Nellie explained the rules of the two on two as she directed the two teams to step on a red platform and a blue platform. Crystal and Anna stepped onto the blue platform while Jack and Remie stepped onto the red one. Nellie and Blake rose as the environment changed. As it did, she explained.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Tower of Battle! On this day of the tournament, you’ll see these two teams battle each other with a simple objective. The blue team will be defending a planted bomb that will ‘detonate’ in half an hour. It is the job of the red team to defuse the bomb using the standard procedure they were taught in the academy. There are seven floors to this tower including the roof here. The blue team will start off on the sixth floor while the red team will start on the first. Behind the scenes there are multiple CTs working together to make a display of what’s going on in the tower itself. You’ll be able to see those displays right above the tower when we begin! Remember: No killing your opponent! Killing your opponent is immediately a disqualification! May the best team race toward victory on the count of three! One! Two! Three!” Nellie took Blake’s hand,blushing while doing so, while the titled CT forced Dr. Archon to hold onto his shoulder as the three teleported out of there and into the caster box. As they did, four floating windows materialized above the tower that displayed both teams. And finally, the second day kicked off.

  Jack

  Woooow! There’s apparently displays outside at the top of the tower. I wonder how they do that? I looked around and noticed a rat scurrying across the floor and a couple of flies throughout the floor we were in. I see… that’s probably how they’re observing us.

  “The act of displaying that information for everyone to see though must be another stemata at work in conjunction with this one…” I muttered as Remie tried getting my attention. “Dude, we’re timed on this.”

  “Oh, right.” I immediately took off in a dash which Remie followed right behind me.

  “Oh by the way…thanks for having my back there.”

  He gave a cautious look at first, bt when he registered what I said, he gave a sigh of relief. “Listen man, I know it’s not the exact same thing, but my sister’s a bit different from other people. I think I’d go crazy if an entire stadium booed her. That’s all.”

  So the overprotectiveness of a sibling, huh? I wonder if Danny would’ve made the same outburst for me if he was here. Great…now I’m thinking about all kinds of things. Like a future that was no longer possible.

  All of them. In the stands cheering me on. Chief Wennot would be with Sonny, getting him some popcorn and peanuts. Chief Chogan would probably be laughing at every little thing I did wrong, but would get more serious if it were down to the wire. Chief Aiyanna would be shielding her eyes every time she saw me suffer the slightest of scratches, while Enyeto would give a faint smile at watching me fight.

  Lady Atina would vainly yell out to do my best, but Dad and Danny would keep reminding her that I couldn’t hear her from all the way in the arena.

  Danny…I hope you’re watching or listening somewhere.

  “Jack! Right ahead of us!”

  “Right!”

  We were quickly approaching Anna as we ran down the hallway. For some reason, she was all the way down here? “Just do as we planned!” I shook off my curiosity and revealed my stemata. Two hand axes with blue blades, linked together by a chain. This is my new and improved stemata. After having it…forcibly removed from me during the New Dawn festival, Instructor Matthews allowed me to send a request to get it repurposed. It took a while to get used to it, but I think I’m pretty good at using it now.

  In one motion, I banged both blades together like flint and steel and a spark blew forward which ignited into a brilliant explosion. Just as quickly as the explosion came, it was cut horizontally in half by a slash of light and dispersed. Leaving only Anna’s severed body falling to the floor. Did…Did we…

  “ANNA!”

  I was about to rush over to her, but Remie immediately stopped me in my tracks.

  “Don’t even bother. Look at her fingers, man.”

  I did just as he said and noticed that not a single finger has her stemata on it. Now that I think about it, she’s been deepening her understanding of her stemata all this time. Not only can she manipulate and replenish the cells of other people, but she can make entire sentient clones! I think out of all of us, Anna and Arno have the chance of reaching heights never before seen—

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  “Let’s get moving, Jack!” Remie climbed the stairs and motioned me to follow.

  “I’m right behind ya!”

  I’ve been thinking about this matchup all last night: Remie and I are A+ attackers. If it came down to it, we would win a fight if we were locked in the room with the girls. But that’s not the objective. Our objective is to defuse the bomb before it detonates. All they have to do is stall us out until the clock runs down and the best way to do that is with Anna’s ability mixed with whatever Crystal can do. Sadly, Crystal is a zone two trainee. Meaning neither of us have any sufficient info on her stemata other than what I learned from the first day. From how she was speaking about it though, it sounds like Crystal can essentially have an entire deck of different stematas.

  Regardless of all of that, it doesn’t change our strategy: the more damage we do, the more we deplete their resources! Once they’re out, we win!

  There was nothing but these weird iron chariots on wheels scattered throughout this asphalt-laden floor. I couldn’t help but look at each and every one of the unique colors of olive greens and sky blues, but Remie didn’t seem impressed. “Looks like a mock parking lot.”

  “Parking lot?”

  “It’s where they keep cars.”

  “Cars…” I looked around but a question immediately rose. “I thought cars were rare. I’ve never seen this many cars in my entire life.”

  “Probably defects that a company donated.”

  I heard that cars are just as complicated as stematas in a way. In another world, I’m probably a car expert or whatever the professional term for it is.

  We got to the 2nd set of stairs and as we climbed it, we left the second floor and…arrived on a very familiar looking floor.

  “Are…we?”

  “Jack, stay right here!”

  “But aren’t we trying to rush to the top—And you’re already running down the parking lot…”

  Before another thought could run through my mind, Remie was right behind me. That’s when it hit me…

  “We’re in a loop!” I jumped and looked around at my surroundings.

  “Why do you sound excited about it?” Remie cocked his head in confusion.

  Anna

  “Limited Limitless is the name of this card.” Crystal held up the card with a display of an infinity symbol split right down the middle. “I can isolate a single space within an infinite loop. Although, the space itself has a level of ‘interference durability.’ That means—”

  Jack

  “The room itself has a certain level of durability that it can take before the ‘infinity breaks!” I geeked out as I was explaining the conditions of this specific Crystal Vex card…according to my assumptions, of course. After all, the only instances of those weird markings showing up was when he activated the loop via attempting to leave.

  Anna

  “With that being said, just figuring something like that out will be at least a third of the time we have to drain—” The card then turned red and shattered at Crystal’s fingertips. She had a face of complete and utter shock displayed as I couldn’t help but chuckle. “Didn’t I warn you? Jack Rosaria…that stemata freak is going to be your hardest counter this fight.” I hopped off of a box I was sitting on and began to walk toward the descending steps. “Let’s just leave the bomb. We’ll have to switch up the strategy and face them head on.”

  “But you said it yourself: we’ll lose a head-on fight.”

  I did say that. I pretty much came to that answer when looking at the scoreboard. If Remie was the one that took Natalia’s badge, then he’s not someone that’s going to be a cakewalk of a fight. I’ve also seen Jack train with his new stemata. Although I’ve learned more about my stemata, I’ve only been looking into the healing side of things. It’ll be a toss up that favors them. There’s only one chance we have to beat them in that scenario.

  I glanced over at Crystal’s stemata. “We’ll have to bet on you getting good enough support cards to have me keep up with those two. But now that I think about it, leaving the bomb unattended is a risky play alone.”

  “Don’t even worry about that part…” Crystal gave a sly smirk as she revealed to me our ace in the hole plan in the case that we have no other option. A plan that’ll secure our victory. I couldn’t help but smile at the sight of it. “Alrighty then! It’s gonna be the ultimate supporter versus attacker faceoff! Hope you’re excited, folks!” I pointed to a nearby spider and although it was faint, I could hear the cheering of an ecstatic crowd from the outside of the walls.

  “...you crave the approval of others…a lot”

  “C-can you just follow my lead?!” I marched my way down the steps.