“Game over,” Terry said.” I finally caught you and you will not be dodging this time,”
“Sandalphon, break free!” Max cried out. Sandalphon began to glow with a familiar light. The concrete, holding his legs bound, exploded apart, creating a cloud of dust. Abboud rolled into the dust cloud, and a large crashing sound came from inside. A bright light could be seen emanating from inside the cloud.
“OOOOHH,” the crowd gasped, they assumed the light was Sandalphon’s shattered hologram.
The dust cloud settled and there was Sandalphon floating in the air on his white shining angelic wings, flapping, keeping him afloat. Abboud was below him slowly collecting himself after having crashed into the arena wall. The wings had allowed Sandalphon to narrowly escape Abboud’s rolling charge.
“Alright Sandalphon let’s finish this.” Max said as Sandalphon flew higher into the air. Then, using his wings, he became like a hawk speeding down to his pray. Sandalphon drove with his feet first landing onto Abboud’s head with a great stomp. The golem was crushed into pieces from the force of the dive.
Sandalphon stood over the smashed rock, managing to look majestic to Max, despite having a torn and tattered tunic, dirt stains all over his body, and a busted up right hand. The crushed rock started to move together once more, but the damage was too much this time and Abboud’s shattered body began to break apart into glittering holographic pieces in the tell tale sign that the avatar had received too damaged to keep going.
“Abboud is unable to fight. The winner, Sandalphon!” the announcer said as the last of Abboud’s body flickered away.
“WOOOHHOOO” The crowd cheered.
Terry walked across the arena and stuck out his hand to Max. Max looked at it, then to Terry, and met him in a handshake.
“This is the first time I have lost to a celestial type,” Terry said. “You and Sandalphon are tough, I used every last trick I had there. I got to ask. How did you get out of that concrete?
“I am not sure myself. It must have something to do with Sandalphon’s wings,” Max answered.
“You better win this tournament.”
“Thanks. I do plan on winning it.”
Chapter 12
Lizzy: the strongest middle school Clash player!
Max’s fight against Terry had been the first one of the day so he hung around the stadium to watch the other fights. The Stadium was nearly full with most seats taken. After his match, Max just randomly chose a place in the stands to sit and watch from.
The tournament bracket was set so that Max’s next opponent would be the winner of the next match. The two avatars came out on stage and were introduced as a necro type, minotaur warrior, and a mermaid water elemental type. The minotaur avatar belonged to an older kid, Mike, who was in the high school Clash club. The mermaid belonged to the girl Lizzy from the middle school Clash club.
“Rule them all! Cleita, queen of Atlantis,” Lizzy said her battle cry, as her avatar appeared on the stage. Lizzy’s avatar had a large green scaled tail fin instead of legs, and long slightly curly red hair. She wore a green fish scaled coat of armor, that matched her tail fin. The mermaid had a golden right shoulder guard, that stuck out to the side, over her right arm. She wielded a three spiked golden trident and had a golden tiara. On her back she wore a long transparent cloak that looked like it was made from water that swayed when she moved. Max thought she really did look like the queen of Atlantis.
“Hack and slash, stomp and grind’em, Kaz!” Mike said his battle cry. His minotaur wore a black steel breast plate with black chain mail sticking out from underneath it. He wielded a large two-handed flail with a black steel ball hanging off the chain. He had dark brown fur that covered his whole body, with white ivory horns on his head, and gray hoofs for feet. He was heavily muscled, tall. Cleita only stood up to his shoulder. If Max were to guess, his Sandalphon would only be slightly taller.
The countdown for the fight finished, and the two avatars went at it. Kaz was unrelenting in his blows, never pausing, swinging his flail around in a blur. Cleita was mostly on the defense, blocking and dodging the attacks. The mermaid was surprisingly agile, balancing on her fin. After a low swing of the flail, Cleita lay flat on the ground beneath the attack and swung her tail around to sweep the feet out from under Kaz. The large minotaur fell to the floor from the attack. Cleita hooked her trident on the chain of the flail and attempted to jerk the weapon loose. The minotaur was too strong and held on to its flail. Turning the move against her, it pulled and yanked the trident from her hands.
While Kaz was still prone, Cleita’s fin disappeared and was replaced by a set of human legs. Then, holding her arm outstretched towards Kaz, she summoned a torrent of water that shot out and slammed Kaz, sending Kaz flying back. She ran over and retrieved her trident while Kaz was still recovering from the blast of water. Getting up the minotaur set its flail swinging, but instead of charging towards Cleita, the flail extended and the ball flew out towards her. She easily sidestepped the ball. Then quickly threw her trident weapon at Kaz. The trident was perfectly thrown, but bounced off the minotaur’s black steel breast plate. The disappointment of the attack failing, could be read in Lizzy’s slumped shoulders.
The minotaur retracted his extended fail and set it once again spinning. It charged at the weaponless Cleita. She reached up into her shoulder guard and produced a net. She flung it at the minotaur, entangling it. Then she circled around it and she retrieved her trident.
The minotaur’s flail got caught up in the net, it took a moment for the minotaur to free itself. The minotaur look furious and red rage essence seemed to flow out of him collecting above him. The red rage essence looked like steam leaving the minotaur’s body. The red rage took shape into a transparent, gigantic red minotaur wielding a giant sword. In a massive downward swing, the red minotaur sent a blast wave of power towards Cleita.
Cleita’s water cloak shot out and intercepted the wave splitting it in half, the wave pounded past Cleita, on either side of her. The mermaid then could be seen taking in a deep breath; she unleashed a super sonic blast at the minotaur. The sonic blast could be heard by all the audience as a high pitched screeching sound. The blast stunned Kaz and he stood there in a daze.
“Goodnight,” Lizzy said, in a sweet girly voice. Cleita walked up and in a mighty swing smacked her trident, in a critical hit, across the minotaur’s head knocking him to the floor. Kaz’s holographic body began to break up and shattered into pieces. Cleita had won the battle and so it was determined that Lizzy would be Max’s next fight
Chapter 13
The surprising conversation!
Max was watching Lizzy after the fight. After disconnecting her band from the stadium, she seemed to look up right at him. She walked over to the stairs leading up to his seat. Max was freaking out.
Is she coming up to talk to me? He wondered.
Max turned away as she came right up to his level of seats and then went one past them to the next level higher.
“Hey, how did you like that fight?” She said to someone behind Max.
“You-were-awesome,” another girl said, Max thought he recognized the voice. “When the giant red bull came out I thought you were done for. He had never used that move before,”
“I was so surprised by that, he didn’t do that in any of his fights before,” Lizzy said, sitting down on the bench next to the other girl. “I’m so angry that the trident didn’t finish him when Cleita threw it. I thought that attack would work even against his armor.”
“I know, he must have had some strong armor.”
Max thought for a second of whose friends Lizzy were in school. He put the voice with a face from memory and thought it must be her friend April.
“You got the last fight of the day, right?” Lizzy asked April.
“Yep, we are going to be here a while until it is time for my fight,” April said.
“I wonder how Max got Sandalphon
out of that concrete,” Lizzy said, changing the subject.
“I was wondering that too. Oh, if you didn’t notice Max is sitting right here,” April said. The blood in Max’s veins froze.
“What?” Lizzy said, and then after a while, “Max is that you?”
Max turned around and gave a weak wave. “Hey Liz, good fight,” he said. He felt guilty for eavesdropping on their conversation.
“You were in the fight before me. You won too,” Lizzy stated. She was a little shaken to have seen Max so suddenly.
“Yeah, I was astonished to see you were going to be my next opponent,” Max said.
“Astonished?” Lizzy said, raising an eyebrow. “You don’t think I’m good enough to be in this tournament?”
“What? No...” Max said really confused at her anger.
“She happens to be one of the best Clash players there is and she is going to win this tournament and play in the state championship,” April said. Both girls got up and walked away to another set of seats.
Max sat there confused going over in his head what he said. He threw his hands up and thought to himself - Women! Unable to comprehend what just happened.
Watching the remaining battles Max saw all his possible future opponents. April ended up losing her battle. It looked to Max that she did not really try that hard to begin with anyway. She had not even seemed disappointed at losing.
To Max’s surprise there was another celestial type still left in the tournament. An older guy had an avatar named Guh, that was a white furred werewolf, dressed in white robes wielding a red crystal staff. The avatar he was fighting was a black scaled half dragon humanoid named Degoth. At the start of the fight Guh rushed in towards Degoth and swung his staff scoring a hit on Degoth’s side. Degoth took and ignored the blow. Degoth’s shadow then stepped out of the ground becoming solid and grabbed hold of Guh. The shadow extended and wrapped itself around Guh binding his arms and legs. Degoth then opened its jaws wide and released a black flamed, swirling inferno, that engulfed Guh. When the flames settled Guh’s hologram shattered falling to pieces. The fight was announced over. Max was shocked to see a fight over in less than fifteen seconds.
Max overheard some rumors from the crowd going around about Logan, Degoth’s player, and how he came to Collis just to play in this tournament. Supposedly he had fought Collis’s last year’s champion at the state tournament and thought that Collis Clash players were all weak. So he came to this tournament for an easy win to get back into the state tournament again.
After the matches had ended Max called his parents to come get him and he wondered if school this Monday would be like last weeks or if his win would go unnoticed.
Chapter 14
Field trip to the power station!
That school week started like a normal school week for Max. He hung out with his friends and the only special thing he did was go to the Clash club’s meetings for more practice. He did not officially sign up to be in the club, but still used their equipment to practice on. No one challenged him to a clash duel first thing Monday like they had the week before.
One day during the week Max was sitting in his math class when he looked over and saw Lizzy staring at him. He stared back for a second expecting her to turn away, but she did not. After a while of the two staring at each other she made a face at him and looked down to her notes. After class he tried to talk to her, but she ran away when ever he got close. She ended up avoiding him like that all week.
Max did not care for the idea of having someone mad at him for a reason he did not understand. He decided to ask the guys in the club what was the deal with Lizzy.
“Lizzy won’t talk to me, do you guys know why?” Max asked.
“She takes Clash very seriously. From what I remember she was one of the first people I know to get an armband,” TJ said.
“She also really wanted to fight with Gervasee in the tournament. You ruined that for her,” Chris said.
“She had all these new movies she wanted to use against him in the tournament. So she is probably mad at that she won’t be able to reveal them against Gervasee in a match.” TJ said.
“So she will be using them against me in our match this weekend.” Max said.
“Yeah, good luck with that”. Chris said.
Max’s class had a field trip Thursday. They were to go see the island’s electrical power station. Years back the world had switched off fossil fuels to renewable energy sources and they were going to study how the station produced power. The power station was located on the opposite side of the island from the town. The trip would be about the farthest they could travel without leaving the island. While they rode the bus on their way to the station, the students were allowed to use electronic devices to entertain themselves. This included the Clash arm bands.
“Ok Max, it is time for our rematch,” Jonathan said, sitting across the aisle from Max.
“If you think Telatron is ready for another beating. Sure, let’s do this.” Max said.
Max pulled out his arm band and put it on. He switched it on and Sandalphon appeared on his lap. He reached out and cupped his hand around Sandalphon. The avatar was not solid, but interacted with his hand. He held Sandalphon in his hand and set him down on the aisle floor.
Jonathan switched his band on making Telatron appear in the aisle next to Sandalphon.
“In our first battle I didn’t get to use Telatron’s bazooka.” Jonathan said.
“I don’t think it will make much of a difference.” Max said.
Max brought up the holographic projected screen display on his band. He found Telatron’s link signal coming from Jonathan’s band and requested a fight. The request went to Jonathan’s arm band, he pressed accept. Max pushed the button to start the fight and a countdown from five was started.
Right at the start of the fight Jonathan’s bazooka fired off a shot. His aim was off and the shot went past Sandalphon. It kept going down the aisle to the back of the bus and slammed into a girl’s leg. She yelled out, not in pain, but surprise.
“Oh man,” Jonathan said.
Sandalphon moved in closer to Telatron. The bazooka reloaded and fired off another shot. Sandalphon jumped over the shot, but he really did not have to, it was another wild shot. Telatron tried to run before Sandalphon got to him, but Sandalphon was too fast and grappled Telatron down to the ground.
“Okay, I give up.” Jonathan said. He turned off his band ending the fight before Sandalphon could finish Telatron off. Telatron broke into holographic shards in Sandalphon’s hands
“I think you could do with some firing practice, there Jonnie.” Max said.
“It is hard to aim from this angle. If I could see from Telatron’s eyes it would have hit.” Jonathan said.
The bus got closer to the power station and the wind turbines could be seen from a distance. The teachers called for everyone to put away their electronics to watch the turbines as they got closer. Most of the students had seen the wind turbines before, but the teachers wanted to point out some facts about the wind turbines. The things were tall and could be seen from miles away. They stood 40 meters high and the blades of the wind turbines were 20 meters long each. When they spun at their fastest they could complete their rotation in less than 4 seconds. The base of the turbines was set up to change direction to always be facing the wind for maximum efficiency.
The wind turbines were placed up and down a hill on this side of the island. On the southern side of the hill there was also a field of solar panels. On the south side, they could better collect the sun’s rays for more direct light to be used for electricity conversion.
The school bus stopped at the building that housed the giant batteries that collected the electricity for the power station. The students emptied out of the bus and went inside where Tim Smith, the manager of the station, was there to guide them through a tour of the plant.
“In this building we house the batteries that
get charged all year long.” Tim said starting a presentation of the building. “In recent years, our technologies around batteries have improved greatly. In the past it was a struggle to store energy created with daylight to last a single day. Now we can store energy that lasts for half a year. In the summer we collect much more energy than in the winter. So thanks to the giant batteries, we have here in this building we can save the energy collected to last all the way to spring.”
“What are the new batteries made of?” A girl from Max’s class asked.
“Excellent question. They aren’t really batteries to be honest. They way the batteries here work are not like the batteries you know. Inside these battery tanks” Tim pointed behind him to large metal tanks “we have a set of little nano machines that make microscopic springs. Another set of nano machines use those springs to power tiny generators. We can store the microscopic springs into these large tanks like a liquid to use for later. So these are not really like batteries anymore, they are more like fuel tanks. The description of ‘battery’ carries over from when the station did have giant batteries.” Tim said. “By creating these microscopic springs we retain 98% of the power that was put into making them in the first place. The microscopic springs can last up to years, but the longer you don’t use them the less power you can get out of them. So the best time to use them is within 6 months.”
“Are these tanks explosive?” Max asked.
“They can be.” The class’s eyes lit up. “But don’t be alarmed the way we have it stored will prevent any explosions from happening. We use a special chemical solution to mix with the spring liquid that helps keep it inert. But that is enough boring stuff about the batteries. Now you are going to get your hands dirty helping us to clean and inspect the solar panels.” Tim said leading them to the side.
Tim led them to an area to pick up cleaning supplies and electronical equipment. The panel’s surfaces were to be cleaned with simple soapy water and a sponge, and then wiped off with a squeegee. The electronical equipment would be plugged into the panels to diagnose how well they were working. The teachers split them up into groups and each group worked on different panels. They took measurements before and after they cleaned the panels. The class was learning how the amount of energy that panels put out after cleaning was larger. Showing that cleaning them had an effect and how important it was to keep them clean.