Night wrapped the forest in a velvet hush as Shade, Shi Ji, and Akarui picked their way through the underbrush. Moonlight threaded between the leaves, casting the trio in silver. Across Shade's sternum, the word START still pulsed, bright and insistent beneath his shirt — an odd beacon against the dark.
"No more wandering," Akarui declared, voice like a command that flattened argument. "We're going to find a place to spend the night, and we're staying there the whole night."
"Boo, no fun!" Shade complained, dragging the word out with exaggerated sulk.
"You don't have ANY say in this, Shade," Akarui cut in, final as a slammed door.
Shade waved a hand dismissively. "I came out mostly insane. The only wound I have on me right now is the one on my hand." He flashed a grin and lifted his palm to show a long, bleeding gash etched across it.
"SHADE! THAT IS HORRIBLE!" Shi Ji cried, alarm bright in his voice.
Shade shrugged. "It's all fine."
Shi Ji didn't wait for permission. He produced a spray of healing water that arced and settled over Shade's hand, sealing the wound with cool, wet light.
"Oh. Thanks," Shade said, a little sheepish.
"It's nothing, really," Shi Ji answered modestly.
Akarui turned his attention back to Shade with an expectant stare. "So, Shade — I'll ask again. Did you ever learn what your gimmick does?"
"Nope!" Shade replied cheerfully.
"Even Shi Ji figured his out before you!" Akarui teased, half reproach, half smug.
"To be fair," Shi Ji said with a shrug, "I still don't know exactly what mine does."
"We can see right now. Use it," Akarui urged.
"Uhm. Ok." Shi Ji summoned his trident, Abyss Piercer, the weapon humming into being with a faint, metallic sigh.
"Woah, cool weapon!" Shade admired, eyes lighting up.
"When he used it, he did something to the enemies' attack," Akarui explained, nodding at Shi Ji.
"Swing it at a tree," Shade suggested with casual curiosity.
Shi Ji obeyed. He heaved the trident in a wide arc and struck the nearest trunk. The moment the metal met bark the tree's form betrayed its solidity — it began to run like syrup. The trunk liquefied, bleeding into a spreading, dark pool that slithered down the slope until the whole tree collapsed in a wave of viscous fluid.
Shade peered over the slick puddle, genuinely baffled. "Did you melt the tree or something?" Akarui stepped up beside him, crossing his arms.
"I think it just turns things into liquids," Akarui mused. "Shi Ji, you're more useful than I thought you would be."
Shi Ji blinked, uncertain but pleased. "Thanks?"
"And Shade," Akarui pressed, tone sharpening, "you really need to find out what your gimmick does."
"Maybe my gimmick is being a life-sized glow stick," Shade guessed, half-joking.
"Oh no! You might be right!" Shi Ji chimed in, laughter mingling with worry.
Akarui sighed. "I seriously doubt it."
"I'll figure it out soon!" Shade promised, confident as ever.
A beat later the forest fractured with a new sound: a shredded blur of speed. Without any warning, a red sphere streaked out of the trees like a meteor — a solid, compact projectile painted with a single yellow stripe. It slammed into Akarui's arm with bone-jarring force. For a heartbeat Akarui's arm seemed to fold in on itself; the shock threw him off balance and sent him tumbling, crashing deep into the woods.
"Wh—Akarui!" Shi Ji shouted.
Shade's instincts flickered awake. He heard something else whipping through the air — another striped ball, already arcing toward them with lethal intent. There was no time. Shade shoved Shi Ji hard; the move put his companion out of the projectile's path. Then Shade planted his foot, met the second ball as it raced past, and struck.
His kick met the projectile in a violent, metallic-sounding clash. The impact rang through the trees as ball and foot wrestled for dominance. For a few brutal seconds the two forces held, the strike reverberating down Shade's leg. Slowly, with a final heave, Shade overpowered the projectile's momentum and drove it upward — sending it spinning high out of orbit until it vanished into the black above the treetops.
Night snapped tighter around the trees as Shi Ji's shout split the dark. "WHAT WAS THAT!?" he cried, voice fracturing with adrenaline.
Shade's eyes scanned the treeline, still faintly lit by the pulsing START across his chest. "We're under attack again. Who could it be, though?" he asked, the question sharp but curious.
Something moved in the gloom and stepped into the moonlight: a hulking, humanoid lion. Fur the color of dried blood framed a mane of molten gold; its eyes burned a steady orange. It wore—absurdly—a baby-blue one-piece suit, and its black claws jutted like talons sharpened for show and slaughter.
"I can smell it," the lion rumbled, voice low and predatory. "You were the ones who attacked my team."
Shade's grin tightened into a smirk. "You must be another member of the Zesty Parade!"
"Yes I am. I'm the team's all-star, Plex Nifty," the lion declared, pride curving every syllable.
Shi Ji's thought was little more than a stunned whisper: An... All-star?!
"We didn't attack your team; your team attacked us..." Shade said, level as a ledger.
Plex's golden eyes narrowed. "Oh?" He summoned two compact spheres into his hands, one nesting in each palm.
"That doesn't change much," Plex continued, voice coiling like a spring. "If they attacked you, that just means they wanted y'all dead. I might as well finish the job for them."
"Shi Ji! Go to where Akarui's body flew! I'll deal with this guy!" Shade barked, already moving.
"Got it!" Shi Ji answered and sprinted toward the ruckus where Akarui had crashed. Plex didn't hesitate; he hurled both spheres at Shi Ji with brutal force. Shade threw himself between the oncoming projectiles and his fleeing ally, taking the impact across his arms. Pain laced through him—bruises blooming—but Shi Ji made it into the woods.
Plex chuckled. "You're pretty tough for a rookie. But you shouldn't be enough to take down a vet like me. After I'm done with you, I'll sniff your two friends out and kill them."
Shade's smirk widened with insolence. "Your friends weren't much trouble, so why would you be?"
"Because simply put, I'm stronger than all of them combined!" Plex roared and lunged, claws sweeping in a ragged, predatory arc.
Shade danced through the swipes, but found his back pressed against rough bark. Plex's fist came at him—hard—and though Shade managed to block, the force carried him through the first tree and into another. The punches kept coming, each strike flinging Shade through timber like a ragdoll until half a mile of trunks lay shattered in a blasted corridor.
"You're a tough defender, but I've faced stronger," Plex taunted, driving another punch. Shade sidestepped this one and struck straight into Plex's gut. The blow landed, but Plex barely flinched. With both hands he slammed a vicious chop into Shade's side, sending him careening through even more trees—yet Shade remained somehow upright.
He spit blood as he rebalanced; the START across his chest flared, glowing fiercer, a spotlight of painful intensity.
"You're actually a competent fighter," Shade said through the blood—joyous and hungry. "I love that!" His smile was fierce.
Plex formed two more balls and hurled them hard. Shade weaved and darted; each projectile cleaved a tree behind him into splinters. Plex's hands seemed endless—throw one, and another would bloom into existence like cartridges in a relentless magazine. The barrage kept coming, a rhythm of destruction that shredded the forest behind Shade as he danced through the storm.
"A ball-generating gimmick, how interesting! These balls seem hard as hell too!" Shade called out, breathless but analytical.
"Quit analyzing my gimmick and shut up!" Plex snapped, accelerating the tempo. The balls came faster, closer. Shade's feet blurred as he danced out of danger.
"False Weapon Style: Sword!" Shade shouted. With a single, clean motion he sliced through a volley of the spheres, forging a path straight to Plex's flank. He closed distance in a heartbeat and folded his hands with the precision of a practiced strike.
"False Weapon Style..." Shade murmured, focus sharpening like a blade.
Then—"Shotgun!" He slammed both palms into Plex's chest. A compressed wave of air detonated outward from the impact, sending a gust sweeping from Plex's back. The blow staggered the lion—more now than before—and pushed him off balance a step.
Hidden behind a bush, Shi Ji watched the exchange while Akarui lay unconscious a little farther on—his chest still rising shallowly. Darn, Akarui was fully healed, but he was still tired after his fight with those other two fighters, Shi Ji thought, worry knotting his gut. That attack he was just hit by took him completely out of the equation and it broke his arm!
Shade stood panting, sweat beading along his temple. Shi Ji's gaze snagged on something darker—an angry, red slash across Shade's back, a lash mark bleeding freshly through fabric.
His back! Shi Ji's alarm spiked. Is that a wound from that whip woman!? Why didn't he tell me? I could have healed him! Something is very off about his demeanor, I just can't put my finger on it... But that doesn't matter—Shade is in trouble, not because he's tired, but because he's bleeding out!
The START on Shade's chest flared brighter still, an alarm and an enigma all at once.
Plex circled, sneer curving his lips. "You look exhausted, rookie."
Shade wiped blood from his mouth and answered with a confident, dangerous smirk. "I'm fine! My adrenaline would be enough to beat you!"
Plex coalesced another sphere in his hand and sneered with contempt. "Rookies like you piss me off—always so confident, but they'll remain a bench warmer, never capable of tapping into their full potential because of how useless they are in the ring."
Night tightened like a fist around the ruined clearing as Shade's grin hardened into a look of absolute certainty. "I'm confident because I know that I'm going to win this," he said, voice bright with reckless conviction.
Plex barked a laugh. "Rookies, always SO cocky!" He flexed those black talons until they stood like knives in the moonlight. Then a brittle snap sounded from the understory and Plex's muscles tensed. He turned toward the noise and found Shi Ji stepping into the open, trident clutched in both hands, face pale and hands trembling.
"Oh? You… fish… I love eating fish," Plex said, amusement curling under the threat.
"Shi Ji! What are you doing back here? I told you to leave!" Shade snapped, immediate concern cracking his voice.
"I won't just let you sit here and die, Shade," Shi Ji replied, nerves disguising a fierce resolve.
"Trust me, I got it!" Shade protested.
"No, Shade. It's my turn to fight," Shi Ji insisted.
Shade froze. "What?"
Shi Ji steadied himself, mind racing through the logic of his weapon. Okay, here I go. If my trident turns what it touches into liquid, all I have to do is hit this dude once with it, he thought, bracing for a sloppy strike.
He took a quick breath and swung—so ragged and ungainly that Plex didn't even bother to dodge; the trident missed by a mile.
"Do you know how to wield a weapon?" Plex mocked.
"I—I'll figure it out," Shi Ji stammered, cheeks burning.
"That's just adorable, really." Plex reached out with a clawed hand, seized the trident's handle, ripped it free, and tossed it aside with contempt. He followed the theft with a swift slash that opened Shi Ji across the chest and hurled him into the bushes.
"Dammit, Shi Ji…" Shade hissed, fury and helplessness tangled in the word.
Plex's eyes glittered. "Looks like it's just you now." He lifted his paw high; the air seemed to warp and a huge striped orb coalesced — a wrecking-ball-sized projectile formed of raw momentum. With brutal nonchalance he drove it at Shade as if it weighed nothing.
Shade didn't hesitate. "False Weapon Style: Shield!" He crossed his arms and met the impact head-on. The giant ball thundered into him, battering him backward, driving him further into the forest's teeth.
"You can't block forever!" Plex taunted. He birthed two more spheres in his hands and began a merciless torrent, hurling them at the massive projectile Shade held. Each hit sounded like a hammered drum and shoved Shade farther until the trunks around him shuddered and snapped.
Hidden in the bush that had swallowed him, Shi Ji watched Plex pound Shade into the earth, and noticed the trident lying near Plex's foot. There's my trident… what if I… He concentrated, and the weapon dissolved from where it lay and reappeared in his hand. Okay—that's how that works. How can I help Shade? He glimpsed a tree directly behind Plex and a plan, messy but possible, formed.
Balls piled up in front of Shade's struggling barricade. Plex's barrage accelerated until — suddenly — a brown-green cascade poured over him from above, sloshing down and stinging his face. Splinters and thorns raked into his eyes as the viscous flood found purchase; Plex clawed at his face, a roar of agony shredding the air. The assault halted as he staggered, blinded and reeling.
"WHAT THE— MY EYES!!!" Plex bellowed.
Shi Ji stood behind him, dripping with the oozing sap of the broken tree he had struck moments before with his trident. He held the weapon as if in apology and triumph at once.
"WHO THE HELL DID THAT?!!" Plex demanded, furious and disoriented.
Shade shoved the giant ball aside and launched himself forward. Mid-leap he snapped into motion. "False Weapon Style: Jackhammer!" His body became a spiraling drill, feet striking like percussion—lightning kicks hammered into Plex's face in a blistering flurry, each blow precise and merciless. He finished with a final, twisting kick and flipped to his feet. Plex staggered but refused to fall.
"You damn annoying rookies!" Plex snarled. He spun back, claws narrowing into a razor cross, and in a savage, unstoppable move impaled Shi Ji through the chest. The lion's momentum didn't stop there; Plex punched Shi Ji with such force that the young fighter was driven through two trees and vanished from sight.
"SHI JI!!!" Shade screamed, the name shredding his voice.
Before Shade could react, Plex pivoted and struck Shade with a brutal close-line to the gut. Shade lurched, the ground swallowing his footing for a moment as he tumbled back and hit the earth.
"I'll give you this," Plex panted between snarls as he dusted himself off, "you're no pushovers. You're a lot stronger than average rookies, but you're no game changer. Say, kid — what's your team?"
Shade spat a mouthful of blood and steadied himself with a grin split by pain. "The Bold Bears."
Plex's smile turned dangerously thin. "Oh, a fellow Northern Conference team. You'll fit in perfectly with that dying team." He leapt and threw a punch. Shade tried to evade but his injuries slowed him; the blow connected square across his face and sent him sprawling. Blood welled from his nose, but a feral smile creased his blood-streaked lips.
"You really are worth my time!" Shade declared, wiping at his nose and rubbing his back where the fabric came away soaked with red. His palm left a smear of his own blood.
"I might just bleed out here. But that'd be no fun, wouldn't it?" He felt something ignite within him; the START on his chest emitted a burst of orange light and his skin began to glow with a warm, pulsing amber.
"What the—my energy… it all came back! Does this have to do with my gimmick?" Shade muttered to himself, bewildered and alert.
"What the hell is going on with you?" Plex demanded, stumbling as he watched Shade's resurgence.
"I feel a lot more energized," Shade breathed, planting his feet and clenching his fist.
"You rookies just keep pulling things out of your asses!" Plex spat, building two new balls in his hands.
Shade braced, preparing his hand for a strike. "False Weapon Style: Start Cannon!" He thrust his fist forward. Initially a small, fist-sized sphere of compacted air erupted from his palm.
Plex scoffed. "Hmph, is that it?—"
The tiny orb swelled. It grew and grew until it towered above the trees, a colossal globe of compressed air roaring with violent force. It plowed through the forest like a scythe of wind, obliterating boulders and timber for five miles in its wake. When it smashed into Plex, it vaporized the balls he held and slammed the lion deep into the undergrowth. The blast detonated in an earth-shattering concussion, a cataclysm of compact air that razed everything within a two-mile radius into nothing but blasted ground and smoke.
When the dust finally settled, Plex still stood, though his form was a ruin of damage. Blood streamed from his eyes, nose and mouth; his expression was one of stunned fury and a dawning, horrified respect. In the distance he could see Shade, framed by the wiped-out landscape, staring back with a look that was equal parts triumph and something darker.
What... the hell... was that? Plex's voice was a ragged whisper that might have been thought more than sound. For a dizzy second he stood stunned, the world around him collapsing into the smoldering crater Shade had left in his wake.
"I—I don't want beef with the Bold Bears anyway!" Plex snapped, and then, as if the noise of his own retreat could erase the wreckage, he ran.
"And there he goes," Shade said flatly, watching the red-furred lion vanish into the distance. The glow from the word START across his chest guttered like a fuel gauge dipping back down.
Shade moved with careful speed through the blasted clearing. He lifted Shi Ji's limp form with practiced hands, then went searching until he found Akarui where the carnage had stacked him: unconscious, breathing slow. Shade gathered both of them over one shoulder apiece like burdens he'd carried before.
"I'm surprised their bodies weren't destroyed in the mix of this battle," he said aloud, more to himself than anyone.
They limped through the aftermath until the world softened into morning. Hours later the trio lay in a staging clinic: bandages wrapped in neat layers along limbs and torsos, the smell of antiseptic and boiled herbs in the air. Shade sat on a low cot beside his friends, already patched up though still marked by dried blood and the faint, angry line of new bruises.
Shi Ji's eyes opened first, dazed and bright. "Shade..." he murmured.
"Wassup!" Shade replied in that careless way that tried to sound like everything was ordinary.
"Did you... win?" Shi Ji asked, every syllable curiously small.
"Kinda. The lion just ran away," Shade said. The confession sounded oddly victorious.
Akarui jolted bolt-upright, that instant alertness that clotted sleep from a man's eyes. "WATCH OUT—" he barked, then blinked at the blank space around them and let the word slide away.
"Hm?" Shade echoed, watching Akarui take stock of the room.
"Oh..." Akarui's expression smoothed into something almost sheepish. He looked to Shade and asked, plainly, "Shade, did you win?"
"You're still alive," Shade answered with a dry grin.
"Good point. I assume we're back at the train station." Akarui let himself fall back onto the bed with a weary exhale.
"Yep," Shade confirmed. Akarui settled, satisfied. "Good, as if nothing ever happened," he muttered, though the bandages told another story.
Three hours later the trio boarded the towering, sky-scraping train. Its metal skin gleamed with the early sun, seams clicking like a sleeping machine waking to work. Akarui broke the fragile silence first. "We don't talk about what happened last night, got it?"
Shi Ji nodded solemnly. Shade grinned, flashing a thumbs-up and a toothy, disarming grin that refused seriousness.
"How long will the ride be?—" Shi Ji began, curiosity prickling at the back of his throat.
The doors parted with a pneumatic sigh and from the threshold stepped a man wholly unlike any they'd seen: entirely black skin, a single large eye centered where features should be, nothing else. He wore a conductor's uniform, crisp and almost comical in its authority, a purple orb hovering at his side like a sentinel that brightened when he spoke.
"You must be rookies. I'm Conductor 0007, tickets please." The conductor's purple orb pulsed with polite light.
Shi Ji, Shade, and Akarui produced their envelopes—their tickets—without hesitation and handed them over. The conductor plucked them with an efficient, precise motion and tucked each into a pocket as if storing away little promises.
"Ok I see, Northern Conference, Bold Bear HQ. All aboard!" Conductor 0007 intoned, then slid back into the interior of the train with impossible smoothness.
"What was—" Shi Ji began, but Akarui cut him off with a quiet, practiced authority. "Don't question it." He stepped through the doorway without another word.
Shade followed. Shi Ji's heart punched in his chest—equal parts terror and elation. I can't believe it... I'm actually here... There is absolutely no turning back now! he thought, and then he stepped forth into the carriage, the train swallowing them toward whatever came next.