Ok, it's the weekend and I'm all pumped up full of energy! Especially since it's a 3 day weekend! Yea! Ok on with the story.

Enjoy

Chapter 13: Familiar Faces

"Ah there you are! We've been looking for you. Listen after the incident with the soul keeper in the pyramid we are slowly but effectively starting to gain control back. I want you to help out in the sphinx on the other island. We will call for your assistance if you are needed once more." They took the boat that lead to the island and paid the sand sailor for his part. As they were about to walk inside of the entrance of the sphinx one of the team members spotted a secret entrance.

"Hey guys! There's a ladder that goes down somewhere over here!"

"We'll check it out after we help out in the sphinx, right now we have people to help." Seth was usually an adventurous person but being team leader he has to take charge and put priorities first. They all entered the sphinx and as they went through a dark tunnel it started to get darker and colder. It was so cold you could start seeing your breath and usually start getting hypothermia. Lucky for them they were wizards so their body could withstand much more pressure, intense heat, and cold parts of the world without a jacket easily. They continued to walk down the hallway until they reached a big arena with a giant pit surrounding the arena with blue torches and frozen water around the room. An old crocodile was across the room with a white beard that reached the ground and a cane to support his balance.

"Why hello there young travelers, I am Shalek the Wise. Who are you?" the croc greeted them with kindness and so they decided to trust him, considering their last encounter with a crocodile. They all introduced themselves one by one and eventually Shalek had told them what was going on. "I am glad you are here to help us young wizards. We need help with many many things here. For your first mission I want you to go down into the grand arena and talk to the Arena Master about helping Krokotopia. His help will be a great help to the cause." He sent them down another long hallway that lead to a giant circular room that was also lit with blue torches. The floor was covered with sand and fighters of all shapes and sizes. They walked up to the krok in the middle of the room standing on a platform.

"Welcome to the Grand Arena! Are you here to enter in this year's tournament?" he greeted them with a smirk on his face thinking he found fresh meat for the grinder.

"Actually we're just here to talk to you about Krokotopia."

"If you want to talk to me you're going to have to win the tournament! And judging from your looks I won't be talking to you anytime soon." To a few of the others this was pretty rude but Jack took this as a challenge.

"So if we win this year's tournament we can talk to you about business. Is that right?"

"Correct but unless a miracle saves you, you're all going to die within the first round." Now Jack was really interested. From all the recent fighting lately he's been aching for a good fight wanting to test out a few new things.

"Challenge accepted. We'll see if the tournament is as tough as you say it is." Jack said with a smirk on his face.

"Excellent! The tournament will begin tomorrow at noon. Signup sheets are over there on the wall." Everyone had signed their names on the pieces of paper and left the arena after that. The arena master grinned as they left, knowing his trap will soon be complete. They all went back to the major where he gave them a place to stay for the night.

*The next morning*

They all entered the arena seeing many more fighters than yesterday. They spotted another group of wizards across the room and decided to greet them. When they got close enough they realized they had seen them before, they got even closer they realized it was the group of fighters that helped with the battle against Lord Nightshade!

"Hey guys! How are ya?" the masked Jackal greeted them with a smile and a wave of her hand.

"Hey! Long time no see! Are you guys entering the tournament to?"

"Yea, since we didn't really get to fight Nightshade we thought we should try fighting a variety of opponents and what better place than the arena?"

"That's good to hear! But you guys are already strong enough, the only reason any of us couldn't really fight Nightshade was because of his shield so you can't really blame your selves."

"We are strong, but there is always someone stronger, someone better, and someone faster. We want to perfect our skills as much as possible so that if a day comes that every wizard is needed, we'll make use of ourselves and help out."

"Welcome fighters from all over the spiral!" The arena master started, cutting off their conversation. "Today you will all fight for 60,000 crowns! You have to options of fighting, solo or with a group! For those of you who are weak or are new I recommend you fight in groups. The first match will commence in ten minutes! Be ready or drop out!" A large crowd started to gather and sit in the audience section of the arena to view the fights. There was lots of talking and cheering as everyone started getting ready.

"By the way, how do we know when we are going next?"

"We don't. That's the devilish part of the tournament. You have to be fully prepared at all times, that's why fighters have little 5 minute breaks in between matches." Everyone started making sure they had everything they needed and fully prepared. 10 minutes had finally past by and the arena master went back up onto the platform. He came back with a magic box with paper slips in them and pulled out 2 pieces of papers.

"Everyone take 4 steps back, except for the fighter 'Pulverizer' and team '7 Sneaky Spiders'." Everyone took the steps back and when they did a magic see through barrier was put up. "Let the match begin!" he shouted and the crowd started to roar but fell to silence soon after to concentrate on the fight. The Pulverizer was a giant rocky colossus with a massive sword and some rock armor. The '7 Sneaky Spiders' were frosty spiders that moved quickly around the arena. The 7 of them split up into different directions and they moved so swiftly they became invisible. They attacked the rocky monster all at once biting him with their ice cold teeth injecting venom within him. The match ended there and was recorded as 'The quickest arena battle in history'.

"As expected 7 against 1 is an obvious answer. 'Pulverizer stood no chance against the spiders and will now be taken to the infirmary to be taken care of. We will take a 5 minute break to take care of him now." The Arena Master spoke and a few of the audience members left to go get a few snacks or to the bathroom. 5 minutes had been up and the next match had started. Match after match fighters from all over the spiral fell to their opponents whether they were bears, dragons, or even samurai.

"Next up we have 'Blade of the Moon' against 'Destroyer of Light'. What an odd name. Anyways will the fighters step up." A wizard stepped up. They hadn't noticed her before because of so many fighters. As she was walking a huge gust of wind blew past the others knocking them down. She stopped walking when she was face to face with her opponent. Her long black hair reaching down to her back, her bright sky blue eyes focused, and her white dress with blue trimmings had a quite complex design. Her blue striped boots on the sand below her with a weapon that looked massive on her back. On the other side was a gigantic helephant creature with red armor on. It's sword on fire and glowing eyes focused on the wizard. "Now then, let the match begin!"

The helephant swung its sword directly on the wizard who didn't seem to move. The sword clashed with the ground splashing the sand around but to its surprise, no wizard anywhere in sight. It looked around looking for her when someone finally noticed she was standing on its hunched over back with her arms crossed and a smirk on her face. She took out the giant weapon resting on her back only to reveal that it was a silver and blue colored lance. She then jumped in front of the helephant taunting it after her landing. He swung his sword again, this time trying a horizontal swipe and a loud PING sound was heard. It was metal clashing with metal, their weapons clashing and intensity in the air. She started to smile as she was blocking his attack with her lance and looked up at the helephant.

"I haven't had a good match in quite a while, this should be more interesting than I thought." She said. Eventually they broke apart from their positions and she ran behind the large elephant and slashed at his back but the attack didn't even pierce his skin. Since elephants have rough armor like skin imagine how powerful an armored up magic elephant's skin would be like. She avoided another side slash by rolling under the sword and getting behind him again. She slashed his back with both hands and all her strength in it. It was enough to make the helephant roar in pain which was usually a rare sight to see. She found a strategy to this and constantly ran around the elephant slashing various places with just enough force to make him roar. She stopped once he had so many cuts you couldn't find one place where he didn't find a scar. She stood in front of the mighty still standing helephant and put her lance back. Right when he was about to strike her with one final attempt he started leaning backwards and fell over. He had fainted from blood loss and was soon taken by the medics.

"The winner of the round is 'Blade of the Moon'. We will now take a 5 minute break." The Arena Master teleported out of the room leaving anyone to do what they wanted in the 5 minutes. They walked over to the mysterious winner and talked to her.

"That was amazing! You just beat an enemy 3x your size and won!"

"Thanks, I have a lot of experience when it comes to fighting."

"What's your name?"

"My name's Christina Moonblade. What are your names?"

"I'm Seth these are my friends Jack, Sabrina, Destiny, Gabriel, and Jocelyn. That reminds me, Jack what did you sign our team name as?"

"I'll tell you when we're up." The Arena Master had come back after the break was over and introduced the next fighters.

"Now that the break is over we have the 'Mirror Me's' against the 'Allied Powers' this round."

"That's us. The Allied Powers."

"So like the team from WW1? That's actually not bad, all 6 schools that are allies and we are wizards so we do have powers. Yea that name fits us pretty well actually." Gabriel commented. The 6 of them stepped up to find enemies that they have never seen before. These were a new kind of enemies that were new to the spiral. Not even Ambrose had seen these things before. They were puppets on strings with blank bodies and blank faces.

"Let the match begin!" The Arena Master yelled and soon after the puppets started to shape differently. They turned into black figures but these figures looked familiar. Soon they started to show their own clothes and what they wore was the exact same thing our heroes were wearing! Soon they figured out that the shape they took was our own fighters. It was like looking into a mirror but having no face and skin the color of your own shadow. Now they know why they named themselves 'Mirror Me's' and now it's a battle between themselves.

"This is going to be one hell of a confusing battle." Jack said as he faced his own mirror image. They took their fighting stances but the 'Mirror Me's' just copied them and took the exact same fighting pose the others did. They each represented someone. There was a Shadow Jack, Shadow Sabrina, Shadow Jocelyn and so on. They mimicked who they were copying but they were completely synced, there was no delay time. They all jumped at each other and tried to attack. It was blocked with the same attack so each of them figured out this was going to be the most difficult battle yet. What's even more interesting was that not only was their image copied, so was their stats. They moved at the same speed and had the same strength but whenever the copiers had the chance they would attack once on their own. They were fast, strong, and smart. Many of our heroes took out their potions but the Arena Master took the bottles away.

"No you don't, these fights are meant to be fair. No exceptions." The krok spoke and this made our heroes panic. Their energy was almost all gone and the copiers had plenty of fight left in them. Things were starting to look grim and people around them were actually starting to take bets. The odds were stacked against them and it seemed like the match was basically over. Sabrina realized something and called everyone into a group huddle.

"Everyone group huddle! I have an idea on how to defeat these guys!" Everyone hesitated for a moment but ran to her anyway.

"Say it quick before they attack!"

"I don't need to, take a look at them." They all looked back over at their mirror images and they were doing the exact same thing, in a group huddle looking over at our fighters. "Anyways I have an idea. If we take on our own mirror images then we stand no chance, but what if we attack each other's shadows? They would still copy us but they won't copy the one who's fighting them." They all agreed on the plan and broke apart. The shadows did the same thing. They all charged at their own copies but switched places in a way that was still symmetrical but completely different people. Symmetry was all that mattered and as long as that was maintained nothing would really change.

Their fighting styles were all completely different and they were too busy mirroring the person they copied rather than their own fight. This fight was much easier for our fighters and they maintained to do a lot more damage than the last time. If one of them would punch they could see it coming and easily dodge it. The round was nearly over as they all finished each other's shadows off with one final punch. They were knocked out but our heroes were still standing, tired and bleeding but standing. The shadows were taken by the medics and the others walked over to a few benches by the wall and sat down.

"The winner of the round is 'Allied Powers'!" The crowd cheered in excitement from the intense battle that just took place.

Well that's it for this chapter, I wrote this when the weekend just began and so I thought getting the next chapter to you guys would be more like a present. I guess. If that makes sense.

Anyways I hope you guys had a great weekend and I'll see you guys later

Thanks for reading!

-4321