Chapter 36: Test Your Might
Bryce, Violet, Rio, and even Staravia were sitting on the couches, waiting for the rest of the team to arrive.
"Do you two always play on those contraptions this often?" Rio asked, slightly bored.
"Apparently not enough, because I'm doing very badly right now." Bryce responded, his eyes not leaving the screen. He and Violet were playing Mario Kart DS, and they were tied in points, going into Rainbow Road. Bryce was going into the loop as he got sent flying off while he was upside-down from a red shell.
"Dang it V! I fall for that every time!"
Violet let out a maniacal laugh. Bryce paused the game and slowly turned to her.
"…Okay, THAT was creepy."
He turned off the pause and started to catch up. Eventually, they were neck and neck as they crossed the finish line. There was an eerie silence as the times appeared.
At the same time, they both yelled, "We TIED?"
The game went to the award ceremony, where Toad was on the number one spot.
Violet laughed as Bryce stared blankly at the screen. "What the- what?" Then it hit him. "Aw, I just got Luigi'd!" (1) He sighed. "Fine game, have it your way." (2)
A portal appeared in front of the group, and Grovyle stepped out.
"Did we get a few more teammates?" He asked, looking at Violet and Staravia.
Rio shook his head. "Not quite, but I'll explain once Haunter and Quilava get here. In the meantime I'll show you to your room."
Nodding, Grovyle picked up his stuff. Strapping his guitar on his back, he grabbed the other two bags, one in each hand.
"You're a guitarist?" Bryce asked.
"Yeah, have been for almost five years." Grovyle responded as he walked out with Rio. No sooner had they left had another portal appeared with Quilava emerging. Looking at Staravia and Violet, his eyes narrowed. He looked at Bryce.
"Well?"
"Rio said he'd explain once everyone got here. He's showing Grovyle to his room."
"…Very well."
Standing up, he started walking towards the northern hallway. "While we're waiting on Haunter, I'll show you where your room is."
Quilava nodded, picking up his belongings and following Bryce down the hallway. As they walked towards the bedrooms, Bryce got the feeling that Quilava was glaring at him. He wasn't surprised though, he had narrowly defeated him in the contest. As they drew near the door, Bryce turned around and opened the door. "I trust you know how to design the room?"
He nodded.
"Alright, then I'll meet you back in the living room."
Eyes not leaving Bryce's, he nodded again before disappearing into the room as Bryce walked back into the living room. "Haunter still not here yet?"
Rio shook his head. "Strange, I'd imagined it wouldn't ta-"
"take very long for me to get here?"
Rio jumped as Haunter and Violet laughed.
*Geez, those two could make an evil tag-team mastermind.* Bryce thought.
A few minutes later:
Everyone had found their rooms and gotten everything situated. Bryce and the rest of the group were back in the living room where Rio stood in front of them.
"Okay, first things first. Violet and Staravia aren't officially part of the team, but they will be staying here. They're friends of mine and there's more than enough room here."
Bryce almost sighed in relief. He thought there might be a chance he would announce why they were here. No one had objected to it, whether because they didn't care or they didn't want to create friction, Bryce wasn't sure.
"…so, I received our assignments for the next week," Rio continued, "and there are several exercises, both individual and team, that we need to complete before then. If everyone is ready, I'd like to get started now."
The team nodded, and they rose and headed off to the portal room. Bryce winked at Violet as they left. She smiled at his disappearing figure.
As they walked into the room, Bryce noticed there was a new portal available. Everyone walked into it as the light consumed them…
They all appeared in a room that was solid white and a lone computer in the corner. Rio put his hand on the recognizer.
"Select participants." A computerized voice said. Digital pictures of Rio, Bryce, Quilava, Haunter and Grovyle appeared on the screen. Rio selected all of the pictures and hit finish.
"Select level." The same voice said. The numbers one through five appeared, however this time all of the numbers except one were grayed out, signaling that they were unavailable to be selected. Rio chose the only option as the format of the area changed…
The team was now in a dark hallway with lights every few feet, creating little pools of light. There was a turn to the right at the end, and nobody appeared to be here.
"Okay, so how do we go about this?" Grovyle asked.
"Haunter, can you fly up and check out the surrounding view?" Rio asked.
Nodding, Haunter began to float higher and higher, until a loud electrical noise was heard before he fell back down, covered in smoke. Coughing, he said with a now scratched voice, "Okay, I'm not trying THAT again."
"Looks like we're going to have to just play it by ear." Rio said. They began walking down the hallway. As he was about to turn the corner, Haunter grabbed him and pulled him back. "I hear noises."
Careful to not be spotted, Haunter peered around the corner. "Drones."
Haunter was correct. There were two sentry drones patrolling the next hallway, which seemed to curve around.
"Okay, let's assume if they spot us before we can defeat them, then we'll lose." Rio said.
Haunter continued to look at the drones. "Looks like they have pretty weak defenses. If we could just get one good hit on them before they spot us, they'll go down instantly."
Bryce examined the hallway and noticed a crevasse with a yellow book hiding within it. "I just might have an idea. Haunter, got anything to stop the drones from seeing for a minute?"
He nodded, pulling out a few smoke balls and a detonator.
"Perfect. Just distract them for a moment and I'll take care of the rest."
"They're not going to last long enough for you to beat both of them, and you don't have any tomes to use anyway."
"Not now, but I will."
Haunter smirked demonically. "All right, let's give it a shot."
All That Remains- Two Weeks
Haunter threw the smoke balls directly at the guards and detonated them as soon as they touched. Running as fast as he could, Bryce ran forward and grabbed the spell book. Just as he returned, the haze had cleared, and the guards were moving closer to the intersection where the team was hidden.
"Quickly, which of us is the fastest?" Bryce said.
Quilava stepped forward.
"Okay, it's now or never." Bryce focused his magic towards Quilava's feet, causing sparks to appear below his feet. "Good, now all we need is a weapon."
Haunter handed over some throwing knives and a short sword. "All I've got." He said.
"That'll do. Now just run and slash each one of 'em once."
Quilava sped around the corner with lightning speed and easily decapitated the first drone before immediately cutting the second one in half.
"Let's go." Rio said, and the whole team continued on.
The rest of the level was fairly simple. Just a few guards that Haunter, Bryce and Rio all took out at once, and they also picked up some weapons: two steel swords, fire and wind tomes, and a strong pair of iron boots.
Eventually the group reached a clearing with seven different pathways, each with a letter above them: Q, R, B, G, and H, along with a Δ logo and a FINAL along the two easternmost hallways.
After a quick survey, Rio turned to his team. "Split up. The first letter of your name is the path you take." He ran down the "R" path as Quilava, Bryce, and Grovyle ran down their correct paths.
"But what about the…and they're gone." Haunter sighed, going down the "H" path. (3)
Quilava stopped suddenly as the pathway reached a dead-end. As he turned, however, a red wall materialized, stopping him from progressing back. At the same moment, several shadowed warriors appeared. Quilava drew both of his swords, took up a fighting stance, and prepared for battle.
As we all know, Luigi is very commonly in Mario games, player two. Also, if two players tie in a racing game, usually player one is declared the winner and player two gets second. This is the Luigi syndrome aka Luigi'd, and thus proves, yet again, that Nintendo hates Luigi.
Please, no Burger King jokes. We all know it :P
No, Haunter will not be the "joke player" of the group (unless I just feel like it, but as of now, no).
Author's Notes: Well, it's been a while, readers. First thing to cover: why there have been no updates. I'm currently under the wonderful luck of having my entire family go from 3 cars to 1. (My dad wrecked one, yes he's fine, and my cousin is a freeloader and he "borrowed" our other one.) Second, I might have mentioned this before, but last October I passed out and my mom went psycho and had me checked for blood pressure EVERYWHERE we went. Like the dentist. Seriously. I got an EKG and recently an echo test (which weren't painful, seeing my heart in the echo was kind of cool) at 16, and 'yall, that's pretty dang scary. I'm about 90% sure that it's just blood pressure, which isn't terrible, but it is still something to keep a monitor on. Haven't got all of my results back yet. I know, excuses, but hey, I'm still alive and kickin'. I also turned 17 a few days ago (February 15), so that was cool. If you couldn't see the triangle like logo on FanFiction, I apologize about that, but it will be explained in a later chapter. If you can, who knows? You might know what it is. I'll go over stuff I want you all to reply to in the comments in the next part (which were both finished at the same time, but I decided to split into 2 parts so you could see the new chapter update and then get 2 chapters at once). Rock on brothers (and sisters :P) And as always, thanks for your continued support of this story!
-DeltaViolet21