"GO MOKA!"

The faunus leapt and planted her feet on the face of a boulder. Shimmering brown sparks of energy coursed through her legs, and she sprung at the foe her team leader had maced toward her.

"And with that, we're down to one on two!" Mrs. Brown narrated. "Blaise Galeras and Moka Chino from Sentinel have really brought it back from the brink!"

"That's right! They lost two members early, but it's been all BLCM from there!"

"Let's not celebrate their victory just yet! It looks like team leader Brooke Darya wants to bring it home for Shade!"

The blue-robed girl with a bowl of matching hair twirled her staff, pulling the tides over the sandy shore of the beach biome. She stepped toward Blaise once and lowered her staff forward, letting loose the full force of the simulated ocean. A flamethrower-mace against a water dust wielder, Caspian noted. It didn't take a professional analyst to realize who had the advantage. As much as Blaise fought for his footing and thrashed at the waves, they carried him past the center platform, and through the marshy grounds and stagnant pools of the swamp.

Moka worked her way around the arena to avoid the vicious torrent, and do her best to stay outside Brooke's line of sight. As the dust wielder basked in her victory against Blaise, Moka leapt in fist-first.

Brooke whipped her staff around in surprise, trapping Moka in a ball of swirling seawater. Water from Brooke's assault on Blase pulled back and joined the sphere, beginning to whisk Moka to the opposite side of the stadium.

The faunus flipped inside of her liquid cage, regaining her composure after a few seconds. She flicked her wrists out and electricity sparked from her gloves, the single sparks becoming wicked bolts as they conducted back to the water's director.

Brooke seized up as they coursed through her weapon, and the waves came crashing down in complete anarchy as she lost all control. Moka shot a bolt of ice dust from her glove to her feet, and tried to maintain her balance on the lopsided plank amid the unpredictable waves. The ice skimmed over the surface of the water and toward Brooke, shattering as Moka jumped from it to end the fight with a semblance-enhanced punch to the dust-wielder's jaw.

"Good job, you guys!" Caspian cheered as he stepped up to meet Cattleya and Moka just outside the locker rooms. He couldn't help but notice Cattelya's hug was rigid. He took her hand as they made their way through the crowd and out of the stadium. "You won! Onto round two!"

Moka pumped her fist, looking aside to Cattelya. "We did it! I've never surfed before, that was fun!"

"Watching all that fighting made me hungry," Rowan said. "You all wanna grab a bite to eat somewhere?"

"It's hot out. Sushi sounds good right now if you guys are down," Caspian offered. He looked first to Cattleya, then the rest. "I can pay!"

"Thanks for the offer," Moka said. She poked at her Holoband. "But I'm gonna grab some food with my-"

"Moka?"

"Mama!"

Moka flicked her screen off and bounded up to a family of squirrel faunus standing off to the side of the main gate. The man and his sons' hair and tails were both the same shade of light brown. The frail woman wrapped up in Moka's hug was bald under her cap, strands of grey overtaking the brown of her tail.

"Oh, you did so well today! I'm so proud!"

"Thank you mama! I've been training every day!" Moka turned to Caspian's group as they broke from the river of spectators flowing out of the stadium. "These are some of my friends from school! And everyone, this is my family!"

Pleasantries and hellos were exchanged before Moka's father piped up.

"Hey, tell them our names!"

Moka sighed through a sheepish smile. "My dad's name is Coppa Chino, my mom's name is Frappe Chino, and my brother's name is Latei Chino."

"And your name is Moka Chino," Rowan concluded. "No wonder you drink so much coffee."

"...My parents met in a coffee shop."

Mrs. Chino fanned herself with the tournament's itinerary. "You wore your scarf even on a day like this?"

Moka flipped the end of her scarf as a reply. "Of course I did! I knew you were watching!"

Her mother turned to Caspian's group. "Did Moka ever tell you what she wanted to be as a kid?"

"Mama..." Moka warned.

"She always wanted to be a superhero!"

"Mama!"

Mrs. Chino chuckled. It was light and airy, but Caspian couldn't help but wince at the cough that followed. "That's why I knit her scarf, you know. It's her cape, because she's my own personal superhero."

Sentinel Stadium felt even bigger to Caspian when it was packed full of spectators and drones, eager for his match. He felt trapped within its staggering walls, and under his sister's stern gaze, courtesy of an advertisement for some active footwear brand. The screen towered over the arena to the right, breathing over his shoulder. Caspian felt trapped, but there was no way around it. He signed his team up for the tournament willingly, and it was far too late to back out now, with millions watching and his opponents just ten paces away.

Team MDLN had just wrapped up their decisive victory. Since the next match would be between a little known second-year team from Haven and an even lesser-known first-year team from Sentinel, spectators began to drain from the stands. Midas and Desmond stood at the head of a crowd by one of the exits, signing autographs and taking pictures with fans.

Lazula's match captured nearly a full stadium. But at least this way, less people would be watching.

The advertisement switched off, but Caspian could still feel his sister's eyes watching from the audience.

"Our next match between Caspian Skye and Team CRLN of Sentinel, and Inko Ror... Rorch... Inko and Team INKK of Haven is set to begin!" Mrs. Brown announced.

"You said you practiced their names!" Mr. Brown hissed.

"I... skimmed through them," Mrs. Brown defended in a hushed voice that wasn't supposed to be broadcast to the entire stadium.

"So far, Sentinel has sent all its teams onto the 2v2 round. Can they keep up that perfect streak against this team of lovely ladies- and one gentleman?"

"I sure hope so!"

"We're not supposed to be biased!"

"Our own son is competing!"

"Ah, yeah. Well, let's just see what biomes we're working with here."

The floor began to rumble. Behind Team INKK, a dense pine forest rose up. A wall of tall grass cradled Team CRLN from behind, so thick Caspian couldn't see more than a handful of feet into it. He tried to steady his breathing as the countdown started.

The buzzer blared, and the peace between the two teams shattered. A girl in a blue tunic and pants, wrapped at her forearms, shins, and stomach by bands of white silk, sprung at Rowan with a pair of chakram. As he blocked both with the flat of his sword and replied with a swing of his own, a tall and slight young man in a forest green yukata with magenta floral stitching snuck past and disappeared into the grass, sage hair flowing behind him. Nila Samudir and Kanjiro Hanada, Caspian recognized from the scoreboard above.

Nila lunged back at Rowan, but was deterred by a swing of his blade. She ducked under the next and lunged for his stomach, managing to land a strike as he pulled back. Rowan braced himself and transformed his weapon, eyeing Nila's approach as red sparks began to gather around the barrel. She sprinted in and vaulted over his weapon to strike once more, but Rowan abandoned the blast and transformed his weapon back, blocking her with its flat edge and cleaving downward. Nila sidestepped it, but it was apparent Rowan's hulking blade outclassed Nila's two smaller weapons, despite her blinding speed. She flipped back after clashing once more with Sanguine Storm, and dashed for the trees. Rowan began to pursue her, but Caspian held out an arm.

"Go find the guy that ran into the grass," he ordered. "Better we deal with him now."

"Got it boss!"

"Noxis, you-"

"Don't tell me what to do."

Pulling out Renegade, he stormed after Klementine, the brawny young woman with two pom-poms of ginger hair atop her head, and some kind of spiked gauntlets. Exactly what Caspian was about to order him to do, but he'd spare his pride. Caspian and Lilly pressed on into the trees to find INKK's raven-haired leader; Inko Rorshach.

On the other side of the arena, Rowan swung his blade with each step, clearing a path through the mire of grasses. He reversed his grip and tried to swing again, but found his blade stuck in a snarl of vine.

"Dangit! Not a good time," Rowan protested. He tried to shake them free, but with every blade of grass split, two more would weave into the growing knot.

The grasses ahead of him folded back to each side, revealing a short path, with Rowan's quarry at the end. He sat on a raised thatch, watching Rowan struggle with a look of quiet amusement.

After one final tug, Rowan's shoulders sunk and he looked up to his opponent. "You can control the plants, can't you? That's not fair."

"Close. I can imbue them with my aura, and make them do my bidding."

"So just a complicated yes?"

Kanjiro stood up from his thatch, and unsheathed a chokuto from within his robes, stepping forward already beaming with satisfaction. "No matter the specifics, I apologize. This won't be pleasant."

As Noxis held Klementine's drill gauntlets back with blasts and blows from Renegade, Caspian and Lilly worked their way into the pine forest. The sun above hardly broke the canopy, creating transient pools and patches of light amid a swath of shadow. As the two continued on, the cheer of the audience was lost, and Caspian nearly forgot he was in a simulated forest in the middle of an arena.

The shadows on the edge of a nearby pool of sunlight began to pull and distort like murky water. The distortion spread beneath Caspian and Lilly, twisting and undulating until even walking was difficult. Caspian held an arm out and leaned on a nearby trunk to steady himself.

The sound of an elimination buzzer shook him back to reality.

"Aw... Rowan Brown is eliminated by way of aura!" Mr. Brown announced.

"We still love you!" his mother added.

"Your mom and I are proud!"

"Not good..." Caspian muttered. "Three on four now, and we can't even find two of them."

"Caspian, watch out!" Lilly warned.

Caspian turned on the balls of his feet to see Nila shooting toward him from the branch of a nearby tree. He lashed out with Undertow to meet the edge of her chakram, and Lilly sent forth a wave of icy shards.

Undertow passed through thin air, and the bark of an unfortunate pine split from Lilly's ice. What was Nila vanished into a wave of shadows.

"Was that... her?" Caspian

"Caspian, look."

Caspian turned over his shoulder, even deeper into the forest. His heart sunk from both shock and discouraged despair. Three members of Team INKK- Nila, Kanjiro, and Klementine, were replicated three times over, standing against Lilly and Caspian as an illusory army. Inko stood front and center, shadows swirling around her.

They couldn't be real. At least, some of them couldn't be. He couldn't even tell if the puppetmaster behind the illusions was the real one, or if she was just a cleverly-placed fake. His mind began to swirl. He could shoot until he hit someone real, but he doubted the illusions would stand still and accept their fate, and it would take far too much time to shoot them all.

Lilly folded her hands on Elysian Bloom, bowed her head and closed her eyes. An ethereal mist raised from her, and surrounded Caspian.

The rushing torrent of thoughts slowed to an easy stream. The illusions came from Inko. Judging by the fact the shadows acted at first, the illusions must be tied to them in some way. If there was more light on the forest floor, there would be less shadow. Retreating to the center platform wouldn't accomplish much. Inko probably wouldn't leave the forest willingly, considering the strength of her advantage.

Caspian looked to the treetops behind Inko. "If Lilly flings a bit of fire dust up there, it'll light up the forest, and we'll just have to worry about the shadows cast by tree trunks, which will be behind us anyway if the fire is that direction," Caspian assessed. "It would force her toward us, too."

His eyes widened.

"Lilly!"

Lilly's yelp of pain shattered the peace her semblance brought to mind. She fell forward with Nila standing over her, flipping a Chakram in her hand and looking to her next target.

"Lilly Corvis-Braun eliminated by aura level!"

"Can Team CRLN bounce back?"

Sparks flung from Renegade and the ear-splitting sound of shearing metal filled the arena as Noxis held Klementine's fists at bay. He freed his weapon and swung, but Klementine raised her fists to her face like a boxer and deflected the attack. The impact with her arms still chipped away at her aura, and after her exhausting fight with Noxis, it hovered just over 40%.

Slowing their rotation, the drills around Klementine's arms began to separate into quarters. She ran in an arc toward the edge of the forest, firing off the fragments like missiles. Noxis steadied himself and swung on the first, gritting his teeth and tightening the grip on his weapon against the plume of flame and shrapnel. The attack had done a number on his aura as well. He sidestepped the next shot, allowing it to splinter the concrete behind him. Three blasts from Renegade exploded the shells in midair. Klementine replenished her drills with the fragments secured on her belts, and Noxis transformed his weapon just in time to counter her spirited lunge.

As Noxis's overhead bash caught between Klementine's crossed drills, the buzzer sounded. The faunus chanced a glimpse at the scoreboard, displaying Lilly's newly depleted aura. He grimaced, before transforming Renegade into shotgun form and pulling the trigger.

"That's one for Team CRLN!" Mr. Brown cheered. "Klementine Rodier, eliminated by aura level!"

"The hell are you guys doing in there?" Noxis shouted, approaching the edge of the forest. "Why was Lilly just standing there?!"

"I-Inko has illusions! We're busy figuring out what's real in here!"

"Looks like you're trying to figure out how to throw an easy match." He flicked his head to the girl in black. "Deal with those two. I'll be back."

Without another word, Noxis took off toward the grass.

Noxis's words had the opposite effect of Lilly's semblance. She had eased his thoughts into an even flow, enough. Now, the stream had gone wild again, flooding his thoughts and movements with embarrassment, anger, and shame.

He remembered one thought from before Lilly's defeat. He transformed Undertow into a pistol, looked to both sides for Nila, and fired a pair of fire-enhanced shots into the canopy behind Inko.

She flinched as the fire caught with an unexpected fury, and the shadow army melted around her. Bars of shadow still lingered among the orange glow, but the shadows were much more manageable. Inko inched forward and away from the flame, but stayed a safe distance away from Caspian.

"Okay, that's the real one," he assessed. "Now, where's the real-"

Nila sprung at him from behind the trunk of a nearby pine. The reddish glow of flame bathed her clothes, and he decided she was real. Steel clashed, and Caspian was forced back by the impact. Before he even secured his footing Nila was back upon him. He struck at one chakram, but took a spray of needle-tipped bullets from the gun embedded in the handle of the second. Raising his armguard to his chest he stepped toward his foe, slashing twice.

Nila's speed would have been comparable to Caspian's own if she held only one blade, but with two to hold back, Caspian doubted how much longer he could hold her off. As Nila ducked under a slash, Caspian hopped back and fired a shot. It hit its mark handily, in the center of Nila's chest. She fell back toward the trunk of a pine, her prone form bathed in shadow.

Caspian's eyes narrowed, and he held Undertow steady. His eyes flicked to the side as he heard a twig snap. The true Nila was at his back, closing in with her chakram.

"Looks like he's learning!" Nila called to Inko after Caspian had forced her back once more.

Caspian punched away the pair of chakram with his armguard, managing to land a second strike on Nila's shoulder. He looked over his shoulder to see Inko finally closing in on him, a massive claymore extending from within an ornate black handle. Caspian abandoned the fight against Nila for a second to hold Undertow ready and brace himself.

As glimmering steel of her claymore passed through Undertow, vanishing into a dark fog and fading into the ground below, Caspian realized with a start she stood cloaked in shadow. His eyes flicked down and under his shoulder, where Inko held the handle of a dagger next to his side. She pulled a trigger at its haft.

Caspian yelped with pain as the ballistic dagger shot out with a twang, making contact with his side. He stumbled forward, into Nila's blades.

"Team Leader Caspian Skye eliminated by aura level!"

"Just one left on CRLN's side, but he isn't quitting!"

At the far end of the stadium, Noxis waded through the grass, the look on his face a mixture of irritation and determination. A warm breeze wafted off the burning forest behind him, rustling the stalks. Every few seconds Noxis would pause and listen, searching for the opponent he couldn't see.

A blade of grass worked its way around his arm, and as he pulled it back in annoyance, he found himself caught in a snag. Tendrils worked their way up his boots and to his thighs, securing an arm to his leg and rendering him immobile. Noxis's head wrenched around as the grasses around him flattened. His scowl met Kanjiro's look of smug serenity.

"Well, well. Another wanders into my web," he taunted. His lips curled into a smirk as he began to produce his weapon. "Like flies into the spider's parlor."

Noxis snarled, beginning to wrench his arm free of the grass's grip. One stalk split, but more took its place. As Kanjiro neared, a breeze began to ripple the grass.

The breeze burst forth as an explosion of murk, shredding his verdant shackles. Noxis hunched over in the epicenter, the black mist swirling around him and coalescing into jagged shards of stygian armor across arms and chest.

His head snapped up and his eyes flashed crimson as a smoke rose from within his semblance.

"That's an angry fly."

Noxis sprinted forward, forgoing Renegade for his armored claws. His first strike was held back by Kanjiro's blade. Noxis's fist balled around it, and he flung it deep into the grass before slashing again across his opponent's chest. Kanjiro fell back, and Noxis pounced onto him like a savage beast.

"That's another for Noxis Orion!" Mr. Brown narrated. "Looks like he's headed back into the woods, to take the last two members of Team INKK head-on!"

As soon as Noxis hit the smoke-filled treeline, Nila pounced on him with both chakram. He crossed his arms in front of his head, and they locked with his jagged armor. He twisted his wrist and wrenched one of her weapons to the side before she could pull its trigger, opening her stance for a vicious claw to the gut that left her with almost a third less aura.

Noxis head snapped to the side as Inko called out to her partner. His eyes widened for a split second as she produced a minigun from the darkness behind her, and began to fire. Noxis ducked behind a nearby pine, and his eyes narrowed. Despite the chorus of cracks from her weapon, no bullets came his way. He leapt out from behind the tree, honing in on the team leader. Nila's chakram came at him like a guillotine, and he ducked to the ground.

Shadows.

He flinched at the hail of real bullets assaulting his side, raising his arms once again as a makeshift shield and charging in. Nila's bullets splintered and chipped Noxis's armor as they struck and grazed him, but he pressed forward as if he felt no pain. A swipe was dodged, then another. Nila twirled in place, and bore down on Noxis with a heavy axe kick.

His clawed hand grabbed her ankle, and he heaved her over himself, slamming her to the ground. The final hardy remnants of armor encasing his right hand finally fell away, and he pulled Renegade from his back, firing a single blast into Nila's crumpled form.

Waves of black coursed around her body. Nila's long blue braid faded away, and a ruffled black gown billowed out from Nila's comparably tight outfit. The one on the ground was Inko Rorshach.

Noxis heard a scream from behind him, but he was too late to react. Nila ripped Inko's dagger down the faunus's spine with a vengeful fury, decimating what aura remained.

The buzzer sounded.

"What a play by Inko Rorshach and Nila Samudir!" Mr. Brown applauded.

"Switching weapons and using her semblance to swap appearances while her opponent wasn't looking! That was clever!" Mrs. Brown commended.

"We... we did it..." Nila panted. She crawled over to her partner, and gave her a hug.

Noxis looked disgusted. As Inko wobbled up to her feet and offered a handshake, he turned his back and sulked away to the locker rooms.