“Knock, knock!” someone shouted, the voice of the butcher woman making the hairs in the back of my neck stand up. She came falling from the sky, with her fists over her head and a big smile on her scary face. She descended so fast that I couldn’t process her speed. Elissa the Hammer slammed her fists down, and as soon as she landed, the ground cracked. The crevice trail headed for Reina so fast that I barely had time to leap and grab her. My effort in trying to push her from harm’s way fell short. The ground opened up, and the both of us fell in. I had Reina in my arms, and we were falling fast. But with Naomi’s quick thinking, she used her telekinetic powers to stop us.

Reina looked down, her heart racing against my chest. I could tell she was afraid of heights, and maybe even thought that Naomi couldn’t hold the both of us for long.

“Crap, I didn’t even hear her coming,” I hissed under my breath, and then looked down to Reina. “Are you all right?”

“I’d be better if we can get out of here!”

I looked up, ground still flaking over our heads. But the tree that Reina had been hiding behind was still secure….

“You see that branch over there? Secure a zipline to it so we can escape.”

“A zipline isn’t a weapon!” she retorted.

“A zip line gun is.” I smirked. “Just try it.”

“All right.” Reina focused her extension in her right hand and a bolt of light jolted from her palm and into the air. She directed her weapon’s forging meta toward the hanging tree branch, and sure enough, she created a hooked zipline with the gun she materialized in her fist.

And just in time, too. Because Elissa wasn’t alone….

The hold Naomi had on us disappeared the moment I heard another hunter grunt and growl. Naomi had her hands full, and she needed us to get out of this ditch, so we could help her. So I grabbed the handle of the gun with Reina and we hoisted ourselves up, and once we were topside, a knuckle sandwich was waiting for us.

I wasn’t expecting Elissa to let us off that easily, so her retaliation didn’t come as a surprise. I was ready for her with a sweeping kick, the likes of which she wasn’t prepared for. As soon as my leg made contact with her noggin, she buckled. I could tell that she underestimated my power, and she didn’t fix herself to absorb my shot.

Worked for me.

She was disoriented as she tried to pick herself up–but right away, I had takenoff 30% of her health bar.

As soon as my feet landed on the ground, I ordered Reina to help Naomi, who was handling the other Team Lynx hunter, Mirkov. With Elissa and Mirkov here, I had to imagine that they left the bunny girl with the egg guard.

So that was their plan—have her claim the egg, while the two of them handle us so we could stay away from it….

Mirkov’s specialty was material construct, similar to that of Lady L., but his worked differently. Whatever he touched embodied itself into a puppet, and this behemoth he whipped up to attack Naomi was an equivalent to fucking Swamp Thing.

So the grunt from before was his construct. That was probably the source of the fighting we’d heard earlier, too.

I had to trust in my team that together, they could handle him. As for me, I already had my hands full with Elissa the Hammer.

“You don’t hit like a bronze ranked hunter,” Elissa said as she finally got on her feet.

“I’ll take that as a compliment!” I taunted. “And I’m digging the German accent. Makes you sound extra badass.”

With a shifty smile on her face, she grabbed her chin and her head, then snapped that neck of hers back into place. “Interesting. You will be a worthy challenge after all.”

“I’m glad you think so.” I fixed myself to fight her, while Elissa checked her H-Tec unit. Reading my stats, this ought to be interesting. I remembered what sensei had said and I didn’t bother reading hers, but her reaction to seeing how many talents I had was definitely one I’d never forget.

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That smile turned into a frown in less than a half second, Elissa trying her hardest not to look intimidated. “I do not understand…” she said under her breath.

“It doesn’t matter if you get it. What matters is that I bring you down and snatch that egg!”

“Your board must be glitched.”

“Denial will only make you feel better for a short time, Elissa!” I said, then charged right at her with a flame punch. Fighting another meta with super strength wasn’t going to be easy, and Elissa proved that to be a fact. Despite her incredible mass in muscle, she was fast. It was smart of her to feed her agility to counter her size, Elissa coming in with some heat of her own. We traded blows, but I was meticulous with it. Being in the Hunter Games with 10 minutes on the clock per round might not sound like much, but this event was where stamina management would be put to the test. Unlike HP, our stamina didn’t reset every respawn. So that meant that I had to consider my reserve, and right now, duking it out with Elissa would do more long-term damage for my team.

For someone like Elissa, who was a higher rank than me, she had nothing to worry about. Her stamina bar was girthy, which meant that I was the one who had to budget my resources.

The more we fought, the more I realized that super strength was all she had. Not to discredit her meta. At some point, I thought super strength was all I was going to get, too. And I was proud about it. She had a few tournament wins, so clearly, it was working for her. But one thing I noticed with Elissa was that she couldn’t team kill us on her own.

Hence, why Mirkov was here.

She had to be paired. Even with all of that muscle, she couldn’t take out an entire team by herself. Mirkov was the decoy, and she was the janitor….

I just thought of an idea….

After I realized my sweep kick was the only lucky shot I’d get on her for free, I turned my attention to Mirkov. For a second, Elissa couldn’t understand why I ignored her to dash to her teammate, but she chased right after me, shouting at me as I ran.

“Get back here and fight, you coward!”

Me running away from a fight wasn’t great crowd footage, but it didn’t matter. I told myself I’d be playing smart, not flashy. So when Mirkov realized I was charging at him, he folded his hands together and summoned another construct.

Reina dealt with a giant made out of vines, and Naomi, one made out of rock. Mirkov freaked out and gave me a dirt dude, and my flames had an easy time eating right through it.

I stopped short and clapped my hands once, a spark flickering in the construct’s chest. In under a second, that spark erupted, and the dirt giant took a quick dirt nap.

Chunks of earth and clay exploded, sending shards of dirt flying everywhere. It was such a sudden explosion that even Mirkov was caught off guard. He didn’t have time to shield himself, and a piece of clay caught him right in between the eyes, knocking him backwards.

His health bar was untouched, but it wouldn’t be for long. His concentration on his constructs slipped. Naomi snatched him up with her powers and used his body to weed-whack Elissa.

Elissa blocked her face with her big arms, shouting at Naomi to stop. I used the distraction to summon a ring of fire around Elissa’s feet, and then fixed a rope around her ankles with it.

Magpie: Oh, no folks! It looks like Team Lynx is being worked up by Team Owl!

Flamingo: We are talking about a Diamond Ranked team getting torched out there by rookies. Ouch!

Those commentators infuriated Elissa, and she tried to snatch Mirkov from the air. From this angle, I couldn’t help but contain my laughter, as it looked like a cat trying to snatch her toy rat from a string. Reina giggled, while I continued to pour fuel in the fire whips around Elissa’s legs.

Her health wasn’t looking so healthy now with my flames ticking those bars away, and neither was Mirkov’s….

“I think I’m going to be sick…” Mirkov cried, and then the last of his health vanished, his body exploding into gold coins.

Naomi’s HP was now at 200….

“Oh no, looks like the big bad wolf is all on her own,” Reina taunted. “You made a mistake splitting your defenses.”

“Which was exactly what you suggested,” Naomi pointed out, making Reina’s face red.

“I agreed to it being a bad idea, didn’t I?!” Reina huffed, and then she fixed herself again, clearing her throat. “Don’t ruin my moment, Naomi. Miss Elissa needs to understand that Team Owl is not to be taken lightly.”

“We can gloat later, Reina,” I said, checking the map. “Their team mate claimed the Fae egg.”

“We need to move,” Naomi said. And with Elissa bolted down, I served her one last gut punch to deplete her HP.

Nero Aldeon: +100 HP

The crowd cheered when we took down both Mirkov and Elissa, everyone suddenly rooting for the underdogs.

“I could never get tired of the confetti of coins!” Reina said. She looked like she wanted to step in and shower in them, but they weren’t for grabs. In fact, they disappeared after five seconds. It was all cosmetics. What really happened after your HP dropped to 0 was less spectacular. You got teleported into a blinding white waiting room. In there, you’d wait for the 25 second timer to hit zero, unless you had a respawn token, which would instantly revive you.

I was hoping I wouldn’t need mine. That being said, with Elissa and Mirkov out of the picture, all we had to worry about was Bella, the bunny girl, who was running with the golden egg.

She was fast on her feet, the fastest in her team. There was no way we could keep up with her, but it wouldn’t matter. As long as she had the egg, we could track her in our H-Tech units. So when she took off, I instructed my team to wait….