I can't believe I was talking with shade long enough for 15 more matches to go by. Whatever, It doesn't matter now I need to get out there.

I leave the waiting area at a quick pace. I head down the hallway that leads out into the arena. I can see the light at the end and can hear the loud cheering of the crowd. Everyone is really enjoying the festivities. I just hope I don't disappoint.

I walk out into the colosseum and the first thing I notice is how truly massive it is. It's made entirely out of marble. So the whole thing has an ornament look to it. I heard about the specks on this place from the Guardians, but seeing it is an entirely different thing. It's supposed to house well over 5,000 dragons, but looking at it now, It seems underestimated.

"Now for the last match of the 1st round! We have Zarden! Vs. Sam!"

That's right, I'm getting ready to fight someone. So who's Zarden?

I look over to the other side of the arena and to my surprise, it's the rude fire drake from before. I Roll my eyes, I guess it's time for round two.

We both went to the middle of the arena to our starting positions 10 meters apart from each other and waited for the signal to start.

I was content with just standing there waiting in silence, but then Zarden snarls at me. I look over in his direction and he's glaring at me. Then, under his breath, with as much venom as he couldn't muster, he spoke, "I'm going to put you in your place you disgusting creature."

I was ready to retort, but the dragon overseeing the match cut me off. "Ready! IBegin!"

Immediately he lunges at me and I jump to the left. He tried to pivot and swipe at me, but he fell flat on his face. He looks back at his hind leg to see a root wrapped around it. He lights it on fire and pulls his leg free. I don't want to fight him in close quarters. So I use a gust of wind to push us away from each other.

All I have to do is break his shield. I can't think of anything that can do that in my wind arsenal besides hit and run tactics. I could just pin him down with a strong wind like I did to Mrs. Bitch, but I can't hear that well when I'm using wind that strong and I'm not out to hurt anybody. No matter how much this jerk deserves it. Plan B it is then.

I pushed some extra energy into the ground and had a large flower bulb pop up.

Zarden fires a shot at me and yells, "this isn't a flower show, now get serious!"

"Glad you like it!" Then I take off. I fly straight at him at high speeds while staying close to the ground. It kicked up a ton of dust and when I stopped just short of him, it all went in his face. I then used the smoke screen to move over to his side and I began my assault. Using my wind element I leap and take a strike at him, but my claws seem to just deflect off. I didn't plan to dig deep, but I at least expected it to leave a scratch. Then I realized that it was the effects of the shield. So I quickly continued my assault. I kept leaping back and forth with a quick pace to keep him off balance. Each strike was weakening him.

He finally ducks and it makes me stumble. So my assault comes to an abrupt stop. He growls and charges up for an attack. I'm assuming it's going to be a comet dash, but I just sit down and point to my right. He glances to his left, but by then it was too late. A beam of energy collides with the side of him and knocks him to the ground. He was out cold.

It was the only thing I could think of to take him down within the time limit. The only problem, it takes way too damn long to charge. He could have either moved out of the range of fire or just burnt down the plant. So I had to play decoy for my own attack. Luckily for me, he had an issue with me and was too short sighted.

The Overseer came over and checked on Zarden and ruled him to be K.Oed.

"The winner is Sam!" The crowd cheers and the Overseer raises his paw and they quiet down. "With that, the first round matches are all complete. We will take a 20 minute break and pick this back up after lunch."

I turn to leave the arena to go find my friends when all of a sudden I get tackled from the side. I ended up on my back looking up at Lumus

"That was amazing! How did you do that!"

She was straddling me and it made me blush a little bit at the awkward position we were in. "It was just some nature magic n..nothing special."

"Are you kidding me! I didn't know that it could do that!"

"Heh heh… heh, it can, But um, do you mind letting me up. They're getting ideas." I gesture to Spyro and Cynder.

Lumus looks over and sees them both snickering. She blushes deeply and gets off me. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it to come off like that."

I get up and stretch out, "it's no problem. They're just gonna poke fun at us for a while." I lean closer to her and whisper, "that just means we gotta get em back."

She snickered a bit at the thought of that. "Your right, it sounds like fun too."

I turn to Spyro and Cynder, "so how did your matches go?"

Spyro shrugged, "They went. Both me and Lumus just did one hit K.Os. Cynder was the only one to really hold back."

"Oh ya! That reminds me. The dragoness you were fighting was sent to me to get healed and she wanted me to ask you if you would mind teaching her some moves when you got some free time."

"I wouldn't mind, she was good."

"Cool. So anyway, let's get some lunch before I get stuffed back into the waiting room."

Spyro sighs, "I still can't believe you're not allowed to watch until you've participated, it's not fair to the people who go last."

"Ya, but I get it. The guardians have several reasons to have it that way. Mostly to make sure everyone is there and keeping everything moving."

Lumus clears her throat, "so what are we gonna get for lunch?"

Cynder quickly throws her idea out,"Pork!"

I look at her with a raised brow, "In the mood for bacon?"

"Ya, I missed breakfast this morning. So I'm in the mood for something close."

So we went out and got something similar to pork rinds. It was a weird mix of chewy and crunchy. It was different from what I like but everyone else enjoyed it.

We finished fairly quickly so we got some time to just chill and hang out.

After the 20 minutes It was time for the third round matches. Apparently Lumus and Cynder are supposed to face off in this set and whoever wins has a chance to fight Spyro in the semi finals.

I'm the last match again so I won't get to watch again and it sucks. I can just imagine it now. All of the cool moves out there, I'm missing out. I'll miss the fight between Lumus and Cynder too. So time drags on like the last set of matches until it's my turn to go out.

I'm up against a lightning dragoness this time. Her name is Jewel, I've met her before. She's not an idiot, so my same trick isn't going to work twice. I'll have to think of something different.

I pondered this for some time, I've got one more match before my own. The first round I had tons of time to think up multiple ways to beat my first opponent. Now that they have an idea of what I can do. So they are definitely coming up with ways to overcome it.

I'll just have to try and improv at this point. Though that might be a little hard considering she's a lightning dragon. She can jump from place to place in an instant with her lightning, so trying to stay a step ahead of her is going to be tough. She may not be able to do anything while jumping but that instantaneous movement can put her into a strategic position. That leaves me with three options. I would either have to predict her, use more than wind and nature, or just plain over power her.

It's too late to worry about it now. It's time for my match. I enter the arena and go to the starting position. The overseer for this round of matches did the introductions and gave us the signal to start.

As soon as she said begin, Jewel had zapped to the left side of me. She kicked me in the side before I could react. I stumbled to the right and she zapped to that side and hit me again. She continued this hit and run tactic and she wouldn't give me a chance to regain my balance.

If I don't figure a way out of this I'm going to lose.

I have an idea, so instead of trying to stay standing I let myself fall to the ground. I hunker down to the ground and start gathering as much of my wind element I can muster.

As soon as I have enough, I throw out a windshield. It's only big enough for me to stand in so she shouldn't be able to zap her way inside. That leaves her with her lightning to try and break through by force.

Ok the shield won't hold forever and I can't stay on the defensive either otherwise she'll win at the end of time for landing more hits on me. The only way I can win now is to K.O. Her. I should be able to use my nature magic easier since she can't burn it down so easily.

That's my game plan then. I shove as much energy into the ground as I can and a giant tangle of thorny vines covers the entire arena. I'm a little wind from that one. Making such a large amount of foliage grow that quickly takes a lot of energy.

I look around, It's an ocean of plants, but where did Jewel go? Then a lightning bolt hits the top of my shield. I look up and she's in the air above me. I didn't think about, how stupid am I. I have one advantage now at least. She can't do her zap jumps on the air. She needs a point of contact.

Aerial combat is my only chance now. I have the advantage since I possess the wind element. But that still leaves the problem of only having a minute left. I'll have to make this quick.

I burst out of my windshield and flew at her as fast as I could. I latched onto her and spun. I keep it to a relatively slow spin. I don't want it to hit anywhere near terminal velocity. I spun until we were both disoriented and then I threw her. I aimed her at the ground the best I could.

She collided somewhere at the edge of the arena. I don't know if she's out yet. I ignore the ground spinning and fly at the spot she landed. I landed on top of her without very much force and I poised for a "killing blow" which is allowed in case someone tries to play possum in order to try and win by shield points. It is supposed to show that you have the other at your mercy. She was down either way now, I had her pinned on her back and she is mostly likely passed out.

I wait a few seconds, I can see she's still breathing so I'm not panicking about hurting her. She is grimacing though, so she definitely felt that. The Overseer confirmed Jewel was out and I got off.

I placed a paw on her chest and sent her some energy. She was awake just as quickly as I started.

"So I guess I just barely won then. That was a good match, you gave me a run for my money."

"Well, I can at least have that." I help her stand up, "oh, ouch ouch ouch"

"I'm sorry, here let me help you with that." As I had a hold of her paw to help her up I used some healing magic on her.

"Better?"

"Better"

"Sorry about that, I didn't mean to hurt you."

"No, it's fine. I thought I had you out matched there for a bit."

"Oh you definitely did. If I hadn't forced you into the air I would never have won."

"Well I'm satisfied either way, it was a good match."

"I feel the same way, my sides might disagree with you in the morning though."

"Ha, your sides. How about my back."

"That's true."

"Well, talk to you later Sam."

"Yup, see ya."

That one took it out of me. This is just going to get harder and harder as it goes. I hope I'm up to it.

Semifinals are next and it looks like I'm up against an earth dragon this time. And on the other bracket is Spyro vs Cynder. It looks like Lumus lost. I hope she's alright.

I was ready for this match though. It should be quick. The guy I'm up against is called Marble. His white and black scales make him look like marble. So I can see why he got the name.

He's won every match so far by completely dominating the energy in power. He encases himself in stone and just attacks. The stone armor is considered an advanced spell so he's definitely got some elemental mastery, but if he had gone against a fire dragon I think it would have played out a little differently. This time however, he's up against me.

Immediately at the start of the match he puts on his stone armor. Checkmate. I send out my nature magic through the ground and into his armor. His armor turns into a plant binding and he's wrapped up tight.

It was a quick defeat so it must have hurt his ego a bit, but he just stood up silently after I released him. He shook my paw and left the field. I think he's a proud dragon that doesn't let defeat put him down, but instead uses it to grow.

Now I have to get ready for the finals

And I'm up against Spyro.