Micheal had been ready for chaos the moment the second round started.

That expectation had grown once the System explained the pillar. You and your team needed to hold the ground for five minutes while every other team tried to do the same.

It was going to be a mess.

So, when he and Markus broke through the tree line into a clearing dotted with a few rock outcroppings and trees scattered about, with fire, lightning, and even weirder attacks flying through the air, Micheal was unsurprised to find Steven in the middle of it.

Steven called a Hand-Shield, deflecting a swing from a man wielding a vibrating branch that glowed with green light.

Micheal was surprised to see the shield shoot forward a heartbeat later to smack the man in the face.

At the same time, a second shield appeared behind his ankle and pulled toward Steven. The man went down, and the side of his head crashed into the edge of a third shield.

He vanished in a flash of light.

Without a seconds hesitation, Micheal took off at a sprint toward his friend, Markus, right beside him.

“Steven!”

Steven looked up and beamed. “Micheal!“

That was all the reunion they had time for as more people started pouring in through the trees. Micheal glanced at the man next to Steven. Medium height, with tan skin and salt and pepper hair.

They exchanged a nod, and then a group of three was on them.

A man with glowing blue fingertips lunged at Micheal, while behind him, a woman pulled back an honest to god bow with a glowing blue arrow nocked and drawn.

Between them, a third woman struck out with a rocky gauntlet.

Micheal danced back from the first man’s grasp, the glowing blue fingers missing him by inches. Markus’s fist crashed into the man’s arm, and he swept his legs a moment later.

Steven called a shield under the bow and pushed it up, knocking her aim off course.

The man next to Steven whispered something, and Micheal felt a burst of energy roll over him along with a spark of gray light.

The gauntlet-wielding woman struck at Steven. He slipped around the hit but failed to notice a chunk of stone mirroring the woman’s movement from his left.

Markus didn’t.

He ignored the man he downed and rushed forward faster than Micheal had seen him move. His hand lashed out, and he slapped the rock. It didn’t stop it, but the hit sent it off course. And before the woman could recover from her failed hit, Markus uncoiled like a spring.

His fist crashed into her temple with a crack, and she vanished.

Another arrow was knocked off course by a shield, and Steven's teammate stomped down on the guy with blue fingers before he could get up.

A moment later, a shield crashed into the side of his head, sending him away.

That left the archer, who immediately turned, shot an arrow behind her, and then ran after it. The arrow glowed bright yellow, and a matching light sprung up around the woman’s feet.

She raced over the snow like an accelerating car.

Micheal’s Skills pulsed, and he sucked in a breath. “Oh, thank you, heroes!“

Blue light poured out of him and soaked into Steven and Markus.

The old man had stopped the blue guy from touching him, and Steven had blocked the arrow.

It was enough for his Skill.

“Oh, thank god,” Steven groaned. “I was missing that!”

Micheal grinned and looked at the pillar.

They were close, but a group was already standing in it.

Steven frowned, then pressed his hand to the ground. A few seconds later, his tower shield thumped into place, flat against the snow.

Micheal wasn’t sure what the point of that was, but he didn’t have much time to dwell on it as they raced for the pillar.

The air was filled with screams, booming explosions, the crash of metal and wood, and the roar of flames.

It was pure chaos, just like he’d been expecting.

But, surprisingly, he wasn’t afraid. The situation was so insane, so outside of anything he had encountered before, that it was easier to remember that this was a contest and one they couldn’t die from.

One he intended to win. Or, well, get second place, as it were.

The group of five currently standing in the pillar were fighting off attackers from every angle.

One defender had a wall of ice blocking off one side of the pillar, another was shooting lasers from his eyes that knocked people from their feet, and a third was covering the group with purple light that seemed to strengthen them and slow oncoming attacks.

Micheal didn’t have time to inspect the other two as a massive volley of projectiles hurtled at the pillar from the edge of the clearing. A fireball, spinning stones, a crackling beam of orange light, and a few more missiles that got lost in the chaos.

One of the defenders stepped up and snapped his fingers. The ice wall spun, racing along the pillar to stop before him.

The man emitting the purple light switched his focus, the energy fading from the group as a whole and concentrating on the ice wall.

The volley screamed closer. Micheal’s gut clenched, and all the hairs on his body stood up as the two forces met.

There was a massive explosion, orange and purple, and blue erupting out as a roar tore across the clearing.

Through the haze, Micheal thought he could see the group still standing, but others in the clearing sensed weakness. They paused their own fights to hurl attacks at the pillar.

When the smoke from the second barrage cleared, the group was gone.

They all exchanged wide-eyed looks. “We can’t try to hold the pillar yet,” Steven yelled over the chaos. “There are still too many people!”

They all nodded. “We work as sweepers then,“ Markus said. “Find groups with a ranged attacker and take them out. I should be able to handle anyone who wants to come up close.“

Steven glanced at Micheal and nodded.

They all scanned the battlefield for a moment before Steven’s teammate pointed to a group of three about 20 yards away.

There was a woman in the front who held a whirling ball of air in one hand, and to her right was a stout man whose fist smoldered with inky red light.

Behind them was a woman with bright red hair that was carefully gathering up a snowball bigger than her torso.

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She made broad strokes with her hands, causing the snow to ripple and change like a mix of water and clay.

Once she finished crafting the snow boulder, she took a wide stance and pulled up with both hands. The snowball shook, then slowly rose in the air.

Once it hovered a few feet in front of her, she shouted, and the snowy boulder rocketed off toward a distant group.

The snowball hit the unsuspecting fighters, and almost all of them vanished in a flash of light.

Micheal blinked. Well, they found their first target.

~<>~<>~

The relief that had flooded Steven when he saw his friend had almost cost him a fight. And now that two-thirds of their party were together, everything else was going to be much simpler.

Steven’s breaths were smooth and deep, and his body raced across the trampled snow with ease. He had missed Micheal’s buff.

Just how much of a difference it made had been pounded into his head when he had to go through most of this round without it.

And now… Steven leaped over a leg sweep and slammed his knee into the wind woman's chest.

She gasped and staggered back, but the snow shifted under her feet, keeping her from falling.

At the same time, the snow dipped under Steven’s as he landed. He stumbled, but then Micheal was there, flinging a handful of ice into the woman’s face.

Micheal’s teammate crashed into the man with smoldering fists. Steven ignored them for the moment. From what he’d seen, the old man could handle himself.

A much smaller snowball whistled at Steven, and he immediately called a shield. It sprayed against the green oval, but the woman with the air swirling about her palms took the moment of distraction to slam her hand into the ground.

Snow and ice burst into a cloud, blocking them from sight.

Clark didn’t hesitate. “Steven, take care of the air user. I’ll take the snow girl!”

Steven had barely nodded when the woman in question exploded out of the snow cloud, leading with her knee.

Steven managed to avoid having his teeth caved in, but before he could respond the woman threw her hand out, the swirling ball of air exploding in her palm.

The force shoved her down and to the left, and she immediately brought another orb up and tried to shove it into Steven’s side.

As he blocked it with a shield, Clark blitzed for the snow woman before she could make another boulder.

Micheal circled the woman with Steven, forcing her to split her focus.

Her pale lips drew back into a snarl, and she charged Steven.

She slipped around two shields he tried to club her with and drove her open palm toward his chest. Steven blocked the strike. There was a boom, a flash of grey, and then her other hand was lashing out faster than Steven could react.

The wind orb slammed into his chest, and Steven was blasted off his feet.

He flew back like he’d been slugged by a mattress, the force spread across his entire body.

Cold air rushed past his ears and ripped at his clothes. His vision swam, and then he hit the ground, rolling through a layer of undisturbed snow.

He could feel Oh Thank You, Hero’s energy coursing through him, and he was sure his friends Skill was the reason he didn’t have any broken bones right now.

Steven’s world was still spinning, but he forced himself to his feet.

He shook his head and squinted. The scene focused, and he saw Micheal slip back from a wind orb.

The man was doing a good job at playing keep away, but he couldn’t retaliate. He didn’t have any options up close, and putting himself in the range of the orbs was always going to be a bad idea.

Steven stumbled, shook his head again, then started running. It was only then that he realized the snow bank he landed in was easily twenty feet away.

Forget broken bones. If he hadn’t landed in deep snow and had Micheal’s buff, that landing would have killed him outright.

As Steven raced toward Micheal, he felt his energy rise, and the ground started to fly by. At the same time, the subtle shine of blue over his skin burst into a bright glow around his feet.

Micheal’s passive at work.

Steven wasn’t sure exactly how much faster he was moving, but it was enough for the air to sting his cheeks as it rushed by.

He called a shield behind the wind woman and used Compass Push to slam it into her ankle.

She went down, but before she even hit the ground, wind blasted from her hand.

It wrapped around her and flung her back along the snow.

She’s only used wind from her hands and whatever that speed buff was. On top of that, she’s only targeted herself or things she can touch.

Steven reached Micheal, then skidded to a stop, the blue light around his feet flashing before puffing away.

“Don’t close in,” he muttered.

If the woman wasn’t showing any ranged Skills, he would abuse his own.

As she used a burst of wind to help throw herself to her feet, Steven met her with a shield.

She dodged it, her motions trailing gusts of wind.

He called another to her left, then shoved it into her gut.

She staggered, and before she could recover, he pushed a sound-trapped shield at her head.

She ducked it, but Steven called a second sound trapped shield in the path of the first.

They crashed together with a boom that made the woman flinch.

She tried to rush Steven, but he blocked her path, sent shields hurtling at her knees and head, and pestered her at every step.

Calling so many shields this quickly took a toll on Steven, but it was better than trying to fist-fight her.

She screamed in frustration and gathered a wind orb in each palm. She thrust her hands back, and the orbs detonated.

A reckless charge was obviously a bad idea against Steven. And he doubted his opponent would have gone for it if she was thinking clearly.

But when she was in the middle of a battlefield, adrenaline pumping through her veins while being constantly harassed by shields?

She launched through the air with a clap, covering half the distance in a heartbeat.

But she didn’t get a chance to go further as a shield appeared in front of her face, its edge aligned with her forehead.

She vanished in a flash of light.

“Damn, that’s the second time you’ve clubbed a girl who was throwing herself at you. Just wanted to point that out.”

“Why would you phrase it like that!?”

Steven couldn’t spare any more attention for the System as he spun to look for his team.

Micheal’s teammate was still fighting his opponent, but they looked evenly matched, so he turned to Clark.

The man wasn’t doing so hot. He was currently struggling to get a hit in edgewise against the snow woman as she danced away while pelting him with ice and snow.

The snow firmed and shifted under her, giving her solid footing regardless of where she stepped. At the same time, she slashed down with each hand, causing the snow under Clark’s feet to harden mid-step or dip or twist, forcing him to plan every step to avoid rolling an ankle.

Steven called a shield behind her head and used Compass Push.

Now, people and monsters had been dodging his shields a lot. Either sidestepping them entirely, having Skills that blocked them like the flame trail, or a sensory Skill to help avoid them.

It had been happening so much that Steven was kind of shocked when the shield slammed into the back of her head with a clang!

She dropped like a sack of potatoes.

Steven blinked, Micheal blinked, Clark blinked. It felt like even the System blinked as a prompt appeared with a single word. “…Huh.”

The three of them shook off their surprise and collapsed on the last man.

He had been putting up a good fight, spraying red smoke from his fists along with odd lines of ink that shot out before his strikes. It hadn’t been enough to take care of Micheal’s teammate, but still.

His luck ran out as they arrived.

Micheal kicked the back of his knee, Clark hurled an ice chunk at his back, and Steven pushed a shield into his other leg.

As the man started to go down, Micheal’s teammate leaped with the grace of a gymnast and drove an axe kick into the man’s head with a sound like a splitting melon.

He vanished in a burst of light.

Steven felt a little bad, to be honest. Poor guy didn’t have a shot.

Though this situation had tempered his aversion to fighting people. This wasn’t like the first round, where they could just go their separate ways and hunt points. They all wanted to go through the pillar, and only two more teams were going to get the rewards.

And we don’t even have all of our team. Steven forced himself to abandon that line of thinking for now. Margie was fine. She wouldn’t go down first.

She wouldn’t.

Clark pointed at another group, snapping Steven back to the present.

He scanned the group and saw two ranged fighters and two melees.

Well, they had their next targets.