daily routine. He had learned that she was not a morning person so he always made sure to be extra nice to her. “Hey Liz, you are looking really cute today.”

  She waved to him as she yawned, then turned back to her locker to grab her bag. They went over to a bench to sit down while waiting for classes to start.

  “I have had like twenty people ask me for duels today,” Max said.

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sp; “Good. You can get some more practice in before the finals,” Lizzy said. She closed her eye looking like she was going to fall asleep.

  “You want to do anything this week for fun?”

  Her eyes opened back up. “We could go shopping at the mall.” She said with a smile.

  “That sounds good. We could also go see that new movie.”

  “Action Flick 10? I still can’t believe they couldn’t come up with a different name then that.”

  “It has to do with the history of holographic-movies. The first Action Flick was just to test the holographic projectors to see how well the people would respond to actual 3D movies.” She was closing her eyes again. Max kept talking not sure if she was going to fall asleep or not. “The movie didn’t have a good plot or point, so they just called it Action Flick, all action no plot.” Lizzy leaned over and rested her head on his shoulder and grabbed his arm hugging it. Max stopped talking. He felt a little embarrassed having her cling to him in the hallway with all the other students walking by. He was still getting used to having a girlfriend.

  After a few minutes the bell rang for class to start and the students started emptying the halls. Lizzy did not get up. Max really did not want her to. April saw them and came over and woke Lizzy, they had first period class together. Lizzy started rubbing her eyes.

  “See you later Max” Lizzy said as April shuffled her off to their class. Max got up and went to his first class too.

  After classes were over for the day Max met up with Lizzy in the Clash club room. They started playing some games while Max’s dual challenges started to show up.

  “You totally fell asleep while I was talking to you this morning,” Max said.

  “Did I really?” Lizzy said. She had forgotten what had happened.

  “Yeah, I was going to leave you sleeping there and go to class,” he said teasing her.

  “Whatever,” she said.

  They were playing a game at one of the holographic-tables. The game had their avatars riding boards that flew threw the air. The goal of the game was to collect the most coins. The coins would randomly spawn all over and fly all across the game field. Lizzy was currently winning and Max was trying to distract her so he could catch up.

  “Third win in a row.” Lizzy said as the game ended.

  “One more game,” Max said. He really hated losing.

  “Max people are waiting to duel you.”

  “Alright, but after these we are playing again.” He got up to play the people that challenged him this morning. He thought of something and went back to ask Lizzy “You want to go see Action Flick 10 this Friday?”

  “Sure.” She said smiling.

  “Okay, it is a date.” He left again, to play his challengers. Their avatars put up a good fight, but Sandalphon crushed them all. Max was a little disappointed that the fights lacked the feeling of pressure that the tournament fights had.

  Chapter 25

  Worse than a Clash fight, Max’s first big date!

  Max was waiting for Lizzy outside the holographic-theater that Friday. After school they had gone to their homes and gotten rides to the theater separately from their parents. Max’s brother, Davis, was coming home to visit today as well. He was going to meet up with him at the Clash center after his date.

  Max got a message on his phone from Lizzy saying that she was here. He looked around and saw a car pull up with her inside. When she got out of the car Max noticed she had changed into a nice dress. It was a white dress with pink roses for a pattern and she had a white little jacket over top of the dress. It looked really stylish and perfect for late spring. Max was still wearing his clothes from school. She said goodbye to her mom and Max waved to her as she drove away.

  “I already bought the tickets so we…” he stopped mid sentence when she turned at him and smiled. “I didn’t realize you were going to change.” He looked down at his own clothes. He was in a red T-shirt and blue jeans. Before he looked up again, he saw her shoes. She had white shoes with pink little roses on them that matched her dress. The heels on the shoes made her a little taller than normal, which was really throwing Max off. “So I got the tickets and we can just grab some snacks and then sit down.”

  “Ok.” She walked up and grabbed his arm leading him inside.

  “I really like your dress.” Max said.

  “Thank you and I really like the same clothes you wore to school.” She said.

  “Ha-ha, sorry, didn’t know you were going to change.” Max said.

  They bought some popcorn and some drinks, then went to find their seats. Immediately they held hands and passed the popcorn back and forth.

  The plot of Action Movie 10 was about a cop chasing a criminal. The criminal was constantly stealing vehicles to escape with. The movie started with a chase scene through busy city streets. The criminal had stolen a transit bus and was using it to ram through traffic. The hero cop was in pursuit with half the city police patrol cars behind him.

  The chase scene worked out really great for using the hologram special effects. As the bus knocked over cars they would fly up into the audience. Other times you would have the view from inside one of the wrecked cars and feel like you really crashed.

  The chase scenes continued with the criminal getting on a train. The cop followed him onto the train and they had a fight while riding along the top. They went on to continue the chase in airplanes. The views the holographic-projector created gave the impression of the viewers flying through the sky.

  After the movie they walked over to a restaurant and had diner.

  Lizzy called her mom to come pick her up after they had finished eating. The two of them were just standing outside the restaurant among the rose bushes that lined the outside walls of the restaurant. Max had insisted that the both of them take some mints from the tray as they were leaving.

  Ok Max, this is a good time to have our first kiss. The setting is great: she is in a rose patterned dress and there are rose bushes all around us. We both just had breath mints and now have great smelling breath. I got about Five to seven minutes before her mom gets here. Don’t let this opportunity go to waste. – Max thought to himself.

  Max moved in closer to Lizzy and leaned in, bringing his face closer to hers. He closed his eyes.

  Lizzy shoved his face back with her hand.

  “You know Max I was thinking,” Lizzy said.

  He had no idea what she was going to say, but was sure he would not like it.

  “I think our first kiss should be after you win the tournament.” She said.

  “What?” Max was at a loss for words.

  “Wouldn’t that be great?” she said. “You win the tournament then I meet you on stage for our first kiss.” She clasped her hands together over her heart and stared at him with big romantic eyes.

  Max gave up. Inside his heart, was a twist of emotions. He regretted missing out on this chance, but at the same time she looked so cute he could not refuse her. “That would be super romantic.” He said.

  “I know, wouldn’t it?” She said.

  Max gave out a little laugh. “Well, we could kiss right now because there is no way Sandalphon is going to lose. So it is like I already won.”

  “Ha-ha, nice try.” Lizzy said as she pushed him further away.

  Max remembered something from before. “Remember you said there was another reason why you were avoiding me other than your brother?”

  “Yeah,” she looked at Max suspiciously.

  “When I win you have to tell me what it was.”

  She thought about that for a second, then said “Okay, that sounds fair.”

  Lizzy’s mom got there and Max said goodbye. Then he headed over to the Clash center to meet up with his brother.

  Chapter 26

  Showdown before the showdown!

  Max got a text from Davis saying he would be showing up at the Clash Center a little after 7:00. It was 6:45 right now so he figured he could get some C
lash battles in before his match tomorrow against anyone in the center. When Max showed up to the Clash center he saw that Logan happened to be there. He was bugging everyone to play him in a match. It looked like a bunch of people had already lost to him and Logan was being a real jerk about it. One kid pointed out Max saying Sandalphon could beat Degoth.

  “Why wait for the match tomorrow, let us see who is stronger now,” Logan said.

  “Sorry Logan, I don’t want to fight you yet.” Max said.

  “You scared kid?” Logan was much older and much bigger than Max.

  “No, my Sandalphon can’t lose.”

  “Come on dork, play me in a match, maybe you will learn how to beat me tomorrow.”

  “I would rather wait and see.”

  “You got a celestial type right? Your avatar is for kids, he would never be able to handle the players at the national level. Everyone knows that celestial phase out at states. Angels are a dumb concept. Sandal-pansy won’t stand a chance tomorrow.”

  Max could handle being made fun of, but making fun of Sandalphon was not something he would tolerate. “Okay, let’s do this.”

  “Alright,” Logan said. They went over to a game station to have their match. The other kids were cheering Max on. They linked their bands up to the station.

  “Don’t fight him Max,” someone yelled from the side. Max thought he recognized the voice. Max turned and saw it was Davis who had yelled. Max disconnected from the Clash station and walked over to talk to his brother.

  “Why shouldn’t I fight him?” Max asked his brother.

  “I am going to fight him. You watch and learn what you can from him,” Davis told Max in private. “Logan if you want a good fight, I’ll take you on.” Davis said so everyone could hear.