This one started a little better. Nobody made any mistakes. But the opponents they were fighting were very strong and had a powerful opener. They had stood in a line facing them and once the duel started they all began firing large elemental blasts in quick succession. Their plan seemed to be win by overwhelming firepower. It very well could have won if it wasn’t for the combined effort of Ariel and Sable. Sable created a large stone shield to black the squad. Ariel then used her air control to divert the remaining incoming blasts. They were both reasonably skilled with their elements and had acted fast. The rest of the squad followed suit and got behind the shield. Chad did his best to return fire. But the enemy was doing a good job of maintaining fire superiority. Sable was constantly creating a new stone shield while Ariel deflected the extras. Sable was quickly getting tired, and he was the only true defensive element they had. Sable was already on one knee sweating heavily. “Oh crap. Plan C.” Jack yelled.
Chad pulled out a large bandolier of grenades and smiled wickedly. “Fire in the hole!” he screamed more with excitement than warning. Then he tossed the string of grenades over the cover. Suddenly the firing stopped when they realized what they had thrown. It was eerily quiet for one second then.
BOOM!
A huge explosion rocked the arena. Jack’s ears were ringing, and he saw Chad laughing maniacally. “Go!.” Jack yelled, hoping they had heard him. Ariel and Salem were already hopping the barrier and charging forward. Sable collapsed and Chad seemed distracted by the explosion he had just caused. Jack ignored Sable and Chad and charge forward to help the squad. The explosion had left a surprisingly shallow crater, but the entire arena had been blasted with shrapnel. It looked like each enemy had attempted to stop themselves from being hurt in their own method. Some had worked better than others. There were five spots unharmed. Each was about 8 feet away from each other. Only three of them were currently filled with people though. The evidence of what occurred to two of the enemy was clear. One looked to have attempted to use a sand shield, but the shrapnel had blasted through, and the barrier had collapsed. Another individual that was missing had tried to use a wooden shield. This shield looked to have done much better at blocking the shrapnel, but the stump was obviously too small, and the user had still been hit. The other three had water, earth, and metal. Jack got worried when he saw the obvious metal user, but then Salem faced off against him. The water user faced off against Ariel, and Jack got the earth element.
They all slowly dropped their elemental shields and advanced toward each opponent. Jack took a quick look back and saw Chad was trying to help Sable. He looked back just in time to see a chunk of rock flying toward his face. He just barely dodged it as his opponent was on him. The earth user was using a long war hammer and he wielded it expertly. Jack had to step back, then duck, then jump to the side. The enemy was persistent and fast. Then suddenly Jack’s footing shifted. The user had moved the ground. not much. But he lifted Jack slightly while he was in mid-swing so Jack couldn’t duck under. This guy is incredible, Is all Jack could think before he was smashed in the face and flew backward. Jack skidded across the ground and smashed into the barrier that Sable and Chad were behind. Chad popped his head out and said. “How goes it?”
“Feel free to help,” Jack yelled back annoyed.
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“I mean, you did see that explosion, right?” Chad asked confused.
Jack huffed angrily and stood back up. He did his best to wipe the blood off his face and stalked forward. Salem and his opponent had slowly moved across the arena and were fighting an advanced looking hand to hand fight with a technique he had never seen before. Then he looked over towards Ariel who was attempting to fight the water user. Ariel was one of the best fighters Jack had ever seen. She was extremely weird, but when it came to fighting she was above all. But these people they were fighting were really good. The girl with the water element was wielding a dueling rapier similar to the one Choi had shown them in class. The weapon had a gun built into it and could be fired at any time. She was expertly jabbing and weaving the sword while manipulating small water orbs around her. She was incredible, probably a protege. She was using the orbs to harry and harass Ariel while attacking with her sword. Jack saw the earth user was literally just standing there stunned watching the incredible fight. Jack realized that was his chance and started to focus a ball of electricity. He didn’t have long because the earth user was only distracted for a second before turning towards Jack. He saw Jack attempting to build up a blast of lightning and his eyes widened. He slammed his hammer into the ground and the ground beneath Jack shifted again. He lost control of the electricity and it blasted harmlessly into the ground.
“Fuuuuck.” Jack said. Then the ground around him started to turn to liquid. “Oh no you don’t.” He had seen this before. The night he met Gant. He had used it to hold him still. Jack quickly jumped away from the quicksand and started trying to build up a charge again. This time Jack tried something a little different. He tried micro-control. Jack easily created a spark, then he flew it toward the earth user. As he flew it towards the enemy he focused on the spark and willed it to duplicate, then duplicate again. Jack had been messing with his micro control for a while and was very good. The barrage of tiny sparks continued to duplicate into an army. It looked very impressive. Unfortunately, it was micro control and they were each very weak. But it was a huge distraction. A wall of spark flew into the groups fighting. The earth user created a shield. The metal users both got shocked a bunch and fell over swearing. The water user got it even worse. She was so distracted by her advanced fight with Ariel that she didn’t notice the sparks and with her water, she was zapped extremely hard. Ariel saw them coming and blasted a hole for herself. She didn’t get hit once. Ariel looked at Jack and gave a polite bow before stalking forwards and finishing her opponent. Salem and his opponent were both down still squiring. The earth user was staring at Jack angrily. He lifted his hand and a bunch of stone chunks rose from the ground. The chunks started carving themselves into very sharp-looking stone bullets. He continued to angrily stare at Jack as the swarm of giant rock spears spun up around him.
As he went to flick his hand forward with a satisfied grin, one loud shot rang out. There was a loud pop and the earth user disappeared. Chad had shot him when he wasn’t paying attention. “that’s three for me!” Chad yelled gleefully.
“That doesn’t count, I did all the work.” Jack spat back grumpily.
Salem and Ariel had finished off their opponents and the duel was done. They had won again and were off to the third round. Jack asked Salem about the weird fighting style he was using. “oh that. When two metal manipulators end up fighting and their strength is similar basically all external metal is useless, so it usually comes down to a hand-to-hand battle. All metal manipulators train in extremely advanced hand-to-hand techniques because it is seen as their biggest weakness.
“Anyone else hungry?” Chad asked. The group all seemed to be in agreement, so they went to get lunch.