"Ay, Stefan! What are you doing up here?" asked Darius.

Orange looked up at him.

"Give me the orb, the wizards told me to retrieve it from you." said Orange.

Darius is confused and doesn't hesitate to reply.

"But I haven't activated the plate yet… And it's impossible for you to have activated yours… And you look weird too…"

Orange gets ticked off and annoyed.

"Just give me the damn orb already!" shouted Orange as he leaped onto Darius.

Darius strikes Orange with a thundershock, but it does not knockback him.

"What the-" said Darius quickly.

Orange manages to get within his combat range then punches Darius in the face and knocks Darius down back into the crater. Darius slowly gets up, rubs his forehead and groans a bit. He opens his eyes and sees Orange looking down upon him.

"I'll not let you activate the plate, my only job is to stall you until everyone else activates the plates." said Orange.

Darius is confused about everything right now, but he knows that Orange is way stronger than him, so he must find a way to defeat him or at least run away from him. Darius takes a look at his orb, its glow is rising to the sky. Darius doesn't understand what this means, but he guesses that the plate must be hidden within the clouds. Darius looks up and he sees a white spark in the sky, he tries to look at it, but then he realizes that it's rapidly approaching. Darius jumps back and a dual bladed sword blade instantly slams into the spot he used to be. A robot which looked like some sort of knight fell from the sky just after, landing on the end of the blade and then leaping towards Darius, kicking him in the guts. The swordsman picks up the blade and places it in its missing arm, that being his right hand. The robot had a navy blue flame flowing out of its right eye and a great sense of determination to destroy Darius. The robot takes no time to lunge at Darius, who was still grounded by the kick. He suddenly awakens and grips onto the robot's blade with all of his force, resulting in his hand bleeding but the blade stopping. The robot is amazed by this, but struggles to get Darius to let go of it. Darius looks at the robot dead in the eyes with a bloodlusted frown, clenching his teeth. Orange takes notice of his sudden actions.

"Wait, no, no way, he's ranking up?!" said Orange, surprised.

Darius' elementalist coat suddenly becomes 3 times bigger, thicker and stronger, lightning pulsing on his entire body and his eyes getting covered by it as well, being replaced with 2 white dots. Darius manages to crush the robot's blade in his palm.

"This can't be happening, were they destined to fight?..." said Orange, scared as he remembered the time stefan3B fought against him.

Not even a quarter of a blink of an eye passed and Darius launched a punch of immeasurable speed into the robot's face, steel getting chipped away from its face and the helmet ruined. The robot regains his balance but Darius quickly gets up and leaps with all power at him, causing the ground to shatter. Darius kicks the robot off the mountain, but the robot regains its balance once more midair and dashes back onto the mountain, sliding down. Darius chases after him, sliding down as well. Darius launches several thunderbolt shots at the robot but it is able to parry them with his sword. When Darius wasn't paying attention, the robot cut the ground beneath him, which led to him falling through the ground into a cave. The robot jumps as well into the chasm and dashes down into Darius. He is able to quickly flip backwards and avoid the attack. The robot starts the assault, rushing towards Darius and going for a diagonal downward slash then a horizontal slash. Darius briefly dodges all of them and throws a lightning charged punch at the robot again. It blocks the punch with the sword then moves his fist away with the sword before throwing a punch as well, hitting Darius' jaw. However, upon collision, a lightning burst pops up, pushing the robot away. Darius uses this to his advantage to land a combo on the robot. Rushing, kicking its back midair then jumping and spinning vertically, ax kicking its bead into the ground, followed by Darius grabbing its legs and throwing it into the wall then launching a charged lightning bolt, landing directly on its chest and stripping off its armor. A dust cloud gathers around the robot.

"I think I've heard of this before… I upgraded to a middle rank elementalist. This really is the most critical fight of my entire life. Ugh, despite the power output… It doesn't last for long. I've already used half of it. I need to finish this quickly." said Darius in his mind

Darius quickly rushes in a blitz towards the dust cloud and sends a punch, but his fist is caught by the robot, whose entire armor was stripped off. The flame in its eye increased in size and upon collision the cloud was pushed away. Darius took no time to think and he grabbed its arm which was holding his fist and pulled it towards him with all of his force while at the same time pushing it with his leg into the wall, trying to rip its arm off. The robot simply hit Darius' leg with his elbow, removing Darius from holding him. The robot pulls back its arm then punches Darius straight in the face. Darius struggles with all of his power and is able to resist the punch and not get knocked back. With a burning rage, Darius strikes the robot in its jaw with an uppercut, but the robot resists the punch and isn’t knocked back either. The robot grips hardly onto Darius’ arm, attempting to crush it. Darius reacts quickly and releases a shockwave powerful enough to force the robot to let go of him. Darius backs off at high speeds next to the wall of the cave. He then uses the walls of the cave to kick off and jump from wall to wall at lightning-fast speeds, making himself able to blitz around the robot and damage him inevitably. The robot cannot do anything other than watch as its body is quickly chipped away by the wrath of Darius’ heavy rush. Darius realizes that the more he chips away its body, the more he can see and feel some sort of flame within its body, but nonetheless, he keeps on chipping it since he almost ran out of energy.

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“What’s up with this piece of junk? This isn’t normal steel no matter how much you refine it and that flame… That flame is the weirdest thing about it.” said Darius in his mind.

The robot at this point looks as if it has been shot at for hours at a time with high caliber bullets so Darius decides that it’s time for the finisher to blow and rip its head off. He charges electricity in his feet then leaps off the wall for one last time, charging all of his remaining power into his legs then proceeds to land the kick and tear its head off. Darius manages to land on the ground safely and slide on the floor of the cave as his elementalist coat instantly turns off, revealing Darius’ basic clothes. He had a dark blue shirt which said "METAL" in full caps and a pair of black shorts. His hair was black and his eyes brown.

But, simultaneously as Darius would land the kick, Orange approached at high speeds towards the robot as well and pierced its heart with his arm then pulled out the blue flame which Darius could feel. Orange clenches the flame, instantly absorbing it. His body flashes blue for a split second before returning to its original orange, healing his body fully. Darius raises his guard despite being scared to the bone. Orange turns around at him.

“You’re worthless now. No middle ranker can defeat me.” said Orange, trying to kill time.

Darius suddenly remembers that he spent so much time fighting and he forgot to go and activate the plate.

“Oh shit!” said Darius, before rushing outside, enhancing his legs with lightning.

Orange is surprised by his sudden sprint.

“Hey! Hey! Come back here! I’m not done with you!” said Orange out loud, chasing after Darius.

But Orange’s efforts were futile as Darius already reached the peak way before him. Darius took out his orb which pointed more clearly towards the plate. The plate even started shining through the clouds from the act of the orb being taken out. Darius smiles happily as he realizes that he’s not too late.

“Yes! I… I will do it! I’m… I’m doing it! Yes! I will win!” said Darius in his mind, proudly.

He charged energy in his feet, lightning flashing beneath him. He prepared himself to jump at full power straight to the plate. Orange just got out of the cave and saw Darius more ready than ever to reach the plate, with a worried expression on his face he exclaimed out loud “Oh no!”. He then quickly grabbed a pebble which was right next to him in his right hand. Darius happily released all of his energy and jumped upwards. Orange threw the pebble at full force from his right arm. Darius extended his arm towards the plate, but was hit right in the head by the pebble, which made him lose his focus and so his propulsion. Orange quickly rushed up and grabbed his leg then slammed him into the ground.

Meanwhile. . .

Everyone else manages to magically synchronize each other and activate the plates at once. 3 golden beams of pure light shoot up into the sky. One from Pearl Canyon and 2 from The Grand Mountain. Orange lands safely down, chuckling. Darius gets up then turns around and sees the magnificent luminescent beams.

“Oh… Fuck…” said Darius, disappointed.

Orange continues laughing.

“I wouldn’t stay here if I were you~” said Orange with a cheeky accent before running away, still laughing.

Darius is confused by what he means, but then he looks up. What used to be a light blue sky has turned into a deep blue sky… But the color keeps deepening…

“What the absolute shit is going on?!” shouted Darius in confusion.

The sky eventually turned pitch black. No sun, no stars, no space. A black with such a deep hue that you’d think it’s approaching you… Which actually is. The beams of light hit against the murky sky. Their energy spread around the entire Other Lands… Except for the side where Darius is…

“OH FUCK OH NO I FAILED! I FAILED! I FAILED THEM! I FAILED! NO! NO! NO NO NO NO! IT’S NOT POSSIBLE!” said Darius, breaking down into tears and falling onto his knees, looking down as he put his hands on his head, not wanting to believe what’s going on.

The energy appeared as some sort of shield, which weirdly enough, it was pushed downwards.

“Wait… Why is it coming down?...” said Darius to himself.

The flaring beams disappeared and the shield broke down far easier than anyone could have ever thought, quickly fading away. Darius’ eyes quickly widen and he stands up. He looked up, the entire sky was falling as if it was some sort of caliginous cube. Darius powers up his elementalist coat.

“If I am the one to blame for this… I will fix it! I will stop it! No matter what!” said Darius to himself, with another foolish attempt at motivating himself.

The sky has arrived. Darius pushed against it with his full force. He used his electricity to try and push it back up, but it was all worthless. The ground crumbled beneath his very feet pushing him down into the mountain. Eventually, seeing that his efforts are worthless, he lets go of it and instantly dashes away from that point, allowing the cube to fall onto the mountain. Darius quickly runs down the mountain.

“I must alert everyone else, there’s no time to waste! The sky is falling! How is this even possible?!”