Spirit of Hope (Make talon take off his jacket.)

  7 People remain. Teaming is still allowed!

  Without warning a large beam of light shot down on them. The large beam of light blinded everyone in sight.

  “Huh? Oh woah.” Hailey said, lowering her hand slightly. Her wide eyes reflected the shimmering light.

  “ATTENTION ONLY 7 FIGHTERS REMAINING.” The announcer said.

  “The light is beautiful.” She noted, before she could react a large beam of light crashed into her.

  As the smoke cleared she had a clear red and black barrier that stood in front of her. She slowly closed the barrier and frowned.

  “And who are you?” She asked.

  “I am Akarui,” Akarui said, slowly descending down. He wore a long gold colored cape that moved with them as he touched the ground. His helmet revealed nothing but his eyes and his helmet and gloves were gold. His main costume was black. “And I will defeat you.”

  “Is that so?” Hailey said, glaring at him.

  “Yes of course, I need to bring honor to my family’s name and joining with Flores aligns with our cause.” He threw his arms out as if he was praising a god.

  “Oh boy, aren’t you self righteous.” She laughed.

  Akarui didn’t take it as a joke and clenched his fists and fired a dark and yellow beam of light. Hailey dodged forward, running and screamed like hell.

  She then pivoted her foot, turning around, her palms became filled with red and black energy. The energy began to pour off her hands like a flowing river, consuming the surrounding area with nothing but black and red energy.

  She gritted her teeth and tensed her body. “This would be so sick if this worked.” In front of her a large serpent conjured in front of her. The serpent coiled around her and faced the Akarui revealing its human head.

  The serpent hissed at Akarui. A large smirk grew across Hailey’s face. The oncoming blast lit up the surrounding area blinding the spectators watching. The serpent opened its mouth wide and swallowed the beam whole.

  Akarui froze in disbelief and disgust. The thought of his attack being swallowed with ease caused anger to brew inside. His jaw tightened as he raised his fists again preparing for another attack. But the serpent continued to grow and swelled up.

  Hailey’s eyes burned with focus, her hands shook from the strain of energy she was outputting. “This has got to work!” She said.

  The serpent expanded further and twisted in a grotesque manner, the energy surged in its vein. The serpent opened its mouth and lunged forward, firing Akarui’ beam at him.

  Akarui's eyes widened in disbelief but immediately got into a battle position. With a fierce yell, he raised his arms, his golden gauntlets glowing, and ready to attack. He then thrusted his arms forward sending a beam of his own in retaliation.

  The two beams collided with each other, sending shockwaves throughout the arena. The crowd watched in awe as they both struggled to hold the beam.

  Hailey’s serpent refused to give up and outputted more of its attack. Akarui's stance faltered for a moment, his feet drilled into the ground. “You think you can defeat me with my own power?” He growled his voice thick with rage.

  With a primal rage he matched the amount of energy Hailey’s serpent was outputting and the two beams collided with each other and blew up creating a large shockwave around them.

  The smoke slowly settled and Hailey was breathing heavily, struggling to catch her breath. Through the smoke the silhouette of Akarui stood tall. His golden armor flickered with remnants of the serpent’s energy.

  “Wow, you're still standing.” Hailey said.

  “Of course I am. How dare you mock me with an attack of my own!” Akarui said, his voice laced with anger.

  Hailey wiped sweat from her eyebrow, her eyes locked with Akarui. “Mock you.” She laughed. “You're just mad that I got more of a punch than you.” She joked.

  Vance who was practically jumping in his seat said, “That’s right Hailey! Hell yeah just like we practiced!”

  Cj shook his head, “This is why Sohjin trains with me.”

  Hamza chuckled and shook his head. “Well as long as she doesn’t become cocky like Vance.”

  Hailey grinned at Vance’s shout. “See my teammates get it, why don’t you loosen up, let's have some fun.”

  Akarui clenched his fists tighter, his golden armor flashing in the light. “You will regret underestimating me.” He charged towards her, faster than ever. The ground crackled beneath him.

  The crowd erupted into cheers as Akarui fist collided with Hailey’s barrier. He pressed harder into her barrier, imbuing his fist with light seishin energy. Her barrier started cracking, with cracks forming in the center and slowly making its way towards the middle.

  Hailey struggled to imbue more seishin into it. Her concentration started slipping as Akarui imbued more of his seishin into it.

  A smirk appeared through Akaru’s mask, he slowly brought his left fist back and slammed it into her barrier, destroying it in an instant.

  Before Hailey could react, he brought his right arm back. It started glowing violently as he swung it, a diagonal motion exploding on her causing her to fly back.

  Pain exploded through her body as she was launched across the arena. She struggled to get up, gasping for air.

  “Damn that hurts.” Her ribs ached and the burn from the attack still lingered. She forced herself to her knees. “Well maybe I did underestimate him..” she stopped, and a playful smirk grew across her face. “Well look at me thinking like Cj. I’m just here to win and have fun!” She said.

  Akarui stepped forward, his eyes were cold filled with barely contained rage.

  “Alright Akarui…no more games. Let’s do this.”

  “You're playing with fire girl, just give up.”

  “Didn’t I just say I was done playing.” She rolled her eyes and let out a long sigh, which came out freezing. The temperature around them instantly dropped. Hailey glanced behind her and saw Frostbite creating icicles that stabbed through Sohjin.

  While he was incapacitated he created two ice spheres and slammed them into each other and threw them into the air and kicked them into Sohjin. The two attacks crashed into Sohjin exploding on impact sending him across the arena.

  The commotion caused Jack to wake up. He slowly opened his eyes and saw Sohjin crash through the old building.

  “Looks like I woke up just in time.” He wiped his eyes and stood to his feet. “This might take me a while to get to you, so hang in there.”

  C

  H

  A 13. Pray in my Heart

  P

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  As the icy mist began to clear, a faint glow pulsed from the mist. A spark of seishin flickered, growing brighter like a heartbeat refusing to stop. Frostbite's smile slowly faded.

  From the ice, Sohjin emerged with a purple aura fleeting behind him. Blood covered his face and he had multiple tears in his costume. His mask revealed most of his face and ice melted off him.

  “You..You're gonna have to do better than that!” Sohjin taunted, wiping blood from his mouth. He reached for his sword and got into his stance.

  Frostbite narrowed his eyes on him. “It’s a miracle you're even alive.”

  “I have no idea how I’m alive. When he hit me with that attack I couldn’t do anything! Was it…Ms Magic?” He thought.

  Before he could come to any conclusions Frostbite rushed down and got ready to strike. Sohjin clashed with Frostbite's fist. Sohjin began to lose his grip on his sword and was getting pushed back.

  “He’s so strong. I can barely push him back. The only way I could possibly get him off me is if..” he stopped for a moment and a plan formed. “It’s worth the risk.”

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  “Well isn’t this fun? It’s only a matter of time until I push you out of the ring and once you're out YOU'LL BE MINE!” Frostbite said.

  Sohjin’s blade flickered with purple and white energy. “You underestimate me.” Sohjin growled. The purple and white energy became more dominant and savage on his blade, the pressure forced Frostbite back.

  The ground cracked beneath his feet as Sohjin held his sword over his head. His grip trembled and sweat fell down his eyebrow.

  “Cj told me the risks that came with Tenshido. How it wasn’t just about power, but the toll it took. He wanted my body to become more durable before attempting it. But he doesn’t know me. I’m the impatient type.”

  “TENSHIDO!!” He roared. The large wave of energy whipped off his blade and flew into Frostbite. The wave didn’t stop at Frostbite and flew into the air where it exploded.

  In the stands, Alex was shocked and had his jaw on the floor. “No way! He did it…he pulled off tenshido!” Alex happily said.

  “I wouldn’t go that far….I mean he lacked the positive seishin and substituted it with his own neutral seishin.” Cj said.

  “Awee someone’s ego is hurt.” Vance jokes.

  Cj shot a look of anger at Vance who was just laughing in his chair.

  Sohjin stood there with his sword in front of him breathing heavily. Blood dripped from his forehead and onto the ground. His vision blurred as he struggled to stay on his feet. Tenshido had taken more out of him than he had expected. His entire body felt as if something was weighing down on it.

  His right arm was damaged with deep scratches running up his arm and his hand had skin missing.

  Across the ring, Frostbite staggered holding his side where Tenshido hit. He glanced at Sohjin. “Impressive,” Frostbite said. “But it’s still not enough.”

  Sohjin grit his teeth, forcing himself to stay upright. “Don’t worry I’ve got plenty more.” He shouted. “I’ve never bluffed harder.” He thought.

  Just as Sohjin and Frostbite locked eyes, preparing to fight, someone slammed down in between them. The crowd erupted into cheers as dust revealed Talon. He looked at Frostbite and then at Sohjin.

  “Talon..” Sohjin muttered, gripping his sword. “Why are you here?”

  Talon smirked, “I grew tired of watching from the sidelines. Frostbite step aside would you. He’s mine.”

  Frostbite clenched his fists. “Get out of my way, before you join him in hell.”

  “Oh wow. Look who’s the overconfident one now.” Talon chuckled, lifted his arms and his wings extended from his back onto his forearms and cut through the air firing feather at them.

  Sohjin deflected the feathers and leaped into the air towards him. “Not good, I can’t beat both of them.”

  Frostbite fired ice shards at the feathers, freezing them in their place. He then jumped into the air with Sohjin.

  Frostbite pulled back his arms and created two ice spheres, but before he could have a chance to fire them, Talon appeared in front of him and roundhouse kicked him, knocking him into the ground.

  Talon turned, grinning at Sohjin and then launched with astonishing speeds, his metal wing shooting straight for him.

  He deflected the jab away from him, Talon smirked and flipped back firing feathers at him.

  Sohjin deflected most of the feathers away from him with the rest slicing through him. Talon charged at him and did a flurry of attacks.

  The sound of metal filled the area. Talon raised his hands up and slammed both of his wings down towards Sohjin.

  Dust swirled around them as Sohjin’s blade cut through the air and clashed with Talon.

  Talon lowered Sohjin’s guard, but Sohjin wouldn’t give, his heel digging itself into the ground.

  Without warning, Talon headbutted him. Sohjin recoiled back, trying to recover back into his stance.

  Talon jumped in the air and began spinning, where he flew through Sohjin slicing around him.

  Sohjin spun back, his sword slicing through the air. Talon parried, sparks flew off as Talon’s wings scraped his blade.

  “NOT SO FAST.” Frostbite yelled, drop kicking Talon away. He imbued his left hand with ice and launched an ice spear at Talon, who dodged.

  “Nice try, Frostbite.” Talon taunted, regaining his footing.

  Sohjin tried to run away but Frostbite fired an icicle and froze his foot, causing him to crash into the ground.

  Talon and Frostbite towards Sohjin, who dashed back into the air. Suddenly a loud crash filled the air. He glanced over for a second and saw Hailey fighting Akarui.

  “What in the–” Sohjin said, but quickly refocused his attention to Talon who chased after him. Frostbite fired another icicle and it pierced through his left arm. Frostbite flew past Talon and clashed with Sohjin.

  “I don’t think Jack or Hailey is an option…Looks like I’ll have to do this by myself!” He thought, gritting his teeth, his train of thought interrupted as Talon appeared above them and fired a barrage of feathers at them.

  Sohjin knocked Frostbite away and deflected each of the feathers. Talon swooped down attempting to hit him but Sohjin dodged just in time, feeling the air swoosh by him.

  Frostbite creeped behind him with an ice hammer in hand and slammed it into Sohjin.

  CLANK!

  Sohjin threw his sword behind him, clashing with him.

  Frostbite begins overpowering him, to their left Talon flies in and gets into a drop kick position. Sohjin allowed Frostbite to overpower him, causing him to fly into the ground below them. On the other hand, Talon slammed into Frostbite knocking him into the ground as well.

  Sohjin uses his sword to stand himself up. “Not sure how long I can keep this up. I can feel my seishin depleting the longer I fight.” He said, each word laced with exhaustion.

  He glanced down at his hand, “Unless….” He slowly brought his hand to his face.

  “No,” He said, shaking his head. “Never mind. I’ll just finish this myself.”

  In front of him, Talon slammed down in front of him. His figure emerged from the settling dust. His grin grew wider as he came closer towards Sohjin.

  Sohjin tightened his grip on his sword. His body screaming at him to stop.

  “You’ve managed to make this fun.” Talon said, wiping blood off his cheek. “But you're running off fumes, Sohjin. Do you think you stand a chance against me?”

  Sohjin glared at him, blood streaming down his face. “I’ve come this far…I’m not about to give up.” He growled. “Because for as long as I stand, I will fight…TO THE VERY END!”

  Talon chuckled. “Your bold I’ll give you that.”

  Sohjin’s fingers trembled around the hilt of his blade, but his stance remained steady. “Let’s do this already.”

  Talon’s grin turned into a smile. “That’s more like it.” He said, launching towards Sohjin.

  Sohjin raised his sword blocking his attack, the two slammed through the building behind him. Sohjin flipped back as Talon went for an uppercut, feeling the air whoosh by.

  Before Sohjin could move, a feather pierced through his left hand. Sohjin gritted through the pain, as he roared, throwing his blade over his head. Purple energy engulfed his blade as he swung it at him, sending a purple crescent at him.

  Talon dove to the left, dodging it. His wings retracted to his arms, as he launched off the ground flying into Sohjin.

  The two slammed through several rooms before finally reaching the outside. Talon flew into the air, the attitude increasing.

  Sohjin loosened his grip. “LET GO OF ME!” He yelled, as he climbed out of his grip, descending towards the ground.

  Talon immediately pivoted and his wings retraced to his arms. Sohjin’s eyes widened as he cut through the air creating a wave of air that sliced through the air, towards him.

  Sohjin sliced through the oncoming wave of air. As he got back into his stance, blood dripped from his forehead and arms.

  “Huh? I cut through it, didn't I?” Sohjin said, glancing at the cut on his arms.

  Talon took the same stance, and sliced through the air creating more air crescents. Sohjin once again sliced through the first air crescent getting sliced again.

  Sohjin dodged out of the way of the oncoming attacks. “I get it, it seems that my blade only disrupts where I cut and not the attack!”

  He dodged the rest of the attacks, and dashed up to him, and engaged in a clash. Sohjin’s blade and Talon’s wings locked, grinding against steel, until Sohjin broke free with a sharp upward slash.

  Sohjin drifted back, as Talon spun around, firing feathers at him. Sohjin parried each feather, sparks flew off at contact.

  Talon used his momentum from his swing to violently launch himself into Sohjin. He lunged his wing forward. Sohjin narrowly dodged it, feeling his wing whistle past his ear.

  Sohjin retaliated and with a downward strike, forcing Talon to block, the impact shook both of their arms.

  Above him, a large shadow engulfed them. He glanced up and saw Frostbite with his hands together.

  He grinned, “Ice Rim” from the tips of his fingers a long, but sharp icicle formed and shot at them.

  Sohjin did an upward slash, breaking out of his clash with Talon, while dodging the attack. The Ice Rim slammed into a wall below them, instantly freezing it.

  His earpiece crackles, “Sohjin..Jack is on his way.”

  Frostbite clasped his hands, creating more icicles in between his knuckles, throwing them at Talon and Sohjin.

  Sohjin acted immediately, raising his blade to knock away the attack. As the icicle came hit his blade, the force caused his hand to slightly loosen on his hilt and his blade slowly became frozen.

  The remaining icicles flew in, ready to strike, but Sohjin effortlessly dodged them, using his E-dash to pull himself away from the attack while staying in the air.

  Sohjin E-dashed up to Frostbite, imbuing his energy with his Seishin. His purple Seishin flowed onto his blade like water, and with a quick upward slash, he sliced through Frostbite.

  His ear bud crackled once more. “Sohjin…is this thing working?”

  Talon rushed from behind and launched a right hook. Sohjin ducked, the punch barley grazing his hair. Sohjin tightened his grip on his hilt and slashed Talon, blood splattered from his small wound, as he got knocked back.

  “Cj, don’t this ear thing works anymore” the voice became more clear and sounded like Alex.

  “Ice Rim!” Frostbite said, clasping his hand and firing more icicles.

  Sohjin darted to the side and E-Dashed to Frostbite, who created ice gauntlets.

  The voice crackled again, “Sohjin, if you can hear this you're doing well so far.”

  Sohjin gritted his teeth, irritation rising. “Would you shut up! I can't focus!” Sohjin clashed with Frostbite.

  “I can see you fading, it’s only a matter of time.” Frostbite said. “Once I capture you, I’ll go for your friends and I will play around with them!”

  Sohjin imbued his sword with his seishin, it started as purple and slowly burned into a fiery red, creating a mixture of the two colors. “Not if I stop you.” Sohjin shouted, and thrusted his sword in an upward motion releasing Frostbites grip on his sword, and in the same motion sliced in a downward motion slicing Frostbite.

  Blood squirted from his injury, and leaped back to recover but Sohjin followed up with a barrage of attacks. Frostbite parried each attack, filling the arena with the sound of metal clashing.

  Frostbite fients his jab, causing Sohjin to slip to his left, and tries to punish him, but Frostbite quickly raises his right leg, covering it in ice and roundhouse kicks him.

  The force causes Sohjin to fly towards the ground. Frostbite vanishes, appearing besides Sohjin, and clasping his hands, slamming them into him, sending him into the ground.

  As Sohjin tumbled through the ground below, Frostbite vanished in front of him and kicked him into the air, sending him through a tall structure that resembled a clock tower. Frostbite vanished again and appeared behind him, and backhanded Sohjin into the roof of the clock tower.

  Sohjin slowly got up, his vision blurred and his body ached. His heart beat faster than ever as blood dripped from his wounds. He struggled to grip his blade and stand upright.

  “I can’t do this anymore. My body is done!” Sohjin said, breathing heavily. “Twice that's my limit. That’s how many times I can use Tenshido in one day. I can use it one more time before my body collapses.

  Sohjin analyzes Frostbite looking at him, anticipating his next move. “He's definitely going to vanish again. I need to bait it out.”

  He brought his sword over his head, imbuing it with his purple energy. “Get ready!” He repeated to himself. In a blink of an eye, Frostbite vanished, appearing above him. “It’s a trick, MOVE BODY TURN TO THE LEFT!” He thought, his body screamed at him in pain as he twisted his body to the left.

  The attack hit and knocked him into the air. Sohjin followed and kept attacking. Below, Talon flew up towards them.

  Sohjin quickly knocked away Frostbite and used him to jump above them.

  “Now’s my chance” He said, pulling his sword to his side. His blade overflowed with purple and white energy like before, flickering like a lighter trying to spark..

  “TENNNN….” He started, but his heart skipped a beat, as his eyes immediately darted to Frostbite who had his hands by his side.

  “HYOUKAI!!!!” He shouted, the wind and everything around it freezed. The temperature dropped almost immediately.

  “No! NO NO NO!” He shouted. “I don’t have enough time to dodge, the beam is too big!”

  “TSURARAAA” He cried, throwing his hands in front of him. Talon looked back and became engulfed by the beam.

  “I don’t have much time! NO! THINK! THINK!!” He said, he closed his eyes and guarded and prepared for the worst.

  “THIS CAN’T BE IT NO N—” He stopped.

  “Harmonic expansion.” A familiar voice said.

  Sohjin opened his eyes and saw a red barrier form around him. Rock music played as the barrier formed.

  “Sorry I’m late Spectre.” Amp said. “Got caught with some sand lady.”

  “JACK!” Sohjin said. Amp stood in front of him with his arms in front of him strengthening the barrier.

  “Stand back, once this attack is over use tenshido on preferably the ice guy.” Amp said. “And don’t worry about Seishin. My barrier will supply you with some Seishin.”

  Before the beam crashed into the barrier, Amp said, “HARMONIC AMPLIFICATION.” And a green barrier formed over them, healing both of them. A mix of classical rock played.

  The beam finally clashed into the barrier and consumed it. Frostbite smiled and dropped his hands.

  But his happiness quickly vanished as a voice called out “Woah, I’m impressed…” As the icy smoke cleared the barrier still stood unscathed.

  “This barrier sure is something.” Amp said with a grin.

  Frostbite frowned and looked around Amp for Sohjin. “Where is he—-” He stopped and heard a sound of energy crackling behind him.

  He slowly turned around and was met with Sohjin who was standing behind him, with his sword getting ready to strike.

  “TENNSHIDDOO!” He cried, and the energy wave flew off and crashed into Frostbite, sending him towards Amp.

  Amp smiled and repositioned himself to Frostbites trajectory. He snapped his fingers and created a music box above his head. Music notes flew around him. He then cocked his arm back and in his palm gathered all of the music notes and crushed them.

  As he got ready to fire it, his hand began to vibrate and hints of light escaped his hands.

  “HRGGHH HAAAAA!” He shouted as he opened his hand and a large beam slammed into Frostbite sending him crashing into the ground.

  Sohjin smiled and gave him a thumbs up. Amp’s smile quickly faded, “BEHIND YOU!” He warned.

  Sohjin quickly turns around and instinctively blocks.

  “Thanks for getting rid of Frostbite. It narrows the playing field.” Talon says.

  “No worries, it’s just one step closer to victory.” Sohjin responded. Adrenaline flowed through him as they traded attacks.

  Each strike they become faster and faster, almost becoming a blur to the crowd. The crowd erupts into cheers. Jack landed on a nearby building, catching his breath as he watched them like a proud dad.

  Talon found an opening and sent a series of slashes with his wings. Sohjin ducked and dodged out of the way and quickly got to his feet.

  Talon flapped his wings and gained altitude. He soared high in the air before diving straight down like a missile, aiming straight for Sohjin. Talon was too fast for Sohjin to react and slammed into Sohjin, grabbing him in the process.

  Sohjin wiggled and his hand broke free from his grasp. He punched Talon in the face, causing them to fly through a nearby building. As the dust settled, Sohjin and Talon walked around each other ready to fight.

  Jack leaped off the building, he was perched on, landing on the ground nearby Frostbite. He walked carefully and with caution towards him. The ground surrounding Frostbite turned to snow.

  “It’s quit…too quiet.” Jack balled his hand into a fist preparing for a battle. “I need to find him and take him down.”

  Jack traversed the icy mist, each step crushing the snow below him. The surrounding temperature immediately dropped. Jack snapped his fingers, his blazing red aura outlined his body, instantly warming him up.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Jack spotted something shimmering through the icey mist. Jack immediately sprung into action, dashing towards it. Before Jack could get any closer the ground became ice. Jack came to a stop, looking at the ground below.

  His eyes widened as he slowly looked up at an ice crystal that encased Frostbite.

  Next time on Spirit Of Hope,

  Chapter 14: Wings of Fury: Spectre V Talon.