As the blinding light dissipation, Oliver finds himself in a large forest in the tropical zone of the Overworld. This is the Forest of Life. This enchanted forest here receives an abundant amount of rain and sun, allowing it to thrive to the point that the plant life grows a primitive level of intelligence.
Oliver appears deep in the forest, standing by one of the tallest trees in the forest. It feels like a fever dream. Since putting that code into his scanner, he's been put through the ringer. Rubbing the brow on his head, he once again is brought to the fact that he has transformed into the creature, Ursis.
Realizing this must be part of the game, he tries to relax. Taking in a deep breath, he slumps against the tree and clears his head. "Okay," even speaking his voice is not his own. Grabbing his mouth, he sounds deep and monstrous. "Is this really me?"
It takes him a hot minute to find his bearings. Standing back up straight, he nearly falls over. Catching himself on the tree, his claws accidentally tear into it, leaving a sizable mark. He looks at his hand, then back at the claw marks. "Hmm," he smiles, having an epiphany. He grabs a nearby log off the ground, and lifts it above his head, surprising himself with how weightless it feels before tossing it into the air.
"I've become Ursis!" He proclaims, finally getting the idea. "So here I become the creature? And the battle in the locations? This is awesome!" He takes off running down the pathway, wanting to experience more. Ursis is decently fast for a creature but is still leagues above a human.
Building up momentum, he leaps into the air, jumping over one of the trees before giving his best impression of a superhero landing on the other side.
Stoked, he feels on top of the world, never in his life has he experienced anything like this. "Mate! I will never get tired of this!"
His fun is short-lived as he feels the ground behind to shake. Steadying himself on a tree, he can feel the vibrations through the dirt. "What is that?" he thinks to himself, as he starts to pick up on someone's scent, as well as the smell of metal and gears. Hearing those same gears, it gets louder, the ground shakes harder as Oliver tries to pinpoint where it is coming from.
Suddenly, a group of trees are blasted out of the way, exploding into bark and fragments of nature as a large, bi-pedal war machine emerges from a man-made clearing. "There you are! I've been looking for you, FinalAce!" Standing on top of this machine, called the Viledriver is WiseGuy, Oliver's opponent. As the creature Khybon, he has the wisdom to fully utilize the capabilities of such a mobile weapon.
Oliver is too stunned to react in time as WiseGuy uses the cannons on the Viledriver to blast him back. He gets hit directly by both barrels, knocking him into the tree behind him. Ursis is a strong creature with high power and energy, so he survives the direct attack, although, between the cannon fire and the impact with the trees, he takes a heavy hit.
He stumbles to get back on his feet when WiseGuy finds him again in the wreckage of the bark.
"You survived? Maybe this shot will take you out," he aims the cannons and prepares another barrage.
Oliver looks around the debris he stands in. Grabbing a thick piece of torn-off tree, he tosses it into the line of fire, having it take the hit inside of him. With the attack blocked he takes off running again.
"Hey! Get back here! I'm not done destroying you yet," WiseGuy gives chase, pushing the Viledriver into gear to move faster than recommended for the battlegear.
At first, it seems to start catching up, WiseGuy begins to open fire on him once more. With Ursis being a beastman, Oliver decides to run like one. He leaps onto the trees. Using the strength in his arms to throw himself ahead, putting more distance between while WiseGuy only misses his barrage of canon fire, helped by Oliver pulling off some impressive acrobatics on the branches.
The battle is televised throughout Chaotic, with a live feed of it being streamed to various screens throughout the compound. Nathan watches the fight outside the battledrome, sitting on the same steps he left Oliver while sipping on a cup of pop. He looks around, hearing some hushed tones and whispers from the audience. From what he hears, they seem to be having mixed feelings over his performance.
"That was quite the save." "What a total noob." "Ursis is wasted on that guy." "How is he able to flip like that?" "Are you sure he's never battled before?"
Nathan just sits quietly, and watches the fight, wanting to let Oliver have a chance to win them over himself.
Back to the fight, Oliver continues to try and evade the attacks. He's starting to get tired, running without end isn't a great plan for winning a fight against a walking tank.
"I need to start fighting back, or else I'm done for," he thinks to himself. He stops on one of the more sturdy branches and clears his head. Thinking about it, he summons his equipped battlegear, the Valric Shard. A gauntlet-like armor with a gem shard attached to it. He turns back to face the incoming WiseGuy. Throwing his arm out, he prepares to attack. "Pebble Storm!" He fires shards of rock in their direction.
At a great speed, the shards strike WiseGuy. He uses his multiple arms to block it, but the attack still takes away some energy regardless. The Valric Shard battlegear boosts Earth-based attacks, increasing the power of the pebble storm.
WiseGuy recovers from the attack and gets ready to fire again. Oliver jumps off the branch while using a vine snarl attack to swing from one tree to another, dodging the sudden attack. He's quick to counterattack, "Ash Torrent!" Opening his mouth, he sprays a thick smoke upon WiseGuy.
With him distracted, Oliver jumps down to ground level. He's about to throw another attack until he hears something in the distance. He gets an idea. "Lavalanche!" He fires two hot streams of lava from his hands at the Viledriver. He purposely aims for the cannons. Using the incredible heat from the attack, he's able to melt the cannons before the smoke clears.
WiseGuy finally gets their vision back when they spot Oliver running again. "Oh no you don't, not this time." They try to use the cannons, only to find them in two puddles of melted steel on the ground. "Not bad, but it'll take more than that to beat me." Using one of Khybon's mugicains, he casts his only Mugic. "Cannon of Casualty!" Using a common mugic, Oliver is hit directly by its effects, taking a massive hit to his energy.
While on the ground, he tries to get back on his feet, using his arms to push himself on the ground. WiseGuy fires a grapple from the Viledriver. The cord wraps around Oliver's legs. "Gotcha!" Pulling a lever, the grapple starts to pull Oliver back towards the Viledriver. Using their arm-mounted cannon they fire open Oliver. He pushes himself out of the way the best he can, only getting hit by every odd blast.
"Rock Wave!" Slamming his fist into the ground, and boosted by the Valric Shard, Ursis's earth attack comes straight for the Viledriver. The attack forms a powerful quake with large boulders erupting from the ground as they tunnel toward WiseGuy.
The attack goes under the driver, hitting one of the legs to knock it off balance. The Viledriver collapses onto the ground, disabling it as a tool to use. With the lull in the fight, Oliver decides to recover. "Geo Flourish!" Using one of his three mugician's he casts the generic Mugic Geo Flourish, healing him of 15 energy since Ursis can do Earth attacks.
WiseGuy finally gets back on his feet after hearing the melody of the casted Mugic. Getting up, he can't find Oliver at first. However, he sees a large clearing in the tall grass, showing where he went. Giving chase, now on foot, WiseGuy bursts through the forest to find themself on top of a cliff overlooking the rest of the forest.
While he gets a spectacular view of the forest, he still can't find where Oliver is. With his back to the forest, he's caught off-guard by Oliver suddenly charging him. He tackles WiseGuy, trying to shove him off the cliff. Phybon has much less power than Ursis, however, the two extra limbs, and Oliver being tired from the running give him a chance to grapple the beastman, pushing back while only barely remaining on ground level.
"You planned this? Didn't you?"
"When you were distracted by the Ash Torrent, I could hear the wind brushing against the stone on the cliff. Ursis has some pretty good hearing."
"Impressive. So maybe you could have heard this!" Using their drill arm, WiseGuy tries to stab them. Oliver guards using his arm, blocking the attack, but destroying the Valric Shard in the process, leaving both without battlegear.
They try to do it again, but Oliver headbutts them, slamming his head into their face to knock them back. Breaking the grapple, he inhales before calling an attack. "MEGAROAR!" His attack is like a force of nature. A literally sound attack using the wind and Ursis's raw energy to tackle WiseGuy. The attack knocks him down, and the ground beneath him cracks and breaks from the attack. Unable to react, WiseGuy falls off the cliff. With the long fall, by the time they hit the ground, Khybon explodes into code, ending the fight.
There's another flash of light. Oliver finds himself back in the battledrome, with WiseGuy standing on the opposite side. It takes a moment before Oliver turns to his regular self, the Ursis transformation discovering back into code as the announcer calls the game.
"FinalAce has won the battle, and thus wins the match."
Oliver has a moment of celebration, although it's soured by WiseGuy being a sore loser as he storms out of the battledrome. Taking back his scanner, he goes to leave, finding Nathan standing right outside the door.
"Not bad for a first match, wouldn't you say?" Nathan looks smug like he just won a game of 4-D Chess blindfolded while in another room.
Oliver folds his arms, "How much of this did you plan?"
"Giving you Ursis to have a strong powerhouse on your team for your match, meeting you at the portal to greet you and give you a tour, and that's about it. Everything like who you fought and getting the code, that wasn't my doing."
"Right. Right. Well, I guess you'll be taking Ursis back now," Nathan leads Oliver to the main building to do the trade.
After another monorail ride, one which Oliver gets to sit in praise as a few other players catch his fight, and compliment his ability before they arrive on the scene.
Inside the main building, there are special tables for players to connect their scanners to, and properly compile their collection. Both Oliver and Nathan connect theirs on opposite ends of the table. The sides of the table display their full collection. Within just a few seconds of connecting, Nathan has already sent over Oliver's Borth-Majar scan. However, when Oliver tries to send over Ursis, Nathan sends him right back.
Confused, Oliver looks up at his friend. Nathan walks over, disconnecting his scanner from the trade, "Think of this as a welcome present. Ursis is a pretty good card here, make sure to treat him well for your next few battles, okay?"
Oliver is happy he's allowed to keep the scan, the two fist bump, before Oliver takes back his scanner.
"Now then, let me show you around the place some more before heading back. I'm actually pretty tired from watching your match and need a kip. Time is weird here."
"Yeah, fair enough." Oliver lets out a hard yawn before being given the full tour of Chaotic.